Don't Let the GOP's Cutting Trump Loose Fool You
It took seven years for Trump the show the republican party how to unleash its inner fascist. Midterm election results are giving republicans a chance to pursue a new messiah.
Photo by Darren Halstead on Unsplash
The republican party has been waiting two years for last week’s midterm election.
Of course it hoped for the prognosticated “red tsunami” that fortunately failed to materialize (even if Democrats did not do as well as they should have in certain key areas).
For republicans, the outcome of the election means more than simply regaining control of Congress ahead of the 2024 presidential race.
It means it now has permission to do something it has wanted to do since losing control of the White House, both houses of Congress, and the economy two years ago.
The republican party can officially cut Donald Trump loose.
It’s not even a week after the election.
The balance of Congress is still undecided, and we’re already seeing the following headlines:
“Has ‘Trumpty Dumpty’ taken a great fall from Rupert Murdoch’s grace?”
“Rift in Trump’s inner circle over 2024 presidential campaign announcement.”
“Trump Voters Are Done with Ex-President”
And, as if those we’re clear enough: “Donnie, Time to Go Away”.
But if we think the republican party is going to suddenly snap out of the spell it fell into while in the cult of dear Donnie, we are making a dangerous mistake.
While the so-called “red tsunami” was a bust, there were some wins for Trump acolytes that should cause concern.
Probably the most concerning is the re-election of Fla. Gov. Ron DeSantis, once popularly referred to as “mini Trump,” who not only defeated his Democratic challenger, Rep. Charlie Crist, but is responsible for delivering three new republican House seats after gerrymandering Florida’s electoral maps and spending years intimidating voters, mostly of color.
With the Trump albatross finally extricated from around their necks, some republicans are dubbing DeSantis “the new Republican party leader.”
While we may have just received the entertainment we longed for in watching a wanna-be Trump turn on his idol, it’s important to acknowledge how dangerous Ron DeSantis is and the very real possibility of his winning the White House in 2024.
He created an “election police” force answerable only to him, which allowed him to successfully tamp down the Black vote after parading 15 shackled Black voters before cameras.
In his embrace of “smaller government,” DeSantis signed the “Parental Rights in Education bill,” what opponents have dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which decrees:
“Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade three or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.”
Last year, he went full George Orwell when he signed legislation requiring the state’s public universities’ and colleges’ students, faculty, and staff to register their political views to promote “intellectual diversity,” compelling taxpayer-funded educational institutions to implement annual surveys to determine “the extent to which competing ideas and perspectives are presented” and whether members of the educational community “feel free to express [their] beliefs and viewpoints.”
An additional bill prevents state colleges and universities from exposing students to ideas “they may find uncomfortable, unwelcome, disagreeable, or offensive.”
Another creates a K-12 “portraits in patriotism” civics curriculum contrasting the United States with communist and totalitarian governments.
He fired the Tampa area’s top prosecutor for having the gall to defy Fla.’s transgender and abortion persecution.
Pay attention to the language he used in a speech this summer:
“Our country is currently facing a great threat…This enemy is the radical vigilante woke mob that will steamroll anything and anyone in their way. Their blatant attacks on the American way of life are clear and intensifying: stifling dissent, public shaming, rampant violence, and a perverted version of history…A group that will, literally, tear down monuments and buildings but-perhaps in an even more sinister way-tear down the American spirit itself. They go after the family unit, parental rights, traditional moral values, the church, and fact-based education…Over the past few years, we’ve watched horrified as this group has attempted to brainwash our children into thinking we live in an evil, racist, irredeemable country.”
Does that sound like a democratically inclined leader interested in respecting political differences?
Every one of his premises is wrong.
But that’s doesn’t matter to the audience for whom they are intended.
It’s inciteful, bellicose rhetoric from a fascist intent on angering, frightening, and riling up a base convinced Democrats are spawns of Satan that only good “patriotic Christians” can defeat.
And it’s animating the republican party — the so-called the “party of Lincoln”.
The party in which not even Richard Nixon nor Ronald Reagan — two presidents completely comfortable with exploiting fear of crime — would be welcomed today.
The party exploiting fear and faux outrage to inflame people’s primal terror.
That’s what fascists do.
That’s what Trump did in 2015 when he announced his intent to run for the White House despite many believing it was just empty campaign bluster.
That’s what he did when in the White House that sucked so many into the cult currently subsuming the republican party.
Whether it’s DeSantis, Mike Pence, Rick Scott, Ted Cruz, or whoever, every one of them is going to have to pander to the “MAGA” base.
No aspiring republican presidential nominee would risk alienating it now that Trump has lowered the bar, whether they like it or not.
That means trying to out-fascist the other guy.
It’s a vision that should concern all of us.
We saw where it almost got us the first time.
Remember how George W. Bush was the republican party darling, even after he left office, after lying us into invading two countries that posed no threat to America and did not attack it, leading to millions of Iraqi and Afghani deaths, and deaths and maiming of thousands of American soldiers.
They were loyal until Donald Trump told them not to be.
Bush is persona non grata now.
Be prepared for Ron DeSantis to similarly turn Trump’s followers away from Trump.
We preserved democracy a little longer Tuesday.
The next time we may not be so fortunate if we fail to rise to the occasion.
If ever there was a time to “get in the game,” this is it — while we still can.