Results: The Republican Party embraces Fascism, Part two

According to the National Federation of Republican Women, "The Republican Party pioneered the right of women to vote in the US and was consistent in its support throughout the long campaign for acceptance. It was the first major party to advocate equal rights for women and the principle of equal pay for equal work." That was in the early 20th Century. Today's Republican Party is the major roadblock to giving women equal rights. In Feb.,2020, 182 Republican Congressmen voted against extending the deadline for the "Equal Rights Amendment". This amendment to the US Constitution would codify equality on the basis of sex. Even though 3/4 of the republic's states have now ratified the amendment, Congress put a timeline on its ratification back in 1972. House Democrats passed a resolution that would extend the timeline, so that the amendment could become law. The Senate Majority Leader, Republican Mitch McConnell, decided to kill the House resolution by never letting it get a vote or debate in the US Senate. McConnell stated, "I'm personally not a supporter" of the Equal Rights Amendment. Even though the vast majority of Americans want women to have equal rights under the law, the modern Republican Party and then President, Donald Trump did not. Do you agree with these Republican lawmakers that won't support equal rights for American women?

"Mussolini attracted support from industrialists such as the auto giant Fiat, and the tire manufacturer Pirelli. The chemical giant I.G. Farben and other German industrialists quickly fell in line shortly after Hitler came to power. In return, both men guaranteed a workforce unprotected by labor unions and one that could be harshly disciplined. Republicans are long practiced at claiming to champion "Main Street" while their policies overwhelmingly benefit Wall Street, often to the detriment of the "real Americans" they claim to represent. The 2017 tax cut, the only substantive legislative achievement of Trump's presidency, is a case in point. Just a year earlier, he had promised to cut the taxes of working Americans at the expense of the wealthy. What Americans got was the biggest corporate tax cut in their history at the price of an additional $1.5 trillion of debt over 10 years." Do you think the modern Republican Party prioritized Corporate America and wealthy donors over working class and middle class Americans?

"No fascist movement achieves power without help. The pull of the far right is evident, today, and so are many of the same problems Mussolini and Hitler exploited: joblessness; a widening gap between rich and poor; crime; racial and ethnic tensions; poor health care and educational opportunities; threats from across the globe (In the 20th Century, the march to another world war; now, a pandemic). Republicans could work with the Biden administration to deal with these crises and restore faith in American democracy. Instead, they seem bent on further undermining that faith, thinking it will set them up to grab power later on." Since Trump's "Big Lie" and his legitimate loss at the polls last November, 18 states with Republican governors and control of state legislatures have passed new election laws that take away the power of local districts to certify elections. These new laws undermine minority, Independent and Democrat voters from having a fair share of Congressional Representatives in both state and federal governments. Suppressing free and fair elections is the hallmark of Fascists and would restart the nation on a new path for American apartheid. With Donald Trump's blessing, do you think Republican Party lawmakers systematically undermine American democracy with their new election laws to maintain their power in states and to reclaim power at the federal level of government?

Whether you agree or not, by Doctor Kevin Matthews' seven characteristics of Fascism listed in the survey's entry message, Donald Trump is a textbook Fascist. Republican Party lawmakers have bent over backwards trying to get Trump's endorsement. They have sacrificed their purported conservative principles competing for Trump's base of supporters. The Party of Lincoln is dead. Republican lawmakers and their registered voters are now openly embracing Fascism. Many Republican voters seem totally oblivious to what they are willingly part of. In part one of this survey series, some of Trump's supporters still claimed to be conservative constitutionalists in their comments, even though Trump has never been one and with few exceptions his policies never were either. They attacked me personally for telling them the truth with objective facts and credible conclusions, but objective facts and reasoning no longer seem to reach Trump's base. Many scholars have speculated that the only way to break Trump's hold on the current Republican Party and their final spiral into Fascism is for Trump to be held accountable for the many crimes he is being investigated for, even if that means he goes to jail. Do you agree?

In the next part, we will explore Neo Fascism and American Fascism. Do you think it is of vital importance to understand all of the threats to American democracy, including internal threats that jeopardize every American citizen's sovereign right to vote?