The word “fascism” is something that gets bantered about a lot, and, in some instances, it is overused simply to object to a government rule or law that certain people don’t like. For instance, the anti-mask and anti-vaccination crown call mask mandates and vaccination requirements to be “fascist” simply because they hate them and don’t want to follow them. This is the same political crowd that called the whole desegregation bussing program of the 1940’s to the 2000’s to be “fascist” because they didn’t want their precious tax deductions going to different schools with “those people” in them. On the other hand, when police are called in to break up a disruptive protest, liberals will call the police “fascists”.
But when we’re talking about fascism as a government or a political policy, there are several key qualifiers that define that kind of governing. Qualifiers that were spelled out when fascism ruled Italy a century ago by the party and the strongman that actually wrote them, and by Germany a decade after them to an even greater and more horrific degree.
The first are easy. A strong sense of nationalism and/or race. A cult-of-personality leader. An aggressive and confrontational might-makes-right mindset. A strong hatred of communism; or socialism since that faction considers both interchangeable. And an enemy to focus the cult’s hatred on.
It’s the last part that has been the hardest to achieve: one-party rule.
People who decree that fascism “can’t happen here” when it comes to America will always point to the two-party duopoly that has controlled American politics basically since the Civil War. As long as there are two parties, we are told, there can never be fascism. Voters can simply vote for the other party.
But what if they can’t?
For four years, America was under the grip of a malignant narcissist with a strong cult following and a party of enablers who gave him whatever he wanted in most instances. A bigoted, sexist, hypocritical leader that had either a dislike or outright hatred of certain groups to the point of encouraging violent actions. A thug who repeatedly declared all journalists “the enemy of the people”. A failed businessman with multiple bankruptcies who demanded that corporations address his whims, like changing lightbulbs because they supposedly make his face look orange; and toilets because – as we quite recently reportedly learned – it takes 10-15 flushes to dispose of the documents he wanted destroyed. Let’s not forget his demand that NFL owners ban football players from kneeling as a form of peaceful protest.
But, that all ended in 2020, when the voters voted the narcissist out of office, right? He was voted out and the Democrats regained control of both houses of Congress in the span of two months. Democracy worked and the people have spoken. Right?
For now. And thankfully it was because an attempted coup by said narcissist and his cult followers had failed.
But ever since that election, state legislators of that political cult have been busy rewriting the rules for voting. They’ve been eliminating the various ways people voted in the last election, making it harder for people to absentee vote, and even giving themselves the power to override regional voting officials. Cult followers in Arizona even tried to give themselves the power to negate the will of the voters completely. In other words, you try to vote them out and they negate your vote.
Then we have tried-and-true weapon of political control, gerrymandering. This is not new, both dominant parties are guilty of doing this, but, combined with the political cult’s push to change voting laws as described, their use of gerrymandering means that you would not be able to vote that party out at all. Your vote would be moved to a district where you would be in the clear minority, and that party would stay in power in perpetuity.
How is that not one-party rule?
Then we have the federal level, and here we have that same cultish party with a documented history of denying judges, preventing legislation from being passed, and literally shutting down the federal government over budgets and taxes. And maybe you could say that it is just a matter of partisan gamesmanship, because that cultish party would be in the majority in Congress and they’re fighting with the executive branch with the “other” party in office, and that was true a decade ago. But we’re talking about today, after the narcissist cult leader was voted out of office and his party of enablers are in the minority, and they are still doing everything they can to deny the current president legislation, to fill cabinet and regulatory agency appointments, and possibly even deny a spot on the Supreme Court; just like they did to the administration before the narcissist’s, and before rushing through three justices of the narcissist’s choosing.
When you have a political party that firmly believes that only they can choose judges, that only they can get legislation passed, that only they can decide who gets appointed to administrative positions, that only they can decide how taxes are assessed and funding is spent, that only they can decide whose should be “allowed” to vote and whether or not that vote counts, and that this is all regardless of whether they are in the majority, then you have one-party control, and a de facto state of one party rule.
And now the last definition of fascism is complete.
Let’s get brutally honest here... the party of the narcissist, the party of nationalism, the party of hate, the party that still erroneously identify themselves as “Republicans”, is also the party of fascism. That has been demonstrated by their words and by their actions. They are no different than the fascists that ran roughshod through Italy a century ago, with the only difference being the fascists of Italy were honest about themselves.
Yes, the word “fascist” has been overused in the past, but that does not mean it should not be mentioned when it is actually happening. The group that calls themselves “Republicans” or even “conservatives” have taken up the banner of fascism and pretending to be “patriots” or “defenders of freedom”. To that end they profane their predecessors here in America and make a mockery of their predecessors in Italy.
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