Historians sound the alarm over GOP's 'frightening' authoritarian plans

A pair of Kentucky historians warned that Democrats are not doing enough to fight back against the authoritarian threat from the Republican Party.

Brian Clardy, a Murray State University history professor, John Hennen, a Morehead State University history professor emeritus, told another Kentucky historian that Donald Trump and his GOP loyalists are steering the U.S. toward fascism, according to an op-ed published by the Courier-Journal.

"Trump and his sycophants ceaselessly demagogue against President Joe Biden and his party, falsely portraying them as 'radical socialists' and even 'communists' who conspired to 'steal' the 2020 election," wrote the op-ed's author Berry Craig, a professor emeritus of history at West Kentucky Community College in Paducah. "Yet most Democrats resist calling Trumpism what it is – a racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic and religiously bigoted movement that is anti-democratic and embraces violence and vigilantism."

Craig interviewed two fellow historians, who agreed that Democrats must alert voters to the threat posed by the twice-impeached one-term president and his allies.

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“This is real, this is serious and it’s frightening,” Clardy said.

“We must build a democratic resistance that amounts to a counter-fascist coup," Hennen agreed. "In short, we must all become ‘antifa,’ or antifascists."

Democrats are wrong to think they will hold onto their congressional majorities by boosting the economy or beating back COVID-19, the historians agreed.

“The Democrats have to remind people that next year and in 2024, democracy itself will be on trial,” Clardy said.