Update and scripts! (Patreon)

Hi there! First things first, if you are pledged at the $30 tier now or were any time this year, you are entitled to a Christmas card. Please message me with a mailing address if you want one.

Second, everyone will be happy to hear that The West Wing is nearly finished. I am hard at work editing it, and it will debut around the end of the month. The video looks to be over 50 minutes long. Biggest video in a long time.

Third, I want everyone to know that I have so much planned for 2022. Lots of projects ready to get started. My goal is to make more videos than I did in 2021.

Finally, here are some scripts from this year's episodes.

ISLAMOPHOBIA

AUDIO 1

Muslim Americans are our neighbors. If nothing else, that is what I wish to impress upon everyone today. They run our small businesses and sometimes big businesses, they pay taxes and worry about making rent. They go to school, and pray, and ask about our days. They are our neighbors. There are approximately three and a half million Muslims living in the United States today, the third largest religion in the nation. To give some impression of those numbers, that is greater than the population of Wyoming, Vermont, Delaware, and Alaska combined. They have been part of the nation roughly since its birth and they have a greater role in the nation today. Islam is as much a part of the identity and history of the United States as anything else that comes to mind when one thinks of “America.” Yet, in spite of this, Islam has also been historically been labeled as “irreconcilable” with American values and its people “unassimilable” into American culture. A clash of civilizations, an abstract and unseen conflict brewing beneath the surface – at least in the minds of those who have bought into this or those who wish to sell this conflict to the masses for their own gain. The proposal that Islam is “irreconcilable” with American values is based on a narrow vision of what it means to be an American and what it means to embody “American values.” The values of the people of the United States of America are not only numerous but vary depending on region, political affiliation, religion and more.

“Values” are cultural, and even within a culture, values tend to vary greatly. To say that Muslim Americans do not share American “values” is a way of excluding Muslim Americans from the culture, even though their values are as equally valid within the United States as, say, a white Christian's values are. A individual conception of a set of values within a given space or culture always excludes values that are deemed in contradiction to the individual's preference of what those values ought to be – instead of a recognition of those allegedly contradictory values. If one believes that American values are merely values by majority consensus and that anyone living outside of this consensus can be excluded from the rights and protections of the United States, then this leads us down a dangerous path of disallowing the rights and protections of Americans deemed “degenerate” by the majority. This fear of Islam replacing the values or the people of a nation is often called Islamophobia. Much like any form of bigotry, Islamophobia is conducted, arguably, in two ways: individual Islamophobia and systemic Islamophobia. Individual Islamophobia is the personal fear, rhetoric, and actions of a single person. An individual may not even consider themselves an Islamophobe while using Islamophobic language, side-stepping outright, explicit hatred with rhetoric that diverts the conversation. An Islamophobe does not have to yell that they hate Muslims to be Islamophobic.

AUDIO 2

They can, instead, substitute this more egregious statement by saying they are merely “concerned” about the dilution of “western culture.” This allows for a crypto-Islamophobia and for this rhetoric to be accepted by society at large, thereby causing harm to Muslims not in the margins of a far-right anti-Islam rally but in the mainstream instead. Systemic Islamophobia refers to how this concern interacts among people within a society and within the law. Individual Islamophobia draws from the broader systemic Islamophobia. A prejudice does not form in a vacuum. An Islamophobe does not become an Islamophobe without being influenced by a society that sold them this concept through social interaction, through media, through political rhetoric, or through the law. Islamophobia is more complicated than a one-sentence definition in a dictionary and more complex than mere individual prejudice. Furthermore, criticism of a tenet of Islam or an individual Muslim is not necessarily Islamophobic. It depends on the rhetoric and the goals of that rhetoric. The goal of actual Islamophobic rhetoric is to “other” Muslims as irreconcilable and unassimilable. On an individual level, Islamophobic rhetoric does not interrogate the merits of someone who happens to be Muslim but interrogates the merits of someone because they are a Muslim. On a systemic level, Islamophobic rhetoric does not interrogate the merits of a tenet that happens to be of Islam but because it is of Islam.

Such rhetoric ignores how the same tenets or similar tenets can just as easily be found in other religions and other cultures, often including the religion or culture of the person performing the rhetoric. In 2020, the Institute for Social Policy and Reporting showed that, in the United States, Muslims are most likely to report religious discrimination among the various faiths. Non-Muslims might mistakenly believe that this is only leftover hostility from the George W. Bush administration, but the truth is more complicated. Muslims have been part of the American experiment since its birth, but there has also always been an attempt to marginalize and demonize Muslims in the United States. These questions need to be answered: How did systemic Islamophobia develop in the United States? How does Islamophobia intersect with race and class? What can we do to fight both individual and systemic Islamophobia? And how can non-Muslims be better allies? As with most things, we must start at the very beginning. [I. Early Muslim American History] The proposal of Islam being irreconcilable with the United States has some of its history in the European representation of the Middle East and Asian societies as culturally opposed to “the West.” This is accomplished through exaggeration, romanticization and condemnation of a region described as inferior by imperialist powers in Europe. This is often called “orientalism.”

AUDIO 3

When the “new world” of the Americas was colonized by Europeans, the concepts of orientalism and western superiority came with them. The proposal of Islam being irreconcilable with the United States ignores centuries of Muslim American history and white-washes how Islam has been purposefully hidden in the broader history of the nation. According to Kambiz Ghanea-Bassiri, author of A History of Islam in America, “From the time Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic, West and North Africans served as involuntary servants to Europeans arriving in the Americas. The most notable of them in early American history was Estevanico de Dorantes, 'a black Arab originally from Azamor,' Morocco.” The early history of Muslims in what would eventually be the United States is, tragically, a history of slavery. Islamophobes today, upon hearing this, might leap up and see this is an opportunity to marginalize Muslims' suffering, stating that powerful rulers in African and Middle Eastern history, some of whom were Muslims, also had slaves themselves. However, as should be obvious, this is an attempt to bind to all Muslims to a kind of “racial crime” or “cultural crime” that condemns Muslim victims as well as perpetrators – with their only commonality being Islam. An ugly and ignorant belief that a poor Muslim “gets what he deserves” due to unrelated, historical crimes of a rich Muslim he never met.

This conflation is common among Islamophobes whenever a crime happens to be committed by a Muslim. Back to the Atlantic Slave Trade, by the time the first Africans were captured and deported to the Americas, Islam had already been well established in much of Africa. Islam began between 610 and 632 CE and was introduced to North Africa as early as 660 CE. The Atlantic Slave Trade began almost a thousand years later. Although we cannot know exactly how many African slaves in the Americas were Muslims, studies have shown that approximately 46% of slaves in the antebellum south were captured from Africa's western region, which had a significant Muslim population. The concept of Orientalism created a limited understanding of Muslim identity, particularly as it pertained to race. “Muslim” was synonymous with “Arab” or “Middle Eastern.” The religion was reworked by the imaginations of Europeans and early Americans as a racial identity. “Slave” had already been racialized as “African.” If African meant slave, and Muslim meant Arab or Middle Eastern, then an African Muslim was both legally and culturally contradictory in early American history. The racialization of Islam is why, even though Islam is a religion and not a race, Muslims are nonetheless subject to racism. This racialized conception of Islam, combined with the purposeful obfuscation of the faith of slaves, erased the Muslim identity of many slaves.

AUDIO 4

The initial faith of slaves was largely ignored, as that would humanize them. Slaves were not allowed to retain their identities. Conversion to Christianity was a common method by which African Muslims attempted to assimilate. American-born children of African Muslims were taught Christianity, not Islam. This annihilation of culture marginalized the open practice of Islam in the United States for a long time. This was the earliest form of systemic Islamophobia in the United States, but it was not the last. Article I of the United States Constitution granted Congress the power to establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization. Only a few months after ratification, Congress limited naturalization to “any alien, being a free white white person who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for a term of two years.” After the Civil War, the “white person” restriction was interrogated, but many in Congress argued against removing the restriction. Eventually, Congress maintained the “white person” language but also included “persons of African nativity, or African descent.” However, Muslims of African descent drew greater scrutiny and were almost always rejected, and Muslims of Middle Eastern or Asian descent were barred from naturalization altogether. According to Khaled A. Beydoun, author of American Islamophobia, “During the naturalization era, immigrants seeking citizenship were bound by the prerequisite of being found to be 'free white persons' by a civil court.

However, what defined whiteness was not allowed to extend beyond Christianity, and especially Protestantism, and Islam stood as its rival and thus was considered irreconcilable with whiteness. ... Muslim identity precluded one from being deemed white by law and therefore eligible for citizenship.” To summarize just how marginalized Islam was in the United States, although Muslims had been residents of the Americas for hundreds of years, the first mosque in the US was not built until 1893, and the second mosque was not built until 1921. In addition to this universal ban on Muslim naturalization, Muslims were also discouraged from even immigrating to the United States altogether. In 1924, the US Congress passed the National Origins Act, which was drafted to specifically restrict immigration from Muslim regions, thus stemming the flow of new Muslim arrivals. It was not until the middle of the 20thcentury before the United States began allowing more Muslims to enter its borders, but this was not the result of some moral epiphany about its past treatment of Muslims. Instead, this happened because the United States' growing competition with the Soviet Union. The naturalization of Arab-Muslim immigrants was part of the United States' outreach into economically important regions, particularly the Middle East and its oil reserves. The Naturalization Act was officially in effect until 1952, hundreds of years after Muslims were first captured and taken to the United States.

AUDIO 5

Of course, this self-serving, economic decision by the United States was not the end of Islamophobia within its borders. [II. Modern Islamophobia] Finally allowing Muslim naturalization in the United States, as well as naturalization of other previously “unassimilable” people, was a direct result of the beginning of the Cold War. American identity during the Cold War relied on a performative hatred of the Soviet Union and communism. It established the patriotism of citizens to condemn this foreign power that threatened those ill-defined American values. In truth, the Cold War was a conflict of controlling economic interest and global hegemony – not values. The “values” were merely the public face of it. The United States as the defender of “western civilization” assisted in their foreign policy objectives. In the United States, the perception of the Cold War, both the true perception of it and the propagandized perception of it, was a world of two halves. During the Cold War, the United States and its allies staged coups in Middle Eastern nations to prop up leaders that were more friendly to US economic interests, such as in Syria, Egypt and most famously Iran. These regime changes were done in secret by intelligence agencies, but following the Cold War, the United States was more free to be openly and publicly aggressive. With the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States had no other superpower standing in the way of global hegemony, and no other superpower who would challenge them on their foreign policy goals in the Middle East.

The United States now had a new antagonist, one that its people had already been told for centuries was antithetical to American values and unassimilable into American culture. That assured very little pushback from the public. Naturally, the people of these nations objected to being controlled by the west, and a hostile relationship eventually erupted. With Americans simply under the mistaken impression that any hostility between the United States and the Middle East is because Muslims “hate our freedom,” they easily accepted incidents like the Iran hostage crisis as apolitical and the result of a clash of civilizations. According to Erik Love, author of Islamophobia and Racism in America, “Another crucial moment in the development of the 'dangerous Middle Easterner' stereotype came during the 1979 Iran Hostage Crisis. The American embassy in Tehran was seized by gun-toting revolutionaries who then held the embassy staff hostage for fourteen months. Television news showed these Islamic revolutionaries on a daily basis. It is difficult to overstate how much this national crisis contributed to the shift away from the Middle Eastern 'oil sheik' stereotype toward the 'terrorist' stereotype. Indeed, the word 'terrorist' would become fully synonymous with Middle Easterners by the mid-1980s. … Of course, terrorist attacks were carried out by all kinds of militants throughout the 1970s and 1980s, but attacks by Middle Easterners attracted perhaps the most sustained attention in the United States.”

AUDIO 6

It's important to understand that Islamophobia in the United States is not simply the result of conflation with terrorists but the result of United States foreign policy. Muslim-Americans are, in effect, victims of America. The people of a nation during times of war often turn their animus toward those inside their own borders who resemble or share an ethnic background with enemy combatants. This is not only carried out by the citizenry through private, individual prejudice but through state-sponsored actions. This is especially true of the United States, because it is constantly at war, either publicly or in secret. During World War I, German communities in the US were often raided. During World War II, Japanese-Americans were forcibly interned in camps. Following the events of nine eleven, Islamophobia reached a new peak in the United States. About a week after the attack, President George W. Bush told the nation that this was the world’s fight. That this was civilization’s fight. The fight of all who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom. He told us that the “civilized” world is rallying to America’s side and that we were in a fight for our “principles.” Once again, the state tied the conflict as one of principles – of values – not of politics. Although not explicitly stated, the message received by much of the American public was that the United States was now at war with the Muslim world and that any Muslims living in the US would have to prove their loyalty.

Defenders of Bush might claim that he once said that Islam is “peace” and that he never outright told the citizenry to discriminate, harass or assault Muslim-Americans. However, that is generally not how rhetoric accomplishes its goals, and incitement does not require unambiguous directions. More importantly, the actions of the state during the Bush administration told a different story. Again, from Khaled A. Beydoun.“This war is dramatically distinct from its predecessors and unlike conventional wars in general. Its target is not a nation-state or empire, but rather the vague and amorphous concept of terrorism, conflated with Islam and the billions of its believers presumed to be sympathetic to or in cahoots with terror. The state has linked Muslims, whether immigrants or citizens, living in the United States or abroad, to the suspicion of terrorism, and it has formally enacted a two-front war: the foreign war, and the surveillance, policing, and cultural wars deployed within the country.” In addition to the highest rise in Islamophobic hate crimes in the history of the nation, post-9/11 politics targeted Muslim-Americans on the state level. NSEERS or National Security Entry and Exit Registration System was a Muslim immigrant registry that existed for fourteen years throughout the Bush and Obama administrations. Twenty-four of the twenty-five countries of interest listed in the NSEERS legislation were Muslim-majority nations.

AUDIO 7

CVE or Countering Violent Extremism is a Department of Homeland Security Task Force that spies on mosques and Muslim communities in the United States, recruits Muslims hoping to alleviate suspicion into their own lives by spying on their neighbors, and generally violates the civil rights of Muslim Americans on a regular basis. CVE programs are built on the foundation of two lies. First, that is there some easily understood process of terrorist radicalization, and second, that many Muslims are simply terrorists in waiting and that if exposed to subject matter or people that CVE programs find offensive, they will be sure to bomb and otherwise terrorize non-Muslim Americans, as if it were they destiny. Not only is this ignorant on its face, but two decades of empirical research disproves it. Not only is Muslim faith a poor predictor of terrorism, but even Muslims who hold beliefs that CVE programs would find extreme almost never commit violent acts of terrorism. CVE programs see potential terrorists in Muslims who express “political grievances.” In other words, Muslim Americans who speak out against their own oppression are labeled potential terrorists and are intimidated into silence. CVE programs drive a wedge in these communities between those who reluctantly cooperate with the state in their own oppression and those who refuse to cooperate altogether.

And since much of what CVE informants are told is mere “political grievances” and not actual terrorist plots, the wedge being driven is not helpful to their communities and is not offset by any significant gains or a significant number of uncovered plots. As the vast majority of Muslim-Americans are in ethnic minority groups that have been historically marginalized and a great number of them are immigrants, Muslim-Americans experience poverty more often than other major religious demographics in the United States. This decreases their resources when it comes to mounting a legal defense against disproportionate targeting and unfair treatment by the state. While the Patriot Act and the War on Terror were the signature Islamophobic programs of the Bush administration, CVE is the signature Islamophobic program of the Obama administration. None of this ended after Bush. It only got worse over time. The signature Islamophobic program of the Trump administration was undoubtedly the Muslim travel ban. During Trump's campaign, he promised to ban all Muslims from entering the United States. This was widely condemned and dismissed during his campaign as “tough talk” that would not amount to anything. One week after his inauguration, Trump signed an executive order banning entry into the United States from seven Muslim-majority countries. Apologists for Trump claimed that Trump had not banned Muslims but merely any foreign national from Muslim-majority countries.

AUDIO 8

However, his previous statement that his goal was to ban all Muslims made his intentions unambiguous. The consequences of a policy provide far more insight into the intentions of the policy than what the wording of said policy. Moreover, the consequences of a policy are materially more important than the intentions of the policy anyway. There is no intellectually honest way to defend the Muslim travel ban as somehow being neutral or not targeting Muslims. Unlike Bush and Obama, who paid some lip service to the Muslim American community amid their policies that directly targeted them, Trump was comfortable being more openly bigoted, which undoubtedly had an effect on the rise in hate crimes against Muslim Americans during his administration. Individual Islamophobic sentiment also increased simply due to the emergence of Muslim American politicians like Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. One might argue that the mere existence of elected Muslim representatives in Congress might be a sign that Islamophobia is on the decline, but the House is chosen through districts, not by the nation at large. Omar represents the fifth district of Minnesota, an area which has one of the largest Somali diasporas in the United States.

Tlaib represents the thirteenth district of Michigan, which contains Detroit, a minority-majority city. One of out five Muslim-Americans are also African-American, and Hispanic-Americans are the fastest growing demographic for Muslims. The demographics are not as helpful for potential Muslim American politicians throughout most of the United States. So, now that we understand how systemic Islamophobia developed in the United States, and how Islamophobia intersects with both race and class, what can we do to push back against it? [Conclusion] Solidarity with Muslim Americans benefits all Americans. A united front against individual bigots, violent far right groups, and state oppression is useful to all of us. Individual bigots and violent far right groups that traffic in Islamophobia also traffic in a spectrum of other bigoted beliefs and target a number of marginalized demographics. There is often spillover that can even affect people normally privileged enough to be unaffected. State oppression as it relates to Islamophobia also tends to impact non-Muslims through increased police presence, violation of civil liberties, and an uptick in state surveillance – all of which are tenuously justified through the public's fear of Muslims. Being better allies to Muslims begins with educating ourselves as the subject of Islamophobia, and although this video is a good starting point, the books cited and quoted throughout the video contain additional information.

AUDIO 9

The Southern Poverty Law Center also has a detailed report anti-Muslim extremists that may be helpful. In terms of more direct action, there are a number of neighborhood action coalitions. There are a number of organizations that work to track hate groups and defend marginalized people like the American Civil Liberties Union, the aforementioned Southern Poverty Law Center, and NAACP. Joining or contributing to them helps further their causes. When conservative politicians introduce pointless anti-Sharia Law legislation designed to single out Muslims, we can demonstrate against this as well as use this against these politicians when they are up for re-election. When we see Islamophobic hate speech on social media, we can report it and/or confront it. All these resources and more can be found in the description. Solidarity, in a sense, means being better neighbors to one another, and remember, Muslim Americans are our neighbors.

THE TRIAL OF DONALD TRUMP

AUDIO 1

[The Trial of Donald Trump] [Main street]

What was the Republican Party? There is, perhaps, no better time to ask this question, and no better time to answer it. During the 2020 campaigns, Joe Biden repeated his belief that following the end of Trump's first and only term, Republican politicians would have an “epiphany” and return to whatever Biden considers “normal” for their party – the ghost of what once was their party. That without their figurehead, right-wing politicians who attached their careers and ideologies to Trump would suddenly see the light, correct their course, and once more ally with mainstream conservatism – a political ideology that, at least in the United States, centers around strong partnership with the military and the police, strong adherence to organized religion, specifically Christianity, strong private property rights for corporations, low taxes for corporations, a loosely defined traditionalism that shuns certain aspects of social progress, distrust of social programs, and a great many more connected values and principles. Not every conservative advocates for all these goals or shares all these values, but conservatives' varying beliefs all have enough family resemblance to be described as conservative and classified under the same or similar ideology. Conservatism is a presentation of “the way things ought to be” that more often than not defies the way things actually are, and due to this, solving problems becomes difficult because a consensus on reality cannot be reached. A conservative talking point must often ignore greater context and wider details in order to appear true.

Conservatism has been the ideology of the Republican Party for most of a century, following a gradual switch in party ideology with the Democrats. Donald Trump did not invade the party and invent a new ideology for approximately half of the United States. Trump, instead, allowed an acceptability of a number of pre-existing racist, xenophobic, and plot-obsessed strains of conservatism – bordering on and sometimes crossing into fascism. Right-wing conception of the way things ought to be is often a half-remembered and even false conception of the way things used to be. Trump activated a long-brewing distrust of anyone or anything to the left of the Republican Party, citing social progress as a threat to their livelihoods, their culture, and discreetly, to their race and religion. Conservatives historically claim to believe in “law and order,” but the belief is dependent on this order serving themselves. “Law and order” is not an abstract principle of the Republican Party – something to be followed universally. It is, instead, a talking point, a dog whistle against the poor and the minority. In conservative ideology, “law and order” means our law, and our order. An order that maintains a traditionalist status quo. When law and order negatively affects conservatives because the law says Joe Biden won the election, this principle is discarded, revealing that it was never a true principle to begin with. It was, instead, a tool in the maintenance of a status quo that told them that they were part of “real” America.

AUDIO 2

Conservatism is not only an ideology but a culture, or at least an aspect of a larger culture. The way things ought to be. Those who are not part of the favored in-group, not part of “real” America, can occasionally be allowed within the culture, but only if they are there to advance the goals of the favored in-group – useful outsiders to provide cover for the goals coded within conservative ideology in the United States. So. About that impeachment... [I. The Trump Party]Despite the details having been worked out in advance between the two parties, there was still no unanimous consent to begin, which forced a vote. All Democrats voted “yes,” and most Republicans voted “yes,” except for Haggerty, Hawley, Johnson, Lee, Marshall, Paul, Rubio, the two Scotts, and Tuberville. Remember these names, they may be important later. The first day of the trial was primarily the prosecution and defense arguing about whether or not such a trial is constitutional. We already know the answer to that, because, and forgive me if this is condescending, but we know it's constitutional because it's in the constitution. The United States Constitution permits the impeachment, conviction, and disqualification of former officers, including presidents. Presidents who commit misconduct near the end of their terms are not be immune from the very process that was created to hold them accountable. While a former president has never been tried, there have been other impeachment trials that followed the same procedure.

Senator William Blount in 1797 and Secretary of War William Belknap in 1876. Furthermore, Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives while he was still president anyway, and the rules demand that it be sent to the United States Senate. Trump's defense lawyers, though saying so explicitly, were making the case that a President's actions in the final weeks of his presidency are effectively immune to prosecution because the trial could not be completed by the end of his term. That is absurd on its face, as it would create a kind of “No Laws January” like a month-long Purge Night. Bruce Castor, defense attorney for Donald Trump, meandered and wandered around trying to make a point before finally giving up the floor to go see if the check had cleared. David Schoen took the stage with his binder and said that this is only happening because Democrats are upset about the events of 2016. Uhh, no, everyone is upset about the events of last month. He then claimed that Democrats had nefariously hired someone to make the montage of the insurrection. So? It was just a video. It was just what happened. It wasn't doctored to present something that did not happen. It was raw video in chronological order to show the lowlights of a tragic day. He then said the Senate should not get to decide that Trump should not run for president, but that is literally what it says in the 14th amendment.

AUDIO 3

Now, if the constitutionality of the trial was not really in question by nearly all legal scholars, and there was no way that this argument would stop the trial from happening anyway, why was this even part of the trial? It had a lot to do with how the Republican Senators were always planning on voting, how they planned to justify their vote, and how much enormous power Donald Trump continues to hold over the Republican Party. Reading Republicans' opinions of Donald Trump in 2016 before he became president and after he became president tells us so much about their goals and their principles. Illinois Senator Mark Kirk called Trump a “malignant clown – unprepared and unfit to be President of the United States.” Maine Senator Susan Collin said “I could not support his candidacy.” Ohio Senator Rob Portman said as much, stating “I can no longer support him.” Minnesota Rep. Erik Paulsen called Trump's comments unearthed in the Access Hollywood video “disgusting and offensive.” Senator Lindsay Graham famously said “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed … and we will deserve it.” There are countless more, including a great many calls for Trump to step down and allow Mike Pence to become the nominee instead. Let's narrow our focus to one Republicans: Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Lindsay Graham. During the 2016 Republican primary season, Donald Trump suggested that Ted Cruz's father assassinated President John F. Kennedy, and the Trump campaign openly mocked Cruz's wife.

In a sign of things to come, Trump even claimed that Cruz “stole” the Iowa caucus, that Cruz's win was done through “fraud” alone, and that a second Iowa caucus must he held, in hopes of declaring Trump the winner. Cruz, correctly, called Trump a “pathological liar” and a “narcissist.” After Trump became the nominee, Cruz sang a different tune, but this was not simply party loyalty and supporting the candidate. After Trump became president, Cruz strengthened his bond with Trump, hoping to gain the support of the diehard Trump base for his upcoming, close election between himself and Beto O'Rourke. After that election, once Cruz had more evidence that being Trump Light was something he could use indefinitely, Cruz began repeating Trump's talking points and eventually being his most outspoken supporter of the election fraud conspiracy theory. Cruz knows from firsthand experience in the Iowa caucus that Trump consistently makes false claims of election fraud every time he loses, and in all likelihood, Cruz knows the conspiracy theory is nonsense. Of all the high-profile Republican politicians, Cruz is the most familiar with Trump's lies but also has became the loudest repeater of those lies. Cruz sided with Trump over his country, his responsibilities, and his wife. What kind of monster sides with Donald Trump instead of his wife?

AUDIO 4

Ted Cruz is an empty, hollow shell of a man who desperately wants to be president some day, and now that Trump is no longer in office, Cruz intends to use that still rabid base to carry himself to the White House. Even after the insurrection, Cruz never even slowed down beating that drum. During the second trial of Donald Trump, Cruz, a juror in the trial, met with the defense team the day before their arguments to talk strategy, ran interference for Trump on cable news, and ultimately voted to acquit Trump in the Senate. Cruz is not alone. On Jan. 6, immediately after the insurrection, 147 Republican lawmakers voted the way then-president Donald Trump and the violent insurrectionists had demanded – to overturn his election loss, after months of Trump’s false claims that the election had been stolen. It should not be controversial to say that politicians care far more about their political careers than standing by their alleged principles. It also should not be controversial to say that based on mounting evidence from recent events, it is reasonable to assume that the further to the right the politician is, the more likely they are to abandon principles, because as previously explained, conservatism is an inherently selfish political ideology. Democrats are no angels, but it is reasonable to believe that there are simply degrees in which politicians are selfish and degrees in which politicians work against the common good.

The Republican Party is degrees worse than even the Democratic Party, and the Republican Party is now even a degree worse than they once were before the presidency of Donald Trump. So, why the turnaround? What did Donald Trump give the Republican Party to make them so fiercely loyal to a now former and twice impeached president? In spite of all moral haranguing and public “concern” over the behavior of Trump, the voting records show that nearly all Republicans actively supported the administration's policies and goals. Jeff Flake, Susan Collins, the late John McCain and all those outwardly “moderate” conservatives still overwhelmingly voted with Trump. Mitch McConnell was in love with the Trump presidency because Republican control of the White House – as well the Senate during much of the administration – allowed McConnell to push through his endgame: right-wing control of the courts. Trump nominated three Supreme Court justices: Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and the hideous Brett Kavanaugh. Control of the Senate allowed for the confirmation all three justices, two out of three who were largely unqualified. A different Republican president might have chosen different justices, but Trump, being Trump, chose the worst, and McConnell laughed all the way through their confirmations. Control of the Senate also allowed for the confirmation of other judges that would be sympathetic to right-wing causes.

AUDIO 5

Trump may have lost the Republicans a chance at a second term and may have been responsible for their losses in the Senate, but he did so much damage to the courts and tipped the scales in favor of conservatives so much that McConnell probably believes it was worth it. A short-term loss in the Senate for long-term control of the courts. Senators come and go during elections, but Supreme Court justices serve for life. Losing Senator Kelly Loeffler is nothing compared to gaining Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. The courts – from the highest in the land to lesser courts – are now absolutely packed with conservatives. That undoubtedly means even more decisions like Burwell v. Hobby Lobby and Citizens United v. FEC that gave greater protections to corporations hoping to influence government. The ties in with the other reason Republicans loved the Trump administration. Pushing the Overton window – meaning the window of acceptable politics – even further to the right. This can be risky. Push too far, and the people call you out for it. Republicans needed a bombastic, immoral figurehead to do it for them, so that if there were any blowback, it would be Trump taking the risk – not them. They could even repudiate Trump in public while encouraging him in private. Showing concern to the more moderate voters but still unanimously voting with him. Perhaps the perfect example of this was Mitch McConnell himself and the trial of Donald Trump.

Prior to the trial, McConnell correctly said that the insurrectionists were “fed lies” and were “provoked by the president and other powerful people, and they tried to use fear and violence … to stop and overturn the certification by Congress of Democrat Joe Biden's November 3 election victory.” Unambiguous condemnation of Trump's actions, unambiguous condemnation of Trump's conspiracy theory, unambiguous blame put on Trump for the lethal violence of the insurrection. Days later, McConnell voted to acquit Trump, and as Minority Leader, undoubtedly encouraged his fellow Republican senators to do the same. Then, on the very same day, McConnell took to the Senate floor and stated that there was “no question” that Trump was responsible for what happened. The trial did not prove to the American people that Trump was innocent, as the majority of Americans, 58%, believed that Trump should have been convicted. However, the trial did prove something to the Republic Party. Before Trump, popular wisdom was that a great number of things he said and did during the 2016 campaign and later as president would be “disqualifying” from office, but now Republicans know that is not true. They now know that there is no bottom. Trump did something worse than shooting someone in the middle of main street as a private citizen, like he claimed during his 2016 campaign. He incited an insurrection in the heart of Washington DC as commander-in-chief and got a lot of people killed. The window of acceptability had been pushed by Trump and tested by the party. Trump took the risk, and now the party knows that there is simply nothing that can't be said, nothing that can't be done.

[II. Conspiracy Theories]

AUDIO 6

It's important to understand the election fraud conspiracy theory did not begin on election night or in the days that followed. There was no gotcha moment on the day of the election and no evidence presented in the aftermath that convinced Trump's base. Instead, the election fraud conspiracy theory began before the election – and not only the 2020 election but the 2016 election. In 2016, during his initial presidential campaign, Trump told his base that the election was being rigged against him – partly by the media and partly by the Democratic Party. On social media, Trump made the claim “Of course there is wide spread voter fraud happening on and before election day.” He provided no proof for this allegation. Trump also warned that Democratic voters would cast multiple votes and that undocumented immigrants would swing the election in the Democrats' favor. Trump claimed that the only way he could lose would be by election fraud, and that if he were not declared the winner, he would contest the results. This was a strategy in preparation of a loss. Hillary Clinton was highly favored to win the election due to consistent polling showing her to be significantly more popular than Trump. Those numbers didplay out, as she won the popular vote by approximately three million votes, but the United States' arcane election laws allowed Trump to be declared the victor nonetheless.

Trump, a weak president-elect without a mandate from the masses, declared that he actually did win the popular vote, stating that millions of votes should be thrown out, a baseless claim about undocumented immigrant votes for which he could provide no evidence. Nevertheless, this spread on the Trump side of social media, citing articles from Alex Jones' Info Wars, and someone named Greg Philips whose Twitter profile identified him as the founder of a voter fraud app. Philips claimed that he had “verified” approximately three million illegal votes but provided no evidence or methodology for this. What a coincidence that those in the right wing determined that there were exactly enough illegal votes – three million – to narrowly put Trump ahead of Clinton, and what luck that they shared this with us when no credible news source could. When Trump supporters see how transparent this is, they fall back to asking for recounts, investigations, and studies, but what they may not understand is that recounts, investigations, and studies happen all the time, and they never uncover anything resembling widespread voter fraud. Study after study has shown that voter fraud is incredibly rare and that most instances are unintentional rather than premeditated. The Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law reported that, for the most part, incidents of voter fraud are actually traceable to other sources, such as a clerical error or a case of bad data matching.

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The report found incident rates between 0.0003 percent and 0.0025 percent. Other studies by the Washington Post, Arizona State University, Dartmouth, and many other credible institutions produced similar results. In 2020, facing an even bigger challenge now that much of the public had begun to see through him, Trump began repeating another series of lies, not based on anything that happened on election night or evidence uncovered in the aftermath of the election. Trump began making this claim in May, about six month before election day, long before any evidence could even theoretically exist. Trump did not see something funny happen on election night and call it a fraud. He pre-packaged distrust of the election but only distrust if the Democrats won. If he won, then the election was legitimate. If he lost, the election was illegitimate. It should be clear any objective observer or outside observer that this is absurd on its face and that this argument is transparent in its goals. Trump claimed that voting by mail was a form of election fraud and that the Democratic Party was rigging the system once more – even though they allegedly “rigged” the system last time and lost. It cannot be overstated how dangerous this was. The people of the United States of America have been conditioned to see the president as their representative, as the embodiment of the nation, and as the most trusted and respected individual.

Gallup polling over has shown that for nearly a century, that the most admired man in the United States is almost always the president. Occasionally, it is someone else like five star general Douglas MacArthur in the aftermath of World War II, or Pope John Paul II shortly after the beginning of his papacy, but for the most part, the most admired man in the nation in the president. Even a controversial president like George W. Bush was the most admired man in the nation for seven out of his eight years in office. Trump, statistically the most unpopular president in modern history, was only the single most admired man once in 2020 and shared that honor with Barack Obama in 2019. The United States constitution grants the president a number of powers, but the glorification of the president grants him an unofficial power that sometimes goes unreported. The office of the presidency, no matter who holds it, has the power to mainstream an idea. Sometimes this tremendous power can be used for good. For example, immediately before President Obama declared he was in favor of marriage equality, polling was about an even split. Immediately after this declaration, however, most of the nation was in favor of marriage equality. In fact, a Washington Post-ABC News poll showed that demographics that supported the Obama the most had the most effect. After his announcement, 59% of African-Americans said they supported marriage equality, which was up from an average of only 41% in polls before Obama's announcement.

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That is eighteen points higher from one week to the next. Now, take that same power of mainstreaming an idea, and that same level of targeted effectiveness on the president's strongest supporting demographic, and give that power to Donald Trump, and that power becomes the most dangerous weapon. Because he can mainstream something that would otherwise not be believed or accepted: that Joe Biden did not win the election and that he himself was the rightful winner. No matter little evidence is shown and no matter how often it is dismissed in courts, if the president says it's true, the people who most strongly support the president may believe it. In addition to being conditioned to accept the authority of the president, supporters of the president's conspiracy theory are also finding themselves susceptible to confirmation bias, the tendency for an individual to accept information that is beneficial to them and acknowledges their existing beliefs, in this case, about the righteousness of Donald Trump and the nefariousness of the Democratic Party. In addition to this, they are being fed misinformation through social media, through conservative cable news media, through quack politicians who are using this conspiracy theory to bolster their profile and capture Trump's base for their reelection. Nearly everything that the conspiracy theorists and believers are being told are half-truths, with the evidence that disproves the conspiracy being carefully excised. Remember: a conservative talking point must ignore greater context in order to be believed. Here are some examples of these talking points but with the context that debunks them.

One claim of fraud revolves around the counting on election night. Late that night night, Trump was ahead, and many swing states stopped counting ballots. On its face, without any further knowledge, this seems suspicious to conspiracy theorists. However, it is actually not unusual for all states -- not just swing states -- to stop counting ballots late on election night. That is the routine. Final tallies are not calculated shortly after polls close, they are tallied during certification. Another claim is that observers were removed from counting facilities. However, there was only one such allegation in one county in the entire nation – Fulton County, Georgia – and this was disputed by county election officials. Fact-checkers found no evidence to support such allegations. Another claim that is states accommodating voters during the pandemic by expanding mail-in ballots constitutes election fraud. However, these accommodations were available to all voters – not only voters of one party. The fact that more Democratic voters used mail-in ballots is almost certainly the result of both Donald Trump telling his base that such ballots were fraudulent and Trump downplaying the danger of the pandemic to his base. Yet another claim that is that Trump's legal team, run by Rudy Giuliani, acquired a number of signatures from people who claimed to have seen fraud.

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However, a signature is not evidence, and many of these accusations are based on the aforementioned ignorance about how elections work and are certified. At the risk of being dismissive, someone writing their name on a piece of paper saying they believe Donald Trump won the election and that Joe Biden is a big, smelly cheater is not strong enough evidence to overturn an election. Giuliani and Trump's other lawyers brought lawsuit after lawsuit to the courts, and nearly all of them were turned away for various reasons. Plaintiffs in some lawsuits lacked standing to sue, and some were also filled with errors. In fact, in one case, an affidavit that attempted to cite results from precincts in Michigan cited Minnesota data instead. Predominantly, however, these lawsuits were sent packing because no real evidence was presented. Of the eighty-six judges involved in these decisions, thirty-eight were appointed by Republicans. The United States Supreme Court, which includes three Trump-appointed justices, rejected Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s challenge to election results in four states. In other words, this was not an issue of partisan politics. It was an issue of facts. Trump demanded that the votes be investigated and double-checked for fraud, but what his base does not seem to understand is that's what certification is. After an election, local officials count ballots, review the tallies to see if they match the votes cast, and check that people who cast provisional ballots did so legally.

Certification only occurs once this has been confirmed, which is why the deadline for certification is generally weeks after the election. Trump also demanded recounts to uncover evidence of fraud, and some took place in states like Georgia and Wisconsin, but no evidence of fraud was found. In fact, Georgia was recounted twice. So, that's the initial vote, the review of tallies for certification, a recount, and another recount. Recounts generally move the needle by a few dozen or few hundred votes – not due to fraud attempts but usually due to clerical errors or common mistakes. Furthermore, a few hundred votes cannot change the outcome of any of the state races and certainly not the outcome of the election anyway. Even if the Wisconsin and Georgia recounts swung both states for Trump, Biden still would have handily won the election. The election was not close. It only looked close on election night because Democrats used mail-in ballots more for the aforementioned reasons, and those ballots were generally counted later. If there were widespread voter fraud on behalf of Joe Biden that could have actually swung the election, evidence would have been uncovered during certification, during the recounts, or in the course of the many legal disputes that Trump almost universally lost. In addition to there being no hard evidence, there is another factor that makes this conspiracy preposterous. Conspiracy theorists believe that the worst things in the world are happening in secret cabals that are both incredibly powerful and pervasive while simultaneously impossible to expose.

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Literally hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of people would have had to have been involved on the state and federal levels, and all of them would have had to have destroyed any evidence and not gone public with it. The possibility of this even being hypothetically pulled off is astronomically low. Experts and mathematicians have conclusively shown that the more people know about a conspiracy, the shorter the amount of time it would take for it to be exposed. For example, since approximately 410,000 people would have had to have been involved in faking a moon landing, it would have taken only as little as three months before it would have been exposed. That is because everyone at NASA and many others in the federal government would have had to have been involved. Arguably, an election fraud on the federal level and state level on all fifty states would have had to have involved significantly more people. If it had been attempted on the scale that Trump himself has claimed, it would have been uncovered in November. Thus, in addition to there being no hard evidence, there is also simple common sense. In reality, the worst things in the world, the manner in which the state oppresses people, is done out in the open and does not require a secret cabal and an impossible conspiracy theory. The oppressive relationship between rich nations and poor nations, poverty that enriches the few, control of the poor through the police, human-made climate change endorsed by business interests and the state's allowance of it – all these things happen without a cabal.

The state does all this on its own and does not require a secondary “deep state” to accomplish it. Why these things happen and whether or not they should happen are matters of ideological political debate, but whether or not they do happen at all is not. For example, the energy corporations tried to hide their role in climate change since the 1970's, but clime scientists and whistle-blowers have been warning us about this for about as long. The choice by the state to do little about this was done out in the open through public policy – not secret policy – and justified as protecting business interests. Conspiracies happen, but widespread conspiracies are exposed dependent on how many people know. Propaganda white-washes these worst things as somehow necessary and lionizes those performing these worst things, but these worst things are still undeniably happening because they are happening out in the open and are provable through observation. With this in mind, it is undeniable that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election – and this reality is not dependent on our preference. Now, with this conspiracy theory completely full of holes, why did Trump supporters buy into it? Part of the reason is obvious. Studies have shown that endorsement of a conspiracy theory is a form of motivated, false reasoning that is used to protect an individual's pre-existing worldview. Studies have also shown that conservative voters are more susceptible to conspiracy theories than any other bloc of voters in the United States.

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Most observers interpret this data due to a strain of “anti-government” sentiment among conservatives and how many conspiracy theories involve the government. Conservative mistrust of the federal government is the product of conservative politicians sowing that mistrust but not for any of the reasons conservative voters are told. Conservative politicians' condemnation of the federal government has nothing to do with oppression by the police or imperialism or any other actual egregious actions by the state. Conservative politicians' condemnation of the federal government has everything to do with money. The federal government regulates capitalism through safety laws, minimum wage laws, tax laws, environmental laws, and so forth, and conservative politicians and their donors don't want that. That is why conservative politicians tell conservative voters that government is the problem, but their presentation of “the government” is only the part of the government that hinders capitalism. Republican politicians don't have a problem with “the government” – they have a problem with anything that is not laissez faire capitalism. The part of the government that enforces capitalism, meaning the police and the military, are not included in this presentation of “the government” to their voters. Conservative voters therefore come to trust the police and the military, arguably the most powerful agents of the government, but do not trust the bureaucracy of the government that could potentially provide them relief.

Democrats are presented as the bureaucrats because they more consistently endorse social programs that require a federal bureaucracy. Consequently, because Trump claimed that this election fraud conspiracy was masterminded by the bureaucracy of the government, conservative voters were already primed to believe it. In summary, the president's power to mainstream an idea, plus the motivated reasoning to protect oneself from the truth, plus a pre-existing mistrust of bureaucracy, plus a pre-existing mistrust of the Democratic Party created the perfect incubator for this transparently false conspiracy theory. Republican politicians had the opportunity to reject this conspiracy theory outright, but many of them like Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, and Representatives Mo Brooks and Paul Gosar either adopted the conspiracy theory as their own or tried to straddle the fence, saying they are only “asking questions.” They smelled blood in the water, and they wanted to get right with Trump's base. With enough mainstream Republican support, conservative Americans sided with the entity that they been manipulated into trusting and siding against the entity that they had been manipulated into distrusting. Trump knew exactly what he was doing: trying to sow enough discord to either remain in power past Inauguration Day or leave office while being believed to be the winner, setting up another run for president in 2024. And on January 6th, his dangerous rhetoric and complete disregard for public safety reached its inevitable, tragic conclusion.

[III. Incitement of Insurrection]

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During the defense's arguments, they did whatever they could to draw attention away from Trump, including blaming anti-fascist protesters for the insurrection, a claim that has been completely debunked and discredited not only by fact-checkers but by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The insurrectionists were not only Trump's greatest supporters but Trump's worst supporters – members of the neo-fascist organization, The Proud Boys, militias like the Three-Percenters, QAnon figures, and actual Neo-Nazis – all groups either directly courted by Trump like the Proud Boys and QAnon – or encouraged by Trump like the rest. It is critical to understand that none of this would have or even could have happened without Donald Trump. He started the conspiracy theory in 2016, brought it out of retirement in 2020, and continued “flooding the zone” with nonsense that was consistently debunked by fact-checkers and by credible journalism. Other politicians and conservative pundits latched on to it and share some responsibility, but it was created by and popularized by Trump. Apologists for Trump in the media and in Congress excused his part in the January 6thinsurrection because many of his supporters were planning violence even before Trump spoke that day, as if this excuses Trump from the allegation of incitement, but the incitement began long before. January 6thwas merely the culmination.

In fact, that is what is said in the article of impeachment: “In the months preceding the Joint Session, President Trump repeatedly issued false statements asserting that the Presidential election results were the product of widespread fraud and should not be accepted by the American people or certified by State or Federal officials.” Trump's part in the insurrection cannot be hand-waved because his violent supporters planned the attack ahead of time. They planned the attack because of Trump's incitement against state and federal officials for months leading up the insurrection. Donald Trump was not some private citizen making an off-hand comment on social media. He was the commander-in-chief, telling half the nation not to accept the results of a free and fair election. His supporters didn't show up by chance that day. He invited them. This was his rally. They wouldn't have even been there without him. He told them to show up, and then further incited them. Trump said “If you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.” He presented an existential threat to the people of the United States of America, based on a lie, and watched the carnage unfold. To claim that Trump did not incite the insurrection is to pretend that the past few months did not happen and that Trump had no power over an army of people waving flags with his name on them.

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The insurrectionists did not simply do this in his name – they did this with his permission. During the trial, Trump's defense team tried to claim that Trump was only being impeached over using the word “fight” in his speeches, and that Democrats had also used the word “fight” in their speeches. Remember, conservative talking points require a lack of context and missing details. Trump did not incite the insurrection because he once said the word fight. He incited the insurrection through a month-long campaign consistently using dangerous rhetoric, consistently lying about election fraud, consistently riling up his base, consistently being told that what he was doing was dangerous, and consistently doing it anyway. This was predictable and foreseeable. Trump has a history of explicitly advocating violence at his rallies or explicitly defending violence once it has occurred. It's naive to think that Trump did not want this or had a problem with this when he consistently called for violence during his 2016 campaign and consistently promoted and defended his “patriots” in the aftermath of the 2020 campaign. In fact, that would contradict the events of the day. Even after the insurrection began, Trump repeated his lies on social media, drawing even more attention to Vice President Mike Pence, who was, at the time, mere feet away from a right-wing mob that had explicit plans to execute him. Reports from law enforcement show that insurrectionists also planned to assassinate various members of Congress.

Republican Senators and Republican White House aides have stated that Trump was very happy that the insurrection was taking place and had to be convinced over the course of the day to finally do something about it. Trump also claimed that he directed the National Guard to be deployed to the Capitol. This was not true. A New York Times report described how Trump initially refused calling them in for help, and White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, had to intervene. In the end, it was actually Mike Pence who gave the order to deploy the Guard. Hours after the insurrection began, Trump was finally convinced to make a short video in which he asked the insurrectionists to go home but also praised them, calling them, “very special” and saying “we love you.” These are not the words of someone who was against them. These are the words of someone who had, for months, encouraged them to do this. Their goals were his goals. That evening, Trump praised them further on social media, stating: “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!” A day after the insurrection, Trump was asked about what happened, and he doubled-down, stating that his speech and his actions were “Totally appropriate.”

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It is simply undeniable that Trump's rhetoric was the cause of the insurrection. Even Trump's own party leaders have said this – so why did they vote to acquit? There are many reasons why Republican politicians are still doing everything they can for Trump in the aftermath of a massive election loss and a second impeachment. Some want his base. Some simply agree with him. Some have no identity of their own except to whom they are attached. And some are too afraid to vote against him. Polls taken right before the trial showed that Republicans voters overwhelmingly believe that anyone siding against Trump was disloyal, not principled. Republicans voters overwhelmingly believe that loyalty to Trump is either very important or somewhat important. Approximately one third of Republican voters would leave the party to join Trump, and more than a third would at least consider it. Less than a third would remain. Now, one might argue that maybe some of the respondents to these polls are all talk. Let's calculate more conservatively here. If only, say, ten percent of the Republican Party left to join a Trump-led party or ten percent of the Republican Party opted to stay home on election day due to the party's “disloyalty” to Trump, that would guarantee that there would not be another Republican president so long as Trump lived. According to Pew Research, 33% of all registered voters in the United States identify as Democrats, 29% identify as Republicans, and 34% identify as independents.

Most independents lean more toward one party over the other. When taking independents’ partisan leanings into account, 49% of all registered voters either identify as Democrats or lean to the Democratic Party, while 44% identify as Republicans or lean to the Republican Party. Put more simply, there are a lot more people in the United States who side with the Democratic Party than side with the Republican Party. The last two Republican presidents only reached the White House due to the electoral college – not the popular vote. Republicans only have as many Senators as they do because a sparsely populated state like Wyoming gets as many Senators as a massively populated state like California. Republicans only have as many representatives in the House as they do because of gerrymandering. This is not mere speculation, it's a Republican strategy called REDMAP, and the party is openly proud of it. If Republicans lost even a modest amount of voters going forward, their chances of retaking Congress would diminish, and their chances of retaking the presidency would evaporate. Even if the Republican Party is not particularly worried about their voters jumping ship to some hypothetical Trump Party, the polling still shows them what their voters want, and what they want is more Trump, and more Republicans in the same vein as Trump. In short, there was never a chance that the Republican Party was going to convict Donald Trump.

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Party unity is all they have to keep themselves competitive. 58% of Americans might believe that Trump should have been convicted, but only 14% of Republicans believe Trump should have been convicted. Republicans play to their base. At the beginning of this, I asked a question: What was the Republican Party? It was the party of conservative ideology in the United States, but now it's even worse. It's the party of Trump. It's party of the Proud Boys. It's the party of the Three-Percenters. It's the party of Neo-N**** – all of whom were present during the insurrection and all whom are fiercely devoted to pushing the window of acceptability even further to the right. This is happening on the federal level with well-known Republican politicians and on state levels with even more explicit calls for violence. Republicans, currently unpopular, out of power, and searching for a way to energize their base going into 2022 and 2024, are playing to the absolute worst people. Because that's part of their base now – fascists. Every time people have been warned about the growing threat of fascism in the United States over the past five years, conservatives have dismissed this, liberals have clucked their tongues and said this was unhelpful rhetoric, and some among us have used this as an opportunity to say that the United States has always been like this, which is only partly true but mostly a defeatist attitude. Saying “It's always been this.” while watching things get worse is not helpful. The circumstances have changed.

If you are wondering how you can get involved and potentially help stem the tide of fascism, there are resources in the description. I hope you will take the time to give that a look. I urge people to get involved within their own skill set. We can argue that fascists were always going to vote Republican, but now fascists are out of the shadows and being actively courted. We can argue that the Republican Party has been dangerous for a long time, but now the leash is off the dog. There are no restraints now that the Republican Party knows for certain both the acceptability of far right politics in the mainstream and the lack of meaningful consequences for their actions. If the commander-in-chief can stage a violent insurrection into the United States Capitol and be acquitted by the very Senate he attempted to overtake, then there is simply nothing that the Republican Party can't do and no reason why they won't try more and more dangerous and violent means to get what they want. The danger this poses cannot be overstated. Joe Biden was wrong. The Republican Party did not see the light after the election. They're embracing the darkness.