Don't have to wonder anymore

Back in 2009-2012 I wrote a lot about the fascist tendencies of the GOP. After that My next post about the GOP and fascism was last December when I wondered if we should call Donald Trump and his supporters fascists. Mark Sumner of Daily Kos says we don't have to wonder anymore.

Between Trumps promises and actions about building walls, restraining journalists, beating protesters, banning alternate religions, revoking women's rights, bombing opponents, and removing all corporate regulations, he has clearly shown his intention to rule as a fascist. Yes, it is something the GOP has been intending for many years, though they didn't want to be so obvious and boorish about it.

Sumner reviews the definition of fascism using Italy's Mussolini as an example. He then dates the GOP turn towards fascism from 1994.

… but it wasn't until the time of the Gingrich that Republicans realized they could simultaneously weaken the government, complain about the failure of programs they had just sabotaged, and create a perpetual-motion machine of government destruction.
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Gleefully surpassing [suppressing?] the votes of minorities. Burying the idea of free speech under a mountain of paid speech. Destroying programs that support the poor, even when those programs are nothing more than food for poor children … Republicans have done everything possible to rat the lines of our shaky social safety net, then scream about the unraveling as a reason for cutting away what remains.

They’ve eaten away at the effectiveness of the government every day in every way, and then stood up to point the finger at government ineffectiveness. And it’s worked. It’s all worked. Over and over again.

Why? Because hate.
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Anyway … here’s the point. If you’re willing to go to bed with anyone in order to find voters for your squeeze-the-poor economic policies, eventually you’re going to wake up with a Mussolini. Though his name might be Donald.

And really, it doesn’t matter if Trump is the nominee. The party is still going to be the party that’s openly working to suppress the votes of black Americans, keep gay and lesbian Americans from getting married, force trans Americans to embarrass themselves daily, march immigrants out of the country, de-patriate children born in this country, keep refugees in danger, destroy the environment, cripple the educational system, abolish unapproved religions, support police violence, keep poor kids from being fed, bomb every country that ever looked at us cross-eyed, and pull the rug out from under the elderly.