The U.S. Senate can be bipartisan when protecting an increasingly authoritarian power structure that’s being bent, broken, and abused by the GOP— a fascist political party. By unanimously passing a bill to protect Supreme Court justices and their family members, the Senate and Democratic leadership showed they would rather protect fascists from feelings of discomfort than the people facing oppression assembling in their righteous anger.
The indignation and swift action by Senate Democrats lay bare the hypocrisy of many leaders within the United States—who claim to stand up for democracy, justice, and freedom—for being too concerned with an illusion of civility than the violent reality of the Republican Party, its funders, and its minions. Democrats were quick to protect Supreme Court justices but have been painfully slow in protecting American citizens from violent oppression, rising housing and food prices, school shootings, and climate change—to name a few.
This is part of a larger problem, and one that doesn’t engage with the scope or context of what the Republican Party is.
The mainstream media plays into this absurd circus by adopting conservative framing and using “both sides” narratives. It presents any organized actions by the left—which have been repeatedly demonstrated to be vastly peaceful—that are served with the intent of not just protecting but expanding democracy and human rights, as dangerous and unruly. With the other hand, these same outlets soft-play an attempted coup by not talking about connections to GOP leaders nationwide. They’re even soft-playing a future coup in action by the GOP, with a vocal and armed militia wing openly calling for violent purges, killings of their political opponents, and violent oppression of other humans.
The curious part about it is the major news outlets have all reported on these things in pieces but continue to fail to put together a complete narrative when telling the story. Why aren’t members of Congress asked hard questions about their oppressive “opinions” and connections to militias every single day? Even when one article might hit the point, the next move is to publish puff pieces on white supremacists, as The New York Times did with J.D. Vance.
This pearl-clutching when criticism is aimed toward those who impose violent policy and the demands that people be “civil” in the face of oppression will do nothing but continue the nation down a dangerous path. The violent actions, organizing, and rhetoric coming from the right are prevalent. Still, if you haven’t been paying close enough attention, and actively seeking out coverage about the rise of this violent threat, you might believe these are just people with different opinions.
Here’s a quick roundup of just a few recent instances of rising fascism in the U.S.:
And then there’s this:
Part of the problem when capturing this narrative is the structure of the 24-hour news cycle. Even though mainstream outlets can better tell the story of GOP fascism, the constant cycle makes it difficult to tell an overarching narrative because they’re centering entertainment over hard news. And quite frankly, the scale of it all can be hard to fully take in. That said, Daily Kos's own David Neiwert has been doing a fantastic job exploring the tentacles of the white nationalist movement within the United States.
I’m planning on doing more quick posts that offer roundups and explorations of the larger narrative of the GOP and their fascism. The goal will be to help us all wrap our heads around the scope of their efforts. I hope you’ll join me.