We used to have two rational, credible political parties in this country. Politics stopped at the water’s edge. People at the extremes were disappointed, but both parties respected civility, played by the rules, and respected the Constitution.
Dana Milbank warns us that the Republican Party has slipped off the edge into the muck of extremismism. Trump was the pied Piper, but he was preceded by other zealots like Newt Gingrich. And it has only gotten worse.
He writes:
This past weekend’s massacre in Buffalo has put a deserved spotlight on Elise Stefanik, Tucker Carlson, Newt Gingrich, Matt Gaetz, J.D. Vance and others trafficking in the racist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory.
But the problem goes well beyond the rhetoric of a few Republican officials and opinion leaders. Elected Republicans haven’t merely inspired far-right extremists. They have become far-right extremists.
A new report shows just how extensively the two groups have intertwined.
The study, released on Friday by the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, a decades-old group that tracks right-wing extremism, found that more than 1 in 5 Republican state legislators in the United States were affiliated with far-right groups. The IREHR (which conducted a similar study with the NAACP in 2010 on racism within the tea party) cross-referenced the personal, campaign and official Facebook profiles of all 7,383 state legislators in the United States during the 2021-22 legislative period with thousands of far-right Facebook groups. The researchers found that 875 legislators — all but three of them Republicans — were members of one or more of 789 far-right Facebook groups. That works out to 22 percent of all Republican state legislators….
The far-right groups range from new iterations of the tea party and certain antiabortion and Second Amendment groups to white nationalists, neo-Confederates and sovereign citizen entities that claim to be exempt from U.S. law. The IREHR largely excluded from its list membership in historically mainstream conservative groups such as the National Rifle Association and in pro-Trump and MAGA groups, focusing instead on more radical groups defined by nationalism or antidemocratic purposes.
I worry for the future of our democracy. I don’t think—as some do—that we are on the verge of a civil war. Only one side would be armed. But January 6 might be a harbinger of worse to come.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“I don’t think—as some do—that we are on the verge of a civil war. Only one side would be armed.”
I think you might be surprised at how many on that supposedly unarmed side there are.
“. . . how many weapons. . . “
Duane, for chits and grins, check out
Crippled Inside by Thomas Major…
Unfortunately, Matt Gaetz represents my district. this fool is running again. In my area there are a number of signs that read: Keep Gaetz fighting. Not only is this funny, but I keep thinking the sign should read: Keep Gaetz fighting….in jail.
“I don’t think—as some do—that we are on the verge of a civil war. Only one side would be armed.”
Used to be WE were armed with education!
Data, civility, to some degree, “the common good” argument… And, leaders who either stood up (Kennedy, Johnson… yes, Bush) or shut up (they only spewed their racism, white male power, homophobia, and science-denying at the dinner table and smoke filled back rooms).
George Wallace was distanced by the GOP in spite of votes he secured and David Duke, and Lester Maddox were outliers. Today they would be the elected President and the appointed Cabinet today.
And (sorry) – we hold some responsibility – could have taught civics, history, Supreme Court rulings, science, economics (effects of SES), THE ARTS (seriously – it matters more than most know), and sociology (with data) a lot better (especially in the south)! It’s not too late
George Wallace was a Democrat and ran as an American Independent Party candidate for the presidency.
1 in 5 Republican state legislators in the United States are affiliated with far-right groups, but most if not all of the 4 in 5 that may not be affiliated with these fascist and or religious zombies are afraid to come out publicly against them for fear that they will lose elections.
When I use the word “fascist” like this, I’m not referring to Hitler and the Nazis but to one these definitions used to define what it means to be a fascist.
Britannica Dictionary definition of FASCISM
[noncount]
“… a way of organizing a society in which a government ruled by a dictator controls the lives of the people and in which people are not allowed to disagree with the government”
very harsh control or authority
Hitler and the Nazis were fascists but not all fascists belong to the Nazi Party. Now, many fascists’ belong to the U.S. Republican Party.
Raw Story’s “Republicans learn to promote fascism at the feet of the master” (May 20-2022 ) – one of the lessons identified is the marginalization of women. A highlighted paragraph, twelfth from the bottom, warrants the highlighting.
After the Supreme Court refused to take Trump’s stupid election fraud case, the chair of the Republican Party of Texas wrote that it was time to consider seceding from the union. Reading the Facebook comments on the Texas Republican Party page at that time was instructive. Overwhelming support in the comments for that. This is not a fringe idea among Republicans anymore.