Franklin’s apprehension of America’s Future

Shortly after the Constitutional Convention convened in September, 1787, Pennsylvania delegate Ben Franklin was approached by Elizabeth Willing Powel, a pivotal woman of the founding era and asked Franklin, "What do we have, a republic or a monarchy?’’ "A republic", Franklin replied, “if you can keep it.’’

In a recent PBS documentary that made credible parallels between the rise of Nasism and today's Trumpism, educator and anti-fascist activist Ash Sarkar points out that “democracy is fragile because in order for it to be truly democratic, in a purist sense, it leaves itself open to being taken over by fundamentally anti-democratic forces.”   

In a similar vein, NYU Professor and scholar on Authoritarianism, Ruth Ben Ghiat explains how “one of the most crucial moments of authoritarianism capture is when traditional elites invite the Authoritarian-in-the-making into power”  believing he can be contained and controlled to accommodate their ends.

I believe we’re seeing this authoritarian cycle repeating itself.  Evidence of this is becoming more apparent almost daily.  

Former Trump ally and convicted felon, Michael Flynn, recently called for a military coup to overthrow our duly elected government .  Just prior to this, Trump co-conspirators Matt Gates and Marjorie Taylor Green made “inflammatory remarks on gun rights and armed rebellion”  at a Trump-style rally in Georgia.

Paramilitary thugs like the Proud Boys, Three-percenters and the Oath Keepers were in force at the January 6th insurrection.  Menacing groups not unlike Hitler’s Brown Shirts who were loyal only to the Führer, intimidating all who opposed the dictator, in and outside of politics.  We’re seeing a similar stratagem being played out here today.

 
Though not as prolific yet as Hitler's paramilitary hoodlums were, we have witnessed the handy work of Trumpian thugs in their nascent stages.  After Charlottesville there was the foiled kidnapping plot of Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer and serving as the template for the January 6th terrorist attack on the nation’s Capital.  An assault downplayed as little more than a “normal tourist visit” by  Trump todies in Congress.  These same people have now opposed a bi-partisan 1/6 commission for fear that it will expose many of them as being sympathetic to the insurrectionists.

Nazi Party office holders in 1930's Germany stoked animosity towards their Communist Party counterparts in the German Reichstag or Parliament to win over converts to their ill-fated cause.   Today, many congressional Republicans are copying this tactic, weaponizing their attack by mis-appropriately painting Biden and congressional Democrats as “Socialists”, intended to provoke their base while persuading Independents and defecting Republicans to join their grab for power.

Like their Nazi predecessors, GOP-controlled state legislatures are enacting legislation attempting to give credibility to their leader’s big lie about massive voter fraud.  Measures that are primarily designed to hold onto power in a Party that has lost its moral compass.

Today’s Trumpists represent a demographic in this country, not unlike Hitler’s supporters, who seek to establish a nationalist purity, spearheaded by a dominionist theology and white nationalists groups.  A mindset that too many of our relatives, friends and neighbors have identified with, most without fully understanding how ill-fated this is for sustaining a republic worth keeping.

The greater threat if Facebook doesn’t ban Trump permanently

“Those who stand for nothing fall for everything” -  Alexander Hamilton


After Facebook’s Independent Oversight Committee‘s ban on Donald Trump expires within the next six months, will Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to extend or end it be motivated primarily by financial concerns rather than issues of truth and preserving our democratic-republic?

Facebook and Twitter took the correct action they did to muzzle the treasonous rantings of a loser who never takes responsibilities for his failed performances.  Trump’s delusional bombasts on January 6th presented a clear and present danger to our democracy by undermining our electoral process.  Until he is willing to denounce his unfounded claims of massive voter fraud, the ban should remain in place.

The virtuous idiom - “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”  - is familiar to us all yet not one that social media platforms are apparently guided by to offset many posts on their platforms.  Posts, that if not evil in and of themselves, are at least horrendously ugly in ways that threatens personal security and the socio-political fabric of our country.

The notion expressed by Trump cult adherents that freedom of speech is at issue here is a straw man argument.  Consider their own efforts to silence Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney along with a few other Republicans wanting only to speak truth about the former President’s role that incited the January 6th insurrection on the nation’s Capitol.

Free speech concerns shouldn’t prevent social media platforms from banning those who deliberately spread malicious rumors and outright lies.  It’s a standard practice for most blog sites or social media pages who reserve that right when people sign up for them.  For those who avidly crave Trump’s every mutterings, there are ample media sources like FOX, Newsmax and the more current right-wing conspiratorial OAN, who are more than willing to feed their need.

We can’t always control seeing and hearing evil.  But speaking it arises from one’s own volition to do so.  The least that responsible adults can do is to inhibit those who would use public platforms to broadcast it.

The greater threat comes not from a few obscure voices in the blogosphere but from someone who convinced 74 million voters that his loss last November was a conspiracy that involved multiple GOP election personnel, courts and judges across the country.  A notion that defies all sense of reality and sanity.

Totalitarian regimes, once they get a foothold into government, become insidious.  They mask their violent and discriminatory natures through populace rhetoric that claims some nebulous patriotic ethos to the fatherland that actually narrows rather than broadens legitimate political participation.

Our current, divided political state is ripe for some authoritarian to project themselves as  one who’ll restore a bygone era that many feel has been lost as a result of our expanding, diverse culture.  It is this not-so-subtle intent that plays “us” against “them” that mandates a continuing ban from social media sources by those who attract the darkest elements within our society, preventing an honest reconciling of what divides us.