Fascists Are Grabbing America
I really need to get better at letting things like this go, but I just can’t. I’ve been stewing about this incessantly for a day now, so I’m getting it off my chest. Stand clear, okay?
Yesterday the local news rag here published an op-ed by its resident Trump sycophant whining that the public had lost faith in the national news media and it was a terrible tragedy. The reason given was…you guessed it…the national media had been mean to our President. Blame was also placed on the biased and unfair media for dividing our nation. Seriously. The media is dividing the nation.
Well, it strikes me that the only people that have lost faith in the national news media are those that don’t like facts and the truth being told, as reporters’ currency of trade is facts and finding the truth, whereas our President is known to be an inveterate and pathological liar. Op-ed writers can usually be ignored and you will still get the facts and know what is going on, although I sure had a tough time ignoring the one who grabbed my attention yesterday with the fascist fantasy about the media.
I did go to journalism school for a while and aspired to that trade, so I have a pretty good idea what “fair and balanced” reporting really is. We all understand that Faux News is not news at all, as it has largely functioned as state-run media for our Dear Leader. That said, recently some of their pundits and reporters seem to be growing a spine and telling the truth for a change, which is encouraging. Chris Wallace in particular does his dad Mike proud.
What is dividing our nation is the man in the Oval Office and the Party of Trump in lock step behind him. Consequently, a distinct statistical majority of the country is just plain fed up with the lying, incompetence, chaos, cruelty, corruption and criminality of this President and his lackeys. The truth is the free press is the last bastion standing between We the People and a spiraling decent into fascism led by this tyrant and his henchmen.
Totalitarian leaders throughout history have sought to discredit the free press as our President does, and as does his lemming cult of zombie followers like the one who wrote the silly op-ed in the local rag. “Lugenpresse” was Hitler’s descriptor: “Lying Press.” The fascist purpose is to cause the public to distrust the press and then the tyrant can come along and claim that the public can only believe their version of the facts; “alternative facts” to be sure.
But that does seem increasingly to be where we’re headed, isn’t it? For the longest time the MAGA acronym just meant to me that Morons Are Governing America. Now I have come to realize that FAGA is a lot more like it: Fascists Are Grabbing America…and you know exactly where, don’t you? (No, you’re wrong, it’s by the throat.)
Just catalogue for a moment some of what we see coming from this administration and the Party of Trump that clearly comes from the Fascist Playbook. (See Thomas Friedman’s NYT op-ed recently citing similarities to the Assad regime in Syria.) A representative short list easily jumps to mind, not at all comprehensive:
1) Trashing and discrediting the free press. (Ongoing the last 5 years and a Republican staple.)
2) Letting COVID-19 run rampant, causing illness and death preferentially to the poor, people of color and the elderly. (At what point does this constitute genocide?)
3) Sending secret police into cities to stir up trouble, which the Dear Leader will then magically and violently stop. (Create a crisis and then appear to solve it.)
4) Gerrymandering voting districts in grotesque manipulation to secure election wins. (Long the Republican trick to rig elections in their favor.)
5) Suppressing the vote in all possible ways, including discrediting mail-in voting, reducing the number of polling places, hamstringing the U.S. Postal Service and alleging voter fraud that doesn’t exist.
6) Funneling COVID-19 relief to people and businesses that could get along without it, rather than attending to the actual suffering of the people. (Assuring the rich get richer.)
7) Withholding supplemental unemployment aid and allowing rent forbearance to expire, with the intent that mass evictions will selectively cause fewer people of color and less privileged people to vote.
8) Using COVID-19 as an excuse to limit the resources devoted to counting city dwellers in the National Census, thereby undercounting people of color and cutting resource allocations to cities that typically vote for Democrats.
9) Marginalizing and demonizing the “other,” i.e. non-whites, non-Christians, immigrants and the poor.
Yes, we are definitely sliding down the slippery slope to an authoritarian, totalitarian, fascist banana republic. And as such the Trumpist election strategy is to pit his rabid base against the rest of us in a culture war, use secret federal police goons to precipitate violence in our cities (“wagging the dog” domestically) and suppress the vote in any way possible. That is the only path to an election victory, knowing that the Charlatan in Chief is supported by only his shrinking base of mind-controlled, hate-filled, racist acolytes and a declining cabal of rich donors.
The scary part though is that with COVID-19 likely still crippling us in November, the Dark Side might have a good crack at this nihilist strategy working. How will we handle massive mail-in voting with the U.S. Post Service under fascist control? How will we manage a huge turnout of in-person voting with required social distancing and reduced polling opportunities in Republican controlled states? Will federal “Polizei” be threatening and intimidating voters in Democratic run cities?
Trump robots are committed and will pull out every dirty trick in the book. My wife and I got a small taste of their tactics recently when we put out our Biden yard sign, only to have some angry jerk stop his car and yell ugly epithets at my wife and then deface the sign later with obscenities. And you witnessed the anger and hostility they embody recently when the idiot bully Congressman went after AOC. That’s exactly what we’re in for in the next 90 days from the American White People’s Party of Trump: a scorched earth campaign of lies, deception, dirty tricks, voter suppression, violence and intimidation.
So it’s scary and depressing, which means the Machiavellian minority’s strategy is working. Forget the poles. They were wrong before, and we were all taken hostage by yet another Electoral College theft of an election by Republicans.
I want to end this piece by saying we can defeat the Dark Side of American politics in November, but there’s a whole lot that can go dead wrong in the next three months. We the People must demand a free and fair election and peacefully protest like crazy when the Dark Side acts to suppress the vote. Each of us must be an ardent activist and work our butts off to effect an historic turnout in November.
We must all volunteer when and where we can safely and we must all give money to campaigns and progressive organizations we support if we can. We must vociferously challenge every racist, misogynist, xenophobic and fascist word and deed the way AOC did when that idiot bullied her. Make no mistake, we are being bullied in this election, and we need to take our cue from the brave and fierce AOC and stand up and give it back to the bullies exactly the way she did: incessantly, thoroughly, collectively, en masse.
We the People have the Power. We must now exercise it in every legal way we can think of, because our democracy…and our very lives… are what are at stake.
