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Which Side Are ‘We the People’ on—Democracy or Fascism?
The MAGA movement has now shown us who they really are, and we should believe them.
Mar 24, 2024
It was once said that when fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross.
For years, Americans have watched the troubling rise of the Tea Party/Make-America-Great-Again (MAGA) Republican Party’s thinly-veiled authoritarianism—fervent Christian nationalism, voter suppression, gerrymandering, disinformation and propaganda, dark money, corruption, intolerance, international isolationism, idolatry of world dictators, anti-regulation zealotry, self-interest over national interest, contempt for civil rights and the rule of law, coercion, intimidation, repression, misogyny, homophobia, racism, false morality, ethnic homogeneity, demagoguery, fear-mongering, pathological lying, denial of science, delusional conspiracy theories, personality cult, fomenting hatred, encouraging political violence, book banning, protecting corporate greed, declaring a free press “the enemy of the people,” packing the courts with far-right ideologues, dismantling the “administrative state” (aka, democratic institutions), vilifying opponents as “vermin,” claiming immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” and use of government mainly to enhance their own wealth and power.
Yet all the while, they have publicly pretended to still believe in democracy and the Constitution. Until now.
The MAGA goal is indeed to overthrow our constitutional democracy and replace it with their own dystopian dream.
At the recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), MAGA Republicans—paying homage to their deranged “dear leader,” who is beholden to the Kremlin, and if reelected promises to be a dictator on day one, release convicted felons who support him from prison, order mass deportations, and to selectively terminate the Constitution—finally said the quiet part out loud. The conference opened with this astonishingly candid statement:
“Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on January 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it and replace it with this, right here.”
The fanatic crowd erupted with glee. The only thing missing (we presume) were the jack boots and black arm bands.
There it is, in plain sight—full-blown fascism as a major political movement in America—precisely what our nation’s founders worried about, and what America and its allies fought WWI and WWII to prevent. This is an overt admission that January 6 was not a “demonstration that got out of hand,” but a failed coup (as most already knew), and that the MAGA goal is indeed to overthrow our constitutional democracy and replace it with their own dystopian dream.
Ironically, as lies and propaganda (including from foreign intelligence services) have been so effective with MAGA devotees, they could even succeed this November using the very electoral democracy they seek to overthrow. If they are not successful that way, they promise to keep trying.
Poet Maya Angelou once said: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” The MAGA movement has now shown us who they really are, and we should believe them.
Fortunately, there are some principled Republicans who are not onboard the MAGA train. Unfortunately, they remain a minority in the neo-fascist Republican party today.
America’s political fault line is now crystal clear. This is a dangerous, existential moment for our nation. The question is which side “we the people” are on—democracy or fascism?
We’ll soon see.
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Critics Warn Orbán Visit Aimed at Tutoring Trump on 'How to Destroy a Democracy'
"If you want to see Trump's and the GOP's vision of America's future, just look at what Orbán's done to Hungary," said one observer.
Mar 07, 2024
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is set for a Friday meeting with former U.S. President Donald Trump, an admirer—and potential emulator—of the far-right European leader as progressive voters in Europe, the United States, and dozens of other countries push back against a surging worldwide wave of "soft fascism."
Trump—who has all but officially secured the Republican presidential nomination—will welcome Orbán to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida for what's being described as a "strategy session" ahead of upcoming elections in both the United States and European Union, where far-right parties are poised for major gains in the European Parliament.
"Orbán is the textbook example of why autocrats are often much more dangerous the second time in office."
Orbán spoke Thursday on a panel with the head of the Heritage Foundation, the influential conservative think tank that fawns over the prime minister's "European values," and his demonization of progressives and shared bogeymen including Hungarian American philanthropist George Soros. Critics have sounded the alarm on the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, which has been described as a "far-right playbook for American authoritarianism" in a second Trump term.
Conspicuously absent from Orbán's agenda is any meeting with Biden administration officials, a rare situation given Hungary's NATO membership.
"While the present liberal administration in the U.S. may not actively seek to strengthen ties with Hungary, there is undeniably a growing interest in Hungary among U.S. conservatives," Balázs Orbán, the prime minister's unrelated political director, told The Guardian. "Prime Minister Orbán is visiting the United States to strengthen these relationships."
As Orbán—who has ruled Hungary for 14 years over four terms—consolidates his power by systematically eroding democratic institutions and strengthening his Fidesz party and its parliamentary supermajority, Trump and many Republicans have embraced his brand of populist autocracy. Orbán has spoken to adoring audiences at Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) events in Texas and Budapest, the Hungarian capital where then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson interviewed him while relocating his show for a week.
"Orbán has become a role model for many American politicians, particularly those in the GOP's Sedition Caucus," Thom Hartmann wrote Thursday, referring to the 147 Republican U.S. lawmakers who tried to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in service of Trump's conspiracy theory that the contest was rigged by Democrats and the so-called "deep state."
Trump and many of his supporters are drawn to Orbán's open racism—which includes embraces of eugenics and the "great replacement" theory—xenophobia, homophobia, and Christian nationalism, as well as his aversion to helping Ukraine defend against Russian invasion. Like Trump, Orbán is also an oligarch, with a net worth estimated in the hundreds of millions of graft-boosted dollars, and under whose rule Hungary has been ranked as the E.U.'s most corrupt country.
"Orbán is well on his way to staying in office for the rest of his life."
"There is a great man, a great leader in Europe—Viktor Orbán," Trump—who has infamously praised some of the world's dictators—said in a speech last month. "He is a very great leader, a very strong man."
The admiration is mutual. Speaking last month, Orbán said that "we cannot interfere in other countries' elections, but we would very much like to see President Donald Trump return to the White House and make peace here in the eastern half of Europe. It is time for another 'Make America Great Again' presidency in the United States."
The European Parliament has condemned Orbán's rule as less than democratic, calling his government a "hybrid regime of electoral autocracy." Others have called it a form of "soft fascism." Orbán calls it "illiberal democracy," touting its universal appeal to international conservatives, including U.S. Republicans and their fixation on "owning the libs."
"Hungary is actually an incubator where experiments are done on the future of conservative policies," Orbán said at CPAC Budapest. "Hungary is the place where we didn't just talk about defeating the progressives and liberals and causing a conservative Christian political turn, but we actually did it."
While there has been some recent pushback—most notably in Brazil, Colombia, and Chile—observers are warning of the dangers of a still-ascendant right as voters prepare to head to the polls this year in the E.U. and in countries from Mexico and India to Indonesia and the United States.
In the case of the U.S., Protect Democracy editor Amanda Carpenter warned this week that "Orbán is the textbook example of why autocrats are often much more dangerous the second time in office."
"They learn from their mistakes, shortcomings, and—above all—the things that caused them to lose power previously. Orbán is well on his way to staying in office for the rest of his life," Carpenter added. "On that too Trump aims to do the same."
Hartmann wonders whether Orbán is "going to be instructing Trump in how to destroy a democracy," having "already pulled it off in Hungary."
"If you want to see Trump's and the GOP's vision of America's future, just look at what Orbán's done to Hungary," he added. "Forewarned is forearmed. Spread the word."
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Trump Vows 'Judgement Day' for Opponents and 'Largest Deportation in History' If Elected
"Our country is being destroyed and the only thing standing between you and its obliteration is me," the far-right former president declared during his speech at CPAC
Feb 24, 2024
Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump said Election Day in November this year will end up being a "judgement day" for his political opponents if he wins and vowed mass deportations on a scale never seen in the United States.
As part of a rambling and bizarre speech at the annual CPAC gathering of far-right activists and GOP operatives, Trump said, "For hardworking Americans, November 5 will be our new liberation day. But for the liars and cheaters and fraudsters and censors and imposters who have commandeered our government, it will be judgement day."
Watch:
Trump suggests he is God and will punish Americans who oppose him: November 5th will MAGA’s liberation day. It will be Democrats’ Judgment Day pic.twitter.com/PEZpsBzRGH
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) February 24, 2024
Though he previously served as the President of the United States and remains de facto head of the Republican Party, Trump cast himself to the fascist audience members as a political "dissident" who would have his "ultimate and absolute revenge" on President Joe Biden and the Democrats who he claimed had turned the nation into a "living hell."
Federal statistics show that crime rates have fallen since 2022, but that didn't stop Trump from characterizing the nation as a crime-ridden dystopia on verge of annihiliation.
"Our country is being destroyed and the only thing standing between you and its obliteration is me," Trump declared, harnessing his familiar demagoguery in which he characterizes himself as an authoritarian savior.
Trump promised to enact that "largest deportation in the history of our country" if put back in the White House as he continued his vilification and dehumanization of immigrants and asylum seekers.
Trump dehumanizes migrants: "They are terrorists ... it'll be the largest deportation in the history of our country." @atrupar
pic.twitter.com/AIqnXl0RuU
— The Intellectualist (@highbrow_nobrow) February 24, 2024
"We have no choice," Trump declared. "It's not a nice thing and I hate to say it, and those clowns in the media will say 'Oh he's so mean.' No, no. [Migrants are] killing our people, they're killing our country."
Earlier this week, the Washington Post reported that Trump and his allies are already planning ahead for an aggressve anti-immigrant plan that would include use of the military to round people up, hold them in detention camps, and remove them from the country.
"He was obsessed with having the military involved," said one former senior administration official who spoke to the Post.
In a particularly bizarre and racist digression, Trump claimed Saturday that migrants coming into the U.S. are speaking languages "that nobody in this country has ever heard of" and carry diseases "nobody ever heard about."
Following Trump's CPAC speech, the Biden campaign's rapid response director Ammar Moussa, dismissed Trump as a "loser" and said the American people have previously made clear they've seen enough of what he represents.
"America already had the opportunity to choose if they wanted another four years of hell with Donald Trump's chaos, division, and crazy—they said no—and will again in November," Moussa said.
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'Make Argentina Great Again': Far-Right Trump and Milei Embrace at CPAC
"This is an unholy alliance," said one critic of the pair, "mark my words."
Feb 24, 2024
Disgraced former President Donald Trump of the United States and Argentina's recently-elected libertarian President Javier Milei met and shared a warm embrace backstage at the annual CPAC gathering on Saturday.
Milei, the libertarian firebrand who vowed to "chainsaw" his nation's social programs and usher in a new era of neoliberal austerity in the Latin American nation, was in town to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference where Trump also spoke on Saturday afternoon.
"It's a very big honor for me," Milei said to Trump as they met, with the Argentinian seeming to thank him for political support during his campaign.
"You Are The Best President For The United States!"
Donald Trump just met with Argentinian President Javier Milei at CPAC in Washington DC, where he got a glowing endorsement from the new President.#Trump2024NowMorethanEver #JavierMilei #Argentina #CPAC pic.twitter.com/yi3eBOquIi
— Conservative Brief (@ConservBrief) February 24, 2024
Trump responded by saying, "MAGA! Make Argentina Great Again." As they posed for photos together, Trump said, "You look fantastic" and told Milei he was doing a great job.
"I won't forget you, I can promise you that," Trump said.
"I'll see you again," said Milei. "And next time I hope you will be president."
"I hope so too," said Trump.
Critics of the pair, like researcher Ana M. Fuentes, suggested the meeting was an ominous one.
"Oh man. I was hoping the Milei meets Trump clip was a parody…but it’s not," Fuentes said on social media. "This is an unholy alliance, born at CPAC, mark my words."
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Trump Calls US Democracy a 'Very Dangerous System' at CPAC
Former U.S. president headlines ousted autocrat double-header by following Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro at annual far-right convention.
Mar 04, 2023
The former presidents of Brazil and the United States took the stage CPAC on Saturday where both fascist politicians continued to sow doubt about their respective electoral defeats as they received standing ovations from the annual convention's far-right attendees.
Brazil's disgraced former leader Jair Bolsonaro—whose supporters stormed government offices in January after his successor, leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, was sworn into office—was brought onto the stage this year's "diminished" CPAC gathering to blaring rock music and loud cheers from the crowd.
Addressing the American audience, Bolsonaro indicated once more his doubts that he lost the Brazilian election fairly, saying, "I had way more support in 2022 than I had in 2018, and I don't understand why the numbers said the opposite."
"I thank God for the mission of being president of Brazil for one term," he said, but hinted at a possible third run for president by adding: "But I feel deep inside that this mission is still not over."
When Trump took the podium as the convention's keynote appearance, there again was raucous applause.
During his speech, he singled out Bolsonaro in the audience and said it was a "great honor" to be appearing with the "very popular" former president.
"Our getting back in the White House is their worst nightmare," Trump said of Democrats and his other political opponents. "But it is our country's only hope."
Trump went on to call the electoral process in the United States a "very bad" and a "very dangerous system" that only he and the far-right attendees at CPAC can overcome.
During the speech, Trump vowed to "finish what we started" as the enthusiastic crowd chanted "Four more years! Four more years!"
In the traditional straw poll taken each year by CPAC attendees, Trump won in a landslide, the convention's organizers announced on Saturday, with the former president taking 65 percent of the vote.
The second-place finisher was Florida's far-right Gov. Ron DeSantis, who did not attend the gathering this year despite many viewing him as the strongest GOP challenger to Trump in a possible 2024 primary matchup.
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Conservatives Offer Americans Empty Stomachs and Empty Rhetoric
Mar 09, 2014
Paul Ryan says that "the left" is offering Americans "a full stomach and an empty soul." The truth is that conservatives like Paul Ryan are offering Americans empty stomachs and empty rhetoric . The American people want more than that.
Near the end of his Thursday morning speech at CPAC (the Conservative Political Action Conference), Paul Ryan told a story about a boy who didn't want his free school lunch.
The story wasn't true. Eloise Anderson, an aide to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, did tell Ryan the story at a congressional hearing last summer, but she never met or spoke to any little boy who told her he didn't want his free school lunch.
The story was purloined from a book titled "An Invisible Thread." The book is about a friendship between Laura Schroff and Maurice Mazyck. They met in New York in 1986, when she was an ad executive and he was an 11-year-old panhandler.
The "brown bag" conversation did happen, but had nothing to do with school lunch programs. Ironically, Schroff and Mazyck are now partnering with No Kid Hungry, an organization dedicated to ending child hunger in the U.S., in part by connecting low-income students with federal programs like school lunches.
It's never a good idea to take anything that an aide to Scott Walker says as gospel. But Paul Ryan can't even manage a decent copy-and-paste job on the economic data that he misused and misrepresented to support his screed against anti-poverty programs. He can hardly be expected to fact-check such a good-sounding story.
Ryan's story isn't real, but the stigma attached to subsidized school lunches is. Lunchtime can be the most socially stressful part of the school day, for any student. Invisible, ever-shifting social boundaries crisscross school cafeterias. So much is riding on where students sit, or even whether they have friends to sit with.
Students who get subsidized lunches have much more to deal with. Lunchroom practices sometimes reveal students low-income status to their peers. Some schools have separate lines for students receiving subsidized lunches, and students who buy theirs. Others have an "a la carte" line, where students with cash can buy items not available in the subsidized lunch line.
It gets worse.
- A school in Colorado school stamped the hands of students who received free lunches or could not afford meals, and gave them cheese sandwiches, instead of the pizza their classmates got.
- At one school in Utah, workers seized lunches from students who owed money on their food accounts, offered them a piece of fruit and a carton of milk, and threw their hot lunches in the trash.
- In some Minnesota schools, students who can't afford lunch are denied food; or they get peanut butter or cheese sandwiches, instead of what their classmates are eating.
No wonder some students choose to go without lunch, and not face the stigma.
School districts are finding ways to relieve that stigma.
- New York schools have held regular promotions, inviting professional athletes to eat subsidized lunches in their jerseys.
- Other schools have integrated lunch lines, and implemented cashless systems, so that all students go through the same line, and those receiving free lunches are less easily identified.
- Boston public schools serve free school lunches to all students, even if their families are able to pay, as part of an experimental federal initiative, designed to make it easier for students from low-income families to get free meals, by eliminating the need to fill out forms.
Low-income students would face even more stigma if the GOP had its way. Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) doesn't mind billing taxpayers for his lunches, but Kingston suggested that schools should have low-income students do janitorial work, like "sweep the floor of the cafeteria," to "instill in them that there is no such thing as a free lunch."
Sick: This Republican's Plan to Teach Poor Kids A LessonRepublican Rep. Jack Kingston from Georgia believes that if poor kids want to eat a school lunch, they should have to sweep the ...
Kingston said his remarks were not targeted at a particular income group, but it's a safe bet that students who can will buy or bring their lunches, and not have to clean up after their classmates. Kingston's scenario would require "the children from poor families to stick around the cafeteria to sweep up while their better-off friends hitch off to recess." Students who already skip eating lunch to avoid stigma might just skip school altogether.
Kingston's views echo those of other conservatives. They reflect a conservative agenda that blames the poor, stigmatizes those who need help, and shames those who receive help.
- Last year, Fox News asked, "Should students have to work for their school meals?", after a West Virginia Republican proposed a law requiring students who get free lunches to earn their meals by emptying garbage, sweeping out hallways, mowing lawns, etc."
- Fox also attacked free school lunches under its "Entitlement Nation" agenda.
- In 2011, Newt Gingrich floated the idea of hiring low-income students to do janitorial work in schools. Later that year, Gingrich told an audience in Iowa that children of low-income families are lazy and "have nobody around them who works so they have no habit of showing up on Monday."
Republicans are willing to walk their talk.
- Republicans in North Dakota and Vermont voted against subsidizing lunch or milk for schoolchildren.
- West Virginia's "Feed To Achieve" bill ultimately passed in the state legislature, and was signed by the governor.
- House Republicans voted for food stamp cuts that would take free school lunches away from over 200,000 children, just to protect a tax cut for millionaires.
Paul Ryan need only go to Wall Street - or, for that matter, through the walkways of National Harbor, the shiny new suburban Washington enclave where the CPAC conference was being held - to find "full stomachs and empty souls," where Americans pick up the lunch tab for some of the very banksters who drove the country into financial disaster and recession. If conservatives prefer full stomachs in corporate boardrooms to full stomachs in America's classrooms, they are the one's with "empty souls."
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