Jared Yates Sexton on the authoritarian crisis we face

[TomDaisy]

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1539259638020964355.html

Let's be very clear about this.

The GOP and the Right are not interested in rolling back this or that or incremental change.

This is a project dedicated to literally eradicating social progress and reinstalling blatant authoritarian rule by white, wealthy, evangelical men.

We're not talking about harassing trans or gay people or restricting women's rights or the rights of people of color.

We're talking about disappearing entire groups. Subjecting them. Oppressing them.

We're talking about a literal rewinding of the clock.

There's no negotiating with this authoritarian movement. No "finding a middle ground."

You either protect progress and human rights or your sacrifice them in totality. This doesn't stop with Roe V. Wade or voting rights.

Those things are only the preamble to the larger push.

What the GOP has put into motion is a systematic unraveling of liberal democracy and the progress of the 20th century.

We're talking about a managed system, top to bottom. Educational. Cultural. Fixed "elections."

It's time to stop denying what this is.

We’re on the preview (precipice? - me) of a massive change in political order where momentum shifts from a neoliberal consensus to something else.

Right now that momentum is solidly with illiberal authoritarianism buffeted by white evangelical hypercapitalism.

This is a start.

If you want to know where we’re going, look at Hungary and Russia. Only the American descent will be more outsized, aggressive, and possibly violent.

The time of pretending is way past over. You’ve got a full blown authoritarian crisis on your hands.

[kimbutgar]

1. What's going on in Texas should be a nationalized by the DNC saying coming to your state if

Republicans take over.

[2naSalit]

2. K&R

[IngridsLittleAngel]

3. "Dictatorship is easy, so long as I'm the dictator."

"The wrong side won World War II."
"The wrong side won the Civil War."
"We need a leader like Putin."
"We need a leader like Hitler."

Just a few statements/warnings that have come out of the mouths of the "PaRtY Of FrEeDoM!!!!!!!!!1111111!!" in the 21st century. When fascists tell you who they are, believe them. Well, they've been telling us.

These people are of the belief that this nation needs less freedom "for the others." Freedom "is a zero-sum game," therefore giving us freedom somehow takes it from them. They believe that in a dictatorship, they'll be free and we'll either be oppressed or gone.

"We're talking about disappearing entire groups. Subjecting them. Oppressing them." Exactly. The goal is to either legislate us away, or just wipe us out violently. They don't care so long as we're basically gone and no longer exist.

"You either protect progress and human rights or your sacrifice them in totality. This doesn't stop with Roe V. Wade or voting rights." It's time to say it loudly and clearly, and repeat it over and over and over again. Here in 2022, there is one party and one death cult. That remaining party - the Democratic party - stand for human rights and life. The former "Republican party" stands for oppression, tyranny and death.

There is no more "both sides." There is no more "difference of opinion." One party wants to protect life. The other wants to destroy it.

[TomDaisy]

4. reminding