The worldwide, agelong struggle between fascism and democracy will not stop when the fighting ends in Germany and Japan.
— Henry Wallace
Make no mistake, Ron DeSantis is a fascist of the first order.
Scapegoating is his go-to strategy, as it was Hitler's.
Consider DeSantis' latest fundraising appeal, brought to my attention by a praiseworthy article in the neo-Nazi, pro-Trump magazine The American Mind.
In it, DeSantis asks donors to recognize their common enemy.
"Our country is currently facing a great threat," he begins. "A new enemy has emerged from the shadows that seeks to destroy and intimidate their way to a transformed state that you and I would hardly recognize."
And who is the common enemy donors should fear?
"The radical vigilante woke mob," he says; a hard-charging horde of hysterics comprising teachers, writers, athletes, philanthropists, scientists, CEOs, and liberal politicians.
This is the mob, DeSantis says, that burned our cities in 2020, crucified Karl Rittenhouse, and stigmatized anti-maskers; this is the mob now persecuting the January 6 insurgents.
The radical vigilante woke mob will not only "tear down monuments and buildings, but tear down the American spirit," DeSantis writes. "They go after the family unit, parental rights, traditional moral values, the church, and fact-based education."
DeSantis is fairly blunt in identifying precisely who populates this steamrolling juggernaut: Jews, Queers, Blacks, and Commies.
"Over the past few years, we’ve watched horrified as this group has attempted to brainwash our children into thinking we live in an evil, racist, irredeemable country," he says.
"We listened to them deny science and data to exert political theater, all the while trampling over personal liberties enshrined in the Constitution.
"We saw them take to the streets for an entire summer like outlaws, burning, looting, and destroying everything in sight."
But, never fear, the radical vigilante woke mob has met its match: Ron DeSantis.
"I am choosing to counter this enemy with faith, with reason, and with freedom," DeSantis declares. "As Governor of the Free State of Florida, I have chosen to lead with a vision that builds America up, rather than tears it down."
If this drivel sounds all-too familiar, it's due to its resemblance to Hitler's rantings.
Hitler targeted only Jews and Commies, because Germany in the 1930s had few open Queers, and even fewer Blacks; and called the common enemy the "Jewish influence," instead of the "radical vigilante woke mob."
"In the course of my life I have very often been a prophet, and have usually been ridiculed for it," Hitler said in 1939. "During the time of my struggle for power, the Jews received my prophecies with laughter when I said I would one day take over the state and settle the Jewish problem. Their laughter was uproarious—but I think for some time now they have been laughing on the other side of their face.
"Today I will once more be a prophet: if the international Jewish financiers should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, the result will not be the Bolshevization of the earth—and thus the victory of Jewry—but the annihilation of all Jews in Europe!
"The nations are no longer willing to die on the battlefield so that this unstable international race may profit from a war or satisfy its Old Testament vengeance.
"The Jewish watchword 'Workers of the world unite' will be conquered by a higher realization, namely 'Workers of all classes and nations recognize your common enemy!'"
Now hold on, wait a minute!
In other words, am I fretting over a libtard's bugaboo?
A more companionable commentator, columnist David Brooks, would say that I'm not, despite his conservative leanings.
He sees DeSantis and his craven followers as the vanguard of "the terrifying future of the American right," which he describes as "the fusing of the culture war and the class war into one epic Marxist Götterdämmerung."
Hitler called that conformity the "national community."
DeSantis calls it "We The People."
With no room for dissent, or for bodily or intellectual autonomy, there's not much difference.
