In my first installment of this title I wrote of the need for calling the present day GOP and their enablers out for who and what they are, and of the reticence among some of the left in doing so. A recent article that appeared last week on Salon.com touched on that very subject.
In the commentary titled :"GOP's Violent Rhetoric Keeps Getting Worse — and Almost Nobody Is Paying Attention" author Chaucey DeVega writes,
"To defeat fascism, you must be willing to stare into the darkness. After four years of Trump's regime and more than a year of continually escalating democracy crisis, America's political class and news media — and the vast majority of its citizens — are still unwilling to do so."
DeVega is absolutely correct, and further explains how the right, through the tactic of ELIMINATIONISM, legitimize their hate based rhetoric. And in seeing this play out in real time, I could not help but recall Martin Niemöller's oft quoted poem, "First they came..."
Because, the fact is, the far (and now, fascist) right has been, by gradual degrees, coming for us for quite some time.
Coming for us when they undermined civil rights legislation and unraveled the Voting Rights Act. Coming for us when they discredited and attacked clean energy initiatives.
Coming for us by first attacking late term abortion, then six week abortions, and now abortions for life threatening ectopic pregnancies, out of state abortions, ANY abortion, including "morning after" medications, and now, even contraceptives.
Coming for us via attacks on CRT as a means to dictate curriculum, undermine public education, whitewash America's racist past, and to, by proxy, deny the racism they provide cover for TODAY.
Coming for us, first by dog whistle attacks upon transgender people in sports and public restrooms, then via persecution and prosecution, and via anti-LGBTQ and "don't say gay" legislation intended to deny, demonize, dehumanize, and render an entire community of our fellow Americans, INVISIBLE.
Coming for us by inventing voter fraud, as a cover for voter SUPPRESSION, denying the legitimacy of (mostly minority) votes by calling them "fraudulent" - via gerrymandered districts, closed polling places, and by giving themselves the authority to over-ride voter outcomes THEY don't like.
And they'll be coming for Social Security, healthcare, and Medicare too.
By those and so many other ways, they have come for immigrants, Asians, Blacks, Jews, Latinos, Muslims, Native Americans, women's rights, gay rights, voting rights, gun control, diversity, vaccines, mandates, masks, healthcare, unions, livable wages, consumer rights, conservation, clean energy, global warming, science, and education…
THEY'RE COMING FOR DEMOCRACY ITSELF. Yet we remain sedate. Why?
In another excellent article titled, "Dear Democrats: Start Treating Republicans Like the Violent Extremists They Are" (courtesy of The Grio Staff) the writers took issue with Speaker Nancy Pelosi's exhortation of Republicans to "take back their party from this cult" after the RNC declared the Jan. 6 attack upon our democracy "legitimate political discourse" - the authors rightfully pointing out how the GOP had BEEN a "cult" under Trump's tutelage, long before then.
They wrote:
"Speaker Pelosi went on to say that the Republican Party had “hit rock bottom” in response to the Republican National Committee’s resolution that dubbed the January 6 attack “legitimate political discourse.” But she got it wrong. The Republican Party hit rock bottom a long time ago,"
And that article was written in early February, before any of the GOP's "rock bottoms" SINCE.
Before Florida's "Don't Say Gay" bill, before Abbott's persecution of the parents of trans children, before their fascist convention in Orlando, and before their fawning adulation of Putin and his atrocious perpetrations upon Ukraine.
MY point being, they were BOTH wrong.
The GOP hasn't hit rock bottom and will never hit rock bottom because for today's fascist GOP, THERE IS NO "ROCK BOTTOM." No low, TOO low for them.
And the sooner the rest of us realize it, the better.