Adam Kinzinger, the former Republican Congressman from Illinois known in part for his willingness to break with Trump’s lies about the integrity of the 2020 presidential election, is seriously concerned about certain prospects raised by Republican leaders of a few key committees in the House, referring to their threats as fascism if enacted.
The underlying idea from those Republicans is potentially enacting legislation to block former presidents like Trump from facing a potential indictment like what’s been suspected could soon emerge from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who would need the approval of a grand jury. As defined in just the dictionary, it does seem like Kinzinger’s description of potentially just shielding former presidents from certain prosecutions could be described as possibly fascism. Think about it. Is it anywhere close to reflective of the guiding principles under which so much of the U.S. political and legal system operates to suddenly make a class of individuals that’s broadly shielded from various forms of scrutiny under the law?
Elements of autocracy and dictatorship — and real, actual authoritarian control of that sort, rather than the made-up complaints to that effect about the Democrats — certainly appear to be guiding principles of a lot of what Trump hopes to do. An easy example would probably be the repeated occasions while still in office when he sought to essentially go around the due process established in the justice system and demanded prosecution or some form of criminal scrutiny of various personal opponents, with basically no substantive evidence. Violence obviously also often goes along with real-world examples of fascism, and Trump, more generally, has also got that down, with his consistent support of the mob at the Capitol that attacked police and others. Many Republicans remain generally aligned.
This is facism. https://t.co/ltcERS1FSy
— Adam Kinzinger #fella (@AdamKinzinger) March 26, 2023
