Last week, Beto used the word “fuck” in the most appropriate way possible. Responding to a reporter asking him whether Donald Trump’s racist, anti-immigrant rhetoric had anything to do with the El Paso tragedy, he responded.
What do you think? You know the shit he’s been saying, He’s been calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals. I don’t know, like, members of the press, what the fuck? Hold on a second.
Beto appeared this morning on AM Joy, and relentlessly attacked Trump and his followers. He spoke about Trump’s lies about El Paso — that it’s the most dangerous city, when it’s the least -- and he said:
It’s just a technique of propaganda, of fear; something that fascists use. Something we need to rise up against.
The other F-Word. Finally. Republicans are amping up to attack Democrats as socialists; the Frank Luntz- Newt Gingrich Republicans have been calling Democrats treasonous, unpatriotic and worse for 30 years. But until now it was taboo to call a fascist a fascist.
Picking this up, Joy asked:
You just used the term fascism. Do you worry that’s is what the administration something Trump is leading the nation toward?
Beto answered without hesitation:
Absolutely, he’s undermining every single institution that’s made the country great in the first place.
He listed Trump’s actions — trying to define us as a white nation; inviting a foreign power to attack our election; undermining the judiciary; destroying every single norm — as earmarks of a trend toward authoritarianism.
Martin O’Malley, of all people, was the only previous politician I’ve heard call Trump a fascist, and it was in about October 2016 on Fox News, of all places. Of course, Tucker et al., laughed it off — saying “you don’t really believe that” even though O’Malley listed glaring examples.
Two and a half years later, O’Malley is a prophet and Beto is the messenger and leader.
I’ve been leaning toward Warren or Castro. But I hope Beto gets a big bump from what he’s been doing and saying the last two weeks. He speaks from the head and heart.