"... [A]uthoritarian Fascists celebrate and inspire cruelty. And yet they are profoundly sensitive to criticism, terrified of it, in fact. Ah, cruelty. I think of the sweeping cruelty of Muslim bans and separating children from their parents at the border. The cruelty of right-wing heroes like Alex Jones, the late Rush Limbaugh, or the defenders of automatic combat weapons at the expense of countless dead children. The dismissive cruelty Republican Governors adopted towards the needless thousands and thosuands of Covid dead. The cruelty of strict abortion laws or the scapegoating of trans kids. Good God, we can be a cruel people. [snip]
"The fascists aren’t coming. The fascists aren’t coming. They’re here.
"Trump
has tapped a cruel, racist, anti-Semitic cancer deep in the American
soul, in our neighbors and fellow citizens, that we must confront.
Together, in the coming year, we must excise this contagion from our
midst once and for all. Or lose the world’s last beacon of liberty,
diversity and true democracy that cost our forebears, our patriots, our
veterans so much blood." -- David Fitzsimmons, former cartoonist for The Arizona Republic, in his Substack "Arizona's Progressive Voice," concluding an essay reviewing the Malignant Loser's fascist rhetoric and a brief overview of the history of American fascism (with a h/t to Rachel Maddow's new bestseller "Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism." Good read.
(Meme: by David Fitzsimmons)