The Republican game of keep away when Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Laura Cooper was due to testify to the House of Representatives takes us back to the very beginning of fascism.
Fascism originated in France as the Action Francaise. Its first tactic -- long before the Italians introduced of castor oil and the Germans staged torchlight parades -- was to run wild in the French parliament. The young fascists scoffed at the grave democrats, pulling their mustaches.
A democratic legislature is helpless against such tactics. It does not matter if it can be shown that the rowdies are hypocritical, uninformed or stupid -- and the GOP mob was all three. If the level heads don't react, they lose. If they do react ,they're down in the gutter wrestling with the hotheads.
Either way they are diminished and their institution is wounded.
As I have said before, I do not believe that the Trump fascists are consciously copying the tactics of the French, Italian and German fascists. For one thing, most -- but not all, some probably studied political science -- are too ignorant to know in detail how the French, Italian and German fascists operated.
No, this is a matter of attitude. The same childishness leads to similar conceptions. It is very characteristic that a schoolyard bully like Trump would come up with this sort of meanness.
The rot in the Republican Party has gone very deep. It wasn't just the 25 most immature members of Congress. A number of others spent Thursday accusing the Democrats of running a 'Soviet' style of hearings.
This is McCarthyism pure and simple.
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