by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
While I’m reluctant to get too excited, there is a chance that now that the Republicans have massively screwed up the 2022 midterms that SOMETHING akin to normal American politics may reappear. For a little while.
There are a lot of problems with having too much glee about the prospect that Trump was some sort of “fluke” that we’re now recovering from. The biggest issue is the core, the base of the Republican Party continues to be enamored with fascism. That’s not gone anywhere.
What might be fading is Trump’s personal, specific brand of fascism. The type that makes it difficult for the more cultured elements of the Republican Party to support the rise of American Fascism. If this is the case, then we can expect pretty much the entire #NeverTrump movement to collapse and things really will snap back into place, to a certain extent.
All the neocons who have become liberal darlings will “come home” to the Republican Party and that will be that. There might some quibbling with the darker, more violent aspects of the post-Trump fascist movement that former #NeverTrumpers might have, but on a strict ideological level they’ll flock back to the GOP.
It will be interesting to see what happens next, all things considered. It could go either way. But one thing is for sure — the rise of American fascism isn’t going anywhere. By definition, to be a Republican is to be a fascist and Trump has simply served his political and historical purpose to the furtherance of that end. The issue if Trump is done would simply be — do we punt our problems down the road one more election cycle, or does someone like DeSantis finally strangle American democracy once and for all?
