[Author’s note: In italics below are the letters I wrote that were, in July of 2021, printed in the reader comment forum of the online Washington Post. At the end, the final quote comes from an article by McKay Coppins in The Atlantic, February 2024, a flashback to his interview with Donald Trump ten years ago.]
JULY 2021
The right-wing hissy fit over Critical Race Theory (CRT) has lost its mojo. The tantrum was triggered by the teaching of American History in public schools and universities, an indoctrination designed to contaminate white children and young adults with racist guilt and inspire them to call into question the racism that is the foundation of today’s Republican Party.
In need of fresh outrage, the Republicans are now apoplectic over the teaching of World History: 1921 to Present Day, better known as Critical Fascist Theory (CFT). Although the Republican Party and their MAGANAZI horde are neck-deep in their love affair with authoritarianism, a government led by a strongman, they take extreme offense when the Left calls attention to Donald Trump’s fascination with dictators and fascism.
fascism (1921) a political philosophy, movement or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.
Without their racist voters, the Republican Party would cease to exist. The Republicans have no choice but to pander to every lily-white county in every state in America, right-wing militia groups, neo-Nazis and evangelical churches that are front organizations for the modern-day Ku Klux Klan. The race card is the Republican ace-in-the-hole. [45 recommend]
Donald Trump is himself the Big Lie. The Big Mystery is the total capitulation of the Republican Party to a fraudster and sociopath like Donald Trump. The mystery is solved when one realizes that, without the votes of the MAGANAZI horde, Republican politicians would lose their elections and would then have to slink back to a meaningless life in their backward red states where, without the bribes from billionaire mossback sugar daddies, they would surely have to struggle to make a living. Donald Trump’s entire life is a decades-long history of money crimes. The same is true of the Republican Party, a party steeped in lies, conspiracy theories, farce and… a decades-long history of money crimes. [365 recommend]
mossback (1872) an extremely old-fashioned or reactionary person.
reactionary (1840) ultraconservative in politics.
In September, when high school is back in session, I will be devoting the first semester of my Democracy & American History class to Critical Fascist Theory. One section will be titled “Fascist Toadies” and will feature the likes of Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Jim Jordan, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, Kevin McCarthy and the conservative members of the Supreme Court. I will teach that in 2021, J.D. Vance broke both legs walking back his 2016 honest indictment of Donald Trump as “reprehensible.” Another section will feature helicopter film footage of Mitch McConnell at the wheel of a Ford Bronco, with Trump in the rear seat hugging his tax returns, the Bronco followed by a dozen squad cars driven by Capitol Police and carrying members of the January 6 Committee. I will call this section “Low-Speed Witch Hunt Ends at Prison Gate.” [44 recommend]
The Republican Party wants to make sure that the MAGANAZI lynch mob remains trapped in Darwin’s waiting room, overheated, seething, and itching for a bar fight. In Texas, where every underhanded action wears the Lone Star patriarchy brand, Governor Greg Abbott has guaranteed that all of us will remember that Texas is just one more Confederate slave state that didn’t have the courage to atone for its sins. Thanks to the brazenness of Abbott and the Texas Republicans, we see their macho cruelty for what it is… an admission of guilt. [156 recommend]
In an office drawer, I have stored every LIFE magazine from 1944. Lately, I have been scanning the pages of my collection, looking for insights from World War II that might clarify our present political dysfunction.
The following is an edited excerpt from a long apologia offered by Italian fascist Count Dino Grande, Benito Mussolini’s foreign minister and ambassador to London from 1929 to the start of World War II on September 1, 1939.
Mussolini is a genius, a wizard and a madman. If we can only exploit the genius, withstand the spell of the magician and straitjacket the madman, then I believe we will have found a leader. His vanity and ambition know no limits. He trusts nobody. He hates accepting advice. He cannot stand the opposition and he can be influenced only by those who sacrifice or subordinate their personalities to his. He never admits a mistake and his speeches are loaded with prophecies. He behaves like a man who has to win a new election every day. He has no plans. He acts on the spur of opportunity. He is jealous, vindictive and, above all, fickle. There is a demon in the man. For a time, he kept it under some control. Then the demon broke out and Mussolini became a megalomaniac.
“...depthless vanity, his brittle ego, his tragic craving for elite approval, restlessly flipping through cable news channels in search of his own face…”
Terrific article!
Amazing that the description of Mussolini is the exact description of Trump!!