Saletan: ‘A Party That Has Become a Platform for Autocrats – and Is Ready for Its Next Master’

Pensito Editors

William Saletan at Slate.com: “Together, these statements from 10 of the most powerful Republicans in Congress—five in the Senate, five in the House—show that authoritarian corruption has permeated the party’s power structure. No Republican in leadership is willing to challenge the former president’s lies about the election. Every Republican in leadership is determined to bury the investigation of his coup attempt.

“The story of the Trump presidency and its aftermath is no longer the story of one failed tyrant. It’s the story of a party that has become a platform for autocrats—and is ready for its next master.”

As we noted in July, “The simple definition of fascism is that it’s a structure (like a political party) or method (like overturning a free election) for attaining totalitarian power. It’s time to accept that this is what we’re up against.”

According to Fox News We Currently Are Engaged in 46 Wars

Buck Banks

From Boing Boing:

Folks, if you’re wearing a red cap, take cover! The wars are invading! But the brave correspondents at Fox News are on it, having one helluva time on the battlefield covering at least 46 “wars” as of late. This includes the War on Christmas, War on Fun, War on Straws, War on Hot Dogs, War on Appetizers, War on Cows, War on Cars, War on Soda, War on Knives, War on, uh, Red Hats? This montage says it all, to be watched from the safety of your bunker.

MeidasTouch.com: Trump Cult Kills

Pensito Editors

HuffPost: “The video highlights Trump’s catastrophic mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic, noting how some GOP governors continue to ‘recklessly’ ignore facts and sacrifice lives ‘in the callous pursuit of votes.’

“’These aren’t leaders of a political movement, they’re leaders of a cult. And they kill,’ the PAC, founded by attorney Ben Meiselas and his two brothers in 2020, captioned the clip with the hashtag #TrumpCultKills.”

Schmidt: GOP Sows Chaos While Selling Order – As Right-wing Authoritarian Movements Always Do

Jon Ponder

Former Republicans operative Steve Schmidt spoke with Rachel Maddow on Sept. 24 about the ominous rise of anti-democracy forces inside the shell of the former Republican Party and its march toward autocracy under Donald Trump.

Fascism is a word that gets thrown around a lot, but it specifically refers to anti-democracy movements and political parties. Steve Schmidt, Bill Kristol and many other former Republicans are sounding the alarm. Fascism isn’t coming. It’s here. This is what American fascism looks like.

Watch:

[…]

The US Reichstag Fire Has Been Set

Pensito Editors

Common Dreams Op-Ed: “It’s time to be blunt. The right-wing political alliance anchored by the Republican party and Trumpism coheres around a single concrete objective—taking absolute power in the U.S. as soon and as definitively as possible. And they’re more than ready, even seemingly want, to destroy the social fabric of the country to do so.

“They smell blood in the water. They have a strong majority on the Supreme Court and a majority in the federal judiciary overall. Republicans imagine that with the aid of the aggressive campaign of disfranchisement they’re pursuing in forty-three states, they’ll take control of one or both houses of Congress next year. Mitch McConnell devised the playbook against the Obama presidency; with a Democrat in the White House, the GOP’s sole legislative agenda is obstruction, to make certain that no legislation passes, that no appointments are confirmed, to the extent of often enough forcing government shutdowns. Corporate media, punditry, and academics have obscured this Republican strategy with names implying a tit-for-tat perspective, like “partisan gridlock,” which, they lament, is causing Americans to lose patience with and trust in government.”