They adopted the fascist solutions to each of their problems

I downloaded Michigan’s COVID data. The peak in the number of new cases per day at the end of July was revised to 3026. The two peaks since then are at 2704 and 2232. They’re going in the right direction, but it is too soon, and the numbers too likely to be revised, to say this is a genuine downward trend. I heard on the news that America still has about 500 deaths from COVID per day. At first I thought Michigan is ahead of the rest of the country. But deaths per day here has been fluctuating at or above 10. So the state is at or above average. Joan McCarter of Daily Kos reported that “Defund the FBI” is now a thing with Republicans. If law enforcement is a threat to the nasty guy it “must be deterred, blocked, punished, or fired.” Democrats are beginning to prepare for that. The Republican effort probably won’t get far while Biden is in the White House and if Democrats keep the Senate. Even so Republicans could block every judicial or executive nominee (if Rs take the Senate) and legislative effort and tie Biden up with dozens of phony hearings. If they do have budgetary power they could defund the FBI and related departments and even punish individual justice (and federal) employees. Hunter of Kos discussed an article in the Washington Post about the most destructive things the nasty guy has planned for a second term, if he should ever get there. These were taken from various public pronouncements. “Execute drug dealers” was because he fantasized on what Rodrigo Duterte, dictator of the Philippines, had been doing. “Move homeless people to outlying ‘tent cities’” is a standard real estate tycoon fixation that the presence of homeless people reduces property values. That sounds quite a bit like sending the poor to concentration camps. “Deploy federal force against crime, unrest, and protests” – hurt and kill protesters really is a part of fascism.

It was also a central part of his coup plans; the Trump coup team hoped that Mike Pence could be convinced to throw the election into chaos, upon which time Trump would declare emergency powers under the Insurrection Act to snuff out whatever protests of the stolen election developed, and/or use the military to literally seize the voting machines. A fully fascist plan. Trump is still pissed that it didn't work.

“Strip job protections for federal workers” sounds banal but it’s really about replacing all competent federal workers with loyalists. This is the Russian model in which underlings help the boss with his corruption and their minions are hired to help the underlings with their corruption. And... “In a government based on willingness to overlook corruption, corruption becomes the primary task of government.” The result is a Russia who got bogged down trying to invade Ukraine. So what if by the time he’s gone the country is in ruins. He won’t care because he got to be the one who got rich doing it. This is now standard Republicanism. So far it is mostly revenge on whistleblowers. It will expand. “Eliminate the Education Department” really isn’t a nasty guy thing because that would require work and he doesn’t do work. It is a Republican thing to make sure the lower classes can’t get educated. “Restrict voting to one day using paper ballots” – yeah, the Republicans were for vote by mail when they assumed only old people did it. Now that the pandemic showed young people how nice vote by mail is they’re against it.

All of this has gone far beyond one man's uncontrollable narcissism. Trump didn't get the job the first time around because of his supposed promises or claims that he was smarter than every scientist, military general, and world leader on the planet. He got it because he was a mean, blustery asshole willing to spout more hate more openly than anyone else on the debate stage—and Republican voters absolutely love that stuff. They don't want good government; they want government that will punish their enemies while elevating their own paranoias.

Republicans may not care where the homeless live or whether drug dealers are executed. But controlling elections, firing competent federal employees, and crushing protests ...

That's standard-issue Republicanism now. All of the candidates will be promoting that. DeSantis, Hawley, Cruz, Graham, Cotton, McCarthy, Abbott—all of them. It's carved into the movement now, and there's no evidence it can be scraped back out. They happen across the fascist solutions to each of their problems, and adopt the fascist solutions as their answers.

Rebekah Sager of Kos reported on an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that says every major county in Georgia is scrambling to find poll workers. Some are confident they’ll meet targets by the time voting starts. The high vacancy rate is understandable, given the testimony of two election workers caught in the nasty guy’s smear campaign. The job also doesn’t pay well. ABC News and the Brennan Center for Justice say it isn’t just Georgia. It’s a national problem. Vet the Vote is now recruiting veterans and their relatives to be poll workers. Other poll workers would be reassured working alongside veterans, who aren’t easily intimidated.