A gathering of fascists
The Republican National Convention is set to convene in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in under 100 hours. There, Donald Trump will join a small group of men who have been nominated three times for president of the United States by one of the two major parties.
The party of Trump is nothing like the party of Bush, Reagan, Ford, Nixon, Eisenhower, Teddy Roosevelt, Garfield or Lincoln. The Trump Party is the MAGA movement, and it controls the Republican Party lock, stock and barrel. It is an occupied institution, held by a cause that disdains its purpose, leaders, history and roots.
The Republican Party retains a name, but has lost its identity because it has become utterly unmoored from Americanism. It rejects the US Constitution, the peaceful transition of power, election results, pluralism, women’s rights and the separation of church and state. Trump is running on a platform of retribution and revenge with the claim that an American president is a Caesar.
The Trump campaign operation has become a ruthless operation run by highly competent professionals. The rest of the empire has retained its shambolic qualities, and nurtured an astonishing whack pack of creature cantina dwellers, hangers-on, weapons-grade weirdos, miscreants, petty criminals, the seriously accused, dishonest, dysfunctional and just plain wacky in the comfy environs of Mar-a-Lago, where Trump plays the music.
These people are Trump’s vanguard, his Praetorian Guard of idiocy, dangerous extremism, religious nuttery and carefully planned power grabs. It is easy to laugh at them, but with power, the rest of us will have cause to fear them.
Donald Trump is a fascist.
His convention is a gathering of fascists.
They will claim a love of America, but they will embrace an un-American faith.
They will cheer for the collapse of the rule of law and fair elections.
They will venerate a cult leader who disdains them, and cares nothing for a single one of them.
They will celebrate an insurrection.
They will make threats.
They will divide Americans against one another on the basis of race and religion.
They will embrace dangerous religious charlatans and hustlers.
They will assault the dignity of gay Americans.
They will attack the concepts of dissent, free markets and liberty.
They will celebrate the worst dictators in the world.
They will deliver an exposition about radical extremism in an age of imbecility.
There must be a response to all of it.
My deepest hope is that we will hear one before it is too late.
I disagree that the MAGA idiots are so unlike the party of Bush, Reagan and Nixon. Those assholes planted the seeds for MAGA by courting the extremists and giving them oxygen to grow. This coddling of the John Birch Society assholes, southern racists, gun nuts and Christian taliban are all gathered together under a leader (and his corporate enablers) who are now ready to do away with the pretense of democracy.
They lit this fire. Now we all get to pay the price.
Everything you’ve said here applies equally to the Supreme Court, the Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society, the Murdochs, Sinclair…domestic enemies all.