They are the words of a lifelong Conservative/Republican, Michael Gerson, who's worked with Republican presidents and their administration. He's also an Evangelical Christian.
Gerson understands what happened on January 6, even if the Trump cultists refuse to see the insurgency as an unprecedented attack on our republic. Even if the Trumpers refuse to see what happened as an illegal act to overturn a free and fair election and demand Vice President Pence decertify the electoral college vote, inciting the Trumpian mob to kill Pence and the Speaker of the House.
And now we have the curious situation of Trump cultists calling President Biden "an enemy of the republic." Those deluded and benighted Trumpers are lost and may never find their way back to political sanity.
Am I sorry for them? I try to be. But when they willfully distort, lie, and refuse to see what is in front of their noses, my pity for their stubborn ignorance is limited.
Either one has an allegiance to America and the Constitution or one has an allegiance to the despot, Trump, who tried to destroy our republic. You can't have both.
We know which allegiance the Trumpers have chosen.
This is Gerson's latest column on Trumpism:
Trumpism is American fascism
"Call this civic barbarism. Instead of promoting the values of responsible citizenship, Trump and his media enablers are elevating and blessing the very worst among us. They are making many Americans less suited for self-government and more dangerous to their neighbors. And they are doing so for the reason some of the Founders most feared: To lead the mob against true democracy.
How can anyone view the trashing of our founding tradition as evidence of patriotism? Because some have adopted a very different political philosophy than the Founders held. This approach to government promises the recovery of a mythical past. It feeds a sense of White victimhood. It emphasizes emotion over reason. It denigrates experts and expertise. It slanders outsiders and blames them for social and economic ills. It warns of global plots by Jews and shadowy elites. It accepts the lies of a leader as a deeper form of political truth. It revels in anger and dehumanization. It praises law and order while reserving the right to disobey the law and overturn the political order through violence.
This is a reality that I have resisted naming. The 45th president and a significant portion of his supporters have embraced American fascism. And Trump’s buffoonery does not disprove the point. Though he probably cannot name the political theory he has embraced, his own recklessness, vanity and authoritarian instincts have led him down fascist grooves. He displays an intuitive affinity for leaders such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Hungary’s Viktor Orban. And Trump would have subverted the legitimate result of the 2020 presidential election if he could have, which would have broken a constitutional continuity that has endured over two centuries."
14 comments:
I don't always agree with Gerson, but he's a serious man, something sorely lacking from many people commenting on politics today. For the record, he started college at Georgetown and later transferred to Wheaton College in Illinois, an evangelical university, and home to the Billy Graham Center for Evangelism.
Wheaton is the crown jewel of evangelical universities, respected and rigorous in their programs. So Gerson's credentials are impeccable, or at least they were until he crossed Trump.
Off topic, somewhat. Last night we had an officer, who had his head bashed in during the Jan 6 insurrection, honored as his remains rested in the Capitol Rotunda. Where he died trying to protect our government from violent right wing terrorists.
Honestly, I was disgusted to see House Minority Leader McCarthy giving respects even as he continues to champion the very forces that led to the officer's death. Interestingly enough, the solemn ritual was not important enough for FOX News to cover live.
I wonder why...
I just saw this from a reliable source on Twitter:
"The Bill to remove Marjorie Taylor Greene from Committees will be voted on tomorrow. It’ll pass. Greene will be removed from both Committees."
It's a start.
Much too kind.
It's time to cull the heard of Republicans who are obviously the party of insurrectionists, hate speech, anti-America. Hawley, who was out fist bumping the rioters on, got no discipline from the secretive Ethics committee run by the Republicans. We are up against an opposition party that is anti-America, anti-constitution, and violent. We need to make sure Democrats gain seats in both Houses in 2022.
Jerry, According to Conservative Michael Gerson, they are the American Fascist Party. And many of their leaders are serving in the US Congress! Many of them are serving in the US military and local police departments.
Example: In Rochester, New York, 5 policemen and women stood by as on of them pepper sprayed a 9 year old African-American child WHO WAS IN HANDCUFFS! The child was having an emotional breakdown and the 5 or 6 policemen and women cuffed her threw her in the back seat of the police cruiser AND SPRAY HER WITH PEPPER SPRAY! A 9-year old child!
Many, many LEOs are fine people, but an awful lot of them are nothing more than thugs with badges. Every one of those officers should lose their jobs.
On another note, do you think a 9-year-old white girl would have been treated like that?
Ha!
I know a 5 years old that can make a more intelligent post than Creepy Joe Biden
Here's another Conservative columnist, Max Boot, talking about Greene, but explaining to those who don't already know it that Donald J. Trump is as crazy a conspiracy nut as she is -- but he's even worse, since he was the POTUS!
Boot: "Trump has espoused so many “loony lies” that it’s hard to remember them all. FactCheck.org has a handy guide. Trump, recall, first rose to political prominence by claiming to have evidence that then-President Barack Obama wasn’t really born in the United States. During the 2016 presidential campaign, he claimed that Ted Cruz’s father had helped to kill John F. Kennedy; that Obama had founded the Islamic State; that Muslims in Jersey City had celebrated the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks; and that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia may have been murdered.
Being in office — and getting access to the products of the U.S. intelligence community — did not sober up Trump. He claimed that Obama and his top aides “spied on my campaign and went for a coup,” that he had been framed on charges of colluding with Russia and that a Democratic National Committee server had ended up in Ukraine. He repeatedly suggested that TV anchor Joe Scarborough had murdered one of his staffers when he was a congressman. He retweeted a claim from a QAnon-linked account that Obama may have had SEAL Team Six killed and that Osama bin Laden was still alive. He also retweeted a suggestion that the Clintons had killed Jeffrey Epstein in jail. He suggested that Joe Biden was taking performance-enhancing drugs and being controlled by “people that are in the dark shadows.” He tweeted that a 75-year-old man who was hospitalized after being shoved by police was an “ANTIFA provocateur.” He argued that covid-19 death numbers were “exaggerated” by health authorities and that injecting bleach could cure the disease. And, of course, he continues to assert that he won the 2020 election “in a landslide.”
Yes, Marjorie Taylor Greene is awful. But Trump — who called Greene a “real WINNER” and, according to Greene, recently called to offer her support — is far worse. As long as Trump remains a force within the GOP, the cancer afflicting the party will continue to metastasize.
From AOWs blog; "Time for me to take a break from blogging, from Twitter, and from Facebook — and from watching and reading the news, too.
We are helplessly watching the systematic dismantling of our republic. As far as I'm concerned, every person who voted for Joe Biden is the enemy of our republic — and my enemy. Really."
I was schocked.
Ducky Glad to hear from you. How are you feeling? I don't know how to reach you!
I've been sending you good thoughts and wishes and hoping to hear from you so we know you're okay. My sister who had COVID and is 85 years old! is fine. All she had was fatigue for 3 weeks. That's it. (My parents had two sets of children, the first when they were first married, and then along came me and my brother, many years later!)
I, too, was shocked to read this from AOW, since I thought what she wrote was over the top. Biden is a decent man who doesn't call his opponents stupid names, he actually practices his faith, and he's a centrist, much to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party's dismay. They're not happy with him. Biden has years of experience in how government works, and he's surrounded himself with competent people who also know how government works.
To call people who voted for Biden her "enemy" is indicative of other things that may be bothering her. I know her husband is not doing well. I went through that myself 3 years ago and I know how exhausting and frightening that can be.
I thought she was above that sort of hatred, but I guess I was wrong.
I was shocked as well.
Glad to hear from you. I wish you well.
Fascist is exactly the word to use to describe the sad state of the Republiclown party these days. I just read that, last month, 10,000 people left the GOP in Arizona and similar numbers are leaving in every state. Could be that some sanity is finally returning to the Repubs or, more likely I think, they left thinking the party was not fascist enough and didn't genuflect for the orange blob deeply enough. Hope I'm wrong on that.
Republicans put up with tRUMP because he had power. I don't think they will put up with Green. She has nothing to offer the party.
BREAKING NEWS:
Trump is disallowing his base & the GOPQ to call him the "former president." LOL!
Okay! We'll call him the Recently Rejected President!
I prefer the Recently Rejected POS.
Why? Simple. It is more accurate.
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