Fascist movements don’t survive the loss of Dear Leader. MAGA is a fascist movement, and Dear Leader failed in a coup attempt. In Germany, when they failed to recognize the dangers associated with letting Hitler out of prison (at least they managed to incarcerate him...), he came back from the ashes and we all know what happened thereafter. People like Trump, Hitler, and the rest of the fascist/authoritarian parade can’t be stopped with hope or wishes or clapping hands. They can’t even be stopped with at the ballot box (we stopped Trump at the ballot box, and look what happened? He’s still threatening the whole damn Human race).
Because Trump and his accomplices were not put into prison after their coup attempt, we’re in the place in a fascism timeline where major institutions hedge their bets by aligning behind or tacitly endorsing the fascist in the hopes that when/if they win, they won’t be on the chopping block thereafter.
Because Trump and his accomplices were not put into prison after their coup attempt, a lot of very smart and ambitious fascists began to move quickly to control various institutions. He wasn’t held accountable therefore he was on the winning side therefore maybe CNN needs to find a way to reach out to his demographic because shareholder value, you know?
Because we are unwilling to prosecute corrupt Supreme Court judges for taking bribes, or their wives for participating in an insurrection, we are all about to choke on air and die from the poisons in our waters and streams. Women and girls will die in pregnancies they should never have had to carry to term. Our (Democratic) squeamishness with regards to using the power of the state given to us by the voters is allowing the fascists to run roughshod over everyone.
The reason we had this debate debacle *at all* is because Trump and his accomplices were not put into prison after their coup attempt. It’s why they can make millions on podcasts and Q-Anon speaking tours while roaming free to gin up the next batch of violent rioters to throw at the capitol. It’s why CNN went from “Trump is a fucking traitor and we will not showcase him or anyone who refuses to admit he lost” to “Please proceed, My Lord. We’re so sorry we ever doubted you”. It’s why Fox doesn’t give a fuck about the billion dollar payout they made (all their lies are now just baked into the zeitgeist anyway).
What democrats need to learn, understand, embody, is that sometimes the only answer is the violence of the state, command of which was given to them by the voters. Biden should have used the Insurrection Act to address this actual ongoing insurrection at every level. Freeze all RNC funds and fundraising until a full investigation is done. Arrest the Congresspersons who were involved in the white house meetings planning the coup. Shove Trump and Bannon and all the rest of them so deep in a hole that they will never climb out of it. None of that even remotely happened. Now we are all seeing what happens when you do not respond to fascist movements with force.
All of this could be different if Biden had used that force to solve this problem out of the gates. We might be looking at a harder opponent in this election, but they would have to then deal with the fallout of what happens to fascist movements when they lose Dear Leader (they fall apart). What we learned in the primary is that no one can be Trump but Trump, and that the voters will accept no one BUT Trump. If Trump was behind bars, however, the best they could run on is pardoning him, which would have had the same impact on independent voters as what we’re looking at now. If the RNC, reeling from the shame of so many people brought low for treason and sedition, decided to push for a moderate candidate, they’d lose the MAGA movement entirely, we’d have a real schism in the Republican party, and that would be the end of their electoral chances for a generation. Failing to use the power of the State to crush this movement in response to their coup attempt meant that the movement was finally able to completely hollow out the Republican party from within. There won’t be upstanding Republican state level officials to get in the way in November. They will all march in lock step with dear leader.
Instead, we got Merrick Garland, and a tacit understanding that we were going to soft-pad our way to 2024 and hope for the best. This is the consequence of that. Trump and his accomplices got away with an attempted violent overthrow of the US government and a soft coup attempt. They can do anything they like, and institutions like the NYT will waddle along behind them in the hopes that they can still profit by covering the both-sides arguments for and against the concentration camps to come.
Judge Merchan might be able to fix this. I suspect, however, that forces in New York are already mobilizing to make sure that even if Merchan understands the assignment and sentences Trump to jail, and incarcerates him immediately, that the NYS Court of Appeals will force his release, or the US Supreme Court will find some way to bend over backwards to save Dear Leader. The window to do what was truly necessary to stop this movement closed with the appointment of Merrick Garland. We all need to finally recognize that the choice to appoint a middle of the road doddering wallflower of an AG in the wake of the worst attack on our nation since the Civil War was the real disaster, not the debate the other night.