Trump follower and Arizona Republican candidate for governor Keri Lake declared she would not accept the election result if she did not win. Groups of armed people are congregating at polling booths, a strategy organized by national and state-affiliated organizations and elected, office-holding politicians to keep “mules” from stuffing ballot boxes.
Mediocre lyricist Kanye West, now named Ye, continues to make anti-Semitic statements, despite having supposedly lost billions of dollars (like Trump, West seems to lie about his income) in endorsements. David DePape assaulted Paul Pelosi, the husband of US Senator Nancy Pelosi, in their home. DePape had intended to assault–assassinate?–Speaker Pelosi, yelling “where is Nancy?”, echoing the chants by insurrectionists attacking the US capitol on January 6.
Georgia Meloni, from the Brothers of Italy party, a political descendant of Mussolini political legacy, was recently elected Prime Minister of Italy. Marjorie Taylor Green wants to continue to tradition of white Christian nationalism. Elon Musk, who inherited wealth from the family emerald mining business during apartheid South Africa and relies on tax breaks and bullying to get his way, just took over at Twitter, ousting leadership; immediately, the app was filled with vile and violent hate speech. Even conservative Stallworth Bill Kristol has used the F word more than once to describe other Republicans.
Too often, Nazi Germany or Mussolini’s Italy are used as a reference for fascism. But where did these fascists learn their trade? Numerous scholars have researched and reported on how German fascists were inspired by US history, from Jim Crow Black codes and the attempted extermination of indigenous peoples to eugenics-inspired public policy. Check out Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law by James Q. Whitman. As Aimé Césaire, the poet and anti-colonial theorist reminds us, fascism was “colonialist procedures … applied to Europe”.
If there is any doubt about the authoritarian designs of these persons, I’ll leave with Musk: “We will coup whoever [sic] we want! Deal with it!” This Tweet was in response to the far-right coup in Bolivia in 2019. Bolivia is lithium-rich. Lithium is vital for Musk’s capacity to make a profit.