Move Over, 'Ultra MAGA,' There's a New 'Fascist' in Town: MSNBC Absurdly Slaps Label on DeSantis

Mike Miller reporting for RedState 

In this episode of Everything Is Fascist…

Just when you thought Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans have the market cornered on fascism, irrelevant MSNBC host Alex Wagner and some random Ivy League guest slither into the headlines to play the fascism card on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Even more hilarious, the reason is utterly absurd.

First, a word on the whole silly “fascism” blast thingy.

Having labeled everything related to conservatism “racist,” it appears that the left has become almost blaśe about the ad hominem, and decided that “fascist” sounds far more ominous — and mysterious — to low-information Democrat voters, most of whom are no doubt clueless as to its meaning and history.

A widely accepted definition of fascism reads:

Many experts agree that fascism is a mass political movement that emphasizes extreme nationalism, militarism, and the supremacy of both the nation and the single, powerful leader over the individual citizen. This model of government stands in contrast to liberal democracies, which support individual rights, competitive elections, and political dissent.

See any irony, there? Let’s do a two-question quiz to find out.

Which party does “supremacy of the nation (centralized government) … over the individual citizen” better describe, the Democrat Party or the Republican Party? Second question: In contrast, which party “supports individual rights, competitive elections, and political dissent”? I bet you got both questions right.

Now, on to the nonsense at hand.

As reported by NewsBusters, on Thursday’s episode of MSNBC’s Alex Wagner Tonight, the hollow-headed host and Columbia Journalism [ROFL emoji] School Dean Jelani Cobb came together to agree with Marxist-derived Critical Race Theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw that Ron DeSantis is a fascist.

Raise your hand when you’ve stopped guffawing.

At issue for these geniuses was DeSantis’s Higher Education Reform program, the purpose of which, as reported by my colleague Streiff, is to eliminate the cancers Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity (DEI) from Florida’s public universities and colleges. How “fascist,” huh?

Here’s Wagner (emphasis, mine):

There is the, sort of, discreet conversation about what happens to Florida. But I think that it is worth stepping back for a moment and looking at the tactics that are being employed here, and not mincing words about what is going on.

Setting aside the sort of endgame of what happens in the university system, Michelle Goldberg had a piece in the Times that basically compared what Governor DeSantis was doing to what an autocrat like Viktor Orban in Hungary is doing.

We had Kimberlé Crenshaw on the show and she basically said that we should stop calling it a cultural war, this is fascism. This is what it looks like when you have the state trying to control and suppress its citizens. Do you think that is an overstatement? Where do you stand on that?

Um, yeah — it’s not only overstatement extraordinaire, Alex; the rabid left, and by extension, the Democrat Party continues to do its damnedest to control and suppress conservative content, rewrite history and literature, and convert the Justice Department, FBI, and IRS into enforcement arms of the Democrat Party. I can go on, but you get the point.

Jelani Cobb was all in, of course.

Yeah, I don’t, actually. I don’t think that is an overstatement and I think that if we were actually, you know, looking at what the long-term objectives are here, it would be astounding, and terrifying for people.

But you know, in fact it is being framed as culture wars, people thinking oh this is, you know, basically like the equivalent—the political equivalent of a sports rivalry. You know, we’re not thinking of this in the long term in terms of what its implications are for free expression.

And—which is also weird because one of the things that they’re using, the rhetoric that they are using is that this is actually an attempt to bolster free expression. And, you know, that is the, kind of, the height of cynical politics as it relates to this.

The most amusing part about the left is its complete lack of self-awareness about the depth of its hypocrisy, which knows no bounds — most of which is employed to pander to or exploit the Democrat base. Anyway, let’s go back to Alex for the wrap-up, which defies reality.

But you know, one of the things about the measures that the governor and his allies are taking is that they are so, they are both at once extreme and totally vague, right? You can’t engage in activities that are divisive or inclusive, or divisive, you know?

Oh, we know, Alex — And trust us. Far better than your leftist mush-brain is capable of grasping.