Pennsylvania, Birthplace of Democracy, Could Elect America’s First Fascist Governor

He’s already telling us who he really is. He recently surfaced at a QAnon meeting, where he mocked what he called “this myth of the separation of church and state,” and vowed that in November “we’re going to take our state back. My God will make it so.” He’s also an anti-choice zealot who has already floated a bill to ban all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. If/when the Supreme Court nixes Roe v. Wade, Mastriano would work with the Republican legislature to end women’s bodily autonomy. (He says: “I don’t give way for exceptions, either.”)

Most importantly, a Pennsylvania governor has the power to appoint the state’s top election official (the secretary of the commonwealth, who certifies election results), and it’s a cinch bet that whoever fills that role would work with Mastriano to ensure that the 2024 contest is rigged for MAGA.

So much for Pennsylvania being the birthplace of democracy.

Do I sound like an alarmist? Was I an alarmist in 2016 when I wrote repeatedly (and in vain) that Trump was a “clear and present danger to our democratic values”?

Pennsylvania Democrats are reportedly giddy that Mastriano is the Republican gubernatorial nominee because there’s supposedly no way he can beat Josh Shapiro. (I seem to recall that many Democrats in 2016 were giddy about Trump because there was no way that such a clownish fraud could beat Hillary.) But this is no time for haughtiness.

If grassroots Democrats do what they usually do – stay home en masse during non-presidential elections – then fascism, in Alan Furst’s words, will no longer be “padding around softly on the edges of one’s life.”

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Dick Polman, a veteran national political columnist based in Philadelphia and a Writer in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania, writes at DickPolman.net. Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com. Copyright 2022 Dick Polman, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.