America Still Hasn’t Won
You don’t beat fascism this easy
It doesn’t matter what the rules of checkers are if your opponent flips the table over. That’s what’s at stake here. Democrats are trying to win elections while Republicans are trying to overturn them. This is the runoff America finds itself in. Not for the Senate. For democracy itself.
It is important to remember that Hitler rose to power thru democracy. If even a minority of people want fascism, democracy will do that. It has no inherent value judgements of its own. It is also important to remember how slowly Hitler did it. From 1920 to 1932 Hitler chipped away at German democratic norms, playing the game until he got in. Then he flipped the table and lit the world on fire.
The German elites always treated him like he was playing their game, but he was actually trying to change the rules. It’s not that they were playing checkers and he was playing chess. They were playing checkers and Hitler punched them in the face.
This lesson is vital for Americans because this is precisely what Trump is doing and — even if it fails (as it did for Hitler at first) — the fascists won’t stop until you stop them. Politics is just norms, and these are your norms now. Sabotage voting. Don’t accept results. Stage a coup. Encourage violence. It could be Trump again or some more organized fascist, but these are your new rules now, unless you change them.
That’s where America is at today. Democracts are proud of winning within a democracy, while Republicans are trying to overturn democracy itself. This is like bragging about how many wooden pieces you have when your opponent has a chainsaw. It’s not enough. You’re not facing the threat of losing the game. You’re facing the threat of losing it all.
Act accordingly.
History will not absolve you
Americans hark back to their 245 year history of democracy like it will save them, and this is a joke. America didn’t have one person, one vote until 1965. Your real founders were black, and many of them are still alive today.
For most of America’s history it was an ethno-fascist state, an inspiration to Hitler really. In 1776 only rich, white, land-owners (6% of the population) could vote and their main complaint was taxes. Who do you think the Republican party represents today? That’s what Make America Great Again means, it’s not something new. It’s a return to the fascist white power that America was founded on.
America is not founded on freedom, lol, it was the land of the enslaved. America was founded on fascist white power. Trumpism is not something new, it is who you were for most of your history, which only looks horrifying in the light of the modern day. This is America. Don’t catch you slipping now.
Elections will not deliver you
American liberals view Trumpism as some aberration from tradition, but he’s the most traditional you could be. Until 1965 only white people could really vote, and Trump and the Republicans would have easily won. That’s what they mean by ‘count all legal votes’. For most of American history, they would have been right. A black person voting was voter fraud.
This is only confusing if you’ve been smoking your own propaganda, the idea that America is this great democracy and always has been. Once you look at the reality that America got universal franchise after 55 other countries, you can begin to understand where you are. America isn’t founded on voting, lol, it’s founded on voter suppression. By the chain, by the whip, and now by jails and paperwork.
Elections did not give you freedom, massive protests gave you elections. And the job is yet unfinished, behold your post boxes, ripped out of the ground. It’ll be worse next time, and then there’ll be no next time. Get it straight, before the Republicans get you twisted.
Democracy is still in peril
America has one of the youngest, shittiest democracies on Earth, evidenced from the fact that you think it fits in a bomb. You assholes. America’s nascent democracy is in abject peril. In 2013, your weird unelected ancients rolled back the Voting Rights Act. This was your founding document, the Declaration of Independence was some bullshit treasure map for rights that didn’t exist. They gutted the very core of modern democracy, which is voting, and here you are today.
Today Donald Trump and the Republican Party have attacked the most basic part of a democracy — recognizable to anyone with a preschool education — taking turns. They are staging an open coup and rejecting the results of a popular vote. Well, actually, they’re only rejecting the results where they don’t win. They’re still seating legislators from the same ballots they’re calling fraudulent. It’s a simple logic also recognizable to a preschooler. MINE! MINE! MINE!
This is the fundamental fascist attitude. An ultra-violent preschooler. A school-yard bully with guns. Heads I win, tails you lose. America has always been like this for millions of people, now everyone can see it. A bully will simply keep going until you stop them. They won’t be held back by rules, or by norms, they’ll keep pushing boundaries until they break.
You got a one vote majority in the Senate? Congratulations. Fascism doesn’t give a fuck. It took Hitler over a decade to break Germany, but he kept pushing until he did. What makes you think your fascists will stop, especially since you’re trying to compromise with them and move on? How did appeasement work out last century? Fascism does not exit on a technicality because fascism is not playing your game at all. They’re playing to win, and not the cute game you call democracy. They’re playing to win it all.
Just think about it. You can win any checkers game by simply reaching over and slitting your opponent’s throat. Who’s going to say anything then? This is where America is right now. Many Americans are happily looking at a checkerboard that’s turned blue, and thinking that the game is over. In truth, the fight has just begun.
