The rightwing groups I follow aren’t just alt-right/Trump groups. They are “run-of-the-mill” GOP and libertarian--some local, some national. Unfortunately, I've noticed a very disturbing trend this past year within not just the comment sections, but the sanctioned posts. I heard it on talk radio shows I force myself to listen to. Still, I have dismissed it until recently came across this
viral facebook post that I feel I need to share. It’s long, but worth the read. I’ll just hit a few highlights...<p>
For many of us, Trump feels like a 100-year flood. A buffoon who, with a set of extraordinary circumstances, conned his way into the oval office. He is an anomaly, and once we get him out in 2020, the GOP will be sufficiently shamed/punished and we can finally go back to "normal".
Yet I have watched with utter dismay the authoritarian, neo-fascist rantings within these groups that I have never seen before. Even my milquetoast county GOP party had a screed against local muslims taking over. Hateful comments are not only NOT banned, but many times are openly lauded and encouraged. The movement that has infected the GOP with rot has also infected our nation outside of ordinary politics.<p>
The post begins:
For going on two years now, I have been following several Donald Trump groups, alt right groups, and just general far right reactionary groups. I have seen these groups grow from 500 or a thousand people to 20,000, 30,000, 50,000, and more. When I joined them, I felt like something was changing, something new was happening, and I wanted to try and understand it...
The threat of Nazis being normalized isn’t a thing anymore—because they HAVE already been normalized.<p>
Yes, for now, the term “Nazi” still has negative connotations--even among most rightwing groups. Yet those who don’t say they are Nazis spout the exact same hateful rhetoric as your garden-variety Nazi. After all, that is the one thing that unites the modern GOP: hate. Hate of immigrants, minorities, gays, Muslims, feminists. Hate, with a healthy dose of paranoia, binds them all together as their only core value.
I’ve watched these groups proliferate, grow. You want to tell yourself that this is a fringe, that the worst, loudest, biggest assholes take over groups like that. That ain’t it.
A couple dozen groups have become hundreds, thousands. I’ve read the comments, I’ve clicked on the profiles, and I’ve read the user info for all the perfectly nice, seemingly intelligent, well-spoken citizens cheering ICE incarcerating some sick 10-year-old, saying all Muslim-Americans should be deported, demanding football players who protest the police should be put in jail until they stop kneeling, that some reporter should be thrown in jail for asking the president an uncomfortable question, that Iran and North Korea should immediately be nuked. I’m not talking about five or six unpleasant comments on your local newspaper website, I’m talking about literally hundreds of posts with threads that are thousands of comments long, every day, in every group, exactly like this, in too many groups to count.
They’re not monsters, they’re not the prison gang leader with the swastika on his neck. They’re just folks. They’re filled with hate. But they are still just folks, most of the time.
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This is America now.
There is no longer a such thing as a “GOP leader”--they have all capitulated. They aren’t just refusing to condemn this growing anti-American threat, but are now openly catering to them. Why? It’s their new “base”, and this new base is demanding an authoritarian, fascist government. One that would allow Trump to imprison and punish his “enemies”—Constitution be damned. Right now, we are bearing witness to a GOP Congress joining the president in completely assaulting American institutions—the rule of law, traditional decorum, the right to vote, the free press—all in an attempt to curry favor with this new movement. <p>
The problem will not be solved if we manage to take back the House in 2018, or even if we defeat Trump in 2020. You see, here’s the crux of it---the problem isn’t Trump. Not anymore, anyways. The damage has already been done. Thankfully, Trump is an easily manipulated man-child who has been surprisingly easy to out-maneuver, despite his party having complete control.
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Our problem, and our day of reckoning, will come after he leaves the stage:
If Trump loses, it’s going to get worse. And what do you suppose happens then?
What do you suppose happens when the apple pie fascists find someone capable to do the job? What happens when someone capable realizes there’s an opening?
What happens when that person isn’t a fucking clown?
We are no longer fighting the normalization of Nazism, but Nazism itself. Fascism is real, and they have found the perfect vehicle in the republican party. We all need to come to terms with this new reality if we are going to stop them. This is NOT a fringe movement anymore, but a real threat.
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This isn’t about a left-leaning ideology over a right-leaning ideology anymore (ala Romney v. Obama, Gore v. Bush). This is about authoritarianism vs. democracy. Rule of law vs. chaos. Hate vs. the right to live in peace—or to just live. We all have to fight like our nation’s survival depends on it, because this time, it really does.