The term “cathartic” informs us of the payoff for the fascist rightwingers. They feel a nice post-orgasmic glow when they shoot their wads of hate, but of course the effect is never permanent, and soon they need more.

Note too the role of fantasy: Their expressions of hate are usually impotent, but in the moment they can imagine that their words are bullets, and that the laser beams shooting out of their eyes are mowing down liberals by the thousands. The eruptions of hate are the virtual, in the technical sense, fulfillment of the hunger for revenge.

I’m reminded of the argument for pornography: Fantasy short circuits the expression of dark impulses in the real world.

Maybe we should be thankful for rightwing hateporn as the lesser evil?

Its not just a right wing perversion, it probably exists in everyone to some extent. Look at how many of Shakespeare’s plays are revenge fantasies. Check out old Japanese Samurai flicks, American Westerns, Dirty Harry, Charles Bronson and Steven Segall.

But with fascists its extreme, it never stops and its never enough. They have to generate sufficient hate to get past the normal human inhibitions against violence, and the even greater constraints society puts on brutality. They didn’t just lynch black folks, they set them on fire, skinned them alive, sicced dogs on them, dragged them behind pickup trucks. And of course, there were the gas chambers in Europe…this ain’t just a redneck perversion.

We have our work cut out for us.