The fascism is already here, but we can't see it through the lens of exceptionalism

[Nevilledog]

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Anna Lind-Guzik
@alindguzik
A hardwired belief that fascism can’t happen here has made it that much harder to confront the radicalization of the GOP. My latest for @Convo_ist, a primal scream for American democracy:

The fascism is already here, but we can't see it through the lens of exceptionalism | The Convers...
American exceptionalism has distorted our perception of the GOP's turn to authoritarianism.
conversationalist.org
11:28 AM · May 27, 2021

https://conversationalist.org/2021/05/27/the-fascism-is-already-here-we-just-cant-see-it-through-the-lens-of-exceptionalism/

On May 19 Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell came out against the January 6th Commission, a proposed bipartisan investigation into Republican crimes. Kevin McCarthy, the GOP House leader, did the same on May 18. Thus the Democrats were once again stymied in their efforts to obtain answers under oath about the violent attempt to overturn the 2020 election results and reinstall Donald J. Trump as president.

These provocations come on the heels of Liz Cheney’s removal from her House GOP leadership position for having affirmed Biden’s victory and for having criticized the “Big Lie”—i.e., that Trump won the election and the Democrats “stole” it— that led to the January 6th insurrection. It is a lie that the GOP continues to promote, as do the media outlets aligned with the party. Trump loyalist Elise Stefanik replaced Cheney. On Fox News Sunday, Cheney said that both McCarthy and Stefanik were complicit in Trump’s lies.

Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican congressman who also voted to impeach Trump, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that he was “very disappointed” with his party’s leadership for ousting Cheney, saying: “We’re not going to win unless we add to our base, not subtract from our base.”

In a functioning democracy, what Cheney and Upton said might make sense. But if their party’s strategy is to pack the courts, overturn elections, incite mobs, gerrymander, suppress votes, and otherwise harass the vulnerable, then the size of its base is not as relevant a concern.

*snip*

[marmar]

1. K/R

[cilla4progress]

2. So true.

Some of us - amirite? - have seen through it for decades!

[Paladin]

3. If you're denying the growing presence of fascism in this country, today...

...you're denying reality, and we can't afford such attitudes.

[MarcA]

4. Add Filibuster, Electoral College, Lifetime Court Appointments

to the list in that last paragraph.