The Rise of Fascism

Around April, I had been scrolling through Tinder as it became one of my favorite past-times while on the phone with my friend Alex when I came across a profile with a cute boy who we’ll call Cosmo. I swiped right, mostly for his cute dog in his last picture, and immediately the “It’s a match!” screen showed up. His first message was bold and pretty funny, so even though I mostly used tinder for fun and as a confidence boost, I decided he was worthy of a response. We’d been speaking for a few weeks and I noticed that some of the phrases he used were off and other times out of place. He then told me that he was Romanian and in the country for six months to be with his grandma and cousin who were urging him to try and get residency in the states, but he preferred his homeland. I told him about my activism and how much I enjoyed politics and advocacy, he told me that his friends and him love to protest and rally in Romania as well. We met after a couple of months after we matched in Brooklyn and decided to grab drinks. I wouldn’t be myself if I didn’t get into a conversation of politics where I found out that he was a fascist. When I told him how terrible fascism is and how it is rising in America, he told me how silly that thought was that America’s right-wing is truly on the right side of the political spectrum. He said he thought Americans were too sensitive, he asked what was the point of Black Lives Matter, what was wrong with having White pride? I tried to explain to him the historical, social, and institutional oppression and genocide that our country was born out of. I tried to explain to him how he might not understand the perspectives of people of color in this country where whites are the powerful majority because his country is mostly homogeneous of the white race. He didn’t want to discuss further and eventually admitted that he only held these views because his friends did too. He went back to Romania and I stayed watching my government’s leadership drive our country to shit. The Trump administration, now having “Real News” media which is state propaganda, has silenced our long respected news that reports on the negatives of his administration. Trump has emboldened racists that had held their views in the walls of their comfort zones, being careful of who was listening until they saw a bigoted man that resembled themselves with this violent and dangerous rhetoric without consequences. Trump, as I wrote in my previous post, has advocated for continuing police brutality and in support of a police state. Trump has used undocumented immigrants, and sometimes documented immigrants of color too, Muslims, the LGBTQ+, and Black folk as scapegoats for what the right doesn’t agree with, he has created a false sense of fear in our people. His party constantly lies to their constituents and creates problems that are simply untrue such as “immigrants steal American jobs”, “immigrants don’t pay taxes”, “federal funds pay for abortion” and much more. But the United States is not unique to this resurgence of fascism. We can look at Venezuela today, the opposition of Maduro’s administration, is an extreme right group that has blood on their hands. While Maduro is not innocent in this itself, this right wing group wishes to revert Venezuela back to the days before Chavez, before the power was given to the proletariat and in the hands of the elite. Venezuela’s current problems stem from the United State’s involvement in supporting this opposition simply because Maduro and Chavez are socialists, as we know the US would prefer brutal dictators over a socialist anytime and have done so globally. They also come from the fact that Maduro is simply no Chavez and a weak leader who has made some terrible choices but still holds true to the wills of the people and the cost of oil plummeting from when a competent Venezuelan was in power. As fascism seems to be making a comeback from the west to the Balkans, former USSR states, so does socialism to combat this great evil. The Democratic Socialists of America’s membership has tripled in size since the November 2016 election and more and more people everyday are isolating the United State’s fearful attack on socialism with false and baseless lies. We should hope for a day where we can replicate the Cuban Revolution to our needs and molded by our conditions, a day where the working class rise up against this hateful elite and take our government by storm. The bourgeois keep burdening with us, pitting us against one another, and stripping us of our dignity. They steal our money, our homes, our food, and our bodies. When we have nothing left to eat, we will eat the rich. As for Cosmo, maybe one day he'll learn to conceive his own thoughts or listen to a Black woman for a change.