The malignant cancer of Trumpism, the new American fascism, has now fully emaciated the decaying dead carcass of the Republican Party. The Republican Party is no more, it is history.
The former Party of Lincoln is now the Party of Trump, the party of white identity and white grievance and white nationalism.
At last night’s rally in Texas for “Lyin’ Ted” Cruz, Russian asset Donald Trump formally embraced fascism:
Donald Trump: You know, they have a word. It sort of became old-fashioned. It’s called a nationalist. And I say really, we’re not supposed to use that word. You know what I am? I am a nationalist. Use that word.
In response, the Houston crowd roared back with a defiant chant of “USA! USA!” They fully understood Trump’s dog whistle of “white nationalism.”
This is the result of the conservative movement’s decades-long embrace of Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America that professor Bertram Gross presciently warned us of in 1980.
Fascism doesn’t descend on a nation overnight. A nation has to be prepared for it first. Doctor Steven Jonas correctly noted in his 2015 essay, Fascism in the 21st Century:
When we are looking at 21st century fascism, in the context of what is happening in certain of the capitalist states, at the present particularly in the United States, it should be noted that it is entirely possible that wholesale violence will not be required for its introduction. Nor will a maximum leader necessarily be required. Like the fog in the famous, ultra-short poem by the U.S. person Carl Sandburg, it may well come in “on little cat feet.”