Tag: GOP fascism

How ‘In God We Trust’ bills are helping advance a Christian nationalist agenda

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City vehicles in Chesapeake, Virginia, will soon be getting religion. 

At a meeting on July 13, 2021, city councilors unanimously voted in favor of a proposal that would see the official motto of the U.S., “In God We Trust,” emblazoned on every city-owned car and truck, at an estimated cost to taxpayers of US$87,000.

Meanwhile, the state of Mississippi is preparing to defend in court its insistence that all citizens, unless they pay a fee for an alternative, must display the same four-word phrase on their license plates. Gov. Tate Reeves vowed last month to take the issue “all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court should we have to.” Continue reading.

John McCain adviser explains why the Trumpified GOP has become ‘the greatest threat since 9/11’

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Although MSNBC has a liberal slant, some of its hosts have very conservative backgrounds — including “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough (a former GOP congressman) and Nicolle Wallace, who served as White House communications director under President George W. Bush and was a senior adviser to the late Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. But the 49-year-old Wallace is a scathing critic of former President Donald Trump, and she slams the modern-day GOP as a hotbed of Trumpist authoritarianism in an op-ed published by MSNBC’s website on July 16.

Wallace, who hosts MSNBC’s weekday afternoon show “Deadline: White House,” warns, “I never thought I’d cover the demise of democracy in my own country, but here we are…. The attack on our democracy, spearheaded by the ex-president and enabled by the GOP, represents the greatest threat since 9/11.”

The former Bush official and McCain adviser goes on to say that in one sense, the United States is facing a more perilous national security threat in 2021 than it did after al-Qaeda terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. There were no prominent Republicans or Democrats defending al-Qaeda after 9/11, Wallace argues — whereas apologists for the bloody January 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol Building by Trump supporters are plentiful in the Republican Party. Continue reading.

Former Trump official: GOP has become America’s biggest ‘national security threat’

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In an interview with MSNBC’s Jason Johnson, a former Department of Homeland Security official who served under former president Donald Trump claims that he believes the Republican Party has become a threat to the security of the country and warned what could happen if they reclaim the House and the Senate in the 2022 midterms.

According to Miles Taylor — a Republican who served as chief of staff at the DHS until 2019 before leaving in disgust — should the GOP take over the House, current House minority leader Kevin McCarthy will likely be Donald Trump’s puppet if he is handed the gavel by his party.

“The number one national security threat I’ve ever seen in my life to this country’s democracy is the party that I’m in, the Republican Party,” Taylor warned. “If my party retakes the House of Representatives in the next cycle, it’s going to become a haunted house. And the ghoul and the specter haunting that house is going to be Donald Trump.” Continue reading.

Rep. Gosar denies knowledge of fundraiser with group that promotes white-nationalist ideas despite invitation for the event

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Rep. Paul A. Gosar (R-Ariz.) on Tuesday denied that he plans to attend a fundraiser this week with a group that promotes white nationalist ideas, despite an invitation for the event circulating online that features the congressman and Nick Fuentes, a far-right operative who leads America First.

Gosar has previously attended events with Fuentes and appeared to defend the fundraiser in a tweet Monday night when he wrote: “Not sure why anyone is freaking out. I’ll say this: there are millions of Gen Z, Y and X conservatives. They believe in America First. They will not agree 100% on every issue. No group does. We will not let the left dictate our strategy, alliances and efforts. Ignore the left.”

But on Tuesday Gosar denied any knowledge of the fundraiser when asked about the invitation featuring a photo of him with Fuentes. Continue reading.

Here’s what it really means for the Republican Party to embrace fascism

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I got a response from a concerned reader and citizen yesterday that I’d like to discuss today. It was in reaction to Tuesday’s piece about Alan Wolfe, the political scientist and sociologist who seemed to predict, in 2004, the Republicans’ turn toward fascism. He wrote in an obscure supplement to an obscure journal only niche readers saw, but reading this 17-year-old essay is like reading a profile of the Republican Party in 2021.

In my piece, I said the pundit corps still seems to hesitate using the word “fascism” even after all we’ve seen. I said that’s probably because it calls to mind images of gas chambers. It doesn’t take genocide to make a fascist, though. As Wolfe made so clear, all it takes is a totalizing worldview in which everyone in the out-group is the enemy.

To which my concerned citizen pointed out something worth dwelling on: “Hesitancy to call the GOP ‘fascist’ is justified in many minds because so many GOP elites aver that they are simply giving lip-service to MAGA and don’t really believe in it.” Continue reading.