by Rab Bruce’s Spider

the events in Washington should have come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying even the slightest bit of attention to Donald Trump’s words and deeds. The only real unknown was the timing of when he would rouse his supporters to direct action, using the threat of violence to overthrow a democratic process. His pathetic video response asking them to go home while simultaneously encouraging them to believe his election defeat was rigged, was typical of the rhetoric of a fascist leader.

Yes, I’ve used the F Word. It is a term which is used too often, but I feel completely justified in using it because I have referred to Umberto Eco’s list of the 14 traits of a fascist regime. You can check this for yourself at:

Umberto Eco Makes a List of the 14 Common Features of Fascism | Open Culture

Trump’s USA ticks an awful lot of those boxes, and the really disturbing thing is how many Americans support him.

Of course, things like that could never happen in the UK, could they?

Well, take a look at Eco’s list again, and check off how many could be applied to the UK under its current extremist Right Wing Tory Government. I counted 11, which is very alarming.

Don’t be fooled by the more subtle approach of British fascism. George Orwell warned that any British variant of fascism would not come marching down the street wearing jackboots. That is not the British way, but all the signs are there, and we know that the UK Government under Boris Johnson in particular, is happy to tacitly encourage hate speech.

So let us not be complacent about this and imagine it is only an American problem. Our problem is going to be how we deal with whatever the UK Government and its more extreme supporters are going to do in order to keep Scotland under their control. Remember George Square in 2014? That was how they celebrated a victory, so how do you think they will react when their precious Union is really under threat?

Of course, the threat of violence should never stop a democratic process, but the really big worry has to be just how far the UK Government will go. We’ve seen Parliament illegally prorogued, we’ve got boundary changes designed to ensure permanent Tory rule, we’ve seen xenophobia become a mainstay of policy. There will be more to come, and the UK media will almost certainly act as cheerleaders for whatever the UK Government decides to do, especially in relation to keeping Scotland shackled to the UK. We are already seeing media claims that the Holyrood elections should be cancelled because of the Covid pandemic. This is despite plenty of other countries having held elections in the course of the past year, and it is noticeable that they are not calling for English local elections to be cancelled. Voting can almost certainly be made safer than going shopping, so there is no way the democratic process should be stopped. But fascists don’t like democracy, especially when they know they are going to lose, so keep a wary eye open for their attempts to subvert our elections.

We need these elections to go ahead because the fascists have become emboldened by the past few years of incitement. We need to rebuild a society in which their views once again become an unacceptable minority opinion. Above all, we need Westminster to know that Scotland is choosing a different path. The Tories may admire Trump, but we have now seen the consequences of following his type of leadership, and we really don’t need that in Scotland.