How CPAC Created M.A.G.A.

Current U.S. Politics & the Rise of Hitler, Part 4

It is a daunting fact that the outcome of America’s 2024 election will determine if America has a chance to rebuild a strong democracy or fall completely under autocratic rule. This is not a drill. Donald Trump is likely to again become the Republican nominee for president. If he wins the presidency, he has made it clear that he will consolidate power for himself — and the Heritage Society is already on board with that.

Those who think America could never become a full-blown autocratic country need to look at how quickly the Weimar Republic fell after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor. Doing so would show them that the circumstances that brought Hitler to power have similarities to where things in America stand right now. This series has already laid out several of those commonalities. The one this article will look at is the role of the Conservative Political Action Conference, otherwise known as CPAC.

CPAC is the final piece of the puzzle that shows how America has ended up barely surviving a constitutional coup while having to prepare for a second attempt in 2024. Part 3 of this series, When Civil Societies Aren’t Civil, explained in depth the role that civil societies, i.e., private institutions and clubs, played in the collapse of Germany’s Weimar Republic. Examples of these societies include things that started as benign — like bowling leagues — and institutions that were always problematic, such as Karl Ernst Haushofer’s German Academy.

By explaining the role those organizations played in the rise of Hitler, it became possible to identify organizations playing a similar role in America’s current crisis. Those listed in Part 3 included the earlier mentioned Heritage Society, the Federalist Society, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and CPAC. All of these self-proclaimed conservative groups (capital “C” as opposed to conservatives in general) have played roles in creating America’s current political situation.

However, out of all of those organizations, it is CPAC that proves to be the linchpin of how the Republican Party has become the dangerous MAGA mess that it is today. This is why it needs to be looked at on its own.

The Unique Role of the Conservative Political Action Conference — aka CPAC

Why is CPAC more important than, say, the Federalist Society? CPAC is the organization that worked to shift the thinking of the Republican electorate to the far right. Without a critical mass of Republican voters to support the agendas of the other mentioned conservative organizations, there would not be any politicians in place to carry out those agendas. CPAC is how the electorate that supports Trump has been cultivated.

The creators of CPAC had a goal. It was to unite the various Republican factions into a single electoral block. In the name of gaining power, this block included conspiracy theorists, racists, Christian nationalists, and antisemites. This is not some wild liberal take on CPAC. It comes straight from the writings of a staunch Conservative.

Daniel Preston Parker received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 2015. He is currently an investigator on the Senate Judiciary Committee for Senator Lindsey Graham. However, his career as a Senate investigator began with Senator Chuck Grassley in 2017.

How does one get to work for some of the top Republicans in the U.S. Senate less than two years out of graduate school? You write a well-researched dissertation on the rise of CPAC. The following is from its abstract.

“CPAC served as an important forum where previously fragmented single-issue groups and leaders of the Old Right and New Right coalitions were able to meet, share ideas, and coordinate their efforts. Through their discursive exchanges at CPAC, these actors united behind a common set of policy positions and political strategies. As they engaged with each other and shared their grievances, they also developed a stronger sense of collective identity rooted in opposition to a common enemy — modern liberalism.” Parker Preston, D. (2015) “ CPAC: The Origins and Role of the Conference in the Expansion and Consolidation of the Conservative Movement, 1974–1980.” [Doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania] https://repository.upenn.edu/handle/20.500.14332/27892

The problem with this is that much of what Parker and the Conservatives call “modern liberalism” looks and sounds like what the rest of us call democracy. From the way Parker’s work describes it, CPAC was at war against democracy pretty much from the beginning.

Why is it important to see just how CPAC built the electorate that is now the MAGA base? Well, many now-former Republicans believe that Trump somehow changed their party. They talk about the problem of “his base,” as if the section of the electorate that supports him developed on its own. Parker’s work shows this is not the case.

The Birth of CPAC

CPAC was founded in 1974, a year after the Heritage Foundation and ALEC. Unlike ALEC, it was not a direct offshoot of the Heritage Foundation. Instead, CPAC was sponsored by two different organizations.

Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) was founded on September 11, 1960, at the home of William F. Buckley. It came about after Barry Goldwater failed in his first bid for the Republican nomination. (He then got it in 1964, only to be trounced by Lyndon B. Johnson.) The second sponsor of CPAC was the American Conservative Union (ACU). It was founded on December 19, 1964 — less than six months after the passing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

From YAF came the “Sharon Statement,” which defined the Conservative values and what they saw as the purpose of government. Ironically, even as the document says Conservatives believe in a “strict interpretation” of the Constitution, it also manages to strip out one of the basic tenets of our Constitution. Namely, it leaves out that one of the duties of government is “to promote the general welfare” of “We the People.” (The Confederate’s Constitution did the same thing.) The principles of the Sharon Statement have defined traditional Conservatism to this day.

Underlying those Sharon Statement principles is the support of racist — and classist — policies. An example of the undertone of racism in YAF can be seen in its 1962 decision to honor South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, a champion of segregationist policies, with its Freedom medal. How that same racism has been carried forward in the Conservative movement can be seen in the choice made some 31 years later by President George H.W. Bush, the 41st U.S. President. He decided to award Thurmond the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

That’s right, Bush thought it a good idea to give the Medal of Freedom to a man whose biggest contribution to U.S. history was his fight against full equality and freedom being given to African Americans. In the accolades given to him by his Senate colleagues, much would be said about his long time in the Senate, his acts of kindness to individuals, and his service during WWII.

All of those things said about Thurmond were true. Yet, the unspoken underbelly of his time in public service remains. It’s often couched by referring to him as “a gentleman of the South,” but that seems to mean nothing more than being a polite and “kind” racist.

In 1957, Senator Strom Thurmond set a record for the longest individual speech ever delivered in the Senate — 24 hours and 18 minutes, from August 28 to August 29, 1957. In 1964, Senator Thurmond switched from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party — our loss, your gain — a move that marked the beginning of the ``southern strategy’’ that has reshaped the Republican Party. — Senator Byrd of West Virginia, 1993

The speech being referenced is the filibuster Thurmond did to try and stop the Civil Rights Bill of 1957 from being passed. As for the Southern Strategy — well, the racism that drove that is well known. Byrd’s comment is the most direct commentary about the engine that drove much of Thurmond’s time as a Senator. That same engine is also what has driven CPAC.

The Leaders of CPAC and Their Agendas

In Parker’s dissertation, he acknowledges that, despite the public idea that CPAC was formed to be a conference meant to bring different parts of the Conservative movement together to share ideas, the panels at CPAC were curated and guided towards pre-determined ends.

“While CPAC served as a forum for the exchange of ideas, the parameters of the discourse were set in advance by leaders, and the positions and arguments that were reinforced were not spontaneously selected. The discourses at CPAC were shaped to a substantial degree by the decisions that were made by leaders during the conference planning sessions.” (page 6)

What were those ends? Ultimately, it was to gain enough power to impose the ideas and beliefs of a small group of people onto the rest of the nation as law. The role that CPAC played in achieving this was creating a block of people in the electorate to vote for people who would move this agenda forward. This was important because Goldwater’s loss had shown that most of the nation was not in agreement with their ideas.

Other Conservative organizations could groom candidates with Conservative ideas, create gerrymandering maps and voter suppression schemes, and even invent a new lens for judicial law. ( Even the Hoover Institute says the originalism used by the right today debuted in 1971). However, these actions would not matter if they didn’t have enough voters in more states. Goldwater won only six states — his home state of Arizona and five in the South — and carried only 40 percent of the popular vote.

The Conservatives Dumped Consensus for Manipulation

Parker obstinately says that CPAC becoming “the instrument… to purify, expand, rationalize, and guide the development of the conservative movement” was not planned as a goal of the initial founding, it is just what occurred (p. 3). Yet he also states that the organizers’ goal was “clarifying thinking,” so that the various pieces within the Conservative movement would be on the same page (74). This sounds benign until he explains the difference between what CPAC was doing and the work normally done to obtain clarity when building a party platform.

Unlike what happens at CPAC, creating a party platform is a situation where all the different groups of people involved have the agency to arrive and present their ideas. The work then requires bargaining and compromise to find a central point of agreement. This was not the path that the leaders of CPAC wanted, a point Parker inadvertently highlights when he dives into how the conferences were set up.

According to Parker’s research, the leaders of CPAC had no desire for the rank and file who attended CPAC to come to any independent conclusions. They also didn’t want there to be any bargaining or compromises to find a central point (p. 6). Instead, before every conference, a small group of Conservative leaders would get together and create an agenda that would result in what they wanted to occur.

“Each year at CPAC, leaders worked to identify current ideological and institutional obstacles to the movement’s success, explain changes in the structure of political opportunities that the movement faced, and chart the path that they felt conservatives needed to follow in order to restructure the party system and build a lasting electoral majority” (pg 8).

All of the panel discussions and speakers were then designed to “get various conservative interest groups to come together and move in the predetermined direction set by those leaders.” (pg 5–7.)

Although he may not have realized it, the processes Parker describes and emphasizes throughout his work are ones of classic psychological manipulation. It makes his paper sound like the dissection of a cult, not of a political party.

Furthermore, Parker’s work shows that, from the beginning, the leaders of CPAC decided they needed to change the heart of the Republican Party itself (p. 79). The execution of this idea can be seen in the choices made for the first CPAC conference and in the gradual changes made as to who would later be invited. Their decisions also explain why some Republicans today seem bewildered about how the “radical fringe” became the mainstream in the party. Those Republicans have failed to realize that the Conservative Movement moved in to take over the Republican Party — not join it. An early warning sign of this can be seen going back to President Richard Nixon. The one problem Conservatives had with Nixon was that he was too liberal (76). Like lobsters being boiled in a pot, the Conservatives’ slow but steady process kept many traditional Republicans from the era of President Dwight D. Eisenhower complacent until it was too late.

The Conservative Takeover of the Republican Party

According to Parker, the organizers of the first CPAC conference decided not to invite certain elements, such as the John Birch Society (JBS). It is worth noting that three people actually founded JBS, because often only one is mentioned. The founders were Robert W. Welch Jr., Revilo Pendleton Oliver, and Fred Koch — the father of Charles and David Koch.

Contrary to how a never-Trump Republican would see this, the decision by the CPAC leaders to exclude certain elements had nothing to do with morals. It was made for practicality. Barry Goldwater had recently been defeated in his 1964 presidential run. To the CPAC leaders, it was clear that despite shared ideals around national security and defense, “limited national government, and free market capitalism,” the Republicans (and the rest of the country) had one area that the Republicans and the Conservatives would never agree on. It was the issue of civil rights.

Goldwater’s strong opposition to “forced integration policies administered by the federal government” was a problem for what Parker (and others) labeled “the Old Right,” which was also referred to as moderate, liberal, or “Northeastern” Republicans (p. 62–68). Yet, the problem that many of these “Old Right” Republicans had wasn’t necessarily that they disagreed with Goldwater’s ideas. It was that they saw those ideas as detrimental to gaining power. Goldwater’s straightforward embrace of racists (which was the beginning of what became known as the Southern Strategy) had been a colossal failure across most of the country. It certainly wasn’t going to get people to vote Republican.

Who are Parker’s “Old Right” CPAC leaders? Goldwater’s name is usually first on the list, but a larger player was William F. Buckley. Both men fought against having certain groups included in that first meeting of CPAC. The John Birch Society, libertarian groups, and the Christian Crusade are name-checked by Parker as not being invited as sponsors to the first meeting of CPAC (p. 3.) Today, these choices are often used to extol the virtues of the “true” Republican party, a point made in this Washington Post article. However, the article’s conclusion misses the importance of a key point that is stated within it.

Buckley’s editorial declared that the Birch Society had reached “a new level of virulence, a new level of panic.” He warned that the taint of Bircherism could sink Reagan and other conservative candidates in 1966. Goldwater joined in, going farther than he’d had before. In a new letter to the magazine, the former presidential candidate declared that if Welch didn’t resign from the Birch Society, conservatives should resign from it and work instead to support the GOP.

When today’s “never-Trump” Republicans talk about the past virtuous choice to exclude groups like the JBH, they don’t mention that the decision wasn’t to exclude the members of the group. The Republicans of that time chose to publicly make the problem about co-founder Welch, not about the ideas that the group members supported. It was easy for them to single out Welch because he, like Goldwater in 1964, was too straightforward with his thoughts and ideas. That didn’t mean that they completely disagreed with those ideas. This can be seen by comparing some of their public and private statements to those of Welch.

Welch was primarily thought of as an anti-communism conspiracy theorist. One of those conspiracy theories was that the Civil Rights Movement was started and run by Soviet Communists. That level of conspiracy and racism was too out in the open for Buckley, but it was not entirely out of line with his thoughts. As this Politico research article shows, Buckley was on record as having called “white people ‘the advanced race’.” He also saw the “legitimacy of Jim Crow” and “deplored critics of the red-baiting Sen. Joseph McCarthy.”

Buckley and Goldwater weren’t the only Old Right Republicans who were against Welch but still wanted to maintain an association with Welch’s followers. Various communications from other CPAC leaders showed other prominent members of Parker’s Old Right were also aligned with trying to hold on to the Bircher members, even while they slammed Welch. Whether or not these Old Right members of the Conservative movement truly believed the same things as the Birchers is something we can’t know for sure. However, we do know that they were willing to have people with those ideas as a part of the party because the Bircher members’ voting power would be needed to vote for people who believed in their Conservative ideas (pg 6.)

What the Republicans then refused to consider was this. If their ideals were close enough to those who followed Welch, what did it say about their Republican ideals? Perhaps they did consider it. When you look at the big picture, Buckley’s disdain for Welch was more of a show for the voting moderates outside of the party and not a fundamental difference of opinion with Welch.

This idea of bringing extremists into the Republican Party is confirmed in Parker’s work. He details how the entire idea of CPAC was to find a way to integrate different parts of “conservatism” into one platform. As such, regardless of whatever lip service these Republican leaders put out denouncing the racists, the Christian Nationalists, and people prone to conspiracy theories, they absolutely planned to integrate those types into their voting block.

The Turn Towards What We Call MAGA

By 1980, the racists, the crazy conspiracy theorists, and the Christian Nationalists (then called “the Moral Majority”) were all given a legitimate seat at the same Conservative table that included those touting fiscal responsibility and strong national security priorities. That year, their carefully chosen candidate, Ronald Reagan, won a huge electoral college victory — 489 votes — but his popular vote win was just 50.8 percent. Still, the win gave credence to the theory that CPAC had been pushing — that their ideas represented a majority of Americans.

Yet, those in charge knew that Reagan’s win didn’t translate to their ideas being those of the country’s majority (10–11, 85–86). This is when they pivoted to a new talking point. The new claim became that the problem with the Republican Party was its acceptance of middle-ground policy ideas and its cultural acceptance of social changes. It’s almost like they knew they had to cement their extreme ideas into the party before people caught on to how unpopular those ideas were. This idea of cutting out the middle of the GOP quickly became Conservative doctrine (11–13.) It also marks the beginning of the end of the Republican party.

Many Republicans praise Reagan as the marker of a great Republican era. In retrospect, it was the election of Reagan that marked the official beginning of the party’s move towards extremism. However, to see that, one needs to read his 1974 CPAC speech, which was CPAC’s inaugural keynote address. The speech is filled with the kind of ideas we decry in MAGA today — only said in a gentle and “acceptable” manner. (A breakdown of the substance of his speech can be found here.)

Reagan’s speech at CPAC is important to note. Some people believe that the current state of the Republican Party and its politicians is a recent development brought on by Trump. All Trump has done is turn up the volume on the racist ideology and anti-democratic sentiments that were already there.

It’s not Trump who pushed the Supreme Court to gut the Voting Rights Act. It’s not Trump who started pushing to get far-right Conservatives on the bench. The judges that Trump appointed to the Supreme Court came from a list provided by the Federalist Society. Meanwhile, Trump happily claims the responsibility for Roe v Wade being overturned. Yet the reversal of Roe v. Wade has been on the GOP’s agenda since the day it was decided and the idea was notably championed by President Reagan.

Yet, even going back to Reagan isn’t far enough. The idea of gutting Social Security went on the Republican agenda almost immediately after the bipartisan bill was passed in 1935. (Their 1936 presidential candidate, Alf Landon, called social security “a fraud on the working man.”) It wasn’t just Social Security that the GOP despised. They went after most of FDR’s 1930s New Deal projects and agencies. When the Medicare and Medicaid programs were signed into law in 1965 by President Lydon Johnson, they were added to the list of things Conservatives wanted to end. However, by then, they knew most of the country wasn’t behind them. They were going to have to find a way to create minority rule (again).

The Similarities to the Weimar Republic Should Concern Us All

How does the history of American Conservative foundations and organizations relate to the Weimar Republic? Hitler did not simply arrive one day in Germany and, due to his “charismatic personality,” take over the country. Also, as earlier articles in this series have laid out, the fall of Germany’s young republic was not merely because of the hardships created by the Treaty of Versailles. These things were certainly factors. However, had the Conservative elites of that time not been against democracy and been actively working to undermine the Weimar Republic before Hitler came on the scene, it would have been impossible for him to take over the country.

Take Hitler’s hatred of the Jewish people. It wasn’t Hitler who created the “stabbed in the back” conspiracy theory, which blamed the Jewish people for Germany’s defeat in World War I. Far-right conservatives spread the idea among the general public. Two standout examples of this are General Ludendorff, who helped with that first right-wing attempt to overthrow Weimar (the Katch Putch), and the leader of the far-right DNVP party, Alfred Hugenber.

These men and that party would continue to push the “stabbed in the back” conspiracy, despite knowing that the source of the ideas underlying it — The Elders of Zion — had been proven to be a piece of Russian propaganda. Their strategy worked because antisemitism and nationalism were already embedded in the culture. Therefore, even after the piece had been debunked, a portion of the electorate continued to believe in it. Hitler simply plugged into all of those antisemitic ideas and amplified them.

Whether or not the conservative elite and the members of the DNVP believed in their Jewish conspiracy theory could be debatable, but it is irrelevant. Because the conservative elite missed the power they’d had under a monarchy, their goal was to end the Weimar Republic, put themselves back in power, and turn Germany into an autocratic plutocracy.

As such, when it came to dealing with Hitler’s rising popularity, the logic of Hugenberg and his party was this: Why should the members of the DNVP jeopardize their goals because Hitler and his party might be a tad more out there than they were? They privately discussed how they would simply make sure his cabinet members were mostly DNVP members, believing that would keep him in line.

Does this sound familiar? It should. It’s the same logic the Republicans had when putting together Trump’s initial cabinet. Getting people like Rex Tillerson, the reliable Republican donor and former chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of ExxonMobil, to be Trump’s Secretary of State was supposed to keep Trump in line. We know how that turned out.

Getting back to America’s current story, by going over the origins and agendas of the aforementioned Conservative organizations, it becomes clear that Trump did not “take over” the Republican Party. Just like the Conservative elites in Weimar, the organizations listed prepared both the electorate and mechanisms of government (especially the judiciary) to embrace a leader like Trump. Thus, when Trump arrived, speaking plainly what CPAC and the GOP had been dog-whistling (and at times even whispering) for decades, the Republican base was more than ready to receive it.

Some will argue against this. However, aside from his love of Russia and autocrats, Trump’s ideas fall in line with the core of things discussed by Reagan at that first meeting of CPAC. When you compare Trump & Trumpism to Reagan and the Republican Party of that time, the main difference is that the latter were more polite in how they posed their ideas and more pragmatic in implementing them. Furthermore, ever since then, one can see that the GOP veneer of respectability & pragmatism has slowly, but steadily, deteriorated to the level of Trump. This is true of issues ranging from racism to economics. (As Trump liked to remind people, Reagan also imposed a lot of tariffs.)

Most Never-Trumpers will likely decry the idea that the Conservative movement that has funded the party for decades has also embraced and pushed forward extremist ideas during that same time. They are unable to see that their goals and policies were against having a democratic republic at all — never mind being able to admit it. This is a problem because going back to the GOP normal that was before Trump is what led to Trump getting elected in the first place.

The GOP has Been Eroding Our Democratic Republic for Decades

Republican goals and policies have been to ban abortion, shrink voting rights, end programs such as Social Security, and remove regulatory bodies of government in the name of a free-market economy. None of these things have been to “promote the general welfare” of all American citizens, which is one of the reasons stated in the U.S. Constitution for founding the country. Republicans seem to believe that the point of America has been to enrich a small number of people who then have control over the government — as opposed to a government for the people and by the people.

This Conservative idea is particularly apparent in the Conservative SCOTUS majority ruling on Citizen’s United v FEC, which ruled 5–4 that “corporations are people” and therefore were entitled to unlimited spending on political campaigns — just like individuals. The main dissenting opinion, written by Justice John Paul Stevens, explained why this ruling defied common sense.

In the context of election to public office, the distinction between corporate and human speakers is significant. Although they make enormous contributions to our society, corporations are not actually members of it. They cannot vote or run for office. Because they may be managed and controlled by nonresidents, their interests may conflict in fundamental respects with the interests of eligible voters.

By 2014, the Republican Party and its Conservative donors had gained so much power that the aforementioned Princeton & Northwestern University study suggested that the U.S. was no longer practicing democracy.

“…our analyses suggest that majorities of the American public actually have little influence over the policies our government adopts. Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance, such as regular elections, freedom of speech and association, and a widespread (if still contested) franchise. But we believe that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business organizations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America’s claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened.”

A couple of studies attempted to push back against these findings, but a 2020 analysis from Duke University found flaws in those and corroborated the 2014 findings. It concluded the following:

Lastly, the preceding analysis presents strong evidence that the preferences of high-income Americans have a significant impact on the likelihood that a policy will be enacted, while the preferences of average citizens matter little to naught.

This state of things in 2014 is why the Republican Party was willing to go with Trump. With so many of their goals already achieved, they were willing to go with Trump to reach their major goal of locking in a Conservative supermajority. Doing so would then allow them to carry out the final phases of their “legal” coup. This desire is similar to why the Weimar elites ended up making Hitler Chancellor, and it is how the American conservative elites and those of the Weimar Republic align.

This is why comparing where America is now to the fall of the Weimar Republic is useful. Because it happened within such a short period of history, it is easy to see the role the DNVP played in Weimar’s demise. Then, when you compare that to the role the American GOP and its organizations have played in bringing us to Trump and Trumpism, the reality becomes painfully apparent. The reason we have this situation is because there’s been a part of the Republican party — the Conservatives — that has acted like Germany’s DNVP. Neither party wanted to preserve the democratic part of being a democratic republic.

One could argue that American resistance to democratic ideas has been around since its founding. After all, a country that chose to include provisions for slavery couldn’t be a true democracy. Nevertheless, it was the democratic ideals of the European Enlightenment that helped shape both the Declaration of Independence and America’s Constitution. This is because none of America’s Founding Fathers wanted the country to have a king. It’s a big difference from the Weimar conservative elite in Germany. They wanted to return to having a monarchy.

Furthermore, the opposition to democracy has always been in the minority. It is one thing to give the minority a voice, but this minority held more economic and strategic power. Because of this, it was able to create many points of compromise with the ideals of the majority. The minority opinion was never meant to be the driving force of the American government. Unfortunately, slavery was the thing the majority of the founders who wanted to at least sunset slavery felt they had to compromise on to keep the Union together. Despite the outcome of the Civil War, that choice and it’s reasoning continue to dominate US politics today.

The Confederacy represented the same minority opinion on slavery that led to the Constitution’s 3/5 Compromise. After losing the Civil War, that same minority was able to put in place the South’s Jim Crow laws, which essentially created two different Americas. As the Civil Rights Movement began to topple that system, Goldwater and the Conservative movement continued to champion the minority’s outlook. They then systematically began to take over the Republican Party with the goal of returning America’s laws back to the pre-Civil Rights era (and perhaps even further than that.)

Where We Stand Right Now

At this point, the GOP practice of protecting large corporate entities and wealthy individuals while stripping away help for individuals has to be seen for what it is: a belief in plutocracy. It’s certainly not a belief in democracy, nor is it simply a difference of opinion on economic practices. If there is any chance of stopping Trumpism from prevailing in 2024 and beyond, these facts need to be conveyed to the American People. While the likelihood of this getting through to Trump supporters is probably low, it may be possible to reach Independents, progressives, and those reluctant to vote for anyone.

One way to do this is to have never-Trump Republicans acknowledge their part in where we are now. Even if some were unwittingly involved in the agenda, admitting what the party’s goals and policies have been in the service of and where things will go if Trump gets into office packs a much stronger punch than any Democrat saying so.

The admitting and denouncing of Republican goals and policies needs to go back to Reagan and Goldwater. Far too often, news pundits will evoke Reagan as a bulwark of our democratic republic because of his position on communism. However, being anti-communist isn’t the same as being pro-democracy. Weimar makes that clear.

Once Hitler was made Chancellor, he quickly ended Germany’s Weimar Republic. He became their dictator, their Führer, and Germany became a country run by a full-on fascist government. The U.S. appears to be going down a similar track as Weimar. When the Republicans in the Senate had the chance to impeach Trump, thus removing the possibility of Trump ever being elected, they refused out of fear that the GOP electorate would primary them out of office. Thus, that party continues to support Trump.

Meanwhile, reporting from the Washington Post states that the current Attorney General and head of the FBI feared that investigating the role of Trump and his allies regarding the January 6th attack would be seen as “partisan.” The concern resulted in them dragging their heels in taking investigative action. This can also be related to the fall of Weimar.

After the Kapp Putsch, most of its leaders weren’t arrested or tried. This includes Ludendorff, who continued spreading his lies about the Jews and everyone on the Left being responsible for Germany losing the war. His being free made him available to work with Hitler in 1923. That’s when Hitler attempted his own violent coup of the Weimar Republic — the Beer Hall Putsch. Hitler got five years for treason and served just eight months. He used the time to write Mein Kampf.

Meanwhile, at the government’s trial (it was not a jury trial), Lundendorff got off scot-free again. A mere ten years later, Hitler took over the government. The lesson to be taken from this is that Trump’s recent conviction in New York State (and the possible convictions in three other cases if they ever make it to trial) are not a guarantee that Trump won’t be elected to office.

Can America’s slide to complete fascism be stopped? Possibly. The final part of this series will remind us of what Republicans did in 2016 and compare it to where we are heading into the 2024 presidential election. Then it will discuss the particulars of what could occur if Trump were elected in 2024, what collectively and individually can be done to stop this, and what we can do differently from Weimar that will allow us to rebuild our American Democratic Republic.