Fascism, Democracy, and the Price of Bacon

You won’t get cheaper bacon but you will have elected a lawless, fascist kleptocrat.

by Bob Cesca

WASHINGTON, DC – I’ve been saying for a while now: this election is about fascism versus democracy. And we can now say as a matter of factual reality that Donald Trump is a fascist who admires Adolf Hitler. After hearing and reading confirmation from three different named, on-the-record sources, let there be no doubt how he plans to govern should the nightmare scenario come to pass in a couple weeks.

In the past several days, reporting from Bob Woodward and The New York Times quoted three top generals, all of whom worked inside the Trump administration, that yes, Donald is a fascist and “the most dangerous person ever.” The first was Gen. Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, then it was Donald’s former Secretary of Defense, Gen. Jim Mattis, and this week, it’s Gen. John Kelly, Donald’s former chief of staff (co-president, essentially). 

In other words, we’re not talking about several woke liberals who routinely describe people using this word, so yes, they’re all three confirming what we’ve all believed is true. If Donald Trump manages to win this election, American democracy as we know it will end. Nearly 250 years of blood and sacrifice to defend the integrity of our democratic system would be flushed away, and knowing what we know about fascist dictatorships, it won’t be easy to get it back.

Perhaps the most important prong of Donald’s fascist plan for America is, of course, Project 2025. The Heritage Foundation’s published roadmap for a second Donald Trump presidency calls for, and Donald has endorsed, the firing of more than 50,000 federal employees – a massive workforce of American citizens, with lives, families, and mortgages, tasked with doing the business of the United States. Every one of them is set to be fired and replaced with pro-Donald loyalists who will pledge to do whatever he orders them to do. 

Normally, there are civil service protections to prevent such blanket firings without cause, but in October 2020, Donald signed an executive order establishing a rule called Schedule F, allowing him to fire federal workers at his discretion. Fortunately, the 2020 election went our way and he never had a chance or reason to implement it. President Biden swiftly overturned the order.

Nevertheless, here are three things to bear in mind about this in case the tragedy of it isn’t sinking in. 

First, it’ll probably be many more than 50,000 employees. Second, Heritage has been recruiting loyalists in a massive hiring spree for at least a year now. And most importantly, it’ll be these 50,000 loyalists who could ensure that Donald can not only willfully disregard the laws and Constitution of the United States, but, more importantly, they’ll allow him to remain in office after his (technically) one remaining term draws to a close. Who else will drag him out? Surely not the incoming loyalists implanted in the military, the Secret Service, or the U.S. Marshals Service. And it definitely won’t be the Justice Department, which, per Project 2025, will be placed under the direct control of the White House. Donald’s own police force.

If you think I’m being hyperbolic, remember who we’re talking about and what he’s done already. Add to the mix the horrendous reality that the Supreme Court has endowed him with the ability to gratuitously ignore the law as long as it’s justified as an “official act” of the presidency.

Anyone who tells you Congress and the courts will stop him should look no further than the conga-line of Republican on the Hill who continuously backstop his worst blurts and deeds, gaslighting the rest of us about what’s staring us in the face, not to mention a federal judiciary that’s stacked with Donald-appointed jurists like Aileen Cannon.

Without a doubt, he will be a lawless dictator whose actions will confirm every warning, from his relentless persecution of trans people, to his deportation of people of color, to his military round-up of “enemies from within” such as Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi, members of the news media, and peaceful protesters, to his pillaging of the national treasury. 

The f-word doesn’t fully describe what kind of presidency it’ll be. 

We should probably think of his reign as a disgusting chimera of fascism and Vladimir Putin. The Russian dictator has proved it’s possible to remain in office for life, and he’s illustrated for Donald that it’s relatively easy – especially in a lawless office – to move taxpayer money out of the treasury and into his own pockets. He’s Donald’s benefactor and role model. We should absolutely expect him to form his own presidency in that style.

Why didn’t he do this in his previous term, some might ask. First of all, he actually did. He overcharged the Secret Service by 300 percent, and managed to rake in $2.5 million from the federal government – our tax dollars. But now that he’ll be untethered from the law and backstopped by more than 50,000 loyalists, we can expect Donald to rob the treasury of much more, achieving far worse.

And while he’s getting rich off taxpayers, those taxpayers will be hit with massive inflation, another deep recession, and a Social Security trust fund that will be empty within six years thanks to his policies. That last part about Social Security? I saw that reported on Fox News today. Yes, Donald’s policies will cause the social safety net to evaporate before the end of this decade. 

So, if you or anyone you know is thinking about punishing the Democrats by electing Donald because of the price of bacon or whatever the trivial excuse might be, think again. You won’t get cheaper bacon but you will have elected a lawless, fascist kleptocrat who will tax you to death, steal your money, crash the economy, and end both Social Security and democracy as we know it. 

Oh, you won’t be able to get rid of him in four years. Dictators don’t give up power.

Vote wisely.

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