It’s worth reading Anne Applebaum’s Atlantic article “History Will Judge the Complicit”, or does the GOP wish to reveal the truth of conservative principles as oxymoron.
What would it take for Republican leaders to admit to themselves that Trump’s loyalty cult is destroying the country they claim to love?
To the american reader,references to Vichy France, East Germany, fascists, and Communists may seem over-the-top, even ludicrous. But dig a little deeper, and the analogy makes sense. The point is not to compare Trump to Hitler or Stalin; the point is to compare the experiences of high-ranking members of the American Republican Party, especially those who work most closely with the White House, to the experiences of Frenchmen in 1940, or of East Germans in 1945, or of Czesław Miłosz in 1947. These are experiences of people who are forced to accept an alien ideology or a set of values that are in sharp conflict with their own.
Not even Trump’s supporters can contest this analogy, because the imposition of an alien ideology is precisely what he was calling for all along. Trump’s first statement as president,his inaugural address, was an unprecedented assault on American democracy and American values. Remember: He described America’s capital city, America’s government, America’s congressmen and senators—all democratically elected and chosen by Americans, according to America’s 227-year-old Constitution—as an “establishment” that had profited at the expense of “the people.” “Their victories have not been your victories,” he said. “Their triumphs have not been your triumphs.” Trump was stating, as clearly as he possibly could, that a new set of values was now replacing the old, though of course the nature of those new values was not yet clear.
Almost as soon as he stopped speaking, Trump launched his first assault on fact-based reality, a long-undervalued component of the American political system. We are not a theocracy or a monarchy that accepts the word of the leader or the priesthood as law. We are a democracy that debates facts, seeks to understand problems, and then legislates solutions, all in accordance with a set of rules. Trump’s insistence—against the evidence of photographs, television footage, and the lived experience of thousands of people—that the attendance at his inauguration was higher than at Barack Obama’s first inauguration represented a sharp break with that American political tradition. Like the authoritarian leaders of other times and places, Trump effectively ordered not just his supporters but also apolitical members of the government bureaucracy to adhere to a blatantly false, manipulated reality. American politicians, like politicians everywhere, have always covered up mistakes, held back information, and made promises they could not keep. But until Trump was president, none of theminduced the National Park Service to produce doctored photographsor compelled the White House press secretary to lie about the size of a crowd—or encouraged him to do so in front of a press corps that knewheknew he was lying.
You may think it's only a small thing that the military used helicopters to intimidate American civilians in the nation's capital. It's not. A line was crossed tonight. There will be other lines. This is Trump conditioning them to cross those lines.
GOP @SenTomCotton: “If local politicians will not do their most basic job to protect our citizens, let's see how these anarchists respond when the 101st Airborne is on the other side of the street.” pic.twitter.com/NyojLoOEAT
— The American Independent (@AmerIndependent) June 1, 2020
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Let me be clear. This is revolting. The Bible is not a prop. A church is not a photo op. Religion is not a political tool. God is not your plaything. pic.twitter.com/RZwPeqrwoZ
📺 @realDonaldTrump is no longer hiding that he’s a brazen authoritarian, so desiring of control and power that he’s willing to turn our once peaceful cities into war zones.#AmericaOrTrumppic.twitter.com/8Kn5Zi14Qx
— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) June 3, 2020
