Is America going fascist? If so what is fascism?. Fascism claims that there is a superior race, has a central charismatic dictator who decides the will of the people and has total control over anything and anybody. There is no rule of law. Fascists invariably label all opposition as unpatriotic. The distinction between a dictatorship and an autocracy is to a large extent irrelevant for purposes of this discussion. The same outcome for both can be achieved by subverting the institutions that uphold democracy like the courts, the press and most importantly voting rights. America is not fascist but as Shakespeare himself once said “What’s in a name"?. If democracy is indeed on the line is its demise inevitable?
THERE IS NO PLACE LIKE HUNGARY
There is no doubt that the Republican Party has morphed into the paradigm of a racist autocracy, the Trump Old Party, (TOP). The model they are pathetically basing themselves on is the Hungarian government. The latter have the same racist outlook and have made a mockery of democracy by destroying institutions and gerrymandering elections. Hungary has the population of Chicago and an economy that ranks twenty ninth in Europe and a GDP which is one quarter of that of Chicago. It survives by handouts from the European Union which it denigrates. By international standards it is a backwater but the TOP faithful aspire to their “greatness”.
Viktor Orban the current Prime Minister who has been for practical purposes a wheeler dealer since the 1990s has just been elected to his fourth term as President. The stamp of approval of the American right has been ordained on Hungary. The "whose who" in the Right wing world are holding their annual Conservative Political Action Committee Jamboree in Budapest Hungary. (Apparently they have run out of Trump Hotels). Viktor Orban gave the keynote address and informed the fellow travellers that the secret to success is to have your own media. He suggested running Tucker Carlson 24/7. He believes in a white Christian nation and is openly anti semitic. His rally cry at the Congress is the like minded should take back Washington and Brussels, (the EU capitol).
So with Putin looking like a loser, the new role model is Viktor Orban even though he hasn’t made the fact that Trump won in 2020 a key point in his plan to unfree the world.
The reason that you are not aware of the CPAP Congress is that all the enemy left wing media have not been credentialed and if you want to know what is going on you have to listen to Fox News.
Notwithstanding the absurdity of Orban becoming the leader of the unfree world, the culture being spouted by the TOP, the attempts at voter suppression and the conservative bent of a key institution, the Supreme Court, has created an air of despondency over the great American democratic experiment. What the majority of American don’t understand is that the fight didn’t end in 2020 and that the 2022 midterms have become important beyond the imagination. As Barack Obama used to say, “Don’t Boo. Vote!”.
IS ALL LOST?
There is an air of inevitability and doom and gloom around those that represent the majority in America as each and every event portends to end the great big liberal democracy that America has aspired to and never quite become. As Biden organizes the world to save democracy he seems paralyzed to do the same in the good old USA. Jay H. Ell has seen this movie before in South Africa where there was no danger of it becoming a fascist state as it was one already. Leadership where politicians ultimately put country before power and the forces of good finally triumphed. (The fact that has been partially undone by the corruption that followed Mandela’s leaving the stage is another story). In fact the story of America and the world is filled with these disastrous phases. So let’s see what a state America is in and how it can get out of it.
At the moment everyone is agreed that the majority of Americans by far are not in favor of the policies of the morphed “Republican Party” but the deck is stacked against them. The Trump Old Party”, (TOP), through gerrymandering and voter suppression are on the brink of victory. The fact that the TOP has no policy on anything other than cultural issues and the fact that Trump still insists that he won the last election has everyone shivering in their boots.
However the TOP are divided into three camps, those that will follow their leader right or wrong whatever he says, those who will do anything to just be in power and a few who actually want to run on what a mess Biden allegedly has made of the government. The latter are in the minority and what Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy the supposed leaders of the TOP would like to focus on. However they fall into the group that will do anything for power so they will go along with Trump. Ironically the electorate will probably vote on the issues that the Trumpists are ignoring - inflation, gas prices and baby formula.
WILL TRUMP REMAIN THE LEADER OF THE TOP?
Well Donald Trump and Trumpism is the reason that most feel America is going fascist. Donald Trump who is unashamedly racist is not that much interested in the policies that swept him into power in 2016. He is just obsessed with not going down in history as being a loser. However his non incumbent anointed nominees are having poor to mixed results in the TOP Primaries. Georgia the state that has started a criminal investigation into his election subversion is where the rubber met the road. Georgia formerly a red state till Tump himself turned it blue has been a disaster for Trump’s nominees. However not one TOP contender in any constituency has openly abandoned him. Those who refused to bend to his illegal efforts to declare the Georgian election in his favor have romped home against his candidates but although they didn't buy the Big Lie originally they subsequently enacted legislation to avoid "voter fraud" that Trump claimed lost him the election.
The January 6 revelations are at kindest not going to do him any good. Jay H. Ell has maintained from the word go sooner or later he is going to be indicted. So the nominal leader of Trumpism is not in great shape but no one dare challenge him at this stage because he still has the majority of the base of the party behind him. The essence of every fascist/authoritarian movement is the leader is in total control. Trump would so dearly like to be up there with the Putins and the Stalins but he just doesn’t cut it. Not even in the 2022 midterms.
For every successful revolutionary movement there has to be armed forces, muscle and or guns, behind it. The military made it quite clear even when Trump was the Commander in Chief that they were not interested. His right wing paramilitary, (some of them good people)), have been castrated by the abortive January 6 uprising and are leaking like sieves now that he has abandoned them. So there is no real muscle behind Trump and the fear of Civil War has to be unrealistic. He and the minority TOP have to rely on the fact that voter suppression and gerrymandering will carry them over the line.
The real fight at the moment is for the control of the TOP and this is reflected in the massive battle taking place in the Primary elections of the TOP nominees for the 2022 midterms. The Democratic Party primaries are gentle by comparison with several key races not even being contested.
Nevertheless the TOP culture, that is being fostered on the internet, by Republican Governors, the Supreme Court and the racist shootings are striking a feeling of hopelessness into all warm blooded democracy lovers. That together with the voter restriction, gerrymandering and the seeming unflinching direction of the Supreme Court leads to democracy lovers wanting to lie down and die
THE CULTURE.
The underlying culture is white fundamentalist Christian autocracy. The role model is Hungary. TOP has been modified from the original out and out racism as a result of the flood of immigration that has rocked the twenty - first century. Trump, credit where it is due, is the standard bearer. He started off by not so subtly claiming that Obama was not an American as he was, for all the world to see, black and obviously born in Kenya. He followed it up, by calling all Mexicans rapists, murderers and drug dealers, denying Muslims visas and finally admitting that the white thugs that chanted “The Jews Will Not Replace Us”, had some good people. So out and out racism has been morphed into the “Replacement Theory” racism.
Now these purists have to see to it that the children are not educated in American history that will make them feel guilty about how the whites treated the indigenous natives and the slaves. Hence school books should be controlled. To satisfy the fundamentalists anything from fertilization onwards is at best an abortion and at worst murder. The second amendment rights are sacred regardless of whether they are the instruments of the highest death rate from guns per capita in the world. This even though they are part and parcel of racist mass murders and the slaughter of children because automatic weapons are obviously covered by the eighteenth century constitution. The recent mass murders of children in Texas and African Americans in New Yotk hasn’t changed the TOP love of the culture of guns.
The connection of culture to autocracy is clear. If the culture is God’s will why allow heathens the right to thwart it at the ballot box.
SO WHAT CAN BE DONE?
Whatever can be done will be helped by the TOP who are currently tearing themselves apart in the Primaries. All sides believe that who ever emerges triumphant will eventually have the full backing of the faithful in 2024. Jay H. Ell believes the aftermath of the fight is more likely to produce apathy in the former GOP. In addition the revelations of the January 6 Committee are going to leave the TOP at sixes and sevens as to how far to go to protect Trump. One thing for sure is the deep base wont desert him but there will be plenty of 2024 Presidential wannabes who are going to carve their own little niches.
It is fair to say the overwhelming number of Americans don’t believe in this culture although the Covid Pandemic has left them all on edge. They are far more likely to be impacted by the inflation, gas prices, lack of baby formula and other inconveniences resulting from the pandemic, the supply chain interruption and the Ukrainian war. Needless to say this is what the Mitch McConnells, the Kevin McCarthy’s and the Lindsey Graham’s want to run on and blame Biden for the mess. They don’t care if that means they have to accept autocracy and Replacement Theory as part the bargain as all they want is power. So Biden is central to messaging two approaches- “This is not whom we are” and “things aren’t as bad as they seem and I will make them better”.
Biden cannot command the center of the stage like Trump. It is not his style. He ran against Trump from his basement and let Trump run against himself. Like it or not that is still going to happen. It is not what the power broker TOP people want but that is what they are going to get. Nevertheless in spite of all the waling about inflation the unemployment numbers are at their lowest numbers ever and over seventy percent of the population are satisfied with their financial positions. Biden needs to tell them what they know. He also has to drop the Chinese tariffs as they are contributing to inflation as well as doing whatever it takes to increase American fossil fuel production till the Ukrainian crisis is over. Then he needs to talk about whom we are as a people. It worked last time because the majority don’t believe in the “Do not replace us” philosophy.
Abortion is a colossal issue as are guns. The Supreme Court in spite of the recent mass shootings are about to lift restrictions on gun owning. Like with gun control a woman’s right to control her body is supported by the overwhelming majority of Americans yet the TOP’s values are the ones that count and their interpretation is supported by the Trump nominated Supreme Court. The TOP legislators refuse to legislate any gun control or support a woman’s right to chose. Both are part of the cultural agenda that the TOP power brokers don’t want discussed. Both these positions are not supported by at least eighty percent of the electorate. The Democrats need to make them front and center of their campaigns.
In the final analysis it all has to do with getting out the vote.. Stacey Adams has already shown in Georgia that persuading everyone of the importance of the vote resulted in attendance in greater numbers in the Primaries than anyone believed possible with the voter restrictions in place.
AT THE END OF THE DAY
The embattled Trump still is the controlling force in American politics. By controlling the minority of the minority he is center stage for better or worse. He has refashioned the Republican Party whose legislators are so craven that though they won’t even challenge him even though within the TOP electorate his base hasn’t been enough to consistently back his Big Lie. Those who have publicly shown disgust for his insurrection are too obsessed with hanging onto power to go against him now. There has to be a special place in hell for the Mitch McConnells, Kevin McCarthys and the Lindsey Grahams……
The sad end of the Party of Lincoln is that their elite went to hold their annual jamboree in their new model for government, Hungary, whose President offered to help them take over Washington. For America and the world’s sake one can only hope that Hungary is the TOP’s graveyard.
The good news is for Tucker Carlson who can now run for President in Hungary as well as Russia and of course America.
In the words of Barack Obama the time has never been more urgent to prevent fascism/autocracy, “Don’t boo. Vote”.
Jay. H. Ell is getting sick and tired of getting sick and tired...
PAUSE FOR THOUGHT
Mental health problems in other countries without unlimited access to semi automatic weapons for eighteen year olds are just mental health problems.
The NRA Convention in Texas is scheduled to go ahead with speakers former President Trump, Senator Cruz and Governor Abbott of Texas.
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