More than fear is driving republicans into fascism

The most common explanation for republican attacks on voting rights and radical authoritarian policies is fear of the ex-president. In an opinion piece for the Washington Post, Greg Sargent makes a compelling case that what the GOP is doing is worse than simple cowering in fear. It is a major, affirmative attack on democracy and elections that nearly the entire GOP leadership openly supports. Sargent writes:

Obviously fear of attacks from Trump — or from right-wing media or primary challengers — is one motivator. But by itself, this simply won’t do: It implies that Republicans would prefer on principle to stand firm in defense of democracy but are not doing so simply out of fear of facing immediate political consequences.

It is impossible to square this reading with the concrete and affirmative steps that many Republicans are taking right now.

Take the shenanigans in Arizona, where GOP state legislators have commissioned a recount of ballots in Maricopa County. It is being conducted by a firm whose chief executive has promoted nonsense about fraud in the 2020 election.

Given all this, it’s impossible to chalk this effort up to “cowardice” or “fear of Trump.” It is a deliberate action plainly undertaken to manufacture fake evidence for the affirmative purpose of further undermining faith in our electoral system going forward.

Stefanik has endorsed this effort. Oozing with phony piety, she claims she merely wants “answers” for Americans concerned about “election security.” Of course, the opposite is true: Stefanik is trying to undermine, not reinforce, voter confidence in our electoral outcomes.

This is not the act of a “coward” who “fears Trump” and would vouch for the integrity of the election if only she could do so without consequences.

Rather, it’s the act of someone who calculates that a willingness to create fake pretexts for treating legitimate election outcomes (ones that Republicans hate) as invalid is a big selling point in today’s GOP. If she does win a leadership role, her calculation will be proven correct.

Underscoring the point, Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), the chair of the Republican Study Committee, made an extraordinarily disingenuous appearance on “Fox News Sunday.” Banks had endorsed the Texas lawsuit, which would have invalidated millions of votes in four states based on fictions, and voted to overturn President Biden’s electors in Congress.

Pressed by Fox’s Chris Wallace to admit Biden won “fair and square,” Banks kinda sorta acknowledged it, but immediately pivoted to claiming those actions were entirely justified, by insisting that his “serious concerns” about the election were still valid.

Time to reckon with GOP radicalization

The lies about 2020 and the increasing dedication to destroying democratic institutions in the quest for power are inextricable from one another. As Jay Rosen says, the press is comfortable calling out the former — it can be packaged as a “fact check." But being forthright about the latter requires depicting one party as far and away the only primary threat to our democratic stability. That’s accurate, but it’s uncomfortably adversarial.  

Relatedly, describing Republicans as “cowards” who “fear Trump” casts their machinations as mere reluctant efforts to cope with externally imposed circumstances they’d prefer not to be dealing with. This lets Republicans off the hook in a very fundamental way. It risks misleading the country about the true depths of GOP radicalization — and the real dangers it poses. (emphasis added)

Some people see the grave danger the Republican party's relentless quest for authoritarian power poses to  democracy, elections, democratic institutions, civil liberties and the rule of law. Few Republican conservatives see this. Some poll data indicates that most independents and Democrats also do not see this danger or its urgency. Conservatives are constantly bathed in comforting dark free speech about the real, immanent danger being Democrats, evil socialism, tyrannical government, threatening immigrants and vicious tyrannical attacks on Christianity, gun ownership and their vision of what America must be. It must be what Republicans want and it will be that way by force if necessary.

Assuming that most Democrats and independents fail to see grave, immediate danger, that is a terrifying blind spot. Republicans can no longer deviate from the path to fascism they are on. Their minds are trapped by their personal and social identities, biases, false beliefs and various circumstances and factors. America is on the verge of falling to an American radical right fascism.

Public relations for powerful dictators

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman:

I'm a good person, honest! My PR firm says so!

An interesting Washington Post opinion piece focuses on American public relations firms that work to clean up the images of powerful thugs and dictators throughout the world. These fine American companies prepare dark free speech, propaganda and lies for bad people who have done bad things. These fake bad people reputations make them look like good people who do good things. The propaganda is intended to deny or at least deflect public attention from the bad things the bad people did and usually still do. These services are popular with brutal dictators.

The WaPo writes:

Saudi Arabia: The oil-rich kingdom deserves top rank here for the enormity of both the fees and the crime involved. .... Since Khashoggi’s death, some two dozen U.S. firms have picked up more than $73 million in fees for representing Saudi interests, according to reports they have filed with the Justice Department. Chief among them was the kingdom’s longtime main lobbying firm, Qorvis, which said in a statement at the time of Khashoggi’s disappearance that “we take the situation seriously” and would “wait for all the facts to become known.”

Meanwhile, the crown prince continues to have his reputation as a visionary world leader burnished with news releases like the one prepared in January by Edelman hailing Neom, the futuristic city the prince has ordered up on the Red Sea. (Edelman took in $6.7 million from the Saudis since Khashoggi’s murder before completing its latest contracts in January, according to Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, filings.) Or in a Hogan Lovells-produced release crediting the crown prince for “new efforts to combat extremist ideology and shut down hate speech.” This about a country that routinely makes female journalists the targets of misogynistic trolling campaigns.

The Philippines: Over the past few years, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has been busy shuttering his nation’s largest broadcaster and conducting an infamous campaign of online and legal harassment against much-lauded journalist and entrepreneur Maria Ressa (who just added the UNESCO press freedom prize to honors from the Committee to Protect Journalists, the National Press Club and many more).

China: Global rainmakers Squire Patton Boggs continue to represent Beijing’s interests in Washington for a retainer of $55,000 a month, according to the firm’s most recent contract, dated last July. The firm’s January filing with the Justice Department reported payments of $330,000 from the Chinese Embassy for the previous six months of work, which included advice on “U.S. policy concerning Hong Kong, Taiwan, Xinjiang and Tibet,” among other places where Beijing has been trying to muzzle dissidents, and “matters pertaining to human rights,” according to the firm’s latest filing with the Justice Department’s foreign-agent registration database.

The fine firm, Qorvis, said that “we take the situation seriously” and would “wait for all the facts to become known.” That is liar speak for “we could not care less who our client murdered or what the facts are because money talks and everything else walks, including truth and democracy. So buzz off, you busybodies. We have our free speech rights and we are going to use them any way we want.” 

Good ole' public relations companies. What would we do without these fine patriots? Would God approve of these fine people and their hard work?

Innocent and good?

An Afghanistan update

It's a long walk from Afghanistan to Turkey

Context 

I very much want for the people of Afghanistan whatever most of them want. I presume that includes some degree of peace, reasonable stability in everyday life, some personal respect and some prosperity with some material goods in their lives. I have been looking for how the US withdrawal is playing out. All I am seeing is bad news and worse news. Where is the good news?

The New York Times writes today about a bombing:

KABUL, Afghanistan — Powerful explosions outside a high school in Afghanistan’s capital on Saturday killed at least 50 people and wounded scores more, many of them teenage girls leaving class, in a gruesome attack that underscored fears about the nation’s future after the impending American troop withdrawal. 

In recent weeks, the Taliban’s public statements have mostly been triumphal, leaving many fearing that the insurgents will try to seize power through a bloody military victory with the American and international forces gone. 

Even if some peace deal were to be reached between the Afghan government and the Taliban, something that appears less likely each day, the result would still be that the Taliban’s brand of harsh Islamist strictures, including keeping girls out of school, could again become the mainstream. 

The NYT wrote yesterday about how Afghan security forces are doing, or not doing:

KABUL — The Taliban has carried out a string of attacks near vulnerable provincial capitals across Afghanistan since May 1, a marked escalation in violence that officials say is a sign the group is testing for defensive weak points and assessing the government’s capacity to provide air support as U.S. and NATO forces withdraw.

A doctor in Helmand who watched the Taliban advance from Lashkar Gah said, “All the Taliban fighters did was stomp their feet, as if they were just kicking the dust off their boots,” before police abandoned some 10 checkpoints on the city’s edges. The doctor spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisals.

The Afghan Defense Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

Three days ago, the NYT wrote about the exodus of refugees from Afghanistan to avoid being caught and killed by the Taliban:

ISTANBUL, Turkey — In a derelict house in one of the oldest quarters of Istanbul, a group of Afghan migrants were welcoming new arrivals — two teenagers who had survived the perilous two-month journey on the migrant trail from Afghanistan.

“Wherever there is money and food,” said Idris, 18, in April. “Wherever we can earn money to send back to our families who are hungry, we will stay.” He and several other Afghans gave only one name, since they were in the country without documentation.

More than 200,000 Afghans were caught entering Turkey illegally in 2019, many of whom were deported back to Afghanistan.

Afghans are the lowest in the pecking order of casual laborers who fill this teeming city of 20 million. As many as 200,000 are living in Turkey, according to refugee officials.

“The Taliban were getting closer to our village. That was the main reason,” said Najibullah Qarqin, 25, who worked as an electrician for four years on U.S. bases and diplomatic compounds. “This is why I am here, because of security.”  

Afghans who worked for years on American bases in Afghanistan live in 

Turkey in fear of deportation

Clothes hanging out to dry on a burnt-out upper floor 

of a derelict building where more than 20 Afghan refugees live

-- the refugees tend to live packed into condemned housing in Istanbul

Afghan refugees' living quarters

One can only wonder how many of our former allies will be caught and killed and how many the US will take in before they are caught and killed. Maybe we will never know. Maybe all we will get is lies from our government, the Taliban and the Afghan government (as long as it lasts).

Beyond the limit of free speech: Incitement to violence

After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.https://t.co/CBpE1I6j8Y

— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) January 8, 2021

In an essay posted on Jan. 12, 2021, Professor Katharine Gelber, Head of the School of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland, Australia argued that Facebook banning the ex-president from that platform was not censorship. Instead, it amounted to blocking incitement. Her essay is entitled Incitement, not censorship: Why Donald Trump’s suspension from Twitter is not a “free speech” issue:

I have spent a good deal of my professional life examining the nature and limits of free speech, and the regulation of harmful speech. It goes without saying that I’ve been watching events unfold in the United States with a keen sense of dismay. Since his defeat in last year’s US presidential election, Donald Trump has used social media to spread rumours concerning wide-spread voter fraud, promulgate wild conspiracy theories, and inflame hostility on the part of his followers — all culminating in a speech last week, during which the President incited anti-democratic mob violence at the US Capitol.

The descent into political violence in the United States is seriously concerning. But I have also been concerned at the media coverage of the Coalition’s response in Australia to the decision by Twitter to suspend Donald Trump’s account permanently, on the grounds that it violates their content standards by inciting violence and because his use of their platform poses the “risk of further incitement of violence.”

The decision taken by Twitter to “permanently suspend” Donald Trump’s account, and by other platforms to ban any online activity from the outgoing President until Inauguration Day, is being presented as a “free speech” issue. These measures are being covered as though Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or YouTube were somehow a little too eager to kick people off their platforms, or too willing to exercise forms of censorship.

Nothing could be further from the truth. It is worth remembering that Facebook, Twitter, and Google have faced — and, indeed, for the most part resisted — calls for more than a decade to take decisive action against harmful speech on their platforms. They now have policies enabling the removal of content that violates their standards, but there is much to be done to improve the accuracy of their content removal, consistency in the application of their standards, and their ability to detect harmful speech online.

Harmful speech can take many forms. The most recent example is incitement to violence, but others include cyberstalking, doxxing, misinformation, disinformation, and hate speech. While it is appropriate that these social media companies have now taken the measures they have against Donald Trump, it is nonetheless sobering to consider that it took an eruption of mob violence against the central institution of American democracy to steel their resolve.

In other words, to reduce what has transpired over the past week to a debate over “free speech” or “censorship” is spectacularly to miss the point. The key issue is the incitement of violence — and that has received far too little attention in political commentary or media coverage. No free speech argument has ever suggested that its protections extend to the incitement of violence. There is no free speech protection for this speech, because it is evidently, immediately, and virulently harmful. (emphasis added)

One question that pops right up is what about harmful speech that is less evidently, immediately, and virulently harmful? What about decades of radical right disinformation, slanders, unwarranted fear mongering, crackpot conspiracy theory and other forms of dark free speech? All of that was a necessary prelude that paved the way for the ex-president to rise as fast and go as far as he did in damaging this country and its government and society.