DeSantis, Abbott & other Republican neofascists are playing a dangerous game, that will rip America apart, using Disney as a proxy for the racial and gender minorities they want as whipping boys
"You know, they're talking about Biden's poll numbers. What they really need to be talking about is cell numbers. Not phone. Prison cell numbers! These guys have committed a crime! They have committed treason against the United States of America and its Constitution! They did not care about you, your pocketbook, or your children, and they want everything inside of their demonic agenda to bring you down, and this nation! But I'm here to tell you that they are standing against something greater than all of us. It is Almighty God who loves the United States of America, and he loves this church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it." - Hank Kunneman, just another Republican false profit, profiting off false religion.
Not all gods and lies are equal. Neither are political parties and moralities. Never before in history have the stakes been higher or the choice clearer: "A vote for Republicans is a vote to destroy Democracy." - Rob Reiner
I appreciate Mr. Hartman's research; it's thorough and impeccable. However, in today's twisted media world the average person is so loaded up with one-side information that most of us are troubled and in disbelief about even well-intentioned suggestions. Historically we are ONE (1) generation removed from the causative factors that generated WWII and the associated damage, and though 1922-2022 looks like a small blip of history, and we have many people who now live 80-100 years of age, our aggregate social memory is, realistically less than 50-60 years. In general, women tend to remember forever, and males tend to have extreme short-term memory for most important events and emotions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZswagmkgcDY. So, it is not a surprise that we are seeing a replay of the behavior that led up to the last World War, and that men in general, and historically, tend to support wars and conflict.
Could we not visualize 200 million people making a regular budget to keep our country balanced, respectful and free?
Mr. Hartman's citation is a good memory check-off:
As German industrialist Fritz Thyssen writes in his book I Paid Hitler, he pressured German President von Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as chancellor, and then lobbied the Association of German Industrialists, that country’s and era’s version of the US Chamber of Commerce, to donate 3 million Reichsmarks to the Nazi Party for the 1933 election. It brought Hitler to power.
Hitler’s sales pitch to the German people was that Jews, gays, and socialists had “stabbed Germany in the back” and were trying to “strip” good white Christian Germans of their “rights” and twist society to conform with their “perverted” ideas and lifestyles.
Hitler blamed the 1933 economic crisis on German minorities, Jews and gays, and accused Germany’s second largest political party of complicity with them; the German people went along with him. Once the Nazis took power, they changed election laws in such a way that they would never again lose.
Republicans and rightwing billionaires, of course, are doing much the same thing right now in America. One wonders if they’ll have the retrospective angst that haunted Thyssen until the day he died. He wrote about it in I Paid Hitler:
“I am not a politician, but an industrialist, and an industrialist is always inclined to consider politics a kind of second string to his bow — the preparation for his own particular activity. In a well-ordered country, where the administration is sound, where taxes are reasonable, and the police well organised, he can afford to abstain from politics and to devote himself entirely to business.
“But in a crisis-ridden state, as Germany was from 1918 to 1933, an industrialist is drawn, willy-nilly, into the vortex of politics. After 1930 the aspirations of German industry may be summed up in one phrase: ‘a sound economy in a strong state.’ This was, I remember, the slogan of a meeting of the Ruhr industrialists in 1931. …
“I, too, approved this slogan, 'To surmount the crisis it was necessary to reinforce the authority of the state.’ … I believed that by backing Hitler and his party I could contribute to the reinstatement of real government and of orderly conditions, which would enable all branches of activity — and especially business — to function normally once again.”
Unlike Thyssen, who volunteered to support Hitler’s rise to power with massive financial and business backing, Disney is pushing back against DeSantis’ efforts to remake society in an American neofascist mode.
Unless they soon cave in, Disney’s executives probably won’t one day write in their memoirs, as Thyssen did in his:
“But it is no use crying over spilled milk. The strong state of which I then dreamed had nothing in common with the totalitarian state or, rather, caricature of a state, erected by Hitler and his minions.
“Not for an instant did I imagine that it was possible, one hundred and fifty years after the French Revolution and the proclamation of the Rights of Man, to substitute arbitrary action for law in a great modern country, to strangle the most elementary rights of the citizen, to establish an Asiatic tyranny in the heart of Europe, and to foster anachronistic aspirations of conquest and world dominion.”
This is not America’s first brush with oligarchic fascism, as I lay out in The Hidden History of American Oligarchy. President Franklin Roosevelt and Vice President Henry Wallace struggled with it in the 1930s with Charles Lindberg’s infamous Nazi-aligned America First movement.
Maybe I should start a pool. My question is which is true of the following:
1. DeSatan really is as stupid as he acts.
2. DeSatan is copying TrumPutin, stripping as much cash as he can from NaziRepublican Party worshippers who love him. Why? Seats on the first Anatov to Moscow will be expensive, and his Rubles are worthless.
This late in the game, the best hope for wishy-washy Democrats unwilling to get down in the mud and blood is for “conservatives” (an increasingly derogatory misnomer) finally to jump the shark. Ain’t never gonna happen. A liberal world that respects life in all its varied forms cannot and should not rely on false hope, however alluring. Only by acting on that fervent hope will small-d democrats turn the tide.
Conventional wisdom would have it that six months in politics is an eternity and that polls only reflect a daily snapshot of mercurial moods, sure to change by November. Skittish voters, tired of being bombarded with disinformation and persuaded by nonsense, would surely turn on a dime when exposed to facts and persuaded by truth. You’d think anyway.
Yet, if decades-long trends continue, six months is nothing, and Democrat’s best hope is growing dimmer by the second. In case you haven’t noticed, Republicans have been continuously jumping bigger and bigger sharks forever, destroying more and more democratic institutions in their mad dash to a theological plutocracy founded on one-party-rule, George Orwell style, where truth is the real enemy. And nothing of consequence ever happens to the big bad guys, no legal or ethical repercussions that would change the political dynamic and the demise of American democracy.
Putin and Trump, and now DeSantis and other red-state authoritarians pining for the pinnacle of power, are lighting the way, standing on the backs of autocratic giants like Hitler and Stalin and Genghis Khan. They are also proving the bottomless pit of American indulgence and tolerance for endless fantasy and delusion.
Our culture has normalized the shocking — seven long years of granular exposure to the psychopathic mind of Donald Trump. Americans can now look forward to further wasted years of picking through the rotting refuse in the shallow, twisted, miserable mind of Ron DeSantis, or whatever human monster next grabs the fancy of MAGA Orcs.
Perception being 99% of political reality, Democrats and their shortsighted gameplay, it seems, are just along for the ride, not seriously pushing back during their rapidly closing window of opportunity. Merely wishin’ and hopin’ for a different reality — without solid gains on the battlefield of ideas, principles, and morality that can break through the media wall — is a losing strategy.
Get loud; get simple; get mean. Play hardball like Republicans. Fight for democracy like Ukrainians. Change perceptions or lose. To break through, Democratic messaging needs to be as shocking as the reality.
Great article, I will make one quick point. America is a sleeping 800 pound Progressive Tiger, with a rabid chihuahua yapping and circling. The tiger is starting to wake up.
Almost missed this one and it's against my "religion" not to read every Report. It's such a perfect share for my younger anti-fascist friends. When they read the dry history in school, maybe some dates and major facts stick, but Thom takes those and puts them into the context of the current political landscape.
I hate beating-up on the media. That is such a broad description of a huge number of people in 2022, so when I use the term it's loosely. Much of the mainstream media put out a narrative that the fascists in France were soooo close to unseating Macron. Then when he won, I had to really listen hard to catch anyone willing to say he thoroughly trounced Le Pen. My point is, we really don't know what is going to happen this fall. I agree we just need to put in the work. But I also think, folks should not have a lot of faith in the polls or the people selling the "horse-race".
"You know, they're talking about Biden's poll numbers. What they really need to be talking about is cell numbers. Not phone. Prison cell numbers! These guys have committed a crime! They have committed treason against the United States of America and its Constitution! They did not care about you, your pocketbook, or your children, and they want everything inside of their demonic agenda to bring you down, and this nation! But I'm here to tell you that they are standing against something greater than all of us. It is Almighty God who loves the United States of America, and he loves this church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it." - Hank Kunneman, just another Republican false profit, profiting off false religion.
Not all gods and lies are equal. Neither are political parties and moralities. Never before in history have the stakes been higher or the choice clearer: "A vote for Republicans is a vote to destroy Democracy." - Rob Reiner
It's also a vote to destroy Mother Earth.
This fall, American voters will face the ultimate cognitive test. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8oaaP68i4s
I appreciate Mr. Hartman's research; it's thorough and impeccable. However, in today's twisted media world the average person is so loaded up with one-side information that most of us are troubled and in disbelief about even well-intentioned suggestions. Historically we are ONE (1) generation removed from the causative factors that generated WWII and the associated damage, and though 1922-2022 looks like a small blip of history, and we have many people who now live 80-100 years of age, our aggregate social memory is, realistically less than 50-60 years. In general, women tend to remember forever, and males tend to have extreme short-term memory for most important events and emotions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZswagmkgcDY. So, it is not a surprise that we are seeing a replay of the behavior that led up to the last World War, and that men in general, and historically, tend to support wars and conflict.
What is scary to many of us who tend to prefer NOT to listen to soap operas and news dramas is the laziness of the average voter, and the almost complete absence of trustworthy news- because we have allowed giant corporations to take over almost every vital area of our lives. Very few voters discipline themselves and use their monthly budget to donate a regular $25 to non-profit groups such as www.commondreams.org, https://www.edf.org/, https://earthjustice.org/, https://anh-usa.org/, https://voteathome.org/, and https://childrenshealthdefense.org/. People who go to church tithe as a commitment to their church and community https://www.vancopayments.com/egiving/church-giving-statistics-tithing.
Could we not visualize 200 million people making a regular budget to keep our country balanced, respectful and free?
Mr. Hartman's citation is a good memory check-off:
As German industrialist Fritz Thyssen writes in his book I Paid Hitler, he pressured German President von Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as chancellor, and then lobbied the Association of German Industrialists, that country’s and era’s version of the US Chamber of Commerce, to donate 3 million Reichsmarks to the Nazi Party for the 1933 election. It brought Hitler to power.
Hitler’s sales pitch to the German people was that Jews, gays, and socialists had “stabbed Germany in the back” and were trying to “strip” good white Christian Germans of their “rights” and twist society to conform with their “perverted” ideas and lifestyles.
Hitler blamed the 1933 economic crisis on German minorities, Jews and gays, and accused Germany’s second largest political party of complicity with them; the German people went along with him. Once the Nazis took power, they changed election laws in such a way that they would never again lose.
Republicans and rightwing billionaires, of course, are doing much the same thing right now in America. One wonders if they’ll have the retrospective angst that haunted Thyssen until the day he died. He wrote about it in I Paid Hitler:
“I am not a politician, but an industrialist, and an industrialist is always inclined to consider politics a kind of second string to his bow — the preparation for his own particular activity. In a well-ordered country, where the administration is sound, where taxes are reasonable, and the police well organised, he can afford to abstain from politics and to devote himself entirely to business.
“But in a crisis-ridden state, as Germany was from 1918 to 1933, an industrialist is drawn, willy-nilly, into the vortex of politics. After 1930 the aspirations of German industry may be summed up in one phrase: ‘a sound economy in a strong state.’ This was, I remember, the slogan of a meeting of the Ruhr industrialists in 1931. …
“I, too, approved this slogan, 'To surmount the crisis it was necessary to reinforce the authority of the state.’ … I believed that by backing Hitler and his party I could contribute to the reinstatement of real government and of orderly conditions, which would enable all branches of activity — and especially business — to function normally once again.”
Unlike Thyssen, who volunteered to support Hitler’s rise to power with massive financial and business backing, Disney is pushing back against DeSantis’ efforts to remake society in an American neofascist mode.
Unless they soon cave in, Disney’s executives probably won’t one day write in their memoirs, as Thyssen did in his:
“But it is no use crying over spilled milk. The strong state of which I then dreamed had nothing in common with the totalitarian state or, rather, caricature of a state, erected by Hitler and his minions.
“Not for an instant did I imagine that it was possible, one hundred and fifty years after the French Revolution and the proclamation of the Rights of Man, to substitute arbitrary action for law in a great modern country, to strangle the most elementary rights of the citizen, to establish an Asiatic tyranny in the heart of Europe, and to foster anachronistic aspirations of conquest and world dominion.”
This is not America’s first brush with oligarchic fascism, as I lay out in The Hidden History of American Oligarchy. President Franklin Roosevelt and Vice President Henry Wallace struggled with it in the 1930s with Charles Lindberg’s infamous Nazi-aligned America First movement.
Maybe I should start a pool. My question is which is true of the following:
1. DeSatan really is as stupid as he acts.
2. DeSatan is copying TrumPutin, stripping as much cash as he can from NaziRepublican Party worshippers who love him. Why? Seats on the first Anatov to Moscow will be expensive, and his Rubles are worthless.
Get mean or lose.
This late in the game, the best hope for wishy-washy Democrats unwilling to get down in the mud and blood is for “conservatives” (an increasingly derogatory misnomer) finally to jump the shark. Ain’t never gonna happen. A liberal world that respects life in all its varied forms cannot and should not rely on false hope, however alluring. Only by acting on that fervent hope will small-d democrats turn the tide.
Conventional wisdom would have it that six months in politics is an eternity and that polls only reflect a daily snapshot of mercurial moods, sure to change by November. Skittish voters, tired of being bombarded with disinformation and persuaded by nonsense, would surely turn on a dime when exposed to facts and persuaded by truth. You’d think anyway.
Yet, if decades-long trends continue, six months is nothing, and Democrat’s best hope is growing dimmer by the second. In case you haven’t noticed, Republicans have been continuously jumping bigger and bigger sharks forever, destroying more and more democratic institutions in their mad dash to a theological plutocracy founded on one-party-rule, George Orwell style, where truth is the real enemy. And nothing of consequence ever happens to the big bad guys, no legal or ethical repercussions that would change the political dynamic and the demise of American democracy.
Putin and Trump, and now DeSantis and other red-state authoritarians pining for the pinnacle of power, are lighting the way, standing on the backs of autocratic giants like Hitler and Stalin and Genghis Khan. They are also proving the bottomless pit of American indulgence and tolerance for endless fantasy and delusion.
Our culture has normalized the shocking — seven long years of granular exposure to the psychopathic mind of Donald Trump. Americans can now look forward to further wasted years of picking through the rotting refuse in the shallow, twisted, miserable mind of Ron DeSantis, or whatever human monster next grabs the fancy of MAGA Orcs.
Perception being 99% of political reality, Democrats and their shortsighted gameplay, it seems, are just along for the ride, not seriously pushing back during their rapidly closing window of opportunity. Merely wishin’ and hopin’ for a different reality — without solid gains on the battlefield of ideas, principles, and morality that can break through the media wall — is a losing strategy.
Get loud; get simple; get mean. Play hardball like Republicans. Fight for democracy like Ukrainians. Change perceptions or lose. To break through, Democratic messaging needs to be as shocking as the reality.
Great article, I will make one quick point. America is a sleeping 800 pound Progressive Tiger, with a rabid chihuahua yapping and circling. The tiger is starting to wake up.
Almost missed this one and it's against my "religion" not to read every Report. It's such a perfect share for my younger anti-fascist friends. When they read the dry history in school, maybe some dates and major facts stick, but Thom takes those and puts them into the context of the current political landscape.
I hate beating-up on the media. That is such a broad description of a huge number of people in 2022, so when I use the term it's loosely. Much of the mainstream media put out a narrative that the fascists in France were soooo close to unseating Macron. Then when he won, I had to really listen hard to catch anyone willing to say he thoroughly trounced Le Pen. My point is, we really don't know what is going to happen this fall. I agree we just need to put in the work. But I also think, folks should not have a lot of faith in the polls or the people selling the "horse-race".