McCarthy Is America's Franz von Papen-- We've Seen This Movie Before

McCarthy Is America's Franz Von Papen-- We've Seen This Movie Before

The threat of pushing the US into a sovereign debt default in order to force the dismantling of Social Security, Medicare, the social safety net, and NATO is an act of terrorist hostage-taking and a national security threat of the highest order, which will imperil the full faith and credit of the United States, cripple the US economy, and hand much of Europe over to our strategic adversary, Russia. It is treason. That is the essence of "Speaker" McCarthy's agreement which finally gained him his gavel, "his thirty pieces of silver." 

The actual consequences of such policies will be Nazi-style mass murder, committed through the legislative triage of millions of defenseless human beings, using a budget knife instead of machine guns and gas chambers. 

If they succeed, Kevin McCarthy will go down in history as America's Franz Von Papen, the German "conservative" who helped install and enable Hitler by joining his Cabinet as Vice-Chancellor and giving his initial minority government the semblance of legitimacy, even though he was not an actual Nazi himself. 

Someone might mention this historical equivalence to "Speaker" McCarthy, who believes he has an "arrangement" for power sharing with Trump, and remind him that Von Papen's reward for his groveling to Hitler was that a year and a half into his dictatorship, Hitler purged his erstwhile former allies in the "Night Of The Long Knives," including emphatically his own Stormtroopers leadership, conservative rivals and long-time enemies. Von Papen was one of the lucky ones whose life was spared, but he was forced into exile. Others like former Chancellor Kurt Von Schleicher were not so fortunate and were shot dead by the SS and police, along with close to a thousand others. 

Some nice speeches were given yesterday, and there will be more in the future. At what point however will someone speak to the reality of what this actually is, and lead a real resistance, instead of trying to pile up some political points toward the next election? That is, an election which might not even happen or be legitimate. 

Impossible you say? No free elections? Ask yourselves, "why it is that their very first action on their very first day in power was to remove the magnetometers at the door?" 

What message did that send, and to whom? What is this really? 

For those who think that is fantastical hyperbole, read some history and remember some of the things which fascists do. Then try to convince yourselves that these MAGA acolytes are either not really fascists, are too small in number, or that it can't happen here. Tell yourselves the lie that McCarthy is a "moderate," who represents a check against the influence of the abominably misnamed Freedom Caucus. Keep rationalizing why it is acceptable to sit back and do nothing but watch, then see how that works out in the end. 

In the meantime, I'm still waiting for President Biden to throw the rulebook out in order to defend the rule of law. Our democracy has reached that point, in my view. Lincoln led the war to defeat the Confederacy, and FDR likewise against the Nazis. In both cases, their fight against "Fifth Columnists" was integral to winning these wars.  What we are fighting today is a hybrid evil, combining elements of both. The mob which attacked our Capitol two years ago with the support of these Congressmen literally wore the insignias and waved the flags representing both evil systems. 

Some idiots have described this whole affair as a "clown show or must see TV" to be watched while eating popcorn.  I see it as a rise of a "Fourth Reich."  So, those people making nice speeches had better put some weight behind their words. The clock is ticking.