Normally, I get annoyed with all the fuss about the Republican Party because I
blame the Democratic Party for moving more to the right in domestic policy
after Nixon's election and for continuing to compromise with the Republican
Party. But I trust this British reporter. He was the last person whom Amy
Goodman had on Democracy Now way back in 2012 who told the truth about what was
happening in Syria. Simultaneously, she had a woman who was supposed to be
representing the Syrian Free Army, which was already a sham by then, who was
saying the opposite of what Coburn was reporting.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Sunday, June 27, 2021 12:37 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: The Republican Party Has Turned Fascist - It Is
Now the Most Dangerous Threat in the World
The exchange of Power/Control has been going on since the Second World War.
Presently the Working Class is losing. And unless the Biden forces pull off
some significant changes, the next presidential election could spell the death
of democracy, and the beginning of a Fascist State.
Carl Jarvis
On 6/27/21, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The Republican Party Has Turned Fascist - It Is Now the Most Dangerous
Threat in the World By Patrick Cockburn, The Intercept
26 June 21
By taking control of elections and voter suppression, Republicans are
destroying American democracy
The G7 meeting focused attention on many challenges facing the world,
but it did not address the most dangerous threat of them all, which is
the transformation of the Republican Party in the US into a fascist
movement.
When Donald Trump was in the White House there was much debate about
whether or not he could be called a fascist in the full sense of the
word, and not merely as a political insult. His presidency showed many
of the characteristics of a fascist dictatorship, except the crucial
one of automatic re-election.
But Trump or Trump-like leaders may not have to face this democratic
impediment in future. It was only this year that the final building
blocks have been put in place by Republicans as they replicate the
structure of fascist movements in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s.
Two strategies, though never entirely absent from Republican behaviour
in the past, have become far more central to their approach. One is a
greater willingness to use or tolerate violence against their
opponents, something that became notorious during the invasion of the
Capitol by pro-Trump rioters on 6 January.
The other change among Republicans is much less commented on, but is
more sinister and significant. This is the systematic Republican
takeover of the electoral machinery that oversees elections and makes
sure that they are fair. Minor officials in charge of them have
suddenly become vital to the future of American democracy. Remember
that it was only the refusal of these functionaries to cave in to
Trump's threats and blandishments that stopped him stealing the
presidential election last November.
Many of them will be unable to perform the same duty in future elections.
The Republican Party across the country is replacing or intimidating
them so they are giving up their jobs or are being forced from their
posts. In Pennsylvania, a state which played a crucial role in Trump's
defeat, a third of county election officials have changed as have
numerous others in swing states like Michigan and Wisconsin. Their
places are frequently being taken by conspiracy theory zealots who
will have the power to nullify election results that are not to their
liking. A survey by the Brennan Center for Justice shows that one in
three local election officials say that they are being subjected to
harassment and other pressures.
Speeding up this exodus are Republican state legislatures that have
passed laws mandating heavy fines - $10,000 in Iowa, $25,000 in
Florida - for election supervisors who make minor technical mistakes.
Republican officials who refused to say that Trump won the election
are being removed by their party. The Republicans should be able to do
in 2022 and 2024 what they failed to do in 2020, which is to nullify
election results at will so the true outcome of a poll can be ignored.
Put simply, the will of the people will no longer count for anything.
Authoritarian regimes across the world have found that it is much
easier and more certain to announce the election result they would
like than to go to all the trouble of suppressing votes and
gerrymandering constituencies.
Once
control of the electoral machinery is obtained then democracy poses no
threat to those in power. Fascist leaders may use democratic processes
to obtain office, but once there, their instinct is to pull up the
ladder and let nobody else climb up it.
Nullification of elections is only the latest step in the Republican
Party's strange voyage towards becoming a genuine fascist party. Other
steps have a much longer history, notably the moment half a century
ago when President Nixon adopted his "Southern Strategy" whereby the
Republicans capitalised on the Civil Rights acts to make a political
takeover of the American South.
The old slave states became the strongholds of the Republican Party
which had once freed the slaves and defeated the Confederacy.
It is worth listing the chief characteristics of fascist movements in
order to assess how far they are now shared by the Republicans.
Exploitation of ethnic, religious and cultural hatreds is probably the
most universal feature of fascism. Others include a demagogic leader
with a cult of personality who makes messianic but vague promises to
deliver a golden future; appeals to law-and-order but a practical
contempt for legality; the use, manipulation and ultimate
marginalisation of democratic procedures; a willingness to use
physical force; demonising the educated elite - and the media in
particular; shady relations with plutocrats seeking profit from regime change.
One by one these boxes have been ticked by the Republicans until the
list is complete. The Tea Party movement was an important staging post
on the road to Trumpism. Trump himself possesses all the classic
features of a fascist leader, though he was somewhat hemmed in by the
institutional and political divisions of power. Yet these impediments
will be less in future as local legislatures, courts, electoral
machinery and Congress itself are colonised by Trumpian Republicans.
This erosion of democracy has a precedent, given that Al Gore in 2000
and Hillary Clinton in 2016 were denied the presidency though each won
a majority of the popular vote, but it is becoming all pervasive
American fascism differs from its European, Middle Eastern and Latin
American variants because of the history of America, with its legacy
of slavery, and the Civil War still remaining as a great divider.
Slavery was abolished, the Confederacy lost the war, but in many
respects the civil war never ended.
The civil rights legislation of the 1960s provoked a white
counteroffensive that still goes on. Opposition to racial equality has
never ceased. The key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965,
which declared that changes in state election laws must have federal
approval, was invalidated by Republican appointed judges on the
Supreme Court in 2013. "Our country has changed," said chief Justice
John G Roberts in a majority opinion, which declared that racial
minorities no longer faced barriers to voting in states with a history
of discrimination. The absurdity of this was immediately demonstrated
as Texas introduced a previously blocked voter ID law.
Voter suppression has ballooned ever since, but never more than this year.
Some 14 Republican controlled states have passed 24 laws
criminalising, politicising and interfering in elections to their own
advantage.
What explains the descent of the Republican Party into fascism? Racial
division explains much. The division of American culture along the
same geographical lines as the civil war explains more. Add to this
the frightening dislocation imposed on white working- and middle-class
Americans by technological change and globalisation. Powerful forces
are let loose similar to those that once propelled the rise of
European fascism and is now doing the same in America.