THE CURRENT FACES OF FASCISM AND WHITE SUPREMACY

 

©Wendell Griffen, 2023

 

Their names are Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Gregg Abbott, Tate Reeves, Ron DeSantis, Brian Kemp, and Glenn Youngkin.

They are governors, respectively, of Arkansas (Sanders), Texas (Abbott), Mississippi (Reeves), Florida (DeSantis), Georgia (Kemp), and Virginia (Youngkin).

They are the current faces of fascism and white supremacy in their states, and are competing to become the Fascist and White Supremacist in Chief, figuratively if not literally, because they each aspire to seek higher offices, perhaps the US presidency. Do not believe them when they deny such aspirations. They will continue to do so even while building political campaign, policy, and media relations networks geared towards elevating their national profiles.

Despite their self-professed commitment to justice and inclusion, none of these politicians has a public record for supporting social justice. Abbott and DeSantis have been openly xenophobic towards immigrants. Youngkin, DeSantis, and Sanders are openly hostile towards public education. Reeves seems determined to keep Mississippi stuck with sickness caused by poisoned water, soil, and public policies.

Each of these politicians leads a state that enacted laws to restrict voting access following the 2020 national election, even though that election was touted by the election officials in their respective states as the most efficient and secure in modern history.

In each state, lobbyists for gun manufacturers, police unions, corporations, and the chemical industry (fossil fuels, pharmaceuticals, and industrial concerns whose pollution poison air, soil, and water) can readily get access to lawmakers, governmental executives (mayors, county judges, and the governor), and the courts. In each state, corporate lobbyists are able to get laws introduced and enacted to reduce the power of government to regulate business activities that adversely impact public health and safety.

People who live in Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, and Virginia are not healthier, more wealthy, free, or better educated than people who live elsewhere in the United States. Instead, voters in those states have typically supported right-wing Republican politicians since 1980 in national elections. They supported politicians who catered to bigots, bad-mouthed public education, and campaigned using gun lobby talking points. Voters in those states supported politicians who criticized women for having abortions and were openly hostile towards LGBTQI persons.

Like her right-wing colleagues in Texas, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, and Virginia, Sarah Sanders of Arkansas was elected by a wide margin. She knows that her party, the Republican Party, holds a super-majority advantage over both houses of the Arkansas legislature.

Sanders also knows that she has no formidable Republican rival who holds moderate political views. In other words, Sarah Sanders knows that she can not only control the substance and tone of political discourse in Arkansas. She controls the substance and course of public policy in Arkansas.

Make no mistake. Like her Republican colleagues in Texas, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, and Virginia, Governor Sarah Sanders promotes fascist and white supremacist public policies because she want to implement them, not because she is being forced to implement them. 

Parents in Arkansas know that their children are not being brainwashed or “indoctrinated” when public school teachers teach social studies, literature, or other subjects. Sanders is simply using public educators as scapegoats and targets for her own white supremacist bigotry, fascism, and intellectual dishonesty.

Arkansans know that public school boards and superintendents have policies, procedures, and skills to identify, improve, and replace teachers who may be deficient, and that school boards and superintendents care about teacher performance. Arkansans have not demanded that the Arkansas Teacher Fair Dismissal Act be repealed. Repealing that legislation – which ensures that teachers who are subject to dismissal receive due process (meaning fundamental fairness) – is what Sarah Sanders wants because she is a fascist.

And like her other Southern governor colleagues, Sarah Sanders knows that the South has produced white governors from both political parties – in Arkansas and other states – who did not champion fascism, anti-intellectual populism, and white supremacy. She knows that former President Jimmy Carter served as governor of Georgia, and did not berate public educators. Governor Jimmy Carter was much more in touch with the needs of his state than is Sanders or any of the other Southern governors mentioned in this column. President Jimmy Carter was much more aware of the looming environmental crisis facing the US and the rest of the world in the late 1970s than are Governor Sanders and her other colleagues.

Recognize that Sarah Sanders of Arkansas, Greg Abbott of Texas, Tate Reeves of Mississippi, Brian Kemp of Georgia, Ron DeSantis of Florida, and Glenn Youngkin of Virginia are fascists, misogynists, and white supremacists, They hold the views they hold by choice, not by coercion. They are the current faces of voter suppression, political censorship, and hypocrisy in their respective states.

Remember that Sanders, Abbott, Reeves, Kemp, DeSantis, and Youngkin are fascists. Remember that they are white supremacists. Remember that they are bigots. Remember who they are, Then ask whether states and a nation that puts people who think and behave as they do represent the best ideals of a free society.

Remember that fascists and white supremacists are real, present, and a threat to fair, inclusive, and peaceful self-government. Voters from Arkansas, Mississippi, Texas, Georgia, Florida, and Virginia elected Sanders Reeves, Abbott, DeSantis, and Youngkin by choice, not force. Having chosen such poisonous leaders, those states will eventually suffer the fate reserved for despots, tyrants, and fascists, and bigots. 

So will the rest of us.