Fascism Watch for 7 July 2023: the Kill All the Queers edition

Let’s start with the Moms for Liberty cult. I want to stress that they are a cult. I’ve seen these before, it’s the standard fundamentalist authoritarian system of raising this particular kind of “mom” group, going back decades. This one’s bigger because it’s got more financing than they normally allow.

That doesn’t make it any less dangerous, because that money is meaningful. They’re stupid, but they have a blunt-force effectiveness, they’re getting a lot more training and money than usual so can do a lot more, and they always, always show up. They’re functionally the replacement, I think, for the mostly-aged-out Concerned Women for America, one of the most vicious anti-LGBT groups of the 1980s and 1990s, famous for publicly and systematically urging mothers to throw their gay and lesbian children into the street to make them destitute and homeless. Like CWA, M4L will be brought in to places of power like the White House. They won’t make decisions, but they’ll most certainly help further decisions actually made on the ground.

Here are some stories about them for you:

• How the ideology of Moms for Liberty is transforming my school district
• Moms for Liberty’s media training session was a warning to the press
• RFK Jr. speaking to Moms for Liberty
• Fascist Moms for Liberty Convention in Philadelphia Leads to the Arrests of 6 Protesters
• Moms for Liberty activist wants LGBTQ students separated into special classes

Republicans will rather likely revive the 1873 Comstock Act to restrict abortion nationally if they hold Congress; activists are already trying it now, and the popularity – or rather, the complete lack thereof – for more abortion bans does not matter, because as I keep saying, they don’t give a fuck about democracy or the Republic.

Josh Hawley Quotes White Nationalist Magazine to Celebrate Fourth of July, attributes it falsely to Patrick Henry. MSNBC spells out why that matters – surprise, it’s because he’s trying to justify Christian dominionism again through lies, like they always do.

And since you’re probably tired of me saying it, here’s yet another former Republican saying it: the party is out to end the Republic and the only solution is defeat after defeat after defeat until enough of them decide this won’t get them power that they decide to try something else.

Talking of cults, have some useful background on far-right fundamentalists behind the “He is Us” proselytisation campaign. It’s presenting itself as all feel-good and fuzzy Christianity, but it’s not. It’s the usual evangelical fundamentalism with fascist money and a new wrapper.

In “kill all the queers” news, we have a lot this week. First, some bullet items:

• Republican opposition to LGBTQ rights erupts in backlash to Pride Month
• The Far Right Is Already Using the Philadelphia Shooting to Smear Trans People.
• Dylan Mulvaney Says Bud Light Hung Her Out to Dry in Textbook Case of Rainbow Capitalism
• GOP censorship spreads as more education bans take hold – education bans against LGBT and Black people, of course.
• Trans man whose mother is an anti-trans activist wanting to eliminate trans people speaks out. It’s yet another case – like Elon Musk – of someone deciding they’d rather have a dead daughter than a live son, or vice-versa. All these stories come down to the same evil, once push comes to shove.

But the bigger news I think is how the Republican campaign to eliminate all LGBT people simply can no longer be denied. It’s lead by DeSantis, but it’s more than just him.

Let’s start with him, though. Hell, let’s just start with the now-famous ad.

If you missed it, Ron DeSantis produced and boosted a video that basically called for eliminating trans people, which also attacked Trump for his early 2016 comments in support of Pride Month, using clips from ‘American Psycho’ and ‘Peaky Blinders’, at least some of which was very much without permission and has been condemned. Challenged on it, he has naturally doubled down, defending the video both in going against trump and going against LGBT people in general.

So what the ad is about is absolutely not in question by anyone. No one is trying to play defence for it, because the intent is clear and intentional, and he bloody well meant it and isn’t trying to say otherwise.

Naturally, Gay and trans Republicans are shocked that DeSantis is now targeting them, because LGBT Republicans are the biggest fucking idiots on the planet, founders and leaders of the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party, absolutely on par with Jewish Nazis and Black Klansmen, both of which are even thinner on the ground than they are, despite the amount of press they get. Mind you, there aren’t actually as many as there appear to be – most members of the UK’s anti-trans “LGB Alliance” are cishets, and did you know the founder and head of the anti-LGBT stalking horse group “Gays against Groomers” is literally on the DeSantis campaign payroll? Well, she is.

But none of this should be surprising at all, and not just from his record. Ron DeSantis’ pastor – the one serving at his second inauguration, for example – says gay people should be “put to death” and supports Uganda’s death penalty for homosexuality laws.

And it’s not just him. A whole lot of Republican influencers – once you’ve heard of – support “death penalty for homosexuality” laws too. If you’re thinking “they don’t really mean it,” I point you at the ruins of Roe v. Wade, so shut the fuck up and face reality.

I’ve said for ages, “they’ll make all of us illegal again.” Recently I’ve been saying “They’ll kill all of us if they can.” I really do mean it. I mean, hell, see above. They’re just straight out telling you so. They’re working the pogrom from the local level – that’s one of the purposes of the Moms cult – through the state level (“Tell Me There Isn’t a Witch Hunt in Tennessee“) up to the Federal. They consider our very existence as an imposition to be ended.

This is a fight, they hope, to our deaths. We need to make sure it fucking well isn’t.

I’m culling heavily, but I can’t not mention that any excuse for extending institutional racism is a good reason to extend institutional racism if you’re a Republican via this story: Republicans Target Minority Scholarships After Supreme Court’s Affirmative Action Ruling.

I also can’t not mention yet again that yes, the fascist Republicans are coming after birth control, wanting to take it away. And yes, just as much as everything else, they fucking well mean it.

Finally, in Sad Clown Social Media news, I’m sure you’ve heard of all the various kinds of failures and outages at Twitter over the last week, but here are a few relevant stories lost in the roar:

• Musk removes a Community Note critiquing China over their Uygur genocide, because you don’t get to say hideously true things about Elon’s friends who Elon relies on for building Elon’s cars and Elon’s market share.
• I’ve been saying this for ages, so once again here is someone else saying it: Elon Musk’s social media platform is empowering the worst of the worst. It’s not an accident.
• Don’t be on Bluesky: Ex-Twitter leader Jack Dorsey endorses RFK Jr. for president

As far as Jack Dorsey, Bluesky, and RFK Jr: let us never have to speak of any of them again.

Sadly, we probably will.

I want to hit the high points – or the low points – of the Supreme Court’s decision allowing anti-LGBT discrimination by businesses, but this is long enough already. I’ll put it in the next report.

So that’s it for now. Good luck out there. Now get to work making sure nobody starts pretending this isn’t life or death. People keep doing that and going of on “no labels” (a fash-funded spoiler party) bullshit or “there’s no difference I’m not voting” horseshit. It literally is life or death for us now, and do not let anyone pretend otherwise in your presence, because I sure as hell don’t.

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.