On September 22, 2021, a rather excellent piece was published on Salon.com, titled "Hillary Clinton Tried to Warn Us — and Paid the Price. Let's At Least Call Republicans What They Are."
In it, author Chauncey DeVega expertly notes how Hillary Clinton was absolutely SPOT ON when she stated "you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables."
In fact not only was she correct, but, as DeVega observed, "In many ways, Clinton was too kind. If anything, she underestimated how many Americans were in fact committed and enthusiastic human deplorables."
And just in case anyone with even half a brain is still in doubt about that, one need only look to today's observance of the first anniversary of the Jan 6 attempted overthrow of our government, of democracy itself, by Trump's band of seditionists and anarchists,
and how NO Republicans, save two (Liz and Dick Cheney), had the honor, the decency, nor the INTEGRITY as elected representatives of Congress, as patriots, even as AMERICANS, to show up for that solemn occasion...
how they, in their cowardly subservience to Trumpism and embrace of authoritarianism, demonstrated their complete solidarity and allegiance with thugs and insurrectionists.
Yet, when Hillary uttered those words in September of 2016, those of the increasingly radicalized right had the nerve to be outraged, while many on the left went belly up, and for long afterward, were squeamishly hesitant to even call out what many of us KNEW we were seeing with our very eyes. As DeVega wrote:
"After that speech, Clinton was pilloried by the mainstream news media, some leading Democrats, and of course the Republican Party and right-wing propaganda hate machine."
And similar capitulation also occurred in various online venues such as Facebook and the like, some even going silent before the orchestrated onslaught and outcries of right wingers (I used to say "far-right" but when three fourths of them believe the election was "stolen"...) who vehemently protested at being outed for what they were, and for what they supported and condoned.
Even as they and their elected officials doubled down on going lower still, piling on offense upon offense, atrocity upon atrocity, it was always incumbent upon the left to disavow the violence, to show diplomacy and restraint, to take the higher road, and turn the other cheek.
Wrote DeVega, "Many members of the news media likely agreed with Clinton's warnings in private, but the institution as a whole had been beaten into submission by Republican fictions about so-called liberal bias."
That failure, even FEAR to call them out for what they are, to speak truth to power and in turn, lending power to TRUTH... that lack of fortitude to, in effect, call a spade a spade, was and IS a gross miscalculation on our part, I think.
DeVega, spares no punches:
"Today's Republican Party is in fact a right-wing extremist organization, and fascist in all but name. Its followers and voters embrace and act upon those values and beliefs. To claim that there is some other Republican Party, somehow separate and distinct from right-wing extremism — as too many commentators and political observers do — is to assert a difference that does not substantively exist.
Fascism cannot be separated from violence, and it is incoherent beyond its fantasies of dominance and power and its desire to vanquish democracy and the truth. In the final analysis, there is no way to negotiate with fascists, because for them victory is all that matters. Reasonable compromise with such a force in a liberal democratic society is impossible, and any quest for it amounts to surrender."
rightly concluding:
"It is past time for America's political class and the Fourth Estate, which claims to be a defender of American democracy, to use more accurate language and call this moment and movement what it is. To avoid doing that, out of some misguided impulse toward civility, is to do the work of aiding and abetting the fascist attack on American democracy and society.
Today's Republican Party is using fascism to create a new 21st century American apartheid. With all due respect to Hillary Clinton, who tried to warn us, we must not mince words. Let us call such an abomination what it truly is."
Truer words were never spoken. High time we woke the -----— up.