FASCISM AUTHORIT 4

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SEE FIVE FASCISM5

9/25/20

see trump coup / big lie

see pentagon

see xian nat'lism

patriot nationalist

see hype/ fear

see polarization/ demonization

see alt fact Earth2

see racism

NOTE FOX TUCKER ON "Patriot Purge,"

see reductionism/ hierarchy

see psychology

see norms

see bolsonaro orbach hungary, meloni

see RWW Early Warning System on Extremist Candidates

BAK CAPT 11 25

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AN 11 23

Former President Donald Trump’s rhetoric has regularly bordered on the incitement of violence. Lately, however, it has become even more violent. Yet both the press and the public have largely just shrugged their shoulders.

As a political philosopher who studies extremism, I believe people should be more worried about this.

Mark Milley, the outgoing chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, is guilty of “treason,” Trump said in September 2023, just for reassuring the Chinese that the U.S. had no plans to attack in the waning days of the Trump administration. And for this, Trump says, Milley deserves death.

And back in April, Trump said that his indictment by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg would result in “death and destruction.” Then, in early October, Trump urged people to “go after” Letitia James, the New York attorney general who filed suit against him for business fraud.

Trump’s prior rhetoric is also now on record as having inspired many of those convicted to engage in insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

But it is not just government officials whom Trump suggests be targeted for extrajudicial killings. Mere shoplifters should be killed too. “Very simply, if you rob a store, you can fully expect to be shot as you are leaving,” Trump said to cheers at the California Republican Party convention in September.

Trump supporters storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

More than crazy bluster

This rhetoric may seem like crazy bluster, which is no doubt why many people appear prepared to ignore it. But put in its historical context, what Trump is doing is echoing views that are part of a long tradition of illiberal and outright fascist thought. For fascists have always seen the use of violence as a virtue, not a vice.

First, this is the natural result of the way that fascist communities define themselves. According to Carl Schmitt, a prominent Nazi and for a time the official legal theorist of the party under Adolf Hitler, one builds and maintains a community by identifying and vilifying its enemies. And in this kind of highly polarized environment, the threat of violence always hangs in the air.

Second, among fascists, machismo is much admired. Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, whose own outrageous rhetoric has also encouraged violent behavior by his supporters, simply “beamed” when Russian President Vladimir Putin praised him for his masculinity.

Trump often acts as a sycophant for Putin too, and machismo also is a big part of Trump’s own public persona.

Third, fascists are obsessed with purity. They long for a world where they can live among their own racial, ethnic, religious and ideological kind on land they view as exclusively theirs.

But in the real world, people are too intermixed for this to occur naturally. True purity of community is an aspiration that can be made real only through violence and subjugation. Hence the Holocaust,genocide and ethnic cleansing, and other more limited attacks on minority and immigrant populations.

Violence as noble and intoxicating

Fascists, then, see violence as noble and intoxicating. For example, Julius Evola, a far-right intellectual active in Italy from 1920 to 1970 and the author, among other things, of “Fascism Viewed from the Right” and “A Handbook for Right-Wing Youth,” writes that violence “offers man the opportunity to awaken the hero that sleeps within him.”

Today, Evola is a favorite of the alt-right, and he suggests that a hero’s death is preferable to a life built on liberal compromise. “The moment the individual succeeds in living as a hero,” Evola writes, “even if it is the final moment of his earthly life, weighs infinitely more on the scale of values than a protracted existence consuming monotonously among the trivialities of cities.”

The ultraconservative Catholic authoritarian and opponent of the French Revolution Joseph de Maistre, who is recognized as one of the intellectual forefathers of fascism, goes even further.

“The whole earth, perpetually steeped in blood, is nothing but a vast altar upon which all that is living must be sacrificed without end, without measure, without pause, until the consummation of things, until evil is extinct, until the death of death,” Maistre writes. Indeed, without an executioner, the man who kills other men, Maistre claims society could not exist. For violence is necessary to satisfy “men’s natural desire to be destructive,” he writes; it leaves them feeling “exalted and fulfilled.”

Patriot Front – labeled a ‘white supremacist group’ by the Anti-Defamation League – marches in Washington, D.C., in May 2023.

Nathan Posner/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Social disruption and destruction

These comments make clear that fascists see violence as something to be used for more than just personal retribution and intimidation. It is to be used to create wider social disruption and destruction. Not only are individuals to be subject to attack, but institutions and norms as well.

Consider “The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy,” a work by two amateur historians popular on the far right.

The book is actually a restatement of Evola’s theory of historical regression, set forth in his “Revolt against the Modern World.”

The idea is that history moves in cycles, the first one being the best and each one thereafter representing a further decline. The fourth cycle is the worst, and it ends only when all existing social institutions are destroyed. This, in turn, is an application of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s idea that “one can build only in a space which has been previously razed to the ground.”

Then history will reset and cycle once again.

Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon admires these ideas so much he made a movie about them.

Trump appears to embrace these ideas too. “When the economy crashes, when the country goes to total hell, and everything is a disaster, then you’ll have riots to go back to where we used to be, when we were great,” he says.

Viewed in this context, not taking Trump’s violent rhetoric more seriously seems dangerous indeed.

Mark R. Reiff, Research Affiliate in Legal and Political Philosophy, *University of California, Davis

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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an ah 12 22

The MAGA movement suffered a long list of disappointments in the 2022 midterms, which found Donald Trump-backed candidates losing statewide gubernatorial or U.S. Senate races in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia and other swing states. But one MAGA candidate who performed extremely well in the midterms was Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and he did it without Trump campaigning for him.

DeSantis ran a far-right reelection campaign, defeating Democratic nominee Charlie Crist (a former Republican and ex-Florida governor) by 19 percent. Florida, in fact, is the one place where Republicans really did enjoy a major red wave in the 2022 midterms. And some right-wing pundits, including author Ann Coulter, are urging the GOP to nominate DeSantis, not Trump, in the 2024 presidential election — assuming that DeSantis decides to run.

DeSantis doesn’t pretend to be moderate; being a far-right culture warrior is his brand. Journalist/author and scholar Henry A. Giroux analyzes DeSantis’ appeal in a scathing article published by Truthout on December 16, and he doesn’t sugarcoat anything. DeSantis, Giroux warns, is “fueling the emergence of fascist politics in the United States.”

“While some pundits have connected DeSantis’ politics to an emerging authoritarianism,” Giroux explains, “they still fail both to name the ongoing development of fascism in the U.S. and to recognize that it takes different forms in different societies and historical formations. They dismiss any talk of fascism by suggesting that its unique historical attributes, such as the genocidal use of concentration camps, have to be repeated precisely in order to assign the term fascism to present events. Fascism is never entirely interred in the past; it is a dangerous ideology that may go into remission but never disappears.”

Giroux continues, “Fascism is a recurrent and infinitely translatable phenomenon and often takes on the cultural and political attributes of the societies in which it appears. The refusal to acknowledge that fascism can appear in many forms, often lying dormant in a society until the emergence of certain forces unleash it, reinforces the willingness of many to retreat into silence or ignore the seriousness of the emerging fascist threat. Expressing ourselves in words, learning from history and making connections among disparate events all matter in the age of fascism.”

Giroux stresses that when one is analyzing fascism, it’s important to recognize patterns and understand how individual events fit into the big picture — events like DeSantis sending migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts or Trump having dinner with white nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago.

“Fascist politics saturate U.S. society,” Giroux warns. “Ultranationalism, the calls for racial purity, voter suppression, hyper-militarism, required loyalty oaths from higher education faculty, rampant censorship, a ubiquitous anti-intellectualism, and a full-fledged attack on social provisions and public goods make clear that democracy is in crisis. Yet, in too many cases, the larger significance of these incendiary calamities is missed because they are treated as separate from each other…. DeSantis’ publicity stunt of using migrants as political pawns was also disconnected in the mainstream and liberal media from his attempt to erase the history of the Jim Crow era as part of his larger project of a politics of disposability.”

Giroux continues, “For instance, little was said connecting this racist policy to DeSantis’ passing laws banning books about Black history and racial narratives from schools and libraries, along with limiting what teachers can teach about racism — a policy that clearly indicates how DeSantis is following in the footsteps of the Nazification of education in Hitler’s Germany.”

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a far-right authoritarian, has drawn a great deal of admiration among MAGA Republicans — including Fox News’ Tucker Carlson.And Giroux outlines some parallels between DeSantis and Orbán.

“Following in the footsteps of Viktor Orbán, the authoritarian leader who has turned Hungary into a fascist country, DeSantis has waged a war on immigrants, targeted gay and transgender youth, purged voters, banned books in Florida schools, limited what teachers can say about racism and other critical elements of American history, and used state power to punish businesses, evident in his ruthless and vindictive attack on Disney,” Giroux observes. “He has also used policing to punish Black voters who disagree with his policies, courted Christian nationalists, supported a white nationalist agenda and waged a war on higher education. There is little doubt that DeSantis has turned Florida into a laboratory of fascist politics.”

rww 12 22

...Early Warning System on Extremist Candidates

Right Wing Watch provided an early warning system on some of the most far-right candidates running for state and national office this year, educating journalists and ensuring that campaign coverage helped voters understand that dangerous extremism was on the ballot.

Right Wing Watch began covering Christian nationalist Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano well before he became the Republican nominee for governor—even before he entered the race. Mastriano was a major promoter of Trump’s false stolen-election claims in Pennsylvania and used campaign funds to bus supporters to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

This April, Right Wing Watch broke the story about Mastriano’s appearance at a “Patriots Arise” conference organized by QAnon conspiracy theorists Alan and Francine Fosdick, who awarded Mastriano a “sword of David.” Mastriano told the crowd that he would be elected governor because “my God will make it so.” Right Wing Watch also documented Mastriano’s ties to antisemitism promoter Andrew Torba of Gab, dominionist Lance Wallnau, and a conspiracy-promoting road show led by businessman Clay Clark and former Trump adviser Michael Flynn.

Right Wing Watch’s reporting on Mastriano was cited or used by hundreds of editorials and news stories, including those in national outlets like the New York Times and major Pennsylvania outlets like the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Another candidate whose extremism had long been documented by Right Wing Watch was Michael Peroutka, a neo-Confederate and Christian nationalist with far-right views about the U.S. Constitution, who was chosen by Maryland Republicans as their candidate for state attorney general. As Right Wing Watch noted at the time, it was outrageous to imagine Peroutka as the state’s chief law enforcement officer given that “Peroutka declared in 2014 that the Maryland General Assembly was no longer a legitimate governing body because its support for marriage equality violated God’s law, and that therefore none of the laws it passed were ‘legally valid and legally enforceable.’”

When Peroutka won the GOP nomination, news outlets from Vice to the Washington Post turned to Right Wing Watch and its years of covering Peroutka’s extremism. The Washington Post linked to our coverage of Peroutka leading the crowd in Dixie.

https://www.alternet.org/2022/11/fascism-right-wing/

warnings that leaders like Donald Trump hold a dagger at the throat of democracy have evoked a sense of befuddlement among moderates. How can so many Republicans – voters, once reasonable-sounding officeholders and the new breed of activists who claim to be superpatriots committed to democracy – be acting like willing enablers of democracy’s destruction?

As a political philosopher, I spend a lot of time studying those who believe in authoritarian, totalitarian and other repressive forms of government, on both the right and the left. Some of these figures don’t technically identify themselves as fascists, but they share important similarities in their ways of thinking.

One of the most articulate thinkers in this group was the early-20th-century philosopher Giovanni Gentile, whom Italian dictator Benito Mussolini called “the philosopher of fascism.” And many fascists, like Gentile, claim they are not opposed to democracy. On the contrary, they think of themselves as advocating a more pure version of it.

Unity of leader, nation-state and people

The idea that forms the bedrock of fascism is that there is a unity between the leader, the nation-state and the people.

For instance, Mussolini famously claimed that “everything is in the state, and nothing human or spiritual exists, much less has value, outside the state.” But this is not an end to be achieved. It is the point from which things begin.

This is how Trump, according to those around him, can believe “I am the state” and equate what is good for him is by definition also good for the country. For while this view may seem inconsistent with democracy, this is true only if society is viewed as a collection of individuals with conflicting attitudes, preferences and desires.

But fascists have a different view. For example, Othmar Spann, whose thought was highly influential during the rise of fascism in Austria in the 1920s and 1930s, argued that society is not “the summation of independent individuals,” for this would make society a community only in a “mechanical” and therefore trivial sense.

On the contrary, for Spann and others, society is a group whose members share the same attitudes, beliefs, desires, view of history, religion, language and so on. It is not a collective;it is more like what Spann describes as a “super-individual.” And ordinary individuals are more like cells in a single large biological organism, not competing independent organisms important in themselves.

This sort of society could indeed be democratic. Democracy is intended to give effect to the will of the people, but it doesn’t require that society be diverse and pluralistic. It does not tell us who “the people” are.

Who are the people?

According to fascists, only those who share the correct attributes can be part of “the people” and therefore true members of society. Others are outsiders, perhaps tolerated as guests if they respect their place and society feels generous. But outsiders have no right to be part of the democratic order: Their votes should not count.

This helps explain why Tucker Carlson claims “our democracy is no longer functioning,” because so many nonwhites have the vote. It also helps explain why Carlson and others so vigorously promote the “great replacement theory,” the idea that liberals are encouraging immigrants to come to the U.S. with the specific purpose of diluting the political power of “true” Americans.

The importance of seeing the people as an exclusive, privileged group, one that actually includes rather than is represented by the leader, is also at work when Trump denigrates Republicans who defy him, even in the smallest ways, as “Republicans in Name Only.” The same is also true when other Republicans call for these “in-house” critics to be cast out of the party, for to them any disloyalty is equivalent to defying the will of the people.

How representative democracy is undemocratic

Ironically, it is all the checks and balances and the endless intermediate levels of representative government that fascists view as undemocratic. For all these do is interfere with the ability of the leader to give direct effect to the will of the people as they see it.

Here is Libyan dictator and Arab nationalist Moammar Gadhafi on this issue in 1975:

“Parliament is a misrepresentation of the people, and parliamentary systems are a false solution to the problem of democracy. … A parliament is … in itself … undemocratic as democracy means the authority of the people and not an authority acting on their behalf.”

In other words, to be democratic, a state does not need a legislature. All it needs is a leader.

How is the leader identified?

For the fascist, the leader is certainly not identified through elections. Elections are simply spectacles meant to announce the leader’s embodiment of the will of the people to the world.

But the leader is supposed to be an extraordinary figure, larger than life. Such a person cannot be selected through something as pedestrian as an election. Instead, the leader’s identity must be gradually and naturally “revealed,” like the unveiling of religious miracle, says Nazi theorist Carl Schmitt.

For Schmitt and others like him, then, these are the true hallmarks of a leader, one who embodies the will of the people: intense feeling expressed by supporters, large rallies, loyal followers, the consistent ability to demonstrate freedom from the norms that govern ordinary people, and decisiveness.

So when Trump claims “I am your voice” to howls of adoration, as happened at the 2016 Republican National Convention, this is supposed to be a sign that he is exceptional, part of the unity of nation-state and leader, and that he alone meets the above criteria for leadership. The same was true when Trump announced in 2020 that the nation is broken, saying “I alone can fix it.” To some, this even suggests he is sent by God.

If people accept the above criteria for what identifies a true leader, they can also understand why Trump claims he attracted bigger crowds than President Joe Biden when explaining why he could not have lost the 2020 presidential election. For, as Spann wrote a century earlier, “one should not count votes, but weigh them such that the best, not the majority prevails.”

Besides, why should the mild preference of 51% prevail over the intense preference of the rest? Is not the latter more representative of the will of the people? These questions certainly sound like something Trump might ask, even though they are actually taken from Gadhafi again.

The duty of the individual

In a true fascist democracy, then, everyone is of one mind about everything of importance. Accordingly, everyone intuitively knows what the leader wants them to do.

It is therefore each person’s responsibility, citizen or official, to “work towards the leader” without needing specific orders. Those who make mistakes will soon learn of it. But those who get it right will be rewarded many times over.

So argued Nazi politician Werner Willikens. And so, it appears, thought Trump when he demanded absolute loyalty and obedience from his administration officials.

But most importantly, according to their own words, so thought many of the insurrectionists on Jan. 6, 2021, when they tried to prevent the confirmation of Biden’s election. And so Trump signaled when he subsequently promised to pardon the rioters.

With that, the harmonization of democracy and fascism is complete.

Mark R Reiff, Research Affiliate in Legal and Political Philosophy, University of California, Davis

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

an 11 22

This recent New York Times headline offers a perfect prospective epitaph for America's ailing democracy and its potential imminent demise: "Voters See Democracy in Peril, but Saving It Isn't a Priority."

The details are grim. Voters "overwhelmingly believe American democracy is under threat, but seem remarkably apathetic about that danger," with relatively few calling it "the nation's most pressing problem," according to a new poll conducted for the Times by Siena College. More than one-third of independent voters in the poll "said they were open to supporting candidates who reject the legitimacy of the 2020 election," because economic concerns were more urgent. While 71 percent of voters agreed that "democracy was at risk," only 7 percent said that was the country's most important problem.

The Times' analysis conformed to a depressing current of conventional wisdom, concluding that "for many Americans, this year's midterm elections will be largely defined by rising inflation and other economic woes," reflecting a deeply rooted "cynicism" about government. This particular portrait reinforces what political scientists and other experts have long known about voting and other political behavior in this country.

Most Americans are relatively unsophisticated in their understanding of politics and public policy, and tend to be disengaged on issues beyond the few that appear to be of immediate concern to them, their families or their communities, barring a national emergency or crisis that demands collective attention. But even that kind of increased salience does not necessarily translate into an accurate or factual understanding of the policies in question. For example, the COVID pandemic certainly became a major national issue, but also fueled widespread disinformation about vaccines and public health measures. The 2020 election transfixed the nation for weeks, but Donald Trump's Big Lie narrative about that election has not faded away.

There are exceptions. Because of their experience navigating the color line, the contradictions of American democracy and the country's long history of white supremacy and racism, Black Americans, as a group, often tend to be more sophisticated than white Americans in terms of political decision-making.

Most Americans are not ideological, meaning that they do not possess a coherent and consistent worldview that drives voting and other political behavior. In the aggregate, the American people tend to take their cues from trusted elites about how they should think about politics and what they should do about it. Partisanship and voting are proxies for other social identities, not independent of them.

It is often said that the American people are increasingly polarized on politics. That's true enough, but it fundamentally reflects how the political elites, opinion leaders, and a small percentage of highly politically engaged individuals drive mass behavior.

As the New York Times/Siena College poll and accompanying analysis reinforces, immediate financial concerns and judgments about the economy (aka "pocketbook issues") appear to influence political behavior for many Americans. But even this commonplace observation is more complicated than it appears. "The economy," as a political decision tool, is fraught with pitfalls and inconsistencies. In the aggregate, it may not even matter nearly as much in determining political decision-making as many experts and other observers have long assumed. Political scientists Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels make this intervention in their book "Democracy for Realists":

[I]t is by no means obvious that voters can ascertain how incumbents have performed simply by assessing changes in their own welfare. If jobs have been lost in a recession, something is wrong, but is that the president's fault? If it is not, then voting on the basis of good or bad economic conditions may be no more efficacious than killing the pharaoh when the Nile fails to flood or voting against Woodrow Wilson when sharks attack the Jersey shore…. Or, as Theodore Roosevelt put it while he coped with the Panic of 1907, "When the average man loses his money he is simply like a wounded snake and strikes right or left at anything, innocent or the reverse, that presents itself as conspicuous in his mind."

An even more fundamental problem is that voters may have great difficulty accurately assessing changes in their welfare — even with respect to national economic conditions, which are highly salient and carefully monitored by professional economists in and out of government.

Many Americans do not think systematically about politics, society or the economy and are not likely to make connections between an apparently abstract concept like "democracy" and the specific issues they care about. But it's also true that political elites, media commentators and other opinion leaders who claim to believe in democracy have failed to explain to a broad public audience how and why democracy has a substantive impact on the average person's daily life.

There is an even more cynical explanation: As a group, America's elites do not particularly want a well-informed and highly engaged public. Such a public might pose an effective challenge to the outsized power of those elites, and by doing so expose how far they have imposed their narrow set of interests on public policy. Here is Chris Hedges,in a recent essay republished at Salon:

The step from dysfunctional democracy to full-blown fascism was, and will again be, a small one. The hatred for the ruling class, embodied by the establishment Republican and Democratic parties, which have merged into one ruling party, is nearly universal. The public, battling inflation that is at a 40-year high and cost the average U.S. household an additional $717 a month in July alone, will increasingly see any political figure or political party willing to attack the traditional ruling elites as an ally. The more crude, irrational or vulgar the attack, the more the disenfranchised rejoice. These sentiments are true here and in Europe, where energy costs are expected to rise by as much as 80 percent this winter and an inflation rate of 10 percent is eating away at incomes.

The reconfiguration of society under neoliberalism to exclusively benefit the billionaire class, the slashing and privatization of public services, including schools, hospitals and utilities, along with deindustrialization, the profligate pouring of state funds and resources into the war industry, at the expense of the nation's infrastructure and social services, and the building of the world's largest prison system and militarization of police, have predictable results.

At the heart of the problem is a loss of faith in traditional forms of government and democratic solutions.

In a recent interview with me for Salon, social psychologist Shawn Rosenberg offered similar observations, saying that "the Achilles heel of democracy is that the people, meaning the citizenry, do not understand the larger political and governmental systemand its values," and are therefore "susceptible to a populist message." He mainly attributes this toAmerica's dysfunctional educational system, which has "failed to educate the public to understand complex questions of society and politics":

It's not that large parts of the American public are inherently evil or bad. It's just that when they look around at the world, they don't understand what's going on. They don't understand why it's so hard to solve some of these problems we're facing, why it's so hard to govern and why they're supposed to respect people who they believe are obviously wrong. ... Right-wing populism offers simple answers and simple solutions and simple characterizations of what the world is like. Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis and other such Republican leaders are offering that vision and those answers.

Meanwhile, members of the media and political classes often make the error of generalizing from their own experience and knowledge to the public as a whole, leading to a whole range of incorrect assumptions, misguided conclusions and overall misunderstandings. Thus we get the perpetual of real or feigned shock and surprise from pundits, commentators and mainstream political leaders when faced with the Republican Party's fascist campaign against American democracy. Political scientist Jonathan Renshon addressed this in an interview with Politico last June:

Absolutely nothing is stopping elites from using the same public opinion data that academics or the public has access to, and yet we still see compelling evidence that elites misread public opinion, either because of stereotypes they hold about the public, over-weighting their own preferences, or unequal exposure to particular constituencies or special interests. As we saw in the 2020 presidential election campaign, it's also not unusual for politicians to discount or dismiss public opinion polls when they don't like the results. In a larger sense, this is not surprising: There are many domains in which access to more or more accurate information doesn't necessarily reduce the tendency for bias to creep into our judgments.

In total, the recent New York Times poll just offers further evidence that the American people may claim to be concerned about "democracy," but are fundamentally unclear as to the cause of the crisis and have no idea what to do about it. It's actually worse than that, in that many Americans don't even pretend to care about democracy and are more concerned about lower prices for gas and groceries — and have no problem trading away their rights and freedoms for the promise of ending inflation.

In a similarly dark vein, a new CBS News poll finds that 63 percent of likely Democratic voters believe that a functioning democracy is more important than a strong economy, but that those numbers are more than reversed among Republicans, 70 percent of whom rank a "strong economy" (whatever that means) above a functioning democracy.

It's not hyperbolic or metaphorical to describe those numbers as a textbook example of how democracy gradually, and then more swiftly, rots away and succumbs to fascism. The naive faith that "it can't happen here" is severely misplaced: It's happening here right now.

https://www.alternet.org/2022/10/right-wing-zombie-populists-power/

After former U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss announced her resignation, there was much talk in the British media about the Conservative Party making Boris Johnson prime minister again. It didn’t happen: the Tories ultimately went with 42-year-old Rishi Sunak, former chancellor of the Exchequer.Sunak took office on Tuesday, October 25.

Some journalists in the United States have put a positive spin on all the chaos at 10 Downing Street, arguing that the political downfalls of Johnson and later, Truss, show that at least the British right — chaos and all — still believes in democracy. According to that argument, the right-wing Tories who were shouting that Johnson had to go only to say the same thing about his successor Truss not long after that are quite a contrast to Republicans in the United States who are terrified to say one word against former President Donald Trump even after the violent January 6, 2021 insurrection.

For The Atlantic’s Yascha Mounk, however, one of the biggest takeaways of Truss’ political downfall is the fact that some Tories were even talking about putting Johnson in 10 Downing Street again — which, Mounk argues, shows how resilient a right-wing “zombie populist” can be despite scandals and a record of “failure.”

“After the extended chaos of the Johnson years and the short-lived debacle of Liz Truss’ premiership, Sunak was virtually the last remaining Conservative of any public standing who could credibly promise a modicum of competence and stability,” Mounk explains in a think piece published by The Atlantic on October 26. “Harder to parse is why Johnson was in contention at all. How could Johnson have come so close to returning from the political wilderness less than four months after disgrace forced the announcement of his departure from office?”

Mounk continues, “The story of Johnson’s near resurrection, though remarkable, is less peculiar than it might seem. Charismatic populists have a knack for making unlikely comebacks, even if their own friends and allies have long given them up for dead. And irresponsible politicians can do very well when they have a good feel for the pulse of public opinion. For this type of demagogue, Johnson’s enduring appeal is the norm, not the exception.”

When Mounk describes Johnson as a right-wing populist, he isn’t calling the former British prime minister an authoritarian — which is how he views Trump and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. But he brings Johnson up to show the “staying power” that “populist leaders” can have.

“The plausible, if short-lived, prospect of Johnson’s return to Downing Street should be a warning sign of what is to come in other countries,” Mounk stresses. “For it illustrates three underlying truths about populist leaders that will continue to shape the politics of the United Kingdom and other democracies, including the United States, for years to come.”

Mounk continues, “First, populists have extraordinary staying power, showing virtual immunity from the sort of scandal, disgrace or failure that can finish a conventional politician’s career. Second, policy counts nearly as much as style:The degree to which a populist’s program is actually popular really matters. Third, because most of the politicians who are attacking democratic institutions at the moment come from the right, conservative parties have a crucial part to play in preserving democracy.”

Mounk adds, however, that the word populist “has never been a perfect fit for Johnson” even though it has often been used to describe him.

“While he has, at times, been willing to play dangerously fast and loose with democratic rules, he never attempted to concentrate power in his own hands or to impede its peaceful transfer,” Mounk argues. “A second term for Trump would presage a genuine democratic emergency; a return of Johnson would have been more likely to turn into a depressing farce.”

Mounk observes that “populists around the world” have “proved to have remarkable staying power, even after they were hounded from office in ignominy.”

“Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi left office in disgrace after being sentenced to a term in prison and ruining his country’s finances,” Mounk notes. “He later successfully appealed the criminal conviction. Now, he is a crucial partner in the country’s new government…. In the United States, Trump seemed to lose his hold over the Republican Party after the January 6 assault on the Capitol. Now, he appears poised to claim the party’s nomination for the 2024 presidential election. Orbán in Hungary, Jarosław Kaczyński in Poland, and the Marcos family in the Philippines have all shown similar durability.”

The ability of “zombie populists” to make a comeback, Mounk warns, “should worry American readers.”

“Like other populists who have left power under ignoble circumstances, Trump retains significant public support,” Mounk writes. “If he runs in 2024, he can count on the passionate supporters who make up a large portion of the Republican Party’s primary electorate. And unlike some right-wing parties, the GOP seems to have neither the will nor the capacity to stand up to its most radical members. Before Trump has even declared his candidacy, most senior members of his party are scared to criticize him.”

an 9 22?

After years and years of birtherism, calls to “lock her up,” antisemitic dogwhistles, delegitimizing everything the broad left does as “communism,” refusing to accept election results, stealing elections and plain-old racism and sexism – after all this, it seems that a line has been crossed and respectful discourse is no longer possible.

What was the final straw?

Not racism, sexism, armed revolt or treason.

What destroyed common decency is … “semi-fascism.”

You read that right. Despite explicit racism, sexism, support for white supremacy, Christian nationalism, armed revolt and treason, Republicans say that calling a few of them “semi-fascists,” as Joe Biden did at a political rally, is the worst thing a president can do.

Proving Biden’s point

They could have conceded that delegitimizing elections, supporting armed revolt and stealing government secrets are bad. They could have distanced themselves from Donald Trump in order to be excluded from ranks of “semi-fascists.” They could have ignored it all.

Instead, they jumped at a chance to say how insulted they are!

Why insulted?

Biden was careful not to say all Republicans, so why are the Republicans so eager to include themselves with “semi-fascists”? It’s almost like Republicans can’t stop themselves from explicitly supporting actual fascism long enough to let a news cycle pass.

A few said Thursday’s prime-time speech was overly partisan. They drew attention to Biden's promise of unity. This response still doesn’t make sense given that it's impossible to unite with anti-democratic Christian nationalists. But at least it’s within normal political bounds.

Others criticized Biden’s speech by focusing on supposed policy failures that are hurting the country. Still not the best response given that this administration’s policies are demonstrably better than Trump’s. Still, this isn’t out of the ordinary in political partisanship.

But many Republicans traded these totally normal responses for extremely unhinged accusations that basically confirmed their “semi-fascist” inclinations. As Jason Stanley pointed out, fascist propaganda often inverts accusations. So if Biden points out the GOP’s fascist elements, they’ll say Biden is the one who’s fascist.

“The real fascist”

That’s when we witnessed the “memeification” of Biden – endless Hitler comparisons that got #PedoHitler trending on Twitter.

Tucker Carlson said Biden stood in front of a “blood-red Nazi background.” Marjorie Taylor Greene layered a Hitler video over the speech to create a “deep fake” of Biden looking like Hitler.

Texas state representative Briscoe Cain gave a subtler Hitler reference by saying he couldn’t understand Biden’s speech, because it was in German. Others just called Biden satanic or lunatic.

Robert Paxton described five stages of fascism in an article published in 1998 (he wrote an op-ed calling Trump a fascist in 2021).

These include:

Group primacy over individual rights.
Group purity.
Group victimhood justifying attacks on enemies.
Fear of “cosmopolitan liberalism.”
Faith in authority of “natural male leaders.”

Jason Stanley writes of three essential features of fascism. They include “conjuring a mythic past” that the enemy has somehow destroyed, sowing division and attacking the truth with propaganda. This propaganda is usually particularly anti-intellectual.

Does any of this sound familiar?

White conservative Christian victims?

From the Maga Republicans, we have seen the “in-group” of white, Christian, “traditional,” patriarchal, cishet and “truly American” people set against the evil lefties, who include feminists, immigrants, Black and brown people, Jews, Muslims and LGBT-plus people.

Lefties have destroyed the “mythic past” of 1950s white Christian America. They have victimized white conservative Christians with their elite coastal liberal intellectual ways. In response to Biden’s speech, many Republicans accused Democrats of being the “real fascists” because inclusive policies supported by the government are supposedly anti-freedom. Republicans want to be left alone but the left keeps victimizing them and trying to take away their freedom.

It’s galling that a group of antisemitic, racist and transphobic politicians are accusing the rest of us of being Nazis. Most Republicans have refused to condemn the political violence on J6, which was clearly supported by Trump and Maga Republicans. White conservative Christians are mostly left alone in America. Inclusive Democratic policies do little to harm them outside increasing representation and using their tax money in ways they don't like.

Alternatively, Republican policies continue to target women, disabled people, trans and gay people, immigrants, non-Christians and Black and brown people. Nazism was built on an idea of a perfect aryan race without “polluting” aspects like people with disabilities, “deviant” sexual and gender identities, or Jews, Roma and Black people. Nazism doesn’t target white Christian conservatives no matter how much the group pretends to be a victim.

Don’t ignore the memes

Some may be inclined to dismiss the “memeification” of Biden. Truth is, most Republicans currently support fascism and fascist tactics. We might think ignoring them is the right thing to do but there is a lot of rightwing media that will continue to spread these messages.

Fascist propaganda is ridiculous, but it works.

Ignoring the fascist propaganda won’t stop people from listening to it. We must continue fighting fascist forces and treating Maga Republicans as a threat. As Biden explained, “They’re a threat to our very democracy. They refuse to accept the will of the people. They embrace political violence. They don’t believe in democracy.”

https://www.mediamatters.org/tucker-carlson/coup-shaped-hole-tucker-carlsons-new-film-about-brazil

Carlson’s new “documentary” style film about Brazil focuses on what he presents as China’s malignant influence and purported control over the country. Totally absent from the short movie, however, is the fact that Brazil’s crypto-Fascist President JairBolsonaro has said that if he loses in the next election next month, he might not accept the results. This omission tracks with Carlson’s history of embracing Bolsonaro’s illiberal policies, along with those of other authoritarian leaders around the world.

This looming, potential coup has alarmed many in the United States, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Tim Kaine (D-VA). Sanders has spent weeks trying to whip support for a Senate resolution that would make clear that the United States would recognize the outcome of Brazil’s election, scheduled for October 2, as long as it was deemed legitimate by international outside observers. The resolution would also make it clear that the U.S. would not recognize any government that came to power through force or other irregular means. As of publication, no Republicans have signed on.

There are glaringly obvious parallels between Bolsonaro’s position and that of former U.S. President Donald Trump, who spearheaded a multipronged effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Republican opposition to the Sanders resolution is likely at least partly tied to Trump’s control of the GOP, and the risk of angering Trump by breaking with Bolsonaro.

Another possible explanation, which is not mutually exclusive from the first, is conservatives’ obsession with the so-called rise of China. It may very well be that Republican senators would happily support Bolsonaro’s illegal seizure of power if it meant opportunities for U.S. capital investment in the country and a strongman they could pit against China.

Carlson’s team traveled to Brazil in June to film in the country and has had ample time since then to include context about Bolsonaro’s threats to remain in power.

Just weeks before Carlson’s crew arrived, Bolsonaro supporters that he’s prepared to “go to war” to stay in office.

In July, Bolsonaro hosted foreign leaders to manufacture and legitimize unfounded voter fraud conspiracy theories, clearly laying the foundation for a potential extra-legal challenge to the election if he loses.

In August, Bolsonaro said there were only three available outcomes for him. “I have three alternatives for my future: being arrested, killed or victory,” he told a meeting of evangelical leaders, according to The Guardian.

That same month, The New York Times ran a massive story under the headline: “The Question Menacing Brazil’s Elections: Coup or No Coup?”

In short, the question of whether Bolsonaro will accept an electoral loss is not an ancillary question in next month’s contest, either in Brazilian or U.S. media and political circles.

Nonetheless, all of this information is absent from Carlson’s film, which instead portrays Bolsonaro as a bulwark against Chinese authoritarianism and imperialism.

“If Bolsonaro loses that election, China will certainly dominate Brazil,” Carlson narrates.

Carlson has a well-known admiration for foreign authoritarian leaders, including Bolsonaro. The feeling between the two of them is mutual. In June, Carlson aired an interview with Bolsonaro in which the leader heaped praise on the cable star.

“I can only say that you will be the most welcome in Brazil,” Bolsonaro gushed. “You would be an excellent counterpart to the other vehicles or outlets." [vid]

VideoCitationFrom the June 30, 2022, edition of Fox News' Tucker Carlson Tonight

that admiration is foregrounded in the new film. “In the past year, traditionally conservative governments like those in Chile and Colombia have been replaced by far-left leaders sympathetic to China,” Carlson says. “Bolsonaro is the only remaining pro-American head of state in all of South America.”

The clear takeaway for Carlson’s viewers is that Bolsonaro is a force for self-determination in the face of Chinese expansionism. The actual story is that Carlson and the conservative movement writ large are happy to export Trump-style election denialism if it will help them achieve their reactionary goals.

https://www.mediamatters.org/tucker-carlson/coup-shaped-hole-tucker-carlsons-new-film-about-brazil

an 9 22 ah

Among Never Trump conservatives, there has been a lot of debate over whether former President Donald Trump or Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis would be more dangerous to have in the White House in 2025. One school of Never Trumper thought argues that Trump would be more dangerous because he is undisciplined and lacks self-control; another Never Trumper argument, however, is that DeSantis would be more dangerous because he is a more focused and disciplined version of Trump. But one thing those Never Trumpers agree on is that the MAGA movement in general has an authoritarian mindset.

Conservative Daily Beast opinion columnist Matt Lewis, in a September 13 column, analyzes some of the MAGA Republicans who are being mentioned as possible post-Trump options for the GOP — namely, DeSantis and Blake Masters, who is running against incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly in Arizona’s 2022 U.S. Senate race. And the main thing they have in common, according to Lewis, is an affinity for “heavy-handed” authoritarianism.

“Ever since Donald Trump came down that gold-plated escalator in 2015, the American right has relied more on coercion than persuasion,” Lewis explains. “This month’s National Conservatism Conference — its third edition, held in Miami — signaled an increasing commitment to this heavy-handed approach. One breakout session included a call for mandatory military service for anyone making over $250,000 a year. And a speech by Blake Masters, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Arizona, led a prominent conservative to unironically tweet: ‘Sounds like (Masters) is absorbing the Viktor Orban lesson.”

Lewis continues, “But perhaps the most newsworthy example came when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said tech companies ‘cannot be viewed as private entities’ because ‘we know without a shadow of a doubt they are doing the regime’s bidding when it comes to censorship.’ This, of course, comes on the heels of DeSantis going after Disney — when the company opposed Florida’s controversial “Parental Rights in Education’ bill, dubbed ‘Don’t Say Gay’ by its critics.”

The “prominent conservative” Lewis was referring to is author/journalist Rod Dreher, known for his work for the National Review, the now-defunct Weekly Standard and other publications. In a September 11 tweet, Dreher quotes Masters as saying that “libertarianism doesn’t work.”

“What happened to ‘limited government’ conservatives opposing intervention in the private sector, and opposing the state picking winners and losers?” Lewis writes. “The new right waves away such concerns, instead advocating for the government to use its awesome powers to do ‘good,’ as defined by the new right, just as it selectively embraces the good tech elites. Take, for example, PayPal founder Peter Thiel, an erstwhile libertarian, who during NatCon 3, praised DeSantis. Thiel, of course, famously funded successful GOP primary victories for Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance and Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters.”

Lewis argues that DeSantis and Masters “represent a dangerous worldview that could define the post-Trump American right.”

“Whereas Trump lacked a coherent and consistent philosophy — he flirted with populism, but Trump’s main agenda was always advancing Trump — these national conservatives are more competent, and they have an ethos,” Lewis warns.

“Trump can at least be laughed at, because he is essentially an out-of-touch old guy who says crazy shit. Likewise, ridiculous Republican lawmakers like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert spout absurd, deliberately offensive things and are constantly committing malapropisms," Lewis continues. "These Trumpers get clicks, but they are not part of the new right’s ‘brain trust,’ like the NatCons. This raises the now-trite question of whether DeSantis would be more dangerous than Trump.”

Lewis speculates that DeSantis “might be merely playing up his authoritarian persona to appease the Trumpy Republican base” but adds that “DeSantis’ remarks about private companies and ‘the regime’ at NatCon 3 do little to quell my anxiety.”

“Devout believers in limited government have reason to fear national conservatism, and so do devout believers in Christianity,” Lewis writes. “But national conservatism isn’t about philosophical ideas or spiritual transcendence. It’s about earthly power — and who wields it.”

9/13/22 ukranian army big territory gains

an 922

The invasion of Ukraine has not gone as planned for the Russian government. When Russian forces invaded Ukraine on February 24, President Vladimir Putin and his Kremlin allies were obviously hoping to take over the country in a hurry; instead, the Ukrainian military have fought back much more aggressively than Putin anticipated — and done so with the support of the Biden Administration and the United States’ European allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). September has found Russian forces suffering some major humiliations at the hands of the Ukrainian military.

Liberal economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman examines the state of the conflict in a September 12 column, drawing a parallel between Putin and his allies in Russia and MAGA Republicans in the United States. Both of them, Krugman argues, underscore the fact that “tough-guy swagger” doesn’t automatically translate to military victories.

Krugman opens his column by noting that on August 29, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson — who Krugman slams as a “Putin cheerleader” — happily told viewers that Putin was “winning the war in Ukraine.”

“Carlson’s timing was impeccable,” Krugman writes. “Just a few days later, a large section of the Russian front near Kharkiv was overrun by a Ukrainian attack. It’s important to note that Putin’s forces weren’t just pushed back; they appear to have been routed. As the independent Institute for the Study of War reported, the Russians were driven into a ‘panicked and disorderly retreat,’ leaving behind ‘large amounts of equipment and supplies that Ukrainian forces can use’…. The Russian collapse seemed to validate analyses by defense experts who have been saying for months that western weapons have been shifting the military balance in Ukraine’s favor, that Putin’s army is desperately short on quality manpower and that it has been degraded by attrition and missile attacks on its rear areas.”

Krugman goes on to explain why “Putin cheerleaders” like Carlson are so flawed in their thinking.

“There’s something special about the MAGA embrace of the mystique of Russian might: a worldview that equates tough-guy swagger with effectiveness,” Krugman writes. “This worldview has warped the right’s perception not just of the Russian Army, but also, of how to deal with many other issues. And it’s worth asking where it comes from. Many Republicans have admired Putin for a long time — even before Donald Trump took over the GOP. Back in 2014, for example, Rudy Giuliani said of Putin, ‘That’s what you call a leader.’ And Trump continued to praise Putin even after he invaded Ukraine.”

Krugman continues, “So, it’s not hard to see where the MAGA right’s admiration for Putinism comes from. After all, Putin’s Russia is autocratic, brutal and homophobic, with a personality cult built around its ruler. What’s not to like?.... On the right…. approval ofauthoritarian regimes is all bound up with assertions about their military prowess…. The MAGA ethos is all bound up with exaltation of tough talk and denigration of expertise.”

MAGA Republicans, according to Krugman, “needed to see Putin as a leader made powerful by his rejection of liberal values.”

“There’s growing speculation about what will happen inside Russia if the invasion of Ukraine ends in outright defeat,” Krugman observes. “But you also have to wonder how the U.S. right will handle the revelation that sometimes, tough guys finish last.”

an 9 22 i struck

Tuesday, August 23, liberal economist Robert Reich expressed his disdain for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis when he visited Twitter and posted, “Just wondering if ‘DeSantis’ is now officially a synonym for ‘fascist.’” Many MAGA Republicans had an angry reaction, bombarding the University of California, Berkeley professor with familiar Republican insults like “coastal elitist.” But in an op-ed published by The Guardian on August 31, Reich doesn’t back down from his anti-DeSantis views.

In fact, Reich doubles down on them, laying out an abundance of reasons why DeSantis’ agenda is consistent with the elements of fascism.

“I was surprised at the outrage my little tweet provoked in right-wing media,” Reich notes. “The Washington Examiner, for example, called me an ‘ultra-left-wing elitist’ who wrote an ‘insulting slur,’ which is ‘what left-wing ideologues do when they discuss Republican politicians who pose any threat to the existence of their political ideology.… Anyone the Democrats don’t like or disagree with is a fascist.’ This was among the kindest responses…. The size of the blowback on my little tweet makes me think I struck a nerve.”

Reich points out that DeSantis is “the most likely rival to Trump for the Republican nomination in 2024” and has been called “Donald Trump with a brain.”

“DeSantis is the nation’s consummate culture warrior,” Reich explains. “Lately, he has been campaigning on behalf of Republican election-deniers around the country, including gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania and US Senate candidate J.D. Vance in Ohio. In Florida, discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity are now barred in schools. Math textbooks have been rejected for what officials call ‘indoctrination.’ Claiming tenured professors in Florida’s public universities were ‘indoctrinating’ students, DeSantis spearheaded a law requiring them to be reviewed every five years. Teachers are limited in what they can teach about racism and other tragic aspects of American history.”

Reich continues, “DeSantis has got personally involved in local school board races, endorsing and campaigning for 30 board candidates who agree with him. So far, 20 have won outright, five are going to runoffs. Abortions are banned after 15 weeks. DeSantis recently suspended an elected prosecutor who said he would refuse to enforce the anti-abortion law. A new state office has been created to investigate ‘election crimes.’ Florida’s Medicaid regulator is considering denying state-subsidized treatments to transgender people. Its medical board may ban gender-affirming medical treatment for youths. Disney, Florida’s largest employer, has been stripped of the ability to govern itself in retaliation for the company’s opposition to the crackdown on LGBTQ+ conversations with schoolchildren.”

The words “fascist” and “authoritarian” have been used interchangeably by DeSantis’ critics, who aren’t strictly liberals and progressives. Many Never Trump conservatives have been scathing critics of DeSantis and slammed him as dangerously authoritarian, from The Bulwark’s Tim Miller to the Washington Post’s Max Boot to MSNBC host:{ Joe Scarborough:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}: (a former GOP congressman). The debate among right-wing Never Trumpers, in fact, is whether Trump or DeSantis would be a more authoritarian Republican candidate in 2024.

Reich argues that the word “fascist” captures DeSantis’ views even better than “authoritarian.”

“Authoritarianism implies the absence of democracy, a dictatorship,” Reich writes. “Fascism — from the Latin fasces, denoting a tightly bound bundle of wooden rods typically including a protruding axe blade, adopted by Benito Mussolini in the 1930s to symbolize his total power — is different. Fascism also includes hatred of ‘them’ — people considered different by race or religion, or outside the mainstream, or who were born abroad; control over what people learn and what books they are allowed to read, control over what had been independent government units…. control over women and the most intimate and difficult decisions they’ll ever make, and demands that the private sector support the regime. Perhaps my ‘just wondering’ tweet about DeSantis hit the nerve of the fascism now taking root in the Republican Party?”

an 9 22

MAGA Republicans have been attacking Robert Reich as a “coastal elitist” in response to an August 23 tweet in which the liberal economist, UC Berkeley professor and former secretary of labor in the Clinton Administration described far-right Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as a “fascist.” Reich’s MAGA critics have been arguing that his condemnation of DeSantis, former President Donald Trump and other MAGA Republicans is painfully out of touch with Main Street America — and that Reich and other liberals and progressives simply don’t understand conservative values.

But Reich’s MAGA critics are ignoring or overlooking the fact that anti-MAGA arguments are hardly confined to the left. A long list of right-wing Never Trump conservatives, from attorney George Conway to The Bulwark’s Charlie Sykes to Washington Post columnist Max Boot to former Nancy Reagan speechwriter Mona Charen to MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough (a former GOP congressman), have been attacking MAGA as a movement that favors far-right authoritarianism rather than traditional Reagan/Goldwater/McCain conservatism. And William Saletan, a writer for the conservative website The Bulwark, defends President Joe Biden’s anti-MAGA use of the term “semi-fascism” in an article published on September 1.

“Republicans are furious over President Biden’s recent remarks linking Donald Trump and his supporters to ‘semi-fascism,’” Saletan writes. “For days, they’ve been all over TV and social media, denouncing Biden’s use of the F-word. But Biden was right. Many of the ideas and tactics deployed by Trump and his apologists, including those who decry Biden’s comparison, fit the dictionary definition of fascism.”

Saletan stresses that refusing to accept democratic election results, which is what Trump and his followers did after the 2020 election, is an “authoritarian” act.

“A stickler might say that an attempt to overturn an election isn’t really fascist unless it involves the use of state power or mob violence, but Trump and his allies tried to use both,” Saletan explains. “Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s right-hand man in several abuses of power, says it’s Biden, not Trump, who runs America like ‘a damned dictatorship.’ But in December 2020, after the Electoral College had certified Biden’s election, Giuliani — at Trump’s direction — phoned the acting deputy secretary at the Department of Homeland Security to ask whether DHS could seize voting machines from states. Then, at Trump’s January 6th rally on the Ellipse, Giuliani exhorted the crowd: ‘Let’s have trial by combat!’”

Saletan adds, “Giuliani didn’t just help to incite the attack on the Capitol. To this day, he continues to whitewash it and excuse the perpetrators.”

The Bulwark writer cites other examples of “authoritarian” behavior from MAGA Republicans, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wondering how long it would be before “we get to hang” former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and calling for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to be executed for treason.

“The dictionary definition of fascism doesn’t just talk about autocracy,” Saletan notes. “It also includes ethnic nationalism. But by this standard, too, Trump and many of his propagandists are semi-fascist. Kayleigh McEnany, who served as Trump’s White House press secretary, calls Biden’s reference to fascism a baseless ‘message of hatred.’ But in the summer of 2016, Trump, the de facto Republican presidential nominee, declared a federal judge unfit to preside over a fraud case against Trump University because ‘he’s a Mexican.’ And McEnany defended this attack…. You could argue that an out-and-out fascist would use nationalist bigotry to persecute a whole minority group, not just a single judge. That’s what Trump did in 2015, when he called for a ‘complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.’”

According to Saletan, “Trump’s cult” contains many “components” of fascism, including “paranoia, fantastic lies, anti-intellectualism, a mythologized national past, selective appeals to law and order, and propaganda about enemies of the state.” Another is “invocation of mob violence to protect the movement’s leader.”

“But the clearest illustration of the MAGA elite’s descent into fascism might be its embrace of a like-minded leader from another country: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán,” Saletan writes. “As Cathy Young, Charles Sykes, David Baer, and other writers have explained in The Bulwark, Orbán is an increasingly authoritarian ethnonationalist. In a speech on July 23, he warned, ‘There is a world in which European peoples are mixed together with those arriving from outside Europe.’ Orbán called this a ‘mixed-race world’ and concluded, ‘We are willing to mix with one another, but we do not want to become peoples of mixed-race.’”

Saletan continues, “Orbán’s speech was so grotesque that one of his own advisers resigned, [briefly?] calling the speech ‘a purely Nazi diatribe worthy of Joseph Goebbels.’ But a week later, Orbán was welcomed as the keynote speaker at a Dallas meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference, which reveres Trump and is one of his favorite venues. Two days after that, Trump spoke to the same gathering. The two aspiring autocrats were warmly applauded. This past Monday, CPAC Chairman Matt Schlapp stoutly defended Orbán.”

READ MORE:**The Republican Party belongs to Viktor Orbán: conservative columnist**

an raw 8 22

Former President Donald Trump spoke for nearly two hours in his closing address at the CPAC summit in Dallas.

In Trump's view, America has been destroyed in the 18 months since he left office, with out-of-control crime, inflation, and oddly enough unemployment, which Trump estimates to be three times the official number.

Trump took the stage to the song "God Bless the USA" and began by thanking the "proud patriots" in attendance.

Trump said he was proud to be joined by Rep. Ronnie Jackson (R-TX), who was his White House surgeon.

"He was an admiral, a doctor, and now he's a congressman," Trump noted, saying he asked him which was the best.

"And he sort of indicated doctor, because he loved to look at my body. It was so strong and powerful," Trump said.

Trump then introduced Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Lauren Boebert (R-CO), and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).

"This is no time for complacency," Trump warned. "We have to seize this opportunity to deal with the radical left socialist lunatic fascists. We have to hit them very, very hard. It has to be a crippling defeat."

He went on to complain about Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) for supporting the Inflation Reduction Act, which passed a procedural vote after Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote while Trump was speaking, resulting in harsh words for GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

"But McConnell is the most unpopular politician in the country, even more so thancrazy Nancy Pelosi, and something has to be done," Trump urged.

Trump said Biden "surrendered our strength and our everything [in Afghanistan], they surrendered our dignity."

Michael Hardy, senior editor at the Texas Monthly, was one of the local journalists covering the speech.He said that line had "echoes of the Nazi 'stab in the back theory' of losing WW1."

Trump then described crime in "Democrat-run (sic) cities" in very dark terms.

"The streets of our Democrat-run cities are drenched in the blood of innocent victims," Trump claimed. "Bullets are killing little beautiful little children who never had a chance. Car jackers lay in wait like predators."

Hardy described that as "some literal blood-and-soil rhetoric."

And Trump went on saying "we need to courage to say what needs to be said and do what needs to be done," which Hardy said "is a rallying cry for street violence and worse."

Trump went on to call for a military takeover of San Francisco, New York, Chicago, and Portland.

"Trump's rhetoric is significantly more extreme than even a few years ago," Hardy said. "This might be most frightening speech I've ever heard. Full-on, unapologetic fascism. Trump has either been reading Mein Kampf or having someone read it to him."

Trump repeated his lies about election fraud and teased a 2024 presidential comeback.

Former RNC official Tim Millersaid, "I know everyone in the DC GOP is just hoping Trump will die but it’s impossible to watch this CPAC speech and not come to the conclusion that he’s going to run and be very hard to beat in a primary. Sorry to be the bearer of bad weekend news."

After his speech, Trump danced on stage to the song "Hold On I'm Coming" by Sam and Dave.

"Don't you ever feel sad; lean on me when times are bad," Sam and Dave sang. "Then the day comes and you're down; in a river of trouble and about to drown. Just hold on, I'm coming. Hold on, I'm coming."

You can watch his speech here.

ref 2 see blake masters thiel claremont anton

https://theweek.com/politics/1003035/the-far-right-contemplates-an-american-caesar

no lnx some

OPINION

The intellectual right contemplates an 'American Caesar'

Jan. 6 was a badly planned rehearsal for the real deal

Damon Linker

JULY 28, 2021

How does ideological change happen? Why do certain political ideas and possibilities that appear outrageous and even unthinkable at one moment in history come to be considered options worth taking seriously? What causes the Overton window to shift dramatically in one direction or another?

The answer has something to do with the dynamics of partisan coalitions. To cite a fairly anodyne example, Ronald Reagan took over the Republican Party in 1980 by expanding the GOP's appeal to the right as well as to the center-left. Those who supported Gerald Ford in 1976 were joined by conservative activists who had passionately favored Barry Goldwater in 1964, right-wing populists in the South and Midwest who had cast ballots for George Wallace in 1968, and the more moderate voters across the country who came to be called "Reagan Democrats." The result was broad-based support for deep tax cuts, sharply increased defense spending, and amped up confrontation with the Soviet Union — a synthesis of positions that seemed to be a non-starter just a few years earlier but which, thanks to Reagan's political skills and their intersection with contingent changes in political culture, became a stable ideological and electoral configuration of the GOP for the next 36 years.

The GOP has shed a lot of voters (as a share of the electorate) since its high-water mark in 1984. But with the rise of Donald Trump, the shape of the party's coalition also began to change. Some of the shift has been class-based, with white and Latino voters lacking a college degree flocking to the Republican Party and highly educated urban and suburban voters fleeing it.

But Trump also actively courted the right-wing fringe — the militia movement, quasi-paramilitary groups like the Proud Boys, neo-Nazis, overt racists, and outright xenophobes. These voters are a tiny portion of the party, but they punch above their weight, as we learned on Jan. 6, when a small handful of these extremists took the lead in initiating the mayhem and violence on Capitol Hill that afternoon while most of the intruders simply followed along rather cluelessly. (This point, along with much else in this column, is elaborated with depth and insight in the "Aftermath of January 6th" episode of the consistently excellent Know Your Enemy podcast.)

With most Republican officeholders and media personalities refusing to condemn the actions of the insurrectionary mob that invaded the Capitol to stop congressional certification of the 2020 election results — or Trump's decisive role in inciting that mob — and some of them instead endorsing an evidence-free conspiracy involving the "deep state" and the FBI, the GOP has verified that the Overton window has shifted sharply to the right. What would have until quite recently been considered unacceptable forms of political dissent have been legitimized. That's how the once unthinkable becomes a new normal.

A parallel process of line-shifting has been unfolding among conservative intellectuals, most of whom responded to the launch of Trump's presidential campaign six years ago with a mixture of disgust and incredulity. The dismissal didn't last. While many shifted to the center and refused to endorse Trump's hostile takeover of the party, plenty of others went along with it,adjusting their prior positions to bring them into alignment with the nominee on policy and attitude. No commentator did so with more enthusiasm or popular impact than Michael Anton.

A former director of communications for New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (where he was briefly my boss) and former speechwriter for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Anton penned the most notorious and rhetorically scalding case for supporting Trump. Published in early September 2016 in the Claremont Review of Books online, "The Flight 93 Election" portrayed Trump as a final, last-ditch opportunity for conservatives to wrest control of the country back from those (like Hillary Clinton) who aimed at nothing less than its thoroughgoing destruction.Rush Limbaugh paid tribute to the power of the argument (and amplified it for a vastly larger audience) by reading the essay aloud, paragraph by paragraph, on his radio show. In doing so, Anton, with Limbaugh's help, gave legions of Trump-skeptical conservatives permission to vote, even to express outright enthusiasm, for the untested right-wing populist.

After Trump's victory, Anton went on to serve the new president on the National Security Council. That lasted a little more than a year. Once he had left the White House, Anton returned to writing and speaking publicly in defense of Trump and in favor of his re-election. Two months before the 2020 vote, he predicted an attempted "coup" from the left if Democrat Joe Biden didn't prevail.When events unfolded in precisely the opposite way — with Trump losing the vote, refusing to accept the result, and attempting a hapless coup of his own to stay in power — Anton said nothing to acknowledge either the irony or the error. Quite the opposite, in fact. In the months since Trump left office, Anton has been doing his best to throw open the doors of the conservative intellectual world to ideas once considered far too extreme for American politics.

How extreme? So extreme that in late May, Anton set aside nearly two hours on his Claremont Institute podcast ("The Stakes") for an erudite, wide-ranging discussion withself-described monarchist Curtis Yarvin about why the United States needs an "American Caesar" to seize control of the federal government, and precisely how such a would-be dictator could accomplish the task.

With this conversation, Anton seems eager to shift the Overton window far beyond anything resembling liberal democracy. In its place, he would substitute an elaborate, historically and philosophically sophisticated justification for tyranny.

It's important right at the outset to make a few things clear about the Anton-Yarvin conversation. First, Anton doesn't explicitly endorseYarvin's most outlandish ideas, which blend a far-right love of unlimited executive power with the techno-utopianism of Silicon Valley. (Yarvin created the Urbit digital platform and co-founded the tech company Tion, while also gaining considerable notoriety with the alt-right blog "Unqualified Reservations," written under the pen name Mencius Moldbug.)

In fact, at several points Anton goes out of his way to declare in a tone of mock seriousness that as someone affiliated with the Claremont Institute, which has long advocated for a return to the principles of the American founding (including the Declaration of Independence's denunciations of monarchical tyranny), he can't stand behind Yarvin's sympathy for dictatorship. Yet it's also true that at no point does Anton offer a substantive critique of Yarvin's arguments and assertions. He merely expresses pragmatic or tactical objections, as if the primary fault in Yarvin's ideas is that they are unrealistic.

Then there's the matter of terminology. I have described Anton's conversation with Yarvin as helping to shift the Overton window away from liberal democracy and toward a defense of tyranny. Yet this isn't how either man understands the American present. Rather, they agree early on in the podcast (around minute 24) that the current American "regime" is most accurately described as a "theocratic oligarchy" in which an elite class of progressive "priests" ensconced in the bureaucracies of the administrative state, and at Harvard, The New York Times, and other leading institutions of civil society, promulgate and enforce their own version of "reality."

Anton and Yarvin treat this assertion as given and then proceed to talk through how this theocratic oligarchy might be overturned. (One of their substantive disagreements concerns how long this regime might last if it's not directly challenged. Anton is hopeful it will collapse of its own incompetence and corruption, while Yarvin thinks the current "clown world" could continue onward for decades or even a century, with the United States slowly decaying into something resembling a Third World country.)

Once the conversation really gets going (around minute 45), Yarvin makes clear that he has a highly idiosyncratic take on American history. In his view, roughly every 75 years, a "Caesar" seizes dictatorial powers and institutes "substantive regime changes." George Washington did this in 1789. Abraham Lincoln did it again in 1861. And FDR did it last in 1933, speaking in the closing passages of his First Inaugural Address about the national emergency of the Great Depression and the need to wield unprecedented government power to combat it, which he did with the New Deal.The U.S. today is overdue for its next political transformation — one that would settle the country's "cold civil war" from above.

Yarvin's top choice to become the next American Caesar is Elon Musk, though both men acknowledge that he's constitutionally ineligible for the role because he was born in South Africa. This provides an occasion for them both to joke about how great it would be for him to run, win, and demand to be made president anyway, in defiance of the Constitution. (Anton makes sure to clarify that their jovial chit-chat about flagrantly disregarding the letter of the Constitution is "not an endorsement" of actually doing so. Later on, they likewise joke about how great it would have been for Trump to declare himself the personal embodiment of the "living Constitution.")

But what exactly is Yarvin proposing and Anton entertaining here? Is it nothing more ominous than a New Deal from the right? As the conversation unfolds further, beginning around an hour and twenty minutes into the podcast, it becomes clear that Yarvin has something much more radical in mind (even if his peculiar constellation of assumptions prevent him from recognizing just how extreme it is).

The trick, for Yarvin, is for the would-be American Caesar to exercise emergency powers from day one. How? Caesar should run for president promising to do precisely this, and then announce the national emergency in his inaugural address, encouraging every state government to do the same. Taking advantages of "ambiguities" in the Constitution, he will immediately act to federalize the national guard around the country and welcome backup from sympathetic members of the police (who will wear armbands to signal their support for Caesar).

When federal agencies refuse to go along, Yarvin suggests, Caesar (whom he now begins referring to as "Trump") will use a "Trump app" to communicate directly with his 80 million supporters on their smart phones, using notifications to tell them that "this agency isn't following my instructions," which will prompt them to rally at the proper building, with the crowd "steered around by a joystick by Trump himself," forming a "human barricade around every federal building, supporting Trump's lawful authority." Where maybe 20,000 people stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, millions responding to the Trump app would be much more effective — a modern-day version of the paramilitary groups that ensured Lincoln's safety during the hard-fought, dangerous 1860 campaign for president that preceded the Civil War (and the president's subsequent suspension of habeas corpus and shuttering of hundreds of newspapers).

When Anton asks how Trump-Caesar should respond to Harvard, The New York Times, and the rest of the theocratic oligarchy blaring air-raid sirens about the imposition of dictatorship, Yarvin indicates that it would be essential to "smash it" with one blow.To suggest that Caesar should be required to deal with "someone else's department of reality is manifestly absurd." Going on, Yarvin explains that "when Caesar crosses the Rubicon, he doesn't sit around getting his feet wet, fishing. He marches straight across the Rubicon" and uses "all force available." Once that happens, the whole world can be "remade."

The podcast concludes with Anton quoting another Claremont writer (Angelo Codevilla) on how Trump dropped "the leadership of the deplorables," which is waiting to be picked up by someone "who will make Trump seem moderate." Yarvin responds approvingly with a quote by Serbian dictator and indicted genocidal war criminal Slobodan Milošević, who said the goal should be that "no one will dare to beat you anymore."

Defenders of Anton, Yarvin, and the Claremont Institute will say that this thoroughly appalling discussion was just that — some casual talk, idle musings, a fantasy disconnected from reality. Yet fantasies are outgrowths of our imaginations and hopes, and they help set our expectations, including our conception of what is possible and desirable in politics.

The indisputable fact is that a leading and longstanding conservative institute in the United States hosts a podcast by someone who served as a senior official in the presidential administration of a man who may run again for the nation's highest office in a few years. And on an episode of that podcast, this former official and his invited guest genially rehearsed arguments about why a future president would be justified in turning himself into a tyrant, and how he could set about accomplishing this task.

Which means that on the starboard side of American politics, the Overton window has now shifted far beyond the boundaries of democratic self-government to a place broadly coterminous with fascism.

an 7 22

it not quite clear what, exactly, former President Donald Trump was doing and privately saying inside the White House during the five long, violent hours when more than 2,000 rioters invaded the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021.

It’s a key timeline that the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol is set to explore on July 21, 2022 during its latest – and possibly last – public hearing.

At the heart of the issue is Trump’s precise engagement, if any, with the rioters and several fringe nationalist militia groups, including the Proud Boys, Three Percenters and Oath Keepers, that stormed the Capitol.

Amy Cooter, a senior lecturer in sociology at Vanderbilt University, embedded with militia groups, mostly in Michigan, from 2008 through 2012. Knowing who these groups are – and how they have changed over time – makes it easier to understand the Jan. 6 attacks, Cooter said.

“Fifteen years ago, people thought of these groups as being niche, crazy people. That’s not really what I saw in my fieldwork – I saw people who were just more willing to be open about their political perspectives than maybe more mainstream Republicans were at the time. It seemed to me, both then and now, that their concerns resonate with a broad swath of the population,” Cooter said in a recent interview.

We asked Cooter to explain what drives these groups and their complicated relationship with Trump and the government.

What is your understanding of how Trump is seen by these nationalist groups?

Traditionally, militia groups have been very opposed to the federal government, regardless of whether we’re talking about Democrats or Republicans. However, with Trump, they really found sort of a mouthpiece. Not all of them truly liked him, but they really want somebody who speaks out against immigration and has a nationalistic and isolationist perspective. Trump gave them a sense of legitimacy. But there didn’t seem to be too many formal connections, as far as we know.

How does leadership and hierarchy work within these groups?

Many of these groups present themselves as top-down organizations with centralized leadership and then different state-level structures. But the degree to which that is reality varies enormously, especially with the Three Percenters but also with the Oath Keepers.

There are groups that kind of fit the stereotypical top-down model that make it easy to activate them for action. There are other groups who maybe were completely oblivious to this Jan. 6 plan.

What do you mean by activate? That sounds similar to language Trump used during a presidential debate in September 2020, to “stand back and stand by.”

Militias always see themselves as prepared for action. Usually, this means they’re prepared to defend themselves and their communities in the event of a natural disaster, or some kind of invasion. But as we saw leading up to Jan. 6, some of these groups were clearly planning more than just a defensive stance.

What was Trump getting from these groups, and what were they getting from Trump?

They get from Trump this idea that someone finally represents their interests, someone finally sees the state of the nation as they do, even though not all of them completely agree with him. They see it as an opportunity to push things in the direction that they would prefer.

I don’t think it’s much of an exaggeration to say that Trump sees an opportunity for a private armyfrom them. In 2018, he pardoned the Bundy ranchers, who were arrested for arson on federal land. Not a lot of people paid attention to this, but that was a signal to these groups that he had their back and would expect them to have his back in the future.

I think that Jan. 6 is really kind of proof of that, that he has activated people who in some cases do have military or police experience.

How have you seen these groups evolve over time, since you began researching them?

Before Trump, there had been very clear-cut tensions between different groups. That boundary has broken down substantially, and most groups have been pushed more toward an extreme than used to be true – in no small part because of how Trump and others in his administration legitimized the core fears that different groups had about being invaded.

Since Jan. 6, the groups as a whole have declined in size. Many of these people were really surprised at how Jan. 6 played out and were quite embarrassed –or they were appalled that it didn’t go far enough.

Now, many people have taken a step back even from these groups altogether. But the folks that have stuck around continue to be quite radical, and probably even more radical than they were before. Especially thinking about what is going to happen with the midterm elections, we are going to see a lot of invigoration.

Amy Cooter, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Vanderbilt University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Fascism expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat provided fascinating insight — and a terrifying prediction about future Republican Party violence — when she was interviewed by CNN's Jim Acosta on Saturday.

On Tuesday, Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified that on Jan. 6, Trump was "irate" when the Secret Service would not drive him to the Capitol and lunged for the steering wheel of his presidential limousine.

Acosta began that interview by noting that weeks before Hutchinson's testimony, Ben-Ghiat had informed his audience that Trump had to go to the Capitol for the phase of a coup where the new order would be announced. Acosta described her analysis as "almost clairvoyant."

"And we have since learned that Trump did try to go to the Capitol on Jan. 6, but his Secret Service stopped him," Acosta said. "Ruth, what is your reaction to everything we learned this week, including this new CNN reporting that seems to back up what Cassidy Hutchison was saying?"

"I'm really disturbed, not surprised, about the role of violence," the New York University professor replied.

"It was very telling to me that Trump said chief of staff Mark Meadows, who seems to have been like the control center of this operation, she said that when the violence broke out, he didn't seem concerned at all, and he didn't seem perturbed, and that's because violence was part of the plan. It has to be in a coup," she explained.

"That's also why Trump wanted the, you know, weapons detectors removed, and so the other thing that stands out is that not only did he want to be driven there to the Capitol and be at the head of this, you know, violent thug march into the Capitol, but Ms. Hutchinson testified that there were conversations about him entering the chamber," she continued. "And what that says to me is first, you know, you'veneutralized the presidential chain of succession. They were going to do something to Pence, they were hunting Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi, speaker, and so he was going to also have fixed the problem with the electoral counts because Pence wasn't there, and then he was going to declare himself at the head of this violent mob in the chamber as a legitimate president, and that's where that phase of the coup would have ended."

"It's extraordinary what we're learning from these hearings," she said.

Acosta asked Ben-Ghiat to compare Trump to other leaders she has studied.

She said Trump, "and his party are behaving in a desperate way, and when autocrats think they're going down, they will do anything -- and we've seen Jan. 6 -- to stay in power. What's really extraordinary is how Trump, who came from outside politics, put the GOP in such a state of authoritarian subjection and discipline that the whole party is completely compromised. We're learning from these hearings just how many people were involved," she said.

"And unfortunately, I think we can expect more extremist behavior, aggressive behavior from the party because they are acting out of fear. They're guilty, and their coup failed, and they've been exposed to the world by these hearings, and so they are -- they're in emergency mode," Ben-Bhiat warned.

Watch:

wow rubber glue

the Great Reset: Joe Biden and the Rise of Twenty-First-Century Fascism
by Glenn Beck

===

aha GOP cognitive dissonance: beleive they say in democracy, but realize they cannot win in mktplace of ideas, demographic shift, and they are inherently winners (b/c blessed by god?); thus if # say they lost election, it must be b/c dems cheated [tammany hall machine pol hillary corrupt]; or like eastman/rudy will pretend to beleive voter fraud if enable hold on to power // auth fascist disable norms, institutions and shared sense of reality/ empirical fact THUS BIG LIE has fundamentally crippled/corrupted body politic, peril to democracy (heads on slender thread of norm , as maddow says, like Bowers to uphold norms despite unprecendented pressure [// Lady Ruby personally and publically [jumbotron rally and presumably twt soc media]

testified day 4 praise RR on election day transfer miracle; dtr term ill, big pathos; xian // VP staff/lawyer in basement 1/6?

https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/donald-trump-rusty-bowers/ attack cohen ctr-punch BS?

https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/arizona-gop-lawmaker/

An Arizona Republican lawmaker is speaking out about the pressures he faced from former President Donald Trump, his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and the former president's allies amid Republicans' attempts to overturn the presidential election.

According to NPR.org, Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers (R) recently testified and shared details about his conversations with Giuliani where he claimed undocumented voters were responsible for casting illegal ballots. He also claimed votes had been cast on behalf of a substantial number of deceased individuals.

But instead of just running with Giuliani's claims, Bowers and other Republican legislators requested he provide solid evidence to back the tall accusations. "In my recollection," Bowers said of Giuliani, "he said, We have lots of theories we just don't have the evidence.'"

Bowers also recalled how Giuliani also "pressured him to call the Arizona legislature back into session — a unilateral move Bowers said he cannot do — to recall the electors that would be going to President Biden after Biden beat Trump in the state."

"It is a tenet of my faith that theConstitution is divinely inspired," he said, growing visibly emotional. "I would not do it."

He noted that the former president also echoed similar sentiments but he didn't believe the evidence they provided to back their claims "merited a hearing."

"You are asking me to do something against my oath, andI will not break my oath," he said he told Trump and Giuliani, to which the former New York mayor said: "Aren't we all Republicans here? I would think we'd get a better reception."

Trump-supporting lawyer John Eastman also contacted Bowers by phone as he echoed Trump and Giuliani's demands. "His suggestion was that we would do it, and I said I can't," Bowers said, adding that Eastman pressured him by telling him to "just do it and let the courts sort it out."

In addition to pressure from Trump's allies, Bowers also noted that the former president's supporters also expressed concern about the outcome of the election. He revealed, per NPR.org, that "his office was subject to over 20,000 emails, thousands of voicemails and texts from those who believed he was wrong to not recall the electors."

"Up until recently, it is a new pattern in our lives to worry what will happen on Saturdays," he said of his family. "Because we have various groups come by."

Bowers has also faced a litany of accusations including being called "a pedophile and corrupt politician" as video trucks drive through his neighborhood and threaten his neighbors."It was disturbing," he said emotionally as he recalled what transpired.

3% gun on hip verbally threat neighbor "I knew I had to get close" to WHAT?!

CDV note sys

https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/donald-trump-an-american-monster/

quite long]

...But who created this American monster? Donald Trump was not built by a deranged scientist in a secret lab. He is not an orphan, and did not emerge out of nowhere. He was the almost inevitable result of a decades-long assault by the "conservative" movement aimed at ending American democracy (especially multiracial democracy) and replacing it with a pseudo-democratic authoritarian state, perhaps organized under the system political theorist Sheldon Wolin described as "inverted totalitarianism."

As part of that long-term assault, most or all the historic victories of the civil rights movement, the women's rights movement, the gay rights movement, the labor and environmental movements and other struggles for human dignity and a more just society are being rolled back. If this project succeeds, America's already threadbare social safety net will be virtually eliminated. White Christian fascists and corporate plutocrats will forge a ruling coalition with near-total dominion over American life and society. The separation of church and state, along with the guarantee of free speech and most of the Bill of Rights, will disappear.

There is no longer a "normal" or "traditional" version of the Republican Party for so-called conservatives to return to. Even those conservatives who have disavowed or denounced the Trump movement are implicated in his rise. They are like political Dr. Frankensteins, horrified by what they have created but unable to kill it. Over the course of decades, they painstakingly built the monster and created the blueprint for American fascism.

As Wajahat Ali wrote this week in the Daily Beast, some of Trump's "most prominent enablers" are now trying to distance themselves from the "ongoing, concentrated, right-wing effort to overturn the 2020 election":

Even though most of these ex-Trumpers will fail up in their careers—as is often the case in Washington, D.C. — it's important for the rest of us to recognize them as utterly complicit actors who deserve to wear that MAGA hat on their heads until the end of time….

If you believe that there is a 'team normal' in the modern GOP, then you'll also probably believe that fewer doors and arming teachers will reduce mass gun shootings, banning books will save your child from being transgender, and climate change is a hoax created by China.

Either way, you're not acknowledging that the GOP is now a weaponized cult that no longer produces 'rational' Republicans, but instead caters to the festering, fevered paranoid swamp of dangerous conspiracy theories and white supremacist ideologies. This persistent right-wing disinformation has now radicalized its base, in which many membersbelieve violence is necessary to 'take back' their country. The reality is that Team Normal and Team Crazy both play for the GOP, wear the same uniforms, and, for now, worship the golden calf known as Trump.

Ultimately, Donald Trump is not some type of monstrous Other or outsider. He was not conjured up in some other dimension ruled by Lovecraftian demons, only to descend on America out of the ether to sow destruction, chaos, misery and death.

In reality, Donald Trump — as a man, a symbol and a political leader — and everything he embodies is the product of our society, driven by extreme social inequality, consumerism and greed, unfulfilled dreams, widespread alienation and loneliness, anti-intellectualism, racism and white supremacy, the cult of the spectacle, our fetish for violence and a range of related antisocial and anti-human values and tendencies.

In a recent essay for ScheerPost republished at Salon, Chris Hedges offers a powerful diagnosis of our corrupt and failing American political system, arguing that the House Jan. 6 committee will do nothing to correct it:

The two established wings of the oligarchy, the old Republican Party represented by politicians such as Liz Cheney, one of two Republicans on the committee, and the Bush family, are now united with the Democratic Party elite into one ruling political entity. The ruling parties were already in lockstep for decades on the major issues, including: war, trade deals, austerity, the militarization of police, prisons, government surveillance and assaults on civil liberties. They worked in tandem to pervert and destroy democratic institutions on behalf of the rich and corporations. They desperately work together now to stave off the revolt by enraged and betrayed white working men and women who support Donald Trump and the far right.

There are other systemic failures as well. America's mainstream news media, through both habit and laziness, have approached Donald Trump, and American politics more generally, as a running narrative of "great men" (and, more recently, "great women"), singular figures who are the main characters in an unfolding drama largely independent of history, culture or economic reality.

This partly explains the media's obsession with polling and public opinion, the addiction to horserace coverage and the drive to identify "winners" and "losers" on a daily basis. Of course the mainstream media is also driven by profit, and compelled to shape the news so as not to offend advertisers or alienate the political establishment and other social and cultural elites.

Media practitioners are also trained to avoid moral language when describing domestic politics, although they routinely use such language when discussing foreign affairs, and especially Americans' official enemies. The result is that most mainstream American political journalism remains an exercise in stenography and superficial commentary, almost always bending the knee to such totems as "moderation," "normal politics," "fairness" and "balance," concepts that were likely never helpful or transparent and are now totally inadequate to the task of confronting America's democracy crisis.

Many in the media still refuse to see the Trump movement and the modern Republican Party as destructive revolutionary forces, rather than as traditional political movements with an investment in the existing system. At this point, the media's willful or compulsive refusal to comprehend the nature of the threat has become a pathology. Journalists at mainstream outlets would benefit greatly from reading "The Authoritarian Playbook: A Media Guide," a new report from the nonpartisan nonprofit group Protect Democracy. It offers the following advice:

To the extent that theauthoritarianplaybook has a central theme, it is that democratic erosion is a process of power concentration and consolidation. While all political actors seek to accumulate power, authoritarians, uniquely, seek to entrench that power and protect it from external checks. Experts generally agree that democracies don't tend to die at the hands of individuals alone. Rather, contemporary attacks on democracy only succeed when they are coordinated, systemic, and undertaken by broad parties or movements.

If Donald Trump the American monster is somehow banished from American political life — through criminal prosecution, advancing age or some other force — another such monster will rapidly appear. In fact, Ron DeSantis and other leading Republican-fascists are eagerly waiting for Trump to leave the stage, and could well turn out to be more competent and more effective than him. Trumpism is a hydra-headed movement, no longer dependent on Trump as an individual: Chop off one of its heads and another will grow.The only long-term solution is to drain the swamp that birthed the monster.

no lnx

'Personal goon squad': Why a newly reported memo by a Trump loyalist is 'cause of considerable alarm' for US democracy

Alex Henderson November 15, 2021

ABC News' Jonathan Karl has reported that on October 19, 2020, Trump loyalist John McEntee — then serving as White House director of presidential personnel — issued a memo listing reasons to fire then-Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper from the Trump Administration. Never Trump conservative Max Boot discusses Karl's reporting and that memo in his November 15 column for the Washington Post, explaining why McEntee's memo should be a "cause of considerable alarm" if Donald Trump runs for president in 2024.

Boot was highly critical of Esper in the past, describing him as a Trump enabler. But in light of Karl's reporting, the conservative columnist now believes he "may have been too harsh on" the former defense secretary — who Trump fired on November 9.

"Now that we have seen fresh evidence of how much Trump and his henchmen loathed Esper, he is rising in my estimation," Boot explains. "That evidence comes courtesy of ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl, who has unearthed a memorandum from Johnny McEntee, Trump's director of presidential personnel, listing 14 reasons for ousting Esper. That document was dated October 19, 2020. Three weeks later, Esper was fired by a Trump tweet."

Describing McEntee's memo as "both sinister and ludicrous," Boot notes that the Trump loyalist "was making the case for getting rid of a senior cabinet officer for insufficient loyalty to the president."

"This revealing and chilling document deserves to be read not as a historical curiosity, but as a terrible portent of what could be in store if Trump wins another term," Boot writes. "He appears determined to turn the military into his personal goon squad."

Boot goes on to note some of McEntee's reasons for wanting Esper fired. Esper, McEntee complained, "approved the promotion of Lt. Col. (Alexander) Vindman," a key witness during Trump's impeachment — and Esper "publicly opposed the president's direction to utilize American force to put down riots just outside the White House," McEntee wrote.

Boot observes, "This was a reference to Esper's brave decision in June 2020 to resist Trump's desires to deploy active-duty troops to suppress Black Lives Matter protests. Esper acted after he and Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had been lured by Trump into a bizarre photo op in Lafayette Square, which been cleared by force of peaceful protesters."

In the memo, Boot adds, McEntee (now 31) also wanted Esper fired for removing Confederate flags from military installations.

McEntee's memo, the Never Trump conservative warns, underscores the fact that a second Trump presidency —should he run in 2024 — would be disastrous for the United States.

"Trump would want to ensure that the 'guys with guns' are on his side," Boot warns. "If he wins a second term, Trump's next defense secretary — Johnny McEntee perhaps? — would almost certainly be somebody more devoted to him than to the Constitution. For anyone concerned about the future of U.S. democracy, that should be a cause of considerable alarm at a time when Trump and (President Joe) Biden are running almost neck and neck in polling matchups."

no lnx

Republican neofascists are playing a dangerous game that will rip America apart

Thom Hartmann April 28, 2022

Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has declared war on Disney, while his colleague in Texas, Republican Governor Greg Abbott, is on a jihad against the parents of trans children.

This is how fascism progresses through its later stages toward tyranny.

Democracies typically don’t turn into fascist oligarchies by being invaded or losing wars. It usually happens from within, and is driven by an alliance between demagogic politicians, corrupt religious leaders, bigoted street brawlers, and some of the wealthiest people in society.

First, fascists identify groups of people they believe are both vulnerable and sufficiently powerless that they won’t be able to fight back. Typically, these are racial, religious, political or gender/sexuality minorities.

Enormous efforts go into demonizing the people the fascists have identified; members of the group who’ve committed crimes are heavily publicized, while “think tanks” and fascist allies in the media identify malicious “reasons” for those folks’ “deviance.”

Efforts by members of the demonized groups to achieve parity or equality in society are characterized as a “theft” of privilege and assets from the majority, legitimizing both verbal, legal, and physical attacks on members of the group.

For example, the billionaire Murdoch family’s top-rated morning show, Fox & Friends, recently wandered into a discussion about white people being “marginalized” by the possibility of our public schools teaching the actual racial history of America.

“[T]hey are not only trying to raise up minorities and make sure the playing field is even,” Brian Kilmeade said, “they’re trying to take down the white culture!”

Kilmeade, in full “White people are the victims!” mode, went on:

“Why are we being marginalized on a daily basis…? And it’s not even subtle! It’s actually out there! It is written in black-and-white!”

It’s played out this way in every democratic country that has fallen to tyranny from within. It’s how it happened in the 1930s in Italy, Germany, Japan and Spain, and today in Hungary, Poland, Egypt, Russia, The Philippines, and Turkey, among others.

More recently, Swanson Food Heir Tucker Carlson went on a rant about the Great Replacement Theory.

After identifying targeted minorities — for today’s GOP that includes Black people, trans kids (and their parents), pregnant women, and Democrats — and encouraging legal and physical violence against them, fascists move to the second major step: seizing enough economic and political power that they can reshape society itself.

This requires bringing in morbidly rich people and enlisting the aid of big business.

So, first, they go after the biggest businesses. One of the biggest businesses in Florida is Disney, so Ron DeSantis tried to get them on his bigoted side. They didn’t go along with it, so now, in typical strongman fashion, DeSantis feels he has to destroy them to save face.

As German industrialist Fritz Thyssen writes in his book I Paid Hitler, he pressured German President von Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as chancellor, and then lobbied the Association of German Industrialists, that country’s and era’s version of the US Chamber of Commerce, to donate 3 million Reichsmarks to the Nazi Party for the 1933 election. It brought Hitler to power.

Hitler’s sales pitch to the German people was that Jews, gays, and socialists had “stabbed Germany in the back” and were trying to “strip” good white Christian Germans of their “rights” and twist society to conform with their “perverted” ideas and lifestyles.

Hitler blamed the 1933 economic crisis on German minorities, Jews and gays, and accused Germany’s second largest political party of complicity with them; the German people went along with him. Once the Nazis took power, they changed election laws in such a way that they would never again lose.

Republicans and rightwing billionaires, of course, are doing much the same thing right now in America. One wonders if they’ll have the retrospective angst that haunted Thyssen until the day he died. He wrote about it in I Paid Hitler:

“I am not a politician, but an industrialist, and an industrialist is always inclined to consider politics a kind of second string to his bow — the preparation for his own particular activity. In a well-ordered country, where the administration is sound, where taxes are reasonable, and the police well organised, he can afford to abstain from politics and to devote himself entirely to business.

“But in a crisis-ridden state, as Germany was from 1918 to 1933, an industrialist is drawn, willy-nilly, into the vortex of politics. After 1930 the aspirations of German industry may be summed up in one phrase: ‘a sound economy in a strong state.’ This was, I remember, the slogan of a meeting of the Ruhr industrialists in 1931. …“I, too, approved this slogan, 'To surmount the crisis it was necessary to reinforce the authority of the state.’ … I believed that by backing Hitler and his party I could contribute to the reinstatement of real government and of orderly conditions, which would enable all branches of activity — and especially business — to function normally once again.”

Unlike Thyssen, who volunteered to support Hitler’s rise to power with massive financial and business backing, Disney is pushing back against DeSantis’ efforts to remake society in an American neofascist mode.

Unless they soon cave in, Disney’s executives probably won’t one day write in their memoirs, as Thyssen did in his:

“But it is no use crying over spilled milk. The strong state of which I then dreamed had nothing in common with the totalitarian state or, rather, caricature of a state, erected by Hitler and his minions.

“Not for an instant did I imagine that it was possible, one hundred and fifty years after the French Revolution and the proclamation of the Rights of Man, to substitute arbitrary action for law in a great modern country, to strangle the most elementary rights of the citizen, to establish an Asiatic tyranny in the heart of Europe, and to foster anachronistic aspirations of conquest and world dominion.”

This is not America’s first brush with oligarchic fascism, as I lay out in The Hidden History of American Oligarchy. President Franklin Roosevelt and Vice President Henry Wallace struggled with it in the 1930s with Charles Lindberg’s infamous Nazi-aligned America First movement.

In early 1944, the New York Times asked Vice President Henry Wallace to, as Wallace noted, “write a piece answering the following questions: What is a fascist? How many fascists have we? How dangerous are they?”

Vice President Wallace’s answer to those questions was published in The New York Times on April 9, 1944, at the height of the war against the Axis powers of Germany and Japan.

“The really dangerous American fascists,” Wallace wrote, “are not those who are hooked up directly or indirectly with the Axis. The FBI has its finger on those. The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way.”

As if he had a time machine and could see the “conservative” media landscape today, Wallace continued:

“The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information.With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.”

But Disney refused to use their media platform to advance the fascists’ agenda. It has only, however, slowed them down a bit.

Ultimately, as fascists gain more power and grow bolder, nothing is off the table. This is the threshold we’re approaching today, where they don’t just trash minorities and march through the streets displaying weapons and huge flags, but began asserting justification for violence and even murder.

Alleging crimes against the majority’s children is a fascist favorite, as Hitler charged with his repeated attacks on Jewish teachers, leading 15% of the nation’s teachers and professors (including a guy named Albert Einstein) to flee the country when he began his attacks on education in 1933.

Fascist politicians start alleging the most vile of crimes by the groups they hope to destroy: words like “grooming” roll off their lips with a smarmy ease.

Soon vigilante groups set out to destroy those accused, sometimes politically, sometimes physically.

German Nazis were particularly fond of accusing people they intended to destroy or kill of sexual “crimes.” As Thyssen wrote:

“General von Fritsch’s affair is also a good sample of the peculiar methods used by the Hitler regime. Fritsch was to be ‘liquidated.’ To achieve this, it is said, the head of the Gestapo personally reproached him with practising homosexuality.

“Fritsch, who denied this from the very start, was ordered to call at the chancellery of the Reich, where he was to be unmasked in the presence of the Supreme Leader. … It seems certain that General von Fritsch has subsequently committed suicide. I can at least say that whatever the actual circumstances of his death may have been, he was anxious to die.”

While history usually sides with the victims of fascists, as we’re seeing today with the people Putin is starving to death in Mariupol, that’s small comfort as they confront terror and death.

DeSantis, Abbott and the other Republican neofascists are playing a dangerous game, using Disney as a proxy for the racial and gender minorities they want as whipping boys. It’s a high-stakes political game that has torn societies apart and destroyed millions of lives in the past.

Standing against them are their victims and the Democratic Party, albeit hobbled in their efforts by the perfidy of Manchin and Sinema. This autumn’s elections may well be the last chance for people of good will who believe in American values and eschew fascism to rise in opposition.

Make sure everybody you know is registered to vote, regularly double-check your own registration to make it through a voter purge if you live in a Republican-controlled state, and volunteer to help out inside the Democratic Party or through any of the great groups fighting for a more just America.

Time is short, as Fritz Thyssen and Vice President Wallace would tell you were they alive today.

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'You have nothing to offer': the GOP's Orwellian debate pledge whips up a frenzy on social media

Brandon Gage April 14, 2022

The Republican National Committee announced on Thursday that it is withdrawing from the Commission on Presidential Debates and that presidential candidates must pledge to only participate in debates that are sanctioned by the party.

“Debates are an important part of the democratic process, and the RNC is committed to free and fair debates. The Commission on Presidential Debates is biased and has refused to enact simple and common-sense reforms to help ensure fair debates, including hosting debates before voting begins and selecting moderators who have never worked for candidates on the debate stage," RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel said in a press release.

"Today, the RNC voted to withdraw from the biased CPD, and we are going to find newer, better debate platforms to ensure that future nominees are not forced to go through the biased CPD in order to make their case to the American people," McDaniel added.

"The GOP is not walking away from debates. We are walking away from the Commission on Presidential Debates," the party tweeted later in the day. "It is biased and does not serve the interest of the American people."

According to The Wall Street Journal, "the RNC plans to form a working group to sanction debates based on input from presidential campaigns and criteria that may include timing, frequency, format, media outlet, candidate qualifications and the 'best interest of the Republican Party.'"

At face value, the RNC's move is a capitulation to former President Donald Trump's complaints that the debates he participated in with other GOP primary contenders in 2016 – as well as those with Democratic presidential nominees Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden – were unfair and rigged against him.

The bulk of Trump's ire was rooted in the moderators calling him out for outrageously false and provocative statements, such as when he directed the white nationalist Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by" during his one-on-one with now-President Biden in 2020.

The RNC's decision thusly adds credence to the possibility of Trump running for president again in 2024. If he does, the GOP is clearly attempting to manipulate its primary processes to favor Trump.

It also puts out an undeniable Orwellian vibe, which the Twitterverse noted in response to the Republican Party's edict

an 3 22 no lx

The Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum is great at writing “big picture” essays and think pieces that tie one subject or event in the news into a broader theme. And in an article published on March 31, the 57-year-old journalist, author and historian links Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the broader attack on democracy that is occurring everywhere from Latin America to the Middle East.

Applebaum, author of the2020 book “Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism,” recalls that after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in the early 1990s, the “liberal world order relied on the mantra of ‘Never again’” just as it did after the end of World War 2 in 1945.

Applebaum writes, “Never again would there be genocide. Never again would large nations erase smaller nations from the map. Never again would we be taken in by dictators who used the language of mass murder. At least in Europe, we would know how to react when we heard it. But while we were happily living under the illusion that ‘Never again’ meant something real, the leaders of Russia — owners of the world’s largest nuclear arsenal — were reconstructing an army and a propaganda machine designed to facilitate mass murder, as well as a mafia state controlled by a tiny number of men and bearing no resemblance to western capitalism.”

Now, in 2022, Applebaum adds, Russia is carrying out a “brutal invasion of Ukraine” in which President Vladimir Putin’s military has targeted “civilians, hospitals and schools” — and “never again” is being “exposed as an empty slogan.”

“There is no natural liberal world order, and there are no rules without someone to enforce them,” Applebaum warns. “Unless democracies defend themselves together, the forces of autocracy will destroy them.”

More than once in her Atlantic essay, Applebaum stresses that the “liberal world order” isn’t something that occurs naturally — democracies have to promote it. And if the United States and its democratic allies don’t make a concerted and aggressive effort to promote democracy, she writes, authoritarians will continue to make advances.

“Take democracy seriously,” Applebaum advises. “Teach it, debate it, improve it, defend it. Maybe there is no natural liberal world order, but there are liberal societies — open and free countries that offer a better chance for people to live useful lives than closed dictatorships do. They are hardly perfect; our own has deep flaws, profound divisions, terrible historical scars…. Perhaps, in the aftermath of this crisis, we can learn something from the Ukrainians.”

Applebaum continues, “For decades now, we’ve been fighting a culture war between liberal values on the one hand and muscular forms of patriotism on the other. The Ukrainians are showing us a way to have both. As soon as the attacks began, they overcame their many political divisions — which are no less bitter than ours — and they picked up weapons to fight for their sovereignty and their democracy. They demonstrated that it is possible to be a patriot and a believer in an open society, that a democracy can be stronger and fiercer than its opponents. Precisely because there is no liberal world order, no norms and no rules, we must fight ferociously for the values and the hopes of liberalism if we want our open societies to continue to exist.”

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no lnx

United States is experiencing an existential democracy crisis, with leading Republicans and millions of their voters and supporters either tacitly or explicitly embracing authoritarianism or fascism. Democrats, for the most part, have not responded with the urgency required to save America's democracy from the rising neofascist tide.

American society was founded on white settler colonialism, genocide and slavery. This unresolved "birth defect" at the foundation of the American democratic experiment meant that the country was racially exclusionary by design, from the founding well into the 20th century. At present, American politics is contoured by asymmetrical political polarization, in which Republicans have moved so far to the right that the party's most "moderate" members are far more extreme than the most "conservative" Democrats. This makes substantive compromise and bipartisanship in the interests of the common good and the American people almost impossible.

Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, Trump supporters and Trump-loathers, increasingly do not live in the same neighborhoods or communities. In all, they largely do not socialize with each other, or have other forms of meaningful interpersonal relationships in day-to-day life.

To the degree that "race" is a proxy for political values and beliefs, the color line functions as a practical dividing line of partisan identity and voting. Religion is also a societal space that is divided by politics. For example, public opinion research shows that white right-wing evangelical Christians have increasingly embraced authoritarian views, conspiracy theories and other anti-democratic and antisocial values.

As the new Faith in America survey by Deseret News & Marist College highlights, the basic understanding of the role of religion in a secular democracy has become so polarized that 70% of Republicans believe that religion should influence a person's political values, where as only 28% of Democrats and 45% of independents share that view.

Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, also do not consume the same sources of information about news and politics. Conservatives now inhabit their own self-created media echo chamber, which functions as a type of lie-filled and toxic closed episteme and sealed-off universe. The creation of such an alternate reality is an important attribute of fascism, in which truth itself must be destroyed and replaced with fantasies and fictions in support of the leader and his movement.

America's struggle for democracy and freedom against authoritarianism is taking place on a biological level as well. Social psychologists and other researchers have shown that the brain structures of conservative-authoritarians are different than those of more liberal and progressive thinkers. The former are more fear-centered,emphasizing threats and dangers (negativity bias), intolerant of ambiguity and inclined to simple, binary solutions. Conservative-authoritarians are also strongly attracted to moral hierarchy and social dominance behavior.

Recent research by Darren Sherkat, a professor of sociology at Southern Illinois University, demonstrates that America's democracy crisis may be even more intractable than the above evidence suggests. In his recent article "Cognitive Sophistication, Religion, and the Trump Vote," which appeared in the January 2021 edition of Social Science Quarterly, Sherkat examined data from the 2018 General Social Survey and concluded that there are substantial negative differences between the thinking processes and cognition of white Trump voters, as shown in the 2016 presidential election, as compared to other voters who supported Hillary Clinton or another candidate, or who did not vote at all.

Sherkat observes that Trump support has been linked to religion and level of education, but until now not to "cognitive sophistication," which was found "to have a positive effect on voting, but a negative effect on choosing Trump."He notes that "philosophers and political elites have debated the potential effects of mass political participation" for generations, concerned "about the unsophisticated masses coming under the sway of a demagogue." In effect, this debate was always about the quality he calls cognitive sophistication, since citizens who lack it "may not be able to understand and access reliable and valid information about political issues and may be vulnerable to political propaganda":

Low levels of cognitive sophistication may lead people to embrace simple cognitive shortcuts, like stereotypes and prejudices that were amplified by the Trump campaign. Additionally, the simple linguistic style presented by Trump may have appealed to voters with limited education and cognitive sophistication. Beginning with [T.W.] Adorno's classic study of the authoritarian personality, empirical works have linked low levels of cognitive sophistication with right-wing orientations....

Trump's campaign may also have been more attractive to people with low cognitive sophistication and a preference for low-effort information processing because compared to other candidates Trump's speeches were given at a much lower reading level…. While much of the Trump campaign's rhetoric and orientation may have resonated with the poorly educated and cognitively unsophisticated, those overlapping groups are less likely to register to vote or to turn out in an election.

As part of his research, Sherkat evaluated the political decision-making and cognition of Trump's voters, using a10-point vocabulary exam. In a guest essay at the website Down with Tyranny, he explains what this vocabulary test revealed about white Trump voters:

Overall, the model predicts that almost 73% of respondents who missed all 10 questions would vote for Trump (remember, that is controlling for education and the other factors), while about 51% who were average on the exam are expected to vote for Trump. Only 35% of people who had a perfect score on the exam are predicted to be Trump supporters.

Notably, this very strong, significant effect of verbal ability can be identified within educational groups. While non-college whites certainly turned out more heavily for Trump, the smart ones did not — only 38% of those with perfect scores are expected to go for Trump, and only 46% of non-college graduates who scored a standard deviation above the mean. The same is true for college graduates — low cognition college graduates were more likely to vote for Trump. ...

What is really depressing isn't just the poles of the vocabulary exam, it's the average. The mean and median of the scale is 6 — so half of white Americans missed 4 of the easy vocabulary questions.

Sherkat's research also explored how religion impacted support for Donald Trump among white voters: "This study confirms that white Americans with fundamentalist views of the Bible and those who embrace identifications with sectarian Protestant denominations tended to vote for Donald Trump in the 2016 election."

Belief that the Bible is the literal "word of God" also impacted Trump voting: "Viewing the Bible as a book of fables is also significantly predictive of vote choice, with secular beliefs reducing the odds of a Trump vote by 80 percent when compared to literalists, and reducing the odds of a Trump vote by 52 percent when compared to respondents who view the Bible as inspired by God."

In an email to Salon, Sherkat offered additional context and implication on the relationship between white Christianity, American neofascism and cognition:

The problem of the contemporary American fascist right is rooted in education and information. And this problem is not simply about attainment of some quantity of education, but of the quality and content of education, how that leads generations of white Christian Americans to process information about a wide range of issues. The segregation academies that proliferated in the mid-1960s and accelerated in the 1970s have taught millions of Americans a radically skewed version of American and world history and encouraged a continued segregated society. The homeschooling movement augmented this division, and further denigrated the value of knowledge.

White fundamentalist Christians have always segmented their communities from the rest of America, and even exert considerable control over public educational institutions, particularly in rural areas and in the states which embraced slavery. White fundamentalist Christians distrust mainstream social institutions like education and print media, and they actively seek to eliminate public education and to provide alternative sources of information. As a result, people who identify with and participate in white Christian denominations and who subscribe to fundamentalist beliefs have substantial intellectual deficits that make them easy marks for a wide variety of schemes — from financial fraud to conspiracy theories.

If you can't read the New York Times, you're going to believe whatever you hear on talk radio or on television. It's simply impossible for people with limited vocabularies and low levels of cognitive functioning to make sense of the complex realities of the political world. And we now have a population where for 55 years substantial fractions of white people have gone to private fundamentalist Christian schools that leave them both indoctrinated in Christian nationalism and ill-prepared to process any additional information. Worse, we now have over a million children in a given year who are homeschooled by parents who are uneducated white fundamentalists — and that total has been pretty constant for three decades since the homeschooling movement blossomed.

What does this mean for the present and future of American democracy in this time of crisis? Sherkat cited the "disturbing ... influence of anti-intellectualism on American public life," which lends "performative power to ignorant elites":

Spouting off obvious untruths is no longer a mark of shame, because even basic historical and contemporary truths are not recognized. We seem to have a stable set of about 30% of Americans, 35% of white Americans, who are oblivious to political realities and incapable and unwilling to come to terms with any of our key social problems. The increasing control over public education by right-wing fanatics is entrenching ignorance and intellectual laziness in future generations. It does not bode well for the future of American democracy.

Donald Trump and his movement did not create all these American authoritarians and aspiring fascists. Such people have long been a feature of American society. What Trump and have accomplished in recent years is to empower and normalize a dangerous set of antisocial, anti-human, retrograde and anti-democratic values and beliefs.

Saving America's democracy will require a moral and political reckoning and acts of critical self-reflection on a nationwide scale about the American people's character and values, and about how their leaders and governing institutions have failed them.

Changes in laws and institutions are necessary. But on their own, such interventions will not stop the spread of fascism. A lasting remedy will demand that the country's political, cultural, and educational institutions be renewed, re-energized, and reimagined. The questions Americans must ask themselves are simple yet enormous: Who are we? What are we to become? How can we unite in defense of democracy, the common good and the general welfare? Without real answers to those questions, there will be no democratic renewal in the 21st century -- and fascism wins.

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'TV terrorist' Donald Trump blasted for telling followers they 'must lay down their very lives' to defend against CRT

David Badash and The New Civil Rights Movement March 13, 2022

Donald Trump is calling on his followers to “lay down their very lives” to defend the United States against critical race theory. The disgraced former president delivered that dangerous call to arms at his “Save America” rally Saturday night in Florence, South Carolina.

“Getting critical race theory out of our schools is not just a matter of values, it’s also a matter of national survival,” Trump told his MAGA supporters. So-called critical race theory is not something that is taught in K-12 grades, it is a college-level interdisciplinary means to examine social and institutional constructs surrounding race.

“We have no choice,” Trump continued, a claim he often makes when speaking falsely.

That’s when he laid the groundwork for weaponizing his followers in the racist battle inside his mind that one day may erupt in physical war on our streets.

“The fate of any nation depends upon the willingness of its citizens to lay down – and they must do this – lay down their very lives to defend their country. If we allow the Marxists and communists and socialists to teach our children to hate America there will be no one left to defend our flag or to protect our great country or its freedom.”

“Calling for political violence to stop the teaching of accurate history in our schools is what fascism looks like,” commented Indivisible’s Sarah Dohl.

“Trump doesn’t want a political party. He wants an army. He’s a TV terrorist yes. But he’s also a real fascist,” wrote Condé Nast Legal Affairs Editor Luke Zaleski. “Attacking the Capitol, waiting, calling it off, then telling them he loved them after they terrorized the country and got his message across was a kind of a hint, folks.”

Zaleski later added: “Trump is a traitor and political mob boss.”

Civil-rights lawyer Subodh Chandra described Trump’s remarks as a “call to a violent race war. Over nothing but the teaching of our actual history. (CRT is not taught in public schools.)”

“Donald Trump,” said Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts, “who seems to be in the running for 2024, tells a nation awash in guns to kill or be killed in order to stop anyone from ‘hating our country.'”

“Scenes from a slow civil war,” observed Vanity Fair contributing editor Jeff Sharlet, who exposed the international right-wing Christian fundamentalist theocratic organization known as The Family.

“What does this mean?” asked Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy professor Don Moynihan. “If you are a teacher in a state you probably feel less and less safe by the extremist nature of this rhetoric.”

“Encouraging his fanboys to commit political violence again. Why is he still at large?” asked Salon’s Bob Cesca.

https://kpfa.org/episode/economic-update-march-4-2022/

when capitalism [democ?] is under threat, as in 1929, fascism often chosen option

cdv salon an 3 22

I voted for Joe Biden in 2020. He was the best option available for defeating Donald Trump and buying time to organize a defense of American democracy against the neofascist assault. More than a year into Biden's first term in office, I have no regrets. I'd make that same decision again.

Despite tremendous obstruction from the Republican fascists (and their "centrist" allies embedded within the Democratic Party) — a group of sadists determined to cause maximum harm to the American people as a way of obtaining, keeping and expanding political power — Biden has accomplished a great deal as president.This includes slowing down the coronavirus plague, resuscitating the economy, taking long-overdue steps to fix the country's infrastructure and restoring America's leadership role in the world.

In a moment of great crisis when Vladimir Putin and Russia are waging war on Ukraine, to know that America has a leader who, unlike his predecessor, is intelligent, experienced and patriotic, as well as mentally and emotionally stable, brings no small amount of relief. Moreover, one does not have to ask the obvious questions that circled around Trump like flies around manure on a summer's day: "Is the president of the United States merely a useful idiot and stooge for Russia, or is he actually an agent and saboteur?" That too brings considerable peace of mind.

RELATED: Biden calls out the attack on democracy: But he didn't just mean Vladimir Putin

By all accounts Joe Biden is a humble, honorable and decent man who loves his family, has experienced great challenges and losses in life but has not succumbed to bitterness. That also signals to a type of wisdom demanded by the many crises facing the United States and the world.

To see Joe Biden, who overcame a significant speech impediment as a child, give the State of the Union address while millions of people around the world watched — and to watch him stammer occasionally while doing so — shows him to be a role model of perseverance, humanity, and vulnerability. He has been weathered by life, sometimes badly beaten down, and is still standing.

But there has always been a lingering doubt that gnaws at me as I watch Biden's presidency unfold in a time of plague and political crisis, and in a moment where America's present and future are nebulous and greatly in doubt. Unfortunately, his State of the Union address only served to reinforce my anxiety.

Joe Biden is a career politician who is now the leader of the free world and arguably the most powerful person on the planet. And like all politicians, he is a disappointment. Biden is far too quick to seek "compromise" with the Republican fascists— which mostly means outright capitulation. He represents the interests of big corporations at least as much as those of the American people. He is a professional centrist. He will in all likelihood never cancel student loan debt or make other efforts at great and lasting economic relief. Although driven by circumstance to embrace more progressive policies, Biden was one of the Clinton-era "New Democrats" who helped unleash neoliberalism and gangster capitalism on American society, greatly damaging the middle class he claims to care so much about.

My greatest worry about Biden is simple: America needs a fighting champion if its democracy is to be saved. To this point, as this week's State of the Union address made clear once again, he does not appear to be up to that challenge.

In total, Biden's speech was an attempt to claim credit for his administration's many successes and to soothe an anxious American public that is deeply worried about the war in Ukraine, the economy and the pandemic. On that account, public opinion polls show that the speech was successful.

At the Atlantic, Ronald Brownstein offers this generous summary, arguing that Biden's speech "portrayed him as a resolute champion of financially squeezed families at home and freedom abroad":

Repeatedly through the speech, Biden rejected stark political choices.Vigorous at points, meandering at others, the speech was neither a full-scale course correction, like Bill Clinton's 1996 declaration that "the era of big government is over," nor a stubborn reaffirmation of the strategies Biden employed during his trying first year in office. The president at times gave each faction in his party reasons to cheer, but did not align entirely with either liberals or centrists.

Instead, the address showed Biden and his advisers trying to define a distinctive political space centered on providing kitchen-table assistance to average families, encouraging greater national unity, and reasserting America's role as the leader of the small-d democratic world against challenges from aggressive autocracies symbolized by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The speech was the performance of a president who remains confident in his political compass, even as the steep and persistent decline in his job-approval ratings since last summer has caused many people in both parties to question it. Throughout, Biden underscored his determination to combine positions often considered incompatible…

Biden also, as Brownstein observes, reverted to his habit of seeking to placate Republicans and to distance himself from Democratic progressives:

Toward Republicans, Biden was alternately conciliatory (proposing "a unity agenda" and praising their involvement in the bipartisan infrastructure bill) and confrontational (denouncing Donald Trump's tax cuts and the surge of red-state laws rolling back civil rights and liberties). He pointedly renounced one of the most polarizing battle cries of his own party's liberal vanguard, calling to "fund the police" rather than "defund the police," while reasserting his commitment to criminal-justice reform and gun control, both enduring priorities for the left.

What was most notably absent from Biden's speech was any forceful and sustained discussion of the country's democracy crisis, the role of the Republicans in creating and amplifying it, and the fact that we now face a moment where the voting rights and civil rights — indeed, the fundamental human rights — of Black and brown people (along with members of other marginalized groups) are under existential threat from a new Jim Crow system.

Black Americans are among the Democratic Party's most important constituencies, and its most loyal voters. Without the support of Black people in both the Democratic primaries and the general election, and especially the support of Black women, Joe Biden would not be president today.

During Biden's victory speech in November 2020, he said: "Especially at those moments when this campaign was at its lowest ebb, the African American community stood up again for me. You've always had my back, and I'll have yours." Those are fine words, but in terms of protecting Black America's voting rights and civil rights, Biden and his administration have not lived up to them.

RELATED: Media messes up coverage of voting rights, blames Biden for GOP's racism

His State of the Union speech was one more example of that failure. In several key moments, Biden signaled that he is temperamentally unable to do what is necessary to stop the Republican fascists' attempt(s) to end multiracial democracy.

Biden repeatedly spoke of the need to "unify" Democrats and Republicans. That means seeking "unity" with those who actively tried to nullify the 2020 election and supported a violent coup to prevent him from becoming president. Moreover, the Republican fascists have in no way ended their campaign to end American democracy and terminate Biden's presidency.

Biden often speaks boldly about American democracy being in crisis, and draws eloquently upon the images and legacy of the civil rights movement and Black Freedom Struggle while doing so. But he does not act with the "urgency of now" in seeking to defend that democracy.

The reasons for Biden's behavior are not mysterious. He is the product of an American political regime that is dying, but whose leaders and principal figures have, for the most part, not realized that fact. Biden genuinely believes that as a leading member of the American political caste he can somehow save the country's obsolescent political order. He is a Washington insider, an older white man and a "moderate". Once upon a time that might have meant that Republican leaders would work with him in good faith to find solutions to the country's many problems.

But in believing that is still true, Biden has committed a grievous error: Today's Republican Party and "conservative" movement comprise a revolutionary force, which seeks to destroy American democracy and replace it with fascism or some other form of authoritarianism.

When Biden speaks of "unity" or "compromise" with the Republicans he is giving aid and comfort to the neofascist movement --if not surrendering to it altogether. In a recent essay for the New York Times, Charles Blow echoes these concerns as embodied by Joe Biden's description of Mitch McConnell as his friend:

So, how can Biden maintain that McConnell is an honest, honorable friend?

It seems that Biden suffers from the same blind spot as other white liberal leaders throughout history: looking past the oppressive impulses of other white men to see kinship and commonality. Where the oppressed see an existential threat, men like Biden only seem to see a disagreement among decent men on a political issue. They see them as simply on the "other side" rather than "other than."…

But this version of politics is an extension of the Looney Tunes cartoon of Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog, where they are enemies on the clock but are friends off the clock, and is offensive to the people whose very lives are at stake. And yet Biden continues to proclaim his affections for those supporting oppression.

These bonds across bigotry smack of the insecurity of allies. They smack of a privilege of which only white men can boast, because the threat is almost always aimed away for them and at others.

When it comes to the issue of power and politics, the Bidens and McConnells of the world maintain their own affinity group.

In an essay for the Guardian, Thomas Zimmer expands on this:

Over the past few weeks, President Joe Biden has repeatedly emphasized his friendship with Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell. At the National Prayer Breakfast in early February, for instance, he praised McConnell as "a man of your word. And you're a man of honor. Thank you for being my friend."

Biden's publicly professed affinity is weirdly at odds with the political situation. Going back to the Obama era, McConnell has led the Republican Party in a strategy of near-total obstruction which he has pursued with ruthless cynicism. It is true that he has, at times, signaled distance to Donald Trump and condemned the January 6 insurrection. But McConnell is also sabotaging any effort to counter the Republican party's ongoing authoritarian assault on the political system.

The distinct asymmetry in the way the two sides treat each other extends well beyond Biden and McConnell. …

Republicans could not be clearer about the fact that they consider Democratic governance fundamentally illegitimate, yet some establishment Democrats act as if politics as usual is still an option and a return to "normalcy" imminent.

"I actually like Mitch McConnell," Biden said during a press conference a few weeks ago, providing a window into what he sees in Republicans: No matter what they do, underneath they're good guys, they'll snap out of it. Promise. It's the manifestation of a specific worldview that makes it nearly impossible to acknowledge the depths of Republican radicalization — a perspective that severely hampers the fight for the survival of American democracy….

Some weeks ago, a prominent Black comedian asked on Twitter if Joe Biden thought that, because he's a white man, it meant Republicans would work with him in ways they refused to with Barack Obama? The answer to that question appears to be yes.

RELATED: Mitch McConnell's moment of truth: For many whites, Black people aren't real "Americans"

Whiteness is almost never a liability in American society. But when it comes to the Republican fascists, Joe Biden's skin color may not be helping him much. The Republicans, their followers and their media sycophants view Biden as the white leader of a predominantly Black and brown political party. (That is of course false, but the truth is irrelevant to the Republican fascists and larger white right.) In their eyes, Biden is a "race traitor," even if they do not use that exact term. For the Republican fascists and larger white right, no compromise is possible: Their almost-explicit goal is to create a 21st-century Herrenvolk society in which Black and brown people, to quote the infamous words of Chief Justice Roger Taney, have no rights the white man is bound to respect.

Biden and too many other white liberals and moderates continue to believe that compromise with the Republicans is still possible, and that finding "common ground" can redeem this moment of democratic crisis. That kind of white racial innocence may well be America's undoing.

aha3: the pandemic was a social problem we absolutely could have dealt with, we have before, but me vs we gop knee jerk shut down Obama office/capability: trump alt fact Earth2 sociopath denied/ignored; healthcare Obamacare under relentless attack by GOP socialized medicine; covid crisis eg lack of ventilators at least temporarily utterly discredited libtard BS

gop governors resisted/outlawed mask vax requirements b/c mandate = tyranny and way to beat up Biden = gov't who was succeeding (ramped up vax even beyond goals in utter contrast to trump utter fail; canadian trucker BS not 1st convoy try/fal and bunch of anti-gubmint conspir BS on signs

irony/paradox:

freedumb lovers fear left biden green tyranny which does not exist, but boost RW authoritarian tyranny which absolutely does and i rising/winning eg orban/trump/bolsonaro putin:

in so doing they amplify division/ polarizatin, alienation chaos which degrades trust our resilience to deal with chaos/crisis which further fuels distrust /desperation chaos --> fascism death spiral

see civil virtue/ responsibility

aha2 bowling alone (globalization/ outsourcing, corporatization walmarting of rural rust belt] led to kids leaving, all sorts of other problems, rw talk radio proposed enemy/scapegoat solution ol time religion --> echo/escalator polarization that just made problems worse which called for trump i lone can fix it --> nazis on florida overpass /cda truckers....

aha: echo is isolation from Earth1, legit press info (ie ideas/info you do not want b/c does not fit your POV) and escalator= AMPLIFY/ BOOST/ PROPAGATE TO MORE PPL AND MORE INFLUENTIAL/INFECTIOUS PPL/ SOURCES; boost is boosted by algorithm and hype hate anger fear is monetized which is both an incentive and an extra further boost --> runaway mode

an 2 22 edit bd

On February 15, Bloomberg ran a story about the “freedom convoy” that seemed to illustrate Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theory of stupidity.

Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran minister who was part of the German resistance to the Nazi Party and to Adolf Hitler’s rise. His book, The Cost of Discipleship, is a meditation on “The Sermon on the Mount” in which Bonhoeffer splits the Christian concept of grace in two.

On the one hand is “cheap grace,” which is “without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”

On the other hand, Bonhoeffer said, is “costly grace.” It “confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus, it comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. It is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him.”

Indeed, resisting fascism by submitting “to the yoke of Christ” and following him cost him dearly. At age 39, the Nazis hanged him.

His theory of stupidity is featured in a letter written to friends a few years earlier. The letter, which is now known as “After Ten Years,” argues that evil like the Nazis isn’t the worst thing. Stupidity is.

“One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force,” he wrote. “Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless.”

Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed – in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical – and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack.

Bloomberg reporters Jen Skerritt and Robert Tuttle were covering protests of the Canadian government’s requirement that truck drivers delivering freight across the US-Canadian border must be vaccinated.

Protests in Alberta and Manitoba, dubbed the “freedom convoy,” took the form of blockades of bridges and trucking routes, at odds with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s declaration of emergency powers.

Skerritt and Tuttle interviewed one trucker. His name is Jake Klassen. His two campers and semi were in the blockade. He said Trudeau’s emergency powers were an attempt to “take everything from us.”

Then there is this part:

Klassen said he hasn’t been able to visit his nine-year-old daughter in months. She is receiving palliative care at St. Amant, a care residence in Winnipeg, but due to restrictions that require visitors to be fully vaccinated, Klassen and his wife can’t see her.

“Yes, that's absolutely stunning and sad,” said Victoria Barnett.

Barnett was director of programs on ethics, religion and the Holocaust at the National Holocaust Museum. She’s the author of many books on interfaith history. She edited a 2017 translation of “After Ten Years.” I asked if Jake Klassen exemplifies Bonhoeffer’s theory of stupidity.

Maybe, but as part of a bigger phenomenon. “After Ten Years” was his attempt to understand the first 10 years of National Socialism and what had happened to his compatriots, his church, his country.

He's trying to figure out why most Germans caved to Nazi ideology and why they became integral to what happened. The historian Klemens von Klemperer (himself a refugee) called the Third Reich a "consensual dictatorship" -- which is a pretty good description.

Go into that a bit more please. How was it consensual?

His main point is that stupidity is a moral failure, not an intellectual one. He's reflecting on the process by which people willfully become part of a larger movement or political group, etc. As they become increasingly involved, two things tend to happen:

They become isolated(or they isolate themselves) from those who disagree with them or challenge them (and I would say also from news sources that would challenge their worldview) and
They get a lot of reinforcement. One of the things that happened in 1933 after Hitler came to power was that Nazi Party organizations were founded for every demographic group – teachers, housewives, kids, etc. Everyone suddenly had a badge, a uniform, meetings to go to, new friends to meet etc. — and that was a big factor in creating a new sense of a larger German community serving a "grander" purpose (in the Nazi mindset).

A big part of that, of course, was identifying enemies and those who needed to be excluded -- Jewish citizens, political opponents, critical journalists, etc. But that early formation of consensus made life much harder, even by the end of 1933, for people who didn't agree with it.

What you're describing is collectivism, no?

The self-understanding of the German Volk was a collective concept personified by the "Fuhrer.” That's a big part of authoritarian or fascist regimes. Authoritarian leaders can do things without parliamentary approval, because they represent the "true" will of "the people."

But that also created a dynamic in Nazi Germany in which there was this mass adoration – almost a mass hysteria – for the person of Adolf Hitler. There are paintings portraying him as a messianic figure.

Bonhoeffer said there is no defense against stupidity. But if it's a moral failing, wouldn't a defense be private and public morality?

Ideally, yes.

Bonhoeffer's essay is an exploration of why that didn't happen. (Elsewhere, he explores the lack of civil courage) But Nazi Germany is a disturbing case study in the failure of leaders, institutions (such as the church), etc., to stand up in an effective way to National Socialism.

The best and bravest people were either arrested early on or got out. But he's pondering (and I think this is autobiographical) the failure of good decent people critical of the regime to be more effective.

That didn't happen. (Along the way, one must acknowledge that many of them became complicit). But by staying in and working from inside the regime, they also failed to offer a clearer example of resistance.

That's why by 1942 Bonhoeffer believes (as he writes here) that "only an act of liberation, not instruction, can overcome stupidity."

The trucker above says he's seeking liberation, too. Liberation from responsibility. How would Bonhoeffer persuade a man that he has agency and can visit his dying daughter by making the right choice?

One thing DB ignores is the psychology of all this. (He describes stupidity as a sociological problem). In Nazi Germany, we're also looking at the pressures and dynamics within a fascist police state.

In other circumstances, however (eg, the truckers' protests), this gets back to the peer pressures within a group that’s getting its information only from certain sources, in which there is a lot of pressure to conform to the will of the group (and a reward for doing so).

I've studied this in terms of the psychology of group behavior in Nazi Germany, but the literature on personality cults, mob behavior, etc., shows that the longer and more deeply a person gets involved in something like this, the less individual agency they perceive they have.

For Bonhoeffer personally -- he wrote as a theologian and person of deep faith -- that faith has the capacity to make someone see more clearly. But “After Ten Years” is a rather bleak assessment.

I'm reminded of something Michael Josephson said in 1989:

Success can be defined so many different ways but right now it is defined in a kind of how high is your position, how many people work for you, how high is your salary. When you get into that kind of yuppie version of success,you’re going to sacrifice things along the way.There’s not enough commitment to the ground rules of civil virtue.

A society focused on "success" (greed, selfishness) is a society in which a man won't do the right thing to see his dying daughter and as a consequence, will make sacrifices he can’t reverse along the way.

He's making an important point about what we value publicly and how that affects the individual's ethics and sense of responsibility.

I've been very disturbed by some of the very callous reactions during the pandemic – eg, the minimization of the deaths in nursing homes, the rush to get back to normal when thousands of people are still getting sick and dying (and when large sectors of the population -- children under the age of 6 -- can't yet be vaccinated).

But as I saw somewhere, the scale of the callousness has been on display for some time now in how we've dealt with school shootings, the high level of violence in our society and the much higher levels of violence experienced by people of color and the poor.

A society is measured in part by what we are willing to live with and by whether we are willing to change to make life better. Bonhoeffer, in his text, addresses this when he writes about the responsibility we are willing to take upon ourselves for the sake of a different future.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau seems to be doing what Bonhoeffer wished more Germans had done. He called out conservatives in the Parliament for standing with the Swastika and the Confederate flag.

I interviewed a number of Germans back in the 1980s when I was working on my first book (a collection of oral histories from people who had been in the Confessing Church) and I recall Kurt Scharf (a very brave pastor, who would later became a bishop) saying thatif Germans had held mass demonstrations and marched in 1933 in solidarity with German Jews, they might have changed things.

Impossible to know in retrospect, that’s what’s important here (and for understanding Bonhoeffer as well) -- taking a public position not only draws a line for what can be tolerated, but it also serves as a model to others that it is possible to speak out. That's what he was writing about in the section on the lack of civil courage among Germans.

https://www.alternet.org/2022/02/trump-fascist/

bill blum

The Republican Party’s embrace of fascism is now open and notorious, and impossible to ignore. With the exception of a few stragglers and diehards, the party has been captured by Donald Trump and the MAGA movement he has spawned.

And the takeover is accelerating.

In his latest “Save America Rally,” held in Montgomery County, Texas, on Jan. 29, the former president went beyond his usual tirades about the “big lie” of the stolen election and Mike Pence’s cowardice, ranting that he would consider pardoning the Capitol insurrectionists if he is reelected in 2024. “If I run and I win, we will treat those people from Jan. 6 fairly,” he declared. “And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons, because they are being treated so unfairly.”

It has been reported that Trump secretly considered pardoning the insurrectionists before leaving office, but hesitated and ultimately took no action. Now, he’s saying the quiet part out loud. His rhetoric is becoming increasingly incendiary.

Implicit in the prospect of pardons is the endorsement of political violence and the promotion of alternative realities, both hallmarks of classic and, now Trumpian, fascism. Lest it be forgotten, four people died on the day of the insurrection. Another 150 officers from the Capitol Police, the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police and other agencies were injured. In the weeks after the attack, an additional five officers died, either from injuries sustained during the riot or because they committed suicide.

At his Texas rally, Trump also called on his supporters to stage massive demonstrations if he winds up getting indicted or sued as a result of investigations led by the Justice Department, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis. Without mentioning James, Bragg or Willis--all of whom are Black--by name, Trump vowed, “If these radical, vicious, racist prosecutors do anything wrong or corrupt, we are going to have the biggest protests we have ever had.”

Following Trump’s remarks, Willis sent a letter to the FBI, asking for a “risk assessment” of the courthouse and government center where she works, and for security assistance.

The Republican National Committee, on the other hand, responded to Trump’s speech with abject genuflection. On February 4, the RNC voted to censure Representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois for serving on the House select committee investigating the insurrection. In its formal censure resolution, the RNC condemned the pair for “joining in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens who engaged in legitimate political discourse.” The RNC [later attempted to clarify that the resolution applied only to non-violent protesters.]

There are countless other examples of the GOP’s fascist transformation. To cite just a few, there was the party’s decision to pledge loyalty to Trump rather than adopt a new platform for the 2020 elections. There were the “coup memos” written by attorneys associated with the Trump campaign. There were the fake Electoral College certifications prepared by party operatives in several swing states. All occurred amid a constant drumbeat of white grievance and nationalism broadcast by Fox News and other right-wing media outlets.

The particulars and the details are important, but the bigger question is, where is Trumpian fascism headed?

The political scientist Robert Paxton, one of the world’s leading authorities on fascism, has identified five stages of fascism:

The initial creation of movements;

The rooting of the movements in a political system;

The acquisition of power;

The exercise of power; and

Radicalization or entropy, the stage at which movements reach their most extreme heights, or exhaust themselves and fizzle.

We are well beyond the first two phases. We flirted with the third and fourth during Trump’s first term, but our democratic institutions—weak and tattered as they are—were able to resist.

The election of Joe Biden offered only a temporary reprieve. Now, with Biden’s coalition fraying, the GOP and Trump have another opportunity to impose their will and vision, and deal a death blow to what remains of our diminished democracy.

As I have written before, fascism is a loaded term, but if used correctly, it aptly applies to Trumpism.

In his seminal study, “The Anatomy of Fascism” (Harvard University Press, 2004), Paxton offers an instructive definition:

“Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.”

Trump and Trumpism similarly embody the 14 common factors of fascism identified by the great Italian writer Umberto Eco in his 1995 essay, Ur Fascism:

A cult of traditionalism.
A rejection of modernism (cultural, rather than technological).
Acult of action for its own sake and a distrust of intellectualism.
A framing of disagreement or opposition as treasonous.
A fear of difference.… Fascism is racist by definition.
An appeal to a frustrated middle class—either due to economic or political pressures from both above and below.
Anobsession with the plots and machinations of the movement’s identified enemies.
A requirement that said enemies be simultaneously seen as omnipotent and weak, conniving and cowardly.
A rejection of pacifism. Life is permanent warfare.
Contempt for weakness.
A cult of heroism.
Hypermasculinity.
A selective populism,relying on chauvinist definitions of “the people” that it claims to speak for.
A heavy usage of Newspeak—impoverished vocabulary, elementary syntax and a resistance to complex and critical reasoning.

As the current situation demonstrates, fascism is by no means a foreign phenomenon restricted to South American banana republics or failed European states. As University of London professor Sarah Churchwell explained in a June 22, 2020 essay published in the New York Review of Books, fascism has deep roots in the United States, spanning the decades from the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s to the rise of the German-American Bund in the 1930s,the ascendance of Depression-era demagogues like Huey Long, and the election of Trump in 2016.

Churchwell’s article is aptly titled, “American Fascism: It Has Happened Here.” In it, she offers another working definition of fascism, noting that while fascist movements differ from nation to nation, they are united by “conspicuous features [that] are recognizably shared.” These include:

"[N]ostalgia for a purer, mythic, often rural past; cults of tradition and cultural regeneration; paramilitary groups; the delegitimizing of political opponents and demonization of critics; the universalizing of some groups as authentically national, while dehumanizing all other groups; hostility to intellectualism and attacks on a free press; anti-modernism; fetishized patriarchal masculinity; and a distressed sense of victimhood and collective grievance. Fascist mythologies often incorporate a notion of cleansing, an exclusionary defense against racial or cultural contamination, and related eugenicist preferences for certain 'bloodlines' over others."

No one has summarized the perils of Trumpism more insightfully than the celebrated linguist and political commentator Noam Chomsky. In a June 2021 interview with Truthout, Chomsky remarked:

“The term 'neoliberal proto-fascism' captures well both the features of the current [Republican] party and the distinction from the fascism of the past. The commitment to the most brutal form of neoliberalism is apparent in the legislative record, crucially the subordination of the party to private capital, the inverse of classic fascism. But the fascist symptoms are there, including extreme racism, violence, worship of the leader (sent by God, according to former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo), immersion in a world of 'alternative facts' and a frenzy of irrationality. Also in other ways, such as the extraordinary efforts in Republican-run states to suppress teaching in schools that doesn’t conform to their white supremacist doctrines. Legislation is being enacted to ban instruction in 'critical race theory,' the new demon, replacing Communism and Islamic terror as the plague of the modern age. ‘Critical race theory’ is the scare-phrase used for the study of the systematic structural and cultural factors in the hideous 400-year history of slavery and enduring racist repression...

“What’s missing from 'proto-fascism' is the ideology: state control of the social order, including the business classes, and party control of the state with the maximal leader in charge. That could change. German industry and finance at first thought they could use the Nazis as their instrument in beating down labor and the left while remaining in charge. They learned otherwise.”

In another Truthout interview conducted last month on the anniversary of the insurrection, Chomsky added:

“Trump’s motives are clear enough. We don’t need a degree in advanced psychiatry to know that a sociopathic megalomaniac must always win; nothing else can be contemplated. Furthermore, he’s a canny politician who understands that his worshippers will easily accept the 'Big Lie.'

"Many have wondered at the willingness of two-thirds of Republicans to believe the ludicrous pretense that the election was stolen. Should we really be surprised? Have a look at the views of Republicans on other matters. For example, on whether humans were created as they are today: about half of Republicans. Or on whether Muslims are seeking to impose Sharia law on the U.S.: 60 percent of Republicans who trust Fox News. Or on a host of other pre-modern beliefs in which the U.S. (mostly Republicans) stands virtually alone among comparable societies.

“So why not a stolen election?

“Election subversion is not merely a threat. It’s happening in the 'soft coup' that is underway right now. As is the drift toward a form of fascism. There is evidence that general attitudes of Trump voters on a range of issues are similar to those of European voters for far-right parties with fascist origins. And these sectors are now a driving force in the GOP.

“There’s also substantial evidence that this drift to the far right may be driven in part by blind loyalty to Trump. That seems to be the case on the most critical issue that humans have ever faced: environmental destruction. During Trump’s years in office, Republican recognition of climate change as a 'serious issue,' already shockingly low, declined by 20 percent, even as nature has been issuing dramatic warnings, loud and clear, that we are racing toward disaster.

“The phenomenon is deeply disturbing, and not without grim precedent. A century ago, Germany was at the peak of Western civilization, producing great contributions to the sciences and the arts. The Weimar Republic was regarded by political scientists as a model democracy. A few years later, Germans were worshipping Der Führer and accepting the vilest lies, and acting on them.”

The future, thankfully, remains unwritten. Trumpism can be defeated, but not without recognizing it and calling it out as the fascist menace it is.

Are we up for the enormity of the task? I wonder.

tom dispatch

https://www.alternet.org/2022/02/trump-maga/

The terrifying world of 2025: Is a coming MAGA Cultural Revolution on the horizon?

comm dr 2 22 an

Progressives expressed outrage Friday after the Republican National Committee formally declared the deadly January 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential election "legitimate political discourse."

"Mark this day for future reference."

"January 6th was not "legitimate political discourse"—it was a violent insurrection on our Capitol," Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) tweeted in response to the RNC declaration.

"I didn't know if I'd make it out alive," she added. "Some didn't. We cannot let the GOP whitewash what happened."

The New York Times reports the Republican National Committee (RNC) voted overwhelmingly Friday to censure Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wy.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) for their participation in the Democrat-led bipartisan commission investigating the January 6 attack.

The RNC censure resolution accuses Cheney and Kinzinger of "participating in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse," and of "utilizing their past professed affiliation to mask Democrat abuse of prosecutorial power for partisan purposes."

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.)—a member of the special House committee investigating the January 6 attack—told the Times that "The Republican Party is so off the deep end now that they are describing an attempted coup and a deadly insurrection as political expression."

"It is a scandal that historians will be aghast at, to think that a major political party would be denouncing Liz Cheney for standing up for the Constitution and not saying anything about Donald Trump's involvement in the insurrection."

Karen Hobert Flynn, president of the progressive advocacy group Common Cause, said in a statement that "January 6 was an insurrection that left people dead and scores of seriously injured in its wake. It was not legitimate political discourse no matter what the GOP says."

"It was a violent attempt to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election and ignore the will of the people," she continued. "It was a dangerous and irresponsible attempt to try to intimidate Congress with an angry racist mob assembled and then set loose by a man who had just lost the presidential election."

"With today's vote, the Republican Party has just endorsed violence as a legitimate form of political expression," Hobert Flynn added. "Their vote to legitimize violence is anti-democratic. There is no room for ambiguity when it comes to an attack on the peaceful transfer of power and our democratic system of government."

Cheney responded to the censure by posting a video showing supporters of Trump's "Big Lie"—the fallacious belief that the 2020 presidential election was stolen—savagely assaulting Capitol police officers and violently storming the U.S. Congress in a bid to stop lawmakers from certifying President Joe Biden's Electoral College victory.

Daniel Ziblatt, a professor at Harvard University and author of How Democracies Die, tweeted: "I have spent a lot of my career studying what happens when conservatives fully go off the rails. This is one of those moments."

trump if indicted riot

https://www.alternet.org/2022/01/trump-2656520563/

civil war expert recoils in horror at interviews with Trump fans: 'They don’t want democracy anymore'

Travis Gettys Raw Story

The U.S. recently fell out of the rankings of democratic nations, and one expert worries that it will happen again -- and tip the country into civil war...

1 22 email john s edit bd

For the followers of the former president, and for the GOP leaders paving the way for his return, freedom is about power. It’s about what they can do to you without consequence and what you can’t do to them without consequence. The social contract is tyranny. They owe nothing to you. You, however, owe everything to them.

They call themselves the “real Americans.”

For everyone else, freedom is democracy and self-government. That requires respect for social contract, which itself requires respect for the truth, as the truth is independent from human agency. The truth not only binds equal citizens but enables compromise between them. At root is the recognition that the common interest and common good are achievable through shared purpose and sacrifice. We are all in this together. Only when we honor that can we all of us be truly free.

In my view, these are the real Americans.

“I saw a focus group today that said independent voters only care about the economy. I get that. But I also know autocracy is bad for the economy. How do we get people to care about their actual freedom as much as they care about other issues? By looking to history.”

You could call this the difference between conservative and liberal. But after January 6, 2021, and the ongoing effort to sabotage voting rights in GOP-controlled states, does that apply anymore? After all, many conservative Republicans still prefer democracy. A bright line has been drawn. The difference, to me, is now between traitor and patriot.

Fred Wellman is preoccupied by that bright line. But he sees a lot of Americans sitting on it. “Fence-sitters” he calls them. They are critical to his success as co-founder of the Beer Hall Project, a PAC focused on reminding everyone of the bright line between fascism and democracy. “If we can bring them around to the right side, we win,” he told me.

Fred is a 22-year Army veteran who served in Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom as a helicopter pilot. He then served two more tours as a spokesman and advisor to the Iraqi government.

We talked about his project, the problems of political engagement and why the J6 is like the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch that led, a decade later, to the rise of Adolf Hitler and the demise of the Weimar Republic....

bannon/putin disinfo to destabilize, erode civil society to the pt --> authoritarian fascism // orban

no lnx

'To defy Trump's wishes is to defy God's plan': The scary truth about modern right-wing misinformation

https://www.alternet.org/2022/01/right-wing-misinformation/

John Stoehr January 13, 2022

Death threats will change a person. During previous testimony before a Senate panel, the nation’s top infectious disease expert was calm and deferential. This week marked a break from the past. Enough is enough, apparently. Dr. Anthony Fauci was no longer in the mood.

Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas kept pressing the question of financial disclosures, implying that Fauci was benefiting from the effort to vaccinate the country against the covid pandemic.

Fauci, as head of the White House pandemic response, is a public servant. By law, he must disclose financial information. So of course he didn’t understand Marshall’s question, because his “financial disclosure is public knowledge” and has been for more than three decades.

Two things. Marshall knew this and was pretending not to or he didn’t know this, which should be embarrassing for a sitting senator. Either way, Marshall said his staff could not find the document. Well, it’s here. Ultimately, he was pandering to believers of rightwing misinformation.

READ: One sentence from the Supreme Court's ruling against an OSHA vaccine rule reveals its upside-down logic]

After a heated exchange in which Marshall kept insisting Fauci was hiding something and Fauci kept insisting he’s not – “all you have to do is ask” for the disclosure – Fauci said, “What a moron! Jesus Christ!” (He said this to himself, obviously, not realizing his mic was still on.)

Is Fauci showing us how to handle rightwingers? That’s what I asked Sara Aniano on Wednesday. She’s a Monmouth University graduate student studying rightwing rhetoric and conspiracy theories on social media. She co-authored a new report for the Global Network on Extremism and Technology analyzing QAnon trends a year after J6.

She said Fauci’s pushback felt good, but in the end, it probably doesn’t help. “The reality is pretty dire,” she said. Propaganda, conspiracy theory and misinformation have “already infected the population.” It’s too late even for the Washington press corps to do much about it.

The way Anthony Fauci talked to the Republicans is how everyone should talk to rightwing extremists. Am I on to something?

READ: A right-wing talking point about Jan. 6 just completely collapsed after indictment of the Oath Keepers]

Absolutely. For a lot of people on the left, Fauci's pushback was refreshing.People are tired of the pandering, and of watching misinformation be lumped into the category of “free speech.”[ = wht priv?]

While Fauci’s “moron” comment was indeed a great moment of transparency, we should also consider his ability to humanize the situation with the anecdote about his own harassment.

The left is often considered "soft” in contrast with the alleged "hard truth" attitude of the GOP. While Fauci's position is not about partisanship, anti-vaxx movements have unfortunately aligned with the right and the far-right. So it feels like Fauci is speaking for us, even though he's really speaking on behalf of everyone.

It seems to me speaking for everyone is often interpreted as soft. In other words, acting for the benefit of the common good immediately marks you as an enemy by rightwingers.

READ: DOJ unveils explosive sedition charges against the Oath Keepers for the Jan. 6 attack]

For a party that increasingly demonizes collectivism, it's in their best interest to continue promoting "individual responsibility,” as it works for their messaging politically. But for the extreme far-right, it's more sinister. In their minds, there is a war going on between good and evil. And if you're not on their side, their black-and-white thinking places you into the "enemy" category.

The irony is that they are actually collectivists, too, no?

I hear that a lot. In comparison to other countries, America is not a collectivist culture. In my opinion, anyone who pushes extreme nationalism here is also pushing extreme individualism.

As a leftist researcher of far-right misinformation, I admit to a certain level of bias. But January 6 marked a clear turning point in how we view partisanship, I think, and we can't discard that.

READ: Michigan Republicans who circulated fake 'Electoral College' documents are being investigated by the Jan. 6 committee: report]

Why is it a turning point? We turned from what to what?

For a lot of us studying far-right extremism and misinformation, we couldn't help but feel this collective "we told you so" when January 6 happened. For the first time, we had a visual manifestation of far-right conspiracism that wasn't limited to social media or fringe news programs. In other words, everyone saw people act on the ideologies that misinformation researchers sift through every day.

Of course, how people interpret what they saw is what's shaping their opinion now.

Which is where misinformation comes back, right?

Here's something I tweeted on the anniversary of the insurrection: “By the end of January 6, 2021, Americans were left with the most damaging relic of all: Yet another unfathomable event, born of hate and delusion, for far-right conspiracy theorists to contort into a self-serving narrative that unfairly demonizes the innocent.”

I want to cry.

A lot of us can relate to that.

To what extent is anti-vaccination about purity of blood? To what extent is anti-vaccination cover for plain old white supremacy?

It's interesting, because even if anti-vaxxers don't realize it, the "pure blood" characterization of the unvaccinated has roots to eugenics, which of course has roots to white supremacy.

But to go back to the idea of "infiltration," I think vaccine skepticism ties into that too.

Please go on.

I've been thinking about what types of infiltration the far-right finds most threatening. So far I've come up with three categories: 1) member infiltration, 2) spiritual infiltration and 3) bodily infiltration.

Member infiltration seems to stem from a fear of the "other" hiding in plain sight, trying to live among them but with heinous intentions. We see that a lot with paranoia about Antifa, the feds, Jews or journalists "posing" as patriots.

Spiritual infiltration has a lot to do with "demonic forces" among us. Satanic panic stuff. With QAnon, we see allegations of Satanic rituals in Hollywood or even reptilians wearing skinsuits to pass as humans.

Physical infiltration is a lot about co-opting "my body my choice" messaging to push back against the vaccine, which many think is the mark of the beast or a 5G transmitter or radioactive or a microchip. A lot of crossover with pseudo-science.

There is so much overlap that it's hard to make exclusive categories, but you get the idea.

We haven't talked about religion. What does your research say?

Yes, religion or spirituality is inextricable from far-right narratives overall. My thesis, currently in progress, focuses on QAnon Instagram comments in the week leading up to J6.

Rhetoric that pushes a higher power is always mixed in with far-right narratives, and overwhelmingly, that's Christianity. A lot of people who believe election fraud theories in QAnon circles genuinely think that Donald Trump was anointed by God – he is the chosen leader to usher in "the storm" and defeat the evil Democrats, once and for all.

In their minds, to defy Trump's wishes is to defy God's plan. I wouldn't say that this is ubiquitous across the right, to be clear. That's a pretty extreme version. But religion presents itself across far-right rhetoric in general, even when it doesn't involve Donald Trump.

Trump abruptly hung up on Steve Inskeep after the host of NPR’s “Morning Edition” challenged him repeatedly on the big lie? Are such challenges what a democratic republic needs?

I think Inskeep did a great job, although many were upset with NPR for bringing Trump on in the first place. Your question is a hard one. People asked the same thing during and after the 2020 election when Trump alleged fraud on TV before the ballot counting was even complete. Some networks cut his speech off, while others aired it.

Any time we platform misinformation, especially when we can see it coming, we must provide context and a good reason for showcasing it. If we can shut it down in the meantime, then yes, we should.

But if I'm being honest, I think that ship has sailed.

I don't know if it matters anymore if we cut off conspiratorial rhetoric from Trump and others when it's already infected the population.

Are you suggesting the press can’t really mitigate the spread?

Once Trump normalized discourse that was hateful, xenophobic, conspiratorial and sexist, he made it more mainstream. People who previously self-censored those thoughts felt free to not only think them, but say them – particularly on social media, where anonymity removes accountability. That hasn't really changed.

I guess my point is – the press should do what it can to mitigate misinformation, of course, but the reality is pretty dire.

There's a serious epistemological crisis going on, and that's gonna require systemic change.[// heated pod occupy sunrise guy too late to stop authoritorian, congress paralyze so only prez can at,crisis will give opening]

Again, I want to cry.

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an ah 1 22

On MSNBC and CNN, coverage of the one-year anniversary of the January 6, 2021 insurrection had a consistently dark tone. That day was portrayed as one of the most disturbing in U.S. history and a full-fledged assault on liberal democracy. But on Steve Bannon’s far-right “War Room” podcast, the mood was totally different; the former White House chief strategist, Never Trump conservative Tim Miller stresses in The Bulwark, was celebrating violent insurrection, not speaking out against it.

“In the week leading up to the first anniversary of January 6, I dove into ‘the War Room’ to see how the OG ‘Stop the Stealers’ were processing the fallout from their botched putsch,” Miller explains in an article published by The Bulwark on January 11. “What I found was that their effort to overthrow the government has been undeterred by the initial setback of Joe Biden being inaugurated. While Republican elites try to minimize the events of January 6, ‘the War Room’ and their minions have continued to take the coup both literally and seriously.”

Miller continues, “In their view, the Biden ‘regime’ is illegitimate, and the regime’s medical establishment has covered up nearly a half a million deaths from the COVID ‘vaccines.’ In 2022, they aim to put so many of their people in positions of power throughout state and local governments that next time, there will be nothing anyone can do to stop their quest for power. And this crusade is infused with an unmistakable religious fervor and appeal to a quasi-Christian nationalism that calls its devotees into action.As crazy as their show may sound on its face — and let me tell you, it seems very crazy — anyone who cares about American democracy should take that prospect very seriously indeed.”

During Bannon’s January 3-6 shows, Miller observes, his guests included awho’s-who of MAGA extremists — including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, former Donald Trump adviser Peter Navarro and Trump lawyer/former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Miller warns that while Bannon’s show comes across as a theater of the absurd, that doesn’t make it any less dangerous.

“If it weren’t for the domestic terrorism and the threat to democracy,” Miller writes, “the whole thing would be an over-the-top laugh riot…. Put it all together, and what you have is a show that offers Trump supporters afascistic MAGA cosplay where they are the main characters, and the aggrieved victims, and also the all-powerful heroes…. From this vantage, the uprising that led to the January 6 riot is not a thing of the past, but an exercise to be learned from in their ongoing effort to ensure that they gain enough power so that next time the Democrats, and the establishment Republicans, and the Never Trumpers won’t be able to deny them total victory — and it’s part and parcel with their broader effort to tear down not just the government, but any American institution that might threaten their ability to control the levers of power.”

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/01/trump-cult-of-personality/

no lnx

Fascism expert says Trump’s cult of personality is growing

Amy Goodman and Democracy Now January 09, 2022

President Joe Biden warned about the looming threat of autocracy during his speech marking the first anniversary of the January 6 Capitol attack on Thursday and denounced his predecessor Donald Trump for inciting the rioters. In a statement responding to Biden’s speech, Trump continued to falsely claim the 2020 election was rigged. To discuss further, we are joined byhistorian Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an expert on the psychology of authoritarianism,who says Trump has grown his “personality cult” since his election loss and converted the GOP into “a far-right authoritarian party which has enshrined violence as part of the practice of power.” She also discusses Trump’s recent endorsement of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán,who has been recognized by European Union leadership as a threat to democracy, and calls Florida Governor Ron DeSantis a “mini-Trump” who is planning for “an authoritarian system at the state level.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: President Biden marked the first anniversary of the January 6 Capitol insurrection by denouncing Donald Trump for inciting his supporters to attack the Capitol in an effort to overturn the 2020 election. In a speech from Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol, Biden accused Trump of spreading a “web of lies” and claimed the former president — who he did not name — is placing a “dagger at the throat of American democracy.” This is part of Biden’s address.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Here is the God’s truth about January 6, 2021. Close your eyes. Go back to that day. What do you see? Rioters rampaging, waving for the first time inside this Capitol a Confederate flag that symbolized the cause to destroy America, to rip us apart. Even during the Civil War, that never, ever happened. But it happened here in 2021.

What else do you see? A mob breaking windows, kicking in doors, breaching the Capitol; American flags on poles being used as weapons, as spears; fire extinguishers being thrown at the heads of police officers. A crowd that professes their love for law enforcement assaulted those police officers, dragged them, sprayed them, stomped on them. Over 140 police officers were injured.

We’ve all heard the police officers who were there that day testify to what happened. One officer called it, quote, a “medieval” battle, and that he was more afraid that day than he was fighting the War in Iraq. They’ve repeatedly asked since that day: How dare anyone — anyone — diminish, belittle or deny the hell they were put through?

We saw it with our own eyes. Rioters menaced these halls, threatening the life of the speaker of the House, literally erecting gallows to hang the vice president of the United States of America.

But what did we not see? We didn’t see a former president, who had just rallied the mob to attack, sitting in the private dining room off the Oval Office in the White House, watching it all on television and doing nothing for hours as police were assaulted, lives at risk, the nation’s Capitol under siege.

This wasn’t a group of tourists; this was an armed insurrection. They weren’t looking to uphold the will of the people; they were looking to deny the will of the people. They were looking to uphold — they weren’t looking to uphold a free and fair election; they were looking to overturn one. They weren’t looking to save the cause of America; they were looking to subvert the Constitution.

This isn’t about being bogged down in the past; this is about making sure the past isn’t buried. That’s the only way forward. That’s what great nations do. They don’t bury the truth; they face up to it. Sounds like hyperbole, but that’s the truth: They face up to it. We are a great nation.

My fellow Americans, in life, there’s truth and, tragically, there are lies, lies conceived and spread for profit and power. We must be absolutely clear about what is true and what is a lie.

And here is the truth: The former president of the United States of America has created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election. He’s done so because he values power over principle, because he sees his own interests as more important than his country’s interests and America’s interests, and because his bruised ego matters more to him than our democracy or our Constitution.

He can’t accept he lost, even though that’s what 93 United States senators, his own attorney general, his own vice president, governors and state officials in every battleground state have all said: He lost. That’s what 81 million of you did as you voted for a new way forward. He has done what no president in American history, the history of this country, has ever, ever done: He refused to accept the results of an election and the will of the American people.

While some courageous men and women in the Republican Party are standing against it, trying to uphold the principles of that party, too many others are transforming that party into something else. They seem no longer to want to be the party — the party of Lincoln, Eisenhower, Reagan, the Bushes. But whatever my other disagreements are with Republicans who support the rule of law and not the rule of a single man, I will always seek to work together with them to find shared solutions where possible, because if we have a shared belief in democracy, then anything is possible — anything.

And so, at this moment, we must decide: What kind of nation are we going to be? Are we going to be a nation that accepts political violence as a norm? Are we going to be a nation where we allow partisan election officials to overturn the legally expressed will of the people? Are we going to be a nation that lives not by the light of the truth but in the shadow of lies? We cannot allow ourselves to be that kind of nation. …

Those who stormed this Capitol and those who instigated and incited and those who called on them to do so held a dagger at the throat of America, at American democracy. They didn’t come here out of patriotism or principle. They came here in rage, not in service of America, but rather in service of one man. Those who incited the mob, the real plotters, who were desperate to deny the certification of this election and defy the will of the voters.

AMY GOODMAN: President Biden, speaking Thursday at the Capitol to mark the first anniversary of the deadly January 6 insurrection.

Delaware Congressmember Lisa Blunt Rochester spoke later as part of a day of commemoration on Capitol Hill.

REP. LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER: On the day that I was sworn in to Congress, as many of my colleagues know, I was the first African American and the first woman from the state of Delaware elected to Congress. And I carried this scarf with me. It marked an X that my great-great-great-grandfather used to sign this returns of qualified voter registration of 1867 in Georgia. I also carried it on the day of the insurrection, because it is my proof of what we have overcome, and it is my inspiration for what is yet to be done as we work towards a more perfect union.

I continue to have hope, even when I feel hopeless, because my ancestors would have it no other way, and because Scripture tells us that weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning. And while I remember a great deal that day, what I remember most is walking back onto the House floor into the chamber that morning to complete our work, the morning when democracy prevailed. Remember, reflect, recommit.

AMY GOODMAN: Delaware Congressmember Lisa Blunt Rochester, speaking Thursday.

We’re joined now by New York University professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat. She’s an expert on the psychology of authoritarianism and the author of Strongmen: How They Rise, Why They Succeed, How They Fall. She also publishes Lucid, a newsletter on threats to democracy.

Can you put what happened yesterday in the context of your study of fascism, the anniversary of what happened a year ago, Professor?

RUTH BEN-GHIAT: Yes. So, Trump was never going to be — he was never a president who resembled either a Republican or Democrat head of state. He ruled as an autocrat. His priorities were autocratic ones: making money off the presidency, spreading hatred and creating a personality cult.

And so, when he lost the election, it was easy to predict, as I did in Strongmen, that he wouldn’t leave quietly, because democratic — with a small D — presidents, they respect the transfer of power, and they think about their legacy, but for somebody like Trump, who needs immunity from prosecution and needs the adulation, it’s like a kind of existential threat to have to leave. And so he tried everything. He tried martial law. He tried electoral manipulation. And then he went with his bespoke, custom army of thugs.

And what’s really so disturbing, that the GOP, which he remade into an authoritarian party, his personality cult one year later is stronger than ever. And very quickly, in the last year, the GOP has come into its own as a far-right authoritarian party, which has enshrined violence as part of the practice of power. That is part of its menu of how you do politics now.

AMY GOODMAN: During his speech, President Biden addressed what he called the president’s three big lies: Number one, Election Day itself was an insurrection; number two, the election results cannot be trusted; and number three big lie, the mob were the true patriots. Put that in the context of the strongmen you have studied.

RUTH BEN-GHIAT: So, a third of my book is on military coups, and which I thought wouldn’t be so relevant for the American reader, and, of course, I was wrong. And every single coup or authoritarian takeover is always justified as a patriotic act against tyranny, against corruption.

And so, Trump had set this up very well, because these big lies only had traction with his followers because he told 30,000 lies before that. And many of those lies, for years, were trying to take away the legitimacy of the electoral system in people’s minds. He started this in 2016, but he won, so he didn’t have to use this. So, we have to think about how what we saw, and what has been going on after January 6 for the last year, is the product of this very successful propaganda strategy.

And so, turning — what you also do is you turn it — I call authoritarianism as the upside-down world. So, Biden’s victory becomes the insurrection, and then January 6 becomes the righting of the wrong. And Trump knows how to tell a story. He’s a reality TV president. And he was very compelling, this idea that he was the hero, the savior of the nation, who had something taken away from him. And that way, January 6 becomes a kind of morally righteous action.

AMY GOODMAN: Just days before the January 6th anniversary, Trump endorsed Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. He released a statement saying, “He has done a powerful and wonderful job in protecting Hungary, stopping illegal immigration, creating jobs,” etc. Talk about the significance of President Trump in the world and what 2024 could mean if he were to run again.

RUTH BEN-GHIAT: So, I’ve always seen Trump — of course, we focus on how he came to power to destroy American democracy. That was his goal. But his other agenda was detaching America from the democratic world order and inserting it into what I’ve been calling since 2017 “Axis 2.0,” this kind of far-right autocratic order. A lot of it’s funded by Putin. And Orbán has made Budapest a kind of hub of these far-right networks, which remind me of what I initially studied, was these fascist networks of this fascist internationalism in the 1930s.

Now, Trump really identifies with Orbán, because Orbán is somebody who was a centrist, and then he was voted out, and he spent some years getting back to power. And then he arranged things. He has this electoral autocracy, where you hold elections and then you fix them, so that he doesn’t have to leave, you know, in his mind.

And the GOP has embraced Hungary, and they really see Hungary’s present as America’s future. And so, Tucker Carlson, you know, had whole week of broadcasting there. And even Mike Pence, who’s not the most worldly person, trotted over to Budapest and talked about how he hoped that abortion rights would be taken away soon. So, Hungary is this model of white Christian supremacy, anti-trans, homophobic. It checks all the boxes of what the GOP is actually today.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, we talk about him as a model and him modeling himself on autocrats around the world. But what about him as a model at home for people like Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor? You lay out, in a very chilling piece, this image of DeSantis surrounded by the people he wants to basically deputize as what his opponent in running for governor has talked about as his “secret police.”

RUTH BEN-GHIAT: Yeah, Ron DeSantis is an example — so, when you have somebody like Trump who imposes this kind of authoritarian party discipline, the system populates with mini-Trumps. They used to be called mini-Duces and mini-Hitlers, and now we have these mini-Trumps. And so, what we’ve seen is, in places like Texas and Florida, states are becoming laboratories of autocracy.

And DeSantis is particularly disturbing, because, you know, he wants to have his own civilian National Guard. And many states have those, but I discovered, doing research, that he’s also establishing an office for, quote, “election integrity,” which is code speak for election fraud, where it’s going to have its own prosecutors and investigators. So, anybody who — if there’s like an election result in the state that DeSantis doesn’t like, he can have his goons go after them and accuse them of violating election law. And they’ve made what used to be misdemeanors into felonies, so these people could be put in jail. So this is an example of the kind of authoritarian system at the state level that DeSantis has planned.

AMY GOODMAN: Ruth Ben-Ghiat, I want to thank you for being with us, expert on the psychology of authoritarianism and fascism. She is the author of Strongmen: How They Rise, Why They Succeed, How They Fall, a professor of history and Italian studies at New York University, and she publishes Lucid, a newsletter on threats to democracy.

Coming up, the CDC is predicting 84,000 people will die in the United States of COVID over the next four weeks. We’ll speak with emergency room doctor Craig Spencer. Stay with us.

an 12 21 me https://www.alternet.org/2021/12/navarro/

A former Trump White House advisor has revealed he collaborated with a right-wing agitator to execute a behind-the-scenes effort to halt the certification of President Joe Biden's election victory.

Speaking to The Daily Beast last week,Peter Navarro —ex-adviser to former President Donald Trump— touched on his role in the plans and how he and former Trump White House strategist Steve Bannon corroborated with Republican lawmakers like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) to halt the certification of the election results.

“We spent a lot of time lining up over 100 congressmen, including some senators. It started out perfectly. At 1 p.m., Gosar and Cruz did exactly what was expected of them,” Navarro told The Daily Beast. “It was a perfect plan. And it all predicated on peace and calm on Capitol Hill. We didn’t even need any protestors, because we had over 100 congressmen committed to it.”...

Personal goon squad': Why a newly reported memo by a Trump loyalist is 'cause of considerable alarm' for US democracy

Alex Henderson

November 15, 2021

chris hayes WITH good series on loss of democ 12/21 incl linear step by step lock-picking of trump coup

disloyal gop purge

https://www.alternet.org/2021/12/how-trump-and-his-maga-allies-are-purging-the-gop-of-disloyal-republicans-report/

an 12 21

aha bek says koch network ~ vax to fwd goal of~ gubmint?! netflix unnat slection libtard rhet fuels all?!

yale history professor Joanne Freeman has a stern warning for the United States: the worst may still be yet to come for America. In a new op-ed posted by The Washington Post, Freeman noted how “tempting" it is "to conclude that the insurgency failed" nearly one year after former President Donald Trump's attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

But she is making it clear that Trump's failure does not mean the attack on the American government is over. Freeman also explained why the situation is so much more critical now.

“Our government is still under attack. The offensive is quieter now but no less menacing, eroding the government from within,” the professor noted. "The fundamental right to vote is under siege. The regulation of elections is being corrupted. Andfaithin the electoral process is fading; the “big lie” about Donald Trump’s supposed victory in 2020 has staying power for just that reason."

In addition to the attack on the government, Freeman also highlighted how Trump's strategic attack has also impacted Americans' ability to trust and rely on its government in other areas such as law and public health.

"Americans question the role and reliability of the Supreme Court and wonder whether they can trust health and safety institutions like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the Food and Drug Administration — during a pandemic," Freeman wrote. "For too many, the old idea that government is the enemy has a newly magnified appeal."

From Republican-led bills to restructure America's election systems and erode election integrity to their attacks on other critical issues such as abortion, Freeman went on to note other factors that are problematic. Congress' lackluster response, according to Freeman also “virtually guarantees more of the same."

“With no clear line in the sand, the attack on democracy will continue," Freeman said, adding, "unchecked and empowered, with the worst yet to come.”

race to the trump bottom?! very strict fr = auth dictator

aha: (thom traces slavery roots to RR to now]

if gov't is tryrant we need guns terrorism to defend oureselves and our freedumb; if gov't merely inept handcuffed by PC we need guns to defend ourselves from antifa thugs commie dems; car kill protester is not that far from PI duetertes death squads to kill dealers and junkies?! note this turns over gov't monopoly on force and hands over to lone wack jobs radicalized by fox and soc med

thom h kyle

...A right-wing militia group in New York celebrated in the streets and then put a punctuation mark on their disdain for the law and simple rules of a civil society by entering the NY subway system through the emergency exit, bypassing the toll booths. "Rules don't apply to us!" they seemed to be shouting, along with, "You can't stop us!"

Trump wannabees in public office who are still trying to capture the white supremacist and white nationhood vote have doubled down on his strategy of fear, hate, and vigilantism.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, for example, recently signed into law legislation that gives legal protections to people who drive their cars into protesters in the street and defines everybody in any protest as a criminal felon if anybody in that protest breaks a window or engages in other illegal activity.

With DeSantis and other Republican governors pre-exonerating people like the driver who viciously killed Heather Heyer and vigilante protest shooters like Rittenhouse, many are worried that we're entering a new era where vigilante shooters and drivers-into-crowds will become as normalized and accepted as Amy Vanderpool documents how normalized daily mass shootings have become in America.

Laws similar to Florida's have been passed or are pending in numerous Republican-controlled states, presumably in anticipation of citizen protests when those states use their newly passed laws to overturn the will of voters in the 2022 and 2024 elections. Object to your politicians handing an election they lost to themselves? You go straight from the streets to the jail, just like in tinhorn dictatorships.

There's always been a fringe movement of violent white supremacist vigilantes in America, particularly since the end of the Civil War, but they've never before been embraced by or succeeded in capturing a political party. Today, astonishingly, that's the case in our country.

So, what's motivating today's vigilantes and the police who often aid and support them, as in the Rittenhouse case?...

Tucker Carlson’s 'nakedly fascist propaganda' leads to resignations, internal outrage, public fury — and a silent Murdoch

David Badash and The New Civil Rights Movement November 22, 2021

Two longtime Fox News contributors very publicly quit the far right wing cable channel this weekend over "Patriot Purge," a January 6 revisionism series created by the network's star anchor, Tucker Carlson. But other veteran Fox News anchors internally were so outraged their concerns went all the way to the head of Fox Corporation, the parent company of Fox News, who did nothing to stop its release and is reportedly refusing to comment.

Conservatives Stephen Hayes and Jonah Goldberg, the latter a staple on other news outlets as well, resigned in protest Sunday night. NPR reports the pair "pointed to a breaking point earlier this month: network star Tucker Carlson's three-part series on the Jan. 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol that relied on fabrications and conspiracy theories to exonerate the Trump supporters who participated in the attack."

"It's basically saying that the Biden regime is coming after half the country and this is the War on Terror 2.0," Goldberg tells NPR. "It traffics in all manner of innuendo and conspiracy theories that I think legitimately could lead to violence. That for me, and for Steve, was the last straw."

Goldberg's and Hayes' "resignations reflect larger tumult within Fox News over Carlson's series 'Patriot Purge' and his increasingly strident stances, and over the network's willingness to let its opinion stars make false, paranoid claims against President Biden, his administration and his supporters."

But NPR also reports that Chris Wallace, the top anchor at Fox News for nearly two decades, and Bret Baier, another top Fox News anchor and the network's chief political correspondent, were so outraged they "shared their objections with Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott and its president of news, Jay Wallace. Those objections rose to Lachlan Murdoch, the chairman and CEO of the network's parent company, Fox Corporation. Through a senior spokeswoman, Scott and Wallace declined comment. Murdoch did not return a request for comment through a spokesman."

At HuffPost senior reporter Christopher Mathias says "Patriot Purge" is "the most nakedly fascist piece of propaganda Carlson has ever produced. And it comes at adangerous moment: The insurrection is on its way to becoming as noble an enterprise as the Boston Tea Party for large parts of the American right."

"Carlson's insurrection agitprop sparked a similar wave of warnings from many experts on fascism and misinformation," Mathias adds. "Propaganda like this, they argued, could one day render the shocking events of Jan. 6 as amere preview of the right-wing violence to come."

Nicole Hemmer, author of “Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics," described “Patriot Purge" as “an overarching fantasy about the insurrection that goes like this: It was not an insurrection," she wrote for CNN. “To the extent there was violence, it was stirred up by members of the government and left-wing agitators.All of it was orchestrated so that the full force of federal law enforcement could be unleashed against Trump supporters, marking them as enemies of the state." FALSE FLAG

Goldberg and Hayes at their conservative website The Dispatch describe Carlson's "Patriot Purge" as "a collection of incoherent conspiracy-mongering, riddled with factual inaccuracies, half-truths, deceptive imagery, and damning omissions. And its message is clear: The U.S. government is targeting patriotic Americans in the same manner —and with the same tools—that it used to target al Qaeda."

Earlier this month Rolling Stonesaid "Patriot Purge" is both "profoundly dishonest" and "profoundly dangerous."

see kyle

aha anti commie, fag and semite:

omfg parasite = cockroaches = exterminate vermin carry disease dirty

https://www.alternet.org/2021/11/rittenhouse-2655770737/

no lnx pix req

Rittenhouse verdict championed on right-wing social media as green light for killing protesters

[Charlottesville "Unite the Right" Rally. Far-right Oath Keepers patrol Emancipation Park. Credit: Anthony Crider]

David Neiwertand Daily Kos November 21, 2021

The exultation on right-wing social media following Kyle Rittenhouse's acquittal has been sickeningly predictable: Mainstream conservatives loudly valorize Rittenhouse as a "hero," while more extremist voices, applying the same logic, demand that more Americans follow his footsteps—urging the likeminded to take to the street now to begin using guns to "be like Kyle." They have even appropriated his name for their future plans, voiced in numerous celebratory threads: Any leftist protester shot by a right-wing "patriot" henceforth will have been "Rittenhoused."

As we forecasted, the acquittal is now a beacon-like green light granting permission to violent right-wing extremists to openly wage the kind of "civil war" against "the left"—which ranges from liberal Democrats like Joe Biden to the "antifa" bogeyman they have concocted—that they have been fantasizing about for the past decade. In the words of Charlie Kirk's interlocutor, it's the signal that now they "get to use the guns."

The bloodlust has been palpable. Online trolls celebrated that "it's Open Season on pedo-commies" and boasted that the verdict means "there's nothing you can do about it." A neo-Nazi channel on Twitter urged readers to "let this win fuel your rage." A fan of pseudo-journalist Andy Ngo commented in a retweet: "Every one of these anarchist criminal thugsshould be shot in the street like the worthless dogsthey are."

Far-right maven Ann Coulter posted a meme showing a gantlet of [marvel nazi nerd wet dr] comic-book superheroes bowing to Rittenhouse. On Facebook, Ben Shapiro framed any future violence as being left-wing: "The Left accepting the verdict in a peaceable manner remains the sizable elephant in the room."

The white-nationalist site VDare also extolled Rittenhouse's heroism:

This much is true: Kyle Rittenhouse is the hero we've been waiting for throughout the turbulent summer of 2020, where a Black Lives Matter/Antifa/Bolshevik revolution has our country on the brink of total chaos.

[Coulter-RittenhouseMeme.jpeg]

Matt Walsh of the Daily Wire blamed the media for there even having been a trial:

The verdict is right and just but Kyle Rittenhouse never should have been on trial at all. Now themedia will go to work, like the demonsthey are, to ensure that Kenosha burns because they did not get their blood sacrifice.

Walsh then added:

I hope Rittenhouse bankrupts all of you dirtbags in media who smeared him as a white supremacist. [sue for libel based on verdict? // charlottesville ~ KKK case finished ] I hope he ruins your life. I want you to suffer. It's what you deserve. It's justice.

Idaho legislator Tammy Nichols, a Republican, posted a meme featuring the Gadsden-flag "Don't Tread On Me" design, but with a graphic of Rittenhouse firing from a seated position as he did in Kenosha.

The Gun Owners of America (GOA)—a gun-rights extremist group headed by far-right militia figure Larry Pratt—joined in the celebration by announcing it was giving Rittenhouse a new gun.

Alert: GOA will be awarding Kyle Rittenhouse with an AR-15 for his defense of gun rights in America. Join us in saying THANK YOU to Kyle Rittenhouse for being awarrior for gun rights and self defense rights across the country!

Other "Patriot" Movement extremists saw the verdict as vindication for vigilantism and militia organizing. The "Washougal Moms," a militia-friendly group from eastern Washington state, opined:

Today the jury and legal system has reaffirmed our rights as citizens. The second amendmentin all aspects, to form a well regulated militia, the right to bear arms in self defense, and against enemiesboth foreign and domestic!

Kurt Schlichter, the right-wing troll with over 380,000 followers, taunted MSNBC's Mehdi Hasan, who had expressed concern about the double racial standard that the verdict reflects, on Twitter.

Your pain delights me. Kyle Rittenhouse killed two leftistcatspawsand bisected the bicep of another and there's nothing you can do about it.

A white-nationalist Twitter account called "Based Teutonic" celebrated the verdict by posting a fantasy that Rittenhouse would now embark on an action-hero-like mission—with the help of Judge Bruce Schroeder, who oversaw the trial in markedly biased fashion.

About to exit court room

Judge yells from behind:

Rittenhouse turns around

You forgot this

Tosses him his AR15

Credits roll, Eye of the Tiger plays

"Based Teutonic" wasn't alone in celebrating Schroeder's role in the verdict. On Telegram, a commenter in a Proud Boys channel observed:

Kyle's case shows how important is to have your guys in power on a local level. One vaguely conservative boomer judge made all of the difference in a monumental trial.

Other Proud Boys were more focused on their long-anticipated civil war. "There's still a chance for this country," wrote one. Another wrote: "The left wont stop until their bodies get stacked up like cord wood."

The Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights monitored a number of far-right chat forums (particularly Telegram) following the verdict, and found an outpouring of extremist bile, much of it anticipating the ability to inflict lethal violence on "leftists," as well as Black "parasites" and, of course, Jewish people. A user called The Western Chauvinist commented: "The parasites are planning multiple 'protests' across the United States."

One user calling himself "Proud Boy To Fascist Pipeline" replied to one of these comments mocking Black leaders protesting the verdict as "parasites": "Your 17 year olds are already armed and terrorizing our neighborhoods, n----er."

Fittingly, Charlie Kirk fans—following the example of his Idaho audience member—were focused on the violence: "Arm up and tell them f**cking bring it!" one replied to predictions of leftist protests after the verdict. "Shoot these phukers," commented another.

Nick Fuentes' "Groypers" were also unbridled in their anticipation of gunning down their opponents. "The most American thing you can do is Killing Commies," opined one on the white-nationalist forum Gab.

Another Gab user exulted with a meme showing Joaquin Phoenix as The Joker, dancing: "When you find out it's officially Open Season on pedo-commies." Mocking "wannabe street thugs upset with the verdict," another Gab user replied, "you're gonna get Rittenhouse'd. Bitch."

Gab-OpenSeason.png

"Getting Rittenhoused" became a popular way of threatening leftists. After Ngo posted a handful of tweets from leftists angry about the verdict, hundreds of his fans piled on, making threats of violence against them. "Someone will Rittenhouse them too," one responded. Another replied: "I came here to say that!"

Antisemitism also was a common theme. Right-wing troll Keith Woods, who has 23,500 followers on Twitter, declared after the verdict: "Huge L for the Jews." His followers piled on; one responded with a GIF meme of Gollum and the text, "Curse you goyim." Another replied, "hopefully they take an L in Charlottsville trial too. WHITE BOY WINTER!"

White nationalist Eric Striker was more explicitly antisemitic, as well as strategic, in his commentary:

Beating the Jews to the narrative as incidents unfold is more important than anything that happens in court.

Once you frame a story with the facts (and the facts have to be 100% accurate) and disseminate it with an effective propaganda network, Jews will struggle to challenge it once it's cemented.

Notorious white nationalist and antisemite Mike "Enoch" Peinovich put out a statement through his National Justice Party: "This victory for Kyle Rittenhouse over the cosmopolitan elite forces that plague the nation isn't only a victory for the young man himself, it's a victory for justice and for all White people who take a stand," Peinovich said.

On Telegram, a white nationalist commented: "The victory of Kyle Rittenhouse over thejewish forces that plague the nation isn't just a victory for the man himself, it's a victory for justice, and for the masses of disenfranchised White people which populate the globe.

The neo-Nazi group White Lives Matter had this advice for its white-supremacist followers:

Don't let this one victory lull you back to sleep. That's what they want. They know small "victories" can placate the angry masses more than anything else. Instead let this win fuel your rage.Never forget the simple fact that this clear-cut self-defense should never have gone to trial in the first place. Muslim, Hispanic, and African invaders have raped millions of our women, WHITE women.Their time ofterrorizing our People with 0 consequences is coming to an end. The Rittenhouse verdict is a single tick in the scoreboard on our side. Our enemy doesn't have a scoreboard big enough for their victories. Fight harder, stronger, fiercer, and with the same remorse they have shown us. None. Get going, White man.

"This might be interpreted across the far right as a type of permission slip to do this kind of thing or to seek out altercations in this way, believing that there is a potential that they won't face serious consequences for it," Jared Holt of the Digital Forensic Research Lab at the Atlantic Council told NPR. "I worry that that might end up being interpreted by some people as a proof of concept of this idea that you can actually go out and seek a 'self-defense situation,' and you'll be cheered as a hero for it."

==-

aha RW conveniently gets their tyranny totalitarian mixed up eg NAZI are socialists b/c it's in the name when nazi killed union leaders and leftists; don't know or won't admit eugenics favored by mainstream and gop rockefellers; sanger gets tagged b/c a woman and birth control and that's close enough to abortion/women's rights to make her target/extremist

kinda ties into vegan tree huggers want to sacrifice ppl for nature // false choice between nature/breathable air and jobs/economy

==-

kinda hilarious trump right going full authrotaran tiki torch nazi but fretting about eugenics; also // plandemic/agenda 21/ red scare anti-commie de-population great reset?

August 26, 2016

Doug Domenech appeared on the Bill Martinez show where he talked about global warming and environmentalism. Domenech’s talk was titled “Should We Be Having Kids In The Age Of Climate Change?” [23], [24]

“The essence of the way environmental people think, when you really boil it down, is that the way we can protect our kids is not to have them in the first place,” Domenech told Martinez.[23]

Referring to professor Travis N. Rieder from John Hopkins University, Domenech said Rieder was lecturing students and claiming that “for us to protect ourselves from global warming, and especially to protect kids and people in Africa, that we should have fewer kids in America.”

Domenech said this was “a complete turning over of the principle that people are our most important resource.” [23]

Bill Martinez went on to discuss abortion, which said was eliminating “some 56 million plus of our labour force [..] because of the eugenics movement, Margaret Sanger, and Planned Parenthood.” Martinez asks, “Is this the same type of philosophy, just in a different shape and form?” to which Domenech replies: [23]

“Well, it is. And you might remember Paul Ehrlich, he’s a noted environmental guy, wrote The Population Bomb. And as well as Margaret Sanger and her eugenics. And Lester Brown is another name—he’s just written a book called Full Planet, Empty Plate. […] The essence of the philosophy of these people is that we need to return the Earth to its pre-human state, and that’s the only thing that’s going to satisfy them.” [23]

Domenech lumps global warming in with a list of supposed non-problems, including global cooling, mass starvation, resource depletion, and species extinctions: [23]

“Back in the 70s, one of the great failed environmental predictions wasglobal cooling,” he said. “In the mid 1700s we were still in the midst of alittle ice age, and cooling was a very significant problem, and it remains a big problem. And, of course, that led us to talking about overpopulation—that has not really been a problem.” [23]

He says another “non-problem” is mass starvation, as “our food production is bigger than ever.” [23]

Talking about resource depletion, Domenech pointed to fracking as the reason why “we’ve got more oil and gas than ever.” [23]

“Mass extinction of species – and that has really not happened,” he said. [23]

“That, of course, leads us to global warming, where we are today. These are all these big constructs that we need to worry about, and this is just the latest.” [23]

Domenech had written an article covering similar issues a day prior in RealClear Energy titled “Your Damn Children are Killing the Planet.” [25]

Chomsky: How 'Trump-led proto-fascism' and a 'deeply corrupt political system' could hand McConnell everything he wants

Meaghan Ellis

November 04, 2021

Noam Chomsky is shedding light on a number of political issues that could create a perfect Republican storm for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to carry out his "strategy of harming the country ...

an 10 21 amanda

wildest thing about Donald Trump's Big Lie is that his own supporters don't actually believe it.

Oh, they say they do to any pollster who will ask them. A recent Morning Consult poll, like so many before it, shows nearly "7 in 10 GOP voters don't believe the 2020 election was free and fair and/or have little to no trust in the U.S. election system, while 49 percent doubt that next year's midterms will be free and fair."

But when pollsters dug a little deeper, they found that Republican voters don't behavelike people who think the elections are rigged. On the contrary, Republicans are far more likely than Democrats to act like people who both believe that they will get a chance to vote and that their vote will be fairly counted.

"A full 92 percent of self-identified Republican voters said that they planned to vote in the 2022 elections, with just 4 percent saying they did not plan to," explains Meredith McGraw at Politico. "By contrast, just 70 percent of self-identified Democrats said they planned to vote, and 29 percent said they did not plan to."

People who think their vote doesn't matter don't get fired up to vote. So Democratic demoralization, for instance, is perfectly explicable in light of both widespread voter suppression and the rapidly dwindling possibility that President Joe Biden's bold economic promises will ever come to pass. Feeling like your vote never changes anything isn't unreasonable for Democratic voters, and they are accordingly less enthused about voting.

Republicans, on the other hand, are acting very much like people who believe their vote matters. Indeed, as the poll reports, GOP voters who espouse faith in the Big Lie are more likely to believe their vote has power[twt stat]

what gives? How can people both "believe" elections are rigged against them, but behave like people who have total faith in the system?

The likeliest answer is also the simplest one: They're lying.

Like their hero, Donald Trump, Trump voters know full well that the 2020 election wasn't stolen. They just repeat the lie, like a bunch of trolls. It's a useful cover for their true agenda, which is seizing power in 2022 and 2024 by any means necessary — even if doing so requires cheating.

As Greg Sargent of the Washington Postnoted on Twitter Thursday morning, "Their collective agreement to pretend the lies about 1/6 and 2020 are true is best understood as a collective unshackling of themselves from any obligation to abide by future election losses -- the precondition to overturning them by whatever means are necessary."

Sargent was responding to reports that Tucker Carlson of Fox News plans to do a "special" to amplify conspiracy theories that the January 6 insurrection was a "false flag" operation. As with the claims that the 2020 election was "rigged," it's important to understand that not only does Carlson not believe this, neither do his viewers — even as they eat up and repeat these conspiracy theories.

We know this for a very simple reason: The same people making claims that January 6 was a "false flag" will, depending on the situation, flip around and make the contradictory claim that the insurrectionists were patriots and martyrs. It's why Carlson will claim one minute that QAnon is a mythliberals made up to smear conservatives, and then the next minute defend the very real QAnon as a bunch of freethinkers resisting liberal hegemony. It's how MyPillow CEO-turned-fascist-propagandist Mike Lindell can keep moving the date for Trump's miraculous reinstallation in the White House without most of his followers starting to ask questions about why his predictions never pan out. It's why Republicans aren't rattled by the failure to turn up any real incidents of "voter fraud" for Biden. It wasn't something they ever believed to begin with.

Contradictions don't faze right-wingers for the same reason they don't change their minds in the face of facts: The truth does not matter. All that matters is power. Trolling through lies and contradictory claims is viewed as a crucial weapon in getting power.

To be certain, there is absolutely nothing new about this observation. On the contrary, it's quite clear that Trumpism is just fascism by another name, and the rhetorical game-playing of fascists is a subject that's been well-scrutinized. Semiotician Umberto Eco wrote in his 1995 analysis of fascist rhetoric, fascism is "a beehive of contradictions," because the point is to destroy rational discourse. To the fascist, Eco writes, "Thinking is a form of emasculation" and should be rejected in favor of a raw will to power. And, of course, there's the popular quote from philosopherJean-Paul Sartreabout how fascists "know that their remarks are frivolous" and they "are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words."

This is why conservatives are so impervious to facts and become more so as the GOP slides further and further down the fascist path. Facts are only persuasive to people who believe that truth and empiricism matter. For the authoritarian right, however, facts are understood as inconveniences and obstacles. In that light, it makes sense why they take so much delight in rejecting facts and driving liberals bonkers by doing so. It's a show of power, to relish how reality itself cannot defeat them.

Like many on the left, I was amused watching perennial GOP troll Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia freaking out at the possibility that her robotic repetition of the Big Lie might actually cause her followers to believe it and choose not to vote. And certainly, there are a small percentage of numpty-heads in the GOP coalition who don't realize it's all a big con and might elect to sit out elections because of it. In close elections, that extremely small percentage of Republicans who aren't in on the joke may matter. But that 92% of Republicans are feeling confident and excited about voting in future elections shows that the faith in the Big Lie is, for the vast majority of them, an act performed for the cameras and not a sincerely held belief.

Republican voters are not misled by Trump's Big Lie. They are empowered by the opportunity to join in. If there's any chance of beating back the rising fascist movement in America, it starts with understanding this crucial difference.

an hunter kos 10 21

Here's an entire New York Times story about a genuinely bad, malevolent person. It's not framed that way, of course, because Neutrality, but the Times tossed a reporter in the direction of Great Falls, Montana, to give us another report from the Trumpian underbelly of America and once again, it's a paranoid, conspiracy-obsessed, strategically dishonest sh-tshow that explains a lot about why the True Americans nesting comfortably in Trumpism have steadily been gravitating toward fascism as a matter of natural course.

The Times story is a long explainer about Rae Grulkowski and her quest to keep local civic-minded Montana residents from getting a token amount of federal funds by designating a chunk of the state a "national heritage area." It's a largely meaningless designation that provides minor federal funds to help preserve local points of interest and boost history-minded tourism.A bunch of Montana folks got a bee in their bonnets about it, part of the general True American suspicion that the federal government is evil and just out to trick people (thanks again, Ronald Jackass Reagan), and it became the local version of critical race theory, and hydrocorto-whateveritall, and ingesting horse dewormer because some friend of a friend of a cousin of an Online Influencer said horse paste cures gunshot wounds or whatever the latest version of that theory is.

But here's the thing: Rae Grulkowski—hero of the paranoid Montana class and partial impetus for Montana's reporter-attacking Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte's theatrical ban on the federal government from creating any such heritage designation in the state—attacked the civic-minded proposal by lying her ass off, constantly, inventing or perpetuating a web of fabricated claims that the tourism designation would, in the Times'telling, "forbid landowners to build sheds, drill wells, or use fertilizers." It would ban septic systems! It would raise taxes!

And it was all utter bullshit. As the Times noted and gave evidence of, Grulkowski was lying about all of it.

It was a local campaign dependent on crafting outright propaganda against something she didn't personally like, disseminating it to people who didn't give a damn whether it was true or it was false, rallying a crowd of like-minded liars to attack the opposition with furious disinformation, and turning it into the nextFarm Bureau and Republican paranoia campaign in which allies compared the National Heritage Area program to Hitler and nobody involved can stammer their way through any plausible defense of the nonsensical claims they're making.

So then, what are we to make of this? Well, Grulkowski and her allies are flat-out liars, that's for sure. They have disseminated provably false information as a political strategy, and local Republican (Trump) voters snorted it all up like ideological cocaine.Team Lying Bullshit has done its level best to make the lives of those evil civic do-gooders miserable.

It's only in the very last quarter of the story that we get to the kicker that explains all the rest of it: Rae Grulkowski is apparently a "QAnon" devotee, according to The New York Times. She claims to believe in conspiracies about "child trafficking that leads to everything," and believes that Donald Trump won the November election even though he most demonstrably got flattened, and thinks Black Lives Matter supporters were the actual culprits behind the Jan. 6 insurrection, and there we go. She appears to be someone who read a lot of hoaxes on Facebook and turned them into a personality, just one of a new "movement" of Americans radicalized by a single company's eagerness to monetize the nation's most deep-seated paranoias.

Well of course someone who believes an assortment of the most malevolent, antisemitic, racist, pro-fascist conspiracy theories being passed around the internet is going to be similarly loose when inventing anti-government reasons to oppose whatever her neighbors are doing. But—and this is the crux of the Times story and the lesson to be taken from all of this—it worked.

It worked, because of course it did. The propaganda effort was overwhelmingly successful, enough to gain the support of conservative state lawmakers who did not give a damn whether the claims were true. Nobody involved appears to have given a damn whether they were promoting lies. The invention of propaganda was the core strategy: taking a minor civic issue and turning it, through lies, into a new conservative touchstone.

The lying part is the most consequential "value" at play here. "Heritage" designations have nothing to do with any of it. Nobody gives a flying damn whether or not local historic landmarks get new plaques or whether they don't. The important part is for local Republicanism to stick it to anyone who tries to do an inch of good by inventing whatever lies are necessary to do it.

In battling a largely meaningless recognition of the area's rich history, Grulkowski was following the playbook of Steve Bannon, and Stephen Miller, and Donald Trump himself. It is the fascist playbook: If the facts are against your beliefs, ignore those facts and lie. Create new "facts" that will galvanize the movement despite their fraudulence; rather than seeking the consent of the governed by explaining why the movement's ideas will solve current problems, manufacture a new reality in which the "problems" are whatever hoaxes the movement needs to produce in order to justify taking whatever actions the movement wants to take.

We are in a world of danger when flagrant political lies can so swiftly result in success rather than condemnation. That is the endgame to all of this. If a government can be established that governs the nation through fraud—and it is happening, in each Republican-held state using provably false election hoaxes to justify new voting restrictions, and in the establishment of Facebook as the nation's new news source, one in which false information is treated by the company as marketable entertainment rather than a poison, and in the pre-disgraced thug of a Montana governor adopting ananti-government propaganda campaign to attack a federal government program instituted by Ronald Reagan himself as a supposed secret attack on True American rights—then elections are already irrelevant.

Central to battling all of it, however, is to recognize that Rae Grulkowski disseminated lies in order to attack an action she didn't like; she did so while wallowing in an absolute sea of other lies. She succeeded in mustering a populist revolt against better people and better ideas by lying, outright, about the thing she was fighting against.Now, says the Times, she has further political ambitions, given that her equally toxic and cowardly neighbors proved to be so furiously supportive of her campaign of lies.

This is a person who should be scorned. This is a person who should be shunned, boycotted, considered a crackpot, and treated with universal contempt. This is a person who is attacking democracy itself, by attacking it at its root premise: Whatever civic challenges are presented to the voters, they must be based on truth. Democracy is meaningless, is absolutely meaningless, if each election is a competition not of competing solutions to civic problems but of the inventiveness of each campaign in creating new hoaxes and convincing the governed to believe them.

Instead, we get national debates over whether some of the most infamously dishonest people in government have been treated too roughly if private restaurant owners do not want to serve them. The pressure is not to shun liars as anti-American, anti-democracy propagandists seeking to manipulate public opinion through rampant dishonesty, but whether we are allowed to direct any scorn their way at all.

How did it come to this?

The short answer might be Bernard Goldberg. Goldberg was one of those who made a name for himself insisting that American journalism was intrinsically "biased" against conservatives, a claim which is now taken as a central movement tenet because it fits pleasingly with every other movement theme of displacement and victimhood. The evidence for this "bias," even decades into the claims, was almost always an assertion that because conservative ideologues were not given exposure equal to actual issue experts, it amounted to oppressing the conservative "side" of an argument.

Ideological claims, in other words, were being shortchanged because journalists were looking to scientists, medical experts, historical data, and other providers of hard facts rather than letting lobbyists, think-tank heads, and other professional political provocateurs speak with equal authority and at equal volume.

From there conservatism moved to a very successful crusade to reformulate "news" so that facts were always debatable, so long as there was a single professional spinner who could be paid to claim they were. The cable networks, especially, transitioned from that into new forms that rarely gave scientists or other experts a voice at all, preferring instead to pit one pre-determined ideologue against another for orchestrated spats in which nobody could beproven to have lied because the segment would be over before any actual journalist or expert could even phone the studio.

We moved on to public bellowing about "the elites must respect my beliefs," where "beliefs" consisted of believing that climate scientists were sabotaging world government or, eventually, that livestock dewormer was a miracle cure for a pandemic hospitals themselves could not keep up with.

But it was the Goldberg camp that insisted that liars and propagandists should not just be heard from but also treated with respect.That if there was a conflict between facts and conservatism, then it was biased to highlight one over the other. It was treated as a given, from the beginning, that conservatism was a counter to scientificand policy expertise. It was treated as a given that conservatism was the rightful and just opposition to such expertise.

We have reached that conservative promised land. All of the news now follows the formula of pitting ideologue against ideologue, the facts wedged in somewhere—or not, depending on the journalist—but with no reproach given to those who insist that the facts are something else. The paid propagandists and crafters of outlandish, impossible lies are now treated with impeccable respect by the media. The American people are taught to treat professional liars as dignified combatants—nay, true Americans, speaking powerful emotions in the face of uncomfortable, irritating data.

And, after hounding media relentlessly into giving respect to professional fraudsters, the conservative movement itself has now shed from itself everything but the professional fraudsters. The lies are the movement; the movement is defined by the lies, and shifts as rapidly as required to adopt new ones. tucker 1/6 false flag]

You need not look at anything beyond the last election to see that. Respecting, or actively propagating, the anti-American hoax that claims Republicans secretly "won" the last election only to have it stolen by invisible forces, is now a requirement inside the so-called "conservative" movement.Trump lied constantly, about everything, in genuinely malevolent ways, and he was a product of both Bernard Goldberg's insistence that sneering know-nothings be given media respect and the shouter who finally erased all further attempts to pretend Republicanism was anything but a collection of spite-based antipathies and hoaxes.

But Rae Grulkowski is, genuinely, a bad person. Steve Bannon is a liar, a propagandist, and a hack. Stephen Miller is a white nationalist who crafts propaganda demonizing immigrants to justify brutality against them. Mitch McConnell is a relentless liar, one who flaunts his absolute contempt for whatever ideal he blustered about a month, a week, or a day beforehand in order to invent an entirely opposing one. Sarah Huckabee Sanders promoted fraudulent information as a professional, and ideological, career move. Donald Trump is quite possibly the most loathsome sack of malignant neuroses to ever have shuffled through Washington and that is saying something.

Creating hoaxes for the purpose of manipulating public opinion is contemptible, evil behavior. It deserves fury. It deserves the scorn of the entire nation; journalism, and political media especially, should have such seething contempt for the propagandists that exposure of each lie and value judgments about those that perpetrate them should be, as they once were, the profession's central ambition.

It is not enough to point out that this or that person is fabricating a hoax in order to deceive their fellow Americans into holding a new political position. Those that do so are enemies of democracy. They are, in the true sense of the word, anti-American. They are frauds. They are doing direct harm to their neighbors, their towns, their states, their nation. They are ideological soldiers seeking to do harm to the government by taking, from the public, the ability to use their vote as means of steering that government. They are anti-civil rights. Their propaganda is stealing democracy by stealing votes by stealing political debate itself so that voters simply cannot discern what government is doing, what the parties are doing, what the issues are, where the dangers are, and where the future catastrophes lie.

These are all bad, evil, rotten people who need to be shunned with ferocity. They do not warrant respect. They do not warrant civil treatment. They do not warrant malicious burbles about how dare Americans seek consequences for their fraud; newspaper editors should be devoting themselves to identifying each face and name and lie and treating them as public enemy, not both sides denizen.

These are the footsoldiers that will end democracy, if we cannot throw them from our civic spaces and treat them with the contempt that hoax promoters deserve. These are not the days of tar and feathers, but they can certainly be the days of belittlement, consequences, and public reproach. These are the vapid, self-serving cowards whose lies spur domestic terrorists to violence, and who kill Americans by the thousands by pushing fraudulent information about a deadly pandemic. These are not people who lie of happenstance or impulse, but people who specifically seek to bend government through a pattern of anti-American deceit.

There is no neutrality to be had in reporting like this. Someone who manipulates American politics by lying to the American public is acting with malevolence; reporters should feel a civic duty not just to expose them, but to strip them of the usual deference and pleasantries. Treat propagandists with more scorn than those who craft financial hoaxes to prey on the elderly, or those who hide the deadly effects of a product so that they may sell more of them. The propagandists are attacking the soul of our very democracy. To hell with them. Shun them and those who enable their plots out of greed, ideology, or apathy.

Conservatism has now reached Bernard Goldberg's promised land in which facts and malevolent fictions are treated as equals. The movement itself has become a mass of hoaxes cowering under a red hat. If it cannot be condemned as a fraud, it will grow in power until it strips all truth from around us.

https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/trumpists/

no lnx

Black flag: Understanding the Trumpists' latest threatening symbol

Chauncey DeVega and Salon October 12, 2021

It's an old truism that the "real bad men" (and bad women) "move in silence and violence." That's certainly true for the most dangerous and most effective of Donald Trump's allies, henchmen, henchwomen, and other followers. But for Donald Trump himself, and most of his political cult, that rule does not apply.

Trump and his followers were loud, exuberant and enthusiastic on Jan. 6. The lethal attack on the Capitol had been publicly announced weeks in advance, and should have come as no surprise. Trump's rallies and gatherings continue to celebrate violence and the prospect of revenge — and specifically of "getting even" with Trump's "enemies."

Steve Bannon, Trump's former campaign chairman and White House strategist, has now threatened to recruit Republican-fascist "shock troops" with the apparent goal of undermining the U.S. government, and by implication multiracial democracy, if and when Trump and the Republicans regain control of both Congress and the White House.

On a daily basis Fox News and other elements of the right-wing disinformation propaganda machine use stochastic terrorism and other techniques to radicalize their audience into committing acts of political violence. To this point, the Democratic Party and the political and news media class in general have remained in denial, and largely passive in response.

In one troubling new development, Trump supporters have begun flying all-black American flags, in an implicit threat to harm or kill their opponents — meaning nonwhite people,"socialist liberals," Muslims, vaccinated people and others deemed to be "enemies" of "real America." As media critic Eric Boehlert recently noted, the liberal opinion site Living Blue in Texas is sounding the alarm about the specific meaning of the black flag and the Republican-fascists support for terrorism and other political violence. That post, "Are Your Republican Neighbors Planning on Killing You?", merits lengthy quotation:

It didn't take long to find hundreds of videos where these Trumpers and so-called patriots were hanging black American flags. ...

Black American flags are the flags that mean "no quarter shall be given." They are the opposite of the white flag of surrender.

According to the people on TikTok and the Sun (British tabloid), the black American flag originated in the civil war and was flown by the Confederates.

It means that they will not surrender, will not take prisoners, and are willing to die for their cause. It means they will execute their enemies.

Who are their enemies? Pretty much any non-Conservative. You know, Democrats, Liberals, LGBTQ, BIPOC, and the vaccinated. ...

So, we're the enemy, and they're openly professing to want to execute us. … So, why are they doing this

Covid vaccinations, mostly. They believe that Joe Biden has declared a civil war on them by mandating that employers with over 100 employees and the military have vaccinations.

Yes, they say civil war, and they say it's already started. But, unfortunately, many of them also live in states where masks and vaccines are required by state governments, healthcare, and law enforcement.

An alarming number of military members have been making Tik Toks talking about how they are being discharged because they refuse the vaccine. It's alarming because there is probably an equal number of guys on there talking about the civil war plans and actively using Tik Tok to recruit these military and ex-military members.

The biggest message they have been sending out is, "it's time" or "the time is now." ...

Although showing guns on Tik Tok is supposed to be against community guidelines, they show lots of videos of their guns, shooting them, wearing them, or sitting on their bed.

They primarily use Tik Tok as a recruiting tool and let others know their willingness to commit violence. Then they tell people to message them or where to find them on Telegram.

However you interpret these videos posted by Trump followers and other neofascists — which could be mainly performative — it is clearly true that the American right is increasingly willing to accept or condone violence as a means of expanding and protecting their social and political power. (Salon did not find licensed news photographs of these flags, and has made the editorial decision not to reproduce the images mentioned above, which are easy to find on social media.)

Public opinion polls and other research have repeatedly shown that millions of Republican voters and Trump followers would support the use of violence to remove Joe Biden from office because of the "Big Lie" and their belief that that he is not a legitimate president. Similarly, a large proportion of Republicans believe that the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 were "patriots" whose use of violence was justified.

And a new poll from the University of Virginia's Center for Politics even suggests that more than 50 percent of Trump supporters want "red states" to secede from the Union. Republican elected officials and other right-wing opinion leaders have continued to escalate their threats of political violence against Democrats and other targeted groups.

In a recent speech to the North Carolina Faith and Freedom Coalition's "Salt & Light" conference, Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., issued what sounded like a declaration of war:

It is time for the American Christian church to come out of the shadows to say, "No longer are we going to allow our culture to be determined by people who hate the things that we believe in…. We are going to stand valiantly for God's incredible inherent truths that predate any version of government. Because, my friends, if we lose this country today, if we bend the knee to the Democrats today, our country will be lost forever, our children will never know what freedom is. It's our duty to stand up, Let us stand united as men and women of faith to fight for our country.

During an interview with MSNBC's Joy Reid, terrorism and national security expert Malcolm Nance said that Cawthorn's video "picks up on the themes that are not just coming from the Steve Bannon level and Donald Trump level, they are coming from the Republican street — and that Republican street is armed. They're angry. They have been fed an entire line which makes them believe that America is no longer America and that they no longer want the America that the rest of us, the 60 percent of the country, live in. And they`re willing to take up arms for it."

Nance also noted that Cawthorn's propaganda video is thematically similar to the type of propaganda used by Islamic terrorist groups such as ISIS and al-Qaida to radicalize and recruit members.

During an interview with Scientific American magazine, Dr. Bandy Lee, the principal editor of the 2017 bestseller "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump," explained how a mentally pathological leader can "infect" his followers and perhaps even an entire nation:

I have outlined two major emotional drives: narcissistic symbiosis and shared psychosis. Narcissistic symbiosis refers to the developmental wounds that make the leader-follower relationship magnetically attractive. The leader, hungry for adulation to compensate for an inner lack of self-worth, projects grandiose omnipotence — while the followers, rendered needy by societal stress or developmental injury, yearn for a parental figure. When such wounded individuals are given positions of power, they arouse similar pathology in the population that creates a "lock and key" relationship….

"Shared psychosis" — which is also called "folie à millions" ["madness for millions"] when occurring at the national level or "induced delusions" — refers to the infectiousness of severe symptoms that goes beyond ordinary group psychology. When a highly symptomatic individual is placed in an influential position, the person's symptoms can spread through the population through emotional bonds, heightening existing pathologies and inducing delusions, paranoia andpropensity for violence — even in previously healthy individuals. The treatment is removal of exposure.

Trump and his regime gave permission and encouragement to his followers and other supporters to engage in antisocial and other anti-human behavior on a national scale. Once such a process has begun, and those forces are unleashed, it is not easy to stop. Fascism is not a simple machine with an on-and-off switch. In practice, fascism is given life and takes corporeal form through its followers, with each one being a potential carrier of the pathology.

As Hussein Ibish warned in a recent article in the Atlantic, "The cancer of political violence is not an endemic American disease. At the moment, it is a Republican disease. No one but Republicans themselves can cure it. Until they do, the violence of the right is only going to keep swelling and crashing. From a Middle Eastern perspective, this is all appallingly familiar."

Fascism is a highly virulent social disease that usually destroys the host body – but not before spreading the disease to many other people. In fact, if the original host dies, he or she can be elevated to the status of martyr for "the cause," serving to inspire existing followers and lure in new ones.

Ultimately, Donald Trump, like other fascist and authoritarian leaders, is the symptom of a sick society. Trumpism is not actually the core disease. For America to counteract the deep underlying illness that has made Trumpism possible will require a long-term cultural and moral reckoning. Anything less, and the disease of American fascism will only go dormant until it is resurrected again — perhaps in a more dangerous and virulent form.

school bd attacked for masks, rx hosp workers attacked, election workers

1021

// nazi, martyr

https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/ashli-babbitt/

https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/capital/

Judge Loretta Preska, an advisor to the conservative Federalist Society, to which Chevron is a major donor, sentenced human rights attorney and Chevron nemesis Steven Donziger to six months in prison Friday for misdemeanor contempt of court after he had already spent 787 days under house arrest in New York.

This article originally appeared on ScheerPost.]

Preska's caustic outbursts — she said at the sentencing, "It seems that only the proverbial two-by-four between the eyes will instill in him any respect for the law"— capped a judicial farce worthy of the antics of Vasiliy Vasilievich, the presiding judge at the major show trials of the Great Purges in the Soviet Union, and the Nazi judge Roland Freisler who once shouted at a defendant,"You really are a lousy piece of trash!"

Donziger, a graduate of Harvard Law School, has been fighting against polluting American oil companies for nearly three decades on behalf of indigenous communities and peasant farmers in Ecuador. His only "crime" was winning a $9.5 billion judgment in 2011 against Chevron for thousands of plaintiffs. The oil giant had bought Texaco oil company holdings in Ecuador, inheriting a lawsuit alleging it deliberately discharged 16 billion gallons of toxic waste from its oil sites into rivers, groundwater, and farmland. Since the verdict, Chevron has come after him, weaponizing litigation to destroy him economically, professionally, and personally.

The sentencing came a day after Donziger petitioned the court to consider an opinion by the United Nations human rights council that found his house arrest a violation of international human rights law. The U.N human rights council said his house arrest counted as detention under international law and it was therefore illegal for Judge Preska to demand an additional six months in jail. Amnesty International also called for Donziger's immediate release.

Donziger and his lawyers have two weeks to appeal the judge's order that Donziger be sent immediately to jail. Preska denied Donziger bail claiming he is a flight risk. If the Federal Court of Appeals turns down Donziger's appeal he will go to jail for six months. The irony, not lost on Donziger and his lawyers, is that the higher court may overturn Preska's ruling against him, but by the time that decision is made he will potentially have already spent six months in jail.

"What Judge Preska is trying to do is force me to serve the entirety of my sentence before the appellate court can rule," Donziger told me by phone on Monday. "If the appellate court rules in my favor, I will still have served my sentence, although I am innocent in the eyes of the law."

Donziger, his lawyers have pointed out, is the first person under U.S. law charged with a "B" misdemeanor to be placed on home confinement, prior to trial, with an ankle monitor. He is the first person charged with any misdemeanor to be held under home confinement for over two years. He is the first attorney ever to be charged with criminal contempt over a discovery dispute in a civil case where the attorney went into voluntary contempt to pursue an appeal. He is the first person to be prosecuted under Rule 42 (criminal contempt) by a private prosecutor with financial ties to the entity and industry that was a litigantin the underlying civil dispute that gave rise to the orders. He is the first person tried by a private prosecutor who had ex parte communications with the charging judge while that judge remained (and remains) unrecused on the criminal case.

"No lawyer in New York for my level of offense ever has served more than 90 days and that was in home confinement," Donziger told the court. "I have now been in home confinement eight times that period of time. I have been disbarred without a hearing where I have been unable to present factual evidence; thus, I am unable to earn an income in my profession. I have no passport. I can't travel; can't do human rights work the normal way which I believe I am reasonably good at; can't see my clients in Ecuador; can't visit the affected communities to hear the latest news of cancer deaths or struggles to maintain life in face of constant exposure to oil pollution.

In addition, and this is little known,Judge [Lewis A.] Kaplan has imposed millions and millions of dollars of fines and courts costs on me. [Kaplan is the judge for Chevron's lawsuit against Donziger; Preska is his handpicked judge for the contempt charges.] He has ordered me to pay millions to Chevron to cover their legal fees in attacking me, and then he let Chevron go into my bank accounts and take all my life's savings because I did not have the funds to cover these costs. Chevron still has a pending motion to order me to pay them an additional $32 [million] in legal fees. That's where things stand today. I ask you humbly: might that be enough punishment already for a Class B misdemeanor?"

Judge Preska was unmoved.

"Mr. Donziger has spent the last seven years thumbing his nose at the U.S. judicial system," Preska said at his sentencing hearing. "Now it's time to pay the piper."

The six-month sentence was the maximum the judge was allowed to impose;she ruled that his house arrest cannot be counted as part of his detention. From start to finish, this has been a burlesque. It is emblematic of a court system that has been turned over to lackies of corporate power, who use the veneer of jurisprudence, decorum, and civility to make a mockery of the rule of law.

When the law is neutered, judges become the enforcers of injustice. These corporate judges, who epitomize what Hannah Arendt called the banality of evil, now routinely make war on workers, civil liberties, unions, and environmental regulations.

Preska sent Jeremy Hammond to prison for a decade for hacking into the computers of a private security firmthat works on behalf of the government, including the Department of Homeland Security, and corporations such as Dow Chemical. In 2011, Hammond released to the website WikiLeaks and Rolling Stone and other publications some three million emails from the Texas-based company Strategic Forecasting Inc., or Stratfor. The sentence was one of the longest in U.S. history for hacking and the maximum Preska could impose under a plea agreement in the case. I sat through the. I watched Preska spew her bile and contempt at Hammond from the bench with the same vitriol she used to attack Donziger.

Preska is also infamous for her long judicial crusade to force New York public schools to provide tax-subsidized free space for evangelical churches based on blatantly illogical readings of the Constitution.

The persecution of Donziger fits a pattern familiar to millions of poor Americans who are coerced into accepting plea deals, many for crimes they did not commit, and sent to prison for decades. It fits the pattern of the judicial lynching and prolonged psychological torture of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning. It fits the pattern of those denied habeas corpus and due process at Guantánamo Bay or in CIA black sites. It fits the pattern of those charged under terrorism laws, many held at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in Lower Manhattan, who cannot see the evidence used to indict them. It fits the pattern of the widespread use of Special Administrative Measures, known as SAMs, imposed to prevent or severely restrict communication with other prisoners, attorneys, family, the media, and people outside the jail. It fits the pattern of the extreme sensory deprivation and prolonged isolation used on those in our black sites and prisons, a form of psychological torture,the refinement of torture as science. By the time a "terrorist" is dragged into our secretive courts the bewildered suspect no longer has the mental and psychological capability to defend themselves. If they can do this legally to the demonized they can, and one day will, do it to the rest of us. The Donziger case is an ominous warning that the American legal system is broken.

Ralph Nader, who graduated from Harvard Law School, has long decried the capture of the courts and law schools by corporate power, calling the nation's attorneys and judges "lucrative cogs in the corporate wheel." He notes that law school curriculums are "built around corporate law, and corporate power, and corporate perpetration, and corporate defense."

Victor Klemperer, who was dismissed from his post as a professor of Romance languages at the University of Dresden in 1935 because of his Jewish ancestry, astutely noted how at first the Nazis "changed the values, the frequency of words, [and] made them into common property, words that had previously been used by individuals or tiny troupes. They confiscated words for the party, saturated words and phrases and sentence forms with their poison. They made language serve their terrible system. They conquered words and made them into their strongest advertising tools [Werebemittle], at once the most public and most secret." And, Klemperer noted, as the redefinition of old concepts took place the public was oblivious.

This redefinition of words and concepts has, as Klemperer witnessed during the rise of fascism, allowed the courts to twist the law into an instrument of injustice, revoking our rights by judicial fiat. It has seen the courts permit unlimited dark money into political campaigns under Citizens United, defending our money-saturated elections as the right to petition the government and a form of free speech. The courts have revoked our right to privacy and legalized wholesale government surveillance in the name of national security. The courts grant corporations the rights of individuals, while rarely holding the individuals who run the corporations accountable for corporate crimes.

Very few of the legal rulings that benefit corporate power have popular support. The corporate disemboweling of the country, therefore, is increasingly given cover by Christian fascists, who energize their base around abortion, prayer in schools, guns and breaking down the separation of church and state. These issues are rarely addressed in cases before federal courts. But they distract the base from the slew of pro-corporate rulings that dominate most court dockets.

Corporations such as Tyson Foods, Purdue, Walmart, and Sam's Warehouse have poured millions into institutions that indoctrinate these Christian fascists, including Liberty University and Patrick Henry Law School. They fund the Judicial Crisis Network and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which campaigned for Amy Coney Barrett's appointment to the Supreme Court. Barrett opposes abortion and belongs to People of Praise, a far-right Catholic cult that practices "speaking in tongues." She and the other far-right ideologues are hostile to LGBTQ rights. But this is not why she is so beloved by corporations, who are not interested in abortion, LGBTQ equality or gun rights.

Barrett and the Christian fascists embrace an ideology that believes that God will take care of the righteous. Those who are poor, those who are sick, those who go to prison, those who are unemployed, those who cannot succeed in society do so because they have failed to please God. In this worldview there is no need for unions, universal health care, a social safety net or prison reform. Barrett has ruled consistently in favor of corporations to cheat gig workers out of overtime, green-light fossil fuel extraction and pollution and strip consumers of protection from corporate fraud. The watchdog group Accountable.US found that as a circuit court judge,Barrett "faced at least 55 cases in which citizens took on corporate entities in front of her court and 76% of the time she sided with the corporations."

The Christian fascists, allied with organizations such as the Federalist Society, under the Trump administration gave lifetime appointments to nearly 200 judges, roughly 23 percent of all federal judgeships. That included 53 to the nation's appellate courts, the court immediately under the Supreme Court. The American Bar Association, the country's largest nonpartisan coalition of lawyers, has rated many of these appointments as unqualified. There are currently six Federalist Society Supreme Court justices, including Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh, who Nader calls "a corporation masquerading as a human being." Two Federalist Society Supreme Court justices, Clarence Thomas and the late Antonin Scalia, who was an original faculty advisor to the organization founded by conservative law students in 1982, were supported in the nomination process by Joe Biden.

The stacking of the courts with corporate puppets, however, began long before Trump. It was carried out by both Republican and Democratic administrations. Preska was appointed by Republican President G.W. Bush. However, the judge who preceded Preska in the Donziger case, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, a former lawyer for the tobacco industry who had undisclosed investments in funds with Chevron holdings, according to his public financial disclosure statement, was appointed by Democratic President Clinton.

The targeting of the courts was one of the key goals of Lewis Powell, a corporate lawyer later elevated to the Supreme Court by President Nixon. In Powell's 1971 memo to the Chamber of Commerce, a blueprint for the slow-motion corporate coup that has taken place,he called on business interests to pack the judiciary with corporate-friendly judges.

The courts in all tyrannies are dominated by mediocrities and buffoons. They make up for their intellectual and moral vacuity with a zealous subservience to power. They turn courtroom trials into opera buffa, at least until the victim is shackled and pushed out the door to a prison cell. They fulminate in caustic tirades at the condemned, whose sentence is never in doubt and whose guilt is never in question.

"It started when Texaco went into Ecuador in the Amazon in the 1960s and cut a sweetheart deal with the military government then ruling Ecuador," Donziger told me for a column I wrote about his case a year ago. "Over the next 25 years, Texaco was the exclusive operator of a very large area of the Amazon that had several oil fields within this area, 1500 square miles. They drilled hundreds of wells. They created thousands of open-air, unlined toxic waste pits where they dumped the heavy metals and toxins that came up from the ground when they drilled. They ran pipes from the pits into rivers and streams that local people relied on for their drinking water, their fishing, and their sustenance. They poisoned this pristine ecosystem, in which lived five indigenous peoples, as well as a lot of other nonindigenous rural communities. There was a mass industrial poisoning."

"The verdict came down, about $18 billion in favor of the affected communities, which is what it would take at a minimum to clean up the actual damage and compensate the people for some of their injuries," Donziger told me. "That eventually got reduced on appeal in Ecuador to $9.5 billion, but it was affirmed by three appellate courts, including the highest court of Ecuador. It was affirmed by the Canadian Supreme Court, where the Ecuadorians went to enforce their judgment in a unanimous opinion in 2015."

Chevron promptly sold its assets and left Ecuador. It refused to pay the fees to clean up its environmental damage. It invested an estimated $2 million to destroy Danziger. Chevron sued him, using a civil courts portion of the federal law famous for breaking the New York Mafia in the 1970s, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO Act. Chevron, which has more than $260 billion in assets, hired an estimated 2,000 lawyers from 60 law firms to carry out its campaign, according to court documents. But the oil giant, which did not want a jury to hear the case, dropped its demand for financial damages, which would have allowed Donziger to request a jury trial. This allowed Judge Kaplan to decide the RICO case against Donziger alone. He found credible a witness named Alberto Guerra, an Ecuadorian judge, relocated to the US by Chevron at a cost of some $2 million, who claimed the verdict in Ecuador was the product of a bribe. Kaplan used Guerra's testimony as primary evidence for the racketeering charge, although Guerra, a former judge, later admitted to an international tribunal that he had falsified his testimony.

John Keker of San Francisco, one of Donziger's lawyers on that case, said he was up against 160 lawyers for Chevron and during the trial he felt "like a goat tethered to a stake." He called the court proceedings under Kaplan "a Dickensian farce" and a "show trial."

In the end, Kaplan ruled that the judgment in the Ecuadorean court against Chevron was the result of fraud. He also ordered Donziger to turn over decades of all client communication to Chevron, in effect eradicating attorney-client privilege, a backbone of the Anglo-American legal system with roots dating to ancient Rome. Donziger appealed what was, according to legal experts following the case, an unprecedented and illegal order. While Donziger's appeal was pending, Kaplan charged him with misdemeanor criminal contempt for this principled stance — carrying a maximum sentence of six months — as well as his refusal to turn over his passport, his personal electronics and to refrain from seeking the collection of the original award against Chevron. When the U.S. attorney's office declined for five years to prosecute his criminal contempt charges against the environmental lawyer, Kaplan, using an exceedingly rare judicial maneuver, appointed the private law firm of Seward & Kissel, to act in the name of the government to prosecute Donziger. Neither the judge nor the law firm disclosed that Chevron has been a client of Seward & Kissel.

Kaplan also violated the established random case assignment protocol to personally assign Preska, who had served on an advisory board of the Federalist Society, a group to which Chevron has been a lavish donor, to hear the case. Kaplan had Preska demand Donziger post an $800,000 bond on the misdemeanor charge. Preska placed him under house arrest and confiscated his passport, which he has used to meet with attorneys around the world attempting to enforce the judgment against Chevron.Kaplan managed to have Donziger disbarred. He allowed Chevron to freeze Donziger's bank accounts, slapped Donziger with millions in fines without allowing him a jury, forced him to wear an ankle monitor 24 hours a day and effectively shut down his ability to earn a living. Kaplan allowed Chevron to impose a lien on Donziger's apartment in Manhattan where he lives with his wife and teenage son.

None of this would surprise those targeted by the tyrannies of the past. What would be surprising, perhaps, to many Americans is how advanced our own corporate tyranny has become. Donziger never stood a chance. Neither does Julian Assange. These judges are not, in the end, focused on Donziger or Assange, but on us. The show trials they preside over are meant to be transparently biased. They are designed to send a message. All who defy corporate power and the national security state will be lynched. There will be no reprieve because there is no justice.

The first bit of news today is that the United States Chamber of Commerce has been sitting in on strategy calls by the GOP leadership of the United States House of Representatives. That's news, because the chamber speaks for every major corporation you can think of. It claims to be nonpartisan and strictly business-focused. That was a lie.

The second bit of news is the decision by the chamber to flip-flop on its support of a Democratic plan for nation-building at home.After months of lobbying for a bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, at a cost of millions, it decided this morning to oppose it. That's news, because its decision was announced after reporters revealed the House GOP leadership was kicking the chamber off its strategy calls.

What can we take away from this news? First, as I said, the chamber has been lying to us. It has been an active participant in advancing the House Republican agenda, even when that agenda is a hit-and-run over democracy itself. (Many of its members have resumed making donations to Republicans who voted to overturn the 2020 election.)

Second, the interests of business are becoming subordinate to the interests of the party. That's a third bit of news, actually. For decades, wherever corporations went, so did the Republican Party. Now it's corporations, represented by the chamber, are struggling to hang on. Indeed, it was Mitch McConnell, the Senate GOP leader, who said earlier this year that corporations should "stay out of politics."

In reality, everyone benefits from federal investment in public works, but especially multinational firms that use the roads, bridges, airports and harbors to get their goods and services to consumers. Yet here's business saying its interests are secondary to staying on those calls.

I don't want to make too much of this. The GOP has long served the very obscenely rich. But rare is the moment in which one partner turns to the other and says, it's time for you to choose: us or them?

This seems to be one such moment. The biggest business lobby in the United States decided today that it's better to support the Republicans than oppose them, though its members lose. How much gain is there in staying on good terms? How much loss is there in being on the outside of the party looking in? This is something new. This is the Republicans assimilating corporations into an authoritarian collective.

Well, not that new. In 1964, Eugen Weber wrote Varieties of Fascism. In it, the late historian wrote that assimilation into the authoritarian collective, or "mass conformity," as he put it, was necessary to achieving the goals of fascism. A nation's "ideal cannot be one of individual freedom, free enterprise, and enlightened self-regard," he wrote, "because such concepts are disintegrating and divisive."

Fascists sought a "group ideal which will encourage the individual to transcend his private interests and give, abandon, and devote himself to the greater good of the greater whole."

That ideal was called "corporatism." It was organizing the economy such that "the state is no longer an instrument for the conservation of individuals and the achievement of their ends," Weber wrote. Instead, "individuals become means, instruments of the life of the State."

Benito Mussolini was clear about his vision. "The individual exists only insofar as he is in the State and subordinate to the necessities of the State," the Italian dictator said in 1929. "The more complex the forms of civilization become, the more freedom of the individual is restricted."

Where is capital in this scheme? Not good. "The Fascist tendency is towards collectivism," Professor Weber wrote, which welcomes "the gradual squeezing out of capital and the diminution of its influence."

So again, with feeling: What we saw today is something new. It's the GOP's assimilation of corporations into its authoritarian collective. The spokesmen of capital should bear in mind the possibility of "the gradual squeezing out of capital and the diminution of its influence."

This isn't new but it's unfamiliar. The greatest achievement among conservatives over the last half-century was getting a majority of (white) Americans to believe they stood for the rights of individuals, private enterprise and private property. Conservatives have always stood for ordered power, rights be damned, but pretending otherwise was useful during the postwar years during which Americans still had memories of right-wing collectivism (the Nazis) and, later with the Cold War, left-wing collectivism (the Soviets). It's been so long since its authoritarian wing dominated the party, no one remembers. But by forcing the chamber to choose sides, the GOP is returning to form.

Liberals have long accused the Republicans of being hypocrites. Why is it bad to give poor people "handouts" but good to give rich people "stimulus"? Why are one "welfare queens" and the other "job creators"?

My hope is that liberals will see today's decision by the chamber as an opportunity. Not only are the Republicans assimilating corporations into their authoritarian collective. The representatives of capital are willing to be assimilated, risking themselves and democracy along the way. So forget hypocrisy. A fully fascist target is coming into view.

Liberals should hit it. Hit it hard.

rww 921

a night of canvasing begins with a group of angry, white men.

Dressed in matching T-shirts and hoodies emblazoned with the phrase “Active Club,” the masked white nationalists wield a starter pack of extremist paraphernalia: stickers that read “FCK ANTIFA” and “Defend the White Race,” posters promoting a “nationalist lifestyle,” stencils etched with racist slogans, and black spray paint. They disperse, plastering stickers on lamp posts, billboards, and the occasional statue. They replace Black Lives Matter slogans with smatterings of hate messages and promises to “reclaim America.”

Among the scattered propaganda is a blue poster imploring readers to start their own active clubs—spaces for white men to train in combat while openly embracing white nationalism through street activism and publicity stunts. “Now is all we have,” read the poster. “Join the fight.”

Various videos and photos posted online by the group show this scene play out over and over again. You might even have seen these posters across small-town USA: Seymour, Indiana; Coeur d’Alene Idaho; Cheyenne, Wyoming—or even across cities like Denver and Philadelphia. These calls to actions are not the work of misguided teenagers but the persistent effort ofinfamous white nationalists like Robert Rundo, who spent years sowing the seeds of hate while building a global following for his neo-Nazi fight-club initiatives.

By using combat sports as a medium to recruit, radicalize, and discipline white nationalists disenfranchised by mainstream conservative politics, Rundo is able to create physical and digital spaces where extreme right political ideologies can flourish. He also joined forces with like-minded white nationalist groups such as Patriot Front and Revolt Against Tradition, which has allowed Rundo to rapidly expand his network and spread his active club ideology across North America.

The Rise of Active Clubs

The chaos that took place in Berkeley on April 15, 2017, was among the worst the city had seen in years. For approximately three hours, protesters for and against then President Donald Trump brawled at a “Patriot Rally” on the streets surrounding Civic Center Park, armed with pepper spray, smoke bombs, sticks, and wooden dowels. Seven attendees were hospitalized with injuries while 20 people were arrested, according to Berkeley police.

Among those arrested was Rundo, who arrived in Berkeley with members of his Rise Above Movement white nationalist group, and was later taken into custody on suspicion of battery on a police officer and for resisting a police officer. The charges were dropped after an Alameda County deputy district attorney determined that there was not “enough evidence to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt.” It took more than a year for theDepartment of Justice to bring federal charges against Rundo and three other RAM members for their alleged involvement in political rallies across California, claiming that they “violently attacked counter-protesters, journalists and a police officer.”

According to the complaint filed by federal officials in October 2018, Rundo and three other RAM members were allegedly involved in “violent attacks” at the Berkeley rally, which included Rundo punching a defenseless person and a police officer. The complaint also noted that RAM members celebrated the assaults in Berkeley, which prosecutors say included one member posting photos of himself attacking people and of other RAM members assaulting counterprotesters with their combat sports training.

The 2018 federal complaint followed the filing of an indictment in federal court that led to the arrest of four other RAM members on rioting charges related to their participation at the white supremacist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017 at which a counterprotester was murdered. The four men, including RAM co-founder Ben Daley and UCLA doctoral student Michael Miselis, pleaded guilty and were sentenced for their crimes. The RAM defendants in California were luckier. While many expected Rundo and the three other defendants to face jail time—one RAM member even pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge—a district judge dismissed the charges against them in 2019, claiming that the federal statute used to prosecute the members infringed upon their First Amendment rights to free speech.

Prior to the string of arrests, the California-based RAM boasted more than 50 members who trained in various combat sports such as mixed martial arts and boxing, which they later applied during street fights and protests.The group rose to prominence in 2017, when they began attending political rallies and targeting anti-fascist activists. They infiltrated protests and disrupted proceedings by fighting with those opposing their ultra-nationalist ideology. They concealed their identities using skull face masks and goggles, and went into rallies with their hands wrapped in tape in preparation for physical altercations. They then glorified their antics in propaganda videos posted on social media.

rapeugees"

RAM members at an “anti-Sharia law” protest in San Bernardino, California.

RAM’s penchant for MMA and underground fight clubs is one of the main things that distinguishes it from various other white supremacist groups in the United States. It has also helped RAM expand beyond the borders of the U.S., recruit new members, and network with other neo-Nazi groups dabbling in MMA around the world.

While four of RAM’s most prominent members remain in jail since being indicted on Charlottesville rioting charges, Rundo left the United States after having his case dismissed in California and has spent the last few years trying to further his white nationalist agenda and rebuild the fighting community that had been diminished by federal prosecution. After moving to Eastern Europe, Rundo founded a far-right propaganda outfit known as theInternational Conservative Community,which boasts a network of neo-Nazis around the world, with groups in Greece, Poland, Sweden, Hungary, Russia and Canada. The ICC is behind the **propaganda campaign for Kyle Rittenhouse**, the 17-year-old charged with the fatal shooting of two protesters during an anti-racism demonstration in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Rundo’s campaign included spreading artwork depicting Rittenhouse with the caption, “Kyle was Right.” The ICC has planted stickers, large-scale graffiti work, and banners emblazoned with Rittenhouse’s image across Europe and North America. In Serbia, where Rundo was living in 2020, the group painted a picture of an armed Rittenhouse standing proud with a Schwarze Sonne (German for Black Sun) as his backdrop; the symbol, also known as a sonnerad, is used by a number of with far-right groups that traffic in neo-Nazi ideologies. The painting in Serbia was featured alongside a Confederate flag and a picture of a deranged-looking Homer Simpson cartoon character aiming a gun, with the caption “KILL YOUR LOCAL ANTIFA SCUM.”

It was around this time that Rundo began encouraging his followers to form their own “Active Clubs,” which he defined as a “small group of comrades who share our values of identity.” The aim of such groups is to “focus on physical fitness” and “create displays of defiance that show your community that our culture will not be erased.”

“The active club is not so much a structural organization as it is a lifestyle for those willing to work, risk and sweat to embody our ideals for themselves and to promote them to others,” Rundo wrote on his Active Club Telegram channel. “The active lifestyle is the counter to the left’s culture of apathy, addiction, and vice. Get active today in your area and be the change you want to see.”

Members of Colorado’s “Front Range Active Club” training in combat sports. Credit: Front Range Telegram

Rundo later started the “Active Club Podcast” with Denis Nikitin, a Russian neo-Nazi considered to be the godfather of the extreme-right MMA scene, where they teach fellow nationalists how to form their own hate groups. Nikitin, who rose to infamy after launching the neo-Nazi MMA organization and clothing brand known as White Rex, has also been banned from entering any Schengen-area European countries. However, while Rundo boasted on the podcast about the “perks” of living in Eastern Europe, the extremist was expelled from Serbia after Bellingcat outed his location in Serbia. The Serbian daily Blic reported that on Feb. 11, 2021, Serbian police escorted Rundo to the Trbušnica-Šepak border pass, which connects Serbia to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Rundo’s luck in avoiding prosecution, however, may soon come to an end. On 4 March, 2021, the LA Timesreported that a US Federal Appeals Court had reinstated rioting charges against Rundo and three accomplices from RAM, ruling that they could be tried for their roles in riots in California in 2017. Despite facing potential arrest, Rundo remains active on Telegram, the social media platform popular among the extreme right, where continues to espouse his vision for the evolution of white supremacy.

“White Nationalism 3.0”

In a December 2020 essay entitled “The Idea Behind ‘Active Club,’” Robert Rundo laid out his argument for why his fellow angry white men should start their own neighborhood fight clubs.

“As most institutions give little or no regard for white youth today, Active Clubs’ role will fill that gap,” Rundo wrote, adding that active clubs promote camaraderie, identity formation, and “awaken racial bonds between kin” as they engage in fitness activities, combat sports training, and the “thrill and excitement” of spreading right-wing propaganda in the form of flyers, stickers, and graffiti. Rundo theorized that by spreading their message through propaganda posters and stickers, it will serve as a “critical revelation,” letting “our own know the fight is not over.”

Rundo also dictated that the clubs must remain small and local, explaining that it will make it more difficult for the media and law enforcement officials to shut down the entire operation. “Even if the system and their dogs manage to put out one fire, it will lead to minimal results,” he wrote.

Rundo’s guidelines suggest he has learned from his mistakes with RAM. Initially, the white nationalist group, the first prominent example of an active club in North America, had 50 members and was active on mainstream social media, which made it easy for researchers to identify its members. The modern iteration of the active club, which Rundo sometimes refers to as “white nationalism 3.0,” is different. The groups are local, self-contained, and are careful about the images they publish online. They take part in fitness activities together and focus on local activism—spreading stickers, posters, and banner drops—instead of taking part in rallies and demonstrations where they may be identified.

Rundo also launched a media outlet called Media2Rise, which he claimed would “counter” liberal narratives.Over the past few months, the former MMA fighter has used this platform to publish “Sons of the Founders,” described as a “documentary” about Patriot Front—an offshoot of the white supremacist Vanguard group that trains in “hand-to-hand combat.” The propaganda film, which follows Patriot Front members during their demonstrations held this year on the Fourth of July in Pennsylvania, underscores the growing (and highly concerning) ties between like-minded extremists such as Rundo and Patriot Front.

Patriot Front members holding up an ‘Active Club’ banner

To date, Rundo’s active clubs have formed across the United States, including in Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire.An active club has even launched in Quebec and Ontario, the latter of which was recently renamed to “Action 14,” a reference to the 14-word neo-Nazi slogan “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” The rebranding leaves no doubt that the group is more than a fitness club for like-minded individuals but rather a white nationalist propaganda outfit that indoctrinates white men into the nationalist cause.

When prospective members questioned Action 14’s decision to rebrand in the public chat, arguing that it was “setting up the group to be targeted,” the club’s leadership shrugged off the concerns. “The name gives us a new look, and a clear signal to those on our side as to what we are about. It allows us to go national without splintering into 13 different groups, one for each province. We are a National Active Club now. Action 14 is the banner we all organize under,” the administrator said. However, the group eventually rebranded to “Active Club Canada” after what the administrator said was a “detailed discussion” among the founders.

“Tell your friends, wherever they are in Canada, that we are organizing workouts near them! If we don’t have one set up already in your area, you can rest assured that we will soon! This is the place to reach out to us. If you are a White man, looking to meet other Pro-White Brothers in a fitness setting, Active Club Canada is the place for you!” the group’s administrator posted on Telegram.

‘Active Club Canada’ aka ‘Action 14’ members posing during a workout session in Ontario.

While Rundo would likely disagree with the Ontario active club’s decision to go national, he is no doubt delighted to know that his propaganda outfit masquerading as a fitness and martial arts counter culture group is spreading. The extremist organizer had previously written about the importance of combat sports as a “weapon” for white supremacists, as well as a way of building a community of like-minded individuals. “The nationalist movement was never built on idle talk but on those with iron will who didn’t back down,” he wrote in a 2020 essay. “In a time of weak men it only takes some effort to rise above all. Combat sports is that way up.”

Indeed, MMA and combat sports’ idolization of hypermasculinity, its penchant for violence, and its emphasis on wellness based lifestyles is well suited to far-right groups whose members object to progressive society’s supposed decadence and degeneration. Many white nationalist and far-right groups espouse “straight-edge” lifestyles focused on clean eating, a disciplined physical fitness regimen, and abstention from drugs and alcohol. Many such groups lionize white, muscular, male bodies, using them as models for future generations. MMA’s training regimen is also appealing to members of far-right groups because it offers them structured tutelage that they believe is necessary to defend their homeland.

Writing in her acclaimed book “Hate in the Homeland: The New Global Far Right,” Dr. Cynthia Miller-Idriss stated that “MMA becomes a powerful incubator for the far right when these ideas of masculinity—the notion that being a man is achieved through violent confrontation, domination, and physical intimidation of opponents—are layered onto far-right ideology about immigrant invasions and defense of the nation.”

This is exactly what Rundo hopes to achieve with his active club initiative. And as his fascist fight clubs continue to spread across the United States, so does his message of hate.

https://www.alternet.org/2021/09/robert-kagan-2655176730/

[big lie] ignore elections]

...When Stelter asked Snyder what "role" right-wing media play in this "scenario," the historian responded, "Right-wing media, with a few honorable exceptions, is one giant safe space for the Big Lie. What's happened is that rather than facts coming up from below to shape stories, we now have one enormous fiction — which is that Mr. Trump won this election. And that one enormous fiction, rather than casting light on things, just casts a huge shadow. Anything that doesn't fit that fiction can't be talked about. Anything which seems like it might somehow support that fiction gets all the airtime."

Snyder's appearance on "Reliable Sources" came only three days after the Washington Post published a sobering essay/op-ed by Never Trump conservative Robert Kagan, who warned that "the United States is heading into its greatest political and constitutional crisis since the Civil War." Stelter mentioned Kagan's article to Snyder, who didn't find Kagan's dire warning to be the least bit alarmist. In fact, Stelter and Snyder seemed to agree that Kagan's warning is spot on.

Stelter asked Snyder if the mainstream media need to be spending more time talking about "worst-case scenarios" in the 2022 midterms and 2024 presidential election, and the historian responded, "Those aren't worst-case scenarios. That's the mainstream…. When you have a two-party system and one of the parties is lining up against democracy, we're not talking about a worst-case scenario — we're talking about a situation where democracy is not something that can be taken for granted as a background to all the other news. Democracy itself is the foreground, and the struggle as to whether this country as to whether this country will be democratic in the future…. is the main story…. The story is whether we have a democracy or not."

Echoing the warnings in Kagan's article, Snyder added that the GOP has a game plan for stealing the 2024 election.

Snyder told Stelter, "The game is we cast doubt on 2020, we passvoter suppression laws…. If we get ahold of the House and the Senate in 2022, we plan not to certify a Democrat if he wins in 2024. We pass memory laws and voter suppression laws at the state level which give the states themselves the right to allocate electors…. We do all of that to aim for an outcome in2024 in which the guy who loses is nevertheless the winner…. That is not a worst-case scenario. That is happening before our eyes right now."

eastman vpence coup?!

https://www.alternet.org/2021/09/hillary-clinton-warning/

cdv

During a speech in September 2016, Hillary Clinton — then the Democratic presidential nominee — warned the American people and the world of the dangers represented by Donald Trump and his followers. She described the "volatile political environment" of that moment:

You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people, now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric.Now some of those folks, they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America.

In many ways, Clinton was too kind. If anything, she underestimated how many Americans were in fact committed and enthusiastic human deplorables.

After that speech, Clinton was pilloried by the mainstream news media, some leading Democrats, and of course the Republican Party and right-wing propaganda hate machine. Clinton's characterization of Trump's "basket of deplorables" was described as insensitive and unfair to the "white working class" Americans that elites and out-of-touch Democrats had too often ignored.

That reaction to Clinton's truth-telling helped to legitimate Trumpism and American neofascism (operating under the mask of "populism") as something that was reasonable and understandable, rather than as a manifestation of racial resentment, a racist temper tantrum and a declaration of white supremacy.This reflected our society's deep investment in a narrative of white racial innocence. In that logic, America is a great and exceptional country, and by implication, this is especially true of white people — especially those "real Americans" whose supposed patriotism and presumed Christian values render them a bit more American than anyone else.

Many members of the news media likely agreed with Clinton's warnings in private, but the institution as a whole had been beaten into submission by Republican fictions about so-called liberal bias. So it was that Clinton's warning about Trump and his "deplorables" — and their embrace of fascism — was deemed to be outside the limits of approved public discourse.

If Clinton's warnings had been heeded in 2016, we might be living in a quite different country today. America would not necessarily be drowning under a fascist tide which has imperiled our democracy and our future. Had Hillary Clinton been elected president, it's also likely that far fewer Americans would have been killed by the coronavirus pandemic, and the nation's economy might not have been pushed to the edge of a second Great Depression.

Matters are now so dire that it is now not a question of *whether* American democracy will succumb to a nightmare reign of full-on fascism but rather whenthat will happen. If America's neofascist movement continues to gain momentum, Joe Biden will be relegated to the role of a speed bump or an asterisk in American history.

In the five years since the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton has continued her efforts to rally America's pro-democracy forces against the right-wing and its fascist assaults. Last Tuesday, during a Guardian Live interview, she continued her warnings. The Guardian summarized her interview:

Hillary Clinton has said that the US was still in a "real battle for our democracy" against pro-Trump forces on the far right, seeking to entrench minority rule and turn back the clock on women's rights. ... Clinton fended off suggestions that the world was now witnessing the twilight of US democracy, but said: "I do believe we are in a struggle for the future of our country"…

"The January 6 insurrection at our capitol was a terrorist attack," Clinton added, noting the parallel with the 9/11 attacks. ... Clinton was also asked about the abortion ban passed in Texas at the beginning of this month, reversing gains for women's rights won a generation ago.

"So you ask if I'm surprised or discouraged. I'm neither. I'm not surprised because I've been involved in the women's movement, the civil rights movement," she said. "I've seen the forces that are arrayed against progress when it comes to women's autonomy, when it comes to the advancement of civil and political and economic rights. I know very well that the other side never gives up.

"They are relentless in their view of what is a properly constructed society, and in that view, white men are at the very top and nobody else is even close."

Clinton's observations are once again correct. Unfortunately, her recent comments also reveal how many other members of the American political class have failed to accurately describe the Republican Party and the neofascist movement.

Today's Republican Party is in fact a right-wing extremist organization, and fascist in all but name. Its followers and voters embrace and act upon those values and beliefs. To claim that there is some other Republican Party, somehow separate and distinct from right-wing extremism — as too many commentators and political observers do — is to assert a difference that does not substantively exist. Ultimately, Hillary Clinton's Guardian interview makes clear that she too fails to consistently and accurately describe the party that she warned us about five years ago.

Why does this error keep recurring? The American political class is emotionally, psychologically and professionally invested in the idea of "normal politics," and a belief that our system and its governing institutions will survive all possible challenges.

That is an illusion. The Age of Trump and the ascendance of American neofascism represents the old order being cast aside and replaced by something different — in this case, something dreadful. Hillary Clinton and so many other American political insiders are deeply invested in the familiar, nostalgia-colored mores of American politics. To acknowledge the existential threat of the Jim Crow Republicans and the Trumpist movement is too traumatic and terrifying for the political class to properly contemplate. Indifference, fantasy and soothing lies about how everything will inevitably be OK in America appear to offer a much easier path than doing the difficult and dangerous work required to save American democracy.

The slippage of language and its attempt to normalize the American fascist movement and Republican Party's assaults on democracy will soon lead to ridiculous claims by the American commentariat and larger political class — if this hasn't happened already — about a distinction between violent fascists and extremists and those who wear nice suits and prefer to operate without bloodshed. We can negotiate with the "reasonable" fascists, we will surely be told, in the interests of "consensus" and "bipartisanship."

But in fact, words have actual meanings. Fascism cannot be separated from violence, and it is incoherent beyond its fantasies of dominance and power and its desire to vanquish democracy and the truth. In the final analysis, there is no way to negotiate with fascists, because for them victory is all that matters. Reasonable compromise with such a force in a liberal democratic society is impossible, and any quest for it amounts to surrender.

America's political elites remain deeply and compulsively attached to the dream, hope and delusion that "traditional" Republicans will soon salvage the Republican Party and make it respectable and honorable again. In fact, the Republican Party's "honorable" past is greatly exaggerated. Supposedly "reasonable" Republicans may have backed away from Donald Trump's most egregious efforts to overturn the 2020 election, but they supported almost all of his policy goals.They were fully complicit, in other words, with his personal and political evil and destruction.

Donald Trump and his followers are now purging those remaining Republican politicians who are deemed to be traitors or otherwise disloyal to the movement.

While some establishment Democrats, such as President Biden, cling to outmoded notions of bipartisan compromise, numerous prominent former Republicans — including Tom Nichols, Steve Schmidt, Richard Painter and Max Boot — have warned that their onetime political home cannot be salvaged and must be burned down or completely rebuilt if American democracy is to be saved. These former Republicans are experts on the monster they helped to birth and sustain.

Political scientists and other researchers have repeatedly documented the decades-long drift from a median point of consensus, where there was considerable overlap between more liberal Republicans and more conservative Democrats on basic questions of public policy, to the present, when the Republican Party is far outside the mainstream of American politics.

Today's Republican Party has more in common with neofascist political parties in Hungary, Poland, Turkey or Brazil than it does with mainstream democratic parties in advanced Western democracies. Public opinion polls and other research have also made clear that the Trump-controlled Republican Party is a personality cult. Its leaders and followers now embrace terrorism and other forms of political violence, as shown by their response to the events of Jan. 6 and Trump's attempted coup.

Other research has shown that white supremacist views are the most important predictor of support for Trump and the Republicans, and that ordinary Republican voters have been almost fully propagandized into believing Trump's Big Lie about the 2020 election — and the many little lies that support it.

In her seminal 1951 book "The Origins of Totalitarianism", Hannah Arendt offered the following description of how fascist-totalitarian movements such as Hitler's Nazi Party were organized:

All the extraordinarily manifold parts of the movement: the front organizations, the various professional societies, the party-membership, the party hierarchy, the elite formations and police groups, are related in such a way that each forms the facade in one direction and the center in the other, that is, plays the role of normal outside world for one layer and the role of radical extremism for another….

The great advantage of this system is that the movement provides for each of its layers, even under conditions of totalitarian rule, the fiction of a normal world along with a consciousness of being different from and more radical than it. Thus, the sympathizers of the front organizations, whose convictions differ only in intensity from those of the party membership, surround the whole movement and provide a deceptive facade of normality to the outside world because of their lack of fanaticism and extremism while, at the same time, they represent the normal world to the totalitarian movement whose members come to believe that their convictions differ only in degree from those of other people, so that they need never be aware of the abyss which separates their own world from that which actually surrounds it. The onion structure makes the system organizationally shock-proof against the factuality of the real world.

Arendt's description is a perfect fit for today's Republican Party and neofascist movement. It is past time for America's political class and the Fourth Estate, which claims to be a defender of American democracy, to use more accurate language and call this moment and movement what it is. To avoid doing that, out of some misguided impulse toward civility, is to do the work of aiding and abetting the fascist attack on American democracy and society.

Today's Republican Party is using fascism to create a new 21st century American apartheid. With all due respect to Hillary Clinton, who tried to warn us, we must not mince words. Let us call such an abomination what it truly is.

aha: trump the disruptor generates chaos, polarization, hype fear/anger (and inequality that drives it) and declares only he is the strong man/strict father alone who can establish law and order

921

anarchists and authoritarians are two different things. While authoritarians want a heavy-handed government — whether they're far-right fascists or far-left communists — dedicated anarchists have an intense disdain for government in general. But Never Trump conservative Max Boot, this week in his Washington Post column, argues that MAGA Republicans have managed to combine elements of anarchy with far-right authoritarianism.

Boot, a former Republican who supported now-President Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, writes, "Are Republicans anarchists or authoritarians? They are both…. Most on the right refuse to accept the authority of any institution they do not control,and they will go to any lengths to undermine it…. Once right-wingers take command of an institution — whether the Supreme Court or the 23 states where Republicans control the governorship and both chambers of the legislature — they will do everything possible to ensure compliance with their diktats.[twt]

51-year-old Boot is politically right-wing himself, but he believes that the Republican Party took a dangerously authoritarian turn when it embraced Trumpism in 2016. The Post columnist has often said that one doesn't have to be a liberal to support liberal democracy. And in his Post column, Boot argues that the Trumpified GOP is combining elements of anarchy and far-right authoritarianism — at least for now — in the hope of establishing a "white Christian" state in the U.S. But they would gladly do away with the anarchy part after taking control, according to Boot.

"Republicans are fighting…. to establish a state in which conservative white Christians are in charge," Boot explains. "But until that happens, they will undermine every institution that they perceive as being under the control of their progressive foes. That is a long list, since Republicans are ludicrously convinced that the left has hijacked even institutions such as big business and the military."

MAGA Republicans, according to Boot, behave like anarchists when they support "attacks on the police officers who defended the U.S. Capitol on January 6" and "even oppose mask and vaccine mandates while COVID-19 is ravaging red states." But they show their authoritarianism, Boot writes, by supporting Texas' draconian new anti-abortion law, which forbids abortion after about six weeks even in cases of rape or incest.

"What can appear to be a contradictory outlook is actually typical of authoritarian movements," Boot observes. "When they are out of power, they will attack the state with every weapon at their disposal. Once they take power, however, they will entrench their own authority and repress dissent. Look at the right-wing ruling parties in India, Turkey, Hungary and Poland, which the GOP increasingly resembles. Like them, Republicans combine support for the free market — or at least crony capitalism — with an illiberal social agenda."

Boot concludes his column by warning that Trump "came perilously close to overturning the 2020 election results."

"Republicans could achieve greater success in toppling U.S. democracy in the future under a more disciplined demagogue," Boot warns. "They are maligning and undermining one 'liberal' institution after another so they can enshrine in power a regime that imposes the values of white, rural, conservative America on a fast-changing, urban, diverse and progressive nation that will soon be 'majority minority.' You might say they are practicing tactical anarchism with the strategic goal of instituting right-wing authoritarianism."

desantis wants bodycams on teachers ~ CRT

badass video?

https://www.alternet.org/2021/09/violent-oligarchy/

I'm sitting in my home office working on the next morning's Daily Rant when I hear what sounded like a man in my driveway yelling, at the top of his voice, "You f*cking c*nt!" and other female-specific obscenities. Walking to the window, I saw a guy in his 40s, red-faced, giving my wife the finger with both hands and cursing her out as he climbed into his car and squealed out of the driveway.

Louise, it turns out, had invited a local contractor to give us a bid on some repairs and she'd (very nicely) asked him, before letting him into the house, if he was vaccinated. He exploded and marched back to his car screaming curses at her.

In all her years on this planet, including as CEO of three different companies, that was the first time in her life a man had behaved like such an ass toward her.

In Tennessee a high school student testifies to a school board meeting that his grandmother has just died of Covid and he begs his school to mandate masks so his other grandmother isn't next; he's shouted down, laughed at and heckled by smirking, unmasked adults.

On Jet Blue what's become a new rite of passage for flight attendants blows into life as a man screams obscenities when asked to leave the plane because he refused to properly wear his mask.

In Tacoma, Washington a group of thugs goes looking for a fight when "antifa" fails to show up for the brawl the "Boys" had advertised. Undeterred, they march around town with clubs, flags and baseball bats looking for people to pick fights with until a local (not-antifa) man, apparently disgusted and feeling threatened by their behavior, finally pulls out a gun and shoots one of them in the foot (the story is still evolving; it's possible the guy shot himself in the foot).

In Ft. Collins Colorado a man harasses a group of women suntanning on the beach for wearing "pornographic" bathing suits, refusing to leave when they ask him to go away because, he says, "This is America!"

Across the nation, hundreds of poll workers and election officials endure daily death threats and violent harassment just for doing their civic duty. And school boardsare under daily assault in similar fashion.

And these are just the stories from the past week.

This continuous and increasing use of violence and threats of violence has become an epidemic across America since 2016 and it's not because of frustration with the pandemic.

This is what happens in every country when it begins making the transition from being a democratic and generally polite and respectful culture into one that embraces authoritarianism or fascism.

And it always starts from the top down: leadership sets the initial tone in countries, just like in companies and families.

In our case, these people are imitating Donald Trump; our best hope is that President Biden's reasonable and compassionate example can help the nation turn against it, although Trump-imitating governors and other elected officials are making it very difficult.

The Republican leadership of Texas, for example, just legally embraced vigilantism against women, and a dozen GOP-controlled states are planning to follow suit this month. This is how it starts.

In Hungary, roaming bands of thugs with torches threatened to burn the homes of Roma people as Viktor Orbán rose to power a bit over a decade ago.

In The Philippines, President "Little Donald Trump" Duterte praised vigilantes roaming the streets with clubs and guns looking to beat or kill people "linked to drugs" including "more than 150 judges, mayors, lawmakers, police and military personnel" he viewed as political opponents. Duterte told his followers: "Please feel free to call us, the police, or do it yourself if you have the gun - you have my support."

In Russia roaming bands attack and kill suspected-LGBTQ people as the government's leadership ramps up otherizing language against its own citizens. Across former Soviet states advocatesfor democracy or gay rights are routinely hunted, beaten and often killed.

As Mussolini came to power in Italy in the early 1920s his civilian vigilantes, known as Blackshirts for their garb of that color, took to the streets regularly. Historian Michael R. Ebner writes: "Thus, life for labor leaders became terror-filled, especially because Fascists did not limit their attacks to the public sphere. Nowhere was safe. Late at night, 10, 30, or even 100 Blackshirts, as these squad members became known, sometimes traveling from neighboring towns, might surround a home, inviting a Socialist, anarchist, or Communist outside to talk. If they refused, the Fascists would enter forcibly or threaten to harm the entire family by lighting the house on fire."

In Germany in 1921 Hitler organized a volunteer, unpaid civilian militia he called the *Sturmabteilung* (Storm Unit) who roamed across Germany looking for labor leaders, gays and Jews to beat up.

In Brazil today roaming bands of thugs called "militias" beat and kill people they believe are political enemies of strongman and Trump imitator President Jair Bolsonaro. According to reporting in The Interceptand *The Guardian*, they're led by Bolsonaro's eldest son Flávio.

In every case, around the world and throughout history, regular citizens were first surprised, then shocked, then intimidated, and finally dominated by the emerging authoritarian or neofascist movements led or encouraged by ambitious politicians in their nation.

In every case, everyday interactions like traveling on a train, bus or airplane, hiring a contractor, or just walking through town became a minefield filled with unpredictable eruptions of threat, intimidation and violence.

As Chicago reporter Milton Mayer wrote after returning from Germany just after World War II: "If I - and my countrymen - ever succumbed to that concatenation of conditions, no Constitution, no laws, no police, and certainly no army would be able to protect us from harm."

We are witnessing today in America the symptoms of a culture going through the early stages of transition from pluralistic democracy to violent oligarchy, as I lay out in far more detail in The Hidden History of American Oligarchy.

It quite literally starts with "average people" randomly exploding and behaving like asses while political demagogues promote self-styled militias, lawlessness and vigilantism.

We ignore or minimize them at our own peril.

Thom Hartmann is a talk-show host and the author of The Hidden History of American Healthcare and more than 30 other books in print. He is a writing fellow at the Independent Media Institute and his writings are archived at hartmannreport.com.

the kids ain't alright

an 921 no lnx twt

Climate inaction leaves majority of young people believing humanity is 'doomed'

Julia Conley and Common Dreams September 15, 2021

Amidst a sharp increase in deadly wildfires and flooding, increasingly violent storms, and extreme heat, new research published Tuesday found that refusal by governments to act on the climate emergency is causing a widespread sense of hopelessness and eco-anxiety in teenagers and young adults worldwide.

The global advocacy group Avaaz joined researchers at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom and five other universities to survey 10,000 young people between the ages of 16 and 25—the first large-scale eco-anxiety survey of its kind—and discovered that majorities of the respondents were fearful for the lives and livelihoods of their families and the future of the planet.

As Luisa Neubauer, a 25-year-old leader of the global Fridays for Future movement in Germany, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, while the climate extremes caused by the planetary emergency are frightening, inaction by world leaders "is too much to handle, too much to accept."

"Government is pushing us in front of a bus,"Neubauer told the outlet.

The mental health professionals who conducted the study spoke with young people in 10 countries including Nigeria, the Philippines, India, the U.K., and the U.S., finding that respondents in both wealthy countries and the Global South are facing "feelings of anger, fear, and powerlessness" as the climate crisis directly causes at least one famine, deadly flash flooding, and wildfires in multiple regions.

Nearly half of respondents said their worries about the climate crisis negatively affect their daily life and their ability to function, and more than half told the experts they feel humanity is "doomed."

Four in 10 said they would hesitate to have children in the future due to the state of the planet, while three-quarters of respondents described their futures as "frightening."

Avaaz reported that one of the most "shocking" findings was how respondents described their feelings about government inaction, including more than half who said they feel policymakers "are betraying them."

"If this isn't a wake up call for world leaders, what is?" asked Avaaz.

Young people in the cyclone-ravages Philippines andBrazil, where deforestation—driven by President Jair Bolsonaro's government—has become increasingly destructive in recent years, showed the most anxiety of the countries surveyed. More than nine in 10 respondents said they were frightened about the future. Caroline Hickman, lead author of the study, which was published in The Lancet on Tuesday, cautioned adults against telling young people it is up to them to save the future of the planet. "Thinking the way to cure eco-anxiety is eco-action isn't right," Hickman told Thomson Reuters, adding that what will solve the climate crisis is decisive action by world governments.

The survey "shows eco-anxiety is not just for environmental destruction alone, but inextricably linked to government inaction on climate change. The young feel abandoned and betrayed by governments," Hickman told the BBC. "Governments need to listen to the science and not pathologize young people who feel anxious."

The survey results were released less than two months ahead of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 26), where policymakers will meet in Glasgow to discuss commitments to phase out fossil fuel subsidies, provide climate mitigation support for frontline communities across the globe, and rapidly transition to an emissions-free energy system.

Young people are "doing everything we can" to push for climate action, Neubauer told Thomson Reuters, "but that won't be enough."

"We won't fix it" through the Fridays for Future movement, she added. "We need everyone there." no lnx

yikes omg

https://www.alternet.org/2021/08/josh-hawley-love-america/

Sen. Hawley's Orwellian 'Love America Act' is part of the fascist campaign to rewrite history

no lx

Chauncey DeVega and Salon August 06, 2021

Donald Trump may no longer be president, but the American people are still stuck in a state of malignant normality that his presidency brought into being.

Psychologist John Gartner describes such a state of being this way:

Malignant normality is when a malignantly narcissistic leader takes control of society and gradually changes reality for everyone else. So their crazy internal reality becomes enacted in the lived true external reality of that society. This is how a leader can come in and change the mores of their society.

In his role as national cheerleader and secular priest, President Biden is trying to provide moral leadership and healing for a traumatized nation, still shell-shocked by the Trump movement's continuing assault on democracy and society.

Biden's efforts have provided only short-term relief. The neofascist threat is escalating;Biden and the Democrats have shown themselves largely impotent against it. The coronavirus pandemic is now resurgent because of a new variant and Trump's followers' refusal to be vaccinated.

For these and many other reasons — most notably, extreme wealth and income inequality and the global climate crisis — America is becoming a dystopia.

The collective emotional state of many Americans, or at least those who are paying attention and still care, is frustration and unease.

Malignant normality creates a playground for fascism and other forms of right-wing maleficence. The Jim Crow Republicans and other elements of the white right are taking advantage of this broken America to escalate their attacks on free speech, reason, truth, reality, human and civil rights and multiracial democracy by weaponizing the nearly meaningless term "critical race theory." (Yes, the term has a real meaning in academic discourse, but not as bandied about by Republicans in 2021.)

For the likes of Sen. Josh Hawley, the notorious Missouri Republican, such a crisis is a dream opportunity. Last week, Hawley proposed a bill called the Love America Act of 2021, which would deny federal funding to schools that teach the real history of America and the centrality of racism and white supremacy to the country's origins. The key text of this document reads:

RESTRICTION ON FEDERAL FUNDS FOR TEACHING THAT CERTAIN DOCUMENTS ARE PRODUCTS OF WHITE SUPREMACY OR RACISM — … [N]o Federal funds shall be provided to an educational agency or school that teaches that thePledge of Allegiance, the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution of the United States is a product of white supremacy or racism.

Hawley's "Love America" bill is not a joke. It is a statement of shared principles and loyalty to an anti-democratic, racial-authoritarian movement that is winning victories all over the United States.

For example, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is now mandating thoughtcrime surveys to determine the political beliefs of teachers and students in public colleges and universities.

Florida has also "banned" the teaching of "critical race theory" in public schools, and will permit — in practice, this may mean encourage — students to record classes without the knowledge or consent of their teachers. This potentialsurveillance is an obvious form of intimidation or threat against intellectual freedom, and specifically targeting teachers and other education professionals who are perceived as "liberal" and therefore "unfair" to conservatives.

The Republican-controlled Texas Senate has passed legislation overturning a requirement that the history of the civil rights movement be taught in public schools. That legislation would also remove a course requirement that the Ku Klux Klan should be condemned. As I wrote recently for Salon:

... the requirements removed from the state's curriculum include two speeches by Martin Luther King Jr., any mention of Latino labor organizers Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, and any mention of Thomas Jefferson's long-term relationship with Sally Hemings, an enslaved teenage child who bore six of his children. The bill bars any use of the New York Times' 1619 Project and "prohibits teaching that slavery was part of the 'true' founding of the United States" and removes the requirement to study the "history of white supremacy, including but not limited to the institution of slavery, the eugenics movement, and the Ku Klux Klan, and the ways in which it is morally wrong."

Tennessee has proposed fining school districts at least $1 million if a teacher "willingly violates" state laws against discussing racism, white privilege or sexism in class. Education Week reports, "Teachers could also be disciplined or lose their licenses for teaching that the United States is inherently racist or sexist or making a student feel 'guilt or anguish' because of past actions committed by their race or sex." Similar forms of censorship will be imposed in Oklahoma, where "educators could have their teaching licenses suspended or revoked and schools could lose accreditation if an investigation finds evidence that they taught about racism and sexism in ways that violated the law." Parents in that state will be allowed "to inspect curriculum, instructional materials, classroom assignments, and lesson plans to 'ensure compliance.'"

These attacks on the teaching of actual history are an Orwellian attempt to control both the present and the future in order to remake America as an apartheid regime. Realpolitik is also in play here: Facing changing demographics and political unpopularity, Republicans seek to use a larger culture-war strategy to win elections and hold onto power by any means possible.

White supremacists and other right-wing ideologues, in the longer view, want to destroy public education and replace it with their own propaganda indoctrination program. One important element is "racial erasure," in which the truth about American history is replaced with fantasies of white innocence, white nobility and white supremacy.

As Clint Smith writes in the Atlantic, for many so-called conservatives, "history isn't the story of what actually happened; it is just the story they want to believe. It is not a public story we all share, but an intimate one, passed down like an heirloom, that shapes their sense of who they are. Confederate history is family history, history as eulogy, in which loyalty takes precedence over truth."

Perhaps most important, the right-wing moral panic over "critical race theory" is a way of to erase from public memory the struggle waged by Black Americans for centuries to defeat white supremacy in its various forms. To that point, chattel slavery and theJim Crow regime were America's native forms of fascism. Black people defeated those forces and in doing so saved American democracy from its own worst impulses. To erase the Black Freedom Struggle is to make the case that American fascism will be victorious and that resistance is futile.

It is also crucial to understand that America's state of malignant normality is not isolated or unique, but is part of a neofascist attack by the global right on multiracial and multiethnic democracy around the world. As de facto spokesman for the American white right, Fox News host Tucker Carlson has taken a pilgrimage to Hungary, now under the one-party rule of Viktor Orbán, who has become a role model for the Jim Crow Republican Party and the American neofascist movement.

Orbán has created a fake democracy in Hungary, where elections still occur and tepid opposition is permitted, but in practice he can remain in power indefinitely. He has silenced the free press, crushed any serious democratic opposition, encouraged political violence against his regime's "enemies" and attacked colleges, universities and other centers of learning. The obvious goal is to silence dissent and produce obedient and compliant citizens who do not seek to exercise critical thinking or speak back to power.

In an essay for Vox this week, Zack Beauchamp discusses the larger significance of Carlson's pilgrimage to Budapest:

In his Monday monologue, Carlson told his listeners that they should pay attention to Hungary "if you care about Western civilization, and democracy, and family — and the ferocious assault on all three of those things by leaders of our global institutions." He tweeted out a friendly photo with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and is confirmed to speak at a government-supported conference in Budapest on Saturday. ...

[R]ight-wing observers, typically social conservatives and nationalists, see Orbán's willingness to use state power against the LGBT community, academics, the press, and immigrants as an example of how conservatives can fight back against left-wing cultural power. They either deny Fidesz's authoritarian streak or, more chillingly, argue that it's necessary to defeat the left — a chilling move at a time when the GOP is waging war on American democracy, using tactics eerily reminiscent of the ones Fidesz successfully deployed against Hungary's democratic institutions.

Beauchamp observes that the "Republican turn against democracy" and the American right's growing interest in Orbán's Hungary, expressed with unusual frankness and eloquence by Rod Dreher of the American Conservative, "is in significant part fueled by the right's sense of leftist ascendancy — heightened by electoral defeats in 2008 and 2020 and strengthened by defeat in culture war battles like same-sex marriage":

This, ultimately, is what makes Carlson's pilgrimage to Budapest so worrying. The Fox host's massive following gives him unusual power to set the terms of the conversation on the right; when he talks, Republicans from Trump on down listen. His bear hug embrace of Orbán could not only bring the Dreher view out into the open but also strengthen its influence over the GOP.

Republicans today aren't directly imitating Orbán; they have their own anti-democratic playbook, drawn from all-American sources. Carlson's active embrace of Hungary's strongman risks making that connection more direct, giving Republicans more ideas for how to seize control and a more powerful sense of justification in doing so.

For those who believed that Biden's election could clear the haze and wake the American people up from the living nightmare of the Trump regime, these last seven months have been increasingly painful. And now the pandemic's third wave arrives as a gut punch to them as well. Biden and other Democratic leaders still appear obsessed with "bipartisanship" and to this point have refused to act with the "urgency of now" to fight back against Republican attacks on Black and brown people's right to vote. Even under Attorney General Merrick Garland, the Department of Justice seems to be protecting Donald Trump instead of investigating and prosecuting him for his crimes against democracy. The overall effect is like being smothered.

Conditions are likely to get worse — perhaps much worse, with Republicans likely to recapture one or both houses of Congress in 2022 and Trump likely to return as a presidential candidate in 2024 — before they get better.

To survive and triumph over American neofascism Americans' well of endless optimism must be fortified with something more durable and realistic, such as the formula suggested by Italian philosopher and activistAntonio Gramsci: "optimism of the will and pessimism of the intellect." In Gramsci's "Prison Notebooks,"he wrote: "The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear."

That is precisely where Americans find themselves now: The waking nightmare of the Age of Trump, from which we have not escaped, is one such "morbid symptom." Recognizing that truth may make it possible to return to full political and social consciousness, and begin the real work of repairing and rebuilding American democracy.

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/07/trump-on-blm/

only regret no mil ~

authoritarian, poll

https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/conservative/

aha/hmnn/yikes slide to fascism means kicking out props/norms, but it gets easier b/c fewer ctr-forces?!

comm dr

Liz Cheney's removal from House GOP leadership over her rejection of Trump's election lies and Republican senators' blocking of a bipartisan proposal to create an independent panel that would investigate the Capitol siege reveal in stark terms at least two things: (a) that Republicans have built a cult of personality around Trump, and (b) that they are now at the mercy of the proto-fascist mob that their Dear Leader energized and nurtured during his four-year tenure in the White House.

Either way, the fact of the matter is that, for purposes of political expediency, the GOP has opted to become a dark political force, relying almost entirely on lies and deception—while at the same time waging a coordinated onslaught on voting rights—as its governing techniques. As such, it represents a real threat to the stability of the republic.

Following Trump's defeat, the strategic objective of the Republican Party is not simply to engage in obstructionism, but to continue dividing the nation and radicalizing the American public against the democratic system. This is the only way that the Republican Party can hope to stay in the game in the political, economic, social, and cultural landscape that defines 21st century America.

Always the party of Big Business and the rich, the Republican Party has oscillated from conservatism to reactionism pretty much throughout the twentieth century and the early part of the twenty-first centuries, but today's GOP has gone so far toward abandoning basic democratic norms that it now belongs firmly in the political universe of parties and movements that make up the far-right. In fact, it is considered to be more extreme that Le Pen's National Rally, according to findings based on data collected from the Manifesto Project.

The political identity of today's GOP reflects a decades-long transformation. It begins to take form sometimes during the early 2010s, a decade that historian Andrew Bacevich characterized as an era of "venomous division." Driven primarily by fear of losing power in an increasingly diverse United States, the GOP made a dramatic shift towards extremism as a way of mobilizing white working-class voters, who experienced income stagnation and felt deep economic insecurity thanks to 40 years of brutal neoliberal capitalist policies, and scaring the hell out of the petty bourgeoisie with visions of chaos and disorder brought about by radical forces bent on destroying America and its traditional values and way of life.

Indeed, well before Trump threw his hat in the ring for Presidency, a 2013 survey of local party leaders found that, in contrast to Democrats who preferred more extreme candidates to more moderate candidates by a 2-to-1 margin, Republicans did so by 10-to-1.

Of course, it is Trump himself who solidifies the shift towards extremism. Fully cognizant of the mood both inside the Republican Party and the country as a whole, especially with a large segment of disenchanted and angry white voters seeing equal opportunity as a zero-sum game for them, Trump embarks on the complete transformation of the GOP into an extremist political party by lurching towards reactionary nationalism and diving deeply into nativism with his MAGA campaign slogan and inflammatory rhetoric about immigrants, Muslims, and African-Americans, respectively.

Trump also breaks with elite bipartisan consensus on a broad range of other issues, including trade and foreign policy, in order to secure his image as a unique figure in American politics, while falsehoods and outright lies become indispensable weapons on his performative proto-fascist march towards power.

To be sure, this was a bid for power with a strong resemblance to the political strategy that authoritarian parties have long adopted in many parts of the world, including that of the Nazi Party between 1919-1933. An unmistakable sign of Trump's"performative proto-fascism" was also his dalliance with armed militias—undoubtedly as grave a threat to democracy as were Hitler's brown shirts.

Trump's tenure in office ended on the same note as his rise to power—namely, with another act of "performative proto-fascism." His rejection of the 2020 election as "the big lie" was intended to cement in the minds of his fanatical base the idea of a "deep state" conspiracy and, subsequently, undermine democratic procedures. A movement built on lies, deception, and sheer propaganda can only be maintained by the very same tactics that energized it. There is no other way around it.

The reason that Republicans have opted to continue down the path charted by Trump is because this is now the only way to maintain the support of the proto-fascist base. Without that support, the GOP will have to reinvent its political identity—no small task for a party that has made a remarkable transition from conservatism to reactionism and finally to neoliberal proto-fascism—or cease to exist.

However, the paradox that Republicans face in the post-Trump era is that they cannot sustain a movement built around the cult of personality without the presence of a charismatic leader in its midst. In this sense, the Republicans can continue with Trumpist shenanigans as long as Trump is still around and politically active, but sooner or later they would have to look for an appropriate replacement—and perhaps an authentic fascist—otherwise the proto-fascist base may gradually begin to wither away.

What the future holds for the American republic is impossible to predict. However, what is abundantly clear right now is that with its delusional attachment to Trump, the GOP is methodically dragging the country into the abyss of instability, chaos, and proto-fascism.

C.J. Polychroniou is a political economist/political scientist who has taught and worked in numerous universities and research centers in Europe and the United States. He has published scores of books and his articles have appeared in a variety of journals, magazines, newspapers, and popular news websites. His latest books are Optimism Over Despair: Noam Chomsky On Capitalism, Empire, and Social Change, an anthology of interviews with Chomsky originally published at Truthout and collected by Haymarket Books; Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal: The Political Economy of Saving the Planet (with Noam Chomsky and Robert Pollin as primary authors); and The Precipice: Neoliberalism, the Pandemic, and the Urgent Need for Radical Change, an anthology of interviews with Chomsky originally published at Truthout_{ and collected by Haymarket Books (scheduled for publication in June 2021).}_

historian wonders: Is Joe Biden 'a speed bump on the fascists' march to power'?

Chauncey DeVega Salon

May 26, 2021

On Jan. 6, Donald Trump's Big Lie about a stolen election turned kinetic, and inspired an attempted coup against American democracy. At the very least, Republicans aided and abetted Trump's coup attempt

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Journalist John Harwood had a piece in CNN Sunday reflecting on an essay published in 2012 that accurately predicted the coming of today's GOP. "Let's just say it: the Republicans are the problem" was written by Thomas Mann, who was at the time with the Brookings Institution, along with Norm Ornstein, who is still with the American Enterprise Institute. The Republicans, they said, had become "ideologically extreme, scornful of compromise, unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science, dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition." Sound familiar?

I have been teaching a class for a few years, on and off, at Yale and Wesleyan on how to understand American politics. I assign Mann and Ornstein's essay every time. But I didn't know some important context Harwood provides, meaning that the essay landed with a thud nine years ago, even among what are now called anti-GOP conservatives.

Hardwood calls on Charlie Dent to comment. He's a former Republican moderate from Pennsylvania, who is now a talking head for CNN. He told Harwood that, "I thought they overstated things." He added: "I don't like where we're heading, but don't think it's inevitable that we get to that terrible place." William Kristol pooh-poohed Mann and Ornstein's essay, too. He told Harwood of his feelings at the time. "People like me were thinking, 'Yeah, there are some kooky people around, but c'mon.'" That was before Donald Trump's ascent and the consequent demise of his magazine, The Weekly Standard. (Kristol later joined other anti-GOP conservatives to found The Bulwark.)

Harwood's piece is good. I encourage you to read it. But I want to make the case for a more prescient essay. It was published in 2004 in the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq by The Chronicle Review, an obscure monthly supplement to The Chronicle of Higher Education,itself obscure. I assign it alongside Mann and Ornstein's essay. But if theirs had little impact, Alan Wolfe's had none at all. (No one in the United States Congress or the Washington press corps is being asked how they feel about it now.) With all due respect to Mann and Ornstein, I think Wolfe's is more important, because it gives a name to "where we're heading," a name that even John Harwood seems to avoid.

Alan Wolfe is a political scientist and sociologist at Boston College. He is or was the director of its Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life. In 2004, he was searching for ways to explain Republican behavior after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the launch of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was, in other words, doing what Harwood did, but instead of looking to pundits like Mann and Ornstein, Wolfe looked way, way back to scholars like himself, this time to Carl Schmitt, who was briefly the leading exponent of fascist political thought. Fascism is "where we're heading" now, but Wolfe saw the first stirrings of it over 17 years ago.

Using Schmitt's The Concept of the Political as a lens through which to see the politics of the early 2000s, Wolfe wrote that "the most important lesson Schmitt teaches is that the differences between liberals and conservatives are not just over the policies they advocate but also over the meaning of politics itself." Wolfe goes on to explain that:

Liberals think of politics as a means; conservatives as an end. Politics, for liberals, stops at the water's edge; for conservatives, politics never stops. Liberals think of conservatives as potential future allies; conservatives treat liberals as unworthy of recognition.Liberals believe policies ought to be judged against an independent ideal such as human welfare or the greatest good for the greatest number; conservatives evaluate policies by whether they advance their conservative causes.

Liberals instinctively want to dampen passions; conservatives are bent on inflaming them. Liberals think there is a third way between liberalism and conservatism; conservatives believe that anyone who is not a conservative is a liberal. Liberals want to put boundaries on the political by claiming that individuals have certain rights that no government can take away; conservatives argue that in cases of emergency … the reach and capacity of the state cannot be challenged.1

I think Alan Wolfe used the word "conservative" for a couple of reasons. One, because he didn't feeling like being charitable that day. Two, more likely, because "fascist" was not available to him in 2004.I like to think if he were to rewrite this essay, he'd make room for conservatives like Norm Ornstein, or Liz Cheney for that matter, in order to establish the boundaries of acceptable behavior in a liberal democracy in which some things really are above politics, such as the political legitimacy of a rival faction.

"Fascist," however, continues to get side-eye from mainstream commentators like John Harwood, I think because it so easily evokes images of gas chambers. But as Wolfe makes clear, it doesn't take genocide to make a fascist. What it takes a particular and particularly coherent worldview in which everyone outside one's group is the enemy. As Harwood said, Mann and Ornstein were right. Their diagnosis of the GOP is undeniable. But Alan Wolfe was more right. What's more, he gave us a vocabulary.

We should use it.

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here are the ‘classic signs of authoritarianism’ the Trumpified GOP now exhibits: conservative

Alex Henderson

May 17, 2021

The Joe Biden coalition of 2020 was shockingly diverse, with everyone from self-described "democratic socialists" like Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to hardcore conservatives such as...

rosenberg

https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/autocratization/

as the Jan. 6 insurrection recedes in time, media attention is beginning to focus on potential 2024 Republican presidential candidates, including "new faces" like Kristi Noem and Josh Hawley, old also-ran Ted Cruz and others and, of course, Donald Trump. In a representative democracy, it's only natural that elected leaders — or credible potential ones — should be a significant focus of attention.

But there's an air of unreality hovering over all such portrait-mode coverage when a broader landscape view shows that the very survival of democracy is up for grabs — not just in the U.S., where GOP House members are in deep denial about the Jan. 6 insurrection while Republican legislators have introduced voter suppression bills in 47 states, but around the world. The Swedish-based V-Dem Institute's 2021 annual report notes that "the global decline in liberal democracy has been steep during the past 10 years and continues in 2020" and concludes that the "level of democracy enjoyed by the average global citizen in 2020" has fallen "to levels last found around 1990." At that time there was a jubilant buzz about the "End of History." Now there's an undertone of dread that we could "meanly lose, the last best hope of earth," as Abraham Lincoln warned.

Talk of as many as 24 potential GOP candidates in the next cycle recalls pre-2016 talk about the GOP's "deep bench," which, as I noted at the time, was a media-hyped myth. Those andidates fell into three groups: governors with horrible to mediocre job-creation records plus some ex-governors who hadn't run in a while, first-term senators with paper-thin résumés in a particularly dysfunctional Congress, and assorted wild cards, including Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina, as well as a certain New York real estate developer turned reality-TV star. I focused primarily on the shared failure of GOP economics, the party's purported strong suit. "The degree to which key articles of GOP economic faith clash with overwhelming expert judgment is staggering — and there's nary a hint of it in most of the media," I wrote. "It's a disconnect reminiscent of global warming, but much less widely recognized."

The problem goes much deeper now, to the shared failure of Republican patriotism, as their party has turned against democracy. While media awareness may be better, without grounding coverage in a "landscape view" of the problem journalists are fumbling the biggest story of our time — the global threat to democracy, and the enormous potential for a renewal that could finally realize democracy's full promise for all.

America's place in a landscape of democratic decay

What's known as the "_{third wave of autocratization}_" — characterized by creeping democratic erosion rather than violent coups — continues to spread: V-Dem's report notes that "25 countries, home to 34% of the world's population (2.6 billion people), are in democratic decline by 2020." One especially disturbing highlight "is that India — formerly the world's largest democracy with 1.37 billion inhabitants — turned into an electoral autocracy," meaning a system in which elections continue to be held but the chance of power changing hands is virtually nil. Prior to Jan. 6, the U.S. seemed far from being in a similar situation, but that is effectively what the new wave of GOP voter suppression laws could accomplish, especially with _{added provisions that jeopardize the post-election process}_.

America is still a long way from becoming India — but things can change quickly. The U.S. score on V-Dems "Liberal Democracy Index" or LDI is 0.73 (out of a possible 1) while India is less than half that, at 0.34, a precipitous decline since 2010 that places it among the planet's top 10 major "autocratizers." While the U.S. doesn't make that ignominious list, it's marked in red to "signify cases of significant and substantial autocratization." In 2010, the U.S. was among the highest-ranked nations, and is now no longer in the top 30, falling below Chile and Greece, countries with recent histories of military rule.

"The U.S. is somewhat unusual among the decliners," a trio of V-Dem researchers — _{Anna Lührmann}_, _{Dan Pemstein}_ and _{Juraj Medzihorsky}_ — told Salon via email. "Most of the decliners are reasonably young democracies," they wrote, adding that the U.S. has had a high and stable LDI in their rankings since the civil rights era. "The U.S. is a very different case than India or Brazil and also the various Eastern European countries [which] have much shorter democratic histories, despite being at similar levels in 2010."

The American case, they note, "shows that it is possible for this illiberal playbook, which we're seeing play out in diverse places ranging from Brazil to India, Hungary and Poland, to gain traction even in consolidated liberal democracies."

The party landscape: Even starker

Things look even more perilous from two other landscape views: the landscape of parties across the world, and the landscape of state-level government. A V-Dem _{briefing paper}_ and its followup, entitled "_{Walking the Talk: How to Identify Anti-Pluralist Parties}_," found that the Republican Party has shifted dramatically in recent decades, from being in the same ideological territory as the British Conservative Party in 2000 to the neighborhood of India's Hindu nationalist BJP now, while the Democratic Party has barely moved at all.

"In 2000 the GOP was a party that was clearly committed to democratic standards as listed in the paper," the V-Dem scholars wrote. "In 2018 (the last point of measurement), this commitment was not clearly visible." They continued:

The data shows that the Republican Party in 2018 was far more illiberal (that is anti-pluralist) than almost all other governing parties in democracies. Only very few governing parties in democracies in this millennium (15%) were considered more illiberal than the Republican Party in the U.S. Conversely, the Democratic Party was rated slightly less illiberal than the typical party in democracies. In 2018, the Republican Party scores much higher than almost all parties in democracies on almost all of these indicators.

The shifts they observed were especially dramatic in two of four areas: "demonizes opponents" and "encourages violence."

Given the asymmetric change between the two major American parties, I asked if there were other countries that could shed light on what might happen next, or whether we were in uncharted territory?

"We did not see any sufficiently similar examples that we could bring up," Medzihorsky responded. "Given the information that we have, we refrained from speculation."

The red-state landscape of democratic decay

Another landscape perspective that can shed some light is that of state-level government, explored by University of Washington political scientist Jacob M. Grumbach in a paper called "_{Laboratories of Democratic Backsliding.}_" Inspired by the V-Dem model, Grumbach developed a measure of subnational democratic performance called the State Democracy Index. He tested a range of different theories about what might contribute to democratic erosion over the period from 2000 to 2018, "based in party competition, polarization, demographic change, and the group interests of national party coalitions." Strikingly, he found "a minimal role for all factors except Republican control of state government, which dramatically reduces states' democratic performance during this period."...

https://www.alternet.org/2021/04/republicans-insane/

Forgive me for repeating myself. The right-wing media apparatus, which is global in scale, is so powerful it can bend political reality. The latest evidence comes from James Carville, whom I'd normally recommend ignoring with prejudice. The former adviser to Bill Clinton and cable-news talking head said recently the Democrats should put the kibosh on talking about "wokeness." Normal people just don't talk like that.1

Carville hasn't been right about much in quite some time. (He thought United States Senator Michael Bennett should have been the Democratic Party's 2020 presidential nominee.) Moreover, political rhetoric of any kind being used now by the left or the right is almost certainly going to mean zip by 2022, by which time about 22 billion news cycles will have churned.2 Swing voters who make the difference will be thinking about pretty anything other than the boutique anxieties of out-of-touch consultants.

James Carville is right about one thing, though. The right-wing media apparatus, which is global in scale, is making a fetish of "wokeness." That fetish gets the attention of out-of-touch but still-influential consultants like Carville, who in turn urge the Democrats to act more like Republicans, even though the party has unified control of Washington. Importantly, "moderate" Democrats seem to agree.3 Behold the right-wing media apparatus, which is global in scale! This is the power to bend political reality!

In fairness, I agree that normal people don't talk about "wokeness." In fairness, most normal people don't care. If "wokeness" is the word Democratic Party insiders and social-justice activists prefer in talking about the struggle for freedom and equality, more power to them. But if we're going to talk about what most normal people want from the Democrats, let's not forget their bias for reason, peace and prosperity. Above all, the truth. James Carville, in urging the Democrats to make like Republicans, is defeating his purpose. To make like a Republican is to make everyone feel crazy.

I mean "crazy" in the sense Harry Frankfurt intended. In 2006's On Truth, the moral philosopher described the ethical effect of lies. They are not just deceptions. They are not just duplicity. They are injuries. "Lies are designed to damage our grasp of reality," he wrote. "So they are intended, in a very real sense, to make us crazy." But more than that, they are authoritarian injuries. "The most irreducibly bad thing about lies is that they contrive to interfere with, and to impair, our natural effort to apprehend the real state of affairs," Frankfurt wrote. "They are designed to prevent us from being in touch with what is really going on. In telling his lie, the liar tries to mislead us into believing that the facts are other than they actually are. He tries to impose his will on us."4

**The right-wing media apparatus, which is global in scale, told normal people over the weekend the Biden administration planned to limit meat-eating as part of its policies to combat climate change policies.** The news ping-ponged across the apparatus until esteemed members of the Republican Party at the state and national levels denounced the plan as tyrannical. Thing is, it was "completely imaginary,"wrote CNN's peerless Daniel Dale. "1) The Daily Mail ran an article that dishonestly connected Biden's climate plan with a not-at-all-about-Biden study. 2) Others on the right just ran with this." In typically methodical and painstaking fashion, he laid out what happened, how and why. Dale's job is chasing down serious public lies. Dale's job is keeping him busy.

But fact-checking serious public lies won't stop them. There are two reasons. One, the Republicans inhabit an almost purely fictional view of American politics. Two, neutral observers, like the Washington press corps and, to an extent, political consultants like James Carville, keep honoring that almost purely fictional view of American politics by taking it seriously. By honoring it by taking it seriously, the rest of us end up giving this almost purely fictional view of American politics enough leverage to bend reality and make everyone free crazy. It's plausible to say the Democrats should emulate the Republicans in order to win the congressional elections. As plausible, however, is to say that emulating them will chase swing voters by making them all feel crazy.

How do we stop it? I think by seeing through the lie to what's genuinely intended, which is to say, through the lie toward a conscious authoritarian intent to injure our democratic republic.Lying about the Biden administration's "war on meat" is by itself silly, but in context, a grotesque attempt to dominate not only a gullible television audience but hard-nosed empiricists like Daniel Dale whose life is almost totally consumed by fact-checking, which in turn consumes the energies of many more of us, which consumes the attention spans of people who want to talk about something else.

This kind of dominance is ideal for a party that has not only run out of ideas, but is hostile toward the idea of ideas. Ideas and a commitment to seeing them through require recognizing the legitimacy of those of a political opposition, which is impossible.Ideas and a commitment to seeing them through demand grounding in facts that the other side can debate with equal veracity. The Republican don't want that, because the Republicans can't win that way. So they have constructed a right-wing media apparatus, which is global in scale, in order to skip factual debate. With it, they can foment enough instability, chaos and, yes, insanity to create a desire among normal people for a strongman to come and fix things.5 They are, as Harry Frankfurt intimated, setting the groundwork for a fuhrer-king "to impose his will on us." The last thing the Democrats should be is complicit in the Republicans' descent to hell.

https://www.alternet.org/2021/03/gop-fascism/

// amanda same day

no lix twt vid

Red-pilled conservatives ready to give up on democracy and embrace fascism

David Neiwertand Daily Kos March 31, 2021

After the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, American conservatives were faced with a stark choice: Recognize that their movement had inspired a seditious attack on democracy itself and work to restore the damage, swallowing the cold blue pill of the reality that they lost the 2020 election; or instead embracing the authoritarianism that had inspired a significant chunk of their base to attempt to lynch members of Congress and overthrow the legitimate counting of ballots, gulping down the red pill of conspiracism that fueled those warped beliefs.

It is now abundantly clear that they have chosen the latter. They have lied brazenly about who committed the attack, tried to claim that efforts to counter extremists' presence in the military and law enforcement are an attack on conservatives, and muttered darkly about secession while punishing members of Congress for voting to impeach Donald Trump. The final step—an open embrace of fascism—is now being discussed as a rational option among their leading pundits, including Fox News' Tucker Carlson.

Tucker Carlson and Jesse Kelly agree that Republicans are headed into fascism

www.youtube.com]

On his nightly Fox News show last Thursday, Carlson invited radio talk-show Jesse Kelly on to discuss how Hunter Biden's gun permit somehow proves Democrats have rigged the system to their own exclusive benefit (no mention of Ivanka's multitudinous business deals was made). Kelly complained that "it's just item Number 1,000 in proving to people that there's two sets of rules in this country, there are rules for powerful Democrats, and there are rules for people like you and I. This is what they do and people are sick of it. It's making people feel helpless, it makes people feel like there is no justice out there, it feels as useless as going to a feminist rally and trying to find a woman who can cook."

Carlson then veered into a discussion of how all this undermines society:

CARLSON: I think you make a really solid point about the sadness and the powerlessness that people feel in the face of this. And at some point people are going to say, "Why should I follow the rules? Why should I be a good citizen if they don't have to follow the rules?" I mean, things kind of break down at some point, don't they?

KELLY: They will break down, they are breaking down, Tucker. I have said this before, and I'm telling you I'm worried that I'm right, the right is going to pick a fascist within 10 to 20 years. Because they're not going to be the only ones on the outs. There's 60, 70 million of us. We're not a tiny minority, and if we're going to be all treated like criminals and all subject to every single law, while antifa, Black Lives Matter guys go free and Hunter Biden goes free, then the right's going to take drastic measures.

And it's not about Hunter Biden and his drug use. Nobody cares that he was bumpin' Booger Sugar and European hookers on the weekend, it's about justice, that he's never held accountable for it and none of the Bidens are, but you would be, Tucker, and so would I.

CARLSON: That's so well put, and you're absolutely right. We're moving toward actual extremism because they're undermining the system that kept extremism at bay. I don't think we can say that enough. I'm so glad that you just said it. Jesse Kelly, thank you.

This is an argument straight out of a Matt Bors cartoon—you know the one, where a young MAGA fanatic embraces neo-Nazism because of mild criticism from a liberal , saying: "I feel bullied, really"—that is recycled with great regularity on the right, particularly by young men who've embraced a proto-fascist ethos: "The left is making people become Nazis!" Portland Proud Boys figure Tusitala "Tiny" Toese is fond of regaling audiences with a similar origin story.

I have heard versions of this legend for many years in covering the radical right, and each time, given further probing with questions, it uniformly became clear that people who say they were pushed into extremism were already there in most regards, and whatever "pushed" them simply removed the pretense. Each of them had a pre-existing antipathy toward liberalism and "the left"—the same animus that historically fueled fascist movements—as well as a predilection toward conspiracism and violence.

But take special note of how Kelly frames the discussion: The Jan. 6 insurrection is never mentioned, but it forms the subtext of his complaint that "we're going to be all treated like criminals and all subject to every single law, while antifa, Black Lives Matter guys go free"—because in their minds, those are the factions responsible for terrorist violence in America, not a mob of right-thinking MAGA folks.

This narrative runs throughout much of mainstream conservative discourse in the aftermath of the Capitol siege. Seizing on modern variations of the timeworn "bloody shirt" trope, they have tried to depict the insurrectionists as "decent Americans in good standing" being victimized by a vengeful left. When the military sought to offer fresh training intended to weed out far-right extremists from their ranks, right-wing pundits complained that it was an "attack on conservatives."

The left is not driving conservatives towards fascism: Rather, their own embrace of far-right radicalization is the engine in all this. The simple existence of "the left" is enough to drive them into an eliminationist rage, and provides a handy rationalization for their own radicalized worldview.

This reality was crystallized in an article published this week in the house organ of the right-wing Claremont Institute, The American Mind, headlined "Conservatism is no Longer Enough: All hands on deck as we enter the counter-revolutionary moment," from an Institute fellow named Glenn Ellmers. Unlike Carlson and Kelly, the piece does not embrace fascism explicitly, but rather explicates in detail a political ethos that is almost classically fascist in the scholarly sense.

Besides being authoritarian, populist, and palingenetic, the piece—an attempt at laying out a fighting plan for the American right after the epistemic break of Jan. 6 (which again goes unmentioned specifically, but is an essential subtext of the piece)—is aremarkable example of undiluted eliminationism, rhetoric that dehumanizes, demonizes, and disenfranchises other members of a society and argue for their elimination.

Ellmers divides the nation into two warring halves: the "real Americans" (who, seemingly, engage in violent seditionist insurrection out of patriotic impulses) and the "not Americans"—i.e., the rest of us. And only the former half deserves to hold the political franchise:

"Fewer are willing to take the next step and accept that most people living in the United States today—certainly more than half—are not Americans in any meaningful sense of the term."

I don't just mean the millions of illegal immigrants. Obviously, those foreigners who have bypassed the regular process for entering our country, and probably will never assimilate to our language and culture, are—politically as well as legally—aliens. I'm really referring to the many native-born people—some of whose families have been here since the Mayflower—who may technically be citizens of the United States but are no longer (if they ever were) Americans. They do not believe in, live by, or even like the principles, traditions, and ideals that until recently defined America as a nation and as a people. It is not obvious what we should call these citizen-aliens, these non-American Americans; but they are something else."

Like so many other red-pilled right-wing authoritarians, Ellmer's cognitive worldview is so skewed that he engages in outright projection here, especially in describing the enemy in greater detail as "a party that stands for mob violence, ruthless censorship, and racial grievances, not to mention bureaucratic despotism," and that the Real Americans voted against a "senile figurehead." This cognitive difference made voting for Trump "an easy choice," and in his view, voting for Biden branded one instantly a Not Real American: "Both Right and Left know where they stand today… and it is not together. Not anymore."

Ellmer somehow concludes that "the progressive, or woke, or 'antiracist' agenda" attacks and "repudiates" the notion that "any temporary majority in power must represent the rights and interests of all"—a concept that seems not to apply to vote-suppressing, anti-immigrant Republicans, not to mention precluding a liberal majority from applying policies that represent the rights and interests of people outside the majority—and so it "now corrupts our republic, assaults our morality, and suffocates our liberty."

Ellmer explains that his goal "is to show why we must all unite around the one, authentic America, the only one which transcends all the factional navel-gazing and pointless conservababble." A photo illustrating the piece, showing a muscular man in a tank top wrapping his hands in preparation for a fistfight, suggested what he has in mind: the thuggish street-brawler strategy of the Proud Boys.

As historian John Ganz explored in a responding piece at Substack, given there really is only one word to accurately describe this kind of authoritarian political ethos: fascism. His opening salvo—arguing for the disenfranchisement of the majority of the nation's voters on the basis of being insufficiently American is really only the beginning.

"These themes of pervading national corruption and decadence, and theneed for a counter-revolution and a national rebirthput this text firmly in the radical reactionary or fascist ballpark," Ganz observes.

He also notes the obvious eliminationism: "Like many fascist theoreticians, the author of the Claremont essay puts the condition of America in terms of a 'toxin,' a 'disease,' a 'sickness,' and awaits the appearance of a providential man with the cure: 'What is needed, of course, is a statesman who understands both the disease afflicting the nation, and the revolutionary medicine required for the cure.'

"There are also hints of the kind of dehumanizing rhetoric that fascist propagandists employ: 'If you are a zombie or a human rodent (who wants a shadow-life of timid conformity, then put away this essay and go memorize the poetry of Amanda Gorman. Real men and women who love honor and beauty, keep reading.' "

Ganz also discusses Kelly's appearance on Carlson's show, noting that both of them clearly stated that fascism is a justifiable response to the left, one forced on the right. "Carlson, of course, has long been a mouthpiece of mainstream conservatism, and has now taken a more radical turn," he adds.

It's probably also worth noting that Kelly has a history of spinning reality through his own authoritarian prism, as Vanity Fair details:

In a 2018 Federalist piece titled "It's Time for the United States to Divorce Before Things Get Dangerous," Kelly pointed to intracountry division on the issues of firearms, immigration, and religion to predict that "sooner or later, the left-wing rage mob will start coming for the careers (and lives) of any normal American who sees things differently." He further warned that right-wing Americans could be massacred in a liberal-led purge, writing in his Federalist post "America Is Over, but I Won't See It Go Without an Epic Fight" that conservatives should fight to the death against "an eventual socialist abyss" that Kelly believes will take over the country. "Close your eyes and imagine holding someone's scalp in your hands," the article's first line reads. "I mean a real scalp, Indian-style, of some enemy you just killed on the battlefield; somebody you hated and who hated you back."

After projecting that conservatives will "almost certainly" be massacred in an America's "inevitable communist purges," Kelly jumped "back to the scalping thing" and insinuated that conservatives should prepare to wage a bloody insurgency against fellow Americans: "When you make that long trek to the reservation the leftists have set up for you—and make that trek you will—what memories do you want to take with you? When living in the liberal utopian nightmare of 57 genders and government control over everything in your life…You'll want to know, to remember, even just cherish the knowledge that, one day, you rode out onto the plains and made them feel pain."

In the epistemologically demented world that people like Kelly and Carlson occupy, the left is the source of all the world's ills, its political violence, its social dysfunctions, while "real Americans" like themselves are standing up for goodness and righteousness. In the end, this is why fascism becomes an acceptable option, especially after Jan. 6, when the web of denial that normalized the American right's descent into radicalization was wiped away and its inherent authoritarianism and anti-democratic intent became unmistakable.

As I wrote after the insurrection:

The Republican Party's hostility to democracy—embodied by conservatives' running refrain that "America is not a democracy, it's a republic"—has become its official policy over the past decade, manifested most apparently in its egregious voter suppression policies and court rulings that reached a fever pitch in recent years. It's now a commonplace for Republican politicians (notably Trump himself) to fret that a high voter turnout is nearly certain to translate into Democratic wins as a reason to even further suppress the vote.

As David Frum (a never-Trump conservative) noted in his book Trumpocracy: "If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. The will reject democracy." On Wednesday, that rejection became undeniably, irrevocably manifest.

Rather than taking a hard look at what they have become after the mob their president ginned up stormed the Capitol, today's lame attempts by conservatives to gaslight the public about what happened Wednesday (with figures like Matt Gaetz and Mo Brooks trying to gaslight the public by claiming the invaders were actually "antifa") make all too clear that the Republican Party, now consumed by right-wing authoritarianism, has ceased to be a viable partner in a working democracy. The problem the rest of us now face is how to proceed from here.

The red pill of authoritarianism is a helluva drug. And as its addicts descend into an embrace of fascism, it's clear they have the capability of not only warping their own reality, but everyone else's too.

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For a brief, shining moment after Donald Trump incited an insurrection on the Capitol on January 6, it seemed that the forces of rising authoritarianism in America might be curtailed, shamed by the violence that had been unleashed by their lies and bitterness over losing the election. But nope, Republicans have quickly reverted back. After all, the fundamental problem facing the Republican party and the larger American right hasn't been resolved. They still know full well that their ideology is unpopular, their arguments are indefensible, and that the only way they can hold onto power is by gutting the ability of the voters to throw them out. And so, as the past month has shown, conservatives are not only becoming more fascistic in the aftermath of the riot but more shameless about their intentions.

The GOP war on voting has become the number one priority, with a bevy of conservative groups reorienting their organizing around keeping Americans away from ballots. Republicans are leaning into the racist signaling around the voter suppression efforts, and when confronted with it, they barely bother to defend themselves, mainly because there is no moral defense possible. There's lip-smacking from the right about "voter fraud" — which they continue to fail to show is a problem, much less one that voter suppression efforts will fix — but these excuses are pro forma, and you can tell their hearts aren't in it.

Instead of trying to sell their behavior as good and righteous, instead, conservatives are coalescing around a different excuse: The liberals are making them do it! They don't want to be fascists, you see, but gosh darn it, they have no choice!

This excuse was most clearly articulated for a large audience on Tucker Carlson's Fox News show last week. His guest, Jesse Kelly, ranted that he is "worried" — and by "worried", he means he's threatening — that the "right is going to pick a fascist" because "if we're going to be all treated like criminals and all subject to every single law, while antifa/Black Lives Matter guys go free and Hunter Biden goes free, then the right's going to take drastic measures."

Carlson, far from pushing back on this "don't make us hit you" threat, performed his idiotic mouth-open fake serious face, as if this was an intellectual discussion about something happening beyond his control. In reality, his show is a nightly blast of encouragement at his fans to embrace their more fascistic yearnings.

The more "intellectual" version of this argument was rolled out by Glenn Ellmers at the American Mind blog of the Claremont Institute,a fairly prestigious conservative think tank that is oriented around the task of putting an intellectualized gloss on the reactionary impulses of the right. In the piece, Ellmers argues openly that "most people living in the United States today" — by which he clearly and explicitly means Democratic voters — "are not Americans in any meaningful sense of the term."

Defining most Americans as non-American, of course, is about justifying an all-out assault on their rights and freedoms. As progressive writer John Ganz wrote in his lengthy rebuttal to Ellmers, this is a "radically anti-democratic conceit of delegitimizing the citizenship of the majority of the country." But Ellmers, like Kelly, pretends to say this more in sorrow than anger, claiming that the left has forced this turn towards fascism (though he pretends it isn't fascism) because the liberal majority does "not believe in, live by, or even like the principles, traditions, and ideals that until recently defined America as a nation and as a people."

In this argument, of course, only the right gets to decide what counts as a legitimate American value.It's closed-loop logic: You are technically free, but only if you live your life in a way prescribed by the religious right. You're allowed to vote, but only if you vote for Republicans.But can freedom really be freedom if it's stripped away from you the second you actually use your freedom?Of course not. This kind of illogic allows authoritarians to claim to be "pro-freedom" while refusing people real freedom.

On his recent call to Laura Ingraham's Fox News show, Trump understandably made headlines with lies about the Capitol insurrectionists, who he falsely claimed were "zero threat", even though they killed on Capitol police officer, traumatized two to the point of suicide, and left 140 injured. But equally disturbing was the way Trump justified the violence, even as he pretended not to see it.

"When I look at antifa and what they did to Washington," he whined, "and what they did to other locations, and the destruction, and frankly the killing and the beating up of people, and nothing happens to them whatsoever? Why aren't they going after antifa?"

Of course, this is more lies. Research shows that 98% of the Black Lives Matter protests were peaceful, and that police were often the instigators of the violence. But Trump's lie serves a purpose. Like Kelly and Ellmers, Trump is setting up the claim that violence and fascism are not something that conservatives are choosing willingly, but something they've been forced to embrace. You know, because "antifa" and the "beating up of people," most of which resides in the fevered conservative's imagination rather than reality.

As Adam Serwer at the Atlantic recently noted, from the very beginning of Trump's presidency, conservatives perceived him as "a punishment" and would "respond to any perceived liberal excess with a simple phrase: 'This is why Trump won.'" They knew that it was wrong to vote for Trump, that it made them bad people to do it, but insisted that they were forced into this immoral position by alleged liberal excesses, most of which were silly, made up entirely or wildly exaggerated. (Literally, conservatives justified the immoral choice to vote for Trump by citing the existence of veggie burgers, gay rights demonstrators twerking, and Disneyland removing a "humorous" display about selling women into prostitution.) Now that logic has exploded all over the right, being used to justify all their own grotesque, fascistic, or anti-democratic behavior.

In a sense, nothing is new about this.

Despite all the chest-thumping authoritarians do, they're all cowards at heart, prone to whining and playing the victim, no matter how silly the pretense. Nazis had their own version of this, with their false "stabbed in the back" narrative they used to justify their genocidal desires. From the very beginning of Trump's presidency, groups like the Proud Boys would openly trawl through liberal cities, trying to provoke a fight, so they could claim victimhood and use that as justification for violence. They can never just admit that they want to be fascists. Instead, they whine and blame someone else for their own immoral desires.

What's scary about this particular moment is that kind of illogic is starting to spread even more rapidly through conservative media. Trump's two-and-a-half-month-long coup effort may have failed to secure him a second term, but it did instill a widespread sense on the right that they were entitled to win the election. Since other voters "stole" the election by voting for Joe Biden, conservatives increasingly claim justification for ending democracy. If you reject people's right to prefer one candidate over another, however, you never believed in democracy in the first place.

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/03/cpac-nazi-symbol/

cdv

no lnx

CPAC veers into neo-Nazi fantasy — was it deliberate?

President Donald J. Trump delivers his remarks Saturday, Feb. 29, 2019, during his appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Oxon Hill, Md. (Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour)

Chauncey DeVega and Salon March 02, 2021

Once upon a time, the Conservative Political Action Conference was a relatively traditional and "mainstream" gathering of many divergent currents on the political right.

Fueled by the obsessive racist backlash against Barack Obama's presidency and paranoid fantasies about a bogeyman fictional version of "the left," the Republican Party rapidly became more extreme, contemptuous not just of "liberals" but of multiracial democracy and reality itself. During those years, CPAC came to resemble a political zoo or circus where assorted cast-offs, broken toys and fringe figures from the Republican Party and conservative movement could gather together and hatch their nefarious plots.

As a result, during the Obama era CPAC became something of a bellwether or leading indicator of the Republican Party's embrace of right-wing extremism and anti-democracy fervor.

Writing at the Washington Monthly, David Atkins summarizes this:

But CPAC isn't a sideshow. It's the main stage of the conservative movement, predicting its future behavior in an era of widening asymmetric polarization. CPAC presaged the rise of the Party of Reagan over that of Gerald Ford and Dwight Eisenhower. It heralded the scorched-earth confrontational politics of Newt Gingrich in the Bill Clinton era. It elevated George W. Bush at a time when the mainstream GOP still saw itself more in the mold of John McCain. It celebrated the Tea Party before GOP legislators had fully embraced it. And it promoted openly racist birthers and conspiracy theorists like Donald Trump at a time when the the mainline GOP was producing superficially anti-racist autopsies and promoting candidates like Marco Rubio and Spanish-speaking Jeb Bush.

So if we want to know where the Republican Party is heading today, we should pay close attention to CPAC.

It is now an obligatory stop for Republican presidential candidates and others seeking high office to win the approval. This year's CPAC gathering — held in Florida rather than Washington, D.C. — was of course where the recently deposed former president and authoritarian cult leader announced his return to public life and plans to further dominate the Republican Party.

Today's Republican Party did not slip and accidentally fall into neofascism and racial authoritarianism. Rather, it willingly leapt into that cesspool. CPAC has devolved into a "safe space" where such vile ideas are cultivated and normalized.

In her landmark 1951 book "The Origins of Totalitarianism," Hannah Arendt previewed the way today's Trump-controlled Republican Party has devolved into a fascist authoritarian movement, a cultural and political force that transcends voting, campaigns, elections and other forms of "normal" political behavior.

On Twitter, author Jared Yates Sexton recently echoed Arendt with a contemporary warning:

Continuing to pretend like we still live in a two-party representative system will only give room and cover to a fascist movement that is intentionally and systematically demolishing democracy and civil liberties. We must recognize the reality of the threat.

What we've witnessed, over the past few years, is the reveal of the GOP as a fascist movement to protect the white, wealthy, and powerful, an angry and violent rejection of democracy and human dignity. There is no saving them, there is no unity, there's only avoiding tragedy.

At this year's CPAC gathering, the escalation that Sexton describes became even more grotesque and dangerous. As reported by many reporters, journalists, and other observers, the main stage at CPAC was shaped like the Othala or Odal rune, an ancient proto-Germanic symbol worn more recently on the uniforms of some of Hitler's most fearsome soldiers, including the infamous Waffen-SS.

In our own time, the Odal rune has also been adopted by neo-Nazis and other white supremacists in both the United States and abroad in an effort make their politics appear more palatable and normal to "mainstream" conservatives and other members of the right wing.

Predictably, Matt Schlapp, the organizer of this year's CPAC gathering, denied any connection between the shape of the main stage and Nazism. Notably, Schlapp did not order the design of the stage changed after he was made aware of its ominous symbolism and history.

Ultimately, it is not the physical design of the stage at the 2021 CPAC gathering that is concerning, but more importantly the white supremacist and other racist and anti-human values and ideas being shared and reinforced by the event's speakers and attendees.

To better understand the relationship between the Odal symbol, Nazism, white supremacy, CPAC, today's Republican Party and the broader right-wing movement, I asked a range of experts from various backgrounds for their insights.

James Scaminaci III, expert on right-wing politics and extremism:

Starting with the disclosure that Steve Bannon's Breitbart sanitized and mainstreamed neo-Nazi propaganda during the 2016 Trump campaign, that Trump himself retweeted neo-Nazi imagery during the campaign, and that within conservative media outlets there were "ghost" white nationalists, this shows that the infiltration has never stopped. Moreover, the displays are becoming even more overt.

I suspect, in a similar vein with Trump's use of "88" notations, that this not initially intended for GOPers or conservatives who may or may not be aware of such imagery. Rather, it is intended for those on the left to notice and bring it out in the open, and then the right can have a culture-war fight about it. This reinforces their narratives of "cancel culture," and their persecution complex. I think it is part trolling, part "owning the libs," and using the libs to educate their own publics.

Moreover, the neo-Nazis and Klan, since at least 2005, have used conservative gatherings to infiltrate and spread their message. They approached the Tea Party with sanitized messages, hid their Nazi tattoos, and tried to coax them toward their viewpoint. They did this during the nativist anti-immigration movement between 2005 and 2008. They mixed with middle-class protesters. They've done this with the "reopen" campaigns. There is also speculation that at least some of the boogaloo militia were disguised neo-Nazis pushing their accelerationist agenda. Neo-Nazis and the Klan have had a chance to mingle with conservative, Christian GOP voters. You can see this in the conflation of the neo-Nazi "white genocide" with the more sanitized "great replacement" conspiracy theory.

Ultimately, what I see with the image at the CPAC conference is part of a long-term trend where neo-Nazis sanitize their rhetoric, sanitize their personal presentations and infiltrate the GOP, the Christian right and the "conservative" movement.

Gavriel Rosenfeld, historian, and author of "The Fourth Reich: The Specter of Nazism from World War II to the Present," "Hi Hitler! How the Nazi Past is Being Normalized in Contemporary Culture" and "The World Hitler Never Made: Alternate History and the Memory of Nazism":

Whether or not the much-commented-upon use of an Odal rune was coincidental or deliberate in creating the CPAC conference stage, the GOP in recent years has flirted with symbols and images used by the American and European far right.

GOP politicians, including the now ex-president, have earned warranted suspicion for playing symbolic footsie with right-wing extremists in the form of various social media postings, retweets, and other dog-whistle endorsements.

Most of these endorsements have involved new symbols used by the far right: Pepe the Frog, the VDare/Lion Guard Lion symbol (proposed as a possible symbol of a future Trump-led Patriot Party), white power "OK" salutes, etc. Thus far, while many MAGA supporters overtly use Nazi-era symbols (black sun, SS runes, etc.) the GOP itself has rarely endorsed actual symbols used in the era of classical fascism.

The most notable exception was probably Trump's retweeting of tweets smearing antifa with the Nazi-era red triangle sewn onto the uniforms of left-wing concentration camp prisoners.

The Odal rune would be a notable exception to this, but at this point, CPAC has plausible deniability until better evidence surfaces. I'd say we are right to be vigilant about paying attention to (and calling out) the increasing willingness of the far right to "say the quiet part out loud" in terms of overt imagery, even if occasionally the fears are misplaced. For some time now, left-liberals are justified in being fearful of the increasingly unhinged right.

Tim Wise, anti-racism activist, speaker, and author of the new book "Dispatches from the Race War":

There are two ways of understanding this. The first is as a strange coincidence, in which a right-wing party whose leader has told white nationalists and assorted fascists to stand back and stand by, and claimed some among the Nazis in Charlottesville were "fine people," just so happens to design the stage at their signature event in the shape of a Nazi symbol.

The second is as a deliberate wink and nod to those within the conservative movement who know the white nationalist base of their party and are signaling to it. But here's the thing: Whichever of these is true hardly matters.

The Nazis will see this as a subtle endorsement of their ideology. That means more terrorism, more death and an ever-increasing threat to democracy. Which is why even if the design were innocent, this simply goes to show that the right has no interest in guarding against white racist terror by distancing itself from the kinds of people who stormed the Capitol or shot up the Walmart in El Paso or organized Unite the Right in 2017. Because if they wanted to disavow and distance from that bunch they would take pains to avoid things like this. They would work to avoid any sniff of Nazi impropriety. They want it both ways — to punch and then hide their hands. The rest of us must make it clear: This is who they are. It is who they have been for a long time.

Jean Guerrero, journalist, investigative reporter and author of "Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda":

The use of Nazi iconography is clearly meant to thrill the GOP's increasingly racist base and to trigger the libs, as well as supporters of American democracy. No one should be surprised. They want people speculating about whether the symbol was used deliberately so as to distract from the now unquestionable reality, which is that the Republican Party is an extremist party. Mainstream Republicans have embraced white supremacist ideas that pose a danger to communities of color, just as they did in California during the '90s amid fears about the "browning of America." Stephen Miller is no longer a fringe figure of the party. He is the Republican Party.

Miller is always laundering white supremacist ideas through the language about heritage. I'm not surprised by the use of this specific symbol. What it dog-whistles is "white heritage."

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Republicans' fascism two-step was on display at CPAC 2021

Amanda Marcotte March 01, 2021

If you want a perfect emblem of the current state of Republican politics, look to the story of how Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., spent this past weekend.

On Friday night, Gosar attended a conference for unvarnished fascists, where the main organizer gave a speech calling for America to be white nationalist country and openly celebrated the insurrection spearheaded by Donald Trump on Jan. 6. On Saturday, while speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Gosar lamely claimed to denounce "white racism," clearly feeling that those magic words erased his participation in and support for those who are organizing white racists to take over the country through force.

It should be silly that Gosar believes that simply declaring "I denounce" is enough to negate all his concrete actions in favor of white nationalism, but the sad fact is that he has good reason to think it will work. After all, that's how things have been working for years in this country. Call it the fascism two-step: First, Republicans do something overtly fascist. Then they wave off concerns about their fascism by faking umbrage and relying on the widespread belief that "it can never happen here" to paint their critics as hysterical. Gosar was just a particularly blunt and obvious example, but it's the strategy that's been used throughout Trump's presidency and now is being heavily employed to minimize the attempted insurrection.

Much was written, both on social and plain old regular media, about how CPAC this year was cementing Trump's power over the GOP and turning the party into a cult of personality for their orange-hued buffoon of a leader. Indeed, it's both alarming and darkly funny, from the rapturous reception of his predictably whiny stemwinder to the ridiculous gold statue of Trump that was on display, which drew thousands of jokes about golden calves. But really, the Trump worship is only part of what is the bigger and much scarier story of CPAC.

The conference was geared around the task of completing the transformation of the Republican party into an overtly authoritarian — even fascist — party that is focused on seizing and holding power against the will of the American people. The Trump idolatry is part of that — what's a fascist party without a cult around a narcissistic leader? — but ultimately, Trump still functions as he always has, which is as a tool for his followers to get what they want, and not an ends in himself. And what they want, as CPAC made quite clear, is to make the U.S. a white nationalist country, which is always what the "MAGA" slogan stood for.

The CPAC straw poll showed only 55% of attendees endorsed Trump as their favorite for the Republican presidential nominee. However, a full 97% approved of Trump's performance in office, despite him ending his presidency by launching a coup that ended in a bloody attack on the Capitol. Trump himself they can leave or take. But the insurrection and the violent assault on American democracy? That is what the CPAC crowd is all about.

As Heather "Digby" Parton noted at Salon Monday morning, "Trump went out of his way to cancel a whole lot of Republicans he considers disloyal, promising to do everything in his power to 'get rid of 'em all,'" and then proceeded to name "every single GOP politician who voted for impeachment individually, his voice dripping with venom."

This is a result, of course, of Trump's famous narcissism and his obsessive cataloging of his enemies. But it is also, and more importantly, about something else: Purging the party of anyone who isn't on board with a fascist agenda. The targets of Trump's wrath are the only Republicans who drew the line at a violent attempt to overthrow the government. This isn't about just remaking the party in his own image, but remaking they party as one explicitly supportive of violent insurrections. Frankly, it won't be a hard task, since, as his pathetically short list showed, few Republicans were even interested in opposing his coup in the first place....

https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/fascists-democracy/

There's a plausible argument in wide circulation that says that daily newspaper editorials no longer matter. I say "plausible," because most daily newspaper of size and significance endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016. You know how that went. But while the newspaper business continues to founder, I think its unsigned editorials remain important, because they reflect the views of respectable white people, the views of white people invested in their reputations as respectable among other white people.

The opinions of respectable white people are important to keep tabs on, as we move out of the age of Trumpism, which is to say (as Michael Gerson did), out of the age of American fascism. Respectable white people did not suffer under Donald Trump. They probably did fine or better than fine. The temptation among respectable white people, in the face of a politics that punches down, not up, is to be indifferent, which is bad, or complicit, which is worse, or cooperative, which is the end of freedom. Fox, Newsmax and others are pushing Republican voters deeper into fascism, but respectable white people, as represented by editorials and the Republican publishers who write or sign off on them, continue to be receptive to arguments that are moral, decent and patriotic.

If respectable white people are mostly immune to a politics in never-ending search of enemies to punish, how do they recognize the danger? When the fascists betray democracy.

Remember that newspaper editorials do not feature bylines, because they speak for the newspaper as a public institution yoked inexorably to the collective fate of the paper's community. Newspaper publishers are almost always Republicans, people with deep knowledge and preferential concern for their business communities. The incentive to reflect the interests of Republicans, instead of the interests of everyone else, is very strong. So when a newspaper like the Kansas City Star accuses its readership's GOP senators of emboldening sedition against the American republic, that's a BFD.

All four senators from our region—Roy Blunt and Josh Hawley of Missouri, Jerry Moran and Roger Marshall of Kansas—voted Saturday to acquit Donald Trump of the impeachment charge against him. Their votes were fundamentally wrong.

Hawley and Marshall were never going to judge allegations against Trump with an open mind, the editorial said. Blunt and Moran, however, should have known better. Their votes to acquit Trump "seem somehow more disturbing. Their long service gave us reason to hope both would put their country over their party. They failed the test."

Both [Missouri's Roy Blunt and Kansas's Jerry Moran] must face voters in two years, and are favorites to win. Perhaps they voted to acquit because they fear primary challenges from the Trumpistas in their party. If so, their votes are not only wrong, but also display a troubling political cowardice we should never forget.

The editorial did not buy their phony excuses. It saw arguments in favor of Trump's conviction and disqualification as compelling and true. It cast their votes, moreover, in terms of patriotism. The republic faced "an unrelenting assault" seeking "to overthrow a free and fair election." There will be a next time, it said. "The votes of Hawley, Moran, Blunt, Marshall and their cowardly colleagues ensure it. … When the next riot comes, who will stand for democracy? Not the senators from Missouri and Kansas."

Remember that the incentive for newspaper publishers to favor GOP politicians is very strong. The Star endorsed Blunt and Moran in 2016. It endorsed Hawley in 2018. (It endorsed Marshall's Democratic opponent in 2018.) For allegiances to break utterly like this, something has to give, and that something seems to have been their vote to betray democracy. Partisans can tolerate a lot. They demand a lot. But partisanship that evolves into treachery is "political cowardice we should never forget." "The stain of their votes must remain affixed to their names as long as the republic survives."

The thing about the idea that fascism can't happen in the United States—an idea often called American exceptionalism—is that it presumes Americans believe in democracy by dint of Americans being American. What's forgotten is democracy itself gives Americans the freedom to be fascist if that's what they want to be. Moreover, being a fascist can seem legitimate when one's fascism is derived from the democratic process. That's the case for Hawley and Marshall. That appears to be increasingly the case for Blunt and Moran. And because that's the case, being a fascist might not seem all that bad, especially to respectable white people who are mostly immune to fascist politics.

If respectable white people are mostly immune to a politics in never-ending search of enemies to punish, how do respectable white people recognize the danger? When the fascists betray democracy. When the fascists make themselves the republic's enemy. When newspaper editorials say their cowardly votes are stain on their names. But especially when the fascists make it abundantly clear that being white is not the same thing as being safe, as being democratic, as being legitimate, as being patriotic.

Fascists like Hawley and Marshall, and latent fascists like Blunt and Moran, are forcing respectable white people of the kind whose interests are represented in the Kansas City Star's editorial pages to consider other white people without the benefit of the doubt normally afforded immediately to other white people. The fascists are forcing respectable white people to thinkmore like non-white Americans who have always recognized that being American does not necessarily mean believing in democracy. The long-term outcome, I hope, is respectable white people finding common cause with non-white Americans against the enemies of the republic.

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aha alt fact/ Big Lie = fascism = rw media [soc med bubble?]= lie win any cost

an 221

js ed bd

This afternoon will see the first leg of Donald Trump's impeachment trial in the United States Senate. The whole journey will last about a week or so. (Roll Call has an excellent item explaining the ins and outs of the proceedings.) The House Democrats will try to prove the former president's guilt in leading an attempt to overthrow the republic. The Senate Republicans will pretend they can't sit in judgment, because sitting in judgement of a former president, they have said, is unconstitutional.

Let me put this as plainly as I can. The very fact that Donald Trump's impeachment trial is happening at all, and that it will be happening over the next seven to 10 days, means it's constitutional. Full stop. The United States Congress is the first branch of the United States government. (Its constitution, after all, is Article I of the United States Constitution.) There is no higher authority. No, the United States Supreme Court is not a higher authority, not when it comes to impeachments and trials.

The very fact that Donald Trump's impeachment trial in the Senate is happening, and that it will be happening over the next seven to 10 days, means it's constitutional. Full stop.

Quite literally, the Senate Republicans are saying it's unconstitutional to prosecute a former (Republican) president, because they want it to be unconstitutional to prosecute a former (Republican) president. But the fact that a former (Republican) president is being prosecuted—starting today—invalidates the premise of their constitutional argument. Indeed, it wasn't an argument. The truth is in plain sight. When it came to a Democratic president who lied to a grand jury, the authority of the Congress would not be denied! When it comes to a (former) Republican president involved in the attempted murder of his enemies, that authority is a bit much, don't you think?

Gerald Ford, when he was the House minority leader during the Watergate era, famously said "high crimes and misdemeanors" are "whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers them to be at a moment in history." Same thing for the question of whether it's constitutional to prosecute a former president. If a majority of the United States Senate (or rather a two-thirds supermajority of the Senate in the case of conviction) says it's constitutional, it's constitutional ipso facto. So, again, with feeling: Donald Trump's impeachment trial in the Senate begins today. That it's happening at all, and that it could lead to conviction, means it's constitutional.

With there being zero chance of the United States Supreme Court getting involved in a dispute between the branches of the United States Congress, the question is settled. It's over. Indeed, there never was a question. (The truth has been in plain sight.) Because there never was a question, we should ask ourselves: why are the Republicans pretending there's a question when there's no question? Once you start asking yourself that question, the trial's outcome, which is not in doubt, starts to be less important than the reason the Senate Republicans are asking the question in the first place.

The reason the Senate Republicans are questioning a certainty (i.e., Jesus *God*, yes, it's constitutional to prosecute a former president, will you please knock it off already?) is the**same reason all Republicans are so often certain about things that might actually be in question. The truth is always a threat. Deference to truth is always tyranny. What's important is authority. Their authority. Their authority over you *and everyone you love*. And once you start seeing the deep authoritarianism of most of the Republicans in the Congress, once you start seeing the deep authoritarianism of millions of your fellow Americans**, you also start seeing lying isn't something they do merely to get what they want. Lying is something they do, because lying is the point.

Remember that Rand Paul and other Senate Republicans have something you don't. **They have a global right-wing media apparatus to not only amplify their lies, but *bend perception* away from political reality and toward a favorable fictional one. To lie at this grand a scale is to create a world in which morality is perverted, politics is barbarous, and whole populations can be pushed around and told what to believe, and not only that: they *want to believe*, because the lies have become so totalizing that everything being upside down, backwards and prolapsed seems normal, rational and worthy of defended in the name of *muh freedom***. When everyone says the sky is green when the truth is in plain sight, everyone is not merely trying to deceive you. Everyone is maintaining a perversion in which speaking truthfully could inspire your murder.

The House Democratic impeachment managers are going to push through the Republicans' lies in order to reveal the whole truth to the American people about their former president, which is this: Donald Trump committed a heinous presidential crime worthy, at the very least, of being disqualified for life from holding public office. This is as it should be, but let's not forget what the lies themselves reveal.

====

221 intercept

w hat the Far-Right Fascination With Pinochet’s Death Squads Should Tell Us

Christopher Ketcham

When Trumpists use images of the “Hoppean Snake,” offering “free helicopter rides,” they’re advocating a program of extermination.

rhet

https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/is-trump-a-fascist/

Hours before a mob of far-right insurrectionists — including members of the Proud Boys, QAnon supporters, White nationalists and members of various militia groups — violently stormed the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6, then-President Donald Trump held a "Save America" rally in Washington, D.C.'s Ellipse Park. Trump and his allies showed a propaganda video at that event, and according to Yale University professor Jason Stanley — author of the book "How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them" — that video was full of fascist themes.

Stanley has made no secret of the fact that he considers Trumpism a fascist movement. In an article published by Just Security on February 4, the Yale professor identifies some of the overtly fascist themes in the video presented at the Save America Rally.

"On January 6," Stanley explains, "Trump supporters gathered at a rally at Washington D.C.'s Ellipse Park, regaled by various figures from Trumpworld, including Donald Trump, Jr. and Rudy Giuliani. Directly following Giuliani's speech, the organizers played a video. To a scholar of fascist propaganda, well-versed in the history of the National Socialists' pioneering use of videos in political propaganda, it was clear, watching it, what dangers it portended. In it, we see themes and tactics that history warns pose a violent threat to liberal democracy. Given the aims of fascist propaganda — to incite and mobilize — the events that followed were predictable."

NEW A movie was shown at the Ellipse on 1/6. It's escaped attention. Until now. We asked a top expert on propagan… https://t.co/UzIExOEwPK

— Ryan Goodman (@Ryan Goodman)1612445788.0

Fascism, according to Stanley, "is a patriarchal cult of the leader, who promises national restoration in the face of supposed humiliation by a treacherous and power-hungry global elite, who have encouraged minorities to destabilize the social order as part of their plan to dominate the 'true nation,' and fold them into a global world government."

Such themes, Stanley stresses, were "laid bare in the video" that Trump and his allies showed at the Save America Rally.

"In it, Trump is repeatedly represented as the nation's father figure," Stanley notes. "It is laced through with images of masculinity, and mournful loss at the hands of traitors, clearly justifying a violent restoration of recent glory."

In the video, Stanley adds, Sen. Chuck Schumer, who is now Senate majority leader, "is wearing a Kente cloth, an image evocative of Ku Klux Klan ideology — that Jews support Black liberation movements as a way to undermine White rule and destroy the nation. The next frame shows the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, flanked by two Jewish congressmen, Representatives (Jerry) Nadler and (Adam) Schiff. Pelosi, too, is controlled by Jews…. Fascist propaganda creates an awesome sense of loss, and a desire for revenge against those who are responsible."

Although Stanley draws parallels between Trump's video and Nazi Germany propaganda of the 1930s, he stresses that Trumpism is a distinctly American brand of fascism.

Stanley explains, "Fascism is not an ideology consigned to Europe. Black American intellectuals from W.E.B. Du Bois to Toni Morrison have spoken of American fascism. America has a long history of anti-Semitism similar to Nazi anti-Semitism, central to the ideology not just of the Ku Klux Klan, but to Henry Ford's 'The International Jew.' In its American version, communist Jews supposedly use Black liberation movements, control of Hollywood, and labor unions to destroy the nation in the service of a global elite. We should not be surprised at all by the rise of a fascist movement in the United States."

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an 121

s the Republican Party fascist? An expert explains the 7 themes that dominate fascism movements

Kevin Matthews History News Network

January 11, 2021

Writing in the Washington Post four years ago, journalist Michael Kinsley gave this blunt assessment of the man about to become president:....

an 121 salon

Americans were shocked to watch as American stormtroopers assaulted the U. S. capitol building, smashing windows, roaming through the building and the floors of both Senate and House, including sitting in the seat of the Senate's presiding officer, leaving incendiary devices nearby, etc.).

This was more than a whiff of fascism. This is what fascism looks like.

So, we have to ask: beyond the lying, insurrection-instigating, so-called President, how did we get here?

The story actually goes a long way back.

First, the more obvious Republican side of the story:

Although his administration did eventually oversee some environmental protections, President Richard Nixon gained the White House via a law and order campaign in 1968, appealing to the so-called "silent majority" who were frightened, if not alienated, by the images of antiwar protesters, inner-city "rioters," and counterculture "freaks" during the 1960s.

The mass media, of course, fed this dynamic by refusing to take seriously the actual claims of Black, antiwar, and feminist activists; instead, making sure the public saw the most inflammatory examples of their behaviors and appearances. That's a story I have documented elsewhere.

Nixon's election and his "Southern Strategy" set in stone the future of the Republican party, although it remained for Ronald Reagan to seal the deal. Reagan's rhetoric about basic "decency" and "family values," fed the grievances of those who felt left out of, or alienated by, the '60s. But crucially, Reagan's actual policies focused on eliminating ways the government addresses public needs, instead cutting taxes on the wealthy, rebuilding a huge military complex and aggressive foreign policy, and deregulating the economy.

However, the people drawn to so-called conservative rhetoric — whether religious traditionalists, rural folks or members of the white working class — were not the actual winners under Reagan. Instead, they lost more and more ground economically. They basically got symbolic gratification. Their attention was instead diverted to the Democrats, liberals and "Eastern elites" who "caused" their problems.

That's the path that leads directly to Trump and his True Believers.

What, then, of the Democratic Party?

That, too, is a long story. In the midst of the Reagan years, smarting from Nixon's humiliating victory in 1972 and Reagan's in 1984, Democratic centrists — names like Dick Gephardt, Sam Nunn, Bill Clinton [TONY COELHO]— took steps to move the party away from its more liberal wing and into the corporate-dependent center. In its more liberal moments the Democratic Party typically expressed hopeful rhetoric about defending the rights of minorities, women and LGBTQ people, defending the environment, etc. The reality consistently fell far short of the rhetoric.

So, in our two-party system, Republicans have been all about give-aways to the rich while manipulating the emotions of less well-off white Americans. Democrats have essentially ignored the latter populations, becoming increasingly dependent on corporate money while also manipulating the aspirations of marginalized communities.

Neither party speaks a word against a capitalist system that feeds inequality, threatens the planet's ability to sustain life, and generates a foreign policy marked by militarism and war. The "problem" is always the "other party."

In their more liberal moments, Democrats embrace what is often called "identity politics" — race, gender, and sexuality in particular. This rhetorical embrace is used by Republicans to feed the emotional attachment of their rank and file supporters. Democrats gain support when Republican rhetoric becomes outrageous. Clearly, the political center, with all its sanctimonious rhetoric, is reinforced when something like the Capitol assault occurs.

Yet the country remains stuck in this see-saw battle that goes nowhere. Beholden to corporate wealth, neither party dares to confront class inequality. Yet, unlike identity concerns about discrimination, hate speech, and oppression — all serious problems — class analysis reveals the systemic forces that lie behind these and keep both parties' rank-and-file in their place at the margins of American politics.

Ultimately, the only way out of this will occur when enough people becomeaware, not only of the seriousness of the hazards facing us, but of the need to come together in a well-mobilized mass movement addressing systemic concerns.We already see where we're heading if we don't do this.

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/trump-mental-health-2649778207/

jim sleeper salon

If nothing else, Wednesday's insurgency-cum-riot on Capitol Hill should serve to sidelines a few insouciant, above-it-all pundits who quietly enjoyed Donald Trump's upstaging of liberals, even as they assured us that ultimately we had little to fear from him.

"He Won't Concede, but He'll Pack His Bags" was the headline on Atlantic writer Graeme Wood's pre-election column of Oct. 15, which informed us that although Trump "has signaled that he's willing to plunge America into chaos in an effort to remain in the White House … we should remember that Trump had a vision of the presidency that began with extreme laziness, and that the end of his presidency could go roughly the same way. … [A]ll evidence suggests that he would run from the responsibility … of overseeing the violent fracture of America."

Well, maybe. And maybe New York Times columnist Ross Douthat was right to assure us, on Oct. 10, that "There Will Be No Trump Coup." Douthat offered us a "final pre-election case for understanding the president as a noisy weakling, not a budding autocrat. Across the last four years, the Trump administration has indeed displayed hallmarks of authoritarianism. … But it's also important to recognize all the elements of authoritarianism he lacks. He lacks popularity and political skill, unlike most of the global strongmen who are supposed to be his peers. … Our weak, ranting, infected-by-Covid chief executive is not plotting a coup, because a term like 'plotting' implies capabilities that he conspicuously lacks."

Well, maybe. But Douthat — whom I've characterized as a casualty of Ideological Displacement Syndrome — worries that "[w]ith American liberalism poised to retake presidential power, it … has become a more dominant force in our society, with a zealous progressive vanguard and a monopoly in the commanding heights of culture. Its return to power in Washington won't be the salvation of American pluralism; it will be the unification of cultural and political power under a single banner."

Again, maybe. But begging Douthat and Wood's pardon, what I think we've witnessed on Capitol Hill is pretty much what I predicted in March of 2016, as Trump was rampaging through that year's Republican presidential primaries, demolishing both that party's and the Democratic Party's establishments:

Armed, racist American goons and drooling fools who are circling liberal democracy's proverbial town meetings in our nightmares … weren't born to do what they're doing now, nor were they all disposed to do it back on the playground. The quiet little stabs of heartbreak and self-doubt that accumulated in tiny increments in their young lives as their parents lost jobs, pensions, homes, mutual respect, and public moral standing have blossomed into open resentment seeking the right target.

How many of us remember that when Trump was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2017, his transition team had discoveredthat the president has complete command of the National Guard unit of the District of Columbia, and that it informed that unit's commander, Errol Schwartz, that his dismissal would be effective precisely at noon on Inauguration Day, in the middle of the ceremony, so that he wouldn't even be able to welcome back the troops he'd sent out that morning. Two days before the inauguration, that decision was reconsidered, and Schwartz was granted enough time to finish the ceremony and wrap up his affairs. I warned about all this in a long essay entitled, "The Die Is Cast: Why Trump Can't Help but Try Dictatorship."

Well, Trump is indeed unequal to Vladimir Putin in orchestrating tyranny. Yet his impulses resemble what 18th-century historian Edward Gibbon described, in "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," as the formation of the Roman emperor Augustus' Praetorian Guard after an enfeebled, terrified Senate granted him "an important privilege. :.. By a dangerous exception to the ancient maxims, he was authorized to preserve his military command, supported by a numerous body of guards, even in time of peace, and in the heart of the capital."

So far, what I and many of us feared years ago hasn't quite happened. But Trump's inaugural denunciations in 2017 of "politicians who prospered as jobs left and factories closed" — coupled with his vow that the "American carnage" caused by the hiring and buying of foreign people and products and deepened by crime, gangs and drugs "stops right here, stops right now" — left him no choice but to humble or destroy all "politicians" who resist him.

Just look now at the Republicans, as well as Democrats, whom he's thrown under the bus. Let's hope we can look at this moment as a historic one in which, once again, most Americans told Trump and the tens of millions of their fellow citizens who have indulged his armed goons and drooling fools that, as President-elect Biden said during the upheaval: "Enough is enough."

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hour audio trump pressure raffensberger and atty germany nice name

https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/georgia-secretary-of-state-2649728639

https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/donald-trump

paul r salon

if every cloud has a silver lining, Donald Trump's destructiveness offers this one: He has forced us to a point of reckoning about America. If we think all this chaos is just about him, we've missed the whole point. On that point, there's wide agreement. Beyond that, however, there's considerable disagreement, if not confusion. The vast majority of elite discourse sees this in terms of a challenge to liberal democracy — a challenge that's been unfolding worldwide over the past decade or so, sometimes characterized as a "_{third wave of autocratization}_."

There's a large body of knowledge and experience behind this point of view (see groups such as _{Varieties of Democracy}_ for a global perspective, or _{Bright Lines Watch}_ in the U.S.). But such an idealized view of American democracy has always been challenged by African Americans, for instance: See Frederick Douglass' "_{What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?}_" or Langston Hughes' "Let America Be America Again.") Trump's election, in obvious response to Barack Obama's, has had the effect of pushing the longstanding Black critique of American democracy to the very center of our politics.

In contrast, University of Wisconsin political scientist Mark Copelovitch has been tweeting his observations of American politics under the rubric of "_{Today in life under competitive authoritarianism}_." The term comes from Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way's 2010 book, "_{Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes After the Cold War}_" (introduced in an earlier paper _{here}_.) They cite "four minimum criteria" that modern democratic regimes meet, which these "hybrid regimes" (including most of the nations in the former Soviet Union) fail to meet on a systematic basis, thereby creating an uneven playing field between government and opposition. The first three of these criteria are that executives and legislatures are chosen through elections that are open, free, and fair; that virtually all adults posses the right to vote; and that political rights and civil liberties — including freedom of the press, freedom of association and freedom to criticize the government without reprisal — are broadly protected.

By systemically violating these criteria, and possibly a fourth — "elected authorities possess real authority to govern, in that they are not subject to the tutelary authority of military or clerical leaders" — competitive authoritarian regimes seek to maintain the general appearance of being democracy-like in order to claim legitimacy, but without practicing actual, substantive democracy. In a late October pair of tweets, Copelovitch summed up his view:

Arguably, the US has basically not fully met the 1st 2 of Levitsky & Way's democratic criteria since the failure of Reconstruction. Trump-era backsliding is mostly on criterion 3 But the problem now is additive. EC + increases in gerrymandering & malapportionment + Trump.

I actually do think this is what we are starting to realize & why the Court/Senate/statehood reforms have gained traction. The immediate authoritarian threat of Trump since 2017 has shined light on the enduring undemocratic nature of our political institutions.

this framework of "competitive authoritarianism" offers a more realistic description of America's actually existing political system than calling it a backsliding liberal democracy. Our problem is not primarily a flaw in liberal democracy as such, but in the United States' consistent failure to actually embody what it pretends to be.

I asked Copelovitch about his "competitive authoritarianism" tweets, and he responded that the "most proximate reason" for writing them was his state of residence: "I have lived since 2006 in Wisconsin, which has been the canary in the coalmine for all of the developments and risks to American democracy that we've seen since 2016. ... What we're seeing at the national level under Trump is simply the extension of what's happened in Wisconsin, under [former governor] Scott Walker and [State Assembly Speaker] Robin Vos, to the U.S. as a whole." The fullest description of this can be found in Dan Kaufman's book, "_{The Fall of Wisconsin: The Conservative Conquest of a Progressive Bastion and the Future of American Politics}_."

But there's also Copelovitch's own background, as he explained by email....

fox silent

https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/martial-law-2649638050/

aha hier is defend position/natural order from encroachment/threat (emotion, reptile brain) from them other foreigner blk/brn ppl

https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/psychopath/

new study published in the latest edition of "Personality and Individual Differences" highlights the relationship between psychopathic tendencies, pathological personality traits and prejudicial views. Research suggests people with "calloused, deceitful, and manipulative interpersonal styles" are more prone to align with the beliefs of right-wing authoritarianism, according to PsyPost.

Sandeep Roy, a doctoral candidate with a major-applied focus on clinical psychology at the University of North Texas, explained the correlation between the two.

"My interest in the relationship between pathological personality traits, such as those captured by psychopathy, and prejudicial tendencies originated from my experiences working with offenders in the Arizona correctional system prior to graduate school," said Roy.

He added, "I noticed offenders who were elevated in psychopathic propensities, as measured by the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; Hare, 2003), frequently used racial epithets to denigrate me and other staff. When I began studying this personality disorder more in my graduate training, I noticed a paucity of literature relating psychopathy to prejudice."

Roy went on to explain what inspired his research as he noted his concern about the uptick in "hate-based violence" in recent years. The study focused on the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale-Short Form (SRP-SF) which broke psychopathy into four distinct categories: "a manipulative and deceptive interpersonal style, callousness and lack of empathy, impulsivity, and overt antisocial tendencies."

"Given the increase in hate-based violence in the last few years, I wanted to explore if certain personality traits traditionally studied in the realm of clinical psychology may be predictive of prejudice and provide empirical research on this understudied topic," he explained. "Psychopathy is particularly relevant to prejudice given that facets of the disorder, such as callousness or lack of empathy, are predictive of prejudicial tendencies."

The latest research findings are said to align with previous studies conducted in Austria which highlighted how some people with seemingly "dark" personality traits had an increased likelihood to support right-wing political views and beliefs.

Roy's research also noted a direct correlation between psychopathic tendencies judgmental views. During an interview with with the publication, Roy further explained his findings.

Roy said, "The findings of the study suggest that psychopathic traits, particularly the calloused and deceptive traits, are robustly associated with the tendency to prefer a society that keeps marginalized groups low in status and power and are also predictive of the propensity to use aggression towards violators of traditional social norms, both of which are salient predictors of a variety of prejudicial attitudes."

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/psychopath/

Sandeep Roy, a doctoral candidate with a major-applied focus on clinical psychology at the University of North Texas, explained the correlation between the two.

Roy's research also noted a direct correlation between psychopathic tendencies judgmental views. During an interview with with the publication, Roy further explained his findings.

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https://www.democracynow.org/2020/12/8/headlines/police_raid_home_of_data_scientist_who_blew_whistle_on_florida_covid_19_reporting

Florida, armed police raided the home of Rebekah Jones on Monday. She is the data scientist who was forced to resign in May as the lead software developer for Florida’s coronavirus data portal after she refused to censor information about Florida’s COVID-19 outbreak. Police seized her computers and pointed guns at her children. Jones posted video of the raid on Twitter.

Police officer 1: “Police! Come down now!”

Police officer 2: “Search warrant!”

Rebekah Jones: “Do not point that” —

Police officer 1: “Bring your children!”

Police officer 2: “Come down the stairs!”

Rebekah Jones: — “gun at my children! He just pointed a gun at my children!”

Rebekah Jones accused Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis of sending the Gestapo after her. She wrote on Twitter, “This is what happens to scientists who do their job honestly. This is what happens to people who speak truth to power.”Florida authorities said the raid was part of a probe into a recent hack of the Florida Health Department’s website, but Jones said she hasn’t had access to the site in six months.

an 1220

an see dn cover story was hack investigation, but she has not had access 6 mos; she posted covid info gov wanted to suppress

"gestapo"

cOVID whistleblower blames Ron DeSantis after cops raid her home: 'They pointed guns at my kids'

David BadashThe New Civil Rights Movement

walter benjamin on nazi art ****

https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/trumpism

fascism expert: Donald Trump has turned destructive and vindictive -- like all dictators

Bandy X. Lee Raw Story

December 05, 2020

I have often dubbed “fascism" mental pathology in politics, and as a fascism scholar and author of the new book, Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present, Prof. Ruth Ben-Ghiat is as psychologically-minded as historians come. The way mental health professionals have...

https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/trump-pentagon/

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Trump’s Pentagon nominee promoted calls for the president to declare martial law: report

Alex Henderson December 04, 2020

Scott O'Grady is a former fighter pilot who President Donald Trump has nominated for a senior position in the Pentagon. And according to CNN, he is also a Trump loyalist and far-right conspiracy theorist who has been echoing Trump's baseless claims of widespread voter fraud and shared tweets calling for martial law.

Trump supporters who have posted or forwarded tweets urging the president to declare martial law include attorney Lin Wood (who has been fighting President-elect Joe Biden's victory in Georgia) and former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

According to CNN reporters Nathan McDermott, Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck, O'Grady "retweeted an account that shared an article that said former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn had shared a petition that called for martial law. He then retweeted the same account which suggested that Trump should declare martial law."

That account said, "I don't know who needs to hear this, but calling for martial law is not a bad idea when there is an attempted coup against the president and this country happening right now."

O'Grady has a history of sharing unhinged tweets.

McDermott, Kaczynski and Steck report, "CNN's KFile reviewed O'Grady's tweets and media appearances and found that O'Grady shared other debunked election conspiracies and that he also degraded top military and intelligence officials. In a radio interview, he called former President Barack Obama and military generals 'sworn socialists' and advocated that the military justice system should bring back treason charges. He retweeted a tweet that called former Defense Secretary James Mattis a 'traitor.'"

On top of that, the CNN reporters note, O'Grady "tweeted that Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a star witness during the Trump impeachment hearings, should be charged 'for insurrection because he is a biased liberal political operative' and said, on a radio show, that it was 'disgusting' for Vindman to testify against Trump. He also spread a baseless claim that the whistleblower in the impeachment saga dated the daughter of House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff."

O'Grady has been nominated for assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs. If he is confirmed by the U.S. Senate, he would only remain in the Pentagon until the end of Trump's presidency. Inauguration for Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is set for January 20.

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General Flynn

@GenFlynn

#WeThePeople

@SidneyPowell1

@LLinWood

@DanScavino

@LouDobbs

@MariaBartiromo

@marklevinshow

@lofly727

Freedom never kneels except for God ??????

lin Wood

@LLinWood

Good morning.

Our country is headed to civil war. A war created by 3rd party bad actors for their benefit - not for We The People.

Communist China is leading the nefarious efforts to take away our freedom.

@realDonaldTrump should declare martial law.

https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/trump-dictator/

flynn dobbs oann

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Here's why Republicans who are calling for a Trump dictatorship should not be taken lightly — and aren’t going away

Trump condemned for White House 'dictator' statement to cast doubt on election results

The Conversation

Alex Henderson December 04, 2020

The United States dodged an authoritarian bullet when former Vice President Joe Biden, a centrist Democrat, became president-elect, winning 306 electoral votes and defeating defeated President Donald Trump by more than 6 million in the popular vote. But when Republican Lin Wood, a pro-Trump attorney who has been fighting the election results in Georgia, implores Trump to impose martial law and elections officials are receiving death threats for acknowledging Biden as president-elect, it is painfully obvious that there is a strong appetite for fascism in parts of the United States. And journalist Sasha Abramsky, in an article published by The Nation on December 4, warns that Republicans who are openly calling for fascism should not be taken lightly.

"We are less than seven weeks away from the inauguration, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't counting down the seconds," Abramsky writes. "For the last spasms of Trumpist rule are truly a sight and sound to behold. Trumpism is, at this point, nothing more than a blend of cultism and fascism — a violent, nihilistic howl against the pillars of American democracy unparalleled in presidential history."

Abramsky adds, however, that when "people surrounding Trump are calling for dictatorship," it "ought to send a chill up all Americans' spines." And Abramsky cites some specific examples of Trumpistas who haven't been shy about showing their authoritarianism.

"Trump campaign attorney Joe DiGenova said that Chris Krebs, the election security official whom Trump fired by tweet last month after he defended the integrity of the election, should be 'drawn and quartered' and 'taken out at dawn and shot,'" Abramsky observes. "Stalin couldn't have said it better himself when talking about his perceived enemies in the Soviet bureaucracy.

Former Trump campaign attorney Sidney Powell…. retweeted a call to invoke the Insurrection Act, suspend the meeting of the Electoral College and set up military tribunals to deal with Trump's enemies. The following day, former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, coming off a recent presidential pardon from Trump, urged his erstwhile boss to declare martial law, suspend the Constitution, and order new presidential elections under the supervision of the military."

Abramsky adds, "Far-right media personalities have joined the fascist clamor. Lou Dobbs of Fox Business recently called for Trump to take unspecified 'drastic action' against his enemies. The One America News Network has also suggested that Trump should invoke the Insurrection Act as a way to remain in office."

The journalist stresses that "when a fanatical movement's hold on power starts to diminish, the extremists have a tendency to eat their own." And Abramsky points to the recent attacks on Attorney General William Barr from the far right as a disturbing example.

Barr has been one of Trump's most aggressive defenders, often inspiring unflattering comparisons to the late Republican attorney Roy Cohn (who was an ally of Sen. Joseph McCarthy during the 1950s and represented Trump during the 1970s). But Barr, during an interview with the Associated Press, essentially acknowledged Biden as president-elect and said there was no evidence that widespread voter fraud swung the election in Biden's favor — and Trumpistas like Dobbs are furious with Barr for it.

It should be noted that far-right fascists don't necessarily come to power through a violent coup d'état or golpe de estado; sometimes, they are voted into office and try to gradually undermine a democracy's system of checks and balances. That has happened in Turkey with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and in Hungary with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, and hopefully, Brazil's checks and balances will withstand the far-right President Jair Bolsonaro. Meanwhile, in France, far-right white nationalist Marine Le Pen (leader of the National Front) lost the country's 2017 presidential race but is likely to run for president again.

Most Americans rejected fascism in the United States' 2020 presidential election. But Abramsky warns that the appetite for fascism in the U.S. hasn't gone away.

"Trump's fascist yammering and the GOP Senate's collaborationist behavior isn't just a footnote to the 2020 election campaign," Abramsky warns. "Rather, it's a prologue to what could come next…. The GOP as an institution has entirely abandoned its commitment to the democratic process…. It's a hell of a warning shot as to how the Grand Old Party intends to conduct itself in the months and years ahead."

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bribery, pardon flynn , kids and rudy

https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/fascism-expert-donald-trumps-coup-is-not-over-and-his-enablers-arent-done

amanda

https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump-psychology/

Are we addicted to Donald Trump? It's a question that's haunting journalists and political commentators, most of whom hate Trump but cannot deny that his name drives traffic and ratings. Even though Trump lost the election and Joe Biden will be the next president, Trump continues to be the big attention draw for political websites and cable news networks.

Part of that is completely understandable. Trump is still big news. He literally spent the past few weeks attempting a coup. While he failed, that doesn't change the history-making fact that he even tried, or that he got so much support. Certainly Biden, whose main activity is finding boring-but-competent people to staff his administration, can't compete with that, and there's no real indication that he wants to. (Unlike Trump, Biden views governing as a job and not just an opportunity to get attention.)

But there is no doubt that the media remains flatly fascinated with Trump, in no small part because, as Salon's Andrew O'Hehir argued Monday, "our readers and viewers have enabled and encouraged us at every step" and stories about Trump "outperform every other category of reporting, commentary or analysis we can possibly offer."

As Philip Bump at the Washington Post documented Tuesday, since Trump first announced his run for president, he "is the political figure who garners the most search interest, cable news mentions or screen time each month since June 2015."

Because of all this, it's become quite fashionable in some circles to haughtily declare that all this interest is tawdry, and that if we simply ignored Trump, he would go away. Hardly a week goes by on social media where I don't get some reader who, sick of it all, will lash out at me personally and demand that I stop writing about, tweeting about or otherwise giving attention to Trump.

But the command to ignore him didn't make the bully disappear in junior high school and it certainly doesn't work with the president. Nor can Trump's importance in our politics be easily reduced to a pop psychology assumption that all fascination is inherently addiction and therefore bad.

The reality is that the Trump obsession isn't really about Trump himself anyway. It's about his followers.

Don't get me wrong. I confess some interest in his psychology, which our traffic shows is widely shared. But let's face it — even on the sociopath scale, Trump's not as interesting as more exotic specimens like Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer. As a person, Trump is little more than the aged version of the yuppie villain in an '80s comedy, with a sweater tied around his neck and a sneer for the scruffy heroes. He only has two emotional registers, whining and bullying. He's boring.

Bump's own numbers show this. Prior to his presidential campaign, Trump wasn't an object of widespread fascination, no matter how much he hustled for attention. Ratings for his reality show were in the toilet and most people didn't think about him at all. It was only when Trump started to get support from everyday voters that he became the focal point of American politics.

The reason that Trump captures so much attention, year in and year out, is because of his followers. How did this two-bit moron who can barely read manage to attract a loyal following — one that has apparently grown from the 63 million people voted for him in 2016 to the 74 million who turned out in 2020? These people adore him, so much so that a quarter-million Americans dead and millions more unemployed only made them more determined to give it all up for the orange guy in an ill-fitting suit who wants to end democracy as we know it. It's a legitimately fascinating mystery.

The devotion of the Red Hats is, if anything, more bizarrebecauseTrump is so tiresome. Going to one of his infamous rallies, for instance, is volunteering to be tortured, like being strapped to a chair while the biggest boor in the world rants incoherently at you for over an hour. Listening to him ping-pong endlessly between whining and bragging is a form of boredom that makes solitary confinement seem pleasant by comparison.

And it's not like his rally-goers felt differently. You could see it on the faces in the crowds, as his supporters would drift away, not really listening except to perk up to applaud at the mention of buzzwords ("Crooked Hillary," "build the wall", "Hunter Biden"), but never really paying much attention to what Trump was actually saying.

They weren't there for him, after all. They were there as a show of force, to let the hated liberals know that they had the numbers and the determination — so much so that they'd sacrifice a night of their preciously short lives listening to a braggart ramble on about windmills and and lie about his own vitality for an hour. Trump will never understand this, but it was never about him. He was there for them, a vehicle for their resentments and, critically, their will to power. He was the weapon they wielded in their war to exert dominance over American politics, even as their actual numbers dwindle.

This movement is what is interesting, because it's ultimately, about the rise of American fascism. It's a real threat, as demonstrated by Biden's uncomfortably close margins in the same swing states Hillary Clinton lost in 2016. Indeed, it's arguable that these forces still won in 2020, as they (probably) kept control of the Senate, gained seats in the House and have overtaken the federal courts, kneecapping the ability of the majority of American voters, who support the Democrats, to exert their political will.

That the most powerful country in the world is being held hostage by an authoritarian, racist minority drunk on conspiracy theories is the biggest story in politics. It's part of a larger story about the entire world in the grip of rising authoritarianism. Their power will define Joe Biden's presidency. Their ability to cripple him will matter more than any of his Cabinet picks or even his executive orders.

Trump is just the shorthand for this very real and ongoing problem. The reason it feels like we can't quit Trump is that we can't quit the people who elected him. As Bob Cesca argued this week at Salon, we shouldn't pander to those people or seek to placate them, but we also can't just ignore them. Not while they still control so many levers of power.

Nowadays, most educated people reject the "great man" theory of history. We understand, intellectually at least, that even legendary villains like Hitler or heroes like FDR were a product of their time and not acting out of some cosmic destiny.

But it's still hard not to reduce politics to personality. Our brains are hardwired to focus on individuals, who have agency and psychology that we can understand, rather than the more diffuse motivations of the crowd.

But Trump could keel over tomorrow, never to tweet again, and he wouldn't go away. He might even grow in power, made into a martyr now that he can no longer embarrass his followers with his routine bouts of public idiocy, such as when he suggested people inject Lysol. Trump the symbol was always far more important than Trump the man. And no matter what happens to Trump the man, the movement he represents remains a live threat to American democracy, and to the world.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

note st'd state GOP legis move to gut power of governor when they lose]

https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump-fascism

raw story

Trump is making several moves ahead of leaving office on Jan. 20, 2021, to destroy President-elect Joe Biden's term in office, historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat explained in part of a video series Sunday.

Ben-Ghiat explained that she started the series of videos because she knew that Trump would try to cause as much destruction as possible before officially leaving office.

She cited a story byNew York Times reporter Michael Shear, making it clear that Trump is using his final days to make Biden's life impossible.

"Watch very carefully what Trump and the GOP are doing right now," she instructed. "These end-stage follies, as I can them, are revealing. They're trying to loot and plunder the Earth. They're trying to rush through oil drilling leases in Alaska. They're trying to make sure their secrets are kept, and they're trying to make the world as unsafe as possible so that Biden will have difficulty restablizing foreign relations."

She said that it's akin to former Chilean President Augusto Pinochet, who had a year before he had to be out of office. That year, he worked to damage the incoming democracy, which was Chile's first after Pinochet's junta took over 17 years before. He worked to keep human rights violations secret, made it impossible to purge staff he installed, and stacked the courts.

In his book, Pinochet alleged the democracy was all a conspiracy against him.

It sounds eerily familiar.

See the video from Ben-Ghiat below:

extra-judicial killing

trump boast killing antifa rein_ 2x

https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/iran/

no lnx twt map

reports of secret meeting between Netanyahu, MbS and Pompeo 'extremely alarming': foreign policy analyst

Jake Johnson and Common Dreams November 23, 2020

The alarming possibility of a military attack on Iran—a nation that has long been in the sights of war hawks in the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Israel—was immediately invoked by foreign policy analysts Monday following reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in secret late Sunday with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

First divulged by unnamed Israeli officials and publicly denied Monday morning by the Saudi foreign minister, the reported covert meeting in Neom, Saudi Arabia comes on the heels of news last week that U.S. President Donald Trump asked his senior advisers for options to bomb Iran's primary nuclear energy site, prompting Iran to vow a "crushing response" to any attack.

Trump's request for military strike options came days after he lost the presidential election to Joe Biden, who has pledged to act quickly to reenter the Iran nuclear agreement that Trump violated in May of 2018. Contrary to baseless and ongoing allegations by the U.S. and Israel, Iran says it is not developing and has no plans to develop nuclear weapons—a claim U.N. inspectors have repeatedly verified in recent years.

The context of the Trump administration's aggressive posturing and militaristic threats against Iran fueled critics' concerns following word of the secret meeting between MbS, Netanyahu, and Pompeo, which was also reportedly attended byYossi Cohen, director of the Israeli spy agency Mossad.

"It is extremely alarming that the warmongers most reliant on Trump's blank checks are secretly meeting in the middle of the night as the clock nearly runs out on the Trump administration," tweeted foreign policy analyst Omar Baddar. "Do they have Iran in the crosshairs?"

Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft,echoed Baddar's fears and raised the additional concern that the "actual target" of the meeting was "the incoming Biden team, with the aim of deterring the U.S. from seeking diplomacy with Tehran."

Despite the public denial by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan—who tweeted early Monday that "the only officials present" at the meeting "were American and Saudi"—unnamed Saudi officials told the Wall Street Journal that Netanyahu attended the meeting with Pompeo and MbS.

Among the topics discussed at the hours-long meeting, according to the Journal, were Iran and normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Both Netanyahu and Pompeo refused to comment on the meeting, but neither denied that it took place.

Joe Cirincione, a distinguished fellow at the Quincy Institute, warned in an op-ed last week that while unlikely, an attack on Iran by either the U.S. or Israel is a possibility worth taking seriously and guarding against.

"A member of Netanyahu's cabinet, Settlements Minister Tzahi Hanegbi, flatly predicted in early November that Israel will attack Iran if Joe Biden is elected president," Cirincione pointed out. "Ominously, the U.S. Central Command announced... that it moved a detachment of F-16 fighter-bombers from Germany to the UAE, across the Gulf from Iran."

Returning the U.S. to compliance with the Iran nuclear agreement, argued Cirincione, "would allow the United States to establish a more robust relationship with Iran with regular contacts—as was the case during the Obama administration—that would reduce the risks of conflicts that could escalate, intended or unintended, into a war that would make the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan look trivial in comparison."

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/republicans-trump/

no lnx twt

Historians and other experts on Thursday warned that President Donald Trump's attempt to remain in power despite his loss in the 2020 election is growing increasingly dangerous as Republican leaders willingly participate in the disenfranchisement of millions of voters and back the president's refusal to accept the election results.

In an op-ed at The Hill, journalist Albert Hunt wrote that Trump's "deceitful charge" that the Democratic Party stole the election and allowed "illegal votes" to be cast—claims that have yet to be backed up by evidence—"undermines confidence in our Democratic system, but it could also threaten to unleash a dangerous wave of violence."

Quoted in Hunt's piece, white supremacy and terrorism expert Kathleen Belew, a history professor at the University of Chicago,warns that after Trump's courting of violent white supremacist groups—in 2017 when he refused to denounce neo-Nazis at a rally in Virginia where an anti-racist protester was murdered, and weeks ago when he offered tacit approval of the Proud Boys at the first presidential debate—the president's rhetoric and actions in recent days "could also be invitation for drastic action and mass murder like the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995."

"If these white power advocates double down on the idea this was a rigged election, history tells us there will be major spikes in violence, deliberate attacks," Belew said.

The willingness of some on the far right to take violent action in order to defeat Trump's political opponents has been made clear in recent weeks. The FBI last month arrested more than a dozen people in connection with a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, over her government's coronavirus safety protocols, which have come under fire from Trump. Last weekend, as Americans across the country celebrated Trump's defeat in the election by President-elect Joe Biden, armed supporters of the president attended counterprotests, decrying so-called "illegal votes" and claiming the election had been stolen.

On Tuesday, actor and right-wing activist Jon Voight posted a video on social media which was retweeted more than 43,000 times, accusing "leftists" of corruption and calling on fellow Trump supporters to prepare for "our greatest fight since the Civil War."

"There will be a price to pay," Voight said. "The ones who are jumping for joy now are jumping toward the horror they will be in for... We must fight the corruption that has taken over... Let us fight this fight as if it is our last fight on Earth."

Twitter included a warning on the post saying it contained claims about "election fraud" that are "disputed."

"Everyone knows that when the federal courts repeatedly dismiss your claims of voter fraud as laughable bullshit, you can simply use a video of Jon Voight insisting it's all actually true," tweeted historian Kevin Kruse.

But Yale University history professor Timothy Snyder warned against laughing off what he called a clear attempt at a coup.

"Underestimating Donald Trump is a mistake that people should not go on making," Snyder wrote in the Boston Globe on Wednesday. "Laughing at him will not make him go away. If it did, he would have vanished decades ago."

Snyder outlined the steps, unprecedented in U.S. history but not in countries that have been recognized as authoritarian regimes, that Trump and the Republican Party have taken so far to undermine the will of American voters:

A coup is under way, and the number of participants is not shrinking but growing.Few leading Republicans have acknowledged that the race is over. Important ones, such as (Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell and [Secretary of State] Mike Pompeo, appear to be on the side of the coup... The transition office refuses to begin its work. The secretary of defense, who did not want the army attacking civilians, was fired. The Department of Justice, exceeding its traditional mandate, has authorized investigations of the vote count. The talk shows on Fox this week contradict the news released by Fox last week. Republican lawmakers find ever new verbal formulations that directly or indirectly support Trump's claims. The longer this goes on, the greater the danger to the republic.

Snyder pointed to the assassination of centrist Polish President Gabriel Narutowicz in 1922—days after he won the presidency and after his victory was not accepted by right-wing nationalists—and claims by Nazis that Germany had lost the World War I due to a "stab in the back" by leftists and Jews, as historical precedents for the violence that could arise from Trump's claims, particularly if Republicans continue to support the president.

In a Twitter thread, Snyder expanded on the danger of assuming Trump's actions won't escalate to such violence in the United States.

...Coups are defeated quickly or not at all. While they take place we are meant to look away, as many of us are doing. When they are complete we are powerless...American exceptionalism prevents us from seeing basic truths.

"In an authoritarian situation, the election is only round one. You don't win by winning round one," Snyder wrote. "It is up to civil society, organized citizens, to defend the vote and to peacefully defend democracy."

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/historian-warns-america-is-already-in-its-own-slow-motion-reichstag-fire/

no lnx audio

Historian warns America is already in its own 'slow-motion Reichstag Fire'

Chauncey DeVega and Salon October 18, 2020

Donald Trump continues to make it clear that he does not intend to leave office peacefully if he is defeated by Joe Biden and the Democrats on Election Day. Moreover, Donald Trump considers any election in which he is not the "winner" to be null and void. Trump's appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to the United States Supreme Court is an obvious quid pro quo to secure his "reelection" if his attorneys and other agents can sufficiently sabotage the vote on Election Day and beyond.

On Thursday, Trump again followed the authoritarian's playbook when he bragged to his supporters at a rally in North Carolina that U.S. Marshalls essentially executed Michael Reinoehl, an anti-fascist activist accused of killing a right wing paramilitary member during protests in Oregon last August.

Celebrating the extra-judicial killings of one's political "enemies" is a common feature of fascist authoritarian regimes and the types of leaders admired and imitated by Donald Trump.

Donald Trump's commitment to and use of political violence is a matter of public record. Two of the most recent examples include how Trump's followers in Michigan allegedly planned to kidnap and possibly murder Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer. During his debate with Joe Biden, Trump also commanded white supremacist paramilitaries to be prepared to attack his and their "enemies" if he loses on Election Day or is otherwise removed from office.

Trump also wants Joe Biden and other leading Democrats imprisoned and perhaps even executed because he deems them to be "guilty" of "treason" and a "coup" attempt against him. Donald Trump and his Attorney General William Barr have also threatened to use the United States military against the American people if they dare to protest the outcome of the 2020 Election if Trump somehow finds some extra-legal (if not outright illegal) way to stay in office.

Because he is a political sadist and master of misery and pain, Donald Trump is using the coronavirus pandemic as a weapon to physically and emotionally abuse the American people in order to make them more compliant and subservient to his regime. Like other autocrats and authoritarians, he is also using the economic and human devastation caused by the coronavirus pandemic to personally enrich himself, his family, and allies as a way of guaranteeing the latter's loyalty.

In all, as with his obsessive rhetoric about "law and order," like other fascist authoritarians Donald Trump and his regime define the "law" in ways that benefit themselves and disregard the law when it does not serve their interests. Through that logic democracy is a tool for the Trump regime to stay in power indefinitely if they "win" and to disregard the outcome on Election Day and beyond if they are voted out of office by the American people.

Trump's strategy of attacking America's democratic norms, institutions, and culture is a constant torrent where the targets are corrupted, weakened, and then finally routed through sheer exhaustion.

In a new essay at The Bulwark, senior Democratic Party strategist James Carville summarizes this existential moment of crisis for the United States as:

Very seldom in American history have there been periods when people can nobly wage a crusade to create real and lasting change. But when these crusades do occur, when those moments arrive, what we do to vanquish the threat to freedom builds something everlasting into the framework of our society.

The American Revolution, the Civil War, World War II, Seneca Falls, Stonewall, and Selma, were all historical flashpoints where Americans displayed their patriotism against oppressive forces in a resounding way. These movements overthrew an empire, ended slavery, staved off totalitarianism, and paved the way for the establishment of fundamental civil rights and liberties for women, LGBTQ+ and black Americans.

We find ourselves again at such a turning point. Donald Trump's authoritarian presence behind the Resolute Desk is amongst the gravest threats America has ever faced from within. And Americans have risen to meet this threat.

The Trump regime has created a defense in depth against the American people. A key part of Trump's defensive strategy consists of how those Americans and others who are expecting one dramatic and climactic assault on the country's democracy have been lulled into a type of complacency and surrender.

As wielded by Donald Trump and other fascist authoritarians, the poison they have injected into the country's body politic and democracy is actually quite slow acting, where the victim becomes used to chronic pain before finally succumbing.

Why does America's mainstream news media continue to avoid describing Donald Trump and his regime as fascist authoritarians? What are they afraid of? How has that evasion helped to empower and normalize Trumpism?

In what ways have Donald Trump and his regime used the coronavirus — and the pain and social injustice it has revealed and made worse — as a weapon against democracy and the American people?

In an effort to answer these questions, I recently spoke with Timothy Snyder. He is a Professor of History at Yale University and the author of the bestselling books "On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century" and "The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America." His new book is "Our Malady: Lessons in Liberty from a Hospital Diary."

At the end of this conversation, Timothy Snyder warns that the United States is in the midst of a years-long slow-motion Reichstag Fire emergency that Election Day 2020 may not resolve.

You can also listen to my conversation with Timothy Snyder on my podcast "The Truth Report" or through the player embedded below.

Donald Trump's attacks on democracy are escalating. He continues to say that he will not respect the outcome of the election if he loses to Joe Biden and the Democrats. There are some public voices who have been warning about Trump and authoritarianism and fascism for several years. You are foremost among them. Why did more people not listen to the warnings?

It is structural. At present it is harder to reach people who do not already agree with you. This is true even for those of us with a public platform and big audience. More contact is virtual and less in person. It is also harder to surprise people. Ultimately, it is very hard to reach people before an algorithm does. By then a person's mind is already made up one way or another.

The second answer is that many Americans really like authoritarianism.Sure, the conventional wisdom says that Americans like freedom. Some of them do. Some of them do not. The Americans who do not like freedom are not going to be reached or otherwise have their minds changed. It is as simple as that.

In my view, it is less about reaching people and more about getting them to take action. People sometimes ask me, "Why do you preach to the choir?" To get people to do things. It is not enough to have the correct idea. If people act, even if it is a small thing, that makes a difference.

And of course, there is the challenge of the American exceptionalism consensus. The belief that America is insulated from authoritarianism because of our institutions took a long time to fight through. That myth was the direct target of my book "On Tyranny."

Why are so many journalists and other members of the political class continually surprised by Donald Trump's cruelty and assaults on democracy and norms? Trump is not changing. He is only getting worse. Why be surprised? Such a reaction is very crippling and ultimately counterproductive. It helps Trump to win.

That denial is a function of what I describe as "the politics of eternity." There is an ongoing stream of small to medium-level provocations from authoritarian movements and leaders. Those actions give a positive hit to their supporters and a negative hit to their opponents.

Everyone becomes addicted to the experience, be it pleasant or unpleasant. What you are describing is how many in the news media and elsewhere wait for Donald Trump to do the latest most outrageous thing — and then it is reported as being outrageous. That gives them a hit of sorts,a jolt to the system. Then they wait for the next outrageous thing, and so on. But the problem is that there is no thinking or theory to offer context for what is happening.

Too many people are still defaulting to these ideas that America's "institutions" are going to solve the problems of authoritarianism and Trumpism. Or history is somehow on America's side. If a person does not have some way of theorizing what Donald Trump is, then everything he does is a surprise to them. If you lack the theoretical framework to understand Trump and what is happening, then you will also lack an understanding of how to push back against it. You are helpless.

So many of the discussions are still focused on Donald Trump and what he is not. What we need to be able to do is to say what Trump is. Once you say what Trumpism really is, then you can start to fight it.

We talk about the pandemic as though it is a series of failures. No, the pandemic is not a series of failures. It is the "achievement" that Donald Trump is going to be most remembered for.

More than 200,000 people dead from the pandemic is a type of "achievement" for Trump. It took real effort to make that happen.

I'm not saying that he intended it from beginning to end. I'm not saying that there was a plot in January that 300,000 will be dead in December. What I am saying is that outcome is a result of the decisions made by Donald Trump. If the American people and most of the mainstream news media and other observers keep seeing Donald Trump in terms of omissions such as "he is not a normal politician" then we do not see and understand him for what he really is, whatever that may be.

Donald Trump is a white man. He is old. He wears a tie. What could he possibly be except somewhere in the zone of normal? That erroneous assumption contributes to why so many people are still surprised by his behavior.

Donald Trump is evil. His movement is evil. They meet all the criteria for evil. Yet, there is a willful avoidance of using that language to describe him by the mainstream news media, political elites, and other opinion leaders and public voices. If they admit that Donald Trump and his movement are evil, then there is an obligation to do something about it. To my eyes, that avoidance is a defense mechanism that will not save them or anyone else from Trump and his movement.

Evil is a helpful word to use here. I have been using that language in my new book "Our Malady." There is an almost taboo-like hesitation to move into truly ethical judgments in our discussions of Trump and his movement. As long as we are avoiding discussions of good and evil then his behavior is normalized. Avoiding that language of good and evil also leaves the public with a hope that this crisis will somehow turn back to normal.

There is a psychological dynamic at work here too. If a person did not name Trumpism as evil before, then it is hard to name it as such later on. If a political commentator or other observer did not see the danger of Trump and his movement back in 2016 then they are probably not getting it correct now even at this late point.

I think your word "fear," though, is very well taken. But I'd push that out in a different direction.

Fear is also an important concept here. Trump is running for reelection based on fear – much more so than in 2016. In 2016, it was a mix. Trump and his campaign were talking about infrastructure. They were trying to go to the left of the Democrats on some issues. Whereas in 2020, it's now just pure fear. A fear that Black people are going to rape white women in the suburbs, and they are going to burn down the cities. The pandemic is either Black people's fault or it is a conspiracy, or it is not really happening. Fear is being consciously created and then manipulated. The Democrats are really running against a Reichstag Fire. The Democrats are not really running against a political party and Donald Trump's campaign.

How can we better explain to the Democrats that Trumpism is a type of political and social movement, and normal politics, those old rules, no longer apply here in America?

History shows that people can learn to like pain. They can also learn to like inflicting pain on others. That is what the Democrats are up against. They are not competing against some theory of politics where voters and the public are purely rational and motivated by "the issues."

Donald Trump is a president who happily circulates as much pain as he can on the rationale that his people are going to suffer for him — and they're going to enjoy suffering because of their idea that other people are suffering more. Trump's supporters are suffering for a cause which is other people, Black people, immigrants, some Other, suffering more than they are.

Should the Democrats therefore imitate Donald Trump and the Republicans? The fact that there is now a Trump death cult does not mean that there should then be a Biden death cult. That would be absurd on any number of levels.

The coronavirus intersects with American fascism, Donald Trump, and his movement – including the Republican Party as a whole. How are you making sense of that relationship?

Because I was so close to death, the significance of those observations and experiences was brought home to me more than it would have been otherwise. America's racial and economic inequality is all the more obvious in life or death situations. The coronavirus of course reveals those disparities in an even more stark light.

Even before 2020 begins we are in a system where America does not have universal health care. Why? Because there is some type of practical everyday consensus that it is OK to have bad health care in this country. Such disparities in treatment are racial: In America we do not have a right to health care because then that would mean that Black people and Brown people and immigrants and so on would also have access to health care and then somehow abuse it — so goes the racist logic and history in this country.

Health care in the United States overlaps with race for white people in another way as well. The argument that is made to white people is "you are the frontiersmen, you're the rugged individualists." In that imaginary, white people know not to talk about pain or disease. There is the sadism then of some white people being pleased because they suffer less than other people. And you have the masochism of those same white people being willing to suffer, basically for nothing.

When the first reports of the coronavirus begin in March and April it was clear that it is taking the life of Blacks and Hispanics and Native Americans at a much higher rate than whites. Now that we have more numbers, it is much more fatal. In America white people live longer than Black people.

Once that fact is widely known it becomes normalized. For many white people, it is normal for Black people and Brown people to suffer more than them.

What do we know about the connections between a humane society and authoritarianism?

There is a strong connection. In my new book "Our Malady" I explore this.

For example, on an individual level, when you can't talk, you do not have freedom of speech. When you can't move, you do not have freedom of assembly. When you do not think that you are going to have a future, then freedom is no longer a meaningful concept.

If you cannot afford health care, you're afraid. If you're ashamed to talk about health care, you're less free. If you're aware of that the access to health care is going to be competitive and somebody who's less sick than you might come ahead of you because they have better insurance and better connections or whatever it might be, then you are less free. Pandemic or not, it all creates a situation where there is not an unnecessary reservoir of anxiety and fear. And that totally unnecessary reservoir of anxiety and fear can be directed to other places.

The talent that Donald Trump has is to either generate that anxiety or to take the anxiety and fear that already exists in America and to direct it in the ways that he wants to. Authoritarianism works through taking abuse and trauma and pushing it in other directions.

Donald Trump understands that he cannot win a free and fair election. Trump knows that the pandemic and the economic downturn can give him the sources of energy that he just might be able to use to stay in power some other way than an election. Donald Trump is in "the worse, the better" territory now, because he understands abuse, pain, trauma, fear and related things. Evil understands evil. Trump understands that the more anxiety and fear is out there, the larger the chances he must somehow turn the election in his direction and then pick up the pieces.

Election Day is imminent. How do you respond to those critics who would say that, "You were talking about a Reichstag Fire! It didn't happen! You are an alarmist. Hysterical! None of that happened!" What would you tell such people?

Obviously, we are in a slow-motion Reichstag Fire right now. That is what is happening. Donald Trump is not as skilled as Hitler. He doesn't work as hard as Hitler. He doesn't have the same level of confidence as Hitler, but he's clearly looking for that Reichstag Fire emergency. Trump tried to make Black Lives Matter into that emergency. "Antifascists" and "thugs" and "law and order" and so on is part of that effort. Donald Trump keeps trying to make the Reichstag Fire work.

If Trump is not successful, then that is a credit to the people who are resisting. Donald Trump is not involved in a political campaign; it is emergency politics in the constant search of an emergency. Whether Trump and his allies can line up the emergency politics with the emergency, I do not know. But that is all that Trump and his allies have got on their side — and it all they are going to have through to Election Day.

https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/trump-and-fascism/

hunter kos

Rattled by poor polling numbers in his reelection bid, the alleged president of the United States is encouraging domestic terrorism. That's where we're at, and everyone from top national security experts to local emergency officials are all crystal clear on that. *The New York Times* reports from a bunch of 'em in a piece that can both contain remarkable factual phrases like "Mr. Trump has descended into rants about perceived enemies" and still somehow soft sell the underlying message:

The nation is preparing for violence on and after Election Day because Donald J. Trump, a fascist, is goading his supporters into that violence with rally claims that any loss on his part will be proof that his enemies cheated.

There is no possible chance that Trump doesn't know what he's doing. His tweeted calls to "LIBERATE" states from governors who imposed widespread pandemic measures resulted in a Michigan militia attempting to do exactly that. Trump is back at it even today, claiming their primary target, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, "wants to be a dictator." He is attaching the legitimacy of the state to calls for mob action—only to repeat those calls when it looks like the first versions are beginning to bear fruit.

The only reason he is not being treated as a radical, dangerous figure who has irreparably violated his own oath of office, necessitating removal, is because Republican Party leadership and lawmakers have themselves embraced and defended those violations. It is self-radicalizing; the farther Trump goes into overtly authoritarian behavior, the more pressure the party feels to defend and normalize their own support for him. The more Trump's circle has succeeded in isolating and excising state and local functionaries who express alarm at his grotesqueries, the more the party has become a homogenized group of anti-democracy, authoritarian-molded radicals themselves.

Trump has clearly been unfit for office in every respect; the impeachment investigation identified his corruption, the pandemic proved his apathetic incompetence, and his continued calls for mob justice against targeted enemies have proven (as have similar quotes repeated through the last five years) that he is not just indifferent to extralegal punishments of his enemies, but publicly fantasizes about them. If Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Mitch McConnell, Attorney General William Barr, Treasury Sec. Steve Mnuchin, Sec. of State Mike Pompeo, Rep. Mark Meadows, Sen. Lindsey Graham, Sen. Ted Cruz, and the entire rest of the party had not all decided to ally with him for their own ideological and policy ends, he would have been removed in bipartisan fashion long ago, reduced to a historical footnote.

They didn't, and now local law enforcement officials around the country are preparing for radicals among what Trump has proudly designated his "Army" intent on disrupting Election Day, sabotaging ballot-counting measures, and committing acts of coordinated terrorism targeting his opponents. It's now expected.

Once again we're in a position where the fate of democracy rests on not just beating anti-democratic forces, but doing so in such a convincing fashion that sabotage can't alter the outcome. But now it comes with the near certainty of violence. This is Mitch McConnell's fault: Remember that. This is Lindsey Graham's fault. Mike Pence, Kellyanne Conway, William Barr. Trump's suggestions to "liberate" parts of America from small-d democratic governance would be intolerable if they believed them to be intolerable. Everything Trump does and will do has happened because they allowed it.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/author-noam-chomsky-trump-is-taking-the-us-down-the-road-toward-autocracy-and-will-go-to-extreme-lengths-to-stay-in-power

Chomsky laid out why he considers President Donald Trump a major threat to democracy during an interview with Truthout's C.J. Polychroniou published this week.

Although countless polls have found the president losing to former Vice President Joe Biden in this year's presidential election, Trump has refused to acknowledge the possibility of his own loss. Instead, he has insisted that Biden can only win if rampant voter fraud occurs, suggesting he may not accept the election results if the former vice president is victorious.

Chomsky, now 91, has lived through many historic events — from the Great Depression and World War II to Watergate to 9/11. And during the Truthout interview, the left-wing author stressed that he considers Trump the most authoritarian U.S. president of his lifetime — which is saying a lot when one considers that Republican Calvin Coolidge was still president when Chomsky was born in Philadelphia on December 7, 1928.

Chomsky is no fan of President Richard Nixon. But he says, without hesitation, that Trump is much worse.

"We may recall that Richard Nixon, not exactly revered for his integrity, had some reason to suppose that victory in the 1960 election had been stolen from him by Democratic Party machinations," Chomsky told Polychroniou. "He did not challenge the results, placing the welfare of the country above personal ambition. Al Gore did the same in 2020. The idea of Trump placing anything above his personal ambition — even caring about the welfare of the country — is too ludicrous to discuss."

Trump's authoritarianism, according to Chomsky, was painfully evident during recent anti-racism protests in Portland, Oregon.Chomsky observed, "When Trump decided to terrorize Portland, Oregon, he didn't send the military, probably expecting that it would refuse to follow his orders, as had just happened in Washington, D.C. He sent paramilitaries, the most fierce of them the tactical unit BORTAC of the Border Patrol, which is given virtually free rein with the 'damned of the earth' as its targets."

To make matters worse, Chomsky added, Trump's "private army" also includes well-armed militia groups, domestic terrorists and white nationalists. Chomsky warned, "Those are the forces that may be upholding 'law and order' if, in fact, the top military command decides to be 'complicit in a coup d'état.' It seems unimaginable, but regrettably, not inconceivable."

The left-wing author added, "Meanwhile, Trump and his Republican cohorts are working overtime to implement their strategy of undermining the election or discrediting it if it comes out the wrong way, setting the stage for a possible coup. In preparation, an 'army for Trump' is being mobilized to descend on polls to intimidate the wrong voters."

Trump, Chomsky told Polychroniou, considers Biden's supporters "the wrong voters" and will go to great lengths to bully them or have their votes thrown out.

Chomsky noted that a tide of nationalist authoritarianism is making its presence felt all around the world, from President Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in India. But according to Chomsky,the U.S. is worse off than Brazil from a checks-and-balances standpoint because at least Bolsonaro was "blocked" by the Brazilian Supreme Court.

The author told Polychroniou: "The U.S. has gone farther down the road toward autocracy (than Brazil). When inspectors general tasked with overseeing executive malfeasance followed the same course, the would-be dictator in the White House simply fired them. He did so without a peep from the Republican Senate."

https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/cornel-west-explains-the-rhetorical-trick-fascist-trump-uses-to-beat-his-audience-into-submission/

...

The type of conversation we are engaging in is very rare in America's public discourse. The Age of Trump and this season of death has created a moral test for the United States and its people.

We saw that during the vice-presidential debate. The spiritual decay is so deep. Donald Trump has contributed to such a debased public culture and political culture that you have someone like Mike Pence, who can rationalize American fascism with a smile and be calm doing it. The moderator, Susan Page, made no attempt to keep Pence accountable whatsoever. Kamala Harris was doing the best she could to preserve her dignity. She knew Pence would be lying nonstop. She knows the disrespect is coming at her and the arrogance is flowing from Pence right at her. The condescension is flowing. The haughtiness is flowing against her too. Pence was trying to seize control of the debate and no one was trying to impose accountability on him. Kamala Harris tried several times. She did the best she could.

Pence's behavior during the debate was just the culture of neofascism in real time, done with a smile. We should not be overwhelmed and surprised by such an assault. We must be honest and candid about the depths of the decay and decrepitude that we as a nation are dealing with, in the form of Trump and Pence and their allies and movement.

When I see Mike Pence I think of Indiana, which was a fortress for the Ku Klux Klan during the early 20th century. In another era, Pence would be the type who could go from the Klavern to the boardroom of a bank. I worry that too many people believe that evil does not wear a business suit.

I believe that Mike Pence has been Trumpified. He has been shaped even more in the image of Donald Trump since becoming vice president. Pence loves the power. He loves the visibility. He loves the position of being vice president. In that way we can see the deepening corruption of Mike Pence's soul. That is why Pence was overflowing with toxic masculinity during the debate. Pence acted like he does not have to listen to anyone. Somebody asks Pence a question and he responds like they are nonentities. Pence just decides to ignore them and say what he wants to say. When Kamala Harris would try to interject and have her time, Pence looked at her like, "Do you really expect me to respect you? I'm Mike Pence. I'm part of the neofascist culture. We don't respect people like you." In doing that, Pence was also disrespecting the American people as the audience for what should have been a very important dialogue.

Any discussion of Mike Pence should also include "Christian fascist" in how he is described.

Eighty-one percent of white evangelicals voted for Trump. He got 65% of white men and over 50% of white women. That is another sign of the cultural decay in this country. White supremacy is the public face of American neofascism. From the Ku Klux Klan to the White Citizens Councils, white Christians have always played a fundamental role in promoting white supremacist attitudes and practices.

In terms of deliberative democracy or communicative democracy, what did you see when you watched these first two debates?

Public life in America has become so emptied out and vacuous that the very notion of there being a public conversation, let alone a high-quality public conversation, is gone. The debates are an empty theatrical spectacle of talking points, at their best, and at their worst just bully-driven attacks and assaults on each other. I mean, Harris is much more intellectually talented than [Pence] is. In that way Joe Biden did not have any chance at all in his debate with Donald Trump.

Trump's debate with Biden was an exercise in fascism and authoritarianism. Trump won that debate, by those criteria. Unfortunately, too many people in the mainstream media and the general public keep applying old, comfortable standards, and in doing so frame their understanding of Trump's strategy, and this political moment more generally, around polls and focus groups. Trump's goal was to mock the premise of even having a debate. It was all the worst sort of demagogic, authoritarian political theater for him.

I would go even farther. I would say that Trump was not only was mocking, but fascist. One of the rhetorical strategies of a fascist is to beat your audience down, make the people feel as though there is no hope. The people must be made to feel that there is no other possibility. They may hate you, the authoritarian fascist and demagogue, but they hate the whole political process too. The people then become downtrodden in spirit: Their spirits are so crushed they cannot be moved to vote for anybody.

When Trump left the debate, he and his people likely said, "You not only won, you achieved your objective. You beat Biden down. You beat the moderator down. You beat the audience down. You beat the American people down."

We are in a world-historical moment. As Election Day approaches, and whatever may happen next in this country it feels exhilarating, scary and exhausting all at the same time. As human beings we do not see a moment of such consequence very often, if ever, in our lifetimes. Please help me navigate those feelings – feelings which I am sure many other people in this country and around the world are also experiencing. It is like rollercoaster of sorts.

It is like living in the 1960s in Africa, Asia, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and the apartheid American South. Between 1955 to 1970 was to live in the most world-historical transforming moment in a very long time. At present, we are living in a similar moment, with the Age of Trump and this upcoming election. But in this moment as compared to the previous one, there is ecological catastrophe, economic catastrophe, social catastrophe and spiritual catastrophe. There is a lack of ability for too many to imagine a world and reality that is worth fighting for, sacrificing for and even dying for.

Let us assume that there is some type of justice in the universe and Donald Trump is voted out on Election Day or otherwise removed from office. When that happens, there are going to be parties and celebrations in the streets. A joyous wave will sweep over the United States. What should good Americans do with that energy going forward?

If the leader of a neofascist movement dies, that is the easy victory. Now we have to deal with the source of the fascist movement itself. To do that here and now, American society must reshape a whole discourse and public conversation to make sure that poor people and other vulnerable people are at the center of the conversation and the agenda for change. If we maintain our core values and commitments, then if we are killed in the struggle we can say, "Here's the gift. Something bigger than me, because my life itself was a gift that came from something bigger than me." That sacrifice helps to sustain and create the positive change.

omfg

declares vote void in advance, camp look at electors, will not pledge peaceful trans

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/get-rid-of-the-ballots-trump-badly-bungles-a-question-on-whether-hell-accept-a-peaceful-transfer-of-power/

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trump Praises “Good Genes” of White Audience, Cites Eugenics Theory

trump already ‘laid out the roadmap’ to cheat in the upcoming election: analyst

AlterNet Staff September 23, 2020

John Heilemann, the national affairs analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, explained how President Donald Trump has already laid out his “roadmap” to cheat in plain sight for the upcoming…

david n

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/how-fascism-ascends-2020-election-may-be-the-crisis-of-democracy-that-opens-the-door-to-a-coup/

...trump] refused to say that he would make a peaceful transition, and threatened to “get rid of the ballots”—loses the popular vote on Nov. 3 to Joe Biden, as polls currently indicate, he appears poised to dismiss millions of mail-in votes. He would likely do this through the courts that he has assiduously packed over the past three years, particularly via the Supreme Court seat he and his fellow Republicans are intent on seizing just prior to the vote. The legitimacy of both our system of elections and the foundational courts that embody the rule of law will have been not just undermined, but potentially destroyed.

Fascism, historians tell us, has only ever arisen in mature democratic states, and the main condition that permits it to seize power is a crisis of legitimacy for its major democratic institutions. The election of 2020 may well bring the crisis that does the trick for America.

Many observers—notably including authors Jason Stanley and Jared Yates Sexton—have remarked that the nation’s path under a Trump presidency has much more than a passing resemblance to the descent into fascism that has befallen other societies, the best-known examples being prewar Germany and Italy. The correlations are powerful:

Eliminationist rhetoric is the backbone of Trump’s appeal, and has been from the start. His opening salvo in the campaign—the one that first skyrocketed him to the forefront in the race poll-wise and proved wildly popular with Republican voters—was his vow (and subsequent proposed program) to deport all 12 million of the United States’ undocumented immigrants (using, of course, the deprecatory term “illegal alien”) and to erect a gigantic wall on the nation’s southern border. Significantly, the language he used to justify such plans—labeling those immigrants “criminals,” “killers,” and “rapists,” contending that they bring crime and disease—was classic rhetoric designed to demonize an entire class of people by reducing them to objects fit only for elimination. This became more refined and pronounced over the course of his presidency, as when he attacked four women Democratic congressmembers of color: “If somebody has a problem with our country, if somebody doesn’t want to be in our country, they should leave!”
Trump’s palingenetic ultranationalism is his central theme. After the race-baiting and the ethnic fearmongering, this is the most obviously fascistic component of Trump’s presidency and its neverending campaign, embodied in those trucker hats proclaiming: “Make America Great Again.” (Trump himself puts it this way: “The silent majority is back, and we’re going to take the country back. We’re going to make America great again.”) That’s almost the letter-perfect embodiment of palingenesis—that is, the myth of the phoenix-like rebirth from the ashes of an entire society in its “golden age.” In the meantime, Trump’s nationalism is evident not just in these statement but in the entire context of his rants against Latino immigrants and Syrian refugees.
Trump’s deep contempt not just for liberalism (which provides most of the fuel for his xenophobic rants, particularly against the media) but also for establishment conservatism. Trump’s biggest fan, Rush Limbaugh, boasts: “In parlaying this outsider status of his, he’s better at playing the insiders’ game than they are, and they are insiders. He’s running rings around all of these seasoned, lifelong, highly acclaimed professionals in both the consultant class, the adviser class, the strategist class, and the candidate class. And he’s doing it simply by being himself.”
Trump constantly proclaimed America to be in a state of crisis that has made it “the laughingstock” of the rest of the world during the 2016 campaign, and insists that this occurred because of the failures of (primarily liberal) politicians.During his presidency, the crises varied according to Trump’s political needs—an immigrant caravan’s arrival on the border with Mexico was portrayed hysterically by Trump during the 2018 midterm elections as an existential threat, while this year, America is in grave danger (according to Trump and his fellow Republicans) from a largely imaginary “antifa threat.” The coronavirus pandemic that the world knows his incompetence allowed to kill 200,000 Americans—not so much.
He himself embodies the fascist insistence upon male leadership by a man of destiny, and his refusal to acknowledge factual evidence of the falsity of many of his proclamations and comments embodies the fascistic notion that the leader’s instincts trump logic and reason in any event.
Trump’s contempt for weakness (another classic fascist trait) is manifested practically every day on the campaign trail, ranging from his dissing of former GOP presidential candidate John McCain (a former prisoner of war) as “not a hero” because “I like people who weren’t captured,” to his mockery of a New York Times reporter with a disability, and more recently to his decision not to attend a ceremony at a World War II gravesite near Paris because the American soldiers there who had died in the war were “losers” and “suckers.”

Some of have argued—myself included—that Trump is not a fascist ideologue in the classic mold, but rather a living model of a right-wing-populist demagogue. But fascism, properly understood, is itself a species of right-wing populism: one that has simply turned metastatic, a cancer raging out of control in the body politic. If, as it seems, he is nonetheless leading America into fascism, it would be a distinction without a significant difference.

But, as one Twitter wag adroitly observed recently: “The road to fascism is lined with people telling you to stop overreacting.” Conservatives (see, for example, claims byFox News’ Tucker Carlson:{ and right-wing pundit }:{that the threat of white nationalism is a hoax concocted by Democrats) and centrists have unsurprisingly dismissed such observations as undue alarmism and hyperbolic exaggeration. But then, movement conservatism, as I explored in some depth }:more than 15 years ago:{, is in many regards the source of the problem, as it has been the all-too-hospitable host for the fascist cancer. }::{Centrists and some liberals, meanwhile, seem so emotionally wedded to a belief that underneath our ongoing chaos all these things are still normalthat they’re incapable of comprehending that there is nothing remotely normal at all about them.}:

Even within a certain bandwidth of progressive thought—primarily Glenn Greenwald and his million-plus-follower Twitter cohort—the response to the rise of a fascist threat to American democracy is greeted with a kind of sneering dismissiveness. Recently, that was how Greenwald and Co. reacted when Max Berger, the cofounder of the Jewish anti-Israeli occupation organization If Not Now, tweeted: “The most surreal part of living through a fascist coup is that we’re not even talking about it as such.”

Greenwald quote-tweeted Berger in reply:

Liberal stars have spent 4 years convincing their followers of 2 claims:

1) Their domestic opponents are Nazis, fascists, and White Supremacist Terrorists.

2) Russia is lurking everywhere, an existential threat to US democracy.

Ponder what that means for how they’ll wield power.

Greenwald’s colleague at The Intercept, Lee Fang, appeared to chime in later that day:

What motivates the ruling class is a routine desire for maintaining power and self-interest. But political storytellers need lurid emotionally driven narratives, so the far left invents a white supremacist elite in charge of the country, just as the far right imagines a pedo cabal.

This line of argumentation is nothing new for Greenwald, who has previously dismissed concerns about the rising tide of white nationalism by suggesting that the politicians and activists raising those concerns were analogical to the right-wing “neocons” who used Islamophobic rhetoric to bash Muslims after 9/11. In these tweets, he’s extending that argument to suggest not only that the threat of white nationalism is an imaginary concoction existing solely as a club to bash the right, but that Democrats are the realfascists, or at best loony-tunes conspiracists, as does Fang.

This is nothing short of an outright denial of established facts. The reality we are confronted with daily—that the United States (and the rest of the world, with no small assist from Russian interests) are awash in a tide of white nationalism and its attendant violence, and that moreover this tide has been enabled, encouraged, and empowered by Donald Trump, both on the streets of America and within his administration—is not something that can be erased with a sneer.

Predicated by his mutual embrace of the far right in the 2015-2016 campaign, Trump’s election to the presidency unleashed a Pandora’s box of white-nationalist demons, beginning with a remarkable surge in hate crimes during his first month, and then his first two years, in office. Its apotheosis has come in the form of a rising tide of far-right mass domestic terrorism and mass killings, as well the spread of armed right-wing “Boogaloo” radicals and militiamen creating mayhem amid civil unrest around the nation.

Trump’s response all along has been to dance a tango in which, after sending out a signal of encouragement (such as after the white-nationalist violence in Charlottesville in August 2017), he follows up with an anodyne disavowal of far-right extremists that is believed by no one, least of all white nationalists. Whenever queried about whether white nationalists pose a threat—as he was after a right-wing terrorist’s lethal attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, when he answered: “I don’t really, I think it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems”—Trump has consistently downplayed the threat of the radical right.

More recently, the appearance at the very least that Trump is deliberately encouraging a violent response to his political opposition has been growing. When far-right militiamen have gathered in places like Richmond, Virginia, and Lansing, Michigan, to shake their weapons in an attempt to intimidate lawmakers and other elected government officials, Trump has tweeted out his encouragement. When a teenage militiaman in Kenosha, Wisconsin, shot three Black Lives Matter protesters, two fatally, Trump defended him while mischaracterizing the shootings. When far-right conspiracy theorists created a hoax rumor that antifascists and leftists were responsible for the wildfires sweeping the rural West Coast—resulting in armed vigilantes setting up “citizens patrols” and highway checkpoints, sometimes with the encouragement of local police—Trump retweeted a meme promoting the hoax.....

no lnx;]

The reality currently confronting Americans is that the extremist right has been organizing around a strategy of intimidation and threats by armed “Patriots”—embodied by street-brawling proto-fascist groups like the Proud Boys, Patriot Prayer, American Guard, and the “III Percent” militias, along with their “Boogaloo” cohort, all of them eager to use their prodigious weaponry against their fellow Americans in a“civil war.” And what we have seen occurring as the 2020 campaign has progressed is that the line of demarcation between these right-wing extremists and ordinary Trump-loving Republicans has all but vanished.

Finally—and perhaps most importantly—Trump has empowered far-right white nationalist and conspiracy theorist elements within the walls of his administration, and pursued an agenda friendly to extremist elements. The architect of Trump’s immigration policies (not to mention his eliminationist scare campaigns about immigrant caravans and refugees from the Middle East) has been senior adviser Stephen Miller, whose deep ties to white nationalists were exposed last year by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Trump’s resulting policy agenda has been a white nationalist’s dream.

Trump’s see-no-evil approach to white nationalism meanwhile has translated into a deliberate blind spot within federal law enforcement agencies, particularly the Department of Homeland Security, where a whistleblower recently revealed that he was directed to skew intelligence assessments to minimize the threats of both white nationalist terrorism and Russian interference in American elections.

These are all established factual realities—in stark contrast with the utterly fantastical world of QAnon and other conspiracy theory universes that Fang seems to think they are comparable with—though Greenwald, who after all resides in Brazil, appears unfamiliar with them. Certainly his well-established blind spot for far-right extremism contributed to his decision to continue harping on Berger’s remarks a few days later, tweeting:

The United States is currently living under a “fascist coup,” and we must destroy the Nazi dictator who has seized power by spending the next 60 days vigorously campaigning against him and then obtaining more votes than he in the regularly scheduled election to be held Nov. 3.

Greenwald’s subsequent tweets in the thread laid out his argument further, pointing out that even though the Nazi party won a plurality of votes in the 1933 German election, paving Hitler’s ascension to the chancellorship, “once in power, he wasn’t susceptible to being removed by a democratic election because he was a fascist dictator.”

This is a remarkably simplistic approach to historical fascism, both in the 1930s and currently. First, as historian Robert O. Paxton explained in his definitive text The Anatomy of Fascism, neither Hitler nor Mussolini ever even won their positions of national leadership through election. Rather, they were appointed by conservative establishment powers because their democratic states were mired in significant crises of legitimacy—crises they had major roles in inflaming themselves.

Both Mussolini and Hitler were invited to take office as head of government by a head of state in the legitimate exercise of his official functions, on the advice of civilian and military counselors. Both thus became heads of government in what appeared, at least on the surface, to be legitimate exercises of constitutional authority by King Victor Emmanuel III and President Hindenburg. Both these appointments were made, it must be added at once, under conditions of extreme crisis, which the fascists had abetted.

Moreover, as Paxton pointedly observes: “We are not required to believe that fascist movements can only come to power in an exact replay of the scenario of Mussolini and Hitler. All that is required to fit our model is polarization, deadlock, mass mobilization against internal and external enemies, and complicity by existing elites.”

Greenwald’s formulation of the history completely misapprehends the nature of fascism itself, as well as how it spreads and seizes power. As Paxton explains, fascism is not a single, readily identifiable principle but a political pathology, best understood (as in psychology) as a constellation of traits. He defines it thus:

Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal constraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.

Fascism is moreover highly mutative, changing shape and appearance as well with each successive phase of its development. Paxton identifies these five stages:

The initial creation of fascist movements

Their rooting as parties in a political system

The acquisition of power

The exercise of power

Radicalization or entropy

In each phase, fascism behaves differently and pursues different agendas, often in sharp contradiction of the ideals and policies it had previously embraced. What Greenwald is describing with regard to Hitler is fascism in its fourth stage, exploiting the powers Nazis already had obtained—while the “fascist coup” Berger describes, and indeed what we are currently experiencing in the United States, is the process: namely, fascism in its third stage, that is, in the process of acquiring enough political power to declare a dictatorship.

This process can vary according to the inherent strengths and weaknesses of the established democracies that it infects. The fascists in prewar Germany and Italy—where the systems of democracy and their institutions were both comparatively recent developments and accordingly unstable—were able to rise to power through discrete and explicitly fascist political parties, seizing the political stage from outside the normal parameters of the established democracy, as it were.

In the United States, Paxton explains, fascist elements have always been present—and indeed, many threads from American history contributed powerfully to the ideologies of European fascism—but there has never been the “political space” for them to form discrete fascist parties capable of winning broad support.

The United States itself has never been exempt from fascism. Indeed, antidemocratic and xenophobic movements have flourished in America since the Native American party of 1845 and the Know-Nothing Party of the 1850s. In the crisis-ridden 1930s, as in other democracies, derivative fascist movements were conspicuous in the United States: the Protestant evangelist Gerald B. Winrod’s openly pro-Hitler Defenders of the Christian Faith with their Black Legion; William DudleyPelley’s Silver Shirts (the initials “SS” were intentional); the veteran-based Khaki Shirts (whose leader, one Art J. Smith, vanished after a heckler was killed at one of his rallies); and a hot of others. Movements with an exotic foreign look won few followers, however. George Lincoln Rockwell, flamboyant head of the American Nazi Party from 1959 until his assassination by a disgruntled follower in 1967, seemed even more “un-American” after the great anti-Nazi war.

Much more dangerous are movements that employ authentically American themes in ways that resemble fascism functionally. The Klan revived in the 1920s, took on virulent anti-Semitism, and spread to cities and the Middle West. In the 1930s, Father Charles E. Coughlin gathered a radio audience estimated at forty million around and anticommunist, anti-Wall Street, pro-soft money, and—after 1938—anti-Semitic messages broadcast from his church on the outskirts of Detroit. For a moment in early 1936 it looked as if his Union Party and its presidential candidate, North Dakota congressman William Lemke, might overwhelm Roosevelt. The plutocrat-baiting governor Huey Long of Louisiana had authentic political momentum until his assassination in 1935, but, though frequently labeled fascist at the time, he was more accurately a share-the-wealth demagogue. The fundamentalist preacher Gerald L.K. Smith, who had worked with both Coughlin and Long, turned the message more directly after World War II to the “Judeo-Communist conspiracy” and had a real impact. Today a “politics of resentment” rooted in authentic American piety and nativism sometimes leads to violence against some of the very same “internal enemies” once targeted by the Nazis, such as homosexuals and defenders of abortion rights.

As Paxton explains, in the United States, as in France and elsewhere, fascism typically failed in the second stage because it failed to become a cohesive political entity, one capable of acquiring power. But make no mistake, he says: It can happen here.

It would, true to its mutative nature, adapt its shape, appearance, rhetoric, and agenda to its peculiarly American audience:

The language and symbols of an authentic American fascism would, of course, have little to do with the original European models. They would have to be as familiar and reassuring to loyal Americans as the language and symbols of the original fascisms were familiar and reassuring to many Italians and Germans. No swastikas in American fascism, but Stars and Stripes (or Stars and Bars) and Christian crosses. No fascist salute, but mass recitations of the pledge of allegiance. These symbols contain no whiff of fascism in themselves, of course, but an American fascism would transform them into obligatory litmus tests for detecting the internal enemy.

Around such reassuring language and symbols in the event of some redoubtable setback to national prestige, Americans might support an enterprise of forcible national regeneration, unification, and purification. Its targets would be the First Amendment, separation of Church and State (creches on the lawns, prayers in the schools), efforts to place controls on gun ownership, desecrations of the flag, unassimilated minorities, artistic license, dissident and unusual behavior of all sorts that could be labeled antinational or decadent.

Similarly, the mechanism by which fascism can acquire power is more likely to adapt to the nature of the nation it infects. Whereas both Italian and German democracies were relatively new and unstable when fascists overwhelmed them, American democracy is the most robust and mature in the world, with over 200 years’ history behind it. Its democratic institutions are more deeply established and less susceptible to attack—which is a large reason why fascism has failed to previously obtain the political space required to attract a large enough following to succeed as a discrete party.

I have contended for many years—since at least that 2004 Orcinus series on what I then called “pseudo fascism”—that in America, fascism is far more likely to worm its way under the foundations of our democracy by taking over an established party, “the transformation of an existing party into a fascist entity from within — not necessarily by design, but by a coalescence of political forces already latent in the landscape.”

As I explained then, this mechanism was suggested by one of the significant American fascist “intellectuals” who arose in the 1930s named Lawrence Dennis. He penned an ideological blueprint entitled The Coming American Fascism. Dennis predicted that eventually, the combination of a dictatorial and bureaucratic government and big business [zuck, musk, thiel, Tillerson SoS] would continue exploiting the working middle class until, in frustration, it would turn to fascism. What’s especially noteworthy was the political path he foresaw for this to happen:

Yet how infinitely better for the in-elite of the moment to have fascism come through one of the major parties of the moment than to have it fight its way to power as the program of the most embittered leaders of the out-elite.

This indeed is what has occurred. Rather than being guided consciously, this transformation has happened almost spontaneously as the forces that fascism comprises gradually have come together under their own gravity. As I explained, the takeover really occurred within the realm of movement conservatism, which by the 1980s had almost completely subsumed the Republican Party:

The primary impetus has been the change under which conservatism became a discrete movement intent on seizing the reins of power. In the process, the means—that is, the obtaining of power—became the end. And once the movement became centered around obtaining power, by any means necessary, then ideology became fungible according to the needs of its drive to acquire power, just as it was with fascism. This virtually guaranteed it would become a travesty of its original purpose. The nature of today’s “conservative movement” is no more apparent than in how distinctly un-conservative its actual conduct has been: busting budgets, falling asleep at the wheel of national security, engaging wars recklessly and without adequate planning.

Two things occurred to the conservative movement in this drive for power:

It increasingly viewed liberals not merely as competitors but as unacceptable partners in the liberal-conservative power-sharing agreement that has been in place since at least the New Deal and the rise of modern consumer society. Ultimately, this view metastacizes into seeing liberals as objects to be eliminated.

It became increasingly willing to countenance ideological and practical bridges with certain factions of the extremist right. This ranged from anti-abortion and religious-right extremists to the neo-Confederates who dominate Republican politics in the South to factions of the Patriot/militia movement.

The combination of these two forces exerted a powerful rightward pull on the movement, to the point where extremist ideas and agendas have increasingly been adopted by the mainstream right, flowing into aneliminationist hatred of liberalism. In the process, their own rhetoric has come to sound like that on the far right. A lot of the dabbling in far-right memes has been gratuitous, intended to “push the envelope” for talk-radioaudiences in constant need of fresh outrageousness.AMPL

Back in 2004, however, the primary reason not to fear the ascension of fascism directly was that there was not, at that point, a crisis of democracy and its legitimacy, even though George W. Bush’s 2000 victory via the Electoral College [and SCOTUS?] decidedly set the stage for the current crisis, as did the right-wing authoritarianism his administration and its cohorts unleashed. Paxton agreed that the danger was not imminent despite the growth of far-right groups in the American body politic: “Of course the United States would have to suffer catastrophic setback and polarization for these fringe groups to find powerful allies and enter the mainstream,” he wrote.

However, that caveat has vanished because the 2020 election is unmistakably a looming crisis with effects we are already feeling. And that crisis has, historically speaking, always been the trigger that opened the door for fascists to seize power, as Paxton explains:

Fascism can appear wherever democracy is sufficiently implanted to have aroused disillusion. That suggests its spatial and temporal limits: no authentic fascism before the emergence of a massively enfranchised and politically active citizenry. In order to give birth to fascism, a society must have known political liberty — for better or for worse.

… In other words, it’s clear that the “crisis of democracy” necessary to create a genuinely fascist dynamic is a real potential that lies around many corners on our current path. The key, then, is to finding the path that does not take us there.

Paxton concludes The Anatomy of Fascism with this warning:

Fascism … is still visible today. Fascism exists at the level of Stage One within all democratic countries—not excluding the United States. “Giving up free institutions,” especially the freedoms of unpopular groups, is recurrently attractive to citizens of Western democracies, including some Americans. We know from tracing its path that fascism does not require a spectacular “march” on some capital to take root;seemingly anodyne decisions to tolerate lawless treatment of national “enemies” is enough.Something very close to classical fascism has reached Stage Two in a few deeply troubled societies. Its further progress is not inevitable, however. Further fascist advances toward power depend in part upon the severity of a crisis, but also very largely upon human choices, especially the choices of those holding economic, social, and political power. Determining the appropriate responses to fascist gains is not easy, since its cycle is not likely to repeat itself blindly. We stand a much better chance of responding wisely, however, if we understand how fascism succeeded in the past.

While there is no shortage of voices denying the reality of the fascist threat we now face, American democracy really does stand on the precipice in the 2020 election. Should we step off, then only the abyss awaits.

The precipice is here’: Conservative explains why Trump’s love for dictators is only getting worse

Alex Henderson September 24, 2020

When the United States allied itself with fascist dictators during the Cold War — from Gen. Augusto Pinochet in Chile to Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay — the rationale for supporting…

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/this-is-exactly-how-it-happens-foreign-reporters-warn-us-is-sliding-into-totalitarianism-and-could-be-sleepwalking-towards-a-kind-of-cold-civil-war/

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/trumps-climate-denial-will-gains-strength-is-americans-are-in-denial-about-his-neo-fascism/

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