What is more frightening is that the Republican Clown Car has veered into the tenants of fascism. Let's take a look:
1. Donald Trump has proposed "rounding up" 12 million undocumented Americans (not all of whom are brown which is a disappointment to Benvolio). He has not said what will happen when his "round up police" enter a house and someone runs out the back door but, given his bluster, why not just take out the family? I am surprised that he has lived in New York all his life but apparently lacks the gumption or intelligence to visit Ellis Island. It took 40 years to process that many people through Ellis Island and they came willingly. Thousands died at Ellis Island (and it was not the only entry point) while hundreds of babies were also born. Donald said his proposal will be "humane."
2. Yesterday, Donald Trump proposed prohibiting any Muslim from entering the United States -- which would include US citizens returning to this country. I'm not sure what he will do with the 24 individuals that are under my son's command in the Middle East right now and who are Muslim; I guess they can just stay there someplace because they must have some connection. His proposal sounds a lot like how the Republicans panicked the population during the Ebola scare (all three cases) and wanted our borders closed. Now they want to add a wall for good measure.
3. Marco Rubio wants to "roll back" the LGBT gains by appointment of Supreme Court justices and invalidation of any related executive orders signed by President Obama (which would include Don't Ask, Don't Tell, etc).
The rest of the Clown Car would invalidate the Affordable Care Act, explode the defense budget, start wars in pretty much every country around the world that did not look at us right, and gut the clean water, air, national parks, and environmental protection. If they do as they have done as governors, they'll also gut the education budget (so as to continue to produce angry, white, idiot males). They'll return us to the utopia of the Bush-Cheney years with 40% foreclosures on homes, tanking investments and stock markets, privatization of social security....all those great things that we apparently are to dumb to remember (or at least in the case of Republicans).
The lack of outright condemnation by Republicans is what scares me most. If you are a student of history (and WWII in particular), Hitler took over during the depression but created a giant economic bubble with a huge investment in the military. Fortunately for him the world economy began to recover just as he was about to bankrupt the economy (something he could have in common with Donald Trump as well). He fed on the anger of the German populace towards any foreigner, blaming them for all of society's ills -- real or imagined. The Jews, while one of the largest groups, are well documented in the fate they suffered but so did mentally ill, Slavs, Poles, Ukrainians, gypsies, and most other immigrant/invaded country populace.
Hitler had entered politics under the new German Republic which would have a constitution that made it, on paper, one of the most liberal democracies in history. Its ideals included: equality for all; that political power would be only in the hands of the people; political minority representation in the new Reichstag; a cabinet and chancellor elected by majority vote in the Reichstag; and a president elected by the people. No mention of corporate entities being "people."
Against this backdrop and with the populace suffering, he promised to make Germany great again after its humiliation following WWI (hmmm....make something great again sounds like a catchy slogan).
While I used to be a Republicrat (fiscally conservative and socially liberal), the Republican Party that I knew no longer exists. It has been replaced by a hateful group that have disdain for the poor, worship the wealthy, want to ever expand the military (not the pay of the military but the military-industrial complex), and who are fearful of everything because they've learned that fear drives their base...it mobilizes them.
Democrats should be going on every television show and soapbox right now and pointing to the party of "No" and "Hate" and ask the simple question -- do we want a repeat of fascism? Because that's what is being spewed by the Clown Car right now. It's not a party of hope or dreams, it's a party of fear, isolation, war, and hate. And we know how that one turned out -- or should.
