As the felon-in-chief and his murderous henchmen feebly grasp for unfettered authoritarian rule, it’s becoming increasingly evident that enacting a fascist takeover the of United States is as easy as cajoling a clowder of cats to march in lockstep in full military gear.
Here are the factors working against the current administration’s fascist fantasies:
1. Good ol’ checks and balances. Sure, all three branches currently cater to Trump, but the Supreme Court is 100% made of up idiosyncratic weirdos with a strong belief in their personally correct view of the world. Which means they won’t always agree, they aren’t fully predictable, and they aren’t fully controllable. Congress, on the other hand, is packed with conformists and followers, but most are constantly licking their finger and holding it up to the wind to see if it’s still blowing money into their coffers and votes into their ballot boxes. And the wind can change on a dime. There are still three branches of government, and they don’t all move in lockstep. Not yet, at least.
2. Federal, state, county, city governments. There are branches of government, and there are levels of government. And the levels are NOT hierarchical. Power is highly distributed in the United States. Governors may not bend the knees. Mayors will flip you the bird. Sheriffs will do whatever the hell they want. Total consolidation of power is unlikely become our governmental system is a gigantic, hairy, unruly mess of interconnected parts.
3. Corporations and billionaires are fickle allies. Silicon Valley leaned left for a long time. Peter Thiel and Elon Musk were the first to defect, but soon enough we saw Zuckerberg, Bezos, Cook, and Pichai line up in the front row of Trump’s ’24 inauguration, ready to lick fascist boot. But Trump’s disastrous, ill-conceived economic policies are already hurting the economy, and when the AI bubble bursts the tech elite may abandon ship, or at least reduce their giving levels. They may not come back to the left, but they will reevaluate the economic policies that currently include making US products more expensive and encouraging the world to abandon USD as a reserve currency. The exceptions are Palantir CEO Alex Karp, a true zealot who is ALL IN on the Orwellian surveillance state, and Thiel, who lives in his own weird nonreality bubble involving multiple potential Antichrists. But the others are just holding their fingers to the wind so see which way public opinion (and discretionary spending) are flowing.
4. The U.S. military has a long institutional memory. Certainly there are fascist elements within the US military, from grunts to generals. But there are also thousands of level-headed officers, some having fathers or grandfathers who fought against fascism. Trump talks about the military like it’s his own personal strike force, hired goons that shoot whomever he want them to shoot. But reality is more complicated. A military coup against Trump is highly unlikely, but nor will the generals blindly follow stupid, unpatriotic, treasonous orders. More likely, they’ll find ways to distract and outwit Trump, and muzzle his bloodthirsty dog Miller.
5. Americans have main character syndrome. We’ve all been brainwashed into the most radical form of cultural individualism on the planet. But this sense of personal importance that each of us has may actually protect us in the end. Americans just won’t shut up with our thoughts and opinions, myself included. We’re a hard group to intimidate into obedient silence because we love the sound of our own voices. Stamp out or defund one avenue of free speech and ten more independent journalists will rise up like weeds. We are CONSTANTLY exercising our first amendment right, to the great annoyance of the rest of the world.
Hopium, all of it? Maybe. But democracy isn’t dead yet. The United States may very well be an antifragile nation. Don’t capitulate. Keep protesting, expressing yourself, boycotting bad companies, doing whatever you can.
Fuck ICE, fuck the pedo-in-chief, fuck Stephen Miller, and long live the patriots who are willing to work for good governance, basic human decency, and upholding our constitutional rights.
LINDA LANCIONE
Hopium–love it!