Домой United States USA — China Americans Have Lost Sight of What Means

Americans Have Lost Sight of What Means

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Many Americans who brand Trump and his allies as fascists are paying too little attention to abuses in Hong Kong and cultural genocide in Xinjiang.
How do Americans decide what to be outraged about? It seems like ancient history now, but that was one of the questions The New York Times inadvertently raised in June when it appended an editor’s note to an op-ed by Senator Tom Cotton—a piece that some on the Times staff saw as presenting a physical danger not only to the country but to themselves. The op-ed called for American troops to be sent to “restore order” to cities experiencing violent protests. Outside and inside the Times, it was widely condemned as “fascist” or fascist-adjacent. More recently, though, the Times published an op-ed of a similar vein, except this time readers had the opportunity to glimpse what actual fascism looks like. Fascism, in today’s context, isn’t mere authoritarianism, but the attempt to suppress all dissent, public or private, in the name of the nation; it is the expression of a regimented society that elevates order as both the means and end of all political life. The October 1 op-ed, by Regina Ip, a member of Hong Kong’s Executive Council, captured such sentiments well. Ip laid out the case for a new Chinese-backed security law that would effectively criminalize anything that might be perceived as “subversion.” Included was one of the most disturbing passages I have read in an American publication: This time, though, no staff revolt occurred, even though Ip’s article was an elaborate if refreshingly frank endorsement of real fascism. Outrage is always selective. I could have written about something else, but I decided to write about this. The question remains: Why did readers who were infuriated by Cotton’s argument seem to shrug off Ip’s? Words matter because they help order our understanding of politics both at home and abroad. If Cotton is a fascist, then we don’t know what fascism is. And if we don’t know what fascism is, then we will struggle to identify it when it threatens millions of lives—which is precisely what is happening today in areas under Beijing’s control. Chinese authorities have tightened their grip on Hong Kong. And while the world watches, they are undertaking one of the most terrifying campaigns of ethnic cleansing and cultural genocide since World War II in Xinjiang province, with more than 1 million Muslim Uighurs in internment camps, as well as reports of forced sterilization and mass rape. For morality to operate, moral proportion is required. Unfortunately, the Trump era has badly damaged our ability to see what’s right in front of our noses. Today, the United States is consumed by internal divisions, which means that the flow of ideas is the reverse of what it otherwise might be. Instead of solving problems through the very democratic institutions that once gave inspiration abroad, we now import foreign notions from Europe’s dark past in an attempt to comprehend what seems incomprehensible here in our own country. Donald Trump’s election led to a whole cottage industry of thinking that fascism is near, right here at home. It has grown steadily, reaching its culmination in the lead-up to the November election. In the past month alone, readers have seen Mussolini comparisons from eminent historians, explainers on what it’s like to live through a civil war, and an endless stream of warnings about Reichstag fires and a “fascist coup.” Here, Trump deserves some of the blame. He has a knack for bringing out the worst in his opponents, giving them license to use the very hyperbole and distortion that they criticize in others.

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