The 2024 United States Presidential Election holds immense significance as a pivotal juncture in American history. It underscores the nation’s current state of division, with differing perspectives on the ideal vision of America. One such vision envisions the progress made under President Joe Biden’s administration, which has been notably pro-labor in recent memory. This vision emphasizes investing in those who have lagged behind and aligns with Biden’s campaign message of unity during the tumultuous 2020 election cycle. In contrast, the campaign of Donald Trump, a politically inexperienced billionaire, advocates for a distinctive and inflammatory brand of American politics. That’s why I felt it crucial to discuss this momentous event with profound consequences, which will affect me and those I know for generations. It not only reflects the current state of the nation but also serves as a harbinger of its future trajectory—will democracy endure or will it be temporarily preserved while the very conditions that threaten it remain largely unaddressed and perpetuated within the nation’s fabric? Regardless of the outcome, November 5th promises to be a day of despair. However, I want to emphasize that there is a clearer and better option, albeit insufficient in addressing the rabid crowds of MAGAism that have infected our nation and will continue to impact our institutions for generations to come. The article that’ll be under review is from the Wall Street Journal, a well-regarded and generally neutral New York-based business newspaper owned by the notoriously conservative billionaire Rupert Murdoch, who also owns Fox News and the Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal has an infamously Conservative editorial board, which is separate from the newsroom journalists and is essentially filled with partisan essayists and columnists regardless of the publication, which gives us a unique outlook of the state of conservative media and the opinion of the threat to democracy that Trump is. To them, democracy and our basic constitutional institutions aren’t under threat and if it is its because of the Democrats and this particle article, *The ’Fascist’ Meme Returns* is the epitome of the state of mind amongst the conservative media, even establishment conservative media. This irrational rationalization of such a vile movement and man who has done irreparable harm to this country and its institutions alongside his attempts to overturn the electoral results, should in many Americans mind, disqualify Trump from even attempting to run for President, that’s the case I will make as we are confronted with a particularly egregious case of rationalizing the irrational. *The ‘Fascist’ Meme Returns* was published by the WSJ Editorial Board on October 20th, 2024 throughout the piece, the Editorial Board routinely dismissed Trumps actions and downplaying them, repeatedly made false equivalences, and it takes Trumps word wholeheartedly. There are a series of points in which I can address that would be beyond the scope of the prompt of the paper, so I’d like to particularly focus on a single quote which demonstrates not only the incompetence of the Editorial board but the blatantly partisan nature of which is dangerous to the foundation of our country is something that should not go unaddressed. There is a point made by the WSJ that executive power and its use is beyond the scope in which it’s allowed to be carried out is essentially an abuse of power or indicative of authoritarian tendencies. > Mr. Trump’s worst attempt at stretching executive power—reallocating military construction money to build the border wall—was small beer compared with Mr. Biden’s lawless $400 billion student loan forgiveness. For this opinion to have any merit, an individual would have to go through the active intentional process of ignoring Trumps actions throughout his first term in office. They would have to go through the intentional process of ignoring Trumps campaign promise of banning every single muslim migrating into the country, which he carried out in a reduced form with a subsequent backtrack on the purpose of the travel bans being put in place is because of the immigrants personal religious beliefs. They would also have to forget Trump using his executive power, which doesn’t exclusively have to include executive orders but also includes foreign policy which the President is given more discretion and legal leeway on, to attempt to intimidate Vladimir Zelensky to gather information on potential presidential opponent - Joe Biden. Donald Trump also attempted to during his presidency, to overturn the results of an election, he actively sought out legal methods and pseudo-judicial methods in order to prevent his inevitable loss and to disrupt the transition of power. Donald Trump surrounded himself with conservative partisan lawyers, such as Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman - who were instrumental in penning bad faith legal theories in which to allow for the overturning of the electoral results, according to the January 6th Report by the January 6th Select House Committee: > As January 6th approached, John Eastman and others devised a plan whereby Vice President Pence would, as the presiding officer, declare that certain electoral votes from certain States could not be counted at the joint session.148 John Eastman knew before proposing this plan that it was not legal. Indeed, in a pre-election document discussing Congress’s counting of electoral votes, Dr. Eastman specifically disagreed with a colleague’s proposed argument that the Vice President had the power to choose which envelopes to “open” and which votes to “count. I assert that these legal theories, specifically this one, is bad faith because it was actively known amongst the Trump goon brigade that this theory was illegal, but they believed that it was possible that it could go through and Trump could take power again. It was emphasized time and time again within the January 6th report that one, John Eastman knew it was illegal, and that two, he went through with it anyway and so did Donald Trump. > Even after Eastman proposed the theories in his December and January memoranda, he acknowledged in conversations with Vice President Pence’s counsel Greg Jacob that Pence could not lawfully do what his own memoranda proposed.152 Eastman admitted that the U.S. Supreme Court would unanimously reject his legal theory. “He [Eastman] had acknowledged that he would lose 9-0 at the Supreme Court.” 153 Moreover, Eastman acknowl- edged to Jacob that he didn’t think Vice President Al Gore had that power in 2001, nor did he think Vice President Kamala Harris should have that power in 2025.154 Fundamentally, this legal theory devised by Trump and his crew would’ve removed millions of peoples votes from the pool and completely tread on the Constitution which he was supposed to fight for and defend - what Trump and his collaborators were doing was planning and executing a coup: > …as January 6th approached, President Trump nevertheless embraced the new Eastman theories, and attempted to implement them. In a series of meetings and calls, President Trump attempted to pressure Pence to intervene on January 6th to prevent Congress from counting multiple States’ electoral votes for Joe Biden. So for the WSJ Editorial Board, to completely ignore this outsized executive overreach and insurrectionist tendency is reflective of their partisan attitude and outward refusal to accept reality. They do the traditional caveats throughout the piece whenever they properly acknowledged the flaws of Donald Trump that even they couldn’t ignore, if it was to boil it down was ‘well it wasn’t that bad’ to ‘the institutions held up’, which ignores the delay to the transition of power and the now new downstream effects of rejecting electoral results wholesale. It has become part of the Republican party’s implicit platform as at first, like the WSJ, Republicans expressed shock and dismay at January 6th and tried to back down from their support of Trump but as soon as they realized they could get away with this message to their voters, they began to blatantly refuse electoral losses, with claims of voter fraud being largely unsubstantiated or not to the degree in which to overturn an election. The fact that the government didn’t collapse despite Trumps attempts to create and take advantage of a constitutional crisis is to them enough of a reason for them to ignore what happened in 2020. The WSJ states: > JD Vance is no Mike Pence, but the Electoral Count Act makes a replay of 2020 more difficult. We have confidence that American institutions—the Supreme Court, the military, Congress—would resist any attempt to subvert the Constitution. The absurdity of this assertion becomes evident upon careful consideration. Despite the attempt to overturn the 2020 election results, which the WSJ Editorial Board implicitly acknowledges occurred, they dismiss the comparison of former President Trump to a fascist as mere rhetoric. This dismissal overlooks his authoritarian tendencies, his refusal to accept election results, and his refusal to relinquish executive power. The WSJ Editorial Board’s attempt to define fascism in order to apply it to the discussion of a presidential candidate’s fascism further exacerbates the absurdity. While this may be a reasonable approach for most attempting to engage in this discussion, it is essential to clarify the concept of fascism and its definition within the context of the conversation. Yet it is quite sad that in a discussion that could be had about the nuances of applying the label fascism onto contemporary political phenomenon that may be authoritarian, but not explicitly fascist, instead of this nuanced discussion we are forced to contend with the WSJ Editorial Boards horrendous, simplistic, and ahistorical definition of what fascism is: > Fascism historically was “national socialism”—government control over much of the economy. By that definition, Democrats today are the national socialists—using regulation, mandates, law enforcement, and trillions of dollars in subsidies to coerce Americans to follow their dictates on climate and culture. Mr. Trump was a deregulator in his first term and promises to be more so in a second. To begin, national socialism, i.e. nazism isn’t just regulation of the economy. To simplify this hate-filled ideology, which has worse characteristics than being overly regulatory over the economy, so for the focus of the WSJ Editorial Board to be on economic control over the economy rather than, say, the genocidal and imperialist tendencies of the Nazi regime is indicative of their blindness as to what the real fundamental faults of Nazism are. Which is why this definition of national socialism is far from what they characterize as ‘historically’, because in reality, historically, governments have always had some major hand in regulating the economy. They equate government deregulation of private industry as the opposite of fascism and indicative of whether they have authoritarian tendencies or not, depending on whether they prioritize that or not. This again is also an ahistorical position on what liberty means, even within the context of philosophers and economists who examine liberal capitalism. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a historical icon amongst liberals, believed that a balance between private and collective interests within the ownership of property was necessary for a stable society based on equity. The Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board and this article being an example of it, are egregiousness at its feverous peak, it represents the dishonesty that is vibrant and thriving within the Republican Party as they attempt to downplay insurrection and violence, while rationalizing it and justifying it but also at the same time completely going along with it. These attempts to escape accountability and criticism mirror their cult leader, and it is downright traitorous but it isn’t something that shouldn’t be expected when Republicans are entering a serious conversation.