The Progressive Populist Today Blog: 2021-01-10

Saturday, January 16, 2021

Editorial: Impeach Fascism Now

Who could have predicted that Donald Trump would not take defeat well? Anybody who has followed his career as a failed real estate developer and reality TV celebrity, who had business dealings with the Sicilian and Russian mobs, and watched in horror as he won an upstart campaign for the White House in 2016 with a minority of the popular vote. So his acting like a Third-World dictator seeking to overthrew democracy shouldn’t be a surprise.

Trump claims there was no way Biden could have beaten him without cheating. And Trump’s followers have never lost faith in teh con man, despite more than 22,000 lies he has told as president, as tallied by the Washington Post Fact Checker through August. When Trump insisted that he would have won in a landslide if it weren’t for fraud in the use of mail-in ballots and corrupt counters in the five states Biden flipped on him, the Republican Party, now resembling a zombie cult, repeated Trump’s baseless allegations.

Trump and his lawyers repeatedly claimed vote fraud in the weeks following the election as they sought to have courts disallow the mail-in votes that heavily favored Biden and other Democrats, but Trump’s cracked legal team was turned down in 61 state and federal courts. Republican as well as Democratic judges ruled there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud. Adding to the burn, some of the judges had been appointed by Trump, including three Supreme Court justices, whom Trump expected to provide the margin to overrule the will of the voters in the swing states.

When Trump called for a rally of his supporters in Washington on Jan. 6 — the date that Congress was to review the vote of the Electoral College — there were ample warnings that it could be an attempt to stop the congressional certification by force. Addressing the crowd, Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, called for a “trial by combat” and Trump called on his supporters to march on the Capitol and “fight like hell” and “give [Republicans] the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.”

The mob did march to the Capitol, which was lightly defended as federal officials were determined to avoid the optics of armed D.C. National Guard troops reinforcing the Capitol Police. So the Trumpers stormed past police barriers and broke through windows and doors as they swarmed into the building. When the invaders approached the House and Senate chambers, members of Congress were escorted by congressional security officers to secure places, which frustrated the would-be commandos who apparently were searching for congressional leaders to take as hostages. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office was looted and vandalized and explosive devices were found on the Capitol grounds. Pipe bombs were found near the offices of the Democratic and Republican national committees. Rioters apparently looted and destroyed art from offices and spread their feces and urine in congressional hallways and offices.

Five people died from injuries stemming from the insurrection, including a Capitol police officer who was beaten by Trump’s mobsters. More than 110 Capitol and DC Metro police were injured.

Reinforcements eventually arrived from Metro Police, the Secret Service, Park Police and the FBI and they helped Capitol Police secure the building. The Senate resumed debate on the election certification at 8 p.m. and Republicans, led by Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas, continued to object to certification of Biden electors. The GOP crapfest on the Constitution continued until nearly 4 a.m., when the House and Senate finally certified the election results, clearing the way for Biden’s inauguration.

Some, but not all Republicans have distanced themselves from Trump and his supporters who stormed the Capitol. A YouGov poll found 71% of registered voters opposed the “storming of the Capitol” and 62% viewed it as a “threat to democracy,” but 45% of Republican voters supported the siege of the Capitol, while only 43% opposed it. And a national poll conducted Dec. 16-20 by Suffolk University found that 37% of registered voters, including 78% of Republicans, did not believe Biden was legitimately elected president.

The insurrection failed, but those polls reflect a growing crisis of confidence in American democracy, and Republican elected officials have tried to further strain the belief in democracy.

Don’t be fooled; fascists formed an increasingly large portion of the Republican base long before Trump descended via the escalator in Trump Tower to join the presidential race in July 2015. Elements of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism and opposition to liberal democracy have been a feature of the Republican Party for more than 60 years. Richard Nixon revved it up in the 1960s when segregationist Southern Democrats were alienated by President Lyndon Johnson’s push for the Democratic Congress to pass Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts. It was mainstreamed under Ronald Reagan, who undermined labor unions, which provided much of the organizational and fundraising resources for the Democratic Party. His National Labor Relations Board undermined the ability of unions to organize and negotiate contracts with businesses and his FCC did away with the Fairness Doctrine, which had required radio and TV stations to broadcast in the public interest. By 1992, union membership had collapsed to the point that Bill Clinton and the Democrats had to turn to big business and wealthy donors to fund their campaigns.

The loss of good union jobs as manufacturers moved to the union-busting South or overseas left a generation of American men looking for someone to blame. Right-wing talk radio helped them fill out the complaint form: Latinos, immigrants, feminists and gays joined Blacks as the imagined impediments to young Whites getting ahead in life. It doesn’t occur to them to blame the corporations that broke the unions and moved manufacturing jobs overseas.

So when Trump started off his campaign with a denunciation of Mexicans as being “people that have lots of problems,” such as being drug dealers, criminals and rapists (who at the same time were taking jobs away from deserving US citizens), he was tapping into a rich vein that proved to be at least a plurality of Republican voters.

The insurrection didn’t prevent Biden’s election from being certified, and popular backlash caused Republicans to claim anti-fascists were behind the storming of the Capitol, but remember that Trump literally gave his MAGA cultists their marching orders. It’s no coincidence that Republicans consider anti-fascists their enemies. The Republican Party needs to purge the fascists and their enablers — including the Republican members of Congress who made the baseless challenge against Biden’s election — from the party.

Trump’s storm troopers have threatened to return to Washington Jan. 20 in an attempt to disrupt the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. In the meantime, the House should proceed with impeachment of Trump. Mitch McConnell might delay a Senate hearing until Chuck Schumer takes over as majority leader, but Senate Republicans need to vote on whether Trump should get the honors and perks that normally go to an ex-president, such as a $200,000 annual pension and office, staff and travel allowances.

Republicans must clean their house of fascists, starting with Donald Trump and continuing with the 138 Republican House members and eight senators who, siding with the rioters, voted Jan. 6-7 to throw out the election results. Democracy held this time. But the fascists will be back. — JMC