Here's what it really means for the Republican Party to embrace fascism

[UCmeNdc]

"Hesitancy to call the GOP 'fascist' is justified in many minds because so many GOP elites aver that they are simply giving lip-service to MAGA and don't really believe in it."



I like how Editorial Board member Lindsay Beyerstein put it. In her latest piece, she located one of the key features of fascism that even Alan Wolfe overlooks: tautology. "If Republicans can be said to believe anything, it's that Republicans, and only Republicans, deserve to rule. They are locked in a circular thought-pattern that begins and ends with Democratic illegitimacy. Democrats don't deserve power, so when they win they must have cheated, and hence Democratic power is illegitimate, and so on."

Put another way, the Republicans are good because they are good while the Democrats are bad because they are bad. You are right! It doesn't make any sense! But consider this—it's not supposed to make sense. Or, to the extent that it does make sense, it makes sense only if you are part of the in-group, which grows increasingly hostile to the out-group due to the out-group's intolerable insistence that the in-group make sense.




https://www.rawstory.com/gop-fascism-2653121302/

[Captain Zero]

1. You lose me at in group/out group

Whose the in group?
Magats. Old Repubs. Dems.
Whose the out group?
Magats. Old Repubs. Dems.

Thanks.

[sarchasm]

7. Consider this ...

“We're talking about titanic, reality-bending lies in which 2 + 2 = 5 if that's what needs to be said in the amoral pursuit of power. Importantly, the lies became, for the Republicans, The Truth such that speaking truthfully puts you on the other side of the GOP, thus deepening a totalizing worldview in which everyone in the out-group is the enemy. It does not matter if GOP elites don't mean it. They are participating in GOP fascism.”

[Bernardo de La Paz]

13. Since the article CENTERS on Republiqons, from their PoV they are the in-group, Captain Zero

Republicans, RepubliQons, GQP, MAGA, tRumpanzees, ... they all think they are "in". That's the POINT of the article. They don't think they are fascist because they think they are right. Even the go-along ordinary Republicans.

[JoanofArgh]

2. This has been going on for a while now.

Even pre-Trump. When Gingrich introduced his Contract for America it was enthusiastically adopted by far right parties like Le Pen’s National Front in France and Berlusconi in Italy. I don’t think Americans are aware how far right and fascist the GOP has been for a while now because it’s all they know.

I can remember during Obama’s 2nd term a lot of discussion about whether our democracy would survive due to the GOP only being interested in obstructing everything. They showed no interest in passing legislation at all. A political scientist wrote an article at Politico saying our democracy will only last another 20 years if it continues.

It’s all coming to a head now with Trump.

[gab13by13]

5. Well said.

The GQP has the added benefit of openly breaking the law with its fake election audit. Where the hell is the DOJ, federal election law is being broken and all they do is send them a stern letter?

[uponit7771]

6. +1

[2naSalit]

15. Well...

All those McTurle judges, that's why he was in such a rush to get them placed. He's been in on this for a long time and he sees his goal but he had to put up with unpleasant presidents,in his mind, for a while to get here.

I suspect things are in the works that we don't hear about. I'm hoping, at least.

[sarchasm]

10. The Newt!

To me it all started and ended with that monster.

[Cosmocat]

11. It goes back well before him

I have read and heard enough to know it goes back even further, but Reagen was a BIG piece of it, because he effectively mainstreamed right wing hate by putting a smiley happy face to it.

It just is that each deevolution is more and more toxic, at least during my adult years.

Reagan mainstreaming and prettying up right wing bull shit to the point where it was normalized.

Nwet and company starting the process of embracing bombastic rhetoric, and starting the move toward completely abandoning bi-partisan governance.

W followed Reagan's model of putting a smiley face to it, but 9-11 was the next deevolution, because they abandoned all the poll tested "talking points" and adherence to "core messaging" to taking the easier route of fear mongering and bullying the country into the mindset that either are you are R and love the country or you are D and in league with terrorists.

Leading to them spending 8 years of BHO's presidency just getting up in the morning and whatever the first piece of bad news was going on screeds about how it was BHO's fault.

All of which had left the party so rudderless, with no foundational philosophy and so far deep into grievance politics that when 45 came down the escalator I told people he was no joke, and embodied what the party was becoming.

[sarchasm]

14. Well, you say it better than I ever could, but by 'all' I guess I wasn't reffering ...

... specifically to fascism, but more to the civility, or at the very least, the appearance of mutually beneficial bipartisanship in congress.

[2naSalit]

16. That was when it all shifted into fourth gear...

2016 was when they hit overdrive.

[RicROC]

12. Contract ON America

[2naSalit]

17. +1

[Wounded Bear]

18. The current American "center" exists at a point to the right of European centrism...

quite a bit to the right. Hell, Schwarzenegger was a European Conservative, but he was far too liberal for modern repubs.

[FBaggins]

3. Doesn't make the argument well

At least... not the quoted paragraphs.

If that’s the definition of fascism... DU has a bunch of fascists.

Fortunately... it isn’t.

[DFW]

4. From a BBC article:

"The distinguished Italian historian of Fascism Emilio Gentile has written that Mussolini raised his political ideology to the status of a religious cult."

Just like the Republican God Squad. Plus ça change.............

[Maxheader]

9. take their wealth away,

And they'll grab onto whichever partys bandwagon goes by....

[Thunderbeast]

19. "Moderate Republicans" were an aberation

The late fifties through 1980 were an atypical time. The era of Eisenhower, Nixon (a criminal that did advocate for the environment, gun control, and universal healthcare), and Ford were not normal for the GOP.

Republicans fought the New Deal with a vengeance. Their isolationism and tepid acceptance of Hitler in the 30s encouraged his quest for domination. They championed Joe McCarthy who left a lasting imprint (including codifying monotheism in the public square). In league with southern Dixiecrats, they resisted civil rights.

The radical wingnut GOP is the historic rule....not the exception.