MAGA Republican leaders take umbrage at being accused of “semi-fascism,” which is understandable: Twentieth-century dictators such as Mussolini and the German guy with the mustache gave fascism a bad name. But the MAGA crowd isn’t disavowing totalitarianism, per se. It’s just their taste in authoritarian figures skews toward the classics. They’re old-school — 1st century B.C. old. “Hail, Caesar” goes down so much easier than “Heil Hitler.”
J.D. Vance, the Republican Senate nominee in Ohio, is one resident of this newly platted Caesarian section, as a recent profile in the Cleveland Plain Dealer showed. It referred to a year-old interview Vance gave on a far-right podcast in which he spoke approvingly of Curtis Yarvin, a self-proclaimed monarchist who argues for an American Julius Caesar to take power.
“We are in a late republican period,” Vance said, referencing the era preceding Caesar’s dictatorship. “If we’re going to push back against it, we’re going to have to get pretty wild, and pretty far out there, and go in directions that a lot of conservatives right now are uncomfortable with.”The podcast’s host, Jack Murphy, endorsed this sentiment, discussing possible “extra-constitutional” remedies to be taken “if we want to re-found the country.” (He told Vance he thought voting an “ineffectual” way to “rip out this leadership class.”)
Vance, who said he had been “radicalized” by the actions of “malevolent and evil” political opponents, described what “wild” actions he had in mind at another point in the podcast. He wants to “seize the institutions of the left” and purge political opponents with “de-Nazification, de-Ba’athification.”Vance is far from the only emperor-curious MAGA leader. Former Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro called Mike Pence a “traitor to the American Caesar of Trump” because the former vice president refused to help overturn the 2020 election. Another former Trump adviser, Michael Anton, hosted a Claremont Institute podcast with Yarvin about the desirability of an “American Caesar.”Some MAGA Republicans have a novel solution to resolve pesky constitutional restraints: Rewrite the Constitution. As Carl Hulse reports in the New York Times, Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Tex.) introduced legislation seeking to compel Congress to call a constitutional convention — the first since the framers wrote it — to overhaul the United States’ founding document. The effort likely isn’t going anywhere, but it shows the contempt MAGA Republicans have for the constitutional order. Hail, Caesar!
Others in the MAGA movement simply reinterpret the Constitution to their own liking. County law-enforcement officials self-styling as “constitutional sheriffs” have assigned themselves power to decide what the law is, according to their own politics. One such sheriff in Michigan sought warrants in July to seize vote-counting machines to try to validate Trump’s false claims of voter fraud, Reuters reported last week. Armed lawmen going rogue to undermine elections? Hail, Caesar![1]
I thought fascism was the right label for Republican Party politics, being so modern and whatnot. Is Imperial Rome a better model? That thought never crossed my mind, until now. Were the Roman Emperors racists? They were definitely authoritarian and patriarchal.
Republicans in Ohio voted for Vance for US Senate. Vance wants an American Julius Caesar to take power.
Qs: Since inquiring minds want to know, what is the best label for the modern Republican Party as a whole, including its rank and file, and with the kind, gentle understanding that in their hearts, not necessarily in their votes, some Republicans at least partly oppose at least some of its current agenda, lunacy &/or whatever beast it is the GOP has degenerated into:
authoritarian, arrogant, aggressive, autocratic, autocratic-Christian theocratic, Christian Shariaistic, Christian fundamentalist, cowardly, gullible, grumpy, bossy, belligerent, hostile, slanderous, self-centered, faux victimized, cult, faux victimized cult, Faux News, dangerous, deadly, delusional, hallucinating, pompous, hypocritical, double hypocritical, triple hypocritical, rampaging, stampeding, unregulated capitalist, pro-pollution & climate change, rigidly ideological, irresponsible, imperialistic, ancient Rome imperialistic, fascist-lite, semi-fascist, fascist, Nazi (All Rise . . . . Be Seated), nasty, mendacious, double mendacious, immoral, evil, semi-evil, rotten, rancid, racist, bigoted, tactless, jealous, insulting, impolite, rude, vulgar, thin-skinned, callous, corrupt, cruel, confrontational, baseless, outlandish, crackpot, double crackpot, QAnon-level crackpot, QAnon, treasonous, cynical, idiotic, free-range idiotic, unvaccinated idiotic, playfully rambunctious, sneaky, Machiavellian, inflexible, non-compromising, contemptuous, arrogantly contemptuous, distrustful, irrationally distrustful, inflexible, intolerant, pig-headed, naughty, closed minded, wrapped too tight, or some combination thereof?
Or, (i) did I leave out a correct label(s), e.g., robustly pro-democracy, or (ii) is this business with labels getting out of hand at Dissident Politics?
Footnote:
1. To emphasize the the kind of amazing new, foaming-at-the-mouth Crackpotlandia-Dementia that the Great State of Michigan's Republican Party has degenerated into, consider the newest lawsuit filed there to overturn the 2020 election. Democracy Docket reported:
On Friday, Sept. 2, the Macomb County Republican Party, a candidate for Michigan governor, a non-profit organization, voters and a county clerk — who allegedly turned over a vote tabulator to a group espousing unfounded claims of fraud in Michigan’s 2020 election — filed a federal lawsuit challenging the results of the 2020 presidential election in Michigan. In their complaint, the plaintiffs claim that the electronic voting machines and tabulators used during the 2020 presidential election “were not certified or accredited in accordance with” Michigan election law nor were they “certified by the US Election Assistance Commission.” Accordingly, the plaintiffs request that the state “rerun the Michigan 2020 presidential election as soon as possible, by way of a special election, with paper ballots only, on a single election day, with the votes being counted by hand, with members of all political parties present to observe, with a public livestream of all vote counting.”
Among other baseless and outlandish claims, the plaintiffs allege that the 2020 election was conducted in an “unlawful and illegal” manner and should not have been certified because Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D) and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) lacked the authority to hold elections under “uncertified” electronic voting machines.
Hail, Caesar!
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