Big words are impressive. Big words make a speaker sound intelligent, well-educated, maybe even more trusting. But big words as we all know aren’t always used by people who understand them. One of the big words our generation has become accustomed to seeing on Twitter posts protest signs, in headline news and on opinion talk shows is the F word. Fascist.
Fascist, or fascism if you prefer, has a lot of competitors for the most complex and misunderstood idea in the United States of America. Some of these competitors come close, such as “socialist,” “communist” and “quid pro quo.” But there can only be two complexities tied for first (because my article says so) and the two couldn’t be tied closer if they tried, fascist and anti-fascist.
To clear some unnecessary notion, fascism is defined by Merriam-Webster dictionary as “a political philosophy, movement, or that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation and forcible suppression of opposition.”
In other words, a Fascist is someone who supports or is a part of a political movement that exploits the citizens of the government through economic pressures, suppression of criticism or disagreement and overt nationalism.
Understanding this, it’s easy to digest our tied for first complexity, anti-fascism. Anti-fascism is the idea or a person who supports the philosophy of being against fascism. Simple, right? Big words aren’t always so hard.
What remains difficult to understand is why they have caught fire in our mainstream media and pop-culture as such empty pliable words and ideas. How did fascism, dictator worship and nationalistic ideals that work to oppress citizens often using racism, sexism, violence and other divisive harmful beliefs to assert power, sneak itself to the helm of the Republican ship?
Furthermore, how has the Republican party been able to shrug off the big F word as an impossible to define idea, thus making it impossible to prove any wrongdoing of the party, its leaders, and its voters?
How has the same party that promotes nationalism, violence against minorities, a divine-right leader and “severe economic and social regimentation” been able to point the finger the other way blaming anti-fascists for crimes against our country and its democracy.
That is just about as ridiculous as breaking into a building while live-streaming it then blaming it on someone you hate just because you got caught. Oh wait, I forgot about the capitol for a second.
We throw around these terms we don’t understand and don’t even try to educate ourselves on. We listen to people use these big words and we accept the emotion behind them, not the meaning. We don’t think to check out the big words we hear because the person using them probably seems impressive, intelligent, well-educated and trusting.
Why would we question the person in the room using the big words, because if they can say them, they most definitely understand them? Why be the only one to ask what the big words mean and just look stupid?
Not asking questions, fact-checking and admitting we don’t understand something is what has gotten us into this mess of misinformation and hollowed out heavy words. Heavy, dangerous words like fascism should scare us.
Starting to ask questions again will be our only way out of this dark hole. If someone’s using a big word that sounds like or gives off the air of having a lot behind it, but you can’t see just what may lay behind it, ask.
How much of this word that they can pronounce with such conviction and know how actually makes sense to them? We all have to be fact-checkers now and be better at gathering all those facts.
Rebecca Pratt can be reached at [email protected]