Tuesday, August 1, 2023:  Republican Politics II: Propaganda – Lies And More Lies
The fascist politician views corruption as the corruption of some defined purity rather than corruption of the rule of law. Basically, there is a predefined ideal for the fascist state. Any variation from that ideal is corrupt. So for the Republican Party today, if you are black, Hispanic, a Muslim, a Jew, a woman in a position of power "reserved for men", a member of the LGBTQ community, or woke, and share in the public goods of our democracy, that is the corruption of the ideal state. Clearly to the Republican fascists, this corruption is at the heart of the "stolen 2020 presidential election." It is the underpinning for the statutory persecution women and the right to control their bodies and get paid on an equal footing with men. It is also a major part of the attack on LGBTQ rights. But this false narrative of corruption has to be publicized for it to take hold - thus the role of fascist propaganda.

Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister, believed that one of the best jokes of a democracy is that it gives its deadly enemies the means by which to destroy it. One of those means is the fundamental democratic tenet of free speech.

The enemies of a liberal democracy push the limits of free speech to the point of undermining and subverting the free speech of others. It takes the form of political propaganda designed to conceal the real goals of a political group. You see it every day in Republican rhetoric.

Socrates in book 8 of Plato's Republic, argues that people are not naturally inclined to self-govern. History has shown that often people seek a strong leader to follow. Democratic free speech, opens the door for a demagogue to exploit this with propaganda that appeals to the resentments and fears of the masses. So let's look at the current Republican politicians. Do the have any kind of platform that addresses the needs of our country and its citizens. No. Instead they rant on and on about, banning abortion, getting rid of gun control, defunding the IRS, undoing protections for the environment and the work place, restricting tort law and rights of a person to seek redress for a wrong done to them, the unfairness of affirmative action, and on and on.

The focus of the Republican Party is dismantling the rule of law. They publicize false charges of corruption of their "ideal fascist state" while engaging in all kinds of corrupt activities with Donald Trump is their poster child.