Can You Admit…and Face Up To…Fascism?
Get ready for Donald Trump’s dictatorial onslaught against the Constitution and your freedom, health, and safety.
I don’t read Andy Borowitz, the popular author of The Borowitz Report. His substack column takes on Washington’s power mongers with biting satire.
We’re in a place today in America where I see nothing funny, particularly about Washington and the re-coming of the fascist Donald Trump and his brown shirts.
Editorial Cartoon by Ann Telnaes
But today, The Borowitz Report appeared before me in my email, and I saw that he was not being funny. He was being point on with connecting dots:
Ann Telnaes, Pulitzer-winning cartoonist for the Washington Post since 2008, quit the paper this week after her editor killed her cartoon depicting WaPo owner Jeff Bezos and other craven billionaires debasing themselves before Donald J. Trump.
This act of censorship, of course, isn’t an outlier: anticipatory obedience to fascism has risen ominously in recent months. It began with WaPo and the Los Angeles Times spiking endorsements of Kamala Harris, only to be outdone by Disney, who gifted Trump $15 million instead of fighting his flimsy defamation claim in court. Oh, and let’s not forget Joe and Mika’s humiliating field trip to Mar-a-Lago.
The 2017 Genesis
This “obedience to fascism” actually began rising ominously when Trump first walked into the White House in 2017.
The press and media didn’t seem to understand his fascism then, or may have just been afraid to admit it. But I had been involved in journalism, editing, writing, and teaching for 20 years in New York City, and had seen his ego-mania.
It led me – a week after his November 2016 election (by the electoral college, not popular vote) to publish a column headlined “Prepare to Fight Fascism: 2017 and Beyond”.
I explained how Trump would move into the White House and begin attacking the Constitution, the press, Congress, and the courts.
By July 4 of this year – as it was becoming clear that Trump might make it back into power – I expanded on my view with a substack column headlined “Prepare to Fall to Fascism, 2025 and Beyond”.
I summarized the situation with my subhead:
The radical right-wing onslaught ranging from the Supreme Court majority to the Heritage Foundation to Christian Nationalism are uniting with Trump to burn the Constitution and you.
You should know by now about Trump’s appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as his other supporters there. Especially their ruling freeing him from legal consequence at breaking laws as president: a dictator’s delight.
I listed The Heritage Foundation because it has been the source of Project 2025 – the right-wing plan to reshape the federal government and consolidate executive power under Trump: a dictator’s delight.
I specified Christian Nationalism – the political, not religious, movement to Christianize America – because their radical base has supported Trump despite his criminalities, and they led the lethal attack on Congress on Jan. 6, 2021. Dictators have a habit of catering to a religious establishment to help secure their power. Russian czars – including Vladimir Putin – made it a mainstay.
Can You Still Impact Congress? Maybe…
Intriguingly, Washington Republicans have not completely kowtowed to Trump’s ash-rising. I was shocked, actually, when a majority of Senate Republicans revolted in electing their new majority leader, rejecting Trump’s MAGA choice.
That seemed to say, “You’ve got the White House…not OUR house.”
But politicians aren’t leaders. They’re followers. Their eyes are glued to polls of their districts or states, and to the people power keeping them in office. And Trump, despite his and his followers’ propaganda, does not have a mandate. He, in fact, did not win a majority of the popular vote. Close, but no.
So, you may still have a chance to get Congress to protect you.
Back in 2007, the liberal activist attorney Ralph Nader explained the process to a packed university auditorium: each American lives in a Congressional district, and has answering to them a Congressmember and two U.S. Senators. Congressional districts have an average population of over 761,000 people. Nader said research showed that of those, each district had about 2,000 people that Congressmembers actually respond to. The power elite, so to speak.
“YOU…need to be one of those 2,000,” Nader called out, pointing to his packed audience of college students.
So, if you’re going to have a chance to impact your Congress, you’ll need to get organized (you can’t do it alone), get educated to issues, and get active in electing and badgering your Congressional delegation.
The Great Danger: Big Tech
It should be clear to you, since you’re reading this column either on your PC or smartphone, that today Big Tech rules flow of communication around the globe. Especially the likes of Amazon, Apple, Meta (Facebook), Google, and Microsoft…and, of course, Elon Musk.
The great danger: The billionaires who now control print, broadcast, and social media love and crave money…not serving the people’s welfare. That, too, is Donald Trump.
We saw where the billionaires stand…or kneel…when they immediately kowtowed to Trump following his election. They either crawled to Mar-A-Lago to meet with him, or contributed big bucks to his inaugural celebration. And Trump has given Musk a pilot’s license for implementing Project 2025.
We also saw their immediate willingness to censor information for Trump with what Borowitz pointed out: commanding that The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times NOT endorse a presidential candidate. And then last week, censoring the WaPo cartoonist, who immediately resigned and wrote about it. Truth to Power.
But the public, what few are paying attention to the issue, will soon forget Ann Telnaes.
Trump, as he did in his first term, will begin barraging us with executive orders…so much activity we will have to grit our teeth and focus to see what Nixon’s whistleblower Deep Throat called “the overall”.
It will be designed to attack our Constitution, control the flow of information through the press, media, and social media, and control Congress and the courts.
It will be designed to kill efforts at solving the climate crisis. To give Big Oil its way and making money, as Trump promised.
It will be designed to give the Christian Nationalists what they want: a Christian nation, even if it means by force. And thus give a dictator his religious base.
It will be designed to intimidate and imprison opposition, to cut taxes for the rich, remove government services for everybody else.
It will be designed to feed the military-industrial complex, continue endless war, and increase the danger of nuclear war.
It will be designed to let Trump rule like and with the cooperation, or opposition, of other dictators…whatever needs to happen to make Orwellian predictions into actual fact.
And, though Trump and his brownshirts won’t like it – nor will we -- it will move us toward violent revolution. We may have seen its beginnings this past week with the two military veterans’ (one who was still active) attacks in New Orleans and Las Vegas.
Democracy Dies in Bezos - by Andy Borowitz (borowitzreport.com)
Lest We Forget -- Prepare to Fight Fascism: 2017 and Beyond (substack.com)
Prepare to Fall to Fascism, 2025 and Beyond (substack.com)
Is Pam Bondi a Christian Nationalist? - by Roger Armbrust (substack.com)
Republicans reject Trump allies' pick, elect John Thune as next Senate majority leader (yahoo.com)
List of United States congressional districts - Wikipedia
Tech billionaires flock to Mar-a-Lago before Trump inauguration (wpbf.com)
Trump EPA Pick Will Hurt the Environment While Big Oil Is Protected (msn.com)
You can read more about Donald Trump’s fascism and other vital issues in my book from Parkhurst Brothers Publishers: