The first historian, Thucydides, taught a simple but wise maxim for democracies: look at both the words and the deeds of people who rule or who seek to rule. When deeds belie words, do not trust that person.
Biden’s first words, his inaugural address, call for “unity and healing” and “a return to civility.” He claims he will be “the president of all Americans.” But his first deeds were to use quasi-dictatorial power to undo everything his predecessor accomplished. He didn’t even wait for Congress to pass laws, even though his party will control Congress. This may be a way to create “unity” if unity means the elimination of opposition to his and his party’s agenda. If “unity” means fascism.
Take a moment of honest thinking to examine the core principle of fascism: it is unity.
The symbol of the fasces (a bundle of sticks with an axe in the middle, bound together with rope) was adopted by Mussolini to express the same power it did in ancient Rome: strength through unity, with this strength used to enforce the will of the person or party wielding it. Fascist regimes of the past are considered “far right” but, in fact, they have opposed both Right and Left political parties. Indeed, they have opposed any regime in which more than one party participated in government. They certainly have opposed any regime in which laws were made through deliberation among diverse political principles and opinions, and enforced by an executive who respected the rights of the minority party.
The same can be said of Marxist regimes of the “far left.” Both want the same kind of unity: one party rule, a dictator at its head with his cronies/committee/cabinet around him, and the same suppression of all opposition.
Biden’s call for unity, when seen in conjunction with his immediate dictatorial exercise of executive power to wipe out the laws and executive actions of the preceding Republican administration, are evidence of a fascist understanding of unity. When one sees this in the context of calls for “reprogramming” everyone who voted for Trump (that is, everyone who voted for the Republican Party), it appears even more fascist.
I hear echoes of the USSR under Stalin. Dissenters then were either internally exiled to the Soviet equivalent of “fly over country” and compelled to stay there, or they were found to be medically delusional and imprisoned in asylums and kept on drugs. There is little difference to the people being ruled whether their ruler is a “right wing” fascist or a “left wing” dictator. In either case, the ruler aims to eliminate all opposition. As a subject your choices if you want to live peacefully are black and white: you join the party, speak only its dogma, and obey its orders—or you keep your disagreement silent.
Watch the excellent film, “The Lives of Others” to see how this worked in the Marxist DDR. And read Solzhenytsin to get a taste of the Soviet brand of fascism.
If Biden really wants a country unified in peaceful cooperation, it’s about as stupid as one can get to begin with actions guaranteed to alienate and anger Republican voters. I don’t think he (or the people who are behind him) are that stupid. Therefore, my conclusion has to be that the only kind of unity they want is one in which the rest of us are forced to support their agenda or be suppressed. As “president of all Americans” he would be not the leader representative of all, but the man with the power to impose upon all what only a majority faction wants.
The “civility” he calls for is not rational, open-minded debate and deliberation of principles and policies, but silence on the part of anyone who does not agree with his party’s agenda. His actions demonstrate this. His actions speak louder than and in contradiction to his words: “Join me, obey me, and we will be united!”