THIS is Fascism: Updated 10/23/17

Fascism has direction and momentum. Dissent is piece by piece criminalized. The truth is bludgeoned. Group after group is demonized and targeted along a trajectory that leads to real horrors. Fascism is a qualitative change in how society is governed. (From the Refuse Fascism Call to Action).

In Just the Last Few Days the Trump/Pence Regime…

Stripped all references to climate in revised EPA websites that had previously provided crucial information about climate change. Some of these resources had been taken down in April to “reflect EPA’s priorities under the leadership of President Trump and Administrator Pruitt.” The websites that have been put back up have been purged of essential knowledge and research – a further assault on the truth, science, and the planet. (source)
Put a new face on its war on the media with Chief of Staff John Kelly, who used his own son’s death to elevate military service as the ultimate moral service, made a personal connection with military families a prerequisite for journalists asking questions, and evoked nostalgia for a time (pre-civil rights) when four things were sacred: women (in their traditional roles as wives and mothers), religion, “life,” and military families. (source) Here is one veteran calling this out for the bullshit it is. Veteran Answers John Kelly: No Blind Obedience to the War Machine.

Key parts of the Trump/Pence regime’s fascist base also made their own advances:

Richard Spencer, determined to normalize white supremacist terror under the guise of free speech, forced an appearance at the University of Florida Gainesville. The college paid $500,000 for security and Florida declared a state of emergency to lock down the campus, but protesters righteously resisted both inside and outside of Spencer’s talk. The Neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer encouraged flash mobs to intimidate Jewish and non-white institutions in the Gainesville area. Three were charged with attempted murder after open firing into a crowd. (source)
Georgia lawmaker Betty Price, wife of former Trump cabinet member Tom Price, made a “provocative and rhetorical comment” — she asked if people with HIV should be quarantined. These provocative and rhetorical comments are how genocidal ideas gain legitimacy. (source)
Former White House strategist and Breitbart fascist Steve Bannon gave a disturbing speech at the California GOP convention that laid out a strategy for a fascist take-over of California, the bluest of blue states. He outlined a united front of libertarians, “populists” (fascists), economic nationalists (America First xenophobes), and evangelical Christians was necessary for defeating liberalism, and decried a lack of urgency for fully consolidating fascism. (source)

And for further reading, why comparing a lying Trump to a lying Hitler is absolutely appropriate, this column by Charles Blow: Trump Isn’t Hitler but the Lying....

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