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Tag: trump is a fascist
Trump Media Coverage Fails To Highlight His Grave Threat To Democracy

Trump Media Coverage Fails To Highlight His Grave Threat To Democracy

Over the weekend, former President Donald Trump escalated his ongoing attacks on American democracy as he offered the potential of pardons for January 6 insurrectionists if he were reelected in 2024, incited further demonstrations against officials who are now investigating him, and asserted once again that the 2020 election should have been overturned.

Mainstream media outlets, however, are continuing to treat the rising of an American fascist movement as a political curiosity, providing horse-race coverage instead of examining it first and foremost as an ongoing threat to the republic.

During his speech at a Texas rally, Trump claimed that the January 6 insurrectionists “are being treated so unfairly,” saying, “If it requires pardons, we will give them pardons.” To be clear, the most severe sentences handed down thus far have been for rioters who assaulted police officers, and members of the far-right Oath Keepers militia group have been indicted for seditious conspiracy, directly relating to an alleged effort to overthrow the government. Yet Trump made this promise to a cheering crowd, including supporters standing right behind him and wearing T-shirts labeled “Cops for Trump.”

Trump also called for his supporters to take to the streets again, for “the biggest protest we have ever had in Washington, D.C., in New York, in Atlanta,” if “these radical, vicious, racist prosecutors” who are investigating both his conduct surrounding the election and his personal business dealings “do anything wrong or illegal.” In response, the district attorney in Fulton County, Georgia, who has impaneled a grand jury to investigate Trump’s threatening phone call with Georgia’s secretary of state, has asked for assistance from the FBI to guarantee the security of the Fulton County courthouse and government center.

“We must work together to keep the public safe and ensure that we do not have a tragedy in Atlanta similar to what happened at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021,” District Attorney Fani Willis said in an official letter on Sunday.

In addition, Trump released another statement over the weekend, directly attacking former Vice President Mike Pence and claiming that he “could have overturned the election.”

Mainstream media outlets should be treating all of this as a five-alarm fire for American democracy and the U.S. Constitution. But instead, Politico’s Playbook on Sunday pondered how Trump’s declarations might affect Republican messaging and prospects for the midterm election.

It’s clear that Trump isn’t moving on. Will the MAGA base? Will the GOP? And how will that affect the party’s ability to retake the House? Is there any chance that House Republicans distance themselves from the former president, or will this be yet another confirmation that it’s Trump’s party now?

The New York Times positioned Trump’s comments in terms of supposed Republican infighting and messaging: “The statement signifies an increase in the intensity of the former president’s push to litigate the 2020 election and comes days after Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, issued a public warning to Republican candidates to ‘respect the results of our democratic process’ during an interview with CNN.” (The alleged conflict among Republicans is also exaggerated by mainstream media outlets.)

The Washington Post ran a piece Sunday evening, titled “Trump’s Texas trip illustrates his upsides and downsides for Republicans and their midterm hopes.” Immediately after the paragraph detailing Trump’s offer of pardons to January 6 rioters, along with his incitement of new demonstrations against district attorneys, the article proceeded to discuss what this might mean for Republican candidates in primary and general elections:

Trump may be out of office, and not yet an official candidate for president in 2024, but he still represents a conundrum for his party. The former president retains an unchallenged grip over the base of the party. In most states, separation from Trump’s desires and policies is a sure path to defeat in a Republican primary and risks lower GOP turnout in a general election.
But Trump’s continued effort to downplay the events of January 6 while stoking agitation for future violence risks alienating the independent and moderate voters Republicans desperately need and think they are set to gain in November.

And in a separate but also consequential example of missing the real message, The Associated Press said that Trump’s “offer represents an attempt by Trump to further minimize the most significant attack on the seat of government since the War of 1812.”

Trump didn’t just “minimize” what happened, he is actively trying to seed more of it.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

Nevada Candidate For Secretary Of State Vows To ‘Fix 2020 Like Trump Said'

Nevada Candidate For Secretary Of State Vows To ‘Fix 2020 Like Trump Said'

A Nevada candidate jockeying to run the state's elections is pledging to help overturn the 2020 election results, all while promoting an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that George Soros and his "cabal" are to blame for election losses.

Jim Marchant is an avid supporter of former President Donald Trump who ran an unsuccessful campaign for Congress in 2020. He is now running for secretary of state in Nevada, where President Joe Biden defeated Trump by more than 33,000 votes in 2020.

In a recent interview, Marchant promoted a baseless conspiracy theory claiming that Democrats -- including former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and billionaire mega-donor George Soros -- hatched a scheme almost 20 years ago to elect progressive secretaries of state as part of an effort to undermine U.S. elections.

"In 2004, the Democrats — specifically George Soros, Harry Reid, and others of their ilk — hatched a plan, called the Secretaries of State project, and it was designed to get progressive liberal secretaries of states elected in all the key swing states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and they succeeded," Marchant told right-wing radio host Eddie Floyd in a January 19 interview.

"And the election of 2020 is a direct result of that plan," he added. "That's why George Soros, Harry Reid, and the cabal — they understood how important the secretary of state races were."

Soros is a Hungarian Jew who survived the Holocaust and emigrated to America in 1956. Reid, who died in December, married his wife, Landra Gould, in 1959. While Reid himself was Mormon, he upheld his wife's family's Jewish faith while raising their five children together for more than 60 years.

Anti-Semites have long used the word "cabal" as a dog-whistle to refer to a small, secretive, powerful group of Jews who they claim manipulate global affairs from behind the scenes. Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories often invoke Soros, a billionaire philanthropist and Holocaust survivor, as proof of outsized Jewish influence.

Marchant, a former member of the Nevada state Assembly, is the sole Republican candidate for secretary of the Silver State. He's already racked up endorsements from Reps. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and Andy Biggs (R-AZ), and former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Adam Laxalt, Nevada's former attorney general who is now running for Senate, endorsed Marchant last week.

If elected as Nevada's top elections official, Marchant said he would get rid of the state's voting machines entirely and would do away with early voting and mail-in voting while installing "our people" to oversee polling locations on Election Day.

Marchant ran for Congress in 2020 and lost his bid by more than 16,000 votes. Still, he attempted to challenge the results, claiming election fraud, despite lacking any material evidence. A judge threw out the case.

In a January 4 interview with former Trump campaign chief Steve Bannon, Marchant called himself part of "a coalition of American First secretary of state candidates" who are working "behind the scenes to try to fix 2020 like President Trump said."

Marchant added that Trump loyalists like himself are running to be top elections officials in Michigan, Georgia, and Arizona — all of which will likely be crucial battleground states in the 2024 presidential election.

Kristina Karamo, a Republican running to be Michigan's next secretary of state with Trump's backing, has falsely claimed antifascist protesters were behind the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Biden won Michigan by more than 154,000 votes, flipping it from red to blue after Trump won the state in 2016.

Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA) intends to primary Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who Trump tried to intimidate with his call to "find 11,780" votes last January.

And Mark Finchem, an Arizona state lawmaker who stood near the Capitol as insurrectionists smashed windows on January 6, is running to be Arizona's next secretary of state.

These candidates, who all have ties to the fringe conspiracy theory movement QAnon, including Marchant, are running to promote the "Big Lie" — a baseless conspiracy theory that claims former President Donald Trump won the 2020 election, even though Biden won the race by seven million more votes.

Marchant isn't the only Nevada Republican looking to wield influence over the 2024 election. At the top of the state ticket, two gubernatorial candidates have staked their candidacies on the Big Lie too.

Former Nevada Secretary of State Dean Heller said he told Trump, "the only way we can guarantee that, in 2024, we have a Republican president is we need a leader here in the state of Nevada that understands our election laws and [is] willing to change them."

And one of his opponents, Las Vegas Councilwoman Michele Fiore called the 2020 presidential election "perhaps the most poorly administered election in American history." In a viral ad, she used a gun holstered to her hip to shatter a beer bottle labeled “voter fraud."

Currently, pollsters view the Nevada gubernatorial race as a toss-up with Heller seen as a Republican front-runner in the primary.

Reprinted with permission from American Independent

Trump Drafted Order For Military To Seize Voting Machines

Trump Drafted Order For Military To Seize Voting Machines

The House Select Committee has uncovered a draft of an executive order written sometime in the weeks after the 2020 presidential election. According to Business Insider, the order would have called for the U.S. Secretary of Defense to "seize" voting machines and select a special counsel to conduct an election investigation.

The document, reportedly dated December 16, 2020, "outlines a plan for the Pentagon to take the machines and for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to conduct an assessment of the machines within 60 days of their seizure."

"Effective immediately, the Secretary of Defense shall seize, collect, retain and analyze all machines, equipment, electronically stored information, and material records required for retention," the draft order said.

In addition to suggesting a government seizure of voting machines, the order also echoes multiple election conspiracy theories largely circulated by former U.S. National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and Trump's controversial campaign lawyer Sidney Powell, both of whom are known Trump allies.

"The appointment of a Special Counsel to oversee this operation and institute all criminal and civil proceedings as appropriate based on the evidence collected and provided all resources necessary to carry out her duties consistent with federal laws and the Constitution," the draft order also said.

While it remains unclear who actually wrote the draft, it does appear to align with the ideology of former President Donald Trump's allies and many right-wing figures who circulated his claims of widespread voter fraud. The January 6 select committee was able to obtain the draft earlier this week after the U.S. Supreme Court denied Trump's request to block the panel from obtaining a substantial amount of executive-branch documents.

Although Trump's campaign legal team filed countless lawsuits contesting the election results in multiple states, election audits cybersecurity experts have confirmed there was no evidence of voter fraud.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, left, and former President Trump.

Former Prosecutor Zeros In On Why Kevin McCarthy Is Refusing To Testify

During an appearance on Friday's edition of CNN's The Situation Room, former federal prosecutor Elie Honig weighed in on a newly uncovered radio interview with former House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) last year, which seems to explain McCarthy's reluctance to testify before the January 6th House Select Committee. In the interview, McCarthy said former President Donald Trump acknowledged some responsibility for the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

According to Honig, this information totally explains McCarthy's steadfast refusal to cooperate with the House committee.

"McCarthy claims there's nothing, in his words, that he can provide to the committee," said anchor Wolf Blitzer. "But just listening to his own words, that's clearly not true."

"It's complete nonsense, and it's simply not true," agreed Honig. "This new piece of tape, where McCarthy says Donald Trump acknowledged that he has some responsibility, that's extraordinarily powerful evidence. That's an admission of some culpability by Donald Trump to Kevin McCarthy. And the committee is right to be very much focused on that."

"That was the old McCarthy, before his voyage down to Mar-a-Lago," added Honig. "He seems to have emerged as a different person with a different take on the facts and reality."

Watch The Interview Below: