I wasn’t present in Munich in 1923 when Adolph Hitler was spewing his poison in the beer halls, or in Rome in 1922 when Mussolini and his thugs successfully overthrew the Italian government, but seeing Ron DeSantis in South Carolina today feels like an echo from that past. DeSantis was doing his usual spiel about parents’ rights in education and crowed how he has fought against schools “superseding” parental rights when it comes to what their children are taught. He carefully did not mention that just this week there has been tremendous pushback by both teachers and parents to his policies.
In the tape you’ll hear by hitting this link a woman in the crowd starts shouting about “kids’ healthcare” and then she calls DeSantis “a fucking fascist.” Then the crowd starts booing and DeSantis sounds like a mini Mussolini, as he whips them up.
You speak truth pic.twitter.com/T85tpjq3c9
— Robert Thomas (@RobertT36652227) June 2, 2023
The noteworthy thing here is that DeSantis turned on the woman and turned the mob against the woman. A real leader would have attempted to unify the situation and say, “We all have the right to disagree, but we should be civil in doing so,” words to that effect. DeSantis did not. He relished the opportunity to be a bully.
This man must never become president.
Bullies lose their power when everyone sees they really are bullies, and stands up to them. One person calling him out at one of his meetings is the first crack in the dam.
Except 12 years in the South have made it clear that a certain type of voter views bullying as strength. They see tolerance and civility as weakness. And by god,they know being an a$$hole is exactly what Jesus said to do because their semiliterate preacher said so.
The sad thing is that in the 20’s Germany and Italy were in the middle of the Republican Depression, as it was called back then as well as extreme inflation. Germany was suffering under a vindictive treaty. What we have are just a bunch of spoiled, spiteful brats living in the best economic times most of them have ever seen.
We are dealing with right-wing fund the locals who think their god is on their side. Big difference. Questioning was beaten out of them, sometimes literally, as kids. And if they start questioning, they lose everything: church,church famiky,actual family, possibly marriage with spouse getting sole custody seven their jobs.
“The noteworthy thing here is that DeSantis turned on the woman and turned the mob against the woman. A real leader would have attempted to unify the situation and say, “We all have the right to disagree, but we should be civil in doing so,” words to that effect. DeSantis did not. He relished the opportunity to be a bully.”
No disagreement here on the “real leader” bit but there’s room to speculate that John McCain lost his race for the White House when he dared defend Obama’s citizenship to a GOPer pushing a conspiracy theory and he actually described Obama in respectful terms. (https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/403634-clip-of-mccain-defending-obama-after-supporter-called-him-arab/ The link is to an article posted shortly after McCain’s death rather than the moment itself but the clip became a “viral moment” which led to a lot of similar articles.)
Today’s GOP–and, more importantly, its “leaders”–do not dare try to “calm the waters” because that will lead to the deplorables (as Hillary so rightly described them) who get out and vote in the primaries to vote against such “marshmallows.”
(It’s kind of funny, actually. In the past two Democratic presidential primary campaigns, there was this massive criticism coming from “progressives” about how “narrow-minded” the Democratic Party was being by restricting the Party’s primaries and caucuses to, you know, actual Democrats rather than just allowing any random “independent” voter to come in and vote for the Democratic Party’s nominee. Meanwhile, on the GOP side of the aisle, that kind of challenge NEVER presents itself. It’s almost like the GOP is proud when ITS most die-hard faithful get out to vote for the most extreme candidate rather than thinking about “opening” their primaries to voters who might not want such an extreme candidate as the nominee.)