Not a fascist

Boris Johnson is not a fascist. But he's also not really a person.

It's possible to theorise endlessly about what made Johnson what he is: was it being born into a privileged class? reading a subject at university (inevitably Oxford) which might have been designed to instil a vastly inflated sense of self-worth in students who largely already saw themselves as innately superior, all while teaching them nothing useful about the last fifteen hundred years of history? was it some pop-psychology pathology of his mind?

Does it matter? No.

Johnson is a best regarded as a machine whose purpose is to accrue power, sex and glory to himself and, perhaps, his uncounted offspring, with no consideration of the cost to anyone else. Within the limits of his intelligence¹, Johnson will do only what benefits him personally, without any regard for the harm it may cause others. He is, in fact, a parasite.

Famously, Johnson wrote both a pro-brexit and an anti-brexit article in 2016, eventually publishing the pro-brexit one. This is sometimes portrayed, usually by Johnson himself or one of his mouthpieces, as demonstrating the profound thought he put into his decision. And, perhaps, it does, but the decision was not what would be better for the UK. Johnson does not care what is better for the UK, because Johnson does not care, at all, about the UK: he cares only about himself. The decision he had to make was only what would be better for Boris Johnson. And he made the correct decision: if brexit was chosen then he was in an extremely strong position to rise to supreme power in the UK, as he has in fact done. If brexit had not been chosen he would have been seen as the noble leader of a glorious lost cause: not quite so good an outcome but better than the mediocrity which is all his limited talents would grant him otherwise.

Johnson doesn't have political beliefs: his only belief is in Boris Johnson. Well, if he doesn't have political beliefs, he can't be a fascist, can he? No, he can't, but this too does not matter: he is not a fascist but the end point of the trajectory he is leading us on is, nonetheless, fascism. That's because fascism has three nice features for him.

Firstly fascism revolves around strong leaders who are invariably glorified, if not actually worshipped, by the people they rule. Unsurprisingly this appeals, a great deal, to Johnson.

Secondly fascism is all about rhetoric: the glorious leader stands at the podium in front of the massed ranks of his supporters and inspires them with elegantly-expressed lies, in return for their worship. Johnson is good at elegantly expressing lies: in fact it's really all he is good at.

Finally fascism is based on providing simple, appealing answers to complicated, unappealing problems. If you want to know why your life is not working out so well, why, 'it's those filthy Europeans, isn't it they're just not like us? Also the gypsies, and certainly the Jews must be involved somewhere as they always are. And of course, although we are not allowed to mention call them that now as the liberal PC police will be down on us, the queers and the wogs, and the ragheads. We should, you know, deal with them'. And those ideas are appealing: they appealed to a lot of people in the 1930s and they still appeal today². And the solutions offered are also appealing: you may think that you don't like the idea of torturing and killing a lot of people, but you really do. Very large numbers of people in in the Roman republic and empire had a very good time watching other people be torn apart by animals, each other and worse things than that, and we are not different than those people: we pretend we would not like to watch or partake in that but very many of us would.

And Johnson is both not clever enough to actually work out what the real answers to the complex, unappealing problems which face us are³ or in fact interested in doing so: why should he spend time on hard thinking when it does not benefit him personally? As he would no doubt be able to quote at length:

iam pridem, ex quo suffragia nulli / uendimus, effudit curas; nam qui dabat olim / imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se / continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat, / panem et circenses. – Juvenal, Satire 10, 77-81

So this is where he will lead us: our glorious leader with his golden stream of lies and his panem et circenses: he will lead us to fascism.

Boris Johnson is a parasite, and the host he devours is us.

If you tolerate this, then your children will be next – Spanish civil war poster