The 15% Solution

The truth is stranger than fiction - a review of The 15% Solution

The truth is stranger than fiction

A brief review of The 15% Solution: A Political History of American Fascism, 2001-2022, by Jonathan Westminster and published by the Thomas Jefferson Press, New York.

Michael Carmichael

The merger of the Republican party with the right-wing religious evangelism of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell; the supreme exaltation of the executive branch of government initiated by Nixon, Reagan and Bush; the congressional acquiescence in extraordinary powers to the presidency; the 'voluntary' censorship of the press; the suspension of civil rights; the retraction of the fourth amendment; the isolation from constitutional protection for targeted segments of society; the systematic insinuation of civilians into domestic espionage; the use of torture in prisons; the perversion of the concept of American patriotism to mean nothing more than political support for the president; the reduction of government to military and police operations; the implementation of vast secret police forces; engagement in ill-defined foreign wars; tax cuts for the rich; dissolution of domestic social programmes; merger of state and christian church; deletion of women's rights to terminate pregnancies; legalisation of marital rape, incest and domestic violence; scientific confirmation of the intellecutal inferiority of racial groups; ; racial discrimination in law enforcement and criminal justice; repeal of environmental protection laws and the dissolution of the EPA; large scale timber felling and mineral expoitation in national parks by private corporations; the political implosion of the Democratic Party
- Sound familiar? If so, then imagine that somewhere in America, a single solitary visionary at work alone in his garret produced a novel based on the scenario above. Now imagine the date: 1996. Jonathan Westminster has done precisely that.

In 1996, Westminster envisioned that the sociopolitical trends launched in the postwar period would coagulate and merge into a tide of fascist ideology. He predicted that the political mobilisation of the right-wing of American society would result in the destruction of civil liberties, the bill of rights and the constitution by perfectly constitutional means. In so doing, Westminster has provided a detailed blueprint for the current Bush administration, which from many vantage points appears to be moving the United States inexorably in the direction of the fascist governments of the 1930s. Given the circumstances, it is clear that the present US adminsitration may yet fulfill The 15% Solution's core premise, a fascist takeover of US government by purely peaceful, legal and electoral means.

The 15% solution of the title is a reference to the Reverend Pat Robertson's stated political strategy: to mobilise the 15% of hard right-wing loonies, gun nuts, religious fanatics and cross burners and to engineer the simultaneous disaffection, disenfranchisement and alienation of a substantial proportion of the American electorate in order to seize political power through the polls. In Westminser's vision of a dystopian American future, a second final solution is eventually implemented. The extermination of homosexuals, blacks and other racial minorities and ethnic groups becomes popular as a necessity to ensure the national security and the morality of the American fascist state.

Westminster provides a new definition of patriotism, "Love of one's country, and devotion to the defense of its best interests." According to Westminster, patriotism is not, "Blind devotion to the President and what he alone claims the country's best interests are." He continues, "Republicans depend heavily upon the latter, false, definition of patriotism. They always couch patriotism in terms of militaristic symbols and loyalty to the President. Thus they focus on: the flag itself (not what it stands for in terms of personal freedom): America is always right (regardless of whose interests are really being served or harmed by what policy): militarism (the easy response to difficult challenges): and 'support the President' (this latter position being especially perverse in light of the supposed Republican aversion to 'government,' especially the Federal government)."

Instead, Westminster redefines patriotism as devotion to the principles enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights. This shift in understanding the historical orgins at the heart of patriotism in America falsifies the prevailing creed driving the Republican agenda. While the author would probably deny it, he is a scholar of American Constitutional history and Constitutional law. The essence of his case is that a series of Republican administrations beginning with Nixon have undermined the constitution to the point that the political slide into a fascist future is inevitable. The acquiescence of the Democratic Party in this process has not gone unnoticed. Westminster squarely blames Democrats of the 1980s-90s for failing to respond to the lies at the root of the problems facing contemporary America. In The 15% Solution, the historical period of the 1980s-90s is termed "the pre-fascist transformational period in American history". Westminister lashes out specifically at the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) as the onus of the political collaboration with the fascist ideologies underpining the Republicanism of Limbaugh, Falwell, Robertson, Buchanan, the Bushes, Reagan and Gingrich. Truman's sagacious warning to the Democratic party to be faithful and steadfast to the tradition of FDR rings throughout The 15% Solution, "If people want to vote for Republicans, they will vote the for the real thing, not Democrats warmed over and disguised as Republicans."

Westminster's book is filled with fictional characters who constantly refer to the well known ideological leaders and paragons of the American right. The characters embark on the morality-driven dismantling of the constitution while quoting the speeches of Buchanan, Robertson and Falwell. Westminster's book warns America that the inspirational potential of the religious right cannot be underestimated, and that to ignore their direct threat to liberty and justice will lead to the imposition of a fascist state headquartered in Washington within the very near future.

In years to come, The 15% Solution will be either: hailed as a visionary book that could have prevented the political imposition of fascism in America or the book that actually prevented it. As groundbreaking as Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin or London's The Iron Fist, The 15% Solution is a wakeup call to all Americans seriously concerned about their country's future.

The 15% Solution by Jonathan Westminster, 480 pp., can be ordered from Library Research Associates, Inc.
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Hardcover: $37.95 Paperback: $29.95