The Fascists Are Winning Because Americans are Too Dumb (or Too Afraid) to Call Out Fascism

When Nothing Happens, Right Before Our Eyes

Yesterday, a certain government official resigned — one responsible for many of the most terrible things that have happened in America over the last few years, namely “child separations” and “detainment centers” and so on.

Now, the liberals and the left cheered all this. But I couldn’t help notice something funny. Not a single one, so far as I could see, used the following words: “crimes against humanity” and “genocide.” Does that strike you as funny? Strange? Foolish? Irresponsible and shallow? It does me.

Why? Because, well, the first thing that any responsible, sensible, intelligent American should understand is that…we’ve committed genocide. Yes, really. Go ahead and read the definition. Abducting children systematically and giving them to strangers is one of the literal criteria of genocide, and that is precisely what we have been doing as a society.

So why can’t we say it? Why is it that I didn’t hear a single American of renown using these words today — or ever? Why is it that when I look at a Chris Hayes or an Ezra Klein or so on…I’ve never once heard them say these things? Why is that Americans constantly urge everyone to “take responsibility”…but won’t take any for their own plight? Nothing happens, over and over again…right before our eyes. Let me explain what I mean by that curious phrase.

“Genocide” and “crimes against humanity” aren’t just words. They are some of the most important and vital ideas and concepts in human history, crucial to the functioning of democracies, the rule of law, and the institutions of civilized societies. It’s not just that people perished and died by the millions to bring them to life — in holocaust, in atrocity, in horror. It’s that in those dark episodes of history, we began to understand how to genuinely coexist as a world — where the red lines of democracy and civilization lie.

After the Holocaust, we understood as a world that there were some crimes so terrible that they needed their own category — one that didn’t yet exist. Hence, the creation of the idea of a “crime against humanity”, thanks to Arendt, among many others. A…