Democrats need to stop handwringing about "progressives" and start going on the offensive against Republican far-right fascists, who have given them plenty of ammunition to use

France appears to be in danger of succumbing to what the Jacobin charges is its long-running denial and repression of its fascist past and current impulses by potentially electing the pro-Putin Marine Le Pen in the runoff presidential election against Emmanuel Macron on April 24. But why should we wring our hands overmuch by that prospect when the U.S. has already elected a “populist” nationalist and xenophobic fascist in Donald Trump, with dangerous far-right elements managing to infiltrate the U.S. Congress? With the mid-term elections coming up, Democrats need to start acting like they actually believe in democratic principles (Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema notwithstanding), and remind voters of the positive things the Biden administration has done, like pass the American Rescue Plan, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and restoring the U.S.’ international credibility as a reliable ally in defense of democracy.

Democrats have to start putting Republicans on the defensive in regard to Sen. Rick Scott’s “rescue of America” plan, which is nothing more than typical Republican culture war propaganda that promises to do the exact opposite of what Republicans say they claim they want to do—support working people and their “rights.” Scott’s plan will impose taxes on the low-income and middle working class, and in concert with reducing funding for the IRS to audit the returns of wealthy tax cheats, will only increase the wealth gap in this country. In being heavily slanted toward “cultural” issues, Scott’s “plan” to retake Congress depends upon voters choosing to be willfully blinded by the smokescreen concealing the far-right’s intentions and who they actually “work” for.

Why, for example, would anyone believe that “sunsetting” Social Security and Medicare after five years is a “good idea”? Why even suggest doing it, if, as Mitch McConnell claims, it is dead on arrival if he becomes the Senate majority leader again? Perhaps this is just a “test run” to see how Republican voters respond to it—or not respond to it. If their minds are preoccupied with “culture war” issues, we saw what happened in Virginia’s recent governor’s election, that appeared to “turn” on the absurd “critical race theory” shibboleth.

But is fascism really a threat in this country? Historian Robert Paxton defined fascism as “a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.” Mere philosophizing—or the terrible truth of what we are seeing happening in the age of Trump?

We see the resurgence of this type of fascism happening in France and many other European countries where immigrants, foreign workers and refugees are convenient scapegoats; this is hardly a new phenomenon, as I observed in my post on Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s film Katzelmacher (1), where bored, lazy “natives”  think the world “owes” them something; instead of  examining the real reasons for their sad existences which gazes back at themselves in a mirror, they prefer to blame supposedly inferior “foreigners” who seem to find those jobs they can’t find, if for no other reason than they are more motivated to do work that is “beneath” the “dignity” of the “natives.”

American fascists like Trump and his various Reichsführers—like Jeff Sessions, Stephen Miller and Mark Meadows (the latter who is under investigation for voter fraud) when he was in office, and now those carrying on in Congress, the likes of Scott, Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar, Lauren Boebert and Matt Gaetz—all counted on those voters who think with their sour “gut” instead of their hearts and minds. These people seem to believe that “freedom” is to be “free” to intentionally harm another person by taking away their rights, while in a democracy citizens should be free to be who they are as long as what they do is not intended to harm another person who just wants to think they are “harmed.”

But the fascist far-right does intend to harm others in the name of their tender “moral sensitivities,” even if they are otherwise not affected at all.  Today, the far-right believes that anything meant to “educate” them about the sordid details of hidden history that they themselves may be or may not have been complicit in—if for no other reason that they wish themselves and others to remain in ignorance about them—or whatever or whoever seems to them to be “odd” or “unnatural” and thus making them feel “uncomfortable,” should be erased regardless of the Constitutional rights of those effected by this prejudice and ignorance.

By focusing on such issues and making them appear to be what is “weakening” the “moral fabric” of the country, far-right fascists hope to conceal their real aims, which is to see if they can sneak through their  radical proposals to gut social programs, especially those expensive ones (Social Security, Medicare) that corporate interests tend to blame for their tax issues (employers are required to pay a portion of the SS and FICA taxes that are also paid by employees to fund these programs).

There are those right-wing “factcheckers” who claim that merely “sunsetting” social programs doesn’t mean that they are necessarily ending; what it does it mean is that Republicans will use renewing the programs as blackmail for other pet projects (such as wall building, shutting down federal agencies like the EPA, or cutting more taxes for the rich). I mean, why even threaten Social Security and Medicare if that isn’t your “intention”? Why not “work something out” to insure those programs that tens of millions of people have depended upon to survive in their old age, instead of making threats? Raising the income bracket would surely bring in billions of dollars alone.

The fascist far-right also unfortunately has allies in the U.S. Supreme Court. The court today is controlled by five of the most militant far-right justices this country has seen at one time probably in its entire history. Every one of them has lied when they claimed that they will “abide” by precedent; claims, for example, that Roe v Wade is “settled law” appears more and more a lie to avoid further “complications” in their confirmation process. The politization without regard to lawful and reasoned process by the far-right on the court was further exposed by the present court’s abuses of the so-called “shadow docket,” which has been used to re-impose or continue radical rule changes by the Trump administration, or block efforts against voter restrictions and gerrymandering that are pure partisan politics, and for the far-right justices  to avoid the process of arguing the alleged “merits” of their own radically partisan views.

We live in dangerous times where democracy and freedom is under threat even in this country, where it is now possible that every election defeat by a Republican will be blamed on “fraud,” and responded to by the right to vote suppressed by even more extreme measures. When you have a radicalized element—and I don’t include the “radical left” in this, because they are just a convenient “bogeyman” with no real power except to “frighten” people like children reading or watching s “scary” story—with real power when someone like Trump is president; that is when the nightmare becomes a living, breathing thing.

Far-right fascism is waiting at the door, a demon in human form, warning of terrible things to come if it is not allowed to enter. Once inside, it is the beginning of the end of democracy and freedom as we know it. Democrats cannot afford to sit around handwringing about bogeymen invented by the fascist far-right, but go on the offensive against their insane agenda. This is a “war” being fought against the poisonous propaganda of hate that is dividing the country as never before in eight generations, and is threatening to kill democracy; the losers of this war will be the working people who government is supposed to serve, and the winners are the corporate elites who are the real “deep state” players in this country who pay the fascist far-right to do their bidding.