Trump and the neo-fascist Republican Party
Trumpism-Republicanism has long possessed most of Umberto Eco’s 14 loose characteristics of Ur-Fascism, which he outlined in his 1995 New York Review of Books essay: the “cult of tradition,” the machismo, the “cult of heroism,” the conviction that “thinking is a form of emasculation” and “disagreement is treason.”
For “the obsession with a plot” and “appeal to xenophobia,” Eco actually cited televangelist and Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson, who is now a Trump supporter.
But what was always lacking was a critical step in the advancement of totalitarian fortunes in fascist Italy and Germany: The arch-right U.S. administration hadn’t sufficiently established direct political control over nationwide law enforcement and paramilitary groups to give the Trumpian “Voice of the People” the vigilante justice it demands...
In the years leading up to the George Floyd protests, the Trump administration has been wantonly cruel in its dehumanization, incarceration, and killing of immigrants.
It looked the other way as right-wing extremist violence emerged as the chief national security threat in the U.S. It celebrated brutality in law enforcement and in military conduct. It has sought to suppress voters, especially minority and youth voters, everywhere that its party stands for election.
...Whether by design or lack of it, Donald Trump and the Republican Party operate an American state that they have increasingly organized on fascist principles.
It is also time to consider what else the fascists may yet do during an unprecedented pandemic, amid unprecedented unemployment, faced with unprecedented resistance ahead of an unprecedented election.
The Republican Party wants to make “antifascist” a category of terrorist; whether or not it actually uses active-duty soldiers to round up this new class of undesirables in the “national emergency,” it has at its disposal every police officer who flies a Punisher or Blue Lives Matter flag above the U.S. flag, every armed vigilante and Oathkeeper and Proud Boy who craves the boogaloo.
Labels: Anti-Semitism, Atheism and Religion, Hate/Terrorism, History, Pandemic, Punks with Guns, Racism, Reading, Right and Left, The Repugnant Party, Trump
posted by Rob Anderson @ 2:48 PM
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