Archive for category: #Fascism #Elections #Caesarism

New survey of “extreme polarization and alienation” is dark but not surprising: Americans really hate each other

Trump supporters erected a gallows near the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Shay Horse/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Analysis

The Jan. 6 hearings closed for the summer last Thursday night with a plea from Republican House Vice Chair Liz Cheney. Citing the conservative heroine British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Cheney called on the public: “Let it never be said that the dedication of those who love freedom is less than the determination of those who would destroy it.” 

Cheney may be willing to pursue former President Donald Trump to the gates of Hell in her determination to expose his threat to democracy; her party, on the other hand, appears willing to join him there. 

As the House select committee presented damning evidence of Trump’s months-long campaign to overturn the election, crescendoing in the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol that left 7 dead and about 150 police officers injured, right-wing groups are trying to make sure that next time, Trump, or any other wannabe dictator, will be successful.

Around the country, right-wing forces are seeking to control state elections by pursuing secretary of state offices and taking over roles typically held by nonpartisan election workers. They’re spreading voter fraud conspiracy theories, casting doubt on the integrity of the elections. They’re no longer flirting with violent rhetoric but embracing it.

On Thursday night, the committee played tape of former White House strategist Steve Bannon—who was recently convicted of contempt of Congress for failing to comply with the committee’s subpoena—in which he revealed to a room of supporters Trump’s plan and strategy ahead of Election Day.

“What Trump’s gonna do is just declare victory, right?” Bannon told associates on Oct. 31, 2020. “He’s gonna declare victory. But that doesn’t mean he’s a winner. He’s just gonna say he’s a winner.”

“More of our people vote early, that count; theirs vote in mail,” Bannon said. “And so they’re going to have a natural disadvantage. And Trump’s going to take advantage of that. That’s our strategy. He’s going to declare himself a winner.”

Trump knew he lost when he spread baseless claims about a stolen election. Countless aides testified to the select committee that they repeatedly told the former president that his conspiracy theories about the election were just that—conspiracy theories—or, in the words of his attorney general Bill Barr, “complete bullshit.” Trump lost by 7 million votes, lost key battleground states, and lost dozens of lawsuits in which he or his supporters claimed voter fraud.

And yet, Trump persisted. Bannon reveled in the chaos. And the chaos opened the door for others. Last fall, California Republican Larry Elder suggested voter fraud would steal the election from him until the results of the gubernatorial race came in and showed how soundly his bid was crushed. Radical America First candidate Shekinah Hollingsworth received a few hundred votes in her bid to become a member of the Maryland House of Delegates, but that didn’t stop her alleging election fraud. In Georgia, the conspiracy theory-minded, gun-toting Christian nationalist Kandiss Taylor received 3.4 percent of the vote in that state’s GOP gubernatorial primary; she predictably claimed the election was stolen and refused to concede. Rachel Hamm in California played this same game, as did Bianca Garcia in Texas. We could go on.

Kandiss “Jesus, Guns, Babies” Taylor, who received 3.4% of the vote in Georgia’s GOP gubernatorial primary, clams the election was stolen and refuses to concede, praying that those responsible for this “crime” will “feel so guilty [that] they come forward”: “We pray for guilt.” pic.twitter.com/ctTOvYgCAq

— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) June 1, 2022

With such false claims of fraud, far-right forces and right-wing media have been able to convince a broad swath of the American public that our elections are not safe. They have convinced Trump supporters that poll workers—public servants like Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, who became the focus of Trump’s ire when he baselessly accused her of processing fake ballots—are to blame. 

And so they harass them and threaten them—and when they have driven good people away from those posts, they try to take their places.

A month after the failed insurrection, Bannon called for followers to “take this back village by village … precinct by precinct.” According to ProPublica, GOP leaders in 41 of 65 key counties reported an unusual increase in signups since his call to action. 

This strategy to attack and replace local election officials with Trump loyalists is one we’re seeing play out from Fulton County, Georgia, to Yavapai County, Arizona, with the full weight of the Republican Party behind it.

The Republican National Committee—which aided Trump in his plot to stay in power—has spent millions on 17 states to recruit more than 14,000 poll workers and 10,000 poll watchers already, according to the Washington Post.

Working with the RNC is Cleta Mitchell, a Trump lawyer who was on the infamous call on which Trump asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” 11,780 more votes. Mitchell is leading the so-called “election integrity” effort by the Conservative Partnership Institute, which seeks to bring together local right-wing groups with established conservative behemoths like the Heritage Foundation. The Brennan Center describes CPI as such: “The network has published mater­i­als and hosted summits across the coun­try with the aim of coordin­at­ing a nation­wide effort to staff elec­tion offices, recruit poll watch­ers and poll work­ers, and build teams of local citizens to chal­lenge voter rolls, ques­tion postal work­ers, be ‘ever-present’ in local elec­tion offices, and inund­ate elec­tion offi­cials with docu­ment requests.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, CPI became home to other Trump allies who had a role in the months-long effort to overturn the election, including Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows (who sat scrolling through his phone when he heard about threats of violence on Jan. 6), Trump’s former social media director Dan Scavino (who spread voter fraud conspiracies on behalf of the tweet-happy president), and Ed Corrigan (who appeared to be busy behind the scenes encouraging Vice President Mike Pence to buck his constitutional duty and overturn the election). CPI enjoyed a $1 million boost from Trump’s Save America PAC. 

CPI and organizations like it are finding success. One in 5 local election administrators say they are likely to leave their jobs before the 2024 presidential election, according to a survey by the Brennan Center for Justice. These public servants cite politicians attacking “a system that they know is fair and honest” and the stress of the job as the top two reasons for their planned departures.

Meanwhile, other politicians are running for secretary of state to gain control of their states’ elections. Arizona’s Mark Finchem stood outside the U.S. Capitol’s east steps as the anti-government extremist Oath Keepers—of which Finchem claims to be a member—stormed the building. Three months later, he announced his bid for Arizona’s secretary of state and earned Trump’s endorsement. In Michigan, Kristina Karamano, also blessed with a Trump endorsement for her voter-fraud conspiracy theories, became the Republican nominee in the race for secretary of state. And in Georgia, Rep. Jody Hice tried to best Trump nemesis Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger out of the Republican nomination to no avail. 

Added to this stew: a large dose of violent rhetoric. Ahead of Jan. 6, violent rhetoric was widespread on pro-Trump social media and among far-right groups. Today, it no longer remains on the fringes but has been embraced by right-wing politicians. 

In Missouri, former governor Eric Greitens—whose ex-wife has accused him of domestic violence—released a campaign ad for his U.S. Senate bid. “Today, we’re going RINO hunting,” Greitens says in the ad, before bursting through a door with a SWAT team, guns raised. “Get a RINO hunting permit. There’s no bagging limit, no tagging limit, and it doesn’t expire until we save our country,” he says. 

He’s not the only one seeing red. In Oklahoma, state Senate candidate Jarrin Jackson wants to shoot “godless commies.” In February, Arizona state Sen. Wendy Rogers voiced her desire “to build more gallows” in a video address to white nationalists.

Right-wing activist Jarrin Jackson, who has not been shy about his desire to shoot “godless commies” in the face, is now running for a seat in the Oklahoma state senate: “I’d like to ask for your vote and for you to unleash me.” https://t.co/kkc5EljrqX https://t.co/xL4IdQegEO pic.twitter.com/nOkcAPdTAb

— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) March 25, 2022

When asked by Cheney whether he believed in the peaceful transfer of power, former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded the Fifth Amendment, every American’s right against forced self-incrimination. The recorded testimony, which was shown during the sixth hearing, was shocking, and yet, Flynn is not alone. Republicans are more likely than other Americans to say political violence might be necessary, with four in 10 subscribing to that belief, according to a survey conducted by the conservative American Enterprise Institute shortly after the Jan. 6 attack. Perhaps that’s why, after hearing Trump’s suggestion that Mike Pence was a traitor to the country, so many of the Trump supporters storming the Capitol were keen on hanging the former vice president. 

Trump, as the hearing Thursday revealed, did nothing for 187 minutes while his supporters rampaged through the Capitol, beat police officers, and hunted for Pence, Pelosi, and other members of Congress, all with the goal of preventing the peaceful transfer of power. As we move into the 2022 elections, Americans have a choice about the future of democracy in our country and whether the coup next time will succeed.

The post Fallout: How Trump’s Big Lie Is Threatening the Future of Elections appeared first on Right Wing Watch.

Zsuzsa Hegedüs said the Hungarian prime minister’s remarks on ‘race mixing’ were indefensible

A longstanding adviser to Viktor Orbán has resigned in protest at “a pure Nazi speech” the Hungarian prime minister gave that was “worthy of Goebbels”.

Zsuzsa Hegedüs, one of Orbán’s longest-serving advisers, has known the prime minister since 2002 and described her relations with him as friendly. However, in her resignation letter – published by the Hungarian news outlet hvg.hu on Tuesday – she said she had become increasingly uncomfortable with Orbán’s “illiberal turn” in recent years.

Continue reading…

Christian nationalism was on full display at a far right conservative conference this weekend, with some Republicans who took part in the event openly embracing the extremist ideology.

The Turning Point USA Student Action Summit in Tampa, Florida, featured a number of speakers, including former President Donald Trump. During his speech, Trump promoted the idea that a belief in God was requisite to truly be a part of the nation, disregarding the millions of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated or agnostic.

“We are Americans and Americans kneel to God, and God alone,” Trump said.

The former president wasn’t the only one peddling Christofascist ideals at the conference. During an interview at the event, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia), a far right lawmaker who has espoused racist and conspiratorial views in the past (and who has appeared at events hosted by white nationalists before), pushed for the Republican Party to become the party of Christian nationalists.

“We need to be the party of nationalism and I’m a Christian, and I say it proudly, we should be Christian nationalists,” Greene said.

The Georgia lawmaker went on to lament that the GOP has had to “chase down certain identities or chase down certain segments of people” in order to win elections, something she said the party should no longer try to do.

“We just need to represent Americans and most Americans, no matter how they vote, really care about the same things and I want to see Republicans actually do their job,” she said.

Far right nationalist sentiments were also on display outside the event. Neofascists demonstrated outside of the building holding flags with Nazi swastikas and references to the SS (the “Schutzstaffel,” political soldiers for the Nazi Party in 1930s Germany) and shouting racist slurs at passersby. They also held pictures of Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, declaring the area to be “DeSantis Country.”

Officials from Turning Point condemned the imagery and the actions of the neofascists, but DeSantis hasn’t responded to his image being included in the demonstration. DeSantis did, however, engage in the same Christofascist rhetoric as Greene and Trump, telling attendees at a separate state party event near Hollywood, Florida, that they needed to “put on the full armor of God” to oppose progressive ideas.

“You will face fire from flaming arrows but the shield of faith will protect you and ultimately keep the state of Florida free,” DeSantis said in his speech.

Although Trump hasn’t commented on the fascist elements outside the event, he did thank attendees of the event, writing that “the crowd & ‘love’ was AMAZING” on his Truth Social account.

Trump has called himself a nationalist in the past, using the word to describe himself and his beliefs in a speech in 2018, a little more than a year after white nationalists attacked the city of Charlottesville, Virginia; at the time, Trump downplayed the right-wing violence, which killed one person and injured dozens of others.

Nationalism of any kind is a dangerous ideology that prioritizes the individual’s devotion to a nation-state. Nationalism is routinely used to push one segment of society’s interests as being supreme to all others, often to their extreme detriment. As author George Orwell explained in his essay, “Notes on Nationalism,” the belief:

…is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality.

Mike Igel, chair of the Florida Holocaust Museum, spoke out against the prescence of the neofascist protesters.

“Carrying the Nazi flag, or that of the SS, the unit responsible for some of the worst atrocities of the Holocaust, is an indefensible act of pure hatred,” Igel said in a statement. “This isn’t about politics or religion. It’s about humanity.”

Josh Hawley’s run was more than a laugh — it illustrated how fascists may talk big but are cowards underneath

Bestselling author and former intelligence officer: “We were within hours of a full-scale coup d’état” on Jan. 6

The United States Constitution is failing: Its anti-democratic structures are creating a crisis of legitimacy and an inability to address a cascade of social crises. This is a problem endemic to liberal democracies, as the contradictions between political democracy on the one hand, and the tyranny of capital and ruling class control of politics on the other become heightened.

Part of the crisis we face is the disjuncture between the sense of horror and urgency from the events of the last months and the gross inaction from politicians, particularly Democrats. Less than two weeks after a white supremacist attack on Black shoppers in Buffalo, New York, another gunman murdered children and their teachers in a school in Uvalde, Texas.

In the same month as these mass murders, a leaked Supreme Court decision from an abortion case in Mississippi threatened to undo 50 years of legal precedent and end the right to abortion. As June drew to a close, what many had once considered an impossibility happened as Roe v. Wade was officially overturned. The decision was all the more jarring for its disregard of the health of millions who can become pregnant and the basic right to decide one’s own future.

In the same week that Roe was overturned in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, shocking testimony at the January 6 congressional hearings described former President Donald Trump’s attempts to join the insurrection at the Capitol and confirmed that he knew that his supporters were armed and calling for the death of the vice president.

All this is against the backdrop of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic; at least six natural disasters in the last month from floods, to droughts and heat waves driven by climate change; inflation stemming from the war in Ukraine and out-of-control corporate profits; an economy teetering on the edge of recession; an urban crisis in housing prices and homelessness, and others.

Meanwhile, the party in power is doing nothing substantial to address this onslaught. Repeated inaction on the key issues of our times has led to a congressional approval rating of just 16 percent as of June. The Supreme Court is likewise suffering a credibility crisis on a scale unseen since its 1857 ruling in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case, which reversed decades of precedent around Black citizenship.

This problem is structural; the Constitution was designed to limit democratic participation from the average person. The fundamentally anti-democratic political structures of the Senate, the Electoral College, and the Supreme Court have given outsized influence to rural conservative voters and the rich. It’s not just a bug; it’s baked into the design of the U.S. political system. Because of anti-democratic measures like the filibuster, even with Democratic control of both houses of Congress, the majority party has been unable to act. On top of this, the Supreme Court has now been captured by a far right movement unconcerned with broad social legitimacy and the niceties of democratic procedure.

At the presidential level, Joe Biden’s dithering in the face of historic circumstances is leading to a crisis of legitimacy not just for his administration, but for the very structure of constitutional governance. With these mounting failures, U.S. political discourse is increasingly shaped by the recognition of intractable contradictions at the heart of our Constitution.

Left Strategies

For activists and organizers of the left, we need to take stock of this moment if we hope to survive the coming decades and move history in a more humane direction. While the crisis of legitimacy is growing, there is currently no mass organized force from the left that is addressing all of these concerns. Some continue to argue for a U.S. social democracy to be achieved through the very political structures that are failing all around us. Still other longtime voices on the left cling to a strategy of backing the Democrats.

At present, the most vocal and visible groups that point to these political failures and offer a “revolutionary” alternative, if odious for its inhumanity, are on the far right. The January 6 insurrection and the degree to which Trump continues to hold legitimacy speaks to the deep desire for a radical break with democracy on the right.

It is notable that the far right is turning away from seeing itself as extensions of the state and defenders of the established order to being in conflict with the “deep state” and liberal elites. In addition to January 6 itself, far right militia membership grew after the Capitol insurrection and groups like the Proud Boys have infiltrated the Republican Party in Miami, Florida. Recently, the far right attacked public libraries and led violent marches in liberal bastions like Boston and Philadelphia.

On the other hand, the left lacks the organized structures and political articulation to counter the growth of the right in U.S. politics. Further, we lack the ability to articulate an alternative to the current direction when so many on the left conflate ideas of pragmatism and political power with defense of a decaying political order.

In the short term, the prospects for change in a positive direction are grim, but it doesn’t have to be this way. With even a little organization, coordination and consistency from the sections of the left that adhere to a vision of radical social change, the possibility of pushing history in a liberatory direction remains.

Democrats Flounder

While most feel the aforementioned crises acutely, political leaders remain aloof from the concerns of regular people. In the face of the unprecedented attacks on the government from the far right, the violence against schoolchildren and Black shoppers, the climate crisis and the reversal of Roe, the Biden administration and Democrats have articulated no political strategy other than more calls to fundraise and vote.

For example, in a recent feature on California Sen. Dianne Feinstein published by The Cut, the senator asked the periodical’s readers to trust her on the ability of establishment Democrats to act decisively. Meanwhile, establishment Democrats repeatedly appeals for the unquestioning trust of their constituents, while behind the scenes they continue to block meaningful reform. Famously, former President Barack Obama’s only intervention in the 2020 Democratic primary elections was to block Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders from gaining the party’s presidential nomination.

More recently, Vice President Kamala Harris responded “Do what?” when a CNN reporter pressed her about voter demands to act boldly in the face of mounting crises. Now a whopping 64 percent of Democratic voters oppose a second term for President Biden. Even Republicans have been shocked at the Democrats’ inability to take meaningful action.

If this weren’t bad enough, some voices on the left continue to call for popular movements to support the Democrats, even in the face of the party’s historical failures to act. They offer “lesser evil” arguments and a strategy of “building a left pole” (aka “popular front”) that never emerges — all while our historical trajectory slides toward fascism and climate catastrophe.

Other voices continue to double down on this strategy, but with an emphasis on more progressive candidates. Some think a winning strategy is for the left to support a Sanders candidacy in 2024, a strategy that has been tried and failed twice. There have been some victories — figures like New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are notable — but nothing approaching the urgency of change needed given the scale of the crises that we face.

Hope Comes From Below

The need for a radical mass movement from the left to challenge and transform the crises is more necessary than ever. Even a modicum of organized left presence has the potential to change this dynamic very quickly. For instance, by organizing mass demonstrations for abortion rights or blockades of fossil fuel infrastructure, unions, student groups, and social organizations could increase the cost on elites for these political failures and press for the urgency of change. It is possible to build these kinds of transformative movements. But so long as those taking the mantle of left strategists direct us to the Democrats and support for a crumbling system, we will continue to be mired in this political and historical morass.

There are other possible strategies and sources of inspiration. We can learn from movements around the world that push in more positive, hopeful and humane future directions. In Chile, for example, disruptive street-focused social protests and the organizations that made them happen are involved in creating a new constitution in that country. Feminist movements transformed into a mass uprising against neoliberalism and state violence, forcing the country in new directions and away from the legacies of its U.S.-supported dictatorship toward a greater democratic (though still capitalist) order.

In Colombia, a nationwide general strike in 2021 against proposed neoliberal reforms shut down the country, halted the proposals and forced government ministers to resign. The changes from President Iván Duque Márquez would have increased consumer taxes, passing the cost of social programs onto the poor, and privatized parts of the nation’s health care system, all at the height of the COVID crisis there. When protesters were met with brutal police violence, including sexual assaults, students, labor unions and Indigenous movements came together to form a national strike committee. Over the month of May and into that summer through a national strike and ongoing resistance, they forced the government to back down and change course in the national crisis.

In the U.S., we have seen similar victories even against very difficult odds. In West Virginia in 2018, a teacher strike sparked a movement. Gov. Jim Justice initially offered only 1 percent raises for teachers statewide, and threatened their health care funding. Even though the strike was illegal, teachers organized face to face and over social media platforms to shut down every school district in the state. After some negotiations, unions tried to get teachers back to work. They refused, holding out another whole week for a 5 percent raise that they ultimately won. This sparked a nationwide teacher strike wave in 2018, a midterm election year, which changed the dynamics of the election and contributed to a minor blue wave in congressional representation. Teachers in Republican controlled states like West Virginia, Arizona, Oklahoma, and North Carolina struck to demand better pay, better working conditions and improvements in public education for their students.

We can contribute to these gains. By focusing on mass action in the streets, neighborhoods and workplaces, on disruptive social protests that put the hurt on the ruling class and their two parties, and on building the types of organizations that can foster and sustain popular power from the bottom for the long haul, we can move in more positive directions very quickly. It is important to remember that so long as capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy and imperialism are the basis of the social order, we won’t see fundamental change. Instead, revolutionary struggle against these structures, and the legal system that protects them, is necessary.

But this type of change will require a reckoning with our failed strategies and a recognition that we live in a political system that is breaking under the weight of its contradictions. The constitutional order of the 18th century was built specifically to limit popular democracy and preserve the power of the wealthy slave-holding class. We are reaping the bitter fruit of that system now in 2022.

It would be wrong to say we face a crisis on the scale of the Civil War; our crisis is different, but it is no less acute. So long as our strategies assume the legitimacy of our current order, we will continue our slow slide to fascism, climate crisis and social chaos. To change the course of history, we must break with these traditions, build a movement rooted in popular power from below that can end these structures that oppress us and create a future worth fighting for.

Trumpworld feverishly building a database of thousands of MAGA diehards who could replace longtime civil servants