Smother country

A reason to celebrate the 4th

If you’re on Bluesky, you can look up my posts there from the past year or so in which I have reposted news stories with the comment, “fascism is an international movement.” I’m sure you knew it was international already, because far-right leaders like Höcke in Germany, Milei in Argentina, Modi in India, et alia, are so obviously trying different mixes of the old fascist formula.

But from time to time (and believe me I haven’t nearly clocked them all) news stories pop up that show not only how fascist they are, but also how close to our own homegrown fascist movement theirs are. Like the former Honduran President’s conspiracy to work with Trump to destabilize fash-unfriendly governments like Mexico’s; Trump trying to stop Bolsonaro’s trial by threatening Brazil with tariffs; Kristi Noem pimping for Karol Nawrocki in Poland; Trump buddy and global fascist leader Musk backing Afd in Germany, etc.

But the most disturbing stuff comes out of the U.K. Or maybe I just find it so because the horrors are in English and I’ve been there a time or two. But, Jesus, what a fucking mess they are. In fact, when I despair of our own country, I look over there and think, eh, could be worse.

They seem to hate their migrants even more than our own wingnuts hate ours; in fact immigration polls worse over there than it does here, especially since Tubby fucked up with ICE, and they manage to get up the limey equivalent of a Charlottesville march every couple of weeks. Keir Starmer, in his hapless attempt to shake off vestiges of Labour’s leftist past in order to compete for the xenophobe vote, seems to have emboldened the worst of their racism. They can’t even bear to have one of their Royals married to a black foreigner!

And their press is rabid. It’s like Murdoch secretly runs every paper. And the columnists, oy. Much as I despise Bret Stephens, I wouldn’t swap him for Nick Cohen.

As with the other foreign fascists, MAGA and Musk are busily backing the British far-right leaders, Nigel Farage of Reform and Rupert Lowe of Restore — yes, even with Starmer’s trimming there’s still a big enough market for not one but two Enoch Powell impersonators in the Green and Pleasant. But they hardly seem to need the help. Like our own fascists, the Brit variety are not above braying about civil war to heighten, as it were, the contradictions and swamp the old order on behalf of Blackshirts II.

Just this week some hoods in Belfast responded to a grisly immigrant knife crime by conducting a pogrom — not in the Bari-Weiss-being-yelled-at sense, but in the real sense, menacing wrongly-complected passers-by and burning out immigrants’ homes. We have our own nonsense, but this is wild.

I bring this up because we’re rolling into the 4th of July zone, which I guess kicks off with Tubby’s stupid cage match thing, and I hear from the comrades that they’re not feeling very much like celebrating the 250^th anniversary of 1776 under the circumstances. I sympathize. Trump can fuck up a wet dream and his grotesque posturing, treating our sacred holiday as if it’s the kickoff of a giant used car sale, puts me off too.

But while he and his goons are rasslin’ I expect I’ll be recreating and drinking and picnicking thinking about what America really is — the good, the bad, and the redeemable. There’s something about the occasion that, for me, always makes thinking seriously about this country seem more worthwhile. And why should I change? They’re the ones who suck.

Plus, look at it this way: If we hadn’t declared independence, we’d be in a real mess right now.