In terms of healthy democracy you have three main categories. While the terminology of who operates under these categories changes depending on the country, the main basis of where extremism begins does not. You have liberals who are supporters of policies that are socially progressive and promote social welfare. The key components here are civil liberties, democracy, free enterprise, and equality before the law. Then you have conservatives who are the upholders of traditional values. They stand for preserving organized religion, limited small government, prudence on government spending, and an aversion to change when it comes into conflict with socially traditional ideas. Lastly, you have moderates who can be center or just to the right or left of center.

When it comes to the areas in democratic politics that represent an unhealthy change in a political party you have radical left and reactionary right. Let’s talk about the qualifiers for each of the categories. A key qualifier for an idea that is radical left involves dispensing with the free enterprise aspect of liberalism and instead favoring workers distributing profits rather than private ownership of free enterprise. Why is this a qualifier? Well to get to true socialism, the means of production, distribution, and exchange need to be owned and regulated by the community as a whole. For communism you need the government to take control of the means of production and distribute according to people’s needs. No Democratic official no matter how left they have been deemed, has called for anything that steps out of the confines of liberalism. Yes, you have some interpretations of liberalism that are farther left than others but the fundamental tenants in particular free enterprise are not violated.

Now let’s talk about the reactionary right. Reactionary politics are defined by being so opposed to a perceived societal decadence that you seek to use the power of government to return to an idolized or imaginary view of the past. No longer just averse to change, these policies seek enforced social transformation using the power of government. This is undoubtedly where the majority of the GOP and Republicans exist today. Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan was a swan song to this idolized and imaginary view of the USA’s past. One where a lot of the horrors of racism, slavery, and struggle did not exist. Now why is this a qualifier? Well to get to fascism and other far right forms of authoritarianism you need some shared perception of societal ruin and an ends justify the means mentality to rectify it. In some cases, all it took was convincing people that society had become weak and that a strong personality was required if anything was to be saved. Sometimes throughout history, an other such as an ethnic or other minority group would be given the blame for societal corruption and be persecuted accordingly.

Republican’s now have dropped most of the fundamental aspects of conservatism in favor of the far reactionary right built around a cult of personality. One individual, who is strong enough to eradicate societal degeneracy and restore a lost place in the world. That person was Trump and it’s why despite his buffoonery, hypocrisy, and incompetence he remains firmly in control of the party. Though society is changing and evolving, ignorance and indeed malfeasance is encouraged and even fundraised upon. Teaching about America’s history with racism becomes leftist propaganda even though there’s nothing leftist about it. Being asked to wear a mask is fascism on par with the holocaust according to Marjorie Taylor Greene. These statements are deliberately made for the response they provoke and the more attention that is given to this stupid stuff, the more the base loves it even though it makes absolutely no sense to most of us. The point here is the middle finger to decadent society and nothing else. Society is wrong, and tearing it down for something better is a fundamental aspect reactionary authoritarians the world over aspire to.

January 6th was the warning siren, an attack on the capitol by Trump supporters with the express purpose of stopping democracy. The GOP after first acknowledging the seriousness of the insurrection, are now attempting to distort and cover up that brazen attack on democracy. As a whole, Republican politics are moving in a direction where the ends justify the means in terms of maintaining power and reality is distorted or ignored along the way. I hear you Republican’s saying in response to all of this, “But, but, Democrat’s support radical left ideas like universal healthcare, and other ridiculous ideas about welfare, and Black Lives Matter is a Marxist organization.” Well first BLM was created to support civil rights which is a fundamental tenet of liberalism. Secondly, universal healthcare and welfare in general is compatible with liberalism as Social Democratic parties in Scandinavia have shown. There are no qualifiers there that take it one step away from authoritarianism. Republican’s on the other hand support many ideas that lead to authoritarianism. Voter suppression, gerrymandering, undermining rights for ethnic and political minorities, stacking the courts, giving state legislatures the power to overturn election results, and their numerous direct and indirect ties to extremist groups such as QAnon and Patriot Prayer. While the US Democratic Party places normally on a world spectrum of politics for their liberalism, the GOP is out there with Victor Orban’s Hungary or Poland’s Law and Justice Party which has generated condemnation for its creation of LGBT exclusionary zones. In fact, LGBT rights were called an ideology more dangerous than communism by President Andrzej Duda.

In history, some of the worst fascist dictators like Hitler and Mussolini took power when concern with communist sentiment following the Russian Revolution took precedence over emerging ultranationalist fascism. In Cuba, Fidel Castro was only able to seize power due to Fulgencio Batista’s far right government which abused the working class, leaving them with nothing to lose in fighting back and ultimately embracing communism out of desperation. I worry a similar catastrophe can happen right here in the USA with an increasingly aggravated minority refusing progress to a greater majority and willing to undermine democracy itself much to the frustration of the rest of the nation.

There is hope though, even in the worst of circumstances. The free press stood against Trump and the greater international community refused to give Trump the recognition and credibility he so desperately craved in lording over the reactionary right. As long as those fundamental components of democracy remain intact it will be much more difficult to enter an authoritarian state, which is why Trump and the reactionary right have spent so much time denigrating the press.

To real conservative Republican’s the best you can do is not support the party at all. I know it’s difficult in a two party system not having an option that works, but the reactionary right must not be allowed to take hold in this country. Allowing them to do so fully opens the already ajar door to far right authoritarianism. To my fellow liberals and others, please stop referring to Republican’s and the GOP as conservative. There is nothing conservative about them anymore. Call them the reactionary right. It’s what they are and they need to be reminded how close they are to falling off the democratic spectrum into authoritarianism.