“Fascism is no longer just a foreign threat,” says Mission Democracy, a bipartisan political group that is using the F-word (fascism) to describe Donald Trump and his MAGA minions on Capitol Hill. The group hopes to educate and motivate American voters before the crucial 2024 election next year. Trump is vowing revenge and retribution if he is returned to the White House, and the MAGA multitudes seem all too cultishly willing to do anything it takes to get him there.
Mission Democracy says that its goal “is to educate all Americans about the dangers posed by MAGA fascism and to encourage them to use our democratic process to diminish the MAGA influence on our government.” Though the acronym MAGA purports to stand for Make America Great Again, Mission Democracy said just days before a threatened government shut down, “MAGA extremists in Congress who are willing to shut down the government to appease Trump are a perfect example of how they are falling further into fascism. Their allegiance is to one demagogue, not to America.”
Targeting Trump’s political pals like Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Matt Gaetz of Florida, Jim Jordan of Ohio and Lauren Boebert of Colorado, as well as lesser-known state and local MAGA candidates, Mission Democracy says, “MAGA embodies everything we fought to destroy during World War II and the Cold War… They are banning books. They are taking away women’s rights. They are undermining our institutions and our elections. They subvert U.S. foreign policy by supporting Vladimir Putin and dictators across the globe. They oppose taking any action to reduce gun deaths. They have declared war on our transgender brothers and sisters. They sow chaos in our communities and in our legislature.”
Writer Upton Sinclair called fascism “Capitalism plus Murder.” Writer Grant Singleton said, “Fascism is big business armed with bayonets,” and, “The love of money is the root of all fascism.” Both were right. Fascist Italian dictator Benito Mussolini called fascism “a merger of state and corporate power.” Author Sinclair Lewis warned of a fascist dictatorship in America in his 1935 novel It Can’t Happen Here. His tale of an authoritarian America had a resurgence in sales after Donald Trump won the 2016 election. Fascism can happen here if Trump wins again in 2024, says Mission Democracy.
When America fought fascism abroad during World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt reminded citizens that, “The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself.” MAGA Republicans in Washington and around the nation mouth platitudes about freedom and limited government and rule of law, but their continuing allegiance to and excuses for Trump shows them abrogating Americanism and bolstering authoritarianism.
The Jan. 6 insurrection by Trump’s MAGA mob was a fascist putsch right here in America that was cheered, excused or minimized by Republican politicians on Capitol Hill. High-profile Jan. 6 defendants like Enrique Tarrio of the Proud Boys gang and Stewart Rhodes of the Oath Keepers militia were given long prison sentences earlier this year, and hundreds of their rioting underlings have also received federal prison time. On Sept. 22, insurrectionist Rodney Milstreed was given five years in the slammer for attacking cops and a news photographer during the Jan. 6 MAGA melee. Milstreed “prepared for battle” by injecting steroids prior to the Washington riot that Trump promised would “be wild.”
Still, the threats continue. Judges and prosecutors in Trump’s legal cases have been threatened and costly security measures have been taken for federal buildings and personnel. Such domestic terrorism is what former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was warning about back in 2006 when she spoke about countries where interference with the judiciary helped dictatorships gain power. “It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into a dictatorship,” she said, “but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings.”
Fascism, American-style, can happen here. Writer Alan Moore correctly cautioned, “Fascism is like a hydra. You can cut off its head in the Germany of the ‘30s and ‘40s, but it’ll still turn up on your doorstep in a slightly altered state.”
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