This isn’t only a watershed moment in American politics, it’s more like the beginning of an ice age. Conservatism is going the way of the dinosaur, and the GOP elephant is lumbering dejectedly, but definitively, towards the tar pit, to rejoin the primal elements. It seems incredible that conservatism is committing political seppuku, but how else can you call this shot? Liz Cheney is being purged from the ranks of the Republican party for telling the truth.
George Orwell apocryphally said, “In a time of universal deceit, speaking the truth is a revolutionary act.” Liz Cheney, who voted the straight Trump line when he was in office, is being purged as House Republican Conference chair and likely replaced with Elise Stefanik — who ironically, voted against a lot of Donald Trump’s initiatives. By any sane standard of political rationale, Cheney is more loyal to Trump than Stefanik, but Stefanik is more loyal on the one and only issue that counts, which is co-signing on the Big Lie and spreading it as truth far into the land.
Stefanik wrote an op/ed for the Albany Times-Union, claiming that “more than 140,000 votes came from underage, deceased and otherwise unauthorized voters — in Fulton County alone.” She also jumped on the diss Dominion band wagon, citing concerns about the integrity of the company, and according to CNN fact checker Daniel Dale, it’s fair to call Stefanik someone who “promoted some… election lies and sought to get the outcome of the election overturned.”
The Big Lie has become the litmus test for loyalty in this crass new GOP which has abandoned what Liz Cheney called “the most conservative of all conservative principals, respect for the rule of law.” That baby got thrown out with the bathwater that the GOP wanted to drown government in. If the rule of law was still important to the GOP, the fact that sixty some frivolous lawsuits about election fraud were shot down by the courts would be enough to stifle any further dialogue about the 2020 election being stolen. Not even close.
The Big Lie is the mass delusion that you either co-sign on, embrace, and turn around and pass it on, or you’re out. That is called fascist collectivism and that is just how far the GOP has fallen.
The hallmark of fascist collectivism in international history is totalizing loyalty to The Leader, which, in a foreign but familiar turn-of-phrase, would be translated to Der Führer. That fuhrer, when it comes to the Republican Party, is Donald Trump. The former president insists he defeated Joe Biden. He insists everyone in the GOP believe and repeat the same lie. Anyone who does not believe and repeat the same lie is quickly identified as insufficiently loyal. This is how fascist collectivism works. The sky isn’t green because the fuhrer says it is. It’s green after everyone agrees. If that sounds like mass delusion is the heart of fascism collectivism, that’s because it is.
Not only are we at the brink where the GOP has become the party of mass delusion, they’ve also embraced the darkness more than ever before. Just yesterday Mitch McConnell declared in no uncertain terms that he would stonewall Joe Biden’s infrastructure package. There isn’t even a pretense of bipartisanship in Republican Washington right now. And Joe Biden said, “I think Republicans are further away from trying to figure out who they are and what they stand for than I thought they would be at this point.” Au contraire, they know exactly who they are and what they stand for. And it’s not the “old fashioned Republicans.” They tried to boo the guy who claimed to be one of those, Mitt Romney, off the stage. Romney inquired, “Aren’t you embarrassed?” No, they’re not. They have sold democracy out and become the party of fascism. They have embraced the Big Lie and prefer to live in delusion rather than truth.
Mass delusion is hard to believe. As a consequence, it’s hard to take seriously. From the liberal perspective, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell seemed downright irrational when he said Wednesday that, “One hundred percent of my focus is on stopping this new administration.” Why would he give away his bargaining power? Why would he say out loud the Republicans don’t care about solving the problems all Americans face in the middle of a once-in-a-century plague? If there’s a way to blow the Republicans’ chances of taking back control of the Congress in 2022, that’s it. This, as Thom Hartmann said, is how “Mitch McConnell is about to destroy the GOP.”
Actually, McConnell spoke rationally. The Democrats have razor-thin majorities. History favors the out-party. (It’s the GOP’s turn.) Structures, like gerrymandered congressional districts, favor them. (So do reapportioned seats resulting from the latest census.) States controlled by the Republicans are squeezing their electorates down to prejudicial sizes. The fuhrer’s lie, amplified by the right-wing media apparatus, which is global in scale, proliferates like variants of the coronavirus. All this is quite clear to McConnell. Sure, mass delusion is the heart of fascism collectivism. But do not confuse that for electoral disadvantage. Why should mass delusion matter when there’s a dime’s worth of difference between the base of the Republican Party and the leader?
Make no mistake. Mitch McConnell has parsed through the post-census demographics and the redrawing of districts favors the Republicans. That, along with the aforementioned razor thin margins and the fact that traditionally the out party picks up seats during the midterm elections is what he’s counting on to get back in power — and then look for full on fascism.
Instead of becoming diluted and easier to bargain with, the party’s radicalism has become darker, denser, purer and (literally) deadlier. That Biden thinks they are further away from figuring things out for themselves than he thought suggests he might conclude they’ll never get there, and therefore not wait around for the spirit of bipartisanship to materialize out of thin air.
Then again the above quote is something to worry about. It’s not that the Republicans haven’t figured out “who they are and what they stand for.” They have figured out exactly who they are and what they stand for. The Republicans are in the process of purging the last conservative leader in the House to condemn unconditionally the fuhrer’s attempt to overthrow a free and fair election by organizing and inciting a coup d’etat. Liz Cheney is the last Republican leader in the House willing to stand against Donald Trump, willing to stand up for the truth and willing to stand for democracy.
And she’s going out the door. Joe Biden spoke of a “mini-revolution” and we’ve all spoken about the GOP Civil War. If Cheney goes out the door — and so far, that’s what all indications are — then there is no Civil War, there is a purge. Plain and simple. Extremist political movements consolidate power by purging dissenting voices within their ranks. That’s Fascism 101.
A CNN poll reports that no less than 70% — that’s almost 3/4 — of the Republican party believe that Trump won and Biden didn’t. The Republicans are the ones hell bent on stealing elections right now, now the Democrats. Ron DeSantis signed SB 90 into law today and the State of Florida is already being sued by voting rights advocates. SB 90 is a voter suppression bill that limits the time absentee ballot requests are honored, shortens ballot drop box hours, and bans the distribution of food and water to voters in line.
And Florida is the tip of the iceberg. As of March 24, legislators have introduced 361 bills with restrictive provisions in 47 states. That’s everywhere. And that’s 108 more than the 253 restrictive bills tallied as of February 19, 2021 — a 43 percent increase in little more than a month.
According to the Brennan Center, these measures have begun to be enacted.
Five restrictive bills have already been signed into law. In addition, at least 55 restrictive bills in 24 states are moving through legislatures: 29 have passed at least one chamber, while another 26 have had some sort of committee action (e.g., a hearing, an amendment, or a committee vote).
And wake up and smell the coffee on this one: there were dozens of Republican elected officials at the Capitol Riot, not just Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, the QAnon queens.
Arizona and Michigan are battleground states, but they aren’t outliers. State Republican parties across the nation are feeling the increased influence of Trumpian/far-right extremists. At least fifty-seven Republican state and local officials from twenty-seven states were at the Capitol on January 6. Nearly all are facing calls to resign—but mostly from their political opposition, not other Republicans. As of mid-February, only two have stepped down.
State Republican parties in Wyoming, Louisiana, North Carolina, Oregon, and South Carolina and county Republican parties in Illinois, Kentucky, Nebraska, Michigan, and Washington State have all voted to censure their fellow Republicans for various offenses that come down to not showing loyalty to Donald Trump.
The Texas Republican Party, currently chaired by former Tea Party Congressman Allen West, has endorsed legislation to allow a vote on secession from the United States, following news that Texas state Representative Kyle Biedermann planned to introduce the bill at the statehouse. […]
The Associated Press, in reviewing the social media accounts “of nearly 1,000 federal, state, and local elected and appointed Republican officials nationwide,” found many examples of officials supporting the attempted coup on January 6 or demanding that the 2020 election be overturned.
For all of the attention given to the notion that the Republican Party is having some sort of existential crisis or civil war to determine its future, the activity of Republicans at the state and local level suggests that any battle for the soul of the party has already been lost. Despite decisively losing the last presidential election, Trump and his far-right base are clearly in control.
Fascism is here. It came to America, not wrapped in a flag nor carrying a cross. It came wrapped in reality TV and carrying a publicity hound, who appeals to the worst angels of the American nature. He is the lowest common denominator. It was said in 2016 that Trump “wasn’t really a Republican.” Au contraire. He is the epitome of a Republican. That’s how he wound up at the top of their ticket. He reflects perfectly what they have become. Trump and the GOP is a match made in Hell. And the Republicans are fine with it.
So it’s not good news, the fall of conservatism is here, it’s bad news with the rise of fascism.
But Trump isn’t like Hitler, he is really old and very unfit. A personality cult fueled fascism, loses it’s reason to exist with the demise of the personality. This particular fascism will go the way of The John Birch Society of the ’50s and ’60s. It may not last that long as other than a cult, it’s only policy appears to be racism.
That’s one possibility, that it will be a phase, like the John Birch Society. Another is that TrumpISM will outlast Trump and some successor to the throne will appear. Who that might be, I don’t know as yet. Obviously, Hawley, Cruz, that lot, are trying to succeed Trump. We will just have to wait and see. What I am certain will happen is more tribalism, more lies, and more demonization of the Democrats and their agenda. That’s the only way to get voters on board this doomed Republican train, is to scare the shit out of them. That’s what they’ve been doing so far.
This has become the killer of true Democracy, the state and local Republicans have pushed their homelands into the hazmat restricted zones Trump’s fall-out …
Trump is a failing fool with little time left for anything, too old and out of shape to walk the golf course, has to ride his cart up on the greens … wheezes and acts like the fool he is … totally bonkers in his mangy pleading at Mar-O-Golf …
The hammer is now elevated over his head and ready to release as the reports all come out, maybe even the Ghoul will add to Cohen’s info on the cheater chickenshit …
I suspect that there are still hidden family funding somewhere, not nearly enough to buy his way out this time, and family needs to do time as well since accepting responsibility for Trump Companies.
I read a post on DK, saying that the repubs are embracing the big lie to set themselves up for 2024. They can more than challenge the results, possibly overthrow them. God forbid.
Have the representatives of the GQP in Washington not caught on to a very simple fact: that if the election had been tampered with, as they claim, none of them would have been elected?
The rich misused the word ‘conservatism’ since the only 2 things they ever fought, & now fight for, are money & power. They are willing to destroy the planet, democracy, children, our economy, & so on. These fascists now clearly show they ARE capable of destroying our country. Hey all of u who think they are too stupid & unfocused to achieve it, better wake up & shake off ur comfort zone. If we don’t stop them, u & I will someday be rounded up for disagreeing with them. Crazy? Yeah the nice educated democratic citizens of Germany thought the Nazis were crazy in 1930. Less than ten years later they’ve lost their country & killed to spread it around europe. Time to rise up and take notice. Like fat Clemenza told Michael in the Godfather, “they shoulda stopped Hitler early.”