William Lindsey Oct 22, 2024

"January 30th 1933 dawned cold and clear in Berlin as Adolph Hitler took his oath of office and promised Germans he would uphold the constitution. It would ultimately take him less than 30 days to dismantle it. ...

All you need to end a democracy is a leader willing to suspend or end the Constitution and a supporting cast large enough to allow him to do it.

Republicans have both."

~ Rachel Bitecofer

#Trump #JDVance #Republicans #fascism
/1

https://thecycle.substack.com/p/what-really-happens-if-trump-wins

What (Really) Happens If Trump Wins?

Like Hitler, Trump Has Made Clear His Plan is Dictatorship, Not Democracy

The Cycle- On Substack
Show threadWilliam Lindsey Oct 22, 2024

"In an echo of [Sinclair] Lewis’s bestselling 1935 novel It Can’t Happen Here, [Dorothy Thompson] wrote in a 1937 column: 'No people ever recognize their dictator in advance…. He always represents himself as the instrument for expressing the Incorporated National Will. When Americans think of dictators they always think of some foreign model.'"

~ Heather Cox Richardson

#Trump #JDVance #Republicans #fascism
/2

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/october-21-2024

October 21, 2024

On Saturday, September 7, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump predicted that his plan to deport 15 to 20 million people currently living in the United States would be “bloody.” He also promised to prosecute his political opponents, including, he wrote, lawyers, political operatives, donors, illegal voters, and election officials.

Letters from an American
Show threadWilliam Lindsey Oct 22, 2024

"DONALD TRUMP IS RUNNING THE MOST openly fascist campaign ever undertaken by a major-party nominee for president of the United States.

That’s not hype; it’s a textbook application of the term. …

We like to think that fascism can’t happen in America. But it’s happening right now."

~ Will Saletan

#Trump #JDVance #Republicans #fascism
/3

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/lets-be-honest-trumps-running-as

Let’s Be Honest, Trump’s Running As a Fascist

A comprehensive look at recent speeches and interviews underscores just how dark the rhetoric has gotten.

The Bulwark
Show threadWilliam Lindsey Oct 22, 2024

“Germany bears witness to an uncomfortable truth — that evil is not one person but can be easily activated in more people than we would like to believe when the right conditions congeal."

~ Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (NY: Random House, 2020), p. 267

#Trump #JDVance #Republicans #fascism
/4

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/653196/caste-by-isabel-wilkerson/

Caste by Isabel Wilkerson: 9780593230275 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NEW YORK TIMES READERS PICK: 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • “An inst...

PenguinRandomhouse.com
Show threadWilliam Lindsey Oct 22, 2024

“Foreign visitors who concerned themselves with the plight of the Jews — and the majority did not — had to deal with an unanswerable question. How is it possible for these warm-hearted, genial people, noted for their work ethic and devotion to family values, to treat so many of their fellow Germans, with such contempt and cruelty?”

~ Julia Boyd, Travelers in the Third Reich, The Rise of Fascism (NY: Pegasus, 2018), p. 372

#Trump #JDVance #Republicans #fascism
/5

http://pegasusbooks.com/books/travelers-in-the-third-reich-9781681777825-hardcover

Travelers in the Third Reich

Show threadPamela
@wdlindsy This indifference is like a societal cancer. Today we see our society in a relapse with the 33%+ percent we witness daily supporting a platform that targets "others" for hate, rounding up, and deporting or extermination. We can defeat this but we MUST acknowledge there are those among US that would happily participate in this atrocity. Where are you in this, your vote will tell US!!!
Oct 22, 2024 at 1:40pmWeb
Show threadWilliam Lindsey Oct 22, 2024
@luv_wins Yes, I very much agree. This is good analysis. And the apathy has been deliberately cultivated by a hard-right movement that wants us to feel helpless and hopeless and to opt out of democratic participation.
Show threadPamelaOct 22, 2024
@wdlindsy I've also noted those hurling the "Woke" label as an insult are really wanting US not to be "aware"! They've co opted our Media into scrubbing clean Trumpie 's 'hate speak' into palatable sound bites his uninformed cultists can blare out without getting the overt retaliation it deserves!!!
Show threadWilliam Lindsey Oct 22, 2024
@luv_wins Yes, you're exactly right.