Farcical and (likely) failed though the Trump gambit has become, I’m not hearing most news and political commentators explicitly calling this what it is: a plan and strategy of this administration that isn’t merely like totalitarianism, it IS totalitarianism. It’s not like fascism, but IS fascism. Gaslighting with non-stop relentless lies in order to confuse, dispirit and intimidate the majority of the population; labeling immigrants, liberals, cities, scientists, pollsters, doctors, healthcare workers, election officials and the media an inhuman league of evil to be relentlessly fought by whatever means necessary to free us of our humiliations and restore the mythic greatness of our past…This is simply—and not even new or nuanced—simply Totalitarianism, and to the extent that the military and big business are subsumed, Fascism. But of course you’d have to have the least knowledge of history to know what that means.
So that’s where we are, with nearly half the country either ignorant of the meaning of Fascism and glorying in it, or committed to burying the recognition in a headlong push to dictatorship. I do worry that the Democrats, ever susceptible to wishful thinking when it comes to recognizing the tenacity and moral free-fall of the GOP, will simply try to finger-wag their way past this and ignore it. That would be a big mistake, in my opinion. There has to be a reckoning. And it can only come with real leadership and a forceful realignment with democratic values through a true and palpable recharging of socio-economic opportunity NOW, and a forceful calling out of all obstacles to it; and in turn, secure and fair elections to promote new leaders who put those values front and center. Failing to create that opportunity just strengthens Fascism and its actors, and swells the legions of the disaffected who are drawn to it. Democracy in the USA has been strained to the point of breaking before, but today, by those in power, it has been hacked to the barest thread. We may have missed writing its obit in 2020–and hallelujah for that!—but the real tests will be in 2022 & 2024, I think.