Who will be right

Republicans are daring Americans to call things what they are.

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I’ve been watching the same dance my entire life. The American right does something — supports the rise of a candidate, pursues a set of policies, makes a set of statements — that ride the line between conservatism and authoritarianism. When the left responds that they think it’s getting a little close to the latter for comfort, the right claims that the left has hyperventilated about something that just isn’t that big of a deal. 

Republicans aren’t racist, the dance goes. They just want border security. Republicans aren’t Christian nationalists, they’ll say. They simply believe this is fundamentally a Judeo-Christian nation. 

This dance has gone on for the entire history of this country, and at times both sides have been correct in their accusations. But after last night’s rally for Donald Trump in New York, it feels like the American right has gotten as close as they’ve ever publicly come to being an openly fascist political party — taunting and daring the rest of the country into playing their part in this dance. Except this time, the left might be wholly and unequivocally correct. 

America is only for Americans — whatever that means, Stephen Miller said at last night’s rally, echoing Adolf Hitler’s own words that Germany was only for Germans. Speaker after speaker claimed Trump’s version of the Republican party isn’t inherently fascist, all while spewing vitriol about any American that disagreed with them, and laying down a set of requirements for what it means to be a patriotic American, a good American. It came after a weeklong news cycle where Republicans incredulously refuted allegations of fascistic tendencies on Trump’s part by his former chief of staff, John Kelly. 

Last night was perhaps the most obvious and direct the Republican party has ever been about its authoritarian tendencies. They are daring Americans who don’t subscribe to their values to describe them for what they are — what feels like a final dance of who is actually correct about what the American right wants and means. 

If I had to pick one word that stuck out the most from the speakers who rallied the faithful, 20,000-strong, last night, it would be “undeserved.” Tucker Carlson levied the claim against Liz Cheney and Kamala Harris. The not-so-subtle subtext, though, was that anyone who doesn’t support Trump and his requirements for American patriotism was undeserving of having a voice in this country. 

“The big lie is that they’re impressive, that’s what the big lie is. That the people in charge have somehow earned the right to rule over you and they haven’t, and you know that. These are the single most useless people in the United States. They have no skills whatsoever,” Carlson said, in part. “They’ve got three-quarters of the money and they didn’t earn it. They set up a system precisely for the purpose of awarding themselves wealth and power when it’s undeserved.”

More on right-wing extremism

• The magic pill of migrant fear

• Extremists in Georgia have manhandled elections here

• We've been here before

• How election officials in the South have cheered on political violence

• The Christian nationalist threat to democracy

The left — and moderates, and really anyone who opposes Trump in any way — Carlson was saying, is not just undeserving but wrong. But not just wrong on policy — they are morally wrong. “Evil,” to use Trump’s own words. Paul Weyrich, the late co-founder of the Heritage Foundation who was a powerful force in what we now call the movement of Christian nationalism, once said that “ultimately, everything can be reduced to right and wrong.”

So, who will be correct? Will it be the left and Democrats who say that Republicans are now an openly fascistic political party? Or will it be the right and Republicans who say they’re simply proposing common sense solutions to problems in a violent and chaotic world? If winners truly decide how history is judged, that question of moral rightness will soon be answered in the historical sense, but will likely continue to result in political fracturing, radicalization and, possibly, blood.

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P.S. The photo on this post is from Evan Vucci of the Associated Press.