Behold the Face of American Fascism

Observe Kari Lake closely. This is what American fascism looks like. And Americans will have only themselves to blame should she succeed in achieving power.

Foremost among my duties as an American diplomat was to evangelize the good word about democracy, especially to audiences in nations that didn’t have it. I was fond of repeating (in a variety of host languages) Winston Churchill’s oft cited line, “Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried.” It resonated well. I refrained, however, from reciting another quote often attributed to the Last Lion, “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”

Which gets us to the slow motion train wreck-in-progress that is our current politics. During most of my 25 years serving Uncle Sam our nemesis was international communism. Now it’s domestic fascism. Fighting fascism was my father’s and mother’s war. It followed Hitler and Mussolini to hell. Or so we thought.

On November 8, the good citizens of the United States will vote on whether to keep democracy or to put the country on the slippery slope toward fascism. Presidential historian John Meacham describes the 2022 mid-terms as the most consequential since those in the years leading up to the Civil War. Mass delusion has seized an estimated third to half of our population. Spend five minutes with many of these folks and you will receive an earful on “stolen” elections, Jewish lasers, vampiric Democrat pedophiles, and all manner of other phantasmagoric nonsense hatched in wicked little minds and bullhorned by a right-wing propaganda cable channel whose megalomaniacal nonagenarian mogul places profits over ethics.

In a previous post, I highlighted the rank hypocrisy of rich, Ivy-educated political whores like senators Josh Hawley, Ron DeSantis and Ted Cruz, who straight-facedly extol the virtues of working men and women but who couldn’t replace a toilet flapper to save their life. These men have been held up as the future of Trumpism. I, and a growing body of other commentators, however, see another as the designated driver to chauffeur America to self-destruction: Kari Lake.

Watch her recent interview with CNN’s Dana Bash. As Bash presses Lake twice on whether she will accept the results of Arizona’s gubernatorial election, she twice responds with the chilling conviction of an unblinking religious zealot: “I’m going to win the election, and I will accept that result.”

There’s a saying, “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” Look at the photo heading this article. Should it come, fascism will arrive not in jackboots, but in stiletto heels.

Lake has led a curious ideological journey from being a Democrat-convert fan girl of John Kerry and Barack Obama to today being called, “Trumpism’s leading lady;” from a secular Buddhist to a fervent crucifix-wielding Christian nationalist; from mainstream journalist to media-bashing iconoclast. In other words, she has followed in the same Gucci-trod footsteps as the other Trump-aping arch-hypocrites, Hawley, Cruz and DeSantis. But she’s much better than them. Where DeSantis is a charmless oaf, Lake exudes satin seduction. Where Hawley is kruppstahl-faced and blackshirt fist-waving, Lake is alluringly feminine. Where Cruz is all snake oil and thumbs, Lake covers her brazen lying in layers of prosecco-infused self-confidence. A telegenic veteran TV news anchor, she has honed the skills of effective mass communication with Oscar-level, almost hypnotic talent.

Is she a Trumpist true believer or a cunning opportunist? “The only thing I can come up with in watching this is that her conservative views, little by little, brought her power and recognition that she had never felt before,” said a former colleague. “It’s intoxicating. The Kool-Aid is the power and all these people fawning over you — you forget what the truth is anymore.”

I place Lake squarely in the opportunist camp — that satanic circle populated by the amoral hyper-ambitious. She unwaveringly promotes just about every debunked conspiracy theory about the 2020 election and continues to demand decertification of the Arizona outcome. She has threatened to imprison her opponent for non-existent election-rigging crimes, and to jail journalists as well. She embraces QAnon zombies at campaign rallies. She states that, as governor, she will “declare an invasion” occurring at the southern border, followed by deporting undocumented immigrants without federal sanction.

Whatever mischief Lake might pull off involving Arizona state issues pales compared to her potential machinations on the national level, namely stealing the 2024 presidential election for the GOP. This becomes even more possible should the MAGA candidates for Arizona secretary of state and attorney general also win election.

So, observe Kari Lake closely. This is what American fascism looks like.

And Americans will have only themselves to blame should she succeed in achieving power.

“You don’t need anybody to keep you down because you got your own little inner fascist right there telling you what you can and cannot do. That’s how you let them win,” states a character in The Man in the High Castle TV series, based on Philip K. Dick’s brilliant 1962 novel presenting an alternative history in which the Axis powers won World War II, occupy North America and have imposed fascist rule.

Just spend five minutes with the average voter and find out for yourself.