Fascism, part 2
Fascist America II: The Last Turnoff
Writing about fascism for an American audience is always a fraught business. Invariably, a third of the readers will dismiss the topic (and your faithful blogger’s basic sanity) out of hand. Either they’ve got their own definition of fascism and whatever’s going on doesn’t seem to fit it; or else they’re firm believers in a variant of Godwin’s Law, which says (with some justification) that anyone who invokes the F-word is a de facto alarmist of questionable credibility. I get letters, most of which say something to the effect of, “Calm down. You’re overreacting. We’re nowhere near there yet.”
This is our new reality – and it comes straight out of Hitler’s playbook (check out Chapter 6 of Mein Kampf). Their intention is to keep the outrage junkies high by giving the a never-ending supply of new made-up reasons to act out. When the birth certificate fracas cools, they’re standing by with “death panels.” When that one’s run its course, there will be something else – over and over, every few weeks for as long as the Dems rule.
Which means that even if we win this round, we can’t stand down. We’re going to be pushing back against these bullies, over and over, for the next three to seven years.
There are only two outcomes here. Either we get very good at spotting and stopping these attempts at a brownshirt takeover the minute they crop up; or they’re going to get very good at public intimidation, and keep ratcheting it up further toward outright violence and goon rule. That’s how it’s going to be for the rest of this administration. The sooner we resign ourselves to the zero-sum nature of this fight, the sooner we can get on with getting good at it.</em>
