Rachel Maddow said that the Republican Party is the only institution that can pull the plug on Trump, which is why the former president is testing them by invoking Hitler.
Maddow said:
There’s no bar association to yank his law license. There’s no radio or TV network to say we’re not hosting your show anymore. What is the institution here that decides this is on their patch? What is the institution here that decides that you can never espouse things like this and also be part of them and also represent them?
There is only one. It’s his political party. Which when he is running to be the Republican nominee for president of the United States, means he’s contending to lead that party. While promising he will build camps it hold millions of people in this country and use the military against American civilians at home in America and his political opponents are vermin who will be crushed and exterminated. That is the test here. That — he’s not running as an independent. He’s not running as the trump for president candidate.
He’s running as the Republican, he wants to be the Republican nominee for president. So that is the only institution, the institution that is be tested here. This is him testing the political party that he says he’s going to lead. Testing them now. One year out from the election, to see what they will tolerate as an institution. Which means every single member of that party will now have to answer whether this is who they are, whether this is hot they stand for, whether this is the cause of their party.
We know from history that a country under threat does not stand up for itself with some kind of civic objection that just redounds to the country at large. In real life, a country under threat stands up for itself when the institutions that make up the civic and political life of the country stand up and say what they’re for and what they can no longer stand for.
Video:
Rachel Maddow was correct. At this point, Trump is intentionally invoking Hitler and Mussolini because he is testing the Republican Party to see if it will go all in with him on his fascism. Trump is trying to find out if he can transform one of the two major political parties in the United States into a fascist movement.
In the fall of 2024, Democrats could stop Trump and his fascists from taking over the country, but there is a very specific reason for why Trump is using this rhetoric now.
Donald Trump has taken over the Republican Party. The next step is to turn the former party of Lincoln and Reagan into an anti-democracy authoritarian movement,
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Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
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Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association