On January 6, a group of thousands, with armed and organized fascist forces at its core, stormed Congress in an attempt to stop it from confirming Joe Biden as the new president. Photo: AP
After the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6—an attempted coup that could have succeeded and which should sound the alarm for what is possible—there was a brief period when a significant section of Republican elected officials backed away, distanced themselves from or even publicly condemned the attack and Trump himself. Even loyal lackeys like Vice-President Pence and Attorney General Barr didn’t go along with the coup. There was talk in the mainstream media of the Republican Party assessing “a future without Trump,” and there was a lot of delusion and self-delusion among genuinely progressive people that the fascist threat was over, or at least on the downswing.
Here’s where we are now:
On January 20, Donald Trump wrote that “The insurrection took place on Nov. 3, Election Day. Jan. 6 was the protest!” In other words, the election—and by implication, Biden’s presidency—was illegitimate, “stolen.” And therefore, the violent attempt to reinstall Trump as president was legitimate, just.
Virtually the entire “official” Republican Party is closing ranks around that position. Speaking of the Capitol riot, Congressman Paul Gosar said that federal authorities were “harassing peaceful patriots”—and here he means the thugs who stormed the building, beat people senseless, waved Confederate flags and threatened to “Hang Mike Pence” and to shoot House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Representative Andrew Clyde said it was like “a normal tourist visit.”
But maybe that’s just the wacko fringe of the House Republican delegation? No! Steve Scalise, the second leading Republican in the House, even now refuses to admit that the election wasn’t stolen, instead alleging that “the states that did not follow the laws” had illegal elections. And almost the whole delegation, from leadership to the most junior member, has worked to sabotage any investigation of the January 6 coup, even as mounting evidence surfaces that J6 was a well-planned and financed effort from the highest levels of the fascist movement, including Trump himself, to overturn the 2020 election. Influential GOP congressman Jim Jordan denounced the investigation: “You’re involved in political activity? They’re going to investigate you.”
Think back to January after the attack. At that time, according to CNBC, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said that the attack on the Capitol was “un-American”; Florida Senator Rick Scott called for the attackers to be prosecuted; Tom Cotton of Arkansas said, “This violence is unacceptable and must be met with the full force of law.” On January 7, close Trump ally Senator Lindsey Graham said he was “done” with Trump. “All I can say is ‘count me out. Enough is enough.’” On February 13, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said that Trump was “practically and morally responsible” for the Capitol violence, and that Trump was “determined to either overturn the voters’ decision or else torch our institutions on the way out.”
But by January 29, McCarthy had made a pilgrimage to grovel before Trump at Mar-a-Lago, and in the months since, every one of these Republicans, and countless others, has climbed back on board the Trump-train. They overwhelmingly voted not to impeach Trump in February. Willingness to promote Trump’s “stolen election” lies has become the litmus test for whether any Republican has a political future. And with two exceptions, the Republicans boycotted and tried to block the formation of a House committee to investigate the Capitol coup—during which, let’s not forget, a lynch mob descended on these same politicians, looking to kill some of them.
Obstructing Investigations
As noted above, relatively quickly after the coup attempt top Republicans began to oppose first the impeachment of Trump, and then the congressional investigation of the coup. Any Republicans who didn’t go along with this came under heavy attack. Even Liz Cheney—an extremely conservative figure from a powerful Republican family—was driven from her leadership position in May because she openly condemned Trump.
Cheney is now one of two Republicans who defied McCarthy’s effort to keep all Republicans off the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 coup; their presence in a sense makes this a “bi-partisan” committee. But more fundamentally it reveals that the right-wing neofascist Republican Party in which Liz Cheney was a star is now dead, replaced by one inspired and led by hard core fascists who hold such ideas as “bi-partisanship”—not to mention “peaceful transition of power”—in complete contempt. And that party—the vast majority of Republicans, and all of its leadership—is actively working to sabotage the House Committee’s investigation.
A major form of this obstruction is that Trump publicly urged witnesses called by the House Select Committee investigating the coup to refuse to appear, even if subpoenaed, which is blatantly illegal1 and reduces “Congressional oversight” of the executive branch, and the rule of law itself, to a joke.
When Steve Bannon—an all-but-open Nazi2 who has been a key advisor to Trump at various points, and who appears to have been integral to planning the coup—took Trump’s cue and openly defied his subpoena, the Select Committee recommended that the full House vote to find him in contempt and refer him to the Justice Department for prosecution. Out of 214 GOP congresspeople, only nine supported this. 202 voted against it, signifying their determination to protect the coup plotters by crippling the investigation.
Stripping People of Color of the Right to Vote, Moving Towards Empowering Republican Legislatures to Overturn Elections
On another front, since January, Republican controlled state legislatures in 18 states have passed 33 laws aimed at suppressing voting among Black, Latino and Native people especially. For more on this, see “Republi-fascists Intensify War Against Voting by People of Color.” Some bills have also been proposed—and a few passed—that would allow Republican officials or legislatures to simply disregard the vote in districts that didn’t vote the “right” way.
The fact that so far the most outrageous of these bills have not (yet) been passed should offer little comfort. The clear intent of all these bills is to institutionalize a different form of rule—one in which the fascists, concentrated in white rural sections of the country, are in position to overturn votes that go against them. This is a major leap towards full fascism, and they are quite determined to get there.
In addition to these laws, these state legislatures are also redrawing congressional and legislative districts in such a way as to lock in Republican majorities for the foreseeable future. And election officials who have shown an unwillingness to go along with these and other anti-democratic moves (even Republican officials) are being forced out and replaced by more compliant operatives.
But again, maybe these are just local extremists in places like Texas and Georgia? No! Democrats tried for nine months to get two bills passed in Congress that would counter these state laws and guarantee voting rights, and have been blocked at every turn by the Republicans. On October 20, all fifty Republican senators voted to prevent the “Freedom to Vote Act” from even being put on the floor for discussion. The chair of the Republican National Committee, Ronna McDaniel, contemptuously declared that “The ‘Freedom to Cheat’ Act is another federal overreach from power-hungry Washington Democrats who have no business dictating to states how to manage their own elections.”
Think about it—this is the entire Republican Senate delegation putting its stamp of approval on a concerted drive to functionally deprive millions of people, with a particular targeting of oppressed people, of the right to vote!
Certifiable Lunatics and Open Fascists Take the Spotlight
Another element of this is that hard core fascists—many with known ties to fascist, white supremacist and lunatic conspiracy groups (e.g., Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Three Percenters, QAnon) are playing an increasingly aggressive role within the halls of Congress.3 Lauren Boebert insists on carrying firearms onto the House floor and bullying “progressive” congresspeople. In the midst of the debate over holding Bannon in contempt, Marjorie Taylor Greene angrily confronted Reps. Jamie Raskin and Liz Cheney, telling Cheney “You’re done. You’re a joke, Liz.” These lunatics are not senior members with powerful committee posts, but they are increasingly and objectively setting the terms and tone in Congress, and other Republicans (and Democrats, for that matter) are adapting to that.
And all this is in a context where the one fascist mob from January 6 has now metastasized into mini-mobs all over the country, menacing and threatening public health officials who support masks and vaccines, election officials who simply say that Trump lost the election, and education officials who want to teach children the truth about America’s unbroken record of slavery, Jim Crow and white supremacy. Even harassing parents walking their kids to school, screaming that they are child abusers because their kids are masked!
All of this is increasingly part of a package—a cohered fascist movement behind the leadership of Donald Trump with “legal” and “extra-legal” wings that mutually support each other in the drive to beat, cheat and terrorize their way back to power—and to make sure that this time it is unrestrained power.
This has particular relevance to Trump’s demand that everyone running for office in 2022 go along with his lie that the 2020 election was “stolen.” In doing this, he is uniting people both around himself AND around the total denial of truth. The fact that “according to polls” Trump has gained in this since January indicates just how far this has gone since January 6.
We will write more on this as things continue to develop. We’ll close now by noting this, from Bob Avakian’s THIS IS A RARE TIME WHEN REVOLUTION BECOMES POSSIBLE—WHY THAT IS SO, AND HOW TO SEIZE ON THIS RARE OPPORTUNITY:
The Republicans have certain significant advantages over the Democrats in this conflict.
The Democrats are committed to “playing by the rules” and “relying on the norms” of “democratic” capitalist dictatorship, while the Republicans are moving to tear up those norms and rule through an open, undisguised capitalist dictatorship.
The peculiar nature of this country—with its history of genocide, slavery, and continuing white supremacy, and repeated “compromises” that have given disproportionate power (power greater than what is represented by their populations) to southern states of the former Confederacy, and other states with significant rural populations of “conservative-leaning” people—this is another advantage that the fascist Republicans have.
If this battle remains on the terms of this system, not only will there be horrific consequences overall, but this could very likely lead to a triumph for the Republican fascists, which would accentuate and accelerate the looming disaster, for humanity as a whole.
But things do not have to—and must not—remain on the terms of this system.
