The Gathering Fascist Threat That’s Now Systematically Dismantling U.S. Democracy

In-depth Counterpoint interviews with Scott Harris and some of the nation’s most respected scholars of history and politics.

In recent months Between The Lines’ producers have been attempting to catalog the many Republican Party public policy proposals that either target specific groups of Americans for repression and stigmatization, or attack the very foundations of democracy and personal liberty. The avalanche of these kind of legislative proposals being debated this year, with many being signed into law, are staggering. It’s been extremely difficult to keep track of the large volume of these authoritarian legislative proposals, and alarming to see these initiatives, with clear fascist underpinnings, adopted by dozens of states.

Through minority rule imposed by voter suppression & gerrymandering — aided by an extremist Supreme Court that has repealed key elements of the 1965 Voting Rights Act — the Republican party is working in states it controls to pass laws jeopardizing the lives of women with Christian fascist abortion policies, awarding bounty cash payments to people who inform on anyone aiding a woman to have an abortion, and filing murder charges against women who have abortions and imposing the death penalty.

Constitutional and voting rights

• Supreme Court with its extremist majority is considering a case called Moore vs. Harper that would allow partisan state legislatures to disregard their state’s constitution, a governor’s veto, State Supreme Court rulings — and most chilling of all, be empowered to overturn the will of the people in a presidential election by permitting the legislature to certify the losing candidate’s slate of electors, thus subverting the presidential Electoral College process. Also known as the fringe “independent state legislature theory” in legal arguments during the 2000 Election Bush v. Gore case, this is the election scenario Donald Trump and John Eastman attempted to accomplish with fake electors in their attempted coup to overturn the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

• A billionaire coalition is funding “dark money” for a right-wing movement (Convention of States) which has been quietly campaigning for states to call a constitutional convention, the first since 1787. Using Article V of the Constitution, which lays out two amendment mechanisms, the aim is to bypass congressional gridlock and get two-thirds of the states to pass resolutions calling for a convention where delegates from the states can propose constitutional amendments. So far, COS has won 19 states of the 34 necessary to force such a convention.

• Florida and other states have removed elected office holders, such as state attorneys who refuse to carry out repressive policies

• The GOP has attempted to reverse the results of referendum elections on public policy questions or made it more difficult to pass direct democracy referendum questions

• Republican legislatures in several states have passed laws to take basic powers away from elected Democratic party governors after GOP candidates lost an election.

First Amendment rights

• Florida Republicans passed a law that forces journalists and bloggers who write about state politics to register with the state and imposes fines on reporters with whom GOP politicians disagree

• PEN America recorded 13 districts in Florida banning books, followed by 12 districts in Missouri, 7 districts in Texas, and 5 districts in both South Carolina and Michigan.

• World Population Review has recorded 27 states that have banned or are in the process of reducing public school teaching of America’s history of slavery, institutional racism and the Holocaust

• Defunding public libraries when book bans are resisted. Note: Gov. Ron DeSantis aims to take these and other repressive laws to other Republican-controlled states

• Republicans have proposed nearly 500 anti-LGBTQ bills in the U.S., many of which would ban or censor performances like drag shows

• Florida and other states have removed elected office holders, such as state attorneys who refuse to carry out oppressive policies

Women’s reproductive rights

• In Texas, the GOP has jeopardized the lives of women with Christian fascist abortion policies, awarding bounty cash payments to people who inform on anyone aiding a woman to have an abortion

• Criminalizing women who have abortions and those who aid them with murder charges, imposing the death penalty

• 6-week abortion bans

Public health and safety

• failing to pass common sense gun laws, and in fact weakening them with permitless carry in the wake of Trump’s first laws revoking Obama-era laws with background checks for the mentally ill, enabling mass murderers easy access to weapons of war facilitating mass slaughter

• criminalizing peaceful protest or even protecting drivers who run over protesters

• denying Medicaid access to life-saving public healthcare programs to millions of Americans

• Republican states doubling down on Stand Your Ground laws and seeking to bring back lynching and firing squad executions

• outlawing funding for and criminalizing diversity, equity and inclusion programs
• state policies such as “Don’t Say Gay” stigmatizes LGBTQ and trans youth and bans/criminalizes gender-affirming care. LGBTQ+ people face rising threats to their safety and right-wing groups continue to protest family-friendly activities like drag queen story hours. Over 400 transphobic bills have been proposed since the start of 2023, 29 anti-trans bills have already become law this year — more than twice as many as in all of 2022. Nineteen states have laws restricting gender-affirming care, some with the possibility of a felony charge

• weakening or repealing child labor laws

• endangering future generations by gutting government action to address the climate crisis and enforce the Clean and Water Act

In recent years, we’ve conducted many interviews examining the clear and present fascist threat we face. Here are just eight of many more interviews we’ve conducted with authors, philosophers, activists and journalist, that attempt to gain insight into the methodology and goals of the extremist politicians, right-wing activists and their white supremacist allies in armed domestic terrorist militias.

Candidate Ron DeSantis Poses Unique Threat to Democracy

Interview with Ruth Ben-Ghiat, professor of Italian and History New York University, conducted by Scott Harris (May 29, 2023)

The GOP’s Fascist Agenda a Threat to US Democracy

Interview with Jason Stanley, Jacob Urowsky professor of philosophy at Yale University, conducted by Scott Harris (May 15, 2023)

As CNN Swerves Right: Refuse Fascism!

The Resistance Roundtable interviews Paul Street, independent progressive policy researcher, award-winning journalist, historian and author of many books including This Happened Here and They Rule: the 1% v. Democracy. (May 13, 2023)

Resistance Roundtable panelists are Scott Harris, Richard Hill and Ruth Baumgartner

New Book Details the Threat White Christian Nationalism Poses to Democracy

Interview with Bradley Onishi, a former White Christian nationalist, now a scholar of religion, conducted by Scott Harris (Jan. 30, 2023)

The Devolution of the Republican Party into a White Supremacist Authoritarian Movement

Interview with John Nichols, the Nation Magazine’s national affairs correspondent, conducted by Scott Harris (Nov. 28, 2022)

GOP’s Anti-Democratic Agenda Mimics Repressive Regimes Abroad

Interview with David Pepper, former chair of the Ohio Democratic Party and author of the book, “Laboratories of Autocracy: A Wake-Up Call From Behind The Lines”, conducted by Scott Harris (Oct. 31, 2022)

New Book Recounts the Origins of GOP Extremism & White Supremacy

Interview with David Corn, Mother Jones Magazine’s Washington bureau chief, an on-air analyst with MSNBC, and bestselling author, conducted by Scott Harris (Oct. 24, 2022)

Trump Exploited America’s Vulnerable Legal Infrastructure to Advance Fascism

Interview with Bill Blum, a Los Angeles lawyer and a former state of California administrative law judge, conducted by Scott Harris (Nov. 1, 2021)

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