America Cannot Forgive MAGA Leaders

By Jon Hochschartner

Eventually, the current fascist tide will turn. President Donald Trump and his gang of would-be authoritarians will be out of power. When that day comes, there will undoubtedly be calls to turn the page on their lawlessness. We all require forgiveness. I certainly have in the past and will in the future. However, for the sake of democracy and the rule of law, we must withhold it from leaders of the Make America Great Again movement, at least for a time.

Our country must make clear to those who would follow in their footsteps that there are consequences for trying to overthrow democracy. At the very least, this means Trump and his enablers must be sent to prison. Many of these figures are outrageously rich. Their wealth should be confiscated and put toward some kind of socially-beneficial aim. Their names should go down in history as shameful traitors to the American experiment.

Trump and his fascist ilk have demonstrated they cannot be moved by appeals to reason or morality. The only thing they will respond to is raw power or its threatened use. This corresponds with the behavior of their ideological forebears. The far right was globally marginalized for the latter half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st because an entire generation of fascist leaders was killed or forced into hiding in World War II and its aftermath.

I pray such measures aren’t required to beat back today’s far right — primarily for the sake of their potential victims, but also for the sake of the fascist leaders themselves. It’s my profound hope we can resolve our ongoing constitutional crisis without bloodshed and that imprisoning, confiscating the assets of, and shaming Trump and his allies will serve as a sufficient deterrent to those who might take inspiration from their authoritarian example.

Ultimately, this will be decided by the far-right regime which controls our government. Freedom-loving Americans will inevitably and justifiably resist tyrannical leaders, however long the latter cling to power, whether that’s one year or ten. As a result, the fascists in charge must choose how many lives will be thrown away, including their own, in vain pursuit of an illegally-enacted agenda that will be reversed the moment they are removed from office.

The pro-democracy coalition has a wide variety of policy goals. For instance, as an animal activist, I’d like to see a massive infusion of state and federal funding into cultivated-meat research. The new protein is grown from livestock cells, without slaughter. I view the technology as the most promising means of reducing nonhuman suffering and premature death. That said, none of our goals can be achieved under an authoritarian government.

We must defeat the far-right threat. One of the most important things we can do to help achieve this, besides protesting in the streets, is making clear to leaders of the Make America Great Again movement that there will be consequences for their actions. Ideally, such warnings will serve as a check on their worst instincts. However, we also need to make sure feckless leaders of the Democratic Party are willing to follow through with these promises.

Throughout my life, Republicans have grown increasingly radical and anti-democratic. Over and over again, Democrats have sought to turn the page following catastrophic instances of conservative extremism and illegality. Republicans have interpreted such moves not as acts of patriotism or mercy, but as evidence of weakness. It’s only emboldened conservatives to push the envelope further. With America on the edge, we can’t let this happen again.

Jon Hochschartner lives in Connecticut. He is the author of a number of books, including The Animals’ Freedom Fighter: A Biography of Ronnie Lee, Founder of the Animal Liberation Front