We have not yet dodged the bullet

It has been a while since former president Donald Trump said something as ridiculous as what he said Thursday night during an interview with Fox News’s Laura Ingraham.

  WaPo

That publicly, anyway.

Ingraham had asked the former president to opine on security at the U.S. Capitol, including on the once-imposing physical barriers that have recently been scaled back.

Trump said it was “disgraceful” and that it was “a political maneuver that they’re doing,” a vague “they” that, as usual, refers broadly to Trump’s opponents.

The former president then tried to rewrite history.

“Right from the start, it was zero threat,” Trump said of the Capitol. “Look, they went in. They shouldn’t have done it. Some of them went in and they’re — they’re hugging and kissing the police and the guards. You know, they had great relationships. A lot of the people were waved in and then they walked in and they walked out.”

“They're persecuting a lot of those people,” the former president said of those who had been arrested.

He did grudgingly then admit that some of those arrested were more problematic, just as he once grudgingly admitted that not all immigrants were criminals and just as he once grudgingly admitted that there were some white nationalists involved in Charlottesville. But now, as on those occasions, his most immediate assessment of what happened reveals his most honest opinion. Just as the reporting at the time indicated, Trump approved of the storming of the Capitol.

He not only approved; he called it forth.

The litany of law enforcement injuries is probably familiar to you now — concussions, bruises, a heart attack, death — and tells a very different and more accurate story than the one Trump offered.

It is ridiculous for Trump to make claims like this, but we're accustomed to such behavior. The familiarity of it, though, can blur how dangerous it is.

[...]

Shortly before Trump’s interview with Ingraham, [...] Fox News host Tucker Carlson welcomed the far-right personality Jesse Kelly.

[...]

“Things kind of break down at some point, don't they?” Carlson asked.

“They will break down. They are breaking down,” Kelly replied. “I’ve said this before and I’m telling you, I’m worried that I’m right: The right is going to pick a fascist within 10 to 20 years because they’re not going to be the only ones on the outs.”

“Right,” Carlson replied. “That's right.”

They're not worried about it; they're eagerly pushing for it.

“The inevitable counter to communism is fascism,” Kelly wrote on Twitter last month. “We will see a monster rise on the Right in response to the Left’s violence and censorship. It will be awful. But it is coming. I promise you that.”

[...]

Carlson and Ingraham pulled in millions of viewers last month and, on Thursday, hundreds of thousands saw Carlson nod at fascism as hundred of thousands more heard the former president reframe a fascistic attempt to undermine the results of the 2020 election with approval.

[...]

[T]hat commentary overlapped with real-world manifestations of how the political right is rejecting democracy.

One of the less obvious occurred in Missouri. Last November, voters were asked to weigh in on a proposal that would expand Medicaid coverage in the state. It passed by a 6-point margin.

Republicans in the state legislature, though, have blocked funding for the program. One offered an explicit rationale for opposing the move.

“Rural Missouri said no,” said State Rep. Sara Walsh (R). “I don’t believe it is the will of the people to bankrupt our state.”

This is not a unique case in Missouri where the voters approved something that the people in power decided didn't need to be implemented. And I doubt it's unique to Missouri. In fact, they tried to pull it off in the national election of 2020. They might not fail next time.

As Carlson’s show was airing Thursday, Gov. Brian Kemp (R-Ga.) was signing into law a bill that imposes new restrictions on voting in his state. It’s an odd turn of events for Kemp, given that he and other state Republicans were praised in the months after the 2020 election for rejecting Trump’s efforts to undermine confidence in the results in the state.

[...]

We've documented the GOP's shift away from small-l liberalism, but rarely have so many examples of that shift presented over such a short period of time. Many in the party are concerned about losing power in the face of an evolving American electorate and, as a result, many embrace the idea that democracy should or can be handcuffed.

"Canceled." 

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.