STOP CALLING FAR RIGHT REPUBLICANS IDIOTS. CALL THEM SOMETHING ELSE.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) gestures toward a crowd of supporters of President Donald Trump gathered outside the U.S. Capitol to protest the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral college victory Jan. 6, 2021 at the US Capitol in Washington, DC. Some demonstrators later breached security and stormed the Capitol. (Francis Chung/E&E News and Politico via AP Images)

In the spirit of civility, I began to write this piece urging my pro-democracy friends to stop calling our political adversaries idiots. As I watched more of their behaviors and antics, heard more of their rhetoric, and read more thoroughly sourced articles, essays and books, I concluded that the modern usage of the word idiot (a foolish or stupid person) is neither a civil, accurate nor enlightening word to describe the dominant wing of the latter-day Republican Party.

Instead, I’ve decided to call them fascists. Even President Biden has been pushed to the point of calling “MAGA Republicans” semi-fascists. I believe he is semi-correct.

For decades we dared not, and even today we still pause when using the words fascist and fascism because it makes the utterly unthinkable comparison with perhaps the most horrific villain in all of history – Adolph Hitler. So, we substitute terms like right-wing extremist, insurrectionist, or white nationalist, and yes, we still call them idiots. I honestly believe the Republican Party is evolving into a fascist party – minus the policies of mass murder of their perceived inferiors (but they do fret feverishly over white replacement), and empire-building (too much work for lazy Republicans). I also truly believe Donald Trump would like to become a fascist dictator. So why not start calling them fascists? If the more moderate Republican leaders do not like that label attached to their precious party, then they should either publicly and strongly push back or leave the party altogether, as so many sensible former Republicans already have. Waiting in silent acquiescence for the party to reform itself back to the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan is a fool’s dream.

The unquestioned leader of the Republican Party displays key signs of being a fascist, and referring to most of Trump’s base and political acolytes as fascists is merely telling the truth, as unpleasant as that may sound to the party faithful. His movement encapsulates many fundamental elements of fascist ideology. And don’t forget. Fascist and fascism are legitimate words found in all dictionaries. It’s neither profanity nor words whose usage is disapproved by lexicographers. Fascism describes a discredited and persistently ruinous system of government and social organization, characterized by dictatorship, radical nationalism, and fanatical intolerance. Hitler isn’t the definition of a fascist; he’s an example of one.

If Trump has a dictator’s playbook, it is not Hitler’s. Trump has gone straight to the architect of fascism, Italy’s Benito Mussolini, the man who, in fact, gave fascism its name, and was a major influence on Hitler.

Trump has gone straight to the architect of fascism, Italy’s Benito Mussolini, the man who, in fact, gave fascism its name, and was a major influence on Hitler.

Trump failed to become a dictator while in office, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. He used many of the tactics pioneered by Il Duce, and he is still using them in his current effort to make his comeback.

When Trump ran for office, he employed one of Mussolini’s early tactics in his rise to power: creation of an enemy to scapegoat. For Mussolini it was Communists and Socialists. For Trump it was Mexicans, Muslims, and the “shithole countries.” Additionally, he not so subtly hinted at racism by gaslighting Barack Obama as African-born, and hence an illegitimate President. He also tapped into the misogyny vein and went after Hillary Clinton, and boasted about his many, manly conquests of beautiful women. He labeled Democratic leaders and their major donors as “elites” and promised to bring them down. He called critical media outlets purveyors of fake news and hoaxes and labeled them “enemies of the state.” He claimed that he alone could protect America from ruination. He would be its savior.

Next, he stoked the fires of Nationalism and populism with his MAGA and America First slogans.  Like Mussolini and Hitler, Trump cultivated the view of Americans – that is, white Americans – as a superior people. He encouraged violence against his hecklers, calling them losers, leftists or Antifa. Just as Mussolini promised a new Roman Empire, and Hitler a Third Reich, Trump had people believing he would restore America to the largely mythical grandeur of its past: predominately white, straight, and mighty.

Like Il Duce, Trump crafted a cult of personality. He repeatedly and boldly told big lies, exalting himself and debasing his opponents.

Like Il Duce, Trump crafted a cult of personality. He repeatedly and boldly told big lies, exalting himself and debasing his opponents.

He catalogued and exploited the grievances of his disaffected followers and raised their hopes of deliverance from unfair victimhood. With the help of evangelical movement leaders, millions of gullible evangelicals saw him as God’s chosen vessel to establish a theocratic government. With incredible success, he won their unswerving fealty to him.

In office he honed his cult of personality with self-lauding, grievance-fueled rallies, bombastic tweets and frequent appearances on Fox News, all designed to indoctrinate his loyal base with the belief that America will go to hell unless he alone steps in to fix it. He tried, with some success, to use governmental institutions as levers of power for his personal ends. Like fascist dictators, he believed it was his prerogative to do so. His main targets were the Supreme Court and Departments of Justice and Defense. At the Supreme Court, he strove to form a coterie of like-minded, loyal justices whom he presumed would rule his way when it mattered to him. At Justice, he wanted to persecute his enemies and protect himself. At Defense, he wanted its force and might at his beck and call, even against other Americans. Fortunately, they only bent, but did not break.

Had he remained in office a second term, I believe he would have used his power of candidate selection and endorsement to get “his people” elected to Congress, eventually weakening both houses and reducing them to reliable rubber stamps. Then he would use congressional committees to investigate, harass, embarrass and impeach his opponents. He was already on his way to appointing ideological zealots as judges, and should Congress come under his control in a second Trump presidency, he would, by threats, intimidation and impeachment, attempt to create more vacancies to be filled with jurists he liked to describe as “my judges.” He would have his own ministry of propaganda and indoctrination tucked away in one or more existing agencies, likely the Departments of Education and Homeland Security, for example. Finally, he would enlist his faithful paramilitary gangs, such as The Proud Boys, to function in a role similar to Mussolini’s Blackshirts to keep his protestors in line through intimidation and violence.

Out of office, he still follows the Mussolini playbook. He has tried and is still trying to regain power either by a fair or corrupted election, and, failing that, by another attempted coup d’etat or even outright civil war. He still holds mass rallies and has created Truth Social, his personal media platform. He continually lies to stoke fear and rile up his base against our constitutional democracy. Unbelievably, the majority of Republicans are still with him. The rest are just going along without resistance.

Though hard to believe, the party is loaded with intelligent and clever people. I hear that high profile Republicans Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, for example, have very high IQs. To call them idiots is both inaccurate and uncivil, but that doesn’t bolster their bona fides as great American statesmen. Intelligence is not synonymous with knowledge, wisdom, logic, ethics, integrity or other qualities we admire and expect from leaders of government. In fact, the former without the latter can be very dangerous.

Brothers and sisters, what more can be said? Republicans are, or are on their way to becoming fascists either by volition or inertia. They don’t have to promote mass extermination of those they despise. They don’t have to invade weaker countries. All they need to do is continue to follow Mussolini’s blueprint and remain in service to their Il Duce. I would remind them that it didn’t end well for either Mussolini (his mutilated body hung upside down in a Milan public square after his summary execution), or Hitler (committed suicide before the Soviet army could rip him apart). They all failed miserably after inflicting catastrophic misery upon the world. Can they really expect anything different under Trump?