The GOP’s 2024 platform is what FASCISM looks like

This is not a drill, it's FASCISM!

The corporate media’s non-stop coverage of “Biden v. Biden” —as I call it where all they talk is President Biden’s issues and ignore the dire threats posed by the convicted felon, adjudicated rapist Donald Trump—has resulted in many key issues not getting the attention they demand.

One of those issues missed by the corporate media took place Monday and is as an alarming reminder that the Republican Party is dead and has been replaced by a Trump controlled fascist movement that will---like other fascist movements—agree to any and everything the leader demands.

Don’t take my word for it. Just listen to what Republican National Committee member Gail Ruzicka said about the 2024 GOP platform approved on Monday in advance of next week’s Republican National Convention (RNC). Ruzicka—who has been a part of past RNC conventions--told the media after the platform was jammed through by MAGA loyalists: “This has never happened before. We always had subcommittees where we can go in and work on a section of the platform. We can propose amendments, debate them, add them.” But this time she noted Trump’s backers, “didn’t allow any amendments. They didn’t allow any discussion. They rolled us. That’s what they did.”

Apparently Ruzicka was oblivious to that fact that the GOP of old is dead—as is dissent in its ranks. The party of Lincoln has been replaced by the party of Donald Trump that demands absolutely loyalty to their leader and to his every whim.

That is why the 2024 GOP platform—which is expected to be formally approved at next week’s Republican National Convention--reads like a combination of Trump speeches and social media posts. Gone are long standing Republican principles, replaced now by Trump’s personal views on trade, abortion, etc.  

Even more alarming, the Trump crafted platform feeds his lust for revenge as evidence by this platform pledge: “We will hold accountable those who have misused the power of Government to unjustly prosecute their Political Opponents.”  Yes, the GOP has put in writing that one of their top priorities is for Trump to use the DOJ to criminally prosecute his critics.

As Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law and current RNC co-chair, Lara Trump, declared about the new platform, "If you look at it, it has Donald Trump written all over it," adding, "This is his platform."  The fact that Trump’s daughter in law is serving as RNC co-chair is yet another sign of the iron grip he holds over the GOP.

While it’s true that platforms are not controlling as to policy, they do evidence what a political party wants the nation to know are its priorities heading into that presidential election.  And what we get from this platform is that the GOP is defined by whatever convicted felon Trump feels at the time is in his best interest politically—not what the issues are that once defined the GOP or what is good for the nation.

For starters, while there was no new platform drafted in 2020 (allegedly because of the Covid pandemic), the GOP’s 66 page 2016 platform read like a salute to Ronald Reagan and his values, citing him and his policies more than ten times. (Also touted in the 2016 platform were George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush.)

Flash forward to the 2024 platform. How many times is Reagan mentioned? Zero.  Reagan has been erased from the GOP platform—just as George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush have--because Trump doesn’t want anyone honored but him. The new 16-page 2024 platform titled, “Make America Great Again” instead cites and praises Trump nearly 20 times.

As to policy, the new platform replaces GOP well established positions on issues like free trade with Trump’s embrace of massive tariffs on imports. The most glaring reversal, however, is on an issue that has defined the GOP in the modern era and that is a 40 plus year call in past Republican platforms for a national ban. However, the 2024 platform dropped that bedrock principal. Why? Simple, Trump understands that will hurt him politically given recent polls show that nearly 80 percent of Americans oppose a national abortion ban. Trump wanted it gone and its gone.

But perhaps most telling is that anti-abortion groups that had been critical of the proposed platform are now supporting it even though it ignores one of their most “sacred” beliefs.  As PBS reported: “Anti-abortion advocates who had criticized the Trump campaign’s efforts leading up to the platform committee’s meeting largely fell in line Monday.”

That further validates Trump’s absolute control of the party.  And to be blunt, if tomorrow Trump declared that he’s reversing himself on any of the key issues in the platform, he knows the base will go along with him. Indeed, Trump has long known this, infamously declaring in June 2016--quit accurately in retrospect--that, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose any voters, okay?"

That bond only appears to have grown stronger since that comment. As Yale Professor Jason Stanley, author of the book “How Fascism Works,” explained in 2020, Trump has forged with his supporters “a fascist connection of total loyalty,”  adding,” his supporters seem to see the world through a prism. Are you with him or against them?” Stanley continued, Trump—like other fascist leaders—"cares about power first and foremost.” To that end, “Fascism is about the leader crushing everyone else, and dominating others, and creating a movement that's all about him.”

Authoritarian expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of the book, “Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present” has warned for years that what she sees with Trump and his base is “an allegiance based on loyalty to a person — not a party and not to a set of principles.”   And more recently Ben-Ghiat noted that Trump’s  creation of “personality cult” with blind loyalty from his base is one of the defining characteristics of fascist movements.

This a big reason why Trump’s firehose of lies—more than 30,000 “untruths” per the Washington Post in his four years as President--don’t cause his base to question their loyalty of Trump. As Stanley explained, many of Trump’s supporters view him as “infallible,”  adding insightfully, “There's the denial of reality that is characteristic of fascism, as if reality is just a construction.” Meaning whatever Trump says is the truth is the truth.

It's also why Trump can rewrite the 2024 GOP platform to suit his own interests and his base stays loyal. To them, the GOP is no longer about policy or principles. It’s only about Trump. And that is exactly the way Trump wants it. 

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