Progressive Populist - GOP's Soft Fascism

[StlMo]

WAYNE O'LEARY

GOP's Soft Fascism


What do the Florida 2000 presidential vote, the Texas congressional redistricting controversy, and the upcoming California gubernatorial recall election have in common? Answer: They each illuminate the dark recesses of the Republican soul and expose the GOP for what it has clearly become, a kind of neo-fascist political entity possessing neither conscience nor scruples. Most tellingly, they reveal the onetime party of Lincoln to have developed deep in its bones a fundamental contempt for democratic institutions.

...

What these apparently unrelated incidents all share is a kneejerk Republican impulse to short-circuit democracy for partisan advantage. The GOP approach to gaining office is simplicity itself. If you don't like an election's outcome, void it by judicial appeal or hold it again when conditions are more favorable; vote only when you can win or not at all. If the established procedures don't produce the desired result, change the procedures or just ignore them. Above all, don't allow democratic institutions and laws to frustrate your God-given right to rule.

This modern Republican strategy is eerily reminiscent of the path to power taken by totalitarians of the 1920s and 1930s. The comparison may seem overdrawn, but the parallels are striking. It's not at all difficult to visualize the welldressed Republican thugs who intimidated Florida vote tabulators roaming the streets of Berlin or Nuremberg in brown shirts roughing up political opponents. Come to think of it, GOP House Majority Leader Tom DeLay bears a more than passing resemblance in rhetoric and personal style to a Nazi gauleiter. No one overly concerned with the niceties of democracy would ever be nicknamed "The Hammer."

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http://www.populist.com/03.18.oleary.html

[tom_paine]

1. Bingo

:kick:

[izzie]

2. same hear,

n/t

[Vitruvius]

3. You'd be amazed how fast "soft fascism" can turn into hard fascism --

usually it happens either a) the moment they think they can get away with it or b) the moment they think they might lose power -- so they grab for it all while they can...

The article to the contrary, we need to rabbit punch, hit below the belt, do whatever it takes to get these bums out of power. There's no point in being concerned about what marginal further damage this might do to the democratic process after years of Rethugnican dirty tricks, LIHOP/MIHOP, and worse. Not when the Rethugs are out to abolish democracy entirely.