On May 12, California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, demanded that cities throughout the state adopt anti-camping ordinances that would effectively ban public homelessness by requiring unhoused individuals to relocate every 72 hours.
While presented as a humanitarian effort to reduce homelessness, the new policy victimizes California’s growing unhoused population—approximately 187,000 people—by tying funding in Proposition 1 to local laws banning sleeping or camping on public land.
In his announcement, Newsom pushed local governments to adopt the draconian ordinances “without delay.”
this kind of talk, and focus on unachievable ideologically pure outcomes, is why the undeniably most-facist party is in total control right now, you dope.
Progress has always been an unachieveable ideologically pure outcome for both Democrats and Republicans
Not eating that propaganda that we can’t do better and demand better from our leaders
Do you know what fascism is? I am not saying that Newsom is exhibiting fascist behavior as some cheap and quick pejorative. I’m not using fascism as a synonym for “bad” here. I’m pointing out that this kind of policy literally is the textbook definition of fascism.
This is fascism 101. Among Umberto Eco’s 14 common features of fascism is the cult of action for action’s sake.
Your response would make sense if I was complaining that the police disbanding camps simply wasn’t going to enough good. But this action doesn’t help anyone. It doesn’t reduce homelessness at all. In fact, it actually makes homelessness worse. Every time camps are torn down, people lose possessions and documents they need to escape homelessness. If you bulldoze a homeless camp, you’re sending a fair number of personal and ID documents to the landfill. Every time you clear a camp, you’re making it that much harder for people to actually get back on their feet.
This isn’t the perfect being the enemy of the good. This is simply an unambiguously harmful policy that does no good at all for the community.
Why is this action fascist? It meets several of Eco’s points. From the linked list numbers:
(3) Cult of action for action’s sake. It is purely performative. It will actually increase the number of unhoused people, as the more unstable someone’s situation, the harder it is to return to housing. It’s an objectively negative policy, but people support it because Newsom is “doing something.” This meets Eco’s point 3, the cult of action.
(6) Appeal to social frustration. People are tired of seeing the homeless and being reminded of their own precarious state. Better sweep them out of view.
(10) Contempt for the weak. Pretty obvious. These people have simply been priced out of the housing market. But Newsom vilifies these people and treats them like animals.
(12) Machismo and weaponry. Better send in the SWAT team to tear down some tents.
This is quite literally textbook fascism. I’m not condemning camp sweeps because they fail to meet some ideological purity test. I’m condemning them because they’re completely unproductive and are a textbook definition of fascist policy.