When I was in high school, I used to confound my friends by telling them “If you think the Soviets and Red Chinese are a problem now, wait and see what will happen if they ever become Capitalists.” And let’s face it, it is undeniable. The mismanaged economies of Marxist states could never compete effectively against the Capitalist West led by the USA. Sure, they were a military danger, especially with nuclear weapons, and they were certainly a threat to their neighbors, and could stir up trouble for us all over the world, but they simply couldn’t touch us economically, socially, politically, or culturally. They were at best, a nuisance. At worst, they were ruthless and brutal tyrannies that were a regional danger. But they didn’t have to be Communist to fill that role; imperialism, tyranny and slavery has always been the default condition of the world, long before there were any Communists.

But to Conservatives, they were a godsend. They needed an ideological enemy, preferably one with severe economic (and religious!) differences, that they could use as a bogeyman to help ramrod their own domestic agenda and foreign policy and advance their own ideological positions. It came to the point where any criticism of Conservative dogma could be instantly silenced by merely accusing the critic of being “Red”. The positions of the Right were called “Freedom”. Anything else was ” Communism”. Any moderation or reform of the Conservative program was attacked as “creeping Socialism”, which not only protected the Right from any needed change or correction, but also conveniently conflated any Socialist, Leftist or Liberal ideas with the most extreme Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Even the polar opposite of Soviet Communism, Nazi-style Fascism, was redefined as identical to Socialism, in order to attempt to disguise its clear parallels with Conservative thought. Fascism isn’t the opposite of Right wing thought, it is its exaggerated extreme. Even political or social movements addressing issues that had no direct connection or relation to Capitalism/Communism (such as racism, feminism or environmentalism) could be attacked, obscured or discredited just by tacking on the “Communist” label. Anything the business caste did not want to deal with was Socialist. End of discussion.

But the American people are no fools, and eventually it became obvious that it was not necessary to uncritically adopt Rightist philosophy to see that Communism abroad had severe problems. And it became equally obvious that what the Right wanted was not necessarily the antidote to Communism, but was necessarily self-serving. Throughout the twentieth century, but particularly in the last half, the Conservative agenda was modified and reformed to a more humane, more Socialist form, and Communism eventually imploded, poisoned by its own toxins and its abysmal incompetence and brutality.

Although the roots of modern Conservatism can be traced back to the mid twentieth century, it wasn’t until the fall of Soviet and Chinese Communism in the last decade of that century that we started seeing Conservatism’s latest manifestation flower. Although Russian and Chinese businesses and plutocrats were proving to be much more effective rivals than the Commissars had ever been, there was still a need to have a foreign, easily recognizable enemy upon which a defense of the home-grown corporate oligarchy could be organized. In order to enlist the middle and working classes against their own self-interest and into the economic agenda of the Right, a new bogeyman had to be devised.

The Jews were no longer available. The Right needed the Jews and Israel now because they played such a key role in the apocalyptic fantasies of their evangelical allies. The Blacks? No, not even in the Deep South. There were too many of them, they were too well organized, too uppity, too integrated (no pun intended) and besides, most white folks simply didn’t care any more; they voted for a Black President, didn’t they? Twice. No, the Right has realized race can no longer be used to incite the rabble.

The Mexicans? No, again, there were too many of them, and they were mostly useful in rousing racist hatred in the Southwest. Nobody cared about Mexicans in the Northeast Corridor, the Rust Belt, or even Dixie. How about the intellectuals? The intelligentsia? The educated, the academics, the writers and chattering classes. After all, these traditionally were opposed to the Rightist agenda, precisely because they were educated intellectuals, because they could articulate their ideas in clear, grammatical English, and because they were not directly dependent on commercial and corporate activity. The reason the Lamestream Media is that way is because its good for their business. Its their job to challenge the accepted paradigm.

Well, it appears the Right has finally found its scapegoat: Islam. No one can deny Muslim Terrorism is a threat, but that is just an enemy, the world is full of enemies. A real bogeyman needs numbers, and there are a billion Muslims. They are also easily recognizable, they dress in a recognizable way, and for the most part, they are not Nordic, blonde, Aryan white. And of course, they are not Christian. They push all the right buttons. That’s all you need to know to understand the 2016 elections.

One Final Note:

After reading the remarks above, it might be easy to fall into the trap of thinking there is a committee of Right Wing Conspirators somewhere that is is masterminding all this. No. That’s not the way it works. Oh sure, there are demagogues, and there are propagandists, and there are political operatives who facilitate it all. All sides have political parties, a partisan press, think tanks, institutes, scholarly departments in universities, churches, all sorts of organizations, formal and informal that make up the infrastructure. Eventually, constituencies will form, and leaders will arise.

But it must be kept in mind that these institutions emerge in response to political and economic conditions in the society, they do not create them. No one sits down and decides they are going to incite a disaffected and insecure middle class into an anti-Islamic pogrom in order to further the interests of a faltering economic imperialism. It just works out that way. It almost has to.

The society fractures along weak points, and social and economic forces and pressures are released along those fault lines. For those of you with geological training, think of “hydrothermal alteration”. The conditions allow certain things to happen, and make it harder for others to happen. Natural selection and entropy take over, and things tend to flow in a certain general direction. Individuals appear that vaguely sense these processes, and clumsily interject themselves into them, attempting to direct and control them by organizing constituencies at key points to attempt to alter the flow of events. That is how history works. There is no Great Conspiracy, just lots of competing little ones.

And on a more personal note:

I wish I had realized this earlier. Not just this particular issue, but many of the things I write about here on the Zone when we lapse into “politics”. I prefer to think of it as psychology and anthropology, history and sociology. I can see how it works now, but I’m weaker now, older, less creative and less intelligent. I can no longer help make things happen the way I could when I was younger, fearless, more alert, more committed, more certain of my own conclusions. That’s why I’m writing this. I’m not as smart as I used to be, but I do believe I am wiser. Maybe if I can help you see clearly, perhaps you will be able to help.