Over and over, I hear people say, and read writers scribe: “democracy is on the ballot this year.” Meaning, in most cases: if GOP 2020 election deniers, 2022 election-results-refusers-unless-I-win, and racist-ageist voter suppression champions prevail, in key state and federal elections, our republic is set up for final collapse with the 2024 presidential contest. It wouldn’t matter if Trump or a Trump-heir runs; they will either win the Electoral College outright or steal the contest through a combination of factors playing out in polling locations, the streets, the congress, and the courts.
What comes next? Think Germany 1919-1933, you know, the history playbook Steven Miller, Steve Bannon, and Roger Stone subscribe to. (For a longer treatment of the “stab-in-the-back myth and the fall of the Weimar Republic” and its parallel “stolen-election lie and 01-06-2021 perpetual coup” (see https://americanfascists.us, with more to come.) So, on the day of, and in the days, weeks, and months following the January 20, 2025, inaugural, the Trumpist-Fascist dictator-in-chief will formally terminate what remains of our constitution, declaring, something along the lines of: ‘we must suspend our democracy in order to preserve our democracy.’
Of course, it doesn’t need to come to this. But the slide into Fascism will continue unless and until we finally recognize the dominant role of the Billionaire puppeteers at the top of the food chain — using and manipulating every ideological instrument in the Fascist toolkit https://www.americanfascists.us/the-three-cornerstones-of-american-fascism/ — and bring them to heel. The first step must be to reject, up and down the ballot, the Billionaire-funded Fascist party that the GOP has become. (I, for one, am deeply grateful to be able to vote for very good-to-excellent Democrats from my present home in Pittsburgh/Sharpsburg. But right now, in this moment of existential crisis, I would hold my nose to vote for a center-right Democrat.) I recently outlined additional, immediate, personal steps you can take in “10+ Things YOU Can Do to Fight Fascism”: https://tinyurl.com/w9bubwjw
Ultimately, however, we need to launch a local, statewide, national, and international grassroots movement to abolish the Billionaire class. The alternative is to continue with the Billionaire class abolishing us: making our planet increasingly uninhabitable, off-shoring one-third of the world’s wealth, amplifying the worst refugee crisis (65+ million people) since the Second World War, grotesquely profiting from preventable diseases and wars, and turning people against one another through scapegoating and fear-mongering, and dark-money-funding white nationalism, religious nationalism, and culture wars.
Whether we are talking about the reckless, destructive, and megalomaniacal behavior of Elon Musk (Twitter), Barre Seid (Marble Freedom Trust), Kanye West (anti-Black Black man), Phil Knight (Nike), or simply the radical accumulation of $12.7 trillion by 2,668 Billionaires — of whom 735 are Americans worth $4.7 trillion — this wealth consolidation creates catastrophic human (and animal and planetary) suffering for the 99.99999771% non-Billionaires, or 7.837 billion homo sapiens.
So when you go to the polls or drop boxes on Tuesday, remember you are casting your ballot not simply for or against candidates and referenda, you are deciding whether or not to support or oppose Billionaire-fueled Fascism. This is the first in a series of opportunities to halt the destructive force of the 0.00000339% Billionaire class. Choose anti-Fascism. We’ll discuss next steps and strategy after the 2022 election.