The Convergence: Fascism as Capitalist Consolidation

Moments like Paramount's bribing of Trump and firing of Colbert reveal the true nature of our moment, and we cannot afford to look away.

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To start, a hat tip to Stephen Colbert.

Comedian-turned-late-night-host and truth-teller to power. It is of little surprise that CBS canceled The Late Show following Colbert’s recent criticism of parent-company Paramount Global’s blatant $16 million dollar bribe of Donald Trump. In the long scheme of things, Paramount has shown that nothing matters more than a frictionless relationship with power, and so the fate of a late-night host matters little in comparison. It is the reality of corporate-dominated America that these things happen, and they happen in so many small and unnoticeable ways outside of the loud ones. But for Colbert, the loss of his vehicle, his pet-project, I’m sure a great source of pride and joy, the feeling must be crushing.

But there is something much more important than a show or a platform or whatever form capitalist promotion takes. Colbert said what needed to be said and I hope, outside of the heartbreak these kinds of injustice inevitably bring, he will find comfort in being able to sleep at night and wake with a conscience that is, at least, free of the sort of rot this system requires for success and promotion.

When these things happen, my first feeling is always a sense of injustice. Being open to this and cognizant of it brings so much pain and anger. I am incredibly angry. Pissed-off. Not about Colbert, necessarily, but the inescapable ugliness of what modern American requires and rewards. It finds purchase when human beings are being kidnapped, tortured, ultimately killed. As the for-profit anti-soul of this country births prisons and other predatory industries and systems upon systems upon systems, all of them primed for ultimate profit at human expense. But I also, in that same moment, or maybe a moment after feeling that rage, I hope there is an emerging sense of awareness and clarity. We have been living in this cesspool our entire lives. We have felt it, maybe at the periphery most of the time, maybe more immediate at others, but there is an awful stench that we can only ignore for so long before it overwhelms us. And, in this moment, when the corruption is so obvious, the brutality indefensible, that I find hope in its cravenness.

This stage of capitalism, whether you call it fascism or authoritarianism or whatever moniker we want to attach, is about the full-form of the disease coming into heart-wrenching view. It has evolved over the decades, over the centuries, hiding behind niceties and veneers, relying on our own dissociation and active, desperate denial, twisting and rigging and polluting until there is no need to hide anymore. Paramount Global, with its bribe, joins a long line of other corporations that know, without fail, that the lawlessness and venality of Trump and MAGA and the Right Wing authoritarian movement around the world represents the shifting into new territory where norms and morals and guardrails are meaningless and the only thing that matters, at the end of the day, is accruement of capital and resources and power. When something like The Late Show is cancelled, when megastores like Target immediately abandon gay and trans customers, when content-creating corporations shift their productions and investments in order to curry favor with the racists and authoritarians, what we see is a moment where all artifice has dropped and the long and simmering reality, a sobering one, a terrifying one, comes into view.

It is clarity because pretense is unnecessary now.

It is clarity because we are seeing how it has always been and now, unfortunately, what it is becoming.

Fascism represents the total merging of the political and capitalist apparatus. That is not to say it has not been the case for awhile now because it has, but the persistent check of democracy has at least kept the total convergence somewhat at bay. The United States having emerged almost simultaneously with the onlining of capitalism meant an almost instant symbiosis between the structures and systems. Since, there has been a consistent battle fought by the people against those systems, creating moments of progress in which reform and distance have been earned. Those moments, despite what we have been fed by media and politicians and conventional wisdom, were not total or final. All progress is challenged by institutional authority, leading to waxing and waning, triumphs and tragedies. The road we have been on since the mid-20th century, during which secret organs of power combined with capitalist elements, fueling state-sponsored coups and wars and operations and one atrocity after another, combined with corruption both public and private, have delivered us to another moment of convergence.

There is nothing human about this besides the tragic human flaw of self-serving egotism. This is why so much of this feels so awful and horrifying. What we are experiencing is inhuman. Alien. Anti-human even. War crimes, genocide, financialization, brutality, and cruelty. This thing is steeped in crushing out all things that are inherently human and beautiful, capitalizing on them, crushing and dividing them into separate and unrecognizable components, selling them for profit and processing what’s left over for spare change.

So much of our lives is spent hardening ourselves to this. Seeing unhouse people in desperate panic. Knowing strangers are being disappeared or thrust into the gnashing maw of a prison industrial complex designed for profit rather than human interest. Looking at the numbers on all of our forms and in all of the places and doing the hard and awful math of trying to translate ourselves and our hopes and dreams and even survival into decimal points, percentages, and imagining the consequences of not doing so or even imagining a life where it isn’t the case.

You are supposed to ignore this. Or, at the very least, learn to live with it.

Eventually, with the constant crush of corruption and oppression, the convergence slips into place and reveals its true form: unquenchable and relentless acquisition and power by any means necessary. And, at that point, there are no obvious ways forward. There are no doors, only oppressive walls. No wall to climb that isn’t ringed with barbed wire. No ballots, no leaders, no means of traditional escape that we have been shown or taught. All that’s left is for entrenched power and historic wealth to navigate their own relations.

That is what happens with these bribes, these feuds. I think some people are comforted by the dysfunctional dynamics between dictators and oligarchs. It’s seen as a lack of uniformity and maybe even vulnerability. And, in some way, that is true. We are still existing in a world before that total convergence. We’re at a vantage point looking at an eclipse in the making. The moon sliding over the face of the sun. The sky darkening. It’s a matter of minutes until the world goes dark. Seeing something like this bribe and all the capitulation makes it feel both something and not-something. If only the celestial bodies were to diverge it might not happen. But these conflicts are transitional battles, not the world turning its orbit or a miracle occurring.

During the fascist stage, the dictator and the authoritarian movement come into a series of conflicts with oligarchical powers. Some don’t fall into line immediately or still cling to their own self-serving interests. The fight is the negotiation. And, you’ll notice, most immediately fall into line. Paramount did, just as many others. It’s a matter of tectonic plates rubbing against one another, creating a period of instability and violence as the new form is birthed. After, the landscape is brutal and exists, for the moment, in a fresh kind of equilibrium.

I still don’t know what the future holds for American fascism. I still believe we will win a victory and change the world. I see the signs everywhere even as the heartbreaks and tragedies compound. You have to search for them more sometimes. And, others, they are more evident and inescapable. I know, without a doubt, that we will see more of these moments because the natural incentives for corporations, including media corporations that covers the news and events as they happen, is to side with fascism as it streamlines the goals and desires of capitalism. It is as unnatural as it is natural for water to flow downstream. There will be more bribes, more punishment for those opposing it all, more normalizing, more gaslighting.

And, in turn, we will continue to grow more sick and more tired of this. That is the true nature of humanity. To bristle at abuse and exploitation. To grow more and more restless as the truth comes to light and take action, perhaps belatedly, sometimes impotently, and, sometimes, miraculously, to push against it and changes the course of motion.

Do not look away. Do not become desensitized. That indignation and disgust and rage are earned. Look, see it, and also continuing to look for signs of hope and change. As this monster takes form, gain a sense of what it is and what it intends. It’s brazenness and incompetence will be its undoing. It’s there for us to see. It will not hide anymore.