Archive for category: #Fascism #Elections #Caesarism

The U.S. stood at the forefront in the creation of de jure and de facto second-class citizenship for Black people, Filipinos, Chinese, Japanese, Puerto Ricans and other people of color and ethnic groups.

Hitler’s American Model by Yale Law School professor James Whitman is a 220-page bombshell. It should be required reading in every high school. It tells the story of how German attorneys studied U.S. law, culture and history to develop the legal underpinnings of German fascism.

There is only one hero in this book, Louis B. Brodsky, a Jewish Manhattan magistrate. On September 6, 1935, he ordered the release of five anti-fascist rioters who had been among a U.S. crowd of a thousand who tore down a swastika flag on the German liner SS Bremen. A lowly judge who usually dealt with bail hearings and night court, Brodsky wrote a fiery opinion calling Nazism “a revolt against civilization” and the swastika flag a “black flag of piracy.”

A diplomatic crisis ensued. The U.S. State Department sent a note of regret to Berlin that “the German national emblem” had not been respected.” Hitler, seizing on the incident, announced that the swastika flag and Blood and Citizenship Laws would be adopted at the “Party Rally of Freedom” nine days later.

Known as the Nuremburg Laws, these statutes focused on citizenship, and sex and reproduction. The attorneys drafting them were determined to establish a regime founded on definitive racial categories and to prevent mixed marriages between Jews and “Aryans.”

In the 1930’s, they found plenty of legal precedents in the U.S. Thirty states had anti-miscegenation laws. In fact, the U.S. stood at the forefront in the creation of de jure and de facto second-class citizenship for Black people, Filipinos, Chinese, Japanese, Puerto Ricans and other people of color and ethnic groups. And it was admired in Germany as an innovative world leader in “Nordic,” white supremacy and conquest.

Reading Whitman’s book one learns that Hitler was sitting in prison and dictating Mein Kampf to Rudolph Hess when Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1924. The act laid out preferences for Northern Europeans, restrictions on people from Southern and Eastern Europe, and bans on everyone else. Hitler praised this development: “The racially pure and still unmixed German has risen to become the master of the American continent and will remain so as long as he does not fall victim to racial pollution,” he wrote.

Harry Laughlin, an influential American eugenicist who served as an expert advisor to Congress on immigration, praised the 1924 law as a political breakthrough in the adoption of “scientific” racism. He was not alone. During the 1930s, U.S. lawyer Madison Grant promoted the sterilization of people with mental and physical disabilities while engaging in a friendly back and forth with German eugenicists dedicated to creating the “master race.” A grotesque German law which authorized killing “useless eaters” — the incurably ill, elderly people and people with various physical and mental conditions — was the handiwork of these despicable eugenicists.

Whitman writes that the Jim Crow South and segregation drew Nazi legal experts’ interest, but after debating the pros and cons, they concluded that merely separating Jews and Gentiles would not work because of the extraordinary economic power of the Jewish community (which they were eager to get their hands on).

Instead they zeroed in on western expansion and the genocide of Native Americans as a model for their own ambition to conquer Eastern Europe, subjugate its citizens and force all Jews onto “reservations” (which in practice became concentration camps).

As early as 1928, Hitler was making speeches glorifying the way Americans had “gunned down the millions of Redskins to a few hundred thousand and now keep the modest remnant under observation in a cage.”

Surprisingly, German attorneys believed that the U.S. went too far in making “one-drop of blood” (or one Black ancestor) the legal standard for defining who is African American. Under Nuremburg law, it took three Jewish grandparents to qualify as a Jew. And ultimately, they decided against criminalizing miscegenation.

But if you still think fascism is “un-American,” read this book. It’s as American as apple pie and now, forced motherhood.

With the 2022 midterm elections fast approaching, Republican candidates backed by former President Donald Trump have made tremendous headway with their regurgitation of misinformation about the previous presidential election.

Although these candidates have become very popular among Trump supporters, they presumably pose a threat to their mainstream Republican opponents. Now, an analysis is offering a hypothetical view of how the country could be shifted further to the right if Trump-backed candidates manage to dominate the 2022 midterms.

According to The New York Times’ Blake Hounshell, Republicans’ far-right ideologies could further impact the following areas: abortion, climate control, education, and same-sex marriage.

READ MORE: New analysis explains the problem GOP candidates and lawmakers are facing as a result of ‘grassroots money’

As one of the most controversial areas of legislation in the United States’ current political climate, abortion laws have spawned some of the most heated debates of the year.

“Nowhere is the starkness of the these candidates’ positions more evident than on abortion, which has become a much more urgent litmus test on the right since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade,” Hounshell wrote.

Many of the far-right Republican candidates backed by Trump have made their support of anti-abortion laws quite evident. Hounshell noted that Kari Lake, Blake Masters, Herschel Walker, Doug Mastriano, and others have been quite vocal with their opinions.

“In Georgia,” Hounshell wrote, “Herschel Walker, the party’s nominee for Senate, has told reporters, ‘There’s not a national ban on abortion right now, and I think that’s a problem.’ Doug Mastriano, who is running for governor of Pennsylvania, introduced a fetal heartbeat bill as a state senator. Again, the bill contained no exceptions for incest or rape.”

READ MORE: A far-right ‘Stop the Steal’ Republican may become Arizona’s next secretary of state

Another area of concern is climate control. “Skepticism of the human impact on the planet’s climate abounds, despite mounting scientific evidence that severe flooding, rising global temperatures, droughts, and volatile weather patterns have already arrived,” he wrote.

Walker has also shared his opinion of climate control; an opinion that appears to resonate among far-right Republican lawmakers and candidates. “Since we don’t control the air, our good air decides to float over to China’s bad air,” Walker said. “So, when China gets our good air, their bad air got to move. So, it moves over to our good air space. Then, now, we got to clean that backup.”

Hounshell also highlighted Sen. Ron Johnson’s (R-Wisc.) stance. “No Republican, however, has expressed his disdain for established climate science more succinctly than Senator Ron Johnson, who is seeking re-election in Wisconsin,” Hounshell noted.

“’I don’t know about you guys,’ Johnson said during a Republican luncheon back in June 2021. “Citing a British climate denier, he continued: ‘But I think climate change is, as Lord Monckton said,’ and he mouthed a barnyard epithet.”

In regard to education, Hounshell wrote, “Across the board, the Trump-aligned candidates support redirecting tax dollars toward vouchers, private religious schools or other forms of ‘school choice,’ as do some Democrats. But where many of them go further is in calling for the elimination of the federal Education Department altogether.”

And last but not least, Republican candidates have expressed deep disdain for laws protecting same-sex marriages.

“Several other Republican candidates for Senate, including Adam Laxalt in Nevada, Ted Budd in North Carolina, and Bolduc and Kevin Smith in New Hampshire, have expressed their opposition to same-sex marriage in more muted terms,” he wrote.

Same-sex marriage is another topic Johnson has verbally expressed disapproval of. “One of the more surprising positions is that of Johnson, who has indicated that he plans to vote for a Democratic bill codifying the Obergefell decision when it comes before the Senate next month — a move that might have something to do with the fact that a solid majority of Wisconsinites want same-sex marriage to be legal,” he wrote.

“The Respect for Marriage Act is another example of Democrats creating a state of fear over an issue in order to further divide Americans for their political benefit,” Johnson told reporters last month. “Even though I feel the Respect for Marriage Act is unnecessary, should it come before the Senate, I see no reason to oppose it.”

READ MORE: This GOP lawmaker attended his gay son’s wedding only 3 days after voting against marriage equality

On July 21, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito gave a keynote address at the Notre Dame Law School/Religious Liberty Summit’s gala dinner in Rome, Italy, where he mocked and ridiculed European critics of the Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Alito made it abundantly clear that he couldn’t care less what European officials think of that ruling, which ended abortion as a national right in the United States and allows individual states to ban abortion if they choose.

Journalist Linda Greenhouse is highly critical of Alito’s Religious Liberty Summit speech in a guest essay/op-ed published by the New York Times on August 11. Greenhouse has no problem with the fact that Alito is religious; the problem, she emphasizes, is the disdain Alito shows for those who aren’t.

Greenhouse describes Alito’s “snarky” speech as a “victory lap” following Roe’s demise and “a call to arms on behalf of religion.” Alito told the crowd in Rome, “The challenge for those who want to protect religious liberty in the United States, Europe and other similar places is to convince people who are not religious that religious liberty is worth special protection.”

READ MORE: Samuel Alito mocks reactions to abortion ruling at religious summit

“Justice Alito’s Notre Dame speech still merits close examination for what it reveals about the assumptions built into his worldview,” Greenhouse argues. “What does it mean, for example, to assert that it is ‘people who are not religious’ who need to be persuaded that religion is worthy of special treatment? Do all religiously observant people naturally believe that religion merits more protections than other values? There’s scant evidence for that; in any event, that has not been our law, at least not until recently.”

Alito, Greenhouse writes, is openly contemptuous of law professors who don’t share his views on religion and government.

“Justices and legal scholars alike have struggled for decades to identify the right balance for religion within a pluralistic society, an effort Justice Alito reduced to a cartoonish either/or,” Greenhouse notes. “Even were I willing to cut him some slack for loose talk among friends — I don’t know whether he was aware that Notre Dame would post the video online — I would still find the narrowness of his vision deeply disturbing. He offered no acknowledgment, none, of the harm that can occur when religion is elevated above all other claims to recognition and respect.”

Greenhouse continues, “For example, in the aftermath of his opinion in the 2014 Hobby Lobby case, tens of thousands of women have never received the contraception coverage to which the Affordable Care Act entitled them because they work for employers with objections to particular forms of birth control. His opinion in 2020 extending the so-called ministerial exception to cover non-ministerial employees of religious organizations stripped those employees of the protection of federal laws that prohibit job discrimination. And, of course, the very opinion he bragged about to his audience in Rome, an opinion that as I have recently explained was grounded in religious doctrine rather than constitutional law, took no account of its devastating impact on women.”

READ MORE: ‘Embarrassment to the Supreme Court’: Samuel Alito ripped for taunting critics of his anti-abortion ruling

Alito, according to Greenhouse, is a defender of “militant Christianity” — and the civil liberties of other Americans are suffering as a result of it.

“His religion does not reside in the quiet recesses of his home or chambers,” Greenhouse warns. “His is religion on the march. And that’s the problem the rest of us face now.”

READ MORE: This former anti-abortion activist believes Alito used his rhetoric in Dobbs ruling

How can we understand the Trump voter?

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