Fun With Wikipedia: Is America Under Bush a Fascist State?

I don't quite think we're there yet, but we're pretty close. Wikipedia's basic definition is an authoritarian political ideology that's generally tied to a mass movement that considers the individual subordinate to the state's interests. It creates unity based on ethnic, cultural, racial, or religious ideas.

They then provide a checklist:

1. Patriotism. Check.
2. Nationalism. Check.
3. Statism Pseudo-check. In speech he's very anti-statism. Historically America believes in anti-statism. In action he feels he needs policies (he usually says the tools) to fight terrorism that would allow for mass surveillance of individuals and companies. He also asks corporations, for example network carriers, to assist his administration in spying on individuals in the United States to combat terrorism. I guess you can argue it's compartmentalized, but the surveillance is (what is known of it) is so far reaching you gotta kind of say it reaches beyond what is really needed given the scope of the terrorist threat (what we know of it).
   
4. Militarism: The "belief or desire of a government or people that a country should maintain a strong military capability and be prepared to use it aggressively to defend or promote national interests" [Source: Apple Dictionary, Version 1.0.2]. It has also been defined as "aggressiveness that involves the threat of using military force" Online die.net dictionary, as well as "Glorification of the ideals of a professional military class" and "Predominance of the armed forces in the administration or policy of the state" American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.Check.
5. "Totalitarianism state regulates nearly every aspect of public and private behavior. Totalitarian regimes or movements maintain themselves in political power by means of secret police, propaganda disseminated through the state-controlled mass media, personality cults, regulation and restriction of free discussion and criticism, single-party states, the use of mass surveillance, and widespread use of terror tactics." Not a complete check, but frighteningly close to getting there. There is increased mass surveillance. Criticism of the party for some time was deemed unpatriotic and aiding terrorists. There was and is lots of propoganda (using drugs aids terrorists and kills troops yada yada). There is a sort of secret police via the secret spy program. Mass media was so pro-government and anti-terror they relayed whatever the administration wanted them to for a few years after 9/11, so there was and still is a state-controlled media. Personal freedoms have been restricted. Bush isn't trying to prop himself up and hasn't used force or the threat of terror to keep power beyond 2008, and there's no personality cult surrounding him. But, he's made long lasting base agreements with Iraq and domestic budgets that keeps his successor tied up in certain ways. So it kind of was a temporary totalitarian regime, which isn't totalitarian at all if there's an end date on it. So no check.
   
6. Anti-Communism. This historically defines America even post cold war. Check.
7. Corporatism. or corporativism (Italian: corporativismo) refers to a political or economic system in which power is given to civic assemblies that represent economic, industrial, agrarian, social, cultural, and professional groups. These civic assemblies are known as corporations (not necessarily the business model known as a 'corporation', though such businesses are not excluded from the definition either)."At a popular level in recent years "corporatism" has been used to mean the promotion of the interests of private corporations in government over the interests of the public". Corporations have tons of influence on politics due to lobbyists and political donations. Check.
8. Populism. Not a check. Not sure it should necessarily be on the list. I think fascists more co-opt populist values while not delivering on those promises, which isn't really populism at all. The term is so misused and ambiguous that it's kind of useless.
   
9. Collectivism "any moral, political, or social outlook, that stresses human interdependence". Not a check. We're historically individualists and it's constantly re-enforced of that.
10. Autocracy check Bush has been consolidating power and legitimizing it through the need to combat terrorism for a while now. He gets a blank check to do anything in Iraq and does what he needs to secretly to find and eliminate terrorist threats. I guess this gets only a half check, because the judiciary has kind of hampered him with Guantanamo and the torture stuff has kinda killed his legitimacy.
    
11. Opposition to political and economic liberalism. Kind of a Check again. I do think Bush is anti political liberalism as I understand it. Although he uses the phrase "rule of law" a lot when discussing getting Iraq back on track and uses the phrase "We are a nation of laws" to state part of what America stands for, his policies seem to be anti-individual in the sense that Bush's economic and social philosophy is whatever benefits business benefits the individual instead of the other way around. Hence priority and benefits are given to corporations and businesses first as a political liberal would focus on what is good for individuals first. That's how I see Bush as anti-political liberalism anyways.Bush is pro Fiscal Conservatism in his speeches, but he is a fiscal conservative in name only. He cut taxes and went for a Reaganomics type of effect, only to mess up by approving massive spending increases by a republican congress to increase our national debt. Also, he unexpectedly (or maybe not) had the need to massively spend for that war he started. That whole tab is on us, while he moans about earmarks added on to bills. Earmarks should be reduced, but compared to the overt spending already done, earmarks are like a barnacle attached to a whale. The spending that ought to be done is on infrastructure investment here. We need to be spending on public schools instead of the public spending tax dollars so we can in turn pay to go to the school we helped fund. We wonder why our kids are dumb and wild. Well, you voted for the person that promised reduced property taxes...go figure. That whole system should be fixed. Local property taxes should be pooled by state and redistributed school district by school district by population. That way the same amount of money is spent on every kid. No more "ghetto" schools where all the kids of poor people have to go and they learn nothing because they aren't funded enough. No rich kid schools. Truly equal schools...at least by state...haven't worked that one out and I think giving it to the corrupt Department of Education would do more harm than good. Wow so off topic.

Anyways, America under Bush isn't a fascist regime but it's still pretty bad right now as far as lacking effective leadership. Nothing got accomplished but trouble and debt in these eight years. He's more of a bungler than evil. The point of leading a country is to transcend challenges (like terrorists). Instead we got a coward pretending to be a cowboy saying all the right things but not doing right by (Katrina victims, war veterans, middle and lower class families) anyone except a few war profiteers and corporate entities.

Mission Accomplished. Go home and build your stupid library to try to redefine your failed presidency you pseudo fascist.