Tag: far right
Far-Right Online Commentator Demands President Be 'Tried And Executed'

Far-Right Online Commentator Demands President Be 'Tried And Executed'

In October 2023, The Nation's Elie Mystal warned that "'promoting violence" is a major part of ex-President Donald Trump's plan if he manages to secure the presidency again.

Mystal wrote, "I cannot actually list all the people Donald Trump has wished to harm with physical violence. They include most of his political opponents, often along with their families; every prosecutor who has investigated or indicted him; nearly every judge who has presided over one of his cases, protesters; hecklers; former Vice President Mike Pence."

Building on Mystal's point, conservative journalist and author David French last month wrote a New York Times op-ed highlighting "how much the constant threat of violence, principally from MAGA sources, is now warping American politics."

French noted "he has been inundated with death threats because of his criticism of Trump and that countless judges, lawyers, prosecutors, journalists, election workers and politicians live with the threat of MAGA violence."

On Tuesday, Colorado's 9News journalist Kyle Clark reported that far-right activist and commentator Joe Oltmann called for President Joe Biden to be killed during the Friday, March 8 segment of his online show.

According to Clark, the DCF Guns co-owner "has long used violent political rhetoric," before responding to Biden's expression of "support for a ban on so-called assault weapons" during his Thursday, March 7 State of the Union speech.

"I have gun stores and ranges," Oltmann said "on his Conservative Daily political program, which streams online and on MyPillowGuy Mike Lindell’s far-right broadcast network, FrankSpeech," Clark reports. "I’m not taking one gun off the shelf," the far-right activist added.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

'Trump's Mussolini': Orban's Mar-A-Lago Visit Signals Fascist Alliance

'Trump's Mussolini': Orban's Mar-A-Lago Visit Signals Fascist Alliance

This weekend, while President Biden championed the merits of democracy during various campaign stops in swing states, former President Donald Trump hosted far-right Hungarian autocratic president Viktor Orbán at Mar-a-Lago and even took him to a concert.

Trump's friendliness with the Hungarian prime minister is likely due to the fact that Orbán's central guiding philosophy and preferred method of governing are similar to Trump's, and could provide insight as to what a second Trump presidency would look like. Like Trump, Orbán is hostile toward immigrants, and notably built a massive border fence in the wake of the Syrian refugee crisis to keep asylum-seekers out of Hungary. His political party, Fidesz, has cracked down on press freedom and has sought to revise textbooks to exclude mentions of the LGBTQ+ community. And most revealingly, Orbán has made changes to Hungary's government that allow him to stay in power for an extended period of time.

While addressing a crowd at Mar-a-Lago, Trump extolled his leadership style publicly, saying "there’s nobody that’s better, smarter or a better leader than Viktor Orbán, he's fantastic... He says, 'This is the way it's gonna be,' and that’s the end of it. He's the boss."

Trump's comments caused significant alarm on social media, with journalists, commentators and elected officials urging voters to pay attention to the former president's praise of an "autocrat."

"How many different ways does Trump need to tell you he's going to rule as a dictator before you believe him?" Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will bunch tweeted.

Former federal prosecutor Richard Signorelli wrote on X/Twitter that Orbán was "Trump's Mussolini," suggesting the former president and the Hungarian leader could be the "new Axis powers' alliance."

"History is repeating itself but outcome not inevitable if we defeat our modern day Hitler & his deranged MAGA/Nazi cult at [the] ballot box," Signorelli tweeted. "Unfortunately, I do not see law enforcement timely addressing the menace so it's left to us again."

Others viewed the video as an illuminating preview of what Trump hopes to do if he retakes the White House. Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) called the former president "the leader of a global fascist movement" and added his role as the catalyst for the global far-right should be seen as the "central historical context of the coming campaign." Journalist and lawyer Daniel Miller called on the New York Times in particular to publish a "massive headline about Trump wanting to be a dictator" every day until the election. And Sarah Longwell, who is publisher of anti-Trump conservative website The Bulwark, urged news outlets to not hold back in calling out Trump's affinity for far-right dictators.

"Just because it’s old news that Donald Trump loves autocrats doesn’t mean it doesn’t deserve wall-to-wall coverage when he does things like this," she wrote. "Because it’s insane."

Columnist and podcaster Charles Adler tweeted about his firsthand experience with Orbán's brand of governing, writing that he "destroyed democracy in Hungary - land of my birth."

"Hungarians of my generation fled for the US and Canada to get the hell away from authoritarianism," Adler said. "Now this decaying Mar-A-Lago conman is huckstering Hungarian authoritarianism. It's as if [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is producing this s---show."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Under Trump, Far Right Plans 'Department Of Life'  To End Abortion Rights

Under Trump, Far Right Plans 'Department Of Life'  To End Abortion Rights

A coalition of far-right groups assembling a presidential transition plan in the event former President Donald Trump (or any Republican) is elected to the White House is doubling down on their plans to further restrict reproductive rights.

Axios reported Saturday that Project 2025 — a multimillion-dollar campaign led by the Heritage Foundation — remains unrelenting in its stated goals of asserting even more control over women's bodies should Republicans retake the presidency in November. The group's 887-page blueprint, "Mandate for Leadership," includes a section on how it would drastically restructure the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to focus heavily on making abortions even harder to get.

The document states that the HHS should become "known as the Department of Life," specifically by "rejecting the notion that abortion is health care and by restoring its mission statement under the Strategic Plan and elsewhere to include furthering the health and well-being of all Americans 'from conception to natural death.'"

The group also seeks to eliminate a reproductive rights task force the Biden administration put in place and instead "install a pro-life task force to ensure that all of the department’s divisions seek to use their authority to promote the life and health of women and their unborn children."

Other proposed restrictions on abortion rights include the defunding of Planned Parenthood (even though abortions count for a small fraction of the organization's healthcare services for women), and reversing FDA approval of abortion medication proven to be safe and effective, like Mifepristone. Project 2025 also wants to strengthen the ability of healthcare providers to cite "religious objections" as a valid reason to not provide reproductive healthcare.

Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita has said that Project 2025 doesn't speak for the former president and that Trump would be releasing his own transition plan in the event he wins the November election. However, John McEntee, who is Trump's former director of the Presidential Personnel Office, now works for Project 2025 in a senior role, which may mean that the group is more closely intertwined with Trump's inner circle than LaCivita suggests.

Project 2025 is already pre-screening potential employees in the next Republican administration with the expressly stated goal of filling the executive branch — and the federal civil service — with yes-men committed to the far-right's political goals. The group is calling for Trump, or the next Republican president, to pass an executive order dubbed "Schedule F" that would overhaul numerous employment protections for federal workers in order to drastically increase the number of presidential appointments from a few thousand to more than 54,000.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Rep. Mike Johnson

Suddenly Mike Johnson Is Worried About 'Extreme' GOP House Candidates

After Rep. Mike Johnson's (R-LA) confirmation as House Speaker, many reports focused on his far-right Christian nationalist views and efforts to help former President Donald Trump overturn the 2020 election results. Yet Johnson has avoided the bombastic, strident, brash style that is characteristic of so many MAGA Republicans. And the speaker, according to reporting in Politico, showed some pragmatism during a recent meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

Johnson, Politico reporters Olivia Beavers and Ally Mutnick explain in an article published on March 1, is worried about the paltry size of his House majority — which has been shrinking thanks to a series of departures and resignations. And Johnson, during the meeting, encouraged the former president to get behind the more electable candidates in GOP primary races.

Johnson, Beavers and Mutnick report, was "making the case that certain extreme candidates could blow the party's chances in battleground districts with primaries this month."

"Johnson's requests included seeking the president's help neutralizing the controversial J.R. Majewski, who has roiled the GOP primary for a must-win Ohio swing seat," the Politico reporters note. "The House GOP leaders also inquired if Trump could endorse other candidates, including Rep. Mike Bost (R-IL), and updated him on their preferences in key upcoming primaries in California and North Carolina. Trump was generally receptive to their requests, according to three people familiar with the meeting who were granted anonymity to speak candidly about it."

Beavers and Mutnick continue, "Given Majewski's strong MAGA lean and Rep. Matt Gaetz's (R-FL) support for Bost's opponent, it was hardly a given. Overall, the meeting signaled that Johnson has developed a strategic partnership with the former president, who is again the de facto chief of the Republican Party."

Trump ended up endorsing Bost. But Johnson's challenge, according to Beavers and Mutnick, is to "avoid candidates like Majewski who risk blowing Republicans' chances in swing seats next fall" but without "alienating the ex-president."

Johnson discussed his meeting with Trump during a February 29 interview with Politico, saying, " We talked about Bost. He has always been a Trump supporter, and he agreed to endorse him. But I haven't spoken to him in detail about a lot of the other races."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.