Author: Thom Hartmann

Authoritarian governments are drawn from and always represent, first and foremost, the interests of the majority group within their country. Christians in 1933 Germany. Orthodox Slavs in Russia. Hindus in India. Whites in America. Authoritarian leaders bind themselves to these groups by defining members of minority groups as “the enemy” of the larger majority, demonizing them and subjecting them to economic and physical brutality under the nation’s laws. This is exactly the dynamic playing out right now in the nearly-all-White GOP. They have an extensive plan to exploit charges of “racism against White people” to seize control of the...

With nepo-daughter-in-law Lara Trump taking over the GOP, Donald Trump has essentially declared that the party of Reagan, the “old Republican Party,” was dead, arguing that it no longer exists in the form it had taken since the 1970s. At a Virginia rally a week ago Saturday, Trump said his neofascist MAGA movement has taken over the Republican Party, that it “represents 96%, and maybe 100%” of Republicans, and that, “We’re getting rid of the Romneys of the world. We want to get Romneys and those out.” While many in the GOP love the nativist, authoritarian turn the party’s taken, others...

While many trace the beginning of the modern rightwing fascist-friendly MAGA-type movement to the 1954 Brown v. Board decision and the way it put the John Birch Society on steroids, another interesting origin story for today’s GOP base is grounded in the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In the years immediately leading up to the 1970 creation of the EPA, pollution in America had gotten so bad it was impossible to ignore and was quickly becoming a political issue. Rachel Carson had published Silent Spring in 1962, a book about how DDT was killing birds worldwide, that electrified Americans and...

There is little doubt that Russian President Vladimir Putin has succeeded in achieving near-total control over the Republican Party. They are gutting aid to Ukraine (and have been for over a year), working to kneecap our economy, whipping up hatred among Americans against each other, promoting civil war, and openly embracing replacing American democracy with authoritarian autocracy. Putin has declared war on queer people, proclaimed Russia a “Christian nation,” and shut down all the media he called “fake news.” Check, check, check. Most recently, the three-year “Biden bribery” hysteria Republicans in the House have been running — including thousands...