fascism is alive and well in Florida

and Texas, and Arlington, and ...

imagine that you’re chilling at home after a hard day at work. out of the clear blue, there’s a knock at the front door.

it’s not just any knock. it’s one of those knocks — a little too loud, a little too insistent. your pulse quickens as you cross the room — and sure enough, when you open the door, standing before you is an officer of the law.

he holds up a copy of your driver’s license. is this you?

he waves a document in your face. did you sign this?

what the fuck is going on? is this Nazi Germany? no, it’s Fascist Florida.

Isaac Menasche remembers being at the Cape Coral farmer’s market last year when someone asked him if he’d sign a petition to get Florida’s abortion amendment on the ballot.

He said yes — and he told a law enforcement officer as much when one showed up at the door of his Lee County home earlier this week.

Menasche said he was surprised when the plainclothes officer twice asked if it was really Menasche who had signed the petition. The officer said he was looking into potential petition fraud.

Though the officer was professional and courteous, Menasche, who has had little interaction with police in his life, said the encounter left him shaken.

a plainclothes cop looking into petition fraud? what fuckery be this?

“What troubled me was he had a folder on me containing my personal information- about 10 pages. I saw a copy of my drivers license and copy of the petition I signed. It was obvious to me that a significant effort was exerted to determine if indeed I had signed the petition. Troubling that so much resources were devoted to this. I wonder if the same could be said if the petition were for some innocuous issue.”

welcome to life in Ron DeSantis’s Fascist Florida.

Florida Republicans, you see, have a bit of a problem: abortion is on the ballot this November.

Amendment 4 would overturn Florida’s six-week abortion ban by proposing to protect abortion access in Florida until viability.

the amendment is wildly popular and is expected to pass.

A majority of Florida voters say they back a ballot measure to enshrine abortion rights into the state’s constitution, according to new polling released Friday by The Hill and Emerson College Polling. 

yeah, no. a ballot measure passing by popular acclaim is a bridge too far for Ron DeSantis and his merry band of brownshirts. it’s a problem he’s decided to solve with a solution straight out of 1933 Germany — intimidate the fuck out of voters, to the point where they’ll stay home out of fears for their own safety.

welcome to Fascism 101. when you can’t win in the marketplace of ideas, just bully everybody until you get what you want.

Ron DeSantis took a bunch of detectives away from apparently inessential tasks such as, y’know, investigating actual crimes like murder, and had them instead compile dossiers on law-abiding citizens, and sent them out to do some good old voter intimidation.

never mind that all these signatures had already been verified as genuine by local election boards. fuck your local election boards, we’re gonna do this the DeSantis way.

knock-knock. who’s there? fascism.

Florida isn’t only state where fascism is in full bloom. over in Texas, sadistic Governor Greg Abbott and his corrupt pal Ken Paxton took a little time out from drowning migrants in razor wire booby traps to do a little voter intimidation of their own — and this time, the fascism dial was turned up all the way to eleven.

SAN ANTONIO, Texas – Lidia Martinez was startled by a loud knock on her door at 6 a.m. When Martinez, 87, opened the door in her nightgown, nine of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s deputies confronted her. With guns drawn, bearing riot shields, and brandishing a search warrant, the officers barged in.

For several hours on Aug. 20, they ransacked Martinez’s San Antonio home, forced her to stand outside in her nightgown, and eventually confiscated her cell phone, computer, calendar, and license to conduct voter registration.

Officers carried out similar search warrants across three counties, raiding the homes of Texas House of Representatives candidate Cecilia Castellano, chair of Tejano Democrats Manuel Medina, two other LULAC voter registration activists and abuelitas (grandmothers), Imelda Rodriguez and Marianne Obregon, and a mayor.

how charming. at least DeSantis’ brownshirts had the decency not to wave their guns in the faces of grandmothers.

the implicit message: stop registering brown people to vote. oh, and also stay the fuck home on election day, if you know what’s good for you.

When Martinez asked why they were searching her house, officers responded that Martinez, a national board member of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), had filed a complaint that senior citizens weren’t receiving their absentee ballots.

wait, complaining is a crime now in the Lone Star State? yes it is. do you have a problem with that? take it up with the riot cop waving a gun in your face. or maybe just shut the fuck up — again, if you know what’s good for you.

increasingly, Republicans have just given up the quaint and outdated notions of playing fair and having popular ideas, and are opting instead to go Full Fascist.

we saw this on display just last month, when Grinning McIdiot did his disgusting thumbs-up photo op on the hallowed grounds of Arlington National Cemetery.

two members of Donny Convict’s entourage roughed up an Army officer, shoving her aside when she tried to do her job and keep the graves of fallen soldiers from being trampled.

the victim filed a report but then declined to press charges. why? because she didn’t want Donny’s unhinged cultists to come after her.

A woman who works at the cemetery filed an incident report with the military authorities over the altercation. But the official, who has not been identified, later declined to press charges. Military officials said she feared Mr. Trump’s supporters pursuing retaliation.

as I wrote at the time,

pro tip: allowing Donny’s thugs get away with crimes because you fear the wrath of the violent morons who worship him is literally how fascism works.

it’s perfectly understandable that this woman does not want her entire life turned upside down in the pursuit of justice — no one should be criticizing her for that — but this is how fascists win.

we even saw this play out last year in Colorado, when it looked like Donny might actually be 14th Amendmented right off their ballot.

there was a sentiment at the time that went something like this:

we can’t keep Donny off the ballot, his worshipers will throw a shit-fit. there will be riots in the streets and pandemonium at the polling places. that’s too messy, so let’s just give in and let Donny have his way.

also, we were told, it just somehow wouldn’t be fair to deny Donny’s worshipers the opportunity to vote for Dear Leader.

of course, we know how it played out: the bought-and-paid for Federalist Society hacks on the Supreme Court ruled once again that Donny is A Very Special Boy who gets his own personal Very Special Interpretation of the 14th Amendment, because reasons.

but again, the very idea that we have to let Donny have his way or else his worshipers will go ape-shit is literally how fascism works.

I better not sign this petition is literally how fascism works.

I better keep quiet and not complain is literally how fascism works and literally how fascism wins.

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and now, here’s your media what the fuck du jour.

it looks like the staff of Politico is still high as a kite.

Tulsi Gabbard? who the fuck — besides Politico — takes Tulsi Gabbard seriously?

apparently, Donny Convict does. Tulsi’s part of the gang of crackpots and weirdos that he’s assembled to do whatever passes for debate prep at Motel-a-Lago. and so, Politico tells us, because Tulsi was mean to Kamala in a 2020 debate, it’s game fucking over in 2024.

no, really.

During a presidential primary debate five years ago, then-Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard skewered Kamala Harris as a hypocrite who transformed from a tough-on-crime prosecutor to a progressive reformer.

right, I’m sure Kamala Harris is up at night worrying about Tulsi Gabbard.

oh, please. Tulsi is a rounding error away from being a non-entity — and the idea that she and Donny are down at the golf motel strategizing is fucking ludicrous.

I’m sorry, but this is what’s going on in Donny’s head while Tulsi — or anyone else on that motley crew of quote-unquote “debate preppers” — is braying at him:

seriously, Politico — put down the crack pipe already and stop wasting our time.