I heartily endorse Nancy Braus's applause for the Republican Congress that passed the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to our Constitution, that abolished slavery, enshrined equal protection of the law, and protected voting rights for all Americans.
I also agree with her powerful condemnation of the Democratic white supremacists who aggressively undermined the promise of two of those amendments in the post–Civil War South.
I share her concern about a possible “fascist takeover,” especially of our economy. I learned in political science graduate school at UC Berkeley that the Communist economic program was to seize all of the means of production and put them under government ownership and management.
By contrast, the fascist economic program, enacted in Germany and Italy in the runup to World War II, was to leave the means of production in private hands but use the power of government to force those owners to do whatever they are told by the state.