Memo to Future Historians: This Is Fascism, and Millions of Us See It

David Axelrod is much more known these days for occasionally waving his fingers at fellow Democrats than for spewing partisan shots, so that caught my attention when he posted This on Wednesday of the worst”, [sic] as promised. Most of the people they catch have clean records. Some are citizens. Let me be clear: this does NOT make Chicago safer. This is state-sponsored chaos; dangerous political theater calculated to provoke.

Historians sometimes say that when societies descend into fascism, it can be difficult for people to realize it in real time. Well, historians of the future, I’m here to tell you: we notice. Millions of us are noticing. And we are horrified and enraged. We know this well: we once lived in a country that, for all its frequent imperfections, was a place where the rule of law was a widely shared value and where leaders acted with democratic restraint. We now live in a country where there is no rule of law; where leaders, particularly the president but also those who support him, spit on the idea not only of democratic restraint but of democracy itself; and where the first fearful instinct of almost every member of either of our two political parties is, virtually at all times, to do precisely what the leader wants.

It’s fascism. This may – for now – be a relatively mild form of fascism. Political opponents are not imprisoned or shot, opposition media are not shut down and books are not burned. But many things are terrifying events. And last year, we lived in a country where the three scenarios I just listed were barely possible. Today we live in a country where it is probably only a matter of time.

Let’s return to Axelrod, and specifically his use of the phrase “state-sponsored chaos.” This is exactly what President Trump is imposing on Chicago. To take just one of the incidents cited by Axelrod: Pastor David Black of the First Presbyterian Church was with a small group of protesters outside the ICE facility in Chicago. Three officers stood on the roof of the two-story building while Black and the others stood on the sidewalk, about 15 feet from the building. Black raised his arms to the sky, as if in prayer. Someone who appeared to be a fellow protester approached Black to speak with him. The next thing you see in this video is a considerable puff of smoke exploding from Black’s forehead as he falls to the ground. He is a clergyman. Exercising his First Amendment right (he’s fine and suing). Black later told CNN: “We could hear them laughing. »

Shooting an unarmed, peacefully protesting pastor is by definition an act of state-sponsored mayhem. The state-sponsored chaos begins at the top, with the president’s brutal and anarchic threat to imprison the governor of Illinois and the mayor of Chicago (incidentally, Greg Sargent addresses said governor, JB Pritzker, during his speech). Daily explosion podcast today). From there, the people with the uniforms, badges, and guns get the message, and they go out and do the things Axelrod listed above.

Administration officials pile on lies upon lies. When it comes to Portland, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt absurdly refers to the “radical left’s reign of terror.” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem says antifa is “just as dangerous” as ISIS, which killed thousands of apostates at its peak and raped little girls. Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, denounces every evening armed confrontations which either do not exist, or exist only because the administration creates them in order to be able to broadcast images which will be broadcast on loop on its propaganda network, Fox News. All this with the aim of erasing dissent, of erasing democracy. As Zeteo’s Kim Wehle said last week, in an article about two “national security” directives issued by Trump: “The president is taking steps to criminalize being anti-Trump in America. »

When a president and his aides do that, it’s no longer America.

When masked government thugs shoot a priest, it’s not America anymore.

When a hand-picked prosecutor with no prosecutorial experience indicts two honorable American citizens within a month of the president ordering their prosecution, and when two real prosecutors resign rather than pursue these obscene political prosecutions, it’s not America anymore.

When the nation’s third-ranking official, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, delays the swearing-in of a duly elected member of that body because he knows she will vote to release records that might highlight the president’s unsavory behavior, that is no longer America.

When the presidential administration announces that it is going after nonprofit charitable groups that have operated unmolested in this country for decades under Democratic and Republican administrations because they donate to causes disfavored by the president, it’s no longer America.

When naturalized citizens cancel their trips abroad because they cannot be sure they will be welcome back in their own country on the way back, it’s no longer America.

When the Department of Education bullies universities into agreeing to a “pact” under which they promise not to “demean” conservative ideas, it’s no longer America.

When the president and his family have used his office to enrich themselves to the tune of $3.5 billion in nine months, and when Congress, controlled by the president’s party, refuses to do anything about this rancid, dictatorial corruption, this is no longer America.

When the United States Supreme Court has sold its soul to all this barbarity, it is no longer America.

And when this thug wannabe dictator is also a buffoonish man-child who sits there in his jaw-dropping Oval Office with his fake face and fake hair next to another head of state (the President of Finland) while he once again brags about passing a simple dementia test that a 10-year-old could pass, and we realize that this man-child is the sitting president, that’s not America anymore, at least for anyone cares about how we look at others. of the world.

Historians of the future: Rest assured, millions of us know all this in real time. We are horrified, shocked, enraged and ashamed. We are acting, in a thousand ways, to oppose it. This cannot and will not be the end of the United States.