Neither Party a Port in This Storm

Politico carries a thought-provoking interview of historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who specializes in fascism and authoritarian leaders. I think the piece is worth reading for both its penetrating insight into the current state of the Republican Party as well as for its astonishing blindness to that of the Democrats.

Regarding the former, Ben-Ghiat discusses Florida's Ron DeSantis, a capable understudy of Donald Trump:

Image by Erin Baiano, via Wikimedia Commons, license.

[DeSantis] has autocratic tendencies. What's so interesting is he was a Reaganite and then he had clearly some kind of epiphany when Trump came on the scene. He had that campaign video that showed his house being transformed into an altar for Trump. And he got the endorsement. He has absorbed the lessons of what you need to get ahead in the GOP today. And that is to be a forceful bully, even to high school students. The way he carries himself and speaks has gotten much more aggressive. And he's also very smartly tried to turn Florida into this refuge for all who are oppressed by Biden. He invited New York city cops and people from all over the nation who are oppressed by federal government vaccine [rules], or state mandates, [to] come to Florida and be free. And so that's one way he's setting up Florida to be the fiefdom of a certain politics, a certain ideology, that he clearly then wants to take national. And in fact his spokesperson, Christina Pushaw, says, "Make America Florida." [bold and link added]

Make America Florida would be fine if that meant, Make America Free, but I have noted here before both DeSantis's attacks on speech and property rights (in the name of free speech!) and his outright fascism regarding the freedom businessmen ought to have regarding right to contract.

DeSantis clearly does not understand or care much about capitalism or freedom -- but he does know how to get votes from people rightly upset at the current occupants of the White House and Congress.

But if Ben-Ghiat is prescient regarding Trump and DeSantis, she seems oblivious to the danger to freedom posed by the Democrats, whom she strangely accuses of not having "that force of concentration of message, that repetition."

What part of defund the police! climate emergency! mansplaining! identify as! RACIST!!!! has she not heard repeated ad inifinitum over the past few years? And how in hell is the sum total of this (which sounds to my ear like Western Civilization must die.) better for freedom than Trust that a rambling idiot knows what's best?

And, yes, while Democrats are not authoritarian in style, it is clear, with the rise of such self-described socialists as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over the past few years, that the Democrats hardly stand for freedom, to say the least. The following quote from Ayn Rand -- who fled a non-fascist dictatorship -- might be worth repeating here:

The main characteristic of socialism (and of communism) is public ownership of the means of production, and, therefore, the abolition of private property. The right to property is the right of use and disposal. Under fascism, men retain the semblance or pretense of private property, but the government holds total power over its use and disposal... -- Ayn Rand, in "The Fascist New Frontier"

Dr. Ben-Ghiat might imagine, as recent events have shown, some "social" "justice" "warrior" discovering that she once had something complimentary to say about a Dead White Male, and starting a campaign to have her ousted from her academic position for such a heresy.

Ben-Ghiat is right to warn us about "the right," but it comes as cold comfort in the full context, which is that today's left differs in style, but not anti-freedom substance.

The great tragedy of our current political situation is that the Democrats are nakedly power-hungry and blatantly contemptuous of America. And Americans, desperate to elect someone who will fight back, see the pandering pugilists of today's GOP and take them for what they aren't: the champions they need.

-- CAV