D-DAY – THE HEROIC ANTIFA HISTORY LESSON TOO MUCH OF AMERICA HAS FORGOTTEN

 

June is the month in which many of us from the US and across the world take time to think about, remember and commemorate the supreme sacrifice of the now nearly extinct generation that went to war in the worst conflagration in history in order to rid the world of the scourge of fascism. This year marks the eighty-second anniversary of the June 6^th D-Day Normandy invasion.

For the people of my own generation, D-Day commemorations are more than the mere marking of an historical milestone. They are real and personal and literally hit home, since it was our parents’ generation that made those supreme sacrifices to free Europe and the world from the nefarious, encroaching despotism of fascist ideology. Many of us went to grade school already knowing the gist of World War II history. We knew the names of American military leaders, of some of the key battles, of a lot of the weaponry used. We knew basically what the war had been about.

Hero dads - Sergeant Whitie,
antifa freedom-fighter

Above all, we knew who the good guys and who the bad guys were. Our dads were the good guys, the ones who had gone to war to fight for freedom and democracy. Our mothers were the ones who took up the posts in manufacturing factories and defense plants left vacant by our fathers who were off at war. No matter what sort of relationships we might have with them as we grew up, in that, in having been true freedom-fighters, they were our heroes. The bad guys were the fascists, the Nazis, the militarized far-right imperialists. And we knew the names of their leaders as well, and that the most diabolical one of all was Hitler. His insane, despotic, callously cruel figure was the manifest avatar for fascism and everything that rendered it deplorable enough to warrant the most destructive war in history.

It is worthwhile recalling what D-Day signified in the prosecution of World War II. It was, quite literally, the turning point at which the Allies began winning a definitive victory over the fascist forces of the Axis powers led by Nazi Germany.

On June 6^th, 1944, US, British, Canadian, and other Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy in the largest amphibious military operation in history. D-Day was not merely a military maneuver. It was the opening of the Western Front against Nazi Germany and a direct assault on history's most destructive fascist regimes.

More than 156,000 Allied troops crossed the English Channel to France in staging the invasion.  In the first twenty-four hours of the invasion alone, Allied troops suffered ten thousand casualties, 4,414 of them fatal. The US lost 2,501 troops that day, in the bloody fighting to rout the well-entrenched Axis forces. Fatal British casualties numbered 1,449, Canadians 391, and other Allies 73.

Most of the Axis troops defending the positions firing on the Allies at Normandy were German. But the Nazis were also joined by what were known as the Osttruppen, or Eastern Troops. These were volunteers from other countries, or draftees and prisoners of war from Nazi-occupied nations. The Osttruppen, then, were comprised of volunteers from occupied territories in the Soviet Union (such as Ukraine and Georgia), as well as forcibly conscripted men from countries like Poland and Czechoslovakia. In the months leading up to the invasion, the German Army integrated tens of thousands of these non-Germans into their coastal divisions. As many as nine thousand Axis troops were killed, wounded or went missing on that day.

German soldiers entrenched at Normandy

The American forces suffered their devastating casualties at Omaha Beach. Canadian forces stormed Juno Beach under heavy fire. British troops landed at Gold and Sword Beaches. Behind them stood entire societies mobilized against fascism, against white supremacists, against authoritarianism, militarism, and aggressive, imperialist nationalism.

The significance of D-Day cannot be separated from what the Western Allies were fighting against and the freedom-loving attitude of an entire generation in the West. I have underscored Western Allies, since Soviet Russia was an anti-fascist ally during World War II as well. But it was an ally of convenience rather than ideology. Indeed, the Russians paid the highest price of the war, with at least twenty-four million fatalities between civilian and military personnel. But the Soviets’ war with the Nazis was a war between two authoritarianisms—Communist totalitarianism and Nazi fascism—not a war between fascist authoritarianism and democratic freedom.

Nazi Germany was not just another authoritarian government. It was a fascist state built on an historic cult of personality surrounding a cunning if demented leader. The cult was built on contempt for democratic institutions and for the rule of law. It encouraged attacks on the independent press, political violence in support of fascist aims, racial hierarchy, the scapegoating of minorities, and the belief that national greatness justified the destruction of constitutional constraints and of entire ethnicities.

That generation, my parents’ generation,  which fought, and sacrificed,  and died on D-Day, understood that democracy is fragile. They comprehended and believed that democratic institutions can only survive when citizens reject and actively oppose authoritarian designs before these turn into politically backed movements and manage to consolidate power.

British troops deploying at Sword Beach

For decades after World War II, Americans commemorated D-Day as historical proof that the United States was the world's foremost opponent of fascism. The nation portrayed itself as a defender of constitutional government, of free elections, of independent courts, of a free press, of political pluralism and of the rule of law. It was, in short, a society of laws, not of rule by force and by decree.

This historical identity began to erode in small if significant ways as far back as Ronald Reagan. Restrictions on rights and freedoms increased notably in the post-Nine-Eleven Bush Era, as US presidents, Republican and Democrat alike, gained an ever more powerful role, to the detriment of the other two supposedly co-equal branches of government.

But the deterioration of American institutions, democratic government and the rule of law has burgeoned out of control as of 2016, with the appearance on the political scene of Donald Trump, and the start of the Era of Trump. Since then, even in the four years that Trump left office between one term and the next, his nefarious figure has loomed large, not only in American politics, but also in the pernicious “culture wars” that have accompanied his rise to power and bitterly divided Americans.

In view of the fact that the hijacked GOP, which seems oblivious to—or indeed, complicit with—the destruction of America’s democratic institutions, it is almost impossible not to view the Trump administration, based on the most obvious of evidence, as being, not an administration at all in the traditional sense of the word, but a fascist regime. Note that I am not using the word fascist ill-advisedly or as a mere political slur, but rather, in the truest sense of the word.

Let me just clarify what I said above. Historians who specialize in the study of fascism and authoritarianism define some of the hallmarks of these phenomena as follows:

Fascism/authoritarianism is usually a cultist movement that elevates personal loyalty to a leader (cult of personality) or autocratic movement over and above the nation’s institutions. Fascism/authoritarianism is always marked by constant attacks on the independent media as “enemies of the people,” and by enormous efforts to convince the public that the only truth is disseminated by the State, and the propaganda media that support it. In its latest iteration, it also appeals to rich supporters of the movement to buy recalcitrant media and break them into a shadow of their former self—a model favored by former Hungarian dictator Viktor Orbán, who was greatly admired by the current US president.

Modern-day fascist and
Trump hero Viktor Orbán

Fascist/authoritarian regimes seek to garner the impression of legitimacy by de-legitimizing constitutional elections and election outcomes through false claims of election fraud. They also demonize political opponents as “traitors against the nation” rather than viewing them simply as rivals. As these claims get a foothold, fascist and other authoritarian regimes also often trump up charges against their rivals and seek to use the courts to jail them, and thus take them out of circulation. Alternatively, they seek to trash the reputations of their opponents, and to convince their followers that these individuals are dishonest or perverted.

These regimes always celebrate “strongman” leadership as the solution to the nation’s problems, plugging into the narrative that representative democracy is weak, inefficient and ineffective. They employ stark nationalist rhetoric that centers on the grievances and victimhood of their constituencies, casting themselves as having come to power to put right those “discriminations” perpetrated against their supporters and to punish those who “slighted them.”  Along these lines, they eschew legal processes and use the power of State to go after their perceived enemies.

Normalizing violence - J-6 Insurrection - blanket pardon

Fascist/authoritarian regimes seek to reward uniformity and to punish diversity. They are usually misogynist, racist, tribal and rooted in a single religious dogma.

And finally, these regimes seek to normalize violence and threats of violence against “enemies of the State” and of its leader. They encourage violent acts to weed out or overthrow what they tout as “rigged systems” so that the authoritarian leader can put things to rights and “restore the rights of the people.”

If we were to place a checkmark by the items above that apply to the current Trump regime, objectively speaking, they would all be checked. And to the chagrin of those who get a throbbing vein in their forehead every time they hear me use the word fascist to describe MAGA ideology, sorry, but if it walks like a fascist and talks like a fascist, and acts like a fascist…

But don’t take my word for it. Numerous noted scholars specializing in fascism and authoritarianism—including, but not limited to, Timothy Snyder, Ruth Ben-Ghiát, Jason Stanley, and Madeleine Albright—have argued that these patterns in the Trump regime and MAGA closely resemble warning signs historically associated with fascist and authoritarian movements. And this argument has become significantly stronger since Trump returned to office last year. Trump 2.0 is looking more and more like fascism on steroids—the forming of a State paramilitary commanded by the president to violently repress dissent in entire communities, almost daily violations of the Constitution and its Bill of Rights, encroachment on congressional powers, the reshaping of the military that answers to one man rather than to the tenets of the Constitution, and so on.

During Trump’s first presidency (2016-2020), opponents often argued that, despite his attempt to usurp exclusive power, the  institutional checks and balances remained intact. While this is somewhat debatable, let’s agree that, for the sake of argument, it’s true. Indeed, courts blocked executive actions. Career civil servants resisted political pressure. Senior military officers publicly emphasized constitutional obligations. Elections remained competitive, and power was ultimately transferred after the 2020 election—even despite Trump’s historic first as the only president not to accept the peaceful transfer of power, and despite his mounting a bloody insurrection at the Capitol to try and overturn the election results by force in 2020.

But the second Trump presidency has been, to date, stunningly different, because many of those institutional restraints have been purposely weakened and attacked by the regime. Efforts to centralize executive authority, to purge perceived opponents from the career State bureaucracy, to weaken or remove completely independent oversight, to politicize federal statistics, and to redefine loyalty to the state as loyalty to a central political leader represent a grimly advancing stage of democratic erosion.

Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower with
 Screaming Eagle 101st Airborne troops in Normandy

The contrast between this state of affairs and the antifa ideals that inspired D-Day are increasingly stark. The soldiers who landed in Normandy fought a war against a system that concentrated power in a single leader and that demanded ideological conformity, and cultural and ethnic uniformity. Those who fought and spilled their blood on the beaches of Normandy and turned the sea red were, in the truest sense of the word, antifa freedom-fighters, and the US was the exemplary champion of antifa ideals.

Today, as a result of a GOP leadership that is either all-in for fascist-style, one-party rule, or too politically weak or cowardly to resist, contemporary American politics increasingly rewards precisely the fascist tendencies enumerated above. The more than two thousand American heroes of Omaha Beach—or, indeed, the more than four hundred thousand Americans killed in the course of the entire war—didn’t die to establish a political climate in the US in which loyalty to one individual outweighs loyalty to constitutional principles. Indeed, they fought and died to cut the cancer of that fascist model out of the world order.

Canada provides a particularly revealing comparison to what is happening under the Trump regime in the US today. Canadians fought fascism alongside Americans at Normandy in June 1944. Canadian forces suffered more than a thousand casualties on D-Day alone.

Canadian troops disembarking at Juno Beach in
  Normandy, 1,000 casualties, 391 dead in a day.

As a result, for generations, the two countries, which were somewhat wary of each other until that time, have maintained one of the closest alliances in modern history, sharing defense commitments, intelligence partnerships, economic integration, and democratic values. But in recent years, Canadian leaders, policymakers, commentators, and much of the Canadian public at large have expressed growing concern about political developments in the United States. Concerns have included attacks on democratic institutions, threats against electoral legitimacy, political polarization, hostility toward allies, trade disputes, and increasingly hardcore nationalistic rhetoric.

These concerns have morphed into full-blown opposition since Trump began his second term and, unable to corrupt Canada’s democratic ethics and ideas, started attacking Canada outright, levying outrageous trade tariffs on it, and going as far as to suggest he planned to turn Canada into the fifty-first US state. This has obviously infuriated Canadians as a whole, and soured the alliance between the neighboring nations to the point of near dissolution.

Beyond the diplomatic meltdown with Trump, however, Canadians are entertaining more deep-reaching concerns regarding their mammoth neighbor. Indeed, many—perhaps most—Canadians view these developments, not as ordinary policy disagreements, but as evidence that the United States is moving away from the liberal democratic consensus that united North America as well as Western Europe following World War II.

As a result, Canada is  increasingly exploring ways to reduce strategic dependence on American political stability and to strengthen its relationships with other democratic partners. There has even been some talk of Canada’s becoming a member of the European Union, even as it is already reaching out to like-minded Nordic nations in Scandinavia.

It speaks loud and clear of the democratic crisis in the United States that this stunning development in bilateral relations between Canada and the US is historically remarkable. The country that once stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the US on the beaches of Normandy is now, in truly significant respects, attempting to insulate itself from the aggressive instability emanating from Washington.

It is noteworthy that, historically, fascism/authoritarianism succeeds, not because democratic societies consciously choose dictatorship, but because democratic norms are gradually eroded by bad actors. And as this takes place, citizens become accustomed to attacks on institutions, with many people coming to believe the narrative that “the system is rigged,” or that “the system is broken.” And, in the minds of these members of society—usually not a majority, but a critical-mass minority—it stands to reason that the leader and the regime denouncing that supposedly rigged system are “the only ones who can fix it.”

In my own experience, this was true of the military regime that took power in 1976, in Argentina, where I was working for an opposition newspaper that consistently defended the rule of law, and civil and human rights. There was a widespread belief at the time of the coup that the democratic system, rather than the weak and corrupt elected administration, was broken. And a far too extensive proportion of the population was willing to stand behind the dictatorial regime and let it act, “to make the country safe for a clean-slate constitutional democracy.”  Indeed, that was the initial promise of the regime. Instead, that regime ended up staying in power for nearly eight years by means of a bloody reign of terror.

Argentina 1976 - Arrests without charges,
disappearances and summary executions

In such systems, political opponents become enemies. And if the regime becomes powerful enough, it is no longer necessary for it to ostensibly bring charges, false though they may be, to get rid of its rivals and opponents. They are simply and summarily eliminated. In the case of Argentina, from the mid-seventies through the early eighties, thirty thousand were eliminated.

As authoritarianism gradually advances, loyalty to a movement and its leader replaces loyalty to constitutional principles. Exceptional measures become normal. What once seemed unthinkable becomes routine. And people all too often become numb to it until they themselves or their loved ones are caught in the gnashing teeth of the repressive monster.

The lesson of D-Day is that democracy is not self-executing. It survives only when citizens do everything in their power to defend it, no matter how disillusioned they might become with occasional outcomes in a functioning democratic system.

The soldiers who landed in Normandy confronted fascism in its most visible, highly developed and violent form. The challenge facing modern democracies is to recognize authoritarian tendencies before they become irreversible, and to stop them in their tracks.

It is a profoundly cruel reality that the generation that crossed the English Channel on D-Day fought and, in huge numbers, gave their lives to defeat fascism abroad, while many people among today’s generations in the US have embraced fascism. Meanwhile, the rest of Americans may eventually be forced to decide just how far we are willing to go and what we are willing to do to resist and hopefully defeat authoritarianism at home.

That is why today, D-Day and what it signifies is more relevant than ever. It is not merely a commemoration of a massive military victory. It is, additionally, a reminder that democracy can be lost, that fascism can emerge in unexpected places, and that the preservation of free societies requires constant vigilance and participation.

The central debate facing many in the United States today is whether current political developments represent ordinary democratic conflict or the early stages of the very authoritarian traditions that Americans once crossed an ocean to defeat. In my own mind, this debate is moot. Fascism is already upon us. It is here, and steps must be taken to put an immediate halt to its pernicious advancement. Either that, or we must resign ourselves to the death of American democracy.

How we respond to this issue—whether embracing the “new order”, being submersed in apathy about it, or fighting it tooth and nail—will shape not only the future of American democracy but also the future of what generations have, until now, called the Free World.