*** “This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs: Whenhe first appears, he is a protector.” [Plato]
1] Research “the 14 characteristics of fascism”:
1- powerful and continuing nationalism
2- disdain for human rights
3- identifying enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause
4- supremacy of the military
5- rampant sexism
6- controlled mass media
7- obsession with national security
8- religion and government are intertwined
9- corporate power is protected
10- labor power is suppressed
11- disdain for intellectuals and the arts
12- obsession with crime and punishment
13- rampant cronyism and corruption
14- fraudulent elections
****** Thanks to the “revenge of the empire” since 1980, America is well on the way toward achieving many FASCIST factors listed above – especially #3, 5, 8, 9, 10, 13 – with Republicans/Far Right working very hard on achieving #14
***”People may start out with an initial prejudice against tyrants, but when tyrants or would-be tyrants treat them with adrenalin-releasing propaganda about the wickedness of their enemies – particularly of enemies weak enough to be persecuted – †hey are ready to follow [the tyrants] with enthusiasm.” [Aldous Huxley]
2]. Read: “The Conspiracy To End America…Five ways my old party is driving our democracy to autocracy” [Stuart Stevens – 25-year Republican lead strategist & media consultant]: “Whenever a democracy slides into autocracy, there are five critical elements at work: financiers, propagandists, support of a major party, legal theories to legitimize authoritarian acts, and shock troops.” YOU know all of these are at work NOW – YOU have seen it: the billionaires visibly out for Trump; the Far Right media echo chamber [TV, radio, I-net, “experts”, authors]: the Donald Trump [oops!!!] Republican “Party”; legal theories [the CORRUPT Roberts’ “supreme court”[???]. plus other legal groups & judges; January 6, 2021, plus various “militias” and armed men turning up at various public events…
*** It already almost happened in 1933 – Read “The Plot to Seize the White House,” by Jules Archer – the Jul-November, 1933 Right-Wing plot revealed by the McCormack-Dickstein Committee hearings and February 15, 1935 report.
*** “Of all the forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of the plutocracy.” [Theodore Roosevelt]
3]. Read: “Take Trump At His Word”. [New York Times Editorial; 10/27/24; Sunday Opinion]:
A- “Trump says he will use the Justice Department to punish people he doesn’t like. Believe him. In his own words…”
B- “Trump says he will round up and deport millions of immigrants. Believe him. In his own words…”
C- “Trump says he will deploy the American military against U.S. citizens. Believe him. In his own words…”
D- “Trump says he will allow vigilante violence to end crime. Believe him. In his own words…”
E- “Trump says he will order the military to strike foreign civilian targets if the United States is attacked.” Believe him..”
F- “Trump says he will punish blue states by withholding disaster relief. Believe him. In his own words…”
G- “Trump says he will use ideological tests to decide which public schools get federal money. Believe him…”
H- “Trump says he will abandon U.S. allies. Believe him. In his own words…”
*** “At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.” [Abraham Lincoln]
*****. Lincoln didn’t know about fascism. He didn’t know that the party he helped form – would itself be the author of most of America’s post-1980 problems and controversies, virtually all the craziness and cruelties. He did say, speaking of the “Know Nothings”..”I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”
***** Which explains why Trump is no Abraham Lincoln. – and why the party Lincoln formed is dead.
America is in BIG DANGER, democracy itself is in BIG DANGER, if near-50% of Americans believe an acknowledged “despicable” person, convicted felon, liar of recorded 30-40,000 lies, racist, misogamist, tax cheat, draft dodger, etc., etc. who instigated a near-coup on 1/6/21 – can somehow be “an instrument of God’s will” to “save” America from itself – when it’s his fellow top 1% that have created much of the mess the lower 90% needs to be saved from.
THE. SINGLE. GREATEST. CON. of all human history – turning the biggest, greatest democracy into a FASCIST PLUTOCRATIC THEOCRACY looms as a distinct possibility. – unless. YOU. decide this cannot happen when YOU vote on the future of America, November 5, 2024. Please think…………………
With Justice For All 