Post-Trump: III (decline, further tantrums, legal proceedings, book deals etc)

[matthewr]

But what is the “mainstream GOP”?

Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy. Remember that the great majority of senate and house republicans want nothing more than all this insanity to end so they can all go back to being like Liz Cheney not least because that's where all the money is. See also Democrat money going to Trumpist GOP candidates because, rightly or wrongly, they believe this is the best way to protect their slim majorities in the house and the senate

And the Tories are a bunch of twats no doubt. But they are not Hitler. And I don't think this hyperbole serves us well.

 

[Tony L]

Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy.

McConnell is an absolute monster. He has done everything in his power to avoid Trump facing justice. Here’s Liz Cheney on McCarthy (Politico). The mainstream GOP is no more IMHO. It is lost to extremism, conspiracy theory, corruption, religious fundamentalism and gerrymandering.

PS I’m not saying the Tories are Nazi death camps right now. To my mind we are Germany circa 1933, though kidnapping and trafficking highly vulnerable (brown/Muslim) refugees 4000 miles to detention camps in Rwanda is hardly a good look. Maybe we are a little later, but certainly somewhere before Kristallnacht…

 

[tones]

Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy. Remember that the great majority of senate and house republicans want nothing more than all this insanity to end so they can all go back to being like Liz Cheney not least because that's where all the money is.

But why then have they so slavishly supported him? After Jan 6, they had the power to pull the rug out from under him, and they failed, indeed refused, to do so. Instead, they appear to be keener than ever to cement him in place.

 

[Somafunk]

But why then have they so slavishly supported him? After Jan 6, they had the power to pull the rug out from under him, and they failed, indeed refused, to do so. Instead, they appear to be keener than ever to cement him in place.

I don’t think it is necessarily that they support trump, rather more they don’t want to alienate their new found voting fanatics who jumped on the Republican Party so they are hoping to cement over trump by transplanting his rhetoric into a candidate that can be constrained.

 

[Tony L]

If folk don’t like using the fash-word yet here’s a good short video on the history of American white supremacy and how the current far-right Republican attacks on ‘critical race theory’ etc play right into that pattern (Twitter).

PS I still feel the word ‘fascism’ fits better as this isn’t just white supremacy, though that is is obviously a huge factor. There is also the deep-rooted and weaponised religious fundamentalism and associated attacks on womens rights, the demonisation, scapegoating and increasing criminalisation of the LGBTQ+ community, the corporate corruption, the armed militias etc etc etc. There are just too many alarm bells to ignore.

 

[matthewr]

PS I’m not saying the Tories are Nazi death camps right now. To my mind we are Germany circa 1933, though kidnapping and trafficking highly vulnerable (brown/Muslim) refugees 4000 miles to detention camps in Rwanda is hardly a good look. Maybe we are a little later, but certainly somewhere before Kristallnacht…

The problem is people have been saying this (and exactly this) since 1979. And indeed that's part of my discomfort with the whole thing -- instead of serious opposition to politicians who are awful and dangerous in many ways we go straight to fascist and set the dial to 11. There is no need to do this and mostly it just makes one sound somewhere on a scale from breathless hyperbole to Neil from the Young Ones.

Of course one can talk about the dangers of fascism, the historical analogies, its links to severe economic events, changes and activities of far right groups and absolutely we should not be complacent. But saying "The GOP are just fascists now. Literal nazis!" is just bad politics I think not least as it makes us sound like the people who call the Democrats and Labour socialists or communists.

We do see people making these warnings and comparisons on TV and in the news but it's noticeable that they are generally they are careful and measured in such remarks and for good reason.

And again I stress that I see this in people around Trump but not really in Trump and certainly not in the main in the GOP. The drivers there are all about money and power and minority rule for their social and political class and economic and demographic changes and not (really) about nationalism or racism. Absolutely they are not above leveraging those sentiments in their voting base but I just don't think McConnell or even Trump is sitting on his veranda writing Mein Kampf like diary entries.

 

[Tony L]

Another very good video from David Pepper here (Twitter). Again it explains a lot in a very short time.

 

[matthewr]

But why then have they so slavishly supported him? After Jan 6, they had the power to pull the rug out from under him, and they failed, indeed refused, to do so. Instead, they appear to be keener than ever to cement him in place.

I think that's the point -- they really tried to dump him at various points and kept backing out not because they secretly support him but because once he won the presidency the was useful (judges, tax cuts via reconcilliation) and because they are scared of his base. At an individual level they are all vulnerable to primaries and collectively they need that 30% to not just remain solid but to turn out in record numbers to stay the decline of their vote as long as possible.

Also McConnell's support for Trump has always been lukewarm at best -- which is why Trump hates him -- and I have no doubt that he would like nothing more than Trump and all his mental candidates to go away and never be heard from again. Indeed, one of his biggest problems right now is that previously unlosable seats might be in play because of Trumpist candidates like Walker, Lake, etc.

 

[matthewr]

Another very good video from David Pepper here (Twitter). Again it explains a lot in a very short time.

That's more like it! There is huge scope here for criticising the GOP and all you need to do is point out what they are doing without going straight to the F bomb. Also he mentions Orban which is a good point -- if you've already called McConnell a racially motivated fascist, what are you going to do when a real one turns up?

Much of my problem here is that we have on one side the toothless Democrat response which won't say anything about this stuff because of a perverse desire to be "collegiate" and for "decorum" and on the other hyperbolic talk of Nazis and terrible political ideas like "Force the Vote" from the online left and the zero popular appeal of the intellectual left.

This leaves a huge gap here for opposition and better and more progressive political ideas and the lack of much filling this void is immensely depressing for me. So in US politics we get left with the better bits of MSNBC (although it's broader output is part of the problem) and things like Sam Seder's Majority Report.

 

[Kirk]

Social-cultural threat to the Republican base seems to be main driver behind the GOP's move to the right/authoritarianism. Same thing drove much of Brexit.

 

[tones]

I think that's the point -- they really tried to dump him at various points and kept backing out not because they secretly support him but because once he won the presidency the was useful (judges, tax cuts via reconcilliation) and because they are scared of his base. At an individual level they are all vulnerable to primaries and collectively they need that 30% to not just remain solid but to turn out in record numbers to stay the decline of their vote as long as possible.

Also McConnell's support for Trump has always been lukewarm at best -- which is why Trump hates him -- and I have no doubt that he would like nothing more than Trump and all his mental candidates to go away and never be heard from again. Indeed, one of his biggest problems right now is that previously unlosable seats might be in play because of Trumpist candidates like Walker, Lake, etc.

Thank you, but did they really? I can see no evidence of that, apart from at the very beginning when he rode down the Trump Tower escalator. Think of the descriptions of Trump from the likes of Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz then, and look at them now.

I agree that the analogies with 1930s Weimar Germany can be overdone, but the similarities are there, almost like the frog in gradually heating water. Hitler was made Chancellor because (a) the upper classes saw him as a useful idiot (suppressing Communists and Socialists), and (b) they believed they could control him. This did not go well.

Trump basically want to run the USA the way he runs his company as a CEO, able to do absolutely anything he wants and to be completely unfettered. The guard rails of US institutions worked last time, but only just. And he has a much firmer grip on the Republican Party now, so much so that it has ceased to be the Republican Party of old. The latest Economist cover says it all:

With Trump back in power with a better comprehension of the levers of power and a whole battery of yes-(wo)men to back him up, a giant-sized version of Orbán's Hungary is likely, with suppression of the press, and rigging of the justice system to go after his enemies. The thing Trump hates most is to be a "loser", and he'll be out for revenge.

 

[matthewr]

Thank you, but did they really? I can see no evidence of that, apart from at the very beginning when he rode down the Trump Tower escalator.

McConnell and McCarthy both initially made speeches after Jan. 6th that were deeply critical of Trump. And we also know from the reporting and books that have been written that McConnell in particular was cock-a-hoop about Jan 6th finally being Trump's downfall.

See the Guardian review of the Martin & Burns book here for example : https://www.theguardian.com/books/2...anuary-6-book-this-will-not-pass-burns-martin

 

[Tony L]

The problem is people have been saying this (and exactly this) since 1979. And indeed that's part of my discomfort with the whole thing -- instead of serious opposition to politicians who are awful and dangerous in many ways we go straight to fascist and set the dial to 11. There is no need to do this and mostly it just makes one sound somewhere on a scale from breathless hyperbole to Neil from the Young Ones.

I do take your point, but I also refuse to be part of normalising what to my eyes is a very obvious trajectory.

In the US we have a Republican Party that stood by as a president, amongst a seemingly endless list of other things, told a heavily armed politically aligned far-right racist militia to “stand back and stand by” after a murder, went to simply huge lengths to alter an election result with very widespread assistance from within the GOP, and even instigated an armed insurgency that attempted to take the capital. That is fascism. Sorry. It just is.

Similarly in the UK I absolutely refuse to normalise the flag-waving ethnic nationalism of Brexit, the racist cruelty of the ‘Hostile Environment’, its associated ‘go home vans’ and the deaths and deportations of Windrush. This has now escalated into kidnap, human trafficking and detention in concentration camps 4000 miles away with the Tories Rwanda policy towards non-white refugees. That this appears to be acceptable to anyone horrifies me and makes me so ashamed of this country. I detest what it is becoming. It is everything I am not.

This is just one aspect. We also need to factor the vastly increased corruption, the siphoning of £billions of public money into donor pockets, corporate protections, attacks on workers, attacks on the judiciary, scientists, intellectuals, academics, artists etc etc. It is all part of the same picture. My view is we are being gaslit, and have been for a very long time. I refuse to go along with it.

I’ve absolutely no idea how you can see any good in McConnell. The only Republicans that have shown any spine to my mind are Cheney and Schwarzenegger. The rest have just blocked and filibustered against justice and acted in their own self-interest even if they haven’t actively promoted QAnon far-right conspiracy theory. I will not legitimise or normalise these people. I see what they are doing and I will call it out. Enabling fascism is still fascism.

 

[matthewr]

I’ve absolutely no idea how you can see any good in McConnell. The only Republicans that have shown any spine to my mind are Cheney and Schwarzenegger.

I don't see any good in McConnell -- indeed quite the opposite -- I just don't think he is a fascist.

I also see no good in Cheney precisely because she has spent her entire political life being exactly like McConnell except a bit more to the right and a bit more more warmongery. I find all this praise she is getting for her committee appearances vomit inducing.

 

[Tony L]

I also see no good in Cheney precisely because she has spent her entire political life being exactly like McConnell except a bit more to the right and a bit more more warmongery. I find all this praise she is getting for her committee appearances vomit inducing.

I have no respect for her past politics, only that she was actually prepared to lose her job to call Trump out as exactly what he was and exactly where he led the party. Depressingly few Republicans have done that, and certainly not McConnell or McCarthy.

 

[tones]

McConnell and McCarthy both initially made speeches after Jan. 6th that were deeply critical of Trump. And we also know from the reporting and books that have been written that McConnell in particular was cock-a-hoop about Jan 6th finally being Trump's downfall.

See the Guardian review of the Martin & Burns book here for example : https://www.theguardian.com/books/2...anuary-6-book-this-will-not-pass-burns-martin

It always struck me that Mitch was interested only in power, and he would do whatever it took to have it, even if it meant cohabiting with Trump. McCarthy was grovelling back to Trump in very short order, and has continued to do so. The big question is, if Trump wins again and McConnell and McCarthy are back in their respective drivers' seats, will they enable his vision of America and watch the Republic as we now know it be dismantled?

 

[matthewr]

In the US we have a Republican Party that stood by as a president, amongst a seemingly endless list of other things, told a heavily armed politically aligned far-right racist militia to “stand back and stand by” after a murder, went to simply huge lengths to alter an election result with very widespread assistance from within the GOP, and even instigated an armed insurgency that attempted to take the capital. That is fascism. Sorry. It just is.

Which I think makes my point. There are fascists, we saw them in Charlottesville. And you could tell they were fascists because they literally shouted the key slogan "Blood and soil". But I don't see that ideology in Trump or McConnell. Bannon yes, McConnell or Trump no.

McConnell's political philosophy is about freedom but specifically about the state allowing people like him to have the freedom to acquire power and money in any way they see fit and to protect that power and money from being diluted by other people. It's literally where we get conservative from -- it's about the state as a system that allows a specific and privileged part of society to conserve their financial and political power mostly by getting out of the way. It's not about a system that sees the state as a strong, central entity that has all the power and freedom to do whatever *the state* wants as the manifestation of a particular ethnic group -- which to me is the essence of fascism. Hence he is a small government conservative not a fascist.

And Trump is not even remotely that complicated and it's just about his personal ego and grift. He cares only about himself and has no discernable political ideas let alone a cogent philosophy. He's better understood as part of a transnational criminal syndicate than as a political movement, more mob boss than Mussolini.

I guess what I am saying is that I don't like the use of the word fascist as a colloquialism for right wing authoritarianism or just as a generic insult because I think of it as a very specific political philosophy.

 

[droodzilla]

The problem is people have been saying this (and exactly this) since 1979. And indeed that's part of my discomfort with the whole thing -- instead of serious opposition to politicians who are awful and dangerous in many ways we go straight to fascist and set the dial to 11. There is no need to do this and mostly it just makes one sound somewhere on a scale from breathless hyperbole to Neil from the Young Ones.

Of course one can talk about the dangers of fascism, the historical analogies, its links to severe economic events, changes and activities of far right groups and absolutely we should not be complacent. But saying "The GOP are just fascists now. Literal nazis!" is just bad politics I think not least as it makes us sound like the people who call the Democrats and Labour socialists or communists.

We do see people making these warnings and comparisons on TV and in the news but it's noticeable that they are generally they are careful and measured in such remarks and for good reason.

And again I stress that I see this in people around Trump but not really in Trump and certainly not in the main in the GOP. The drivers there are all about money and power and minority rule for their social and political class and economic and demographic changes and not (really) about nationalism or racism. Absolutely they are not above leveraging those sentiments in their voting base but I just don't think McConnell or even Trump is sitting on his veranda writing Mein Kampf like diary entries.

I respect your linguistic fastidiousness and agree with a lot of what you say.

It's a while since I read it, but I think Masha Gessen's book, Surviving Autocracy describes the Trump presidency as an "autocratic attempt", rather than a full-blown autocracy. In other words, there was a concerted effort to erode democratic checks and balances (which, ultimately depend on norms of conduct, and people being willing to adhere to them) but, ultimately, the US constitution prevailed.

My only reservation is that the trajectory to full-blown fascism is highly non-linear: when democratic norms are incrementally weakened, there potentially comes a point of sudden and catastrophic failure. The US is some way along this trajectory, and I'm not sure its democracy (whih is already deeply flawed) will survive another Republican administration (whether led by Trump, or not).

Edit: just read your last post; I think the danger is that historical precedents blind us to what's happening in front of our noses. A key question for me is: what might fascism look like in the 21st century?

 

[Tony L]

I guess what I am saying is that I don't like the use of the word fascist as a colloquialism for right wing authoritarianism or just as a generic insult because I think of it as a very specific political philosophy.

I don’t know how you can overlook the blindingly obvious white supremacy (e.g. official ‘thin blue line’ flags at Trump rallies defending racist police murders and brutality), the extent to which Republican Christian fundamentalism is rolling back the whole 20th century civil rights movement to the extent that women have now even lost their basic reproductive rights, and LGBTQ+ folk are increasingly facing an existential threat. Basic healthcare and support for trans folk is already being classed as a felony in some red states.

This is terrifying stuff. It isn’t just conservatism. We don’t need to wait for the actual swastikas to appear (though plenty of Trump supporters appear to have them).

PS Viktor Orban was mentioned upthread. Here he is as a warmly received speaking guest at a Republican CPAC event earlier this month (Guardian). It can’t be even remotely fascist to invite an actual fascist to speak at your party conference, surely?!

 

[matthewr]

I think the danger is that historical precedents blind us to what's happening in front of our noses. A key question for me is: what might fascism look like in the 21st century?

For sure, and as I said, I don't want to suggest complacency. But if you go straight to 11 on the dial you leave no headroom for when Orban turns up and starts talking about a white ethnostate where he can do what he wants cos he got rid of an independent judiciary.