MDlaxfan76 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 08, 2021 10:50 am
I'm tired of being called an alarmist on this topic.
As Trump won the 2016 primaries, I warned that he was/is an enormously corrupt human being with clear authoritarian aspirations, utilizing all the tools fascists have employed across history. I did not think he would prevail in the general, though I was concerned that Clinton was so flawed as a candidate that it could be close. As a protest, neither got my vote in a state where it was clear that Clinton would win.
I thought that most of my fellow Republicans were merely buffaloed by his braggadocio and overt "patriotism", with others definitely finding his nativist language appealing in a world in which demography had been declared to be destiny. I thought the first group was the dominant group and the latter merely fringe.
I was surprised that his appeal was so broad, though the wide overall differential in popular vote contrasted with the wide margin in the Electoral College exposed a key anti-democratic flaw in our system under stress. That was worrisome.
The attempted "Muslim ban" out of the gate as POTUS was explicit "Otherism" as had been the "Mexican rapist" etc language. Fascist playbook stuff. Charlottesville. Winks and nods, dog whistles, white supremacists emboldened and suburbanized.
Normalized lying. Active misinformation and disinformation campaigns. "Flood the zone". And, yes, even outside interference in such. Embrace of such 'help'.
Demands of "loyalty" of party members, not to ideology but to individual "strong man". Driving out of party and office any who transgressed hard line loyalty.
The midterm seemed heartening that there was an effective pushback against this.
But meanwhile, the loyalty purges continued and the active weaponization of the DOJ and other instruments of executive power accelerated.
The lying and red meat dog whistles went on at ever higher levels, given that it was rewarded within the party.
Q
Covid in an election year...the pressurized world of information and disinformation exposed to anyone with open eyes the gross incompetence and self-serving of the POTUS. But for those who had bound themselves to the lens of the world of right wing disinformation, the pandemic was a 'hoax' , an exaggeration, something to blame on the "Other" (whether China or Gates and Fauci or...) , that collective public health action was a threat to "freedom"...
George Floyd and other police killings suddenly on film, largest civil rights protests in history, across the world, some rioting. Attempts by POTUS to employ the military against the protests, first step to martial law, rejected (thank god and this time) by the military.
And then the GOP, with Trump as always the loudest bull horn, lying about election integrity, predicting that millions of illegal votes would be cast (just as had been fraudulently claimed in 2016), that the election was "rigged" against Republicans.
And yet we then had massive turnout in reaction to all the corruption, incompetence, and lies...and Trump lost (but had massive turnout too)...but would not accept the loss, forced fellow Republicans to not accept the loss, demanded the election be overturned, called his supporters to a massive rally in DC on Jan 6 and exhorted them to march on the Capitol to "Stop the Steal"; INSURRECTION.
Ok, Republicans initially reacted, by and large, appropriately, in horror at what they'd enabled; I thought we were at a breaking point where the GOP could finally separate themselves from the hard right "populism" embodied in "Trumpism"...but now here we are and the actions are being denied as ever being a serious threat, not really the fault of Trump and his enablers (including themselves), a momentary aberration...and oh yeah, "Trump won"...
Continued purges for loyalty to the Big Lie and kowtowing to Trump. Acceptance of the most egregious hard right behavior.
So, my conclusion is that the GOP has normalized the Big Lie, has normalized a power at any cost mentality. There's no commitment to the actual principles of democracy.
I don't think there are
any lines they are not willing to cross.
My bad Doc.. fire at Will...and every other FLP in your line of sight. 
