The South Shall Fall Again

Even knowing that it's all true, it's still hard to imagine what Republican state legislatures are doing around the country.

There's Wisconsin, already talking about impeaching a liberal judge the same day she was just elected to the state Supreme Court.

In Idaho, the legislature passed a bill that would make it a felony for an adult to travel with a minor outside the state and get an abortion where it is legal.  (Apparently in Idaho, parents are who know what's best for their child's education, but not their health and well-being.)

The Georgia legislature passed a bill that would allow them to remove a District Attorney who does something they don't like.

Moving more into the world of the inexplicable occult, North Dakota legislators not only recently blocked an expansion of a free lunch program for low-income school students -- but increased their own budget for meal reimbursements!

And Florida (yes, there's always Florida...) just passed a bill banning most abortion after only six weeks, before most women even know they're pregnant.  And just passed a bill to allow carrying a concealed gun without a permit.  And all that's to go along with their previous book-banning and laws criminalizing what can be taught, and oh-so-much more.

And as horrific and fascist as all these are, they pale compared to the Tennessee House which, as I write this, has voted on motions to expel three Democratic representatives --two black men and a woman, Rep. Justin Jones of Nashville (where the recent school massacre took place), Rep. Gloria Johnson, and Rep. Justin Pearson - on a matter of decorum, after the three joined a protest of high school children protesting gun violence that has been killing schoolkids, includes six deaths in Nashville just weeks earlier.

And the Republican Tennessee legislators -- the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan -- chose to be seen as caricatures of pure Deep South racism and voted to expel the two young black men, but not the white woman.  (For her, the day before, the Tennessee Senate joined the House and passed a very narrow-exception abortion bill...) 

As I said, I know all these things are true.  It's just hard to imagine them.  At least in a Democratic society.  But these are pure fascism.  Right out of the Fascism Playbook 101.  All of which I wrote about here, in case anyone has even the slightest doubt.

By the way, falling ridiculously so-far over backwards to be fair and suggesting that these three legislators were in the wrong in their "decorum," there are a great many other options the Tennessee House could have done, like a vote to censure, or to strip committee assignments, or...whatever, take away their TV privileges.  But no, Tennessee Republicans chose to deny citizens of the state the right of having their duly-elected representatives and expel those representatives who were supporting the protests of their constituents.

Those three representatives - two young black men and a woman - are  Rep. Justin Jones of Nashville (where the recent massacre took place), Gloria Johnson and Justin Pearson.  I have no doubt that the Republican Party has made them all martyrs, and that all three - who have been eloquently and relentlessly vocal - will not be silenced and become even more outspoken.

Further, for all I know, there will be legal challenges that could overturn this Tennessee House action.  While still raising the profile of these duly-elected representatives.  Actually, and utterly bizarrely, it may even be far easier than that.  Tennessee State Sen. London Lamar, who is the State Democratic Caucus Chair, says that local governing bodies can -- okay, are you ready? -- reappoint the two representatives who were just expelled!!  In fact, the Nashville Metro Government is meeting as early as this Monday and is expected to reappoint Rep. Jones, and Sen. Lamar added that she feels certain that the Shelby County Commission in Memphis will reappoint Sen. Pearson, an opinion that would seem to hold a great deal of weight since she represents -- Shelby County.

And the Tennessee Republicans, in their fascist zeal, likely accomplished nothing, except that it skyrocketed the visibility, support and platform of Rep. Jones and Rep. Pearson.

I won't try to explain why it's so reprehensible to a democracy, because if a person doesn't immediately get it and think so, then no explanation will convince the person, who is supporting fascism, even if they don't want to admit it.

I will note that legal analyst Elie Mystal says the Tennessee legislature just gave the best lesson on Critical Race Theory and institutionalized racism possible, better than any class or book could provide.

And rather than me explain anything, I want to quote Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton who compared the student protest to the January 6 Insurrection.

Sexton said, and yes, this is real - "What they did today was equivalent, at least equivalent, maybe worse depending on how you look at it, to doing an Insurrection in the State Capitol."

To begin with, Speaker Sexton either doesn't understand or does but wants to falsely outrage his party's cult base who doesn't understand the difference between an Insurrection which is a violent attempt to overthrow government and a peaceful protest on behalf of saving children from being murdered.

Further, at the January 6 Insurrection there were six related deaths, hundreds of injuries, almost 1,000 guilty verdicts (so far) and even more arrests.  At the Tennessee House protest, the combined total of all of this was…zero.

Additionally, there's something almost amusing (in a bizarre, sick, pathetic way) that Republican Sexton is trying to position that protest as being so horrific by comparing it to the January 6 Insurrection - something that many, or even most Republicans in the U.S. House not only aren't calling an "Insurrection," but some have even tried to say was nothing more than tourists visiting the U.S. Capitol.

But best of all is the fascist Sexton's phrase that the peaceful protest on behalf of saving the lives of schoolchildren, was maybe worse "depending on how you look at it" to the Insurrection on January 6.

"Depending on how you look at it."  Oh, how notable that he had to include that qualifier, without which even he thought his statement was idiotically ludicrous.  But no, "depending on how you look at it" - a disclaimer that you could add to pretty much anything in life if you wanted to make it sound evil.

Buying a puppy is as bad, maybe worse than the Holocaust…depending on how you look at it.  Because, yes, if you're a Nazi and supported the concentration camps and murder of six million Jews, doing something nice and kind is unthinkably malevolent - depending on how you look at it.

So, yes, depending on how you look at it, a peaceful protest to save children from being massacred is maybe worse than a violent Insurrection - because you're a fascist who supported the attempt to overthrow the government and thought that that was a really good thing, to overturn democracy on behalf of fascism and are distraught that it failed.  And this in Tennessee was a peaceful protest to protect schoolchildren, which by comparison is far, far worse - depending on how you look at it.

But then, of course, if you're a fascist, pretty much anything democratic looks worse than a failed attempt to establish fascism.  After all, it all depends on how you look at it.

How I look at it is that the Republican Party is now like a cult and has long-since gone full fascist.

I don't know how this fascist action against democracy on behalf of gun violence against schoolchildren will impact future elections in Tennessee.  It might be so heavily gerrymandered that it won't have much effect.  Or not.  But between this and the recent actions in Wisconsin, Georgia, Idaho, North Dakota, Florida, and elsewhere, the fascist Republican Party keeps giving Democrats even more evidence of extremism to run against in 2024 than they had in 2022, which voters across the country saw, were aghast by and used to crush GOP hopes for a massive Red wave.

But then, in the end, fascists have to be fascist.