Right Wing

The Strongman Fantasy And Dictatorship in Real Life Timothy Snyder

How should Germany deal with its far-right problem – and could it ban the AfD? (2/8/2024)

“Arguments in defense of the centralization of power and rising authoritarianism are always different, but the results are always the same: corruption, stagnation, dictatorship, repression, violence.” Gary Kasparov

Reduced to basics, today’s oligarchs and strongmen (along with their mouthpieces and lackeys) are trying to justify their wealth and power by attacking liberal values that have shaped the west, beginning with the enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries – the values of tolerance, openness, democracy, self-government, equal rights, and the rule of law. These values are incompatible with a society of oligarchs and strongmen. Why do Putin, Trump, Tucker Carlson and the Republican party sound so alike? Robert Reich (The Guardian)

... the alignment of Republican support behind autocratic right-wing leaders across the globe long predates Trump’s elevation to the presidency, an investigation in partnership with Type Investigations reveals. For years, Republican members of Congress, lobbyists, and political consultants have worked to forge bonds with far-right leaders across Europe—in Hungary, Germany, Austria, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Macedonia, and beyond. You might call this loose federation of fellow travelers for the nativist global right the strongman caucus. Sarah Posner in the New Republic (3/25/2019)

“Ambitious sociopathy has brought down liberal (or relatively liberal orders again and again, whether in the era of Lenin, Mussolini, and Hitler or in our own era of Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orban, Rodrigo Duterte, Jair Bolsonaro, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan.” Jonathan Rauch, The Constitution of Knowledge

"America stands on the brink of total annihilation and final fascist ascendancy. Odds are good they’ll succeed. Then the future will be worse than most imagine... Dismiss this warning at your peril. They’ll eventually come for you too.”— Walter Shaub

the worst kind of one-party state "invariably replaces all first-rate talent, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty." Hannah Arendt wrote in the 1940's. The American Crisis, What Went Wrong, How We Recover P150

...the fundamental truth about the right is that it has always wanted one and only one thing: to keep down those who are already down. This is what unites Edmund Burke and Sarah Palin. (From a review by Mark Lilla of the Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin by Corey Robin.

“Major ways of thinking about the world constitute just-world theories...The Catholic Church is a just world theory. If the Inquisition burned heretics, they only got what they deserved. Bolshevism was a just-world theory. If Kulaks were starved and exiled, They got what they deserved. Fascism was a just-world theory. If Jews died in the concentration camps, they got what they deserved. The point is not that the good people get the good things, but the bad people get the bad things. Neoclassical economics, our principal source of policy norms, is a just-world theory.” Avner Offer, author of the Challenge of Affluence , Self-Control and Well-Being in the United States and Britain Since 1950 quoted in Wages of Rebellion, the Moral Imperative of Revolt: Chris Hedges pg 77.

The Corrosion of Conservatism by Max Boot

I believe circumstances such as “9/11" have nearly swept us to disaster, the authoritarian threat has grown unabated, and almost all the protections I saw in 1996, such as a “free and vigilant press,” are being eroded or have already been destroyed. The biggest problem we have now, in my view, is authoritarianism. It has placed America at one of those historic cross-roads that will profoundly affect the rest of its history, and the future of our planet. The world deserves a much better America than the one it has seen lately. And so do Americans.The Authoritarians: Bob Altemeyer (Download his Free Book).

Authoritarians can dismantle democratic institutions like a free media, an independent judiciary, and a robust civil society, and compromise election integrity, while still ostentatiously holding elections in which the people vote. After all, last March, after the Russian election that prompted a national security memo to Trump with the warning“DO NOT CONGRATULATE,” Putin won 77 percent of the vote. (Trump congratulated Putin anyway.) The End of the City on a Hill (3/11/2019)

There is a global struggle taking place of enormous consequence. Right-wing authoritarians backed by a network of multi-billionaire oligarchs are forming a common front. We who believe in democracy must join together to build a progressive global order based on human solidarity.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) April 6, 2019

"The dismal theorem of political science --- that all the skills leading to the rise to power tend to unfit people to exercise it. While there are some exceptions to this principle, there are a deplorable number of good examples. A person rises to power by pushing the other contenders down, in some cases by murder, frequently by deceit, and even in democratic societies by being more persuasive that the competitors. Persuasiveness is not always related to the capacity to live up to the persuasion." Kenneth E. Boulding, The World as a Total System p116.

Something everyone in US politics should understand: the GOP is the farthest right major party in any developed democracy. To find analogues you have to look to splinter neo-fascist parties in the EU. https://t.co/LjKRL3FM4w pic.twitter.com/pwztpsYnNk
— David Roberts (@drvox) June 19, 2020

Democracy is better than dictatorship. Will people learn that and reject right wing government ? Typical right wing country has a wealthy, powerful leader surrounded by oligarchs, no free press, criminalized dissent, a minority group to blame, criminalized political opponents, wins elections by acclaim, high security, bloated military ready for war to expand.

All those heroic empire builders in history were the heads of authoritarian, right wing government like the GOP. Their values are the problem.

Victor Orban, Jair Bolsonaro, Narenda Modi, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, or Donald Trump all blame an ethnic minority as a threat and promise to stand up to them. Russia, right now invading Ukraine, is a prime example. So was Hitler's Germany. Don't let it happen in the U.S.

"Although they are rare in the population as a whole, malevolent, sadistic, or psychopathic actors may be disproportionately likely to gain political power. Many dictators have exhibited such traits aside from Putin, Asad, Mao and Hitler, including Genghis Khan, Saddam Hussein, Stalin, Mussolini, Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, Franscois Duvalier, Nicolae Ceausescu, Idi Amin, and Pol Pot. There is therefore high risk that malevolent people could have an outsize impact on the future."
What We Owe the Future by William MacAskill

Right wing movements have a lot in common. They claim to be 'conservative', although they only conserve existing hierarchical power, including patriarchy, and oligarchy. They are authoritarian, xenophobes, racists, enemies of democracy, and tend to empower dictators. Fundamental Religion is allied, denigrates women as second class, repress sex, disdain science, spread disinformation, distrust experts, and incite domestic violence as seen in bombings of abortion clinics, or the Oklahoma city bombing. Domestic violence is a growing threat, but the GOP is expanding gun rights with the help of its Supreme Court.

The Ukraine War was caused by yet another right wing sociopath, Putin, who will stop at nothing to expand his turf. Putin is destroying Ukraine, committing a genocide as bad as Hitler's. Because of him, the doomsday clock stands at 90 seconds to midnight.

Republicans are a far right party, say they don’t like government and in office they make it bad. They have forced the US toward fascism since well before WWII, when they tried to overthrow FDR.

When Ronald Reagan said “Government is not the solution to our problem, Government is the problem” , he was removing people’s only way to address our greatest challenges. To this day, the GOP is attempting to “dismantle the regulatory state” and to empower an imperial Presidency. With Trump they succeeded, because in refusing Congressional subpoenas, firing Inspector Generals and others investigating Russian connections, decapitating the DOJ, packing the Courts, he was able to be above the law, broke the Constitution, and nearly become a dictator. Having failed at insurrection, he is continuing to attack democracy in his attempt to overthrow the government and yearns to become a dictator.

Right wing government emerges when wealth inequality becomes extreme. and it is never good. Republicans will tell you you are on your own, lobby for tax cuts for themselves, cut back social supports, and game the system to extract wealth from everyone else for the benefit of their elite minority.

Tribalism, whether partisan, racist, religious, nationalist, sexist, becomes evil when it succeeds in dehumanizing outsiders. It motivated the holocaust, Jim Crow atrocities, border killings, racist and political mass shootings, etc. It is, I think, one of the strong drivers of right wing politics and incites violence. The GOP would scrub it from school curricula, academia, or media. Suppression of critical thought and morality is vital for the right.

Right wing government is tribal, the result of extreme wealth inequality. A small number of oligarchs, or even a single charismatic leader makes decisions, replaces experts with incompetent loyalists and sociopaths. Think “Heck of a job, Brownie”, spoken by G. W. Bush after hurricane Katrina. It tends to make bad decisions, does not serve most people because it is self serving, thinks some people are better than others, and in the long run is disastrous for about everybody.

The right is authoritarian as are its wealthy oligarchs, evangelicals and corporate supporters instinctively prefer a dictator. Authoritarians are often kleptocrats as well, so corruption is rampant. They disguise themselves as democratic, calling themselves populists, but they do not govern for the people. When possible, they create a one party state, like Orban's Hungary, so they can win elections by acclaim. Trump's government was eerily similar to Putin's, who he admired. Strong man leader, surrounded by richly rewarded oligarchs, prey on and extract wealth from most of the population, and attempt to stay in power for life.

Racism is a strong force for the political right, likely a large part of the reason Trump was elected. In the US people of color, in Germany’s case antisemitism, was the seed that later bloomed as Nazism, and led to the 'final solution'. Germans who fled to the US see blacks as the underclass in America.

Mass migration, nativism, and racism drives right-wing movements that can gain political power, dismantle democracy, and elect charismatic leaders. The US and Russia are financing and otherwise encouraging that move to the right. Russia and the US look similar as authoritarian leaders reward oligarchs who are sycophants,attack political opponents and the press, expand state propaganda mobilize troops to police dissenters. judiciary losing independence, checks and balances no longer functioning, individual rights disappearing along with the possibility of impeachment. Both Putin and Trump appear to be using the authoritarian playbook.

“All extreme right groups preach that immigration is a threat to culture. What is meant by 'culture' is never defined, but there is an underlying presumption that our culture is better than their culture. They also claim that immigration costs the country fantastic amounts. There is great reluctance to pay for any social programs, instead resources are designated for the military.” paraphrased from Stieg Larson.

They are authoritarian, enemies of democracy, minorities, human rights, civil liberties, impose their version of law, disdain science, spread disinformation, distrust experts, denigrate women as second class, repress sex, rule by force, and incite domestic violence as seen in bombings of girls schools in Afghanistan or abortion clinics in the US. The U.S. Republican Party is radical right.

When decisions are made by a single individual like Trump, they can be ludicrous. Drink bleach,nuke the hurricane, reopen schools in a pandemic. Trump denied election results, lied a lot, undid many of the accomplishments of the previous administrations: tried many times to repeal healthcare without a replacement, weakened banking regulation, nearly put the post office in bankruptcy, fired the group responsible for pandemic preparations,sidelines the CDC, removed the US from the WHO, put religious radicals on the Supreme Court, withdrew from the Paris Agreement on climate and the Iran agreement on nuclear weapons, pandered to Putin who had backed his election, incited an insurrection, condoned violent political intimidation.

Democracy respects majority opinion, not on an unchecked individuals decisions. It does not interfere with science, relies on evidence presented by responsible media, cultivates fair elections from well educated citizens, and governs as a referee for powerful interests, not overpowered by them. It promotes the general welfare of the people.

The very worst response to the pandemic, as seen in the number of cases, have been strong right-wing leaders: Trump, Bolsanaro, Modi, Putin all tended to downplay the seriousness of the problem.

Republican States are poorer, more polluted, have stricter voting rights, looser gun laws, harsher abortion laws, poorer healthcare, worse virus response, lower education levels, higher religiosity, more dangerous infrastructure, and altogether worse right-wing government.

Corporate concentration, a force for extreme wealth disparity, contributes to the political takeover. Extreme wealth inequality puts sociopaths in control of government. Government by corporations is defined as Fascism.

Chances of a devastating, planet destroying nuclear exchange are growing. Denial of the climate threat, a direct result of fossil fuel profligacy and over population, means accelerating the destruction of the habitability of the planet.

There have always been fascists in the US, they have already mounted an insurrection, they will not give up, if they win there will be no US republic. They are the modern Republican party.

Like other right wing governments, Republicans are dangerous. When oligopoly defeats democracy, the result can be fascism.

Right wing governments, like all other institutions, all seek to expand, so they are poised to go to war. They encourage their followers to be armed. They claim to be exceptional. (No one is exceptional.) Therefore, they want to impose their culture everywhere. They will do it by force and that requires that the military expand. The U.S. has the world's largest military and it is expanding.

Russia is invading Ukraine, China wants Taiwan and more, the US is recovering from several failed, pointless wars, but is further expanding its military. The right is a perennial motivator for war, especially unsuccessful ones for empire which predictably exhaust and bankrupt the host country.

Democratic countries go to war only in self defense.

It appeared with the election of Trump that Fascism is coming home to the U.S. All the elements are in place. This time with an expanded nuclear arsenal, war will occur much faster than ever before and the devastation can be far worse.

A vote for Republicans is a vote for a minority party that is sabotaging elections to install a dictator who will never willingly leave office. Such government will end the republic, and democracy.

Right wing government is never good. This is true for nations, in history, every empire is destroyed. Also for red states as seen in results of Republican governance. See the forecast.

Notice that when the political left is discussed, it's usually about something that would benefit the public or actual people, like social programs,

I've decided that all right wing government is bad. Humanity will destroy itself if it doesn't learn that. Right wing government is never good. Don't vote GOP.

Left wing government is for the people, right wing government is not.

Trumpism is far more dangerous than Trump himself. We have been extremely fortunate that Trump's narcissism, paranoia, and general incompetence have mostly prevented him from achieving his goals. Anyone who thinks a political party animated by ethnic nationalism is going to lead the country to a better place should take a long hard look at history. I can't think of a single instance where democracy survived. Victor (Letter to NYT)

Red Caesarism’ is rightwing code – and some Republicans are listening (10/1/2023)

US businessman is wannabe ‘warlord’ of secretive far-right men’s network (8/22/2023)

Confronting “Policy Murder” and the Rising Violence of the Right (7/15/2022) By Stan Cox, originally published by City Lights Books

As Right-Wing Rhetoric Escalates, So Do Threats and Violence (8/13/2022) New York Times

One in five applicants to white supremacist group tied to US military (2/9/2022) Guardian

Surprised to see US Republicans cozying up to the European far right? Don’t be (10/15/2021) The Guardian Cas Mudde

Far-right terror poses bigger threat to US than Islamist extremism post-9/11 (9/8/2021) Guardian

Repression Without Borders (8/28/2021)

Climate Denial, Covid Denial and the Right’s Descent (8/9/2021)

CPAC and the Rise of Middle American Nationalism 4/5/2021

Too many American moderates have ignored(still do) the advice of experts in far right authoritarianism and those of us who have *lived* under far right authoritarianism; and instead do — and ENCOURAGE others to do — the EXACT things that allow far right authoritarianism to build.
— Wide Mind | Fierce Heart (@wydmindfeersart) September 4, 2020

PASTELS AND PEDOPHILES Inside the Mind of QAnon By Mia Bloom and Sophie Moskalenko

Rush Limbaugh Was a Blight on America (2/17/2021)

Noam Chomsky: Decades of “the Neoliberal Plague” Left U.S. Unprepared for COVID-19 Outbreak (7/30/2020)

What Happened to America’s Political Center of Gravity? (6/26/2020)

How the Far-Right Boogaloo Movement Is Trying to Hijack Anti-Racist Protests for a Race War (6/10/2020)

When Leaders like Trump call for Vigilanteism, White Supremacists have through History been Happy to Oblige (5/19/2020)

Thousands of Americans backed by rightwing donors gear up for protests (4/18/2020)

What Happened to America’s Political Center of Gravity? (6/26/2019)

After the insurrection, America’s far-right groups get more extreme (3/16/2021)

Capitol Riot Puts Spotlight on ‘Apocalyptically Minded’ Global Far Right (1/24/2021)

FBI Warns White Supremacists Aim To Increase Dangerous Ties With Police, Military: Report (3/8/2021)

For two decades, domestic counterterrorism strategy has ignored the rising danger of far-right extremism. In the atmosphere of willful indifference, a virulent movement has grown and metastasized. U.S. Law Enforcement Failed to See the Threat of White Nationalism. Now They Don’t Know How to Stop It. (11/3/2018)

The most far-right Republican extremists and racists are forming a new caucus to protect Anglo-Saxon traditions.

As if we did not know who the most racist Republicans are.

How many of the GOP are stupid enough to join? #ONEV1 #demvoice1 #wtpBLUE https://t.co/BopLgNiv49
— The time is now 2020, Democracy is at stake 🌊🌊 (@TimeIsNow2020) April 16, 2021

2018 was a particularly active year for right-wing extremist murders: Every single extremist killing — from Pittsburgh to Parkland — had a link to right-wing extremism. Murder and Extremism in the United States in 2018

The Rise of Far-Right Extremism in the United States (11/17/2018)

Back in mid-2016, I wrote about Donald Trump's early 2016 meeting with race war novelist William S. Lind, whose 2014 novel Victoria depicted white Christian militias carrying out wholesale ethnic cleansing of the United States. https://t.co/Jx9KsuPjgW
— Somebody's "Liberation" is Somebody else's Tyranny (@brucewilson) May 29, 2020

Medical Expert Who Corrects Trump Is Now a Target of the Far Right (3/28/2020)

How the Far Right Became Europe’s New Normal (2/4/2020)

That's it. Thread time. On the subject of anti-semites. Have fun picking out the pattern.

This is Paul Nehlen, former GOP candidate for Wisconsin's 1st CD. These days he posts videos fanboying for Neo-Nazi mass shooters (that's Pittsburgh shooter Robert Bowers on his Tee-shirt.) pic.twitter.com/tSOIEb7IDF
— Zeddy (@Zeddary) August 15, 2019

"... what does a democratic society do with those who espouse the destruction of democracy? To fight back with other than stringently legal methods entails adopting the enemy's undemocratic stance, and so legitimates the fascists' vision. However, to do nothing is equally dangerous, showing weakness or even complicity. In the end, I suppose that populism will only be defeated in Larsson's way, through patient argument and watchfulness." from the Guardian

Giffords, 40,... after being shot through the head..., criticized Sarah Palin last year for putting her and 19 other Democrats on a hitlist of districts, each shown as being in crosshairs. Guardian (1/9/2011)

"the same think tanks that operate in the States are also at work in Britain, and climate change denial operates as a bridgehead: uniting the right and providing an entry route for other tenets of Alt-Right belief." Al Gore: 'The Rich Have Subverted All Reason'

By the way, if you do teach a course about the far right, you should really teach at least one class about gender (but use a gender lens throughout the course).

If you teach about gender, you should definitely talk at least a bit about the far right.
— ©️as Mudde 😷 (he/his) (@CasMudde) March 23, 2021

This is one of the most exciting nights of my life ... Our people played a huge role in electing Trump. David Duke - neo-Nazi leader

Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory ! Richard Spencer - White nationalist leader

The right is for the wealthy, the left is for the people.
What the right is against, the left is for.
Examples: GOP opposes unions, M4A, Social Security, gun control, taxes, public schools, public lands, regulations, democracy.
It's class warfare. https://t.co/95mRixtpO2
— Robert Vogel (@robert_vogel) August 2, 2019

Dept. of Homeland Security Names White Supremacy a Domestic Terrorist Threat (9/23/2019)

📺 NEW VIDEO

The radicalization of the Republican Party is a danger to us all. We must reject it. #ResignRepublican pic.twitter.com/nd0JZaIegG
— MeidasTouch.com (@MeidasTouch) April 30, 2021

Right wing government (in our case Republicans) are an unholy alliance of the religious right, corporate and powerful wealthy interests united in opposing the New Deal.

What they have in common is their preference for authoritarians. They are inclined to respect dictators, elect an imperial President, and concentrate power in a single individual. Being a minority their strategy is from the authoritarian playbook. That’s how we got Trump and his instinct to ally with other authoritarians.

‘We really, really need to ask ourselves what [Republicans] are evolving into.’ — Representative @AOC is raising the alarm about House Republicans ‘evolving’ extremism. pic.twitter.com/02xjae0kSK
— 𝖠𝗆𝖻𝖾𝗋🌊 (@AnIllicitWriter) January 29, 2021

Problem began with the US Constitution because it never was based on a principle of one man, one vote. Rural votes, more easily manipulated, are much more heavily weighted driving politics to the right, distorting all of our institutions.

Election bias drives all of our institutions to the right. Republican Presidents elected without the popular vote appoint Republican Supreme Court justices, affirmed by a Republican Senate, who propel the Constitution to the right.

Republicans don’t like government, and they are bad at it as seen in red States. Their long game is to cut taxes until government no longer can function: highways and other infrastructure fall into disrepair, social programs get cut back or abandoned, media is advertising driven and corrupt, government does not respond to people.

Power is concentrated into a few individuals, and we get a minority government that is polarizing. An imperial President has no checks. Capitalists prefer dictators. “Arguments in defense of the centralization of power and rising authoritarianism are always different, but the results are always the same: corruption, stagnation, dictatorship, repression, violence.” Gary Kasparov

Trump has shown us the flaws in the Constitution. It's not just that democracy is at risk, so is the habitability of the planet.

This is not new. The US has been supporting dictatorships world-wide, even when it meant opposing democratic movements. However it benefited powerful corporate interests.

Right wing government is never good for people.

What's *actually* interesting is Trump's win coincided with a surge in right-wing violence because of a more permissive environment, a growing intolerance for any dissent, and the failure to deliver, which had to be blamed on wreckers and the impure. https://t.co/mQDAERcwBQ pic.twitter.com/ielJ8PZN1S
— Dan Murphy (@bungdan) August 2, 2020

The White Power Movement From Reagan to Trump (9/4/2019)

We Aren’t Seeing White Support for Trump for What It Is (8/28/2019)

Why Isn’t Trump a Real Populist? (6/17/2019)

Why Fascists Storm Bookstores (5/20/2019)

Attacks by White Extremists Are Growing. So Are Their Connections. (4/3/2019)

Highlander Research and Education Center Burned Down (4/3/2019)

Over 1,000 Hate Groups Are Now Active in United States, Civil Rights Group Says (2/20/2019)

White Nationalism’s Deep American Roots (4/2019)

Coast Guard lieutenant accused of domestic terrorism had all the signs of online radicalization (2/21/2019)

Miller is...the architect of the White House’s draconian anti-immigration policies, which doesn’t just target “illegal immigration” but also aims to return to the country to the infamously racist immigration policy of the early 20th century.https://t.co/glOIAAS6Pg
— Thorn Thornhill (@ThornThornhill) November 16, 2019

You know you are in a right-wing country when the military, fortifications, surveillance, homeland security, secrecy, prisons, war, and corruption are the biggest budget items. Infrastructure, environment, and people's well being are too expensive. (and too far left.)

Mass migration is a powerful force for right wing politics, and it is inevitable with climate destruction, economic dislocation, income inequality, and war. Naomi Klein´ś book Shock Doctrine describes this.

Income inequality, economic insecurity, fundamentalist religion, and identity politics are the roots of right wing politics.

The right puts wealthy, often sociopaths, in power, culminating in a single, head of State who rules.

Traditional religions are authoritarian and are responsible for denial of science and much of the violence. They are tribal and are the motivating forces behind the assassination of abortion doctors, mass racist shootings, and other human rights abuse.

There's nothing new about the Tea Party, it stands in the tradition of other right-wing movements like the John Birch Society, the KKK, the Goldwater movement, or the McCarthy scare. All are white-supremacist, religious fundamentalist, paranoid, conservatives who are unable to tolerate any change or differences from their own ideology. It is based on fear. Funded by right-wing conspiracy, it infects the Republican party. It elected Trump, it is undermining the highest American values, and it is on track to Fascism.

Nativism begets racism that motivates mass deportations and cries for a border wall. The hypocrisy of this movement is on full display as they proclaim Christian values but participate in humanitarian crises. Right wing politics usually draws its strength from religious fundamentalism.

As the natural tendency to concentrate wealth, income inequality becomes more extreme, and there is a move to oligopoly , economic stress, and religion.

Religious institutions take the place of weakening social supports, but not very well. A bake sale does not help much in the face of heavy health care expenses. Women are made second class citizens, their health care access and reproductive rights cancelled. There is no concern for population policy or environmental destruction.

The right is anti-intellectual. It rejects science and the expertise that it demands. The result is appointment of unqualified candidates to high level positions. In the case of the judiciary, the appointments are for life. It was intolerance for other ideologies that mistakenly led to McCarthyism or the Vietnam War.

Income inequality has a natural tendency to increase, but, as Per Molander has pointed out, good government can keep it in some control as the Scandinavian countries have done. Failure to do this is likely the cause of a world-wide decline of democracy. The greater it gets, the more likely will be a rise of right wing politics accompanied by a surge of racism, nationalism, propaganda, and government by a minority unconcerned with the wishes of the people. To serve the elite, certain of the people are kept down: people of color, women, dissidents, gays, and the poor. Prison labor, outsized debt (for example students) or wage slavery can keep the population down. Strong policing and the surveillance state can assist in this effort. Those seeking to improve workers conditions are suppressed, often by violence, and not just within national boundaries. Labor unions disappear, the elite are inconvenienced to have to negotiate with them. As labor organizing is suppressed there is, world-wide, wage stagnation as well as systematic erosion of democracy.

The Tea Party was well funded by oligarchs. It is an enthusiastic force for gun rights, and a cause of the wilding of the US.

Germany was an advanced, Christian country until about the 1930’s, but in a very short time big corporations, including some based in the US, funded an unpopular Nazi movement, and a turn to Fascism changed that. Fascism, by dictionary definition, is rule by corporations.

Although WWII was a war against fascism, the GOP has forgotten that. We elected right-wing billionaires who reward themselves at public expense, mainly want tax cuts for themselves, fortified borders, a new round of nuclear weapons, and expansion of the world’s largest military.

Our elected Republican billionaires despise democracy and undermine its supports: the press, schools, elections, the Courts. We are number one in military, prison population, armaments, deportations, and Republicans are heading them all in the wrong direction. Above all, they want tax cuts and are more than willing to run up a deficit to get them ... since they failed to repeal health care for people.

The Fascist State does not care about its people, which is why there will likely be no improvement in health care, meals-on-wheels, head-start, or especially wages. They are rolling back consumer protections and the financial stabilizers incorporated in Dodd-Frank. Say goodbye to net neutrality or privacy protection by ISPs (cable companies). Say hello to the forever war for empire.

So the worldwide movement to right-wing politics is happening before our eyes. Oligarchs are organizing and funding institutions to strengthen it, and at the same time weaken democracy.

The internet of things as it spreads will accompany new Fascist states with the most intense surveillance in history.

To resist Fascism, after WWII, FDR’s Second Bill of Rights was made part of Germany and Japan’s Constitution and they have been more egalitarian and stable as a result. Institutions put in place, the UN, Nuremberg, were intended to stop war. Republicans are working tirelessly to undermine these institutions.

Classified tapes of activity at Guantanamo were so disgusting that they were destroyed by Gina Haspel who was then promoted, but Republicans refuse to close Guantanamo.

We know from Snowden that the NSA collects bulk communications of all types. We have built the world’s most complete surveillance system ever. Everyone’s messages are gathered and stored, and so were Trumps. This system was put in place in secret, authorized by the secret FISA Court, and is sure to kill the law, and any democracy that might remain.

As immigrants, people willing to stand in the sun and pick crops, are rounded up and deported there will be new profits for private prisons at the cost of humanitarian crisis. There is sure to be a drop in the number of foreign students and tourists who plan to come here. Ignoring the climate threat will make food shortages a sure thing.

Republican Fascists are working to cement their gains for the next election. There is no reason to think that the system is self-correcting. Brisk sales of dystopian novels may be a warning about the future. The right is ascendant world-wide. It is always toxic for democracy. With the election of Trump, oligarchs of the world unite, we have most likely lost WWII.

Note: some of the following paraphrased from Stieg Larsson's "The Expo Files";

HEALING FROM HATE: Angry White Men and the Alt-Right (Trailer) from Big Tent Productions on Vimeo.

All extreme right groups preach that immigration is a threat to culture. What is meant by 'culture' is never defined, but there is an underlying presumption that our culture is better than their culture. They also claim that immigration costs the country fantastic amounts. There is great reluctance to pay for any social programs, instead resources are designated for the military.

They engage in hate speech to stir up racist attitudes that already exist.

Racism, in their case anti-Semitism, was the seed that later bloomed as Nazism in Germany, and led to the 'final solution'. It is likely a large part of the reason Trump was elected.

They want borders that are impenetrable along with military that can punish any violators.

They claim to be exceptional. (No one is exceptional.) Therefore, they want to impose their culture everywhere. They will do it by force and that requires that the military expand. The U.S. has the world's largest military and it is expanding. So is the empire.

Corporate concentration is one of the forces that contributes to a political takeover. Government by corporations is defined as Fascism.

It appears with the election of Trump that Fascism is coming home to the U.S. All the elements are in place. In history, every empire is destroyed. This time with a huge nuclear arsenal, it will occur much faster than ever before and the devastation will be far worse.

Extreme wealth inequality puts sociopaths in control of government.

Milos Zeman, president of the Czech Republic in discussion with Steve Bannon warned: ‘Tell Trump you didn’t learn from Hitler. You can’t fight on two fronts. You can’t take on radical Islam and China. You will end up in the bunker, like Hitler.”

In the U.S. the Republican Party is now the far right. The far right is always the enemy of good government. This time, the consequence is not just a resulting authoritarian government (aka Fascist), a world order of oligarchs (a new axis of authoritarians), the decline of democracy, the loss of human rights. Chances of a devastating, planet destroying nuclear exchange are growing. But, in denial of the climate threat which is a direct result of fossil fuel profligacy and over population, we are staring at the destruction of the habitability of the planet.

See States. for results of Republican governance. or see the forecast.

When Trump's Next Coup Happens, the Republican Party Will Fully Support It | By Jonathan Chait https://t.co/lTXk4U1zQ8
— SafetyPin-Daily (@SafetyPinDaily) May 7, 2021