Tag: GOP no longer supporting democracy

Pennsylvania Senate GOP edges toward Arizona-style election audit

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A top Pennsylvania Republican says he supports an audit of the state’s presidential election results similar to a review being conducted in Arizona, raising the potential for other states to spend taxpayer money investigating former President Trump’s false claims of improprieties and fraud.

Pennsylvania state Sen. David Argall (R), who heads the Senate State Government Committee that has oversight of election administration, told reporters he supports another look at the Pennsylvania results.

“It’s a very careful recount, forensic audit, so yeah, I don’t see the danger in it,” Argall said during a forum with reporters from Spotlight PA, a consortium of media companies from across the state. “I just think that it would not be a bad idea at all to proceed with an audit similar to what they’re doing in Arizona.”  Continue reading.

The dangerous American fascist: Why Fox News claims ‘they’ are destroying ‘white culture’

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Why Fox News Claims ‘They’ Are Destroying ‘White Culture’

I’m struggling to explain why a Fox News host would say to the American people, “they’re trying to take down the white culture!”

Democracies don’t turn into fascist oligarchies by being invaded or losing wars. It always happens from within, and is always driven by an alliance between demagogic, populist politicians and some of the very wealthiest people in society. 

Step one for these right-wing politicians and the morbidly rich who support them is to pit one group of people within the nation against others: Marginalize and demonize minorities, deny them access to the levers of democratic power while openly attacking them for trying to usurp the privileges and prerequisites of the majority. Continue reading.

Gohmert speaks at conference where QAnon supporters push for coup to oust Biden

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Donald Trump associates Michael Flynn and Sidney Powell were also in attendance at the conference in Texas.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) spoke at a conference over the weekend at which prominent QAnon conspiracy theorists advocated for a military coup to oust President Joe Biden, downplayed the violent Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and spread lies about the 2020 election.

Gohmert was the only member of Congress to speak at the conference, and was part of the conspiracy-theorizing that took place.

He said in remarks at the event that the perpetrators of the Jan. 6 insurrection weren’t “just right-wing extremists,” continuing the false GOP messaging that the failed attempt to block Congress’ certification of Biden’s Electoral College win was incited by left-wing groups. Continue reading.

The death of independent-minded John Warner is a reminder of how much today’s senators have ceded power to party leaders

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Today’s Senate could learn a lot from the legacy of John Warner.

The former Virginia Republican senator, who died Wednesday at 94, was hailed by many for his moderation, but his most important streak was his independence.

For more than 30 years in the Senate, Warner set a tone with other powerful Republicans and Democrats that steered power away from leadership offices in the Capitol and sent it across the street to committee rooms. Continue reading.

The GOP’s brazen move to strip power from a fraud-narrative-busting secretary of state — again

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Georgia Republicans earlier this year passed new voting restrictions, leading corporations including Major League Baseball to protest. What followed was a big to-do about whether that was an overreaction. The bill didn’t exactly match up with Democrats’ claims of a modern-day “Jim Crow,” and many of the new provisions were within the mainstream of even blue states.

But the bill was also watered-down from much-bolder proposals that had previously passed, including one transparently targeted at limiting voter drives by Black churches. Mix in the effort’s proximity to Republicans losing the state for the first time in 28 years — and to similar efforts in other GOP-controlled states despite no proof of actual, significant voter fraud — and it wasn’t difficult to draw conclusions about why this was done.

And there was perhaps one part of the law that best drove home how much this was aimed at gaming the system. It removed Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) from the state election board. This effectively allowed the GOP-controlled state legislature to appoint a majority of the board. Continue reading.

Trump supporter pleads guilty to attacking elderly couple with a golf club over their Biden sign

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A Minnesota man has pleaded guilty this Tuesday to attacking an elderly couple over a Joe Biden campaign sign, CBS Minnesota reports.

Mark Anthony Ulsaker took a plea deal, dropping the second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon and assaulting a peace officer charge against him. He instead is guilty of two counts of making threats of violence.

On Nov. 8, 2020, Ulsaker allegedly stopped his pickup truck at a street corner in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, where the couple stood with the Biden sign and swore at them. After parking his truck, he ran at the couple with a golf club. Continue reading.

Here’s what it really means for the Republican Party to embrace fascism

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I got a response from a concerned reader and citizen yesterday that I’d like to discuss today. It was in reaction to Tuesday’s piece about Alan Wolfe, the political scientist and sociologist who seemed to predict, in 2004, the Republicans’ turn toward fascism. He wrote in an obscure supplement to an obscure journal only niche readers saw, but reading this 17-year-old essay is like reading a profile of the Republican Party in 2021.

In my piece, I said the pundit corps still seems to hesitate using the word “fascism” even after all we’ve seen. I said that’s probably because it calls to mind images of gas chambers. It doesn’t take genocide to make a fascist, though. As Wolfe made so clear, all it takes is a totalizing worldview in which everyone in the out-group is the enemy.

To which my concerned citizen pointed out something worth dwelling on: “Hesitancy to call the GOP ‘fascist’ is justified in many minds because so many GOP elites aver that they are simply giving lip-service to MAGA and don’t really believe in it.” Continue reading.

Republicans are ‘no longer Americans’ because they’ve stopped supporting democracy: Howard Dean

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On Wednesday’s edition of MSNBC’s “The Beat,” former Democratic Party chair Howard Dean outlined the existential threat Republicans pose to American democracy — and suggested that as long as the GOP is on this path, they cannot call themselves American at all.

“I think this is a more serious problem than what’s going on in the Republican Party,” said Dean. “This is a contest to see if our democracy and our country survives. And most Republicans have chosen their power and chosen not to have a democratic country. The lies that have been told, there was a Georgia congressman out there saying there was no insurrection and it was all peaceful and all this stuff. It is not just the lies that Trump won the election. It is the Republican Party that has embraced this lie.”

“I think Liz Cheney deserves a lot of credit,” continued Dean. “I’m sure there will be people that are horrified that I should say that. But what we need is not that we all agree on our vision of America. What we need is honesty and to stand up for core democratic principles. The Republicans have abandoned principles. McConnell has abandoned them. All the backbenchers are carrying on and people from all over the country. The vast majority do not have a spine. If you could find six spines in the Republican Party, I would say you are exaggerating.” Continue reading.