FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: IS IT FASH YET? EDITION.

You better run.

Tubby and his mob have been busy, seizing voting records in Georgia (presumably to manipulate in furtherance of his years-long Stolen Election scam) and arresting black journalists for the crime of covering a protest in a Minneapolis church. Looks like I was right on the money calling them Nazis well before they began their rampages.

Naturally, as they get more obvious about their fascism -- so much so that even centrists who doubted it are coming around --  their Prestige Press enablers increasingly rush to say nuh-uh. Did you guess Megan McArdle would be among them? My sympathies, you’ve been paying attention! 

McArdle is willing to admit to “Trump’s authoritarian instincts, bellicose contempt for norms and fundamental disrespect for America’s democratic traditions,” presumably because those abstractions sound much better than “Sending masked goons to abduct and murder citizens, using the Armed Forces to loot foreign countries and put the money in The Leader’s private offshore account, shaking down law firms and college for payoffs, etc.” 

But fascism? Come now, he’s no Hitler -- the courts still oppose him, sometimes, without actually punishing him or anyone else for his crimes (thanks, Supreme Court!). Though McArdle says “America looks less like a liberal democracy than it did a decade ago — much less than I would have believed possible before 2016,” she judges it impossible that in the next five or ten years he can surprise her yet again and make it all the way to full Hitler. Fool me twice, right? 

Anyway, McArdle says, it’s you stupid resistance liberals who are the real problem, using big fancy words like “fascist” that just confuse people:

Saying “He’s a fascist” (or an authoritarian, or a caudillo) will not do the trick. It’s more likely to be counterproductive, as people look up from our scribblings and observe that elections are still happening, courts are still demanding due process and the press is still free to complain about Dear Leader... it will be much easier to convince them that he’s just a bad president who should be replaced by someone who has different policies. 

So stop being dramatic when everything is so (relatively) normal and count on fixing this with the free elections that will certainly be allowed once Tulsi Gabbard gets done making those seized Georgia ballots conform to the boss’ expectations! 

Here’s your ROY EDROSO BREAKS IT DOWN freebie for the week, on what I made of the alleged “drawdown” in Minneapolis -- briefly, that MPLS people power has made the goon squad sweat, but don’t trust them to actually start acting like legitimate law enforcement now. For one thing, they lie like they breathe; for another, being (I will say it again) fascists, they are committed to breaking their enemies, which is how they perceive those who oppose their vicious and undemocratic policies, and will not stop until someone stops them. Fortunately, there are a whole lot more of us than there are of them, and unlike McArdle we’re not deceived about what they’re doing. 

One last note: Most of you know what evil brain poison Scientology is. Sometimes the story of one victim can tell that tale better than anything else, and my old boss Tony Ortega has done a great job with the sad story of Romey Beliles. Read it here.