If that shoe fits, wear it

To The Eagle:

I’ve been chastised for “name calling” after supporting President Biden’s statement that while not all MAGA supporters are fascists, the movement’s ideology certainly leans that way.

MAGA , like fascism, scorns liberalism’s emphasis on reason, the rule of law, individual autonomy, and pluralistic representative democracy. Fascism is typically rooted in the cult of a “supreme leader.” MAGA both worships and fears its swaggering paragon.

Fascism’s most extreme expression were the Nazis. My late father, a 100% disabled vet, fought the fascists in Europe. During the Vietnam era I was a Medic in the United States Navy. MAGA’s contempt for the democracy my father and I have defended is deplorable.

Hitler, like Trump, posed as the embodiment of the collective will who knew best what his people needed. Hitler presumed, like Trump, that his rise to power was de facto justification for the right to hold power indefinitely.

MAGAs believe in the superiority of their white, christian, nationalist party over all “Others”: Hispanics, Blacks, Jews, Muslims, women and liberals, to mention but a few, and are intolerant of any real or perceived threats to their dominance. Fascism thrives on domination, exclusion, and cruelty- the defining traits of MAGA’s sneering hero.

Fascistic Republican zealots are a national existential threat. They’re engineering an ideological and political betrayal of our democracy to establish an all encompassing autocracy, melding nation and state with Trump’s authoritarian cult.

That’s not “name calling.” It’s putting a label on poison. If that shoe fits, wear it.

JB Bouchard

Puget Island