 Before I've explained how Republicans pose a threat to U.S. democracy, and I think that more and more people are beginning to realize the ways in which they do indeed pose a threat to democracy. The problem is that there are still some individuals who believe that some Republicans, if they're not associated directly with Donald Trump, perhaps they're not as nefarious. But the problem is that's not actually true. So one thing that really comes to mind is this conversation that Bill Maher had a couple of weeks ago about Ron DeSantis and how he was preferable to Donald Trump because at least Ron DeSantis, unlike Trump, doesn't pose a direct threat to democracy. The problem is that that's not true. Sure, it is the case that some Republicans do not pose a direct threat to democracy, but there are so many elected Republican officials that pose a direct threat to democracy that I think that you can generalize and say most of them do and be pretty accurate, especially when it comes to someone like Ron DeSantis who in no way is the savior of American democracy if he wins out compared to Donald Trump. As Brett Bachman of Salon explains, public universities in Florida will be required to survey both faculty and students on their political beliefs and viewpoints with the institutions at risk of losing their funding if the responses are not satisfactory to the state's Republican-led legislature. The unprecedented project which was tucked into a law signed Tuesday by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis is part of a long-running nationwide right-wing push to promote intellectual diversity on campuses, though worries over a lack of details on the survey's privacy protections and questions over what the results may ultimately be used for hover over the venture. Based on the bill's language, survey responses will not necessarily be anonymous, sparking worries among many professors and other university staff that they may be targeted held back in their careers or even fired for their beliefs. Now, individuals might see this and based on the wording of that text think, okay, this is just Republicans playing into their victim complex, right? They are talking about how they're always purged from social media and how there's no ideological diversity on campuses. It's all leftists and this is just them trying to push back and have more influence, but do not be fooled by them. This is a preemptive, deliberate attack on their ideological opponents so they can consolidate power nationwide at all levels of governments. Let me remind you, this is not the first time that Ron DeSantis has attacked his ideological opponents. In this same state, he decriminalized running over protesters effectively. He banned protests outside of residential areas. He banned 41% of math books citing critical race theory as the reason. And because of his don't say gay law, attorneys for the Orange County School District are instructing teachers to remove photos of their same sex spouses and out students to parents. And also what's happening in Florida is 13 year olds are being arrested for the crime of protesting because Ron DeSantis has made it very clear that he doesn't want protests to be a common phenomenon unless it's the right wingers who are doing it. Now, it's not like Ron DeSantis ordered the arrest of this 13 year old that we're about to see, but this is the environment that he as governor has cultivated. Take a look. Hey, don't resist. Hey, you're okay. Mom's right. What's their name? Oh, they have to take that. Hey, you're okay. Mom's right here. Now, to be clear, nobody knew why that child was being arrested. Now, this is not something that we can view as an isolated incident. What's happening in Florida is not happening in a vacuum. We need to step back and look at the broader GOP project and how collectively they've agreed that democracy is an obstacle to their rule, to their authority. In fact, one of the most influential GOP operatives, Christopher Rufo, is openly bragging about a new plan to purge leftists from all of government. So he tweeted this out on July 1st, as we approach 2024, I will be publishing a policy paper on eliminating left wing ideologies in federal government using the power of the presidency to fundamentally reshape the bureaucracy with the six part program targeting budget content personnel grant making and oversight. The idea is to centralize ideological control over the federal agencies in the White House and create a team of the Office of Management and Budget to enforce it. We could easily wipe out a significant portion of the infrastructure for the left wing ideologies within the federal bureaucracy and within the network of federal guarantees and contractors, which would shift American politics in the right direction. Now, when he says shift American politics in the right direction, he's not saying in the correct direction, he's saying literally in the right wing direction. Now, let's be clear when he says left wing ideologies, he doesn't just mean the far left or socialists, he's talking about liberals as well. Fascists go out of their way to purge political opponents, silent political opponents. And the reason why we're seeing all of this currently is because we are in the phase of legal fascism in the United States, but we'll get to that in a second because there's more on that, that's really important. Now, this again is not occurring in a vacuum. Not too long ago, Charlie Kirk, a prominent conservative propagandist said that once the right takes power, they're not going to give it back. And enjoy being completely politically irrelevant because once you get displaced from power, we're not going to give it back. Republicans controlling, Republicans winning over Hispanics will be the nail in the coffin. We're not going to give that power back. You see, Democrats will just become so unpopular that they'll never win another election again, wink, wink. Meanwhile, all of this is happening in the background where conservatives in these red states are consolidating their power. They're also gearing up to give Republicans nationally more power. The Supreme Court is tripping away civil rights and civil liberties. So people keep asking, you know, is it appropriate to call what's happening fascism? Refer to this as the rise of fascism in the United States. Now, I've made the case as to why this is indeed fascism and we have to treat it as such. But let's just look at the core tenets of fascism according to Umberto Eco. It involves a cult of tradition, rejection of modernism, viewing disagreement as a form of treason. Now, we're not quite there yet, but the GOP, as you saw, is currently laying the groundwork to prosecute ideological opponents and purge them from government. That is fascism, fear of difference, primarily intruders. We see this rhetoric all the time with regard to immigrants, appear to social frustration, selective populism. We see this with Donald Trump with Ron DeSantis, although they're not consistent. Oftentimes, we'll look at them as fake populists, but this is a tenet of fascism. The enemy is both strong and weak. We see this all the time. Liberals are hyper-sensitive snowflakes, but simultaneously, they're also very mean and scary, and they're taking over society and government to the point that we have to purge them from government if you're Christopher Rufo. We see sexism, condemnation of homosexuality. This has ramped up over the last six months. And number 14, control of education. DeSantis banned textbooks, as I mentioned. A Texas school board proposed calling slavery involuntary relocation. So it's not like the modern GOP checks every single box, represents every core tenet of fascism, but they represent quite a bit, enough to where you should be alarmed, enough to where you should no longer be asking, is this or isn't this fascism, and you should now begin to question how long until the death camps are coming. And you might think that that's hyperbole, but would you rather be overly cautious and prepared or be naive and cut off guard? I mean, how far away are we until President Trump or DeSantis signs a similar executive order to 9066, where they place LGBTQ plus people in internment camps, citing an imminent danger that they pose to children. They're already laying the groundwork for this, both socially, culturally, and legally as well. And if you think that that can't happen in America, ask Japanese Americans about that. FDR signed executive order 9066 that placed Japanese Americans along the West Coast in internment camps. And FDR was doing an explicitly fascist thing while he wasn't even a fascist himself. So imagine what kind of fascism actual fascists are going to carry out here in the United States. Now, if you haven't read Jason Stanley's How Fascism Works, I recommend it all the time. I would highly encourage you to read that because it is very illuminating. And more importantly, it's frightening. It serves as a wake-up call. Now, in a recent interview, he described how what we're witnessing currently is the legal stage of fascism. Take a look. It's a pivotal moment because right now we're seeing the legal mechanisms to steal an election being formalized. We're seeing a system put in place that will enable permanent minority rule. We are now in the legal phase and you see historical precedence for this. And you say it's almost like a conversation that has gone on for a century between the Americans who have fascist solutions to national problems and kind of the European experience. And you're saying now this sort of two-way conversation is resurgent in the United States through legal means. Many of the most prominent conservatives sort of scoff at the criticism of these what they call voter integrity measures. They say that some of these measures that are being enacted in the southern states and also really in states around the country that they're just trying to implement voter integrity. They're just trying to give people confidence in our election systems. How do you respond to that? Always call, say about your opponent what you are yourself doing. That's what we're seeing. We're seeing massive projection. We're even seeing the fascist label being thrown at Democrats. So projection is a standard propaganda tool. It was one that Goebbels and Hitler both explicitly recommend, but it's not just fascists who engage in it. But we're seeing this massive projection. It's almost like you can tell what the Republicans are doing by what they say the Democrats are doing. We have to interrogate this, electoral integrity. What does that mean here? Well, you have to filter it through a kind of fascist loyalist lens, which means only the real people of the country should get to determine who the leaders are. And so it's not a really fair election if everyone gets to vote. And we're seeing this again and again. We're seeing Republicans, including former President Trump, say this. If we don't pass these laws, everyone will vote. We're seeing them being very explicit. So the idea is that a real election is one where only the real Americans vote. And this goes back to this idea, which is unfortunately, unless things radically change, going to be a reality of a permanent minority running this country, who in the eyes of that minority are the real Americans. He is absolutely correct. Now, this interview took place before we learned that the Supreme Court would be taking up the case of Morvey Harper in their next session. Now, if you don't know, I have a video about Morvey Harper and how significant that case is. But effectively, if the Supreme Court holds that independent state legislature theory is legitimate, then they will give state legislatures control over our presidential elections. So if, for example, in Arizona, a Democrat is elected by the public during a presidential election, they can just override the results of voters and send in their own electors to the electoral college and unilaterally pick who their state chooses to be the next president. So when we see folks like Charlie Kirk say, once we obtain power, we're not going to give it back, legally they are laying the groundwork to do just that. Jason Stanley, an expert on this, is saying they are currently creating the legal framework for an authoritarian fascist takeover. And there's still a number of people in this country who are denying that it's happening, denying that this is fascism. The time to wake up is right now, acknowledge what we are dealing with. We are in the beginning stages of an authoritarian fascist takeover. And if you are not going to acknowledge it, then it could be too late. Wake up because it's here. Fascism is on our doorstep. And the time to resist is right now.