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The Democratic Party had one last chance to implement the kind of New Deal Reforms that could save us from another Trump presidency and Christian fascism. It failed.
Joe Biden and the Democratic Party made a Trump presidency possible once and look set to make it possible again. If Trump returns to power, it will not be due to Russian interference, voter suppression or because the working class is filled with irredeemable bigots and racists. It will be because the Democrats are as indifferent to the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza as they are to immigrants, the poor in our impoverished inner cities, those driven into bankruptcy by medical bills, credit card debt and usurious mortgages, those discarded, especially in rural America, by waves of mass layoffs and workers, trapped in the serfdom of the gig economy, with its job instability and suppressed wages.
Biden and the Democrats, along with the Republican Party, gutted antitrust enforcement and deregulated banks and corporations, allowing them to cannibalize the nation. They backed legislation in 1982 to green light the manipulation of stocks through massive buybacks and the “harvesting” of companies by private equity firms that resulted in mass layoffs. They pushed through onerous trade deals, including the North American Free Trade Agreement, the greatest betrayal of the working class since the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, which crippled union organizing. They were full partners in the construction of the vast archipelagos of the U.S. prison system — the largest in the world — and the militarization of police to turn them into internal armies of occupation. They fund the endless wars.
The Democrats dutifully serve their corporate masters, without whom most of them, including Biden, would not have a political career. This is why Biden and the Democrats will not turn on those who are destroying our economy and extinguishing our democracy. The slops in the trough would dry up. Advocating reforms jeopardize their fiefdoms of privilege and power. They fancy themselves as “captains of the ship,” labor journalist Hamilton Nolan writes, but they are “actually the wood-eating shipworms who are consuming the thing from inside until it sinks.”
Authoritarianism is nurtured in the fertile soil of a bankrupt liberalism. This was true in Weimar Germany. It was true in the former Yugoslavia. And it is true now. The Democrats had four years to institute New Deal reforms. They failed. Now we will pay.
A second Trump term will not be like the first. It will be about vengeance. Vengeance against the institutions that targeted Trump – the press, the courts, the intelligence agencies, disloyal Republicans, artists, intellectuals, the federal bureaucracy and the Democratic Party.
Our imperial presidency, if Donald Trump returns to power, will shift effortlessly into a dictatorship that emasculates the legislative and judicial branches. The plan to snuff out our anemic democracy is methodically laid out in the 887-page plan amassed by the Heritage Foundation called “Mandate for Leadership.”
The Heritage Foundation spent $22 million to draw up policy proposals, hiring lists and transition plans in Project 2025 to save Trump from the rudderless chaos that plagued his first term. Trump blames “snakes,” “traitors,” and the “Deep State” for undermining his first administration.
Our industrious American fascists, clutching the Christian cross and waving the flag, will begin work on day one to purge federal agencies of “snakes” and “traitors,” promulgate “Biblical” values, cut taxes for the billionaire class, abolish the Environmental Protection Agency, stack the courts and federal agencies with ideologues and strip workers of the few rights and protections they have left. War and internal security, including the wholesale surveillance of the public, will remain the main business of the state. The other functions of the state, especially those that focus on social services, including Social Security and protection of the vulnerable, will wither away.
Unfettered and unregulated capitalism, which has no self-imposed limits, turns everything into a commodity, from human beings to the natural world, which it exploits, until exhaustion or collapse. It first creates a mafia economy, as Karl Polanyi writes, and then a mafia government. Political theorists, including Aristotle, Karl Marx and Sheldon Wolin, warn that when oligarchs seize power, the only options left are tyranny or revolution.
The Democrats know the working class has abandoned them. And they know why. Democratic Party pollster Mike Lux writes:
[C]ontrary to many pundits’ assumptions, economic issues are driving the problems of Democrats in non-metro working class counties far more than the culture war…[T]hese voters wouldn’t care all that much about cultural difference and the woke thing if they thought Democrats gave more of a damn about economic challenges they face deeply and daily…The voters we need to win in these counties are not inherently right-wing on social issues.
But the Democrats will not alienate the corporations and billionaires who keep them in office. They have opted instead for two self-defeating tactics: lies and fear.
The Democrats express a faux concern for workers who are victimized by mass layoffs while at the same time courting the corporate leaders who orchestrate these layoffs with lavish government contracts. The same hypocrisy sees them express concern for civilians being slaughtered in Gaza while funneling billions of dollars in weapons to Israel and vetoing ceasefire resolutions at the U.N. to sustain the genocide.
Les Leopold in his book Wall Street’s War on Workers, filled with exhaustive polling and data, illustrates that economic dislocation and despair is the engine behind an enraged working class, not racism and bigotry.
He writes about the decision by Siemens to close its plant in Olean, New York with 530 decent paying union jobs. While Democrats bemoaned the closure, they refused to deny federal contracts to Siemans to protect the workers at the plant.
Biden then invited Siemens’ USA CEO Barbara Humpton to the White House signing of the 2021 infrastructure bill. The photo of the signing shows Humpton standing in the front row along with New York Senator Chuck Schumer.
Mingo County in the early 20th century was the epicenter of an armed clash between the United Mine Workers and the coal barons, with their hired gun thugs from the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency. The gun thugs evicted striking workers in 1912 from company housing and beat up and shot union members until the state militia occupied the coal towns and broke the strike. The federal siege was not lifted until 1933 by the Roosevelt administration. The union, which had been banned, was legalized.
“Mingo County didn’t forget, at least not for a long time,” Leopold writes. “As late as 1996, with more than 3,200 coal miners still at work, Mingo County gave Bill Clinton a whopping 69.7 percent of its vote. But every four years thereafter, support for the Democrats declined, going down and down, and down some more. By 2020, Joe Biden received only 13.9 percent of the vote in Mingo, a brutal downturn in a county that once saw the Democratic Party as its savior.”
The 3,300 Mingo County coal mining jobs by 2020 had fallen to 300, the largest loss of coal jobs in any county in the country.
The lies of Democratic politicians did far more damage to working men and women than any of the lies spewed by Trump.
There have been at least 30 million mass layoffs since 1996 when the Bureau of Labor Statistics started tracking them, according to the Labor Institute. The reigning oligarchs, not content with mass layoffs and reducing the unionized workforce in the private sector to a paltry 6 percent, have filed legal papers to shut down the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the federal agency that enforces labor rights. Elon Musk’s SpaceX as well as Amazon, Starbucks and Trader Joe’s targeted the NLRB – already stripped of most of its power to levy fines and force corporate compliance – after it accused Amazon, Starbucks and Trader Joe’s of breaking the law by blocking union organizing. The NLRB accused SpaceX of illegally firing eight workers for criticizing Musk. SpaceX, Amazon, Starbucks and Trader Joes are seeking to get the federal courts to overturn the 89-year-old National Labor Relations Act to prevent judges from hearing cases brought against corporations for violating labor laws.
Fear — fear of the return of Trump and Christian fascism — is the only card the Democrats have left to play. This will work in urban, liberal enclaves where college educated technocrats, part of the globalized knowledge economy, are busy scolding and demonizing the working class for their ingratitude.
The Democrats have foolishly written off these “deplorables” as a lost political cause. This precariat, the mantra goes, is victimized not by a predatory system built to enrich the billionaire class, but by their ignorance and individual failures. Dismissing the disenfranchised absolves the Democrats from advocating the legislation to protect and create decent-paying jobs.
Fear has no hold in deindustrialized urban landscapes and the neglected wastelands of rural America, where families struggle without sustainable work, an opioid crisis, food deserts, personal bankruptcies, evictions, crippling debt and profound despair.
They want what Trump wants. Vengeance. Who can blame them?
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Yeah okay. Only one glaring inconsistency and contradiction-Trump isn’t a Christian.
Trump is a jew.
I suspect it will be Noahide Laws Fascism.
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It’s a sad state of affairs that there ar eonly two choices for President in the next election Biden or Trump.
That being said,
will have nothing to do with who becomes president.
If the small number of arabs and far left Jewish voters want to roll the dice and see if Trump will back Netanyahu or not, feel free. I would wager that they will vote for Biden in the end.
If the choice is between “Christian fascism” and what Biden and the democrat bolsheviks have given us, I’ll take the former all day long.
Totally agreed!
Hedges wants to feed the False Dialectic of Biden/Trump, Dem/Repub, Left/Right, election when there is not much difference. It is like two factions of a Mafia family fighting to see who ends up on top except the contestants are all Israeli Mafia. It is all theater, with no real choice. But Hedges is an insider and is paid to feed the false narrative. Fake “news”.
Call it Zionist Domination.
Hedges is a Communist. By his own admission. He’s just as interested in building the narrative around the “Christian Fascism” boogeyman as is the Deep State Traitor Class.
Yup. Perhaps its time to try something different. Deus Vult.
He’s a Christian (at least on paper) but so wedded to the Jews that as far as his policy on Israel is concerned, not much makes it different from that of the Democrats.
Really? Leaving behind a transoccidental police state which enforces migration and faggotry on a distracted, individualised and complacent native population will lead to a successful rise of Christian Fascism?
I even stopped reading after the header. This drooling, old, slobby fart of an author must be mentally stuck in 2003 or something. What is this even?
He should have only typed =Lorem (10, 10). Less work, but the same informational value.
Absolute waste of words and time.
Trump Derangement Syndrome on full display in this article. “If Trump returns to power…” yeah, like he ever actually had any. You know what will happen if Trump gets elected again? The same thing that happened the first time —exactly nothing. This author needs to get his head out of his ass.
Just what Michael Moore has stated with the Clinton Trump presidential race. He may have reiterated it again. Trumps win will be a big FUCK YOU! to the Oligarchs and the Democratic party. The supporters don’t care (or realize) their environmental health will devolve as the Oligarchs that put Trump in will cash in at their expense.
My attitude is the Empire is collapsing and we might as well “rip the band aid off” and get this collapse over with.
This issue is never discussed. As this short video mentions, our media constantly repeats lies about China, but not that the USA has the world’s highest incarceration rate, five times higher than China. We have lots of violent criminals made worse by our prison system, but huge numbers are locked up for non-violent “crimes” like the hundreds of January 6th protestors.
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Dear Chris,
Are you still hedging against your inner Cromwell?
Is there something in the theology of John Calvin that led his namesake in the White House to state; “the business of America is business,”?
The whole W.A.S.P., thing is a sham. It’s a scab religion.
Individualism is the “snake in the grass” that undermines worker solidarity.
Maude’s abortion on Norman Lear “the bombardier” program was the beginning of the end. The workers didn’t care, they just wanted color televisions anyway.
When the proto capitalists under cover of Protestantism liquidated Church Property in England and pauperized the peasants, sermons did little stop the feeding frenzy.
Your neighbor, the late lamented General Mercer may help you hold the line.
It’s Money & Banking that need to be nationalized. Cromwell, Thatcher and Blair were all financed by the same dark force.
Sodomites are proxy warriors for usurers. Hence there will be no Worker’s Revolution with a Rainbow Flag.
Worker Solidarity requires a leader like Marshall Tito not Cornel West.
(According to Dante, they settle for eternity in the same ‘hot & trendy’ neighborhood!)
Sexual libertinism is inimical to social solidarity. And now the country is heading into the paper shredder.
Time for anuther axperimental waxxine to cure all o societies’ trubbles?
Any new, experimental vaccines that could provide protection against multiple varieties of dangerous [insert list]
Christian fascism – how many different definitions, interpretations, and iterations of this concept could there be amongst us?
I wonder if any of them would be a tad better than the anti-christ fascism we have right now.
What’s wrong with abolishing the Environmental Protection Agency? Can you name one thing they’ve done that’s improved life for Americans?
They’re a federal agency supposedly dedicated to a cleaner environment–but they spend millions each year on firearms, body armor, night vision goggles and other militaristic high-tech.
Hey, maybe this is what Democrats want. I’m sure it is. If a cleaner environment is your goal, we have layers and layers of state and local planning boards to keep bad actors in line. But Democrats have other things in mind.
MAGA is pro-worker Christian Populism. The opposite of fascism.
The unelected White House occupant is deep into true fascism. Show trials against political opponents. Supporting neo-Nazis Azovites in Ukraine. Harming Judeo-Christian workers with open borders.
The NeoConDemocrats left the GOP long ago. Has anyone heard George Will or Bill Kristol supporting Trump? Of course not. They are hardcore #Bidenistas. Islamophile Globalists like Nikki Omar and Ilhan Haley are a threat to democracy.
The new fascists are all authentically Islamophile Leftoid. Antifa and BLM spring immediately to mind. This must be one of the most fascist things ever.
An SJW🏳️🌈Muslim troop transport flying the flag of the Fascist Stormtroopers of Antifa. Christian Populism is the answer to this totalitarian threat.
PEACE 😇
let’s face facts, chris must have a lot of jewish donors and this will immensely please them, as they desperately try to divert attention, from their overt warcrimes in palestine, to the u.s. and trump supporters that are too stupid to realize, they are all zionists attempting to make israel great again.
stupid clowns to the left, stupid clowns to the right……but the bigtop’s about to come down on all of clownworld.
So he is like Trump
just another Golem
This would have been cutting-edge material in 1967.
I’m not a Christian but if we’re going to have fascism I’d rather have the Christian kind than the negro tranny kind that Hedges prefers.
Also I love how Hedges openly acknowledges that our institutions have become bankrupt and completely corrupted but apparently Trump’s impending efforts to address this is “fascism” because…*gasp*…his supporters “wave the flag.”
Total moron.
Hedges is convinced that all those rural deplorables are actually very supportive of black supremacy, faggotry, and child trannies. It’s just the economics that are driving them helplessly into Hitler 2.
D’oh!
Personally, if Hedges can get me a $2 an hour raise, then I’m all for allowing him to chop my son’s dick off.
Stupid article. Fascism has nothing to do with Christianity , historically, culturally and politically, you incult idiot.
That’s why I don’t visit unz.com anymore. What’s the point, if it’s to read the same mainstream garbage that we can find everywhere ?
This author is a paid agent, as I said before. A disgusting tool of leftist ( or even neocon ) Jews.
right on
All so tiresome.
“Christian Fascism” = not being ruled by Jews. Left, right, socialist, libertarian, the details are irrelevant.
The horror! Anuddah Shoah!
Can we stop reading/writing all this thumb-sucking and just move on to the action part?
Which is a shame, because much of what Mr. Hedges wrote here about “the Democrats” is spot on – if you swap in “the Establishment.”
But as a devout Progressbyterian, he fearmongers himself and his peers with TDS. The inherent condescension alienates many of the working class and other Americans on whose behalf he wrote, especially those who have fallen for Trump or see no other place but Red+Blue politics to express their dissent.
I recently commented about his Yankee snobbery under another Hedges essay, where a couple people swooped in to defend him. I wonder if they’ll return …
Chris doesn’t seem to get the point about how bankrupt the world economy is what drives the unrest, or how those “Christian facists” have been intentionally persecuted and decimated for political reasons. Seems to think more government intervention is the solution somehow. Funny guy.
Chris doesn’t seem to get the point about how bankrupt the world economy is what drives the unrest, or how those “Christian facists” have been intentionally persecuted and decimated for political reasons. Seems to think more government intervention is the solution somehow, like the Dems failed in “reforms”. Funny guy.
Yep, that’s pretty much the natural course of human affairs. A period of rightwing capitalist tyranny is absolutely necessary to wake people up to the necessity of leftwing socialist revolution. Humans rarely do things the logical or nonviolent way. If it has no other lesson, history is crystal clear about how that progression works.
Yet I still bristle at the nonsensical compassion of the modern US to Weimar Germany. One is the global dominating colossus, the other was broken, defeated, dismembered, and impoverished. The people being systematically plundered by a fake democracy that ignores their needs is what both have in common, though.
It’s also interesting that almost every contemporary observer of Hitler’s revolution in Germany termed it a moral reform movement based on Christian and national principles. In my researches I’ve recently read a number of microfilmed issues of the London weekly newspaper “The Jewish Chronicle” from 1941-42. It’s really striking that the term “Pagan Nazis” is used over and over again in the headlines, reports, and editorial comment. It seems that the Jewish press is the source of this false belief. They couldn’t very well admit that it was a Christian movement and hope to motivate Britons and Americans to fight it.
Yes, the thought of another Trump presidency is horrifying.
I understand one of the diabolical tortures he has planned for his enemies is forcing them to listen to Feelings (Carol Burnett as “Eunice”), People (Barbara Streisand), Rehab (Amy Winehouse) and the opening theme to M*A*S*H (TV series) over and over again until they go insane.
Chris: For Democrats, a Trump presidency would be the end of the world. They should have stopped him! They could have stopped him! But they failed!
Chris: Democrats have been doing horrible things and have no intention of stopping doing those horrible things!
Chris: Trump would do the same horrible things the Democrats have been doing!
Mmkay … :rolleyes:
Chris: Christian fascism!
Oh, okay, that settles it.
Judging from this author’s other articles, there is no chance for the by you suggested (reasonable) move, G. Paulin!
One hardly can expect a fervent follower of holocaustianity to commit such a deadly sin.
Yankee. Snob. Two words for the same thing.
Hahahaha, you just figured out how neoliberal cuckservatives in Europe think.
“Muh GDP, muh economy, this 1% rise in salaries is a resounding success, what inflation? What do the Russians have to offer but Oil, Gas, and other commodities, we have the banks and rating agencies”
Third sector spastics who have lost any contact to reality.
Succinctly put.
Trump isn’t a Jew but he consistently puts Israel first. He knows who butters his bread and makes his aspirations possible. His son-in-law and daughter Ivanka are radical Zionists and active members of Chabad Lubovitch. There is ZERO possibility of Trump allowing any criticism of Israel or calling out Jewish bad behavior to go unpunished. Trump will continue to turn a blind eye to genocide and mass murder while his son-in-law Jared makes billions developing the Gaza beach front to the West Bank. He can’t see it. He won’t see it. As far as Trump is concerned he’s on the right side and doing good things. Trump endured more abuse from the MSM than anyone in history and he has a hide thicker than a rhinoceros. He’s deaf to criticism and can you blame him now? Trump will WIN and it will be a DISASTER. Any place in America that doesn’t support Trump will fall on hard times (thanks to insane Democrats) and Trump will let them fall on hard times with no support in site. Hundreds of cities and towns in America will be written off like Gaza, they had what’s coming to them and they only have themselves to blame. Payback! Trump part II is all about PAYBACK. America is a vassal of Israel and Jewish power. The Palestinian genocide will continue to its conclusion, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq are next but maybe even America. Americans who turned a blind eye to Biden’s genocide while being insanely Anti-Trump are going to find themselves the target. They partly deserve it but the intensity of what’s about to hit them will repay all offenses real or imagined in spades. Great job liberal dumbasses! You made Christian fascism possible and it will HURT everyone. The Qanon motto NCSWIC nothing can stop what is coming is most appropriate in this unfortunate situation. I understand the horror of what’s coming and any tinge of Schadenfreude will be quickly overcome by the Christian neofascists long deprived of power. The sycophants will rise to quickly to the top and act even more unhinged than their insane liberal fascists during the height of the BLM riots, transgender mania and lockdown madness. NCSWIC enjoy the show.
Part of me feels this way too. Let me us all know how you feel after a year or two of a Trump second term. Are you as Christian Zio Fascist as the Toadies lined up to assume the helm of America’s government? It will feel really good to see the Left melt down and go into hysterical fits. Aaaaaaaggggh! Remember her? 🙂 It will get old really quick when Trump goes on an “anti-semitism” witch hunt to please his Jewish masters.