Call to Action
Do everything you possibly can to defeat every Republican candidate in every election at every level on November 6, 2022
The mass murder of 10 Black citizens in Buffalo by an 18 year-old male, white supremacist armed with a military assault weapon is a stark distillation of what is at stake in the mid-term elections. As President Biden comforted the mourning families, Republican politicians doubled down on making more guns available without restrictions. Leading Republicans, goaded on by Fox News, repeated the shooter’s Great Replacement Theory talking points.
Will we continue to live in a democracy or will we descend into fascism? This may seem too stark a contrast, a bit extreme? Unfortunately, it is not hyperbole. The refusal of Republican leaders to definitively denounce the Great Replacement Theory used by the shooter to justify his murders is the culmination of a decade of intellectual, moral and political defilement in the party that still bows to Donald Trump.
The 2008 election of the first Black president of the United States, liberal Democrat Barack Obama, unleashed the white supremacy and anti-democratic sentiment that has been a part of our history since the beginnings of the nation. Donald Trump stoked the fires with his birther allegations. With the support of the right-wing media and the white evangelical church he rode a whirlwind of racism, anti-immigration and sexism into one tragic term as president. His electoral defeat in 2020 has only further inflamed his base and has put us in this defining battle for the future of the nation.
While there are ways to reduce the risk of yet more mass shootings – meaningful gun control and a coordinated and well-funded pursuit of right-wing domestic terrorists at the federal, state and local level – the truth is that the United States will not do any of these without a resounding political defeat of the Republican Party and the repudiation of its toxic, fascist base.
We’ve used the word fascist several times. What are we talking about?
On May 19th The New York Times published an opinion piece by Yale History Professor Timothy Snyder, a scholar of World War II, entitled “We Should Say It. Russia is Fascist”. Written to influence thinking about the stakes of the war in Ukraine, it also provides essential perspective on our domestic politics by identifying key markers of fascism and allowing us to see the big picture of what is going on in the US.
Fascism, Snyder explains, is a cult of irrationality and violence that cannot be defeated by reason. It cannot coexist with democracy. Fascism is an energy/movement that seeks complete domination and then elimination of the political competition.
Here is our distillation of those key features of fascism and how they are appearing right now in U.S. politics and society:
A cult of irrationality and conspiracy theories (Q Anon, Great Replacement Theory, the anti-vax movement and militant opposition to public health measures, climate change denial)
A leader or leaders who emphasize will over reason and seek to act illegally without compunction (Donald Trump and his imitators)
A belief in the cleansing power of violence (mass murders targeting Blacks, Latinx people, LGBTQ+ individuals, Asians, Jews, Muslims, immigrants)
The distortion of history claiming a magnificent past without acknowledging conflict and violence (Make America Great Again, the “cultural” defense of Confederate statues, the blatant sexist theology of most white evangelical churches, laws prohibiting teaching of “uncomfortable” history or recognizing “inappropriate” social conditions and facts)
The delegitimization of current, legal political leadership (2020 election deniers, the January 6 insurrection, the nomination of candidates who openly refuse to follow the will of the voters)
The vilification of elites (the anti-science, anti-facts, anti-truth rhetoric of Fox News and many Republican officials, the demonization of higher education and professionals in all fields)
A politics of us versus them centered on creating “national enemies” (White supremacist and anti-immigrant movements, coordinated legislative attacks on gay and transgender rights, and the linking of abortion rights to the Great Replacement Theory)
When seen through the lens that Snyder offers, the words and actions we have been living with in the U.S. for the last decade take on their full horror as Republicans across the country become ever more authoritarian, racist, sexist and - yes - fascist. And these phenomena become more virulent when refracted through media outlets controlled by supporters of this agenda and the toxicity of social media.
In the case of Russia and the war against Ukraine, Snyder argues that only defeat on the battlefield will stop the Russian fascist assault on Ukraine and the west. For the time being, our battlefield is electoral, civic and cultural. By analogy, we should aim for the complete rout of the fascist enabling Republicans in the upcoming election. This is going to be a long battle. We won’t achieve full success at first, but we must put them on the run and reclaim a politics of rational democracy, decency and the rule of law.
You know what to do!
Get involved in every election in which you can vote including the most local – school boards, town councils, county commissioners etc. It’s important to participate in the state and federal elections that determine the makeup of your state judiciary, legislature and the U.S. Congress and it is just as important to block Republicans and the right wing under other guises from the government bodies that are closest to home.
Get friends and family involved as well.
Give money to advocacy groups and candidates that support your values at home and in Red states.
Volunteer and give money to the “get out the vote efforts” of such organizations as Swing Left, Vote Forward, Voto Latino, Movement Voter Project and Fair Fight all of whom target potential Democratic voters.