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https://prospect.org/politics/2024-08-14-neighborliness-option-chicago-migrants-dnc/>
"The sharpest illustration of the Republican Party’s slide into fascism came
during a presidential primary debate in late 2023. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis
held up a map he claimed documented every time someone defecated in the streets
of San Francisco. Practically the entire city was blotted out by brown. Here,
in graphic form, was a central argument of Donald Trump’s party: Democratic
governance has drowned the nation’s cities in shit.
As with so many right-wing arguments, its greatest vulnerability is contact
with reality. As startled NASCAR fans from conservative areas kept telling
reporters two summers running when visiting Chicago for the races on the
downtown streets:
Wow, this place is really nice! But not content to merely
lie about reality in order to dehumanize their enemies, fascists will
create
a reality if it helps them more effectively demonize their enemies—flooding the
zone with shit, as it were, to borrow Steve Bannon’s metaphor for his work to
befoul the public’s trust in the media.
For over two years now, the most striking right-wing project to invent a
dystopian reality while claiming only to describe it has been practiced by Greg
Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas."
Via Kevin O'Brien.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
