The End Game

I rarely have any occasion to link approvingly to anything in the Washington Post, as it has served for years as little more than a conduit for the most bankrupt beltway "wisdom."  The following opinion piece by Robert Kagan is a rare exception.  Perhaps the Post's new owner, Jeff Bezos, actually believes that there is room in his newspaper for a little actual journalism.  If so, it is a great thing; in any case it is amazing to see this in the mainstream press:

"This is how fascism comes to America

The Republican Party’s attempt to treat Donald Trump as a normal political candidate would be laughable were it not so perilous to the republic. If only he would mouth the party’s “conservative” principles, all would be well.

But of course the entire Trump phenomenon has nothing to do with policy or ideology. It has nothing to do with the Republican Party, either, except in its historic role as incubator of this singular threat to our democracy...This phenomenon has arisen in other democratic and quasi-democratic countries over the past century, and it has generally been called “fascism.”

I suggest strongly that you read the whole thing.

I hope it is not too much in the way of self-promotion to point out that I have been saying this same thing as long as this blog has existed, and for a couple of decades before that.  At least since the time of Reagan, it has been clear to me that the end game of Republican politics is fascism.  And I am hardly the only one.  You only need to read many blogs like that of Driftglass, or listen to the Thom Hartmann show, to know that many of us have seen this coming for a long time.

And here is the scary part:  Just defeating Trump will not end this threat.  The Republican party has nothing to exist upon any more than fear, hatred and greed, so they will keep stoking them, regardless of the looming wreck ahead.  And some day, their efforts may very well bear fruit, and the United States, the country that was different, the country that, for a century was a shining example to the world, will join Rome and Greece and Egypt of the Pharaohs as just another dream of the past, washed away in a sea of blood.

Comments

Jerry Critter said…
You are right, Green Eagle. The Republican Party is doomed. They will not change. They will either fade away as more and more people reject them, or they will win and bring fascism to the US. As in the past, the republican version of fascism will ultimately fail and follow other versions of fascism to political hell. Unfortunately, they will not only destroy themselves, but possibly the United States too. Who knows, we may end up with a West United States and an East United States. I'm glad I live in the west.
Green Eagle said…
And I'm sure we would take great pleasure at the prospect of their demise, if it weren't for the fact that the last large scale outbreak of fascism cost 60 million lives to put down, and that time around, the fascists didn't have their hands on 5,000 nuclear weapons.
Marc said…
I sort of foresaw the Trumping of the party when the Gropenfurher was elected in California. It was a celebrity/high school popularity contest getting Arnold into office, and with the huge number of players for the Republican Presidential nomination, it looked like the same thing - just way too many people going for the gold ring, but the 'favored ones' were not liked by the general public, most the others not well known on the national stage, and then there was 'you're fired!' himself. So it has came down to this.

I'm sure the party is already looking at 2020 as their next bite at the apple, but who do they have who would do as well as Trump has? Hillary will have to stumble pretty badly to be vulnerable to whomever they push forward, since she will have the experience of being President on top of all her other accomplishments. Another 'outsider'? With the voter outreach record the Republicans have, on top of setting on fire and then pissing on the flames of the after action report from their 2012 loss, I don't see them having any juice for a national candidate. Yes, at the Congressional, State, and Local levels they can keep a good grip, but for the big seat they have zilch. Trump is going to be so investigated over the next few months, we will know the size and color of his underwear (boxers, briefs, boxer briefs, or (shudder) commando). I can imagine that the bonfire created by his crash could make down ticket candidates vulnerable, but I can't see him getting far enough away from his negatives to cross the finish line.
Mrs. G.E. said…
Read the whole excellent article. And yes, I can attest to your prescience.
Green Eagle said…
Magpie, I worked on a movie with Arnold, and I was in several meetings with him. I have to tell you this: first of all, he was very, very smart. Second, when people talked to him, he made sure he understood what they had to say, and made extremely good decisions based on the information he had. He was worlds above Trump, or just about any Republican politician I can think of, in his managerial ability. Of course, he was tied to the party and thus, in the end, a bad leader, but he really had some ability that a guy like Trump could never understand.

Of course, we all hope your prediction of his failure is correct. You have been very astute in the time I have known you online, but one think that I fear is difficult to appreciate from half the world away is how much the press in the US enables the Republicans. If they decide that the narrative of this election is corrupt, lying Hillary versus the man who will save us all, anything can happen. No one really thought they could rig things for Reagan either, but the same sort of press malfeasance, coupled with a monstrous act of treason in the month before the election, did the trick.
Jon Rudd said…
Kagan's a little late to be complaining about fascism. He's only spent his career promoting what amounts to a fascist foreign policy by the US, as witness what happened in Ukraine a couple of years ago.

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