re: #85 Mattand

What keeps going through my mind with the constant “Throw out the election because the only way Trump could have lost is by cheating” is that if Trump and his clown car were the slightest bit competent, there’s a good chance they’d have pulled the whole fucking coup off.

What keeps me up at night is that McConnell and other non-insane Republicans are dissecting this whole mess to make sure they don’t make the same mistakes next time.

It’s been said by smarter people than me already, but Republicans, both voter and politician, got a tase of fascism and decided they want more of it. A lot more. And they have a roadmap now on how to get there.

Yeah, there is a long term arc here that can’t be ignored: they’re testing the system for breaks, using their power to weaken the system, then testing again. McConnell’s been talking about “permanent majority” in Congress for a long time with very little pushback. The idea of sham democracy…where most people’s votes are made not to count, so that the outcomes result in their side winning far more, and having an easier time making their decisions stick…has been in the offing for decades.

If you look at the way conservatives are attempting to game abortion, you can see the same methodology at work.

I’d argue that the fascism has been in the nation all along. The racial theories that informed the South, but also westward expansion and our colonial phase…well, they fit very comfortably into Eco’s ur-fascist criterion. This has been a long time in the offing.