(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Republicans confirm that the 2024 election will be a referendum on Fascism [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-06-11 Last week Republican Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, briefly caught the media’s attention when he indicated he intended to wage an unusually aggressive and hard-hitting campaign against Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination. While the media almost universally decried his actual chances of defeating Trump as the GOP nominee, for a tiny flicker in time it almost seemed plausible that someone from the political right could impose some type of deserved retribution on this criminal sociopath who has dominated our politics for the past seven years. Some even went so far as to suggest that Christie’s attacks might prompt other Republicans to follow suit. Judging from the hysterical response by the GOP to Trump’s latest indictment, however, that’s never going to happen. Instead, the GOP initially (and with near-unanimity) resolved to deflect Trump’s culpability — not by defending his actions, mind you — but by playing the whattaboutism game for the remainder of the upcoming election cycle. Republicans intend to bombard the airwaves with fanciful accusations they’ve carefully cultivated in their alternative media universe: charges of a “weaponized” Justice Department, imagined “crimes” of Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, and the “tyranny” Trump’s prosecution purportedly represented. In short: anything and everything that could inflame their thoroughly zombified and defiantly ignorant voter base. This was to be expected. As reported by Shane Goldmacher, writing for the New York Times, elected Republicans really had no other option. Their base doesn’t want facts, and they certainly don’t want the truth. After years of successive scandals, the immediate instincts of so many Republican voters are thoroughly ingrained. They snap to Mr. Trump’s defense, no matter how outrageous the charges are or who is making them — Democrats, the news media, local prosecutors or, now, federal ones. The fact that Republicans would seek refuge in whattaboutism was a predictable (if pathetic) response to Trump’s indictment. But it took less than 48 hours before the entire tone from Republicans went from “what about” to a far more menacing, “What we’ll do.” As we are now witnessing, the criminal prosecution of Donald Trump has provided a unique opportunity for Trump’s most ardent supporters to demonstrate their unyielding fealty to him, specifically their willingness to defend his every action, no matter how illegal or otherwise abhorrent, by adopting the language of incitement and threats of violence. So, this last week from election denier, former television anchorwoman and Arizona gubernatorial loser Kari Lake, was hardly a surprise: x KARI LAKE: "If you want to get to President Trump, you're going to have to go through me, and 75 million Americans just like me. And most of us are card-carrying members of the NRA. That's not a threat, that's a public service announcement" pic.twitter.com/rSVwEaK2rX — Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) June 10, 2023 Lake desperately wants to remain a relevant contender for elective office. If nothing else, it’s a huge cash cow for her, with speaking fees, television appearances, and book deals all waiting for her to spew forth in the right-wing media universe. The Holy Grail for her is to be selected as Trump’s running mate, but even Trump might find her a potential liability too toxic to sustain his own brand (he’s not a man who willingly shares the stage with anyone, which is why he chose the hapless Mike Pence in 2016). But Lake’s thinly veiled call for violence to be meted out by Trump’s supporters against a federal prosecutor and President Biden was no anomaly. It was immediately echoed in the halls of the same Republican Congressional caucus that voted to reverse the results of the 2020 election. Republican Andy Biggs of Arizona made this clear when he declared that Trump’s prosecution had ushered in a “war phase,” in which Republicans should demand “an eye for an eye.” And as reported by Jeff Sharlet, writing for the Atlantic, Clay Higgins, an elected Republican Congressman from Louisiana, quickly seized the opportunity to facilitate the terroristic violence he clearly anticipates. Higgins, a former SWAT officer and military policeman for the Louisiana National Guard, has a history of incitement on behalf of the far right, with deep and longstanding ties to both white supremacist and vigilante “militia” groups, and a record of inflammatory rhetoric to match: Which was why, perhaps, shortly after entering Congress, his name showed up on a speaking bill with the white nationalist Richard Spencer. Higgins claimed that it was a mistake, but a month later he took the stage at a Washington, D.C., Oath Keepers rally, organized by Stewart Rhodes, who is now serving 18 years for seditious conspiracy and evidence tampering related to the January 6 insurrection. Gripping a red Bible he called the “rule book,” Higgins lamented the loss of an America in which “everybody had guns … guns in every vehicle … any child could buy a gun from any seller if Daddy sent them with the money.” As Sharlet explains, this tweet of Higgins’, issued in an immediate response to Trump’s indictment, is full of coded rhetoric that most Americans are wholly unfamiliar with: x President Trump said he has "been summoned to appear at the Federal Courthouse in Miami on Tuesday, at 3 PM." This is a perimeter probe from the oppressors. Hold. rPOTUS has this. Buckle up. 1/50K know your bridges. Rock steady calm. That is all. — Rep. Clay Higgins (@RepClayHiggins) June 9, 2023 As Sharlet notes, “Cabal is a QAnon term; iPOTUS appears to be Higgins’s own coinage, possibly for “imposter POTUS.” But Higgins’ Tweet says a lot more than that: “This is a perimeter probe from the oppressors,” Higgins’s tweet continues. The “oppressors,” of course, are members of the “cabal,” the tyranny decried by Three Percenters. Higgins has also referred to them as “Leviathan.” A perimeter probe is reconnaissance meant to determine your force’s strength. “Hold,” Higgins writes. Another way of putting that is “Stand back and stand by.” The term rPOTUS translates as “the real president, Trump.” “rPOTUS has this” will be read by some QAnon adherents—and the many more Trumpists who don’t identify with Q even as its mythology has seeped into standard GOP rhetoric—as “Trust the plan.” Trump has it under control. Everything is happening for a reason. “God wins.” [***] Then comes the phrase that mystified those who don’t spend their weekends “training” for insurrection or doomsday: “1/50K know your bridges.” 1:50,000 is a scale used on military maps. It’s also used on some U.S. Geological Survey maps, largely in relation to areas surrounding military installations. Know your bridges isn’t jargon or metaphor. For the militia-minded, it means knowing the approaches to your location—especially bridges, which can be seized, much the way Canadian far-right truckers blockaded the Ambassador Bridge to Detroit in 2022. In short, what this Congressman is doing is telegraphing tactical instructions to far-right militia members for a violent, armed assault on a federal courthouse. Just think about that for a minute. Sharlet’s point is that Democrats cannot treat this type of incitement as outlying or “fringe.” Simply mocking it is not an option: they must call it out, loudly at every opportunity. He correctly observes that this is the kind of rhetoric that inevitably gets people killed, and we can expect it to continue right up to the point where that actually occurs. As Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has cogently pointed out, for the Republican party, Jan. 6 was merely a trial run. The real deal will come next year, as the rhetoric escalates well beyond the ability of Republicans to control. Trump has clearly indicated that this is only the beginning for him. Whatever occurs in Miami (or Georgia) this summer, Republicans have already cast their lot with the worst specimens our society has ever produced. But despite how powerful and righteous this violent rhetoric may make Republicans feel right now, at the same time the stage is being set for an election that will effectively put to Americans a stark, straightforward question: Is this the kind of country you want to live in? One in which the mere act of enforcing the law implicates a violent response? One in which half the American public is under constant threat from these vicious reactionaries and racists, who just can’t cope with the fact that they aren’t getting their way? Americans already answered that question in 2020, and again in 2022. They don’t want violence. They don't want their lives controlled by armed goons driving pickup trucks up and down the streets, threatening to nullify elections and attack courthouses. They don't want fascism. They really don’t. But that’s all that Republicans have to offer. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/6/11/2174251/-Republicans-confirm-that-the-2024-election-will-be-a-referendum-on-Fascism Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/