Americans, please don’t go home! Pope calls for peace during Christmas Mass

Many boomers became politicized because of the Vietnam War. (Yes, me too.) The cruel and senseless slaughter in Southeast Asia, the music of Jimi Hendrix and films like ‘Easy Rider’ drove the boys into the streets, where they chanted ‘Ho-Ho-Ho-Chi Minh’ ( for the… Guys, that was the name of the president of North Vietnam at the time) and “Yanks, go home” were spray-painted on the walls.

The protest against the US was not an association with the Soviet Union or with the communism of the eastern states. On the contrary, statesmen like the strongman in the USSR, Leonid Brezhnev, or Walter Ulbricht, his counterpart in the GDR, embodied virtually the opposite of everything the Boomer generation held dear.

Meanwhile, the only thing known about China was Mao’s Little Red Book, which people laughed heartily at. Socialism was necessary, but with a human face, as the Czechs tried in 1968 before being crushed by the Soviets. Ultimately, the admiration for Che Guevara was more romantic than political.

What the boomers completely lacked, however, was the fear of losing democracy. The terms “fascism” and “fascist” were certainly used often, even too often, but usually in the watered-down form of “fascistoid.” This adjective was used to honor reactionary personalities – generals, judges, teachers, priests, etc. – or ridiculous cold warriors such as the FDP politician Ernst Cincera from Zurich. He spied on alleged left-wing enemies of the state and filed reports on them. That too was more funny than dangerous. Anyone who respected themselves on the left and could not produce a chip was downright insulted.

A rebirth of fascism still seems surreal somehow. Two Harvard political scientists, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, state in their recently published book “Tyranny of the Minority”: “Scholars have discovered that there are two patterns about modern political systems that are almost law-like: wealthy democracies never die, and old democracies never die.”

As far as Switzerland is concerned, this law appears to still be valid. Our political system is so focused on compromise that it seems almost impossible to break out into an authoritarian system. We speak of a political earthquake when one party gains a few percentage points. The outcome of the recent elections was largely in line with expectations. This should by no means cause us any headaches, as the maxim applies: when politics is boring, people are doing well.

However, the political climate around us has changed significantly in recent years. Not for the better: a party with fascist roots is already in power in Italy. In France, a victory for Marine Le Pen’s fascist party has become conceivable, if not probable, in the near future. The AfD’s triumph in Germany seems unstoppable, and it is better not to talk about Austria at all. The fact that Geert Wilders recently won the elections in the Netherlands cannot make us happy either.

Just as during the Second World War, it has become conceivable that Switzerland will one day be surrounded by authoritarian states. Although we can speculate about what consequences this will have for us, we cannot close our eyes to the fact that here too, authoritarian politicians are enjoying increasing popularity. When Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán recently visited Zurich at the invitation of Roger Köppel, he was warmly welcomed by former Federal Councilor Ueli Maurer and other SVP luminaries.

Viktor Orbán is the star of the post-fascist scene. He is admired by everyone on the far right because he has succeeded in largely undermining democracy and the rule of law. How did he do that?

Orbán came to power in 2010 thanks to a scandal within the Hungarian Socialist Party. The Majorz system in force in Hungary further strengthened his election victory. Orbán immediately began to secure his power. He had the constitution amended in such a way that he could appoint judges on his own authority. At the same time, he added four seats to the Constitutional Court, which he filled with judges loyal to him. He dismissed the independent president of this court.

After the court, Orbán addressed the media. The independent TV stations were soon converted into state television. More than a thousand people, including well-known journalists, were fired and replaced by loyal sycophants. When it came to private media, Orbán made sure they ended up in the hands of close friends. Today, about 90 percent of all media are de facto propaganda organs for the Fidesz party.

Finally, Orbán had the electoral system changed in such a way that it became almost impossible to remove him from power again. Opposition politicians find it very difficult to make themselves heard in the mainstream media and thanks to a Hungarian version of gerrymandering, the arbitrary division of constituencies, they need significantly more votes to defeat a Fidesz candidate.

All this has paid off. Elections are still being held in Hungary – the last in 2022 – but they have become a farce. The only thing that really matters is how high the Fidesz majority will be. “Viktor Orbán has achieved something extraordinary,” say Levitsky/Ziblatt. “Not only did he destroy a full-fledged democracy, he did it through almost legal means.”

Viktor Orbán proudly describes the Hungarian system as an ‘illiberal democracy’. Not only does this sound like the “managed democracy” Vladimir Putin is talking about, but it is. The Hungarian Prime Minister is a big fan of the Russian president and is doing everything he can to support him in his war against Ukraine.

Orbán provided the blueprint for a pseudo-legal transformation of a democracy into an authoritarian regime, and he is not only celebrated for it, but also copied. Tucker Carlson, America’s answer to Joseph Goebbels, made a pilgrimage to Budapest to interview him. But above all, Donald Trump praises him highly, even though he occasionally calls him the president of Turkey.

And that brings us to the core of the poodle. The future of democracy and the rule of law depends primarily on what will happen in the United States of America in 2024; and there the possibility of a new variant of fascism developing is no longer a fantasy of progressives. Trump now openly uses language based on Hitler. He describes his opponents as “vermin” and claims that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of the nation.”

He also has very specific plans for how, after an election victory, he would transform the US into an authoritarian system along the lines of Viktor Orbán. It is no coincidence that he says he would be a dictator ‘for one day’. Here are the key points of Trump’s intentions:

If Trump were to succeed in transforming the oldest democracy into an authoritarian system, it would not only be a catastrophe for Americans. You can also catch a glimpse of the geopolitical shocks:

If NATO disintegrates, the balance of power in Europe will fundamentally change. As is known, Putin wants to revive the Soviet Union – albeit without communism – and restore Russia as a great power. This means that he would by no means be satisfied with a victory in Ukraine. Before his invasion, he openly stated that he wanted to push NATO back to the borders with Germany. This means that Moldova and Georgia, as well as Poland, Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and the Baltic states, would again become vassals of Russia, just as during the Iron Curtain era.

Germany would also be in trouble. Unlike Britain and France, the country does not have its own nuclear weapons and relies on American protection. If this protection ends, very turbulent times will also dawn in Berlin. Sooner or later we would have to dress warmly in Switzerland too.

When looking ahead to a new year, the term ‘historic times’ is often used. This time this is not an empty formula. The liberal world order of the West is under threat, only dream dancers can ignore this. A new form of fascism has become not only conceivable, but also possible. Anyone who tries to downplay this with the objection of the ‘club of fascism’ is failing to recognize a ‘clear and present danger’. And by the way: Fascism is not synonymous with the Holocaust and Auschwitz, it can also be done without anti-Semitism.

The anti-Americanism of the Boomer generation was justified. Vietnam was not the only crime committed by the United States. Under the motto “He’s a bastard, but he’s our bastard,” Americans have supported dictators from Indonesia to Bangladesh to Africa in so-called proxy wars, and both have turned a blind eye to their atrocities. The highlight was her role in the bloody coup against Salvador Allende, the legitimately elected president of Chile, in 1973.

Today, however, we are faced with a very different situation. Today it is the neo-fascists who, together with a few inveterate old Stalinists, demand that Europe emancipate itself from the US. It is the Roger Köppels, the Matteo Salvinis, the Björn Höckes or the Herbert Kickls and all the neo-fascists who loudly make this demand. That alone should make us suspicious.

Today, Europe needs the Americans as rarely before, provided it manages to keep Donald Trump away from the White House. Therefore, we must hope that the ‘orange Jesus’ is shipwrecked – and that we can then say a prayer to heaven with the message: ‘Amis, please don’t go home!’ We don’t have to spray it on the walls of the house anymore.