“Some folks need killing.”
North Carolina GOP Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson at the Faith and Freedom Road to Majority conference in Washington, D.C., June 21st.
Rightwing governments rely on the singularity of a one clear source of power, be it an individual or a unitary-philosophy-driven system of governance. At best, power-focused governance may work to effect necessary transitions – where corrupt and inflexible incumbents ignore reality – or in the rare and selfless leadership of an enlightened or benevolent despot, always temporary, create positives for the nation. The notion of “right thinking” – only “we can fix it” dogma – ignores change. And if the only constant in civilization is change, any system that eschews the challenges of change – from technology and military power to alterations in Mother Nature’s impact or demographic patterns – by definition has obsolescence at its core.
The problem for human beings living during an era of “right thinking” – like the fascist regimes of the 1930s-40s or the post-WWI and WWII Communist governments – is that the penalty in these countries for challenging these governmental structures, even as they are failing, is arrest, banishment, torture and often death. The lucky ones just hobble through horribles like unemployment, inflation, conflicts and really bad weather. If there is one set of lessons humanity has learned over the millennia, it is that one size does not fit all, immutable governments lack the flexibility to adapt to the inevitable changes and incumbents tend to cling to power far beyond the value of their leadership if permitted. They develop a label vocabulary to reinforce their perceived mandate (like woke) and identify groups to blame for anything they hate (like immigrants or Jews).
Generally and occasionally, the changes can be efficient transitions to modernity. The post-Mao period in China, led by Deng Xiaoping beginning in 1981, was the rejection of the instability that preceded him and the lifting of over one billion people from dire poverty. That positive period of economic growth and stability ended in 2012 with the rise of Xi Jinping, whose quest for another personality cult of perpetual power has taken China into a world of exacerbating regional conflicts, a collapse of major real estate and banking sectors and unprecedented levels of unemployment. Which then yields to the notion that inevitable one-system failure is likely to produce unrest and challenges to the incumbent autocracy… which if it cannot be democratically removed… produces force and repression to the extent the regime is willing to use this negative power and is strong enough to defeat efforts to overthrow it. Until…
I am reminded that millions of American soldiers died to defeat repressive monarchies and Nazis, but half the country today seems to crave a Nazi king. Look at the super-organized Heritage Foundation with its 900-page handbook (Project 2025) for their expected Trump presidency after the November election or the Federalist Society with its vetted list of acceptable MAGA judicial appointments, the threat of a bureaucratic purge, a complete ultra-rightwing judiciary and the use of force of arms as necessary. Why have rightwing autocrat-leaning forces in this nation allowed the legitimization of once-banned assault weapons for civilian ownership (30 million or so are currently out there) unless it is to implement assault. They’re not hunting firearms or even appropriate for self-defense.
So, I pulled this excerpt from an editorial from a swing state. Ruth Conniff, Editor-in-chief of the Wisconsin Examiner, wrote on Independence Day: “We are in dangerous waters on this Independence Day: “While we obsess over the horse race and the latest polls, rubbernecking at the tragic disintegration of an accomplished, public-spirited president, the plot to overthrow American democracy and replace it with a violent, repressive, despotic regime is well underway.
“‘We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless — if the left allows it to be,’ Kevin Roberts, the president of the rightwing Heritage Foundation, ominously declared Tuesday on ‘The War Room,’ Steve Bannon’s radio show… ‘Right on. Thank you, brother,’ responded Dave Brat, the former Tea Party Republican congressman from Virginia, who was filling in as guest host. (Bannon, a longtime ally of Donald Trump, was unavailable because he’s serving prison time for contempt of Congress after refusing to testify about his role in the attempted coup on Jan. 6, 2021.)
“The idea that an army of right-wing groups is waging a war to overthrow U.S. democracy and smash the ‘Deep State’ has moved from fantasies spun out in the comments sections of neo-Nazi blogs to a published plan created by a well-funded conservative think tank. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 declares its intention ‘to assemble an army of aligned, vetted, trained, and prepared conservatives to go to work on Day One to deconstruct the Administrative State.’… Among its goals is the elimination of career civil service jobs in the federal government and their replacement with ideologues appointed by a newly empowered conservative president.
“It’s no surprise, then, that on Bannon’s show, Roberts praised the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision eliminating the Chevron doctrine, gutting 40 years of deference to experts, including scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies. Now corporations can forum-shop for friendly judges who have the discretion to replace scientific expertise with their own off-the-cuff opinions… ‘The main problem facing the United States as it enters this really pivotal period, is that we have a decline in religiosity,’ Roberts declared.” White Christian power!
Where systems of repression do not exist, rightwing excesses are reasonably quickly rejected by voters in a free society. After 65% of UK citizens realized that the Conservative Boris Johnson era sold them a bill of goods by championing and delivering Brexit – which brought the British economy from one of relative growth to become the most stagnant in Europe – the recent elections in the UK gave Labor a clear majority in the House of Commons (410 out of 650 seats, while the Conservative majority lost a stunning 252 seats to hold a mere 121). In 2023, Poland rejected its former ruling party – which championed ethic purity, religiosity and rightwing policies for 8 years – and returned to a nation of liberal democracy.
Even as the United States and a number of European states seem to be veering to the right, I suspect that if freedom is not extinguished, if repression is not the tool of these rightwing forces, all of these nation states will learn the hard way, that autocracy, isolationism and false efficiency are terrible choices.
I’m Peter Dekom, and if you wonder why I draw analogies to historical precedents, I suspect you are beginning to accept that our consistent need to “learn our lessons the hard way” remains the worst system to grow into a positive future.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment