The American Summer When Fascism Emerged From the Closet
They used to try to hide the itch, but no more; the levers are being pulled one after another.
It’s not one thing. It’s just a general sense of malaise. That is how I felt when I had COVID in 2022 — and lots of sneezing, like 200 times in one day. It all cleared up in three days, though. Something similar has begun in our nation of late.
The right-wing malaise that had been contentedly grazing off the possibility of another Trump run for president is now actively shedding. The contagion has spread to every institution in which Republicans or conservatives have a majority or near majority. Since Democrats saved Mike Johnson from the Marjorie Taylor Greene guillotine, he has grown a pair of balls that would make a bull proud.
Little Mikey has been Goebbels-like in his obsession for all things Trump, and he seems now determined to use the final half five months before election day. All of the powers granted to him by the Constitution as the third most influential person in our government, to shred the Democrats, democracy, and anyone or thing that demonstrated even the slightest hint of anti-Trump sentiments.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) met with Senate Republicans on Wednesday to begin setting an ambitious agenda for Washington if former President Trump is reelected and Republicans win back control of the Senate and keep their House majority.
“He’s pretty clear that they want to try to go big, and that means more than just extending the tax cuts,” Cornyn said.
Johnson pitched GOP senators on tax cuts, spending cuts and regulatory reforms during a lunchtime meeting in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Room just off the Senate floor (GOP Plot Ambitious Agenda).
Johnson seems quite confident that Republicans are in for some big wins this November, so he has given up any pretense of working with Democrats. He is even openly and quite aggressively using everything within the power granted to him by the U.S. Constitution to prevent the nation from being governed while giving life to every single right-wing conspiracy that floats up to the top of the septic tank.
Yesterday’s abuse of power by Johnson and House Republicans demonstrated yet again how off the rails the Republican Party has gone. Three of the Republican House members who had the audacity to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt were also technically in contempt of Congress when they outright refused to testify before the January 6th investigation. Their excuses were simple: “We don’t take part in witch hunts.”
For his part, Garland gave the Republicans the full transcript of the Special Counsel Hur interview. Still, Jim Jordan and the Republicans realize that most Americans don’t read and so have demanded the audio of the interview. They are hoping to find some “smoking gun” audio slip-ups and then leak them to the public to make Biden look out of touch with reality. Attorney General Garland refuses to play their game.
Mike Johnson also plans to use the House of Representatives to conduct investigations into the “weaponization of the justice department” by the Biden administration. Republicans have given up all attempts at governing for the benefit of the American people and use every waking hour to figure out new ways to empower Trump and undermine Biden. Never before in our country has such an abuse of power been seen — although Newt Gingrich was close when he went after Bill Clinton.
Republicans shamelessly and quite repeatedly push the nation into crisis after crisis, with each one creating a more radical populace, and then look to Democrats to bail the nation out. Because Republicans derive their power from uneducated and, often, not-so-bright people, it is then relatively easy for them to spin the truth to make it look as if the reason the nation is having problems is due to Democratic corruption and Democratic Marxism.
The nation needs to be governed, and the refusal by Republicans should be something most Americans could understand as being not good. The recent scandals surrounding Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas are just another lever being pulled to guide the nation to its new fascist home. Alito and Clarence, more so than any other justices, have openly opposed voting rights for all Americans. They have led the dismantling of voters’ rights in states that traditionally restrict those rights for minorities, the elderly, and students, and now those states have become as red and fascist as Germany in 1936.
The gloves are off, as they say in hockey, and Republicans no longer care what anyone thinks. They are feeling cocky and confident this November will be like January 30, 1933, for them — the day Hitler was handed the chancellorship of Germany.
I have said it before and will repeat it (and again): Vote blue all across the line. Our democracy depends on it. Please share my articles with anyone on the fence.