The Fine Line Between Farce and Terror
One of my favorite films is Andy Garcia’s 2005 “The Lost City.” It’s the story of a Havana night club owner and his extended family, as they deal with the efforts to overthrow Batista and the effects of Castro’s 1959 success in doing so. Garcia, Havana-born in the mid-fifties, directed this pet project and played Fico Fellove, the club owner who tries hard to remain neutral while his father, brothers and sister-in-law become embroiled. As the Castro regime tightens its hold in the second half of the film, a rehearsal at his club is interrupted by a delegation from the “reformed” musician’s union. The spokeswoman for the group informs Fico that tonight’s show must be cancelled, unless the saxophone is removed from the band. You see, the instrument’s inventor, Adolph Sax, was a Belgian. And the Belgians had been brutal African colonizers. Fico is astonished, baffled and enraged.
I’ve watched the film a dozen times. Yet never before have I understood so well Fico’s reaction. As I write this, I too feel astonished, baffled and enraged. The source of my strong emotions is a story posted by the Federal News Network yesterday, to wit:
The Defense Department said “in rare cases” it has “deliberately or mistakenly” removed certain content as part of its efforts to erase diversity, equity and inclusion pages from its website. This statement comes after a webpage dedicated to Jackie Robinson's service was suddenly gone. Robinson’s webpage, along with content about the Navajo Code Talkers, the Tuskegee airmen, and the Marines at Iwo Jima, was initially removed as part of the department-wide purge of DEI content ordered by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Robinson’s page, titled ‘Sports Heroes Who Served: Baseball Great Jackie Robinson Was a World War Two Soldier,’ has been restored after public outcry without any content changes. Pentagon Press Secretary John Ullyot said the department is “pleased by the rapid compliance” with the Defense secretary’s directive to remove DEI content from all platforms.
Just as silly but infuriating as the saxophone scene in Garcia’s film, the DOD also took down all references to the Enola Gay, the airplane that dropped the A-bomb on Hiroshima. Want to guess why? All in all, about 26,000 images reportedly were flagged for removal. By the way, Hitler and Stalin also banned the saxophone. And photos of an Army Corps of Engineers dredging project were erased from the web because the lead engineer was named “Gay.” You beginning to catch my drift?
Totalitarianism, Left and Right. When I was studying for my doctorate in American Studies, a lifetime ago in a very different America, I learned that all totalitarianism —-whether of the left or the right —- is cut from the same cloth. Communism and Fascism at the end of the day are fungible. Mussolini started out as a socialist politician. Not so very long ago, Elon Musk was an Obama donor. The Nazis began as a workers’ party and the rhetoric of socialism persisted in their propaganda for quite awhile. For eight years Trump was a registered Democrat. Bottom line: An ideology is essential to totalitarianism, but the particulars and even the logic of the ideology are incidental. As one commentator, reviewing political theorist Hannah Arendt’s famous 1951 The Origins of Totalitarianism, puts it:
Arendt wrote about twentieth-century totalitarian movements like Communism and Nazism, but this also sounds an awful lot like the current relationship between state-influenced media (mass propaganda) and authoritarian leaders who use the democratic process to undermine democracy. On the surface, they share many of the same characteristics. We've all seen it happen; ideologues have an exceptional ability to swallow any spoonful of bullshit one day, and then pivot to believe the exact opposite the next day if the media's narrative says so.
Another important book, Friedrich and Brzezinski’s Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy, identifies the following characteristics of a totalitarian regime:
1. A single ruling party
2. An ideology
3. A terror mechanism
4. A communications monopoly
5. A directed economy
6. A weapons monopoly
The Trump/Musk Cabal (I use this word consciously, since we don’t know who among America’s billionaires has signed on, albeit Bezos and others have been much in evidence) enjoys none of the above in full measure. But let’s note that they do enjoy numbers (2), (3) and (6) in substantial measure. And they are working hard to discredit the Democratic Party; marginalize the Congress; and undermine the Judiciary.
Trump is better at it now than he was four years ago. January 2021 was his Beer Hall Putsch. This time he intends to get it right.
That’s why, as tempted as I was to poke fun at such silliness as erasing the Enola Gay from the DOD website, I instead have re-screened “The Lost City,” reminding myself how narrow is the line between authoritarian farce and totalitarian terror.
