As the Fall 2022 midterm election season kicks into high gear, it is important not to lose sight of the unprecedented situation the nation now faces. We are, dear reader, smack in the middle of an ongoing fascist coup effort and it has two equally important elements.
President Biden, in his series of powerful speeches over the last week, has put a qualifier on the term “fascist,” but anyone with knowledge of and insight into the rise of fascist movements in Europe in the last century has to agree that we are seeing a repeat in the U.S. of the same kinds of movements that put Hitler and Mussolini in power in the 1920s and 1930s, and wound up costing tens of millions of lives on battlefields and in concentration camps.
Donald Trump is a fascist. He may not say so publicly, perhaps, but the idea of being identified with Hitler thrills him.
The critical elements of a fascist movement are: 1. An arbitrary deviation from truth and 2. A willingness to resort to violence in the lack of adherence to the rule of law.
History has no examples of stopping such a movement short of serious bloodshed. If it were to be stopped short of armed conflict in the U.S. now, it would be a veritable miracle. Though our elected and other leaders should do everything they can to achieve a peaceful outcome for the restoration of civility and the rule of law in the U.S,, they should also be prepared for the worst. I say this with the utmost gravitas and urgency.
I am convinced of this based on the content of Trump’s latest speech last weekend. While it can be readily critiqued and dismissed as full of the usual lies and hate mongering, evidence for some of Trump’s growing dementia, it matters only insofar as it is seen as a call to arms to his most committed troops, the shock troops of his violent movement.
Trump has been unleashed again, and he will use his cunning to dominate the Republican Party this fall. No matter how many of his endorsed candidates lose, the whole fall election process will matter to him only as momentum building for his 2024 fascist coup.
There are three elements behind this movement. The first is the influence of a hostile foreign power, Moscow, for whom Trump works. The second is the phalanx of powerful right wing U.S. political and corporate forces that fund the GOP and its candidates’ bids for power at all levels of U.S. political life, from local poll workers to high profile U.S. Senate candidates and everything in between. The third is the rank and file of deluded citizens who can’t detect how this man is defrauding them, fleecing them, and more than willing to lie, cheat and otherwise do anything in his power to disown and disenfranchise them.
All three of these elements are required for this fascist movement to succeed, and right now, all three are in full bloom.
To the extent there may be some second thoughts by the second or third groups, the first one, Moscow, will function as the leader, training and preparing to deploy paraprofessional assassins and terrorists and, like Trump himself, totally willing to turn their fire on both groups 2 and 3 as needed.
This includes but is not limited to use of intimidation and blackmail, and these tools have clearly been used on key political leaders, including even Trump himself, and inclusive of the likes of Sen. Lindsey Graham, who took a refresher course in his own supple moral captivity with a trip to Moscow, himself, not long ago. Oh, the videos that Putin has, or has convinced his minions he has!
Sadly, this fall we will begin to see an unprecedented scale of escalating physical violence directly on the electoral process. Many of the assassins will be directly Moscow trained.
Putting down this fascist movement will require great resolve and courage on behalf of everyone who is committed to doing so. The enemy has already breached the major media and U.S. judicial system. It won’t be easy.
