“But Hugo, you’re the last person who should be First-Best-Guy, the leader of the free world, you once said you admire Mr Hooterz, arguably the most ruthless dictator in the world.”
“Pffft, utter nonsense, where do you get this fake news from? I have never, ever said that I admire Mr Hooterz. Are you so unimaginative that you blindly believe every word the fake news media feeds you? I bet you read The Daily Male, though, did you see page three today? Bob from Bangor-on-Whangor.”
“Nice buns!”
“Yes, he apparently got into baking sourdough during the pandemic.”
Sorry, I think I may need to interject here. If you’re not British and of a certain age, that probably makes no sense. You see, when I was a kid and for some years after, several British daily newspapers would run a large photo of a semi or fully nude young woman smiling at the camera. The most popular of the papers ran theirs on page three, hence the models being known as Page Three Girls. They’d always have a cheesy headline and a paragraph of puff.
Something like, Sam, 19, always enjoys some soft rolls for her lunch, so giving us the title, “Nice Baps”.
Or there’d be a fully nude Karen, 21, back to the camera and revealing just the one breast with her twisting torso. Got it? Yep, “Ooh, cheeky!”
Or we’d have Donna and Maria, two 20-year-old buxom beauties, grinning impishly straight into the camera. Can you guess? Of course, something like, “Dirty Filthy Robbing Lesbians Stealing Sweet Poonanny From Hardworking British Men”, followed by the one-liner, “It’s time to send them back to where they came from.” Brighton, perhaps?
Well, it’s great to see that things have moved on so much. Hmmm, yes, so, back to Hugo.
“Anyway, what I actually said was, and this is a direct quote, ‘I have deep, immense and unwavering admiration for the way that Mr Hooterz turned the free and democratic nation of Nothing into his own personal possession, effectively making it his own personal estate to run however he likes and turning the 150 million citizens of Nothing into his own personal slaves who have to do whatever he demands of them. Brilliant.’ That’s what I actually said and it was brilliant. Though, for the record, I don’t admire that he refers to himself as ‘Mr’, that’s just wrong. He should call himself King or Emperor and he should live in an elaborate palace that’s gilded inside and out so that all of his subjects know that he’s better than them. Still, other than that, the man is truly brilliant. Just imagine, Troy, having 350 million slaves of your own. You’d never have to touch your own penis ever again. Dirty little Mr Soft-Serve would have his very own personal staff to look after his every whim. That’s what I admire.”
“Oh, silly me, that really is so much better than saying you admire Mr Hooterz as a person. It makes perfect sense that someone who wants to run the leading democratic nation of the free world would admire the way Mr Hooterz turned his democratic nation into a dictatorship.”
“Doesn’t it? Except, you seem to have overlooked one key little detail. Everything isn’t a democratic nation.”
“Of course it is. It has been for hundreds of years. I’ve voted for seven First-Best-Guys myself. How can you say it’s not a democracy? That’s an absurd claim to make.”
“Really? Is it? So let me get this straight, you believe Everything is a democracy because you’ve been allowed to vote for the First-Best-Guy seven times?”
“Well, yes, that is democracy in action.”
“Sounds a bit naive if you don’t mind me saying. Let me try to show you another way to look at it. Imagine that 200 years ago, I gave you a poisoned apple and you fell into a deep sleep. Then 200 years later, I wake you with a kiss, perhaps a little bit of tongue and almost certainly a bit of a grope, it’s just a little muscle memory thing, so don’t get too excited.”
“I feel a bit dizzy, actually, Hugo, couldn’t someone else wake me with a kiss.”
“Oh, okay then, Mrs Sensationist wakes you with a kiss.”
“Which one?”
“Well, the current one of course.”
“Number seven? It’s just I’ve always rather liked number five.”
“Seven? It’s only six, isn’t it, and number five was, no don’t tell me, of course number five was Mariana French.”
“No number five was Griselda Humptenstein.”
“Ah, yes, it is seven isn’t it! Griselda, my word, what a wild weekend that was. I should have known when I woke up in Vegas that it was going to be a crazy time.”
“Ha ha, do you mean Randy Vegas, the fella from that jeans ad? Lolz.”
“Yes, that’s right, Randy Vegas, the fella from that jeans ad.”
(⊙_☉’)
“Well, okay then, Griselda will wake you with a kiss and god knows what else. Trust me, a little bit of tongue and a gentle grope might feel like the better option by the time she’s finished with you, but your funeral. Anyway, assuming you survive being re-woken, I want you to try and work out whether Everything is a democracy or not, but I’m going to tell you absolutely nothing about Everything and its society. The only information you can use to assess if Everything is a democracy or not is one single webpage. Go on, pass me your phone. Right, I’m loading a page from the Bank of Everything’s website. Here you go, what you’re looking at is a breakdown of wealth distribution across the population of Everything. I want you to focus on the column on the far right that shows how much wealth the poorest 50% of our population has owned for the last 35 years or so. Scan down and see how the highest amount they’ve ever owned was 4%. The latest figure is just 2.5%, but scan back just 15 years and the figure was as low as 0.4% and that was when your fella, Huzzah Cubella, was in The Citadel. So much for the People’s Party caring about the losers. Honestly, do you really think that in a healthy and fully functioning democracy, the poorest half of the population would vote for politicians who conspired to keep them poor? And I don’t mean just once, I mean repeatedly, election cycle after election cycle.”
“I’ve never really thought about it like that, to be honest.”
“Of course you haven’t, Troy. You have a view of yourself as a crusading social warrior fighting the good fight to bring a better and fairer world to all Everythingers. That is at the very root and the very core of your self-identity. Obviously, the very last thing you would ever want to do is admit to yourself that you’re every bit as much a fascist as I am.”
“Can you hear cuckoos, Hugo?”
“What?”
“I hear cuckoos. Honestly, that’s such an absurd thing to say. Actually, it’s also deeply, deeply offensive, so you take that back right now!”
“Oooooeeeeee, someone’s feeling a little sensitive, aren’t they? So what’s so bad about being a fascist, Troy?”
“Because I’m clearly not a fascist. I detest fascism.”
“Really? So tell me, Troy, what is fascism?”
“Well, now that’s simple, I mean, um, where should I start?”
“How about with the definition of fascism, as that’s basically the question that I asked you.”
“Yes, of course, I’m just taking a moment to gather my thoughts.”
“Your thoughts? I know exactly what’s in your thoughts right now, it’s the same as everybody else when faced with this question. You’re seeing scratchy, black and white images of Edith Blitzen with her spiky mohican and right arm stretched out like a Roman emperor, dozens of Skua bombers with their relentless cackling sirens dropping bombs on columns of terrified refugees, lines of jack-booted, goose-stepping young men in black uniforms, mud-covered unarmed uniformed men lined up in front of trenches being shot in the back, corpses hanging from lamp posts and emaciated leather-bound skeletons of plaid people staring with sunken eyes through fences of barbed-wire. What you’re trying to do is turn those images, the feelings you have right now, into a sensible dictionary definition, aren’t you?”
“I guess.”
“So come on Troy, give me a definition.”
“Umm.”
“A definition, Troy.”
“Errr.”
“How hard can it be?”
“Ahmm.”
“TELL ME THE DEFINITION, NOW!”
“It’s naughty.”
“It’s naughty?”
“No, fascism is very naughty.”
“Very naughty, right, okay. Can you give me a moment? Dum-dee-dum-dee-dah, erm, you’ve got kids, haven’t you, Troy, so I’m sure you’ll know this, which one of these is the head-blown emoji? That one, ah yes, I can see how that makes sense, dum-dee-dum-dee-dah and send. Sorry about that, Troy, just wanted to send a quick message to a friend, she always enjoys a good laugh. Anyway, I’m not sure that’s a satisfactory definition. Sure, Blitzen was a monster, the devil incarnate perhaps, but her evil actions are quite independent of her fascist beliefs. A dictionary will probably define fascism as something like a political ideology of the far-right that places authoritarian leadership in the hands of one or a few and that focuses on nationalism, militarism and the placement of national interests above those of the individual. I’m not sure that’s an entirely satisfactory definition either. I don’t buy that it’s a product of the far-right. I mean, the idea of left and right, they’re just part of the smoke and mirrors of the pretense of democracy and certainly shouldn’t be considered a factor in defining fascism. We might as easily call the two sides wap-bam-boogie and boogaloo. Just look at the Communist party that has led the Eternal Nation of the People of Wibble for almost a century. Being the Communist party quite clearly tells us they’re of the left, but ignore that and see how every other aspect of fascism applies perfectly to them, every bit as well as it applies to Mr Hooterz’s leadership in Nothing. They’ve even got mass concentration camps for a million or more of their own citizens, for no offense other than their bloodline, just like Blitzen singled out and tried to wipe out the entire plaid population of Dotardia.”
“Okay, there may be some similarities, but can we really say fascism can be of the left?”
“Oh, we’ve unearthed a new-found confidence in defining fascism, have we, Troy? But yes, I think we can. Militarism is every bit as important in Wibble as Nothing, perhaps more so. The national interest is pushed ahead of individual interests equally strongly in both nations, well except for Chairman Pooh’s and Mr Hooterz’s personal interests, of course. Forget about left and right, they’re just distractions that are confusing you. The political spectrum doesn’t span from the right to the left, it spans from the top to the bottom.”
“I think I may need that head-blown emoji now, Hugo. That actually does make sense and changes so much. You know, when you were doing that rally at Berry racecourse and you were standing in the starting stalls looking out at all those people and you called Monty Havajack a Marxist fascist? At that moment, I thought you were a moron in conflating two opposing political ideologies, but now it turns out you were a genius with your enlightened understanding of them.”
“That’s very kind of you to say so, Troy, though for the record, I wasn’t in the starting stalls, I was actually standing in the stables looking out.”
“So, a Berry stables genius, then?”
“Yes, the Secret Service thought it would give me a bit more cover from the incoming rifle fire. But all this makes me believe my feelings about you were right. You’re a quick learner, Troy. That’s rare and a very desirable characteristic. So, let me present fascism to you in a simple way. Fascism is the system under which some of the people govern, while democracy is the system where all of the people govern.”
“But this still doesn’t make me a fascist. Actually, doesn’t that make me an oligarch. Yes, of course, why didn’t I see this? All you did was reduce the definition of fascism down to that of oligarchy.”
“Maybe, but oligarchy’s such a wishy-washy word. Fascism suggests strength and raw power. Don’t you find it a little bit sexy, Troy?”
“No, of course not. Don’t be absurd, Hugo.”
“If you say so. Maybe I prefer fascist because no-one gets triggered by the word oligarch like they do with fascist. Even you just happily labelled yourself an oligarch rather than face the truth. Regardless, you agreed that fascism applies as easily to the Communist government of Wibble as easily as it does to Nothing. So, if fascism can exist at the far right and the far left, doesn’t it make sense that it bridges the gap between the two extremes, too? Just last week, I saw you on TV talking about the special character of Everythingers and inviting them to come together to build a better Everything. You were playing the nationalist card, Troy. Just like every other politician in every other party in every other country. We all push the national interest, it’s a thoroughly mainstream theme, even in democratic countries. It’s not just the preserve of fascism.”
“Okay, maybe you can argue that, but that’s not the case with militarism, though. There we are different.”
“Really? Since the turn of the century, except for four years, Everything’s military budget has increased year after year, under National Party and People’s Party First-Best-Guys alike. Except for the last decade or so, as Wibble has changed the balance of the world, Everything has comprehensively had the largest military in the world. A result of the largest military budget in the world. We see a service member in public wearing their uniform and we thank them for their service. You can’t say we’re not a militaristic society, especially at a time when spending on social programs has been hacked away by both our parties, while the military budget is at the highest it’s ever been. It’s not just Everything, either. Look at Spot and their two new monster-sized aircraft carriers. Ships built to send a message to the rest of the world that the little nation is still a force to be reckoned with. Too bad they cost so much, they couldn’t afford any aircraft to put on them. Seriously, Prince Pettifogger has been using one of them as a mobile polo pitch, allowing him to holiday and play his favorite sport, while cruising around the Semiocean trying to pick up teenagers on their college break. Accept it, Troy, fascism doesn’t care about the political spectrum, its simple essence is the belief that some people are better than others and so deserve more. More power, more wealth, more opportunities, more indulgences and more joy and pleasure.”
“But, Hugo, I’m a liberal, you can’t paint me with your fascist brush.”
“Liberals just favor liberal fascism, while conservatives prefer pure fascism or more simply fascism, it’s not a matter of left or right. There are liberals on the right and conservatives on the left, if you insist on believing in the two sides.”
“Okay, just for the sake of argument, let’s assume that’s true. So, what’s the difference between liberal fascism and fascism?”
“Liberal fascism is what we more commonly refer to as democracy. Liberal fascists operate in the best interests of their society’s upper-class, in Everything’s case, that being We The People, but they don’t care who is running the government at any one time. They’re happy to allow the population as a whole to vote for who will lead the country and are happy to accept the whims of the people as they veer between leaders who tax the upper-class a little more to make the losers better off and leaders who tax the upper-class a little less to make the losers better off. It doesn’t matter who the losers choose, as the webpage from the Bank of Everything shows, they will always only be tossed the scraps, never enough for them to live more than a semi-comfortable life and often not even that, while the upper-class relentlessly absorb more and more wealth. Do you deny that description fits how the People’s Party has governed whenever elected, Troy?”
“That seems a stark summary, but I’m not choosing to argue the point right now, I just want to understand your belief in these two forms of fascism.”
“Of course you do. In short, liberal fascism is like playing Texas Hold’em against a card-sharp with a loaded deck. It doesn’t matter how you play, you always end up with the losing hand and throwing more into the pot, while the upper-class may lose the occasional hand to keep you keen, but their pile of chips never really stops growing. With pure fascism, however, there’s no deck of cards and no game to play. The strongest of us becomes the leader and what they say is what happens. To maintain their position of power, they have to ensure the loyalty of the upper-class, which means the rewards for us can be even greater than under liberal fascism, though the risks can be greater too. Jealousy and paranoia can lead to fear and distrust, resulting in random members of the upper-class intermittently being made examples of and cast out of the upper-class, imprisoned or simply executed. That’s why being the leader, like Mr Hooterz, is so important. However, for the losers, there’s precious little difference between liberal fascism and fascism. Well, as long as you’re a heterosexual white male who doesn’t have an interest in chatting about politics in your favorite bar after a hard day at work. If you’re female, plaid, get confused picking the right restroom or want the right to whinge and complain about stuff, things don’t look so great, but even for them, it’s not all doom and gloom. Remember, the poorest 50% of Everythingers share just 2.5% of our nation’s wealth, but the poorest 50% of Nothingers share 3% of their country’s wealth. Doesn’t that sound crazy? The poorest 50% in an authoritarian fascist state have 20% more wealth than the poorest 50% in what you naively consider to be a democracy. So am I wrong about you and The People’s Party being liberal fascists, Troy?”
“You make it sound very clever, but that’s just your opinion, Hugo.”