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Are we a fascist oligarchy, or an oligarchical fascism?

This is what oligarchy looks like. It’s also what fascism looks like. An autocratic leader who appoints people to run the government who are corrupt, incompetent, malevolent, delusional, compromised, or narcissistic. Probably a combination of all of the above. The point is to install people who are more loyal to the autocrat than they are to the nation. The corrupt are loyal to those who enable their corruption. The

incompetent are loyal to those who fight to keep them in jobs they know they’re unqualified to hold. The malevolent and delusional are loyal to those who promise to accept and normalize their vices. The compromised are loyal to those who will protect them from investigation. Narcissists are loyal to those who give them a fiefdom they’ve always felt they deserved.

That’s why Trump’s list of nominees looks like Batman’s rogues gallery.

I finally stopped watching The Young Turks (the YouTube channel that called itself “the home of progressives”) the day Ana Kasparian began echoing right wing talking points about trans people.

I’d seen it before. I’d just drawn an editorial cartoon about it.

The GOP had added trans Americans to their scapegoat rotation. Suddenly they were very, very concerned that a trans woman might want to use a restroom, or that a handful of trans kids were playing sports. Right wingers lapped it up, and that was predictable. But it was also one of those issues that was usually the first sign of a “leftist” commentator’s “red-pilled” grift, where they would finally have an excuse to drift right (right to where the money is).

Kasparian had mocked others who did this. Tulsi Gabbard, Dave Rubin, and Jimmy Dore in particular. But then she signaled her own drift, with her “I’m a woman” tweet.

After watching other leftists do this sort of thing (including, most disappointingly, Tim Black), I was sure Kasparian’s tweet was calculated to provoke outrage from her base that she could use to generate interest from the right. So I switched them off, because I didn’t want to sit there and watch Dore/Tulsi/Rubin/Black happen all over again.

If. you’ve got the time, former TYT contributor Benjamin Dixon put together a good summation of the left’s problem with TYT’s shift:

If I hadn’t dropped the habit of viewing them when Ana tweeted her best impression of JK Rowling, I’d have definitely dropped it a few weeks ago, when Kasparian claimed that Trump couldn’t be called a fascist because he’d failed to do what he tried to do in 2020. She also claimed that Project 2025 was no big deal, and anyway, just because those crafting it were close to Trump, that was no proof he had anything to do with it or that he would implement it.

Trying and failing to be a fascist doesn’t mean someone is not a fascist. Donald Trump tried to do everything he threatened he’d do when he ran in 2016. He tried to destroy the ACA, he appointed (in)Justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade, he abused migrants, and he infected much of America with his form of belligerent bigotry and xenophobia.

He failed to unleash the military against those who protested against police brutality (although he succeeded in encouraging the civilian police departments to act as if they were the military).

Trump’s malevolence was only restrained by one or two Republican Senators and a handful of generals and staffers who believed (slightly) more in the Constitution and the rule of law than in the autocratic dreams of a would-be dictator.

But the day he’s sworn in in 2025, those restraints will be gone. The Supreme MAGA Court has reinterpreted the Constitution, granting Trump immunity for pretty much anything that could conceivably be considered part of his official duties.

If I hadn’t already canceled The Young Turks, I’d have done it when Kasparian claimed the left was overreacting to the fight that lies before us.

I have a mainstream news playlist, and it’s large. I read multiple newspapers and magazines, and watch political shows on multiple networks, every week. I get all the gaslighting, second-guessing, and false equivalencies I can handle from them.

I don’t need to also get it from the channel that billed itself as the home of the resistance - a channel that spent a decade insisting they were leading a fight against corruption, oligarchy, oppression, and creeping fascism.

We are in a fight for our nation’s life. There’s no room in my alternative media playlist for those who are wavering between defeating fascists, or playing footsie with them.

Anyhow, speaking of switching sides, I’ll leave you with a couple Candorville comics. Happy Holidays!