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For a very, very long time, we were extremely hesitant to use the word "fascism" in the context of Donald Trump. You can go back through the archives, particularly the Saturday questions and answers, and see evidence of our reluctance. But man, the behavior of Donald Trump and his henchmen leave us with no choice. There's a point at which "trying to be fair" turns into "burying your head in the sand."
And so, we pass along two stories that speak to this worrying trendline. First, Republicans have largely realized that impeaching Joe Biden isn't going to fly. And, of course, they can't go after him criminally while he is in office, since there's no good way to bring charges, and since DoJ policy prohibits criminal indictments against sitting presidents anyhow.
But private citizen Joe Biden is a different matter. And so, Trump and some of his toadies are busily laying the groundwork for prosecuting the President once he is out of office. They figure that a Republican AG, at least one of the sort that would be chosen by Trump, will be more than happy to act on criminal referrals from House Republicans. The only blank that needs to be filled in is "what crime?" There's talk of something related to the classified documents, or maybe something connected to Hunter Biden, or possibly charging Joe Biden and several of his family members/associates with stealing the 2020 election. None of this will be able to get past a grand jury, much less a judge, but Trump probably doesn't understand that.
Meanwhile, Trump sycophant Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) is making sure to do his part for Il Trumpe. The Representative has noticed that many companies are not interested in having their ads appear on far-right platforms, since they don't particularly want to be associated with loony conspiracy theories, racism, sexism and other such things that tend to flourish on Parler or Gab or Truth Social or Breitbart. This has angered Jordan, and so late last week he sent out a bunch of letters to various CEOs telling them they better rethink their policies or they could be in big trouble.
What, exactly, is Jordan's basis for this (as a member, by the way, of a political party that ostensibly believes in free-market capitalism)? It's dubious, to say the least. The corporations he's targeting, like Procter & Gamble, Mars Inc., and Unilever are members of several consortiums that share information on advertising strategy. These consortiums, backed by much number-crunching, have concluded that association with crazypants content is not good for the brands. And Jordan declares that, in acting on those conclusions, the various corporations are guilty of violating the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. Bet you didn't see that coming. For his next trick, Jordan will show you how wearing a Joe Biden t-shirt is actually a violation of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.
Anyhow, plotting to put your political opponents in jail, even if they committed no crimes, and using government power to try to intimidate private corporations who do not follow the party line? That's Fascism 101. We don't like writing it, but there's no non-authoritarian form of government where such behaviors are acceptable. (Z)