In the last several weeks, political pundits and users on social media have begun calling out the Republican Party of the United States for being a fascist organization. Although there have been discussions brewing on this topic for some time, the recognition in the past week appears to have been largely spurred by an article that appeared in the UK Independent, and by discussions on the Lincoln Project podcast. I am hopeful that my own work, on this site, has contributed to an acceleration of that discussion.
American voters, and our media outlets need to begin recognizing the fact that by every available definition, the addition of Donald Trump to the Republican Party has resulted in its progression to a fascist movement. This is not a time for false equivalencies of “but the Democrats…” or entertaining the paranoid ramblings of right-wing conspiracy theorists and Republican elected officials who reap electoral benefits from actively promoting further insanity. In this essay we will begin very simply, by reviewing the definition of Fascism from the Merriam-Webster online dictionary. The reader will see that there are numerous examples of behavior by Republican Party officials that satisfy the definition of fascism provided. The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines fascism as: “a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition”
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