Howard Dean absolutely nailed it (see below for a partial transcript) in this interview with Chris Hayes yesterday. The fact is, these are crazy times we live in, the likes of which I’m not sure we’ve ever seen in this country’s history (other than the Civil War). And no, that’s not a good thing in any way, other than the likelihood that the Republican Party might finally implode, leading to a Democratic landslide in 2016. We’d all better hope that scenario comes to pass, because frankly, we can’t go on like this much longer as a country, with a bunch of crazy, extremist bigots running around saying wildly irresponsible things, while making the country close to ungovernable and preventing us from investing in our future, tackling climate change effectively, reforming our tax code to (among other things) make it more progressive, etc, etc.
I make two things of this: 1) the Republicans are now in full-terror mode that Donald Trump is going to get the momination, and they think he can’t win; and 2) this is very interesting watching all these people who are all authoritarians themselves call Donald Trump a fascist; the Republican Party is an authoritarian party… Any party which, as a party – and this one is a party that has done this – which restricts the right to vote is a party that places their own authority above the authority of the people and above the value of democracy…This is a party that has a strong authoritarian bent, it has for a very long time, and now they’re complaining that Donald Trump is a fascist?!?...
I have never seen anybody called a fascist, let alone the leading candidate of the party, by people in their own party…These guys are terrified, they are absolutely terrified, because there is a winning path for Donald Trump to win, and we’re going to know what it is on the 15th of March, where Florida, the first winnter-take-all-state [votes]…This is do-or-die time. You’re seeing this now because the Republicans are not stupid. They now realize that not only is Donald Trump the real thing, that he’s now the odds-on favorite to win the nomination.
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