A Fascist Oligarchy

 

Recently I was talking to a friend about the state of our country and mentioned, "America is becoming a monster that devours itself". 

It’s taken almost 250 years, but the radical Right fascists have succeeded.

The Republicans have brewed their perfect storm to destroy a republic of, by and for the people. It took some time, but their fascist oligarchy is here now, and the destruction will be devastating and lasting.

Their slow-moving coup was facilitated from the beginning by the founders' antiquated and antidemocratic Electoral College and Senate. Those bastions of inequality should have been removed when slavery was abolished. Instead, they allowed the road to fascism to be paved by the "Reagan Revolution" that let the corporate foxes into the regulatory henhouse. They installed into our government shills who stood diametrically opposed to Constitutional taxation, regulation of commerce, and provision for the general welfare 

The radical Right needed to establish a propaganda network to con the public into believing they worked for the working class. Enter Murdoch's FOX(R) and Limbaugh to drive home their divide and conquer strategy. They would dupe millions of poorly educated and semi-literate Americans with their hate and lies. 

Next, they needed to fill the courts with partisan ideologues who would do their bidding. This is how the 2000 election was handed to Bush, the first audible death knell to democracy. That president went on to wage a war based on lies, only to be reelected. The country was proving itself to be easily misled by the radical Right. The next ominous red flag was when, for the first time in memory, rights were curtailed for women.

The time had come for Trump’s Big Lie and crime spree.

From there on the road to fascism was paved by Mitch McConnell's refusal to convict Trump in his J6 impeachment trial and his treacherous theft of the Supreme Court, packing it with a MAGA majority willing to immunize Trump from justice and deny the 14th Amendment's protection against insurrectionists.

But they still needed a weak and divided opposition, which Joe Biden gave them by breaking his promise to not run for reelection. Dropping out after his weak debate only added to the appearance of the party's disarray.

The corporate media's failure to focus on Trump's crimes just to keep their "horse race" ratings up was the final nail in democracy’s coffin. Now they are quickly falling in line to escape Trump’s wrath and retribution.

Already Google has removed Gulf of Mexico from their maps and replaced it with Trump’s decreed Gulf of America. What’s next? The “East American Ocean” and the “West American Ocean” instead of the Atlantic and Pacific?

It shouldn’t be surprising that corporate entities instantly fail historian Timothy Snyder’s first lesson on tyranny. “Don’t obey in advance”.

Trump’s autocratic oligarchy has taken power and is actively dismantling any governing authority that regulates banks and corporations. It has shut down America’s best foreign relations agency USAID. They’d rather see food rot and medicine expire than send to the poor people most in need. 

Greed, hate, power, cruelty, and dominance are their only values. They take joy in inflicting suffering in the people they hate. They will demonize and scapegoat minorities and the powerless. The unelected autocratic oligarch Elon Musk declared USAID is a "criminal organization" without evidence. Trump accused the employees of being "radical leftists".

And here we see the ugly true nature of fascists. They will always seek to scapegoat and punish anyone they hate, including all who oppose or even inconveniences them. Under a convicted felon in the White House the Justice Department and FBI are being purged of competent lawyers and agents who upheld their oath to defend our Constitution and rule of law by investigating the serial criminal president. 

Tyrants value and demand loyalty to the leader. They resent and scorn an impartial judiciary. This is why Trump installed radical right loyalists into the Supreme Court who would advance his political agenda and even grant him blatantly unconstitutional immunity from the law. The noble ideal in the words "Equal Justice Under Law" over the entrance to the Supreme Court no longer applies in the United States. 

Along with equal justice, Trump and his loyalists have also terminated America's tradition of peaceful transfer of power.

It's always dictatorship over democracy for radical right authoritarians. They want to rule, not govern. Having no conscience, cruelty always trumps compassion.

Under their rule they are endangering the health of Americans by muzzling and dismantling the CDC and NIH. Human suffering and death means nothing to these sociopaths.

Provision for the general welfare be damned. Corporate welfare and a police state will be all that remains of a federal government that was once intended to be of, by, and for the people. These days white (un)Christian nationalists are the only "real Americans". 

“We the people” no longer matter. It’s now all about “We the wealthy elites and Trump loyalists” fleecing and subjugating Americans in a deliberately and systematically demolished republic.