Sunday, October 29, 2023

It Is Bewildering Enough That "Democracy" Is On The Ballot Next Year, And More Bewildering Still That The Imposition Of Proto-Fascism Is A Referendum Proposal, -- From Sea To Shining Sea -- From Sea To Shining Sea .

 

Nah, it couldn't happen here.

Compendium Of Pax-Barbaria Posts Concerning Absolutism, Authoritarianism, Fascism And Trumpism

Alan Archibald

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Boston College History Professor Heather Cox Richardson "reaches full stride" at the 7:47 mark of the interview below.
From start to finish, Richardson is increasingly insightful, and increasingly eloquent.
If you want to understand the social, political and historical context of "what's going on in America" since Donald Trump descending the Trump Tower escalator to announce his presidential candidacy, I have come across no one who has provided a better, briefer summary.
In just one hour, Professor Heather Cox Richardson puts the broken pieces of American political culture back together again, defying the fate of Humpty Dumpty.
Of course, Cox Richardson "only" accomplishes her feat in the realm of ideas and civil discourse.

But she is wise enough to know that the stakes in next year's federal elections are the most important in American history. Democracy itself is on the ballot, and a dauntingly high percentage of the electorate has taken leave of their senses, mostly because "God made them do it."
Cox Richardson is perspicacious enough to know that if the authoritarians win next year, they -- and their hidebound followers -- will only prevail for "50 years" because fascism has a short shelf life.
Why does fascism have a short shelf-life?
Populists -- and other disgruntled, mostly uneducated people (the kind of folks Trump "loves" -- believe that "strong-men-alpha-male-chest-thumpers" will "put everything in order by fiat alone."

Or when fiat proves unequal to the task, the overwhelming temptation will be enact -- and approve -- dictatorial rule.

George Orwell And Aldous Huxley Describe "The Perfect Dictatorship" (But Don't Worry... It Couldn't Happen Here.)

"It Can't Happen Here," A Novel By Sinclair Lewis (What Will Happen When America Has A Dictator?)


But then -- with remarkable rapidity -- disillusion sets in.

Why?

Because it is impossible to dictate the re-vitalization of culture, and efforts to so by repressive measures like "book-banning" are not only ineffective, but counterproductive.
When considering the short shelf-life of authoritarianism, remember that the Soviet Union -- which was one of two global Super-Powers just 45 years ago -- collapsed "overnight" (without a shot being fired) -- just 74 years after Communism took over.
People who support the heavy hand of authoritarianism-absolutism believe (as their Central Doctrine) that fiat government backed by brute power and violent repression (administered in ever-more-forceful applications) will "win the day."
Not only is this belief manifestly false, it normalizes cruelty, particularly the cruel treatment of minorities.

The Normalization Of Cruelty During Donald Trump's Administration: A Compendium

And so, when a decisive majority of populist/fascists reveal themselves as ignorant, theocratic blowhards, unfit for any job other than dictator or Walmart greeter, their ineptitude -- coupled with their boastful, aggressive, evangelical dimwittedness -- cause their "dream" to become a nightmare, and soon, what Stephen Colbert calls "reality's left-wing bias" reasserts itself as civil society.

In recent weeks, the morphing nightmare of "The Party Of Lincoln" is on full display in the House of Representatives where Republican members are no longer content to savage their Democratic opposition, but have begun to cannibalize their own.
*****

You may wonder why I categorize between 30% and 40% of the electorate as "populist/fascists."

I give the floor to The Daily Show's Jordan Klepper:


Klepper's Most Memorable Moment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfxPxN_4dnU

Klepper Explores The January 6th Hearing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Il4Cp74XRFI

Jordan Klepper vs. Donald Trump's Road To 2024 Candidacy

Sound thinking doesn't "just happen."
Rather, it requires a sustained educational milieu in which teachers imbue their students with unshakeable belief in Reason, Science and the unalterable fact that "the fullness of truth is only revealed in deep contextualization."
My Dad taught me that an unexpected fundament of healthy society (and viable politics) is the need for a very large dose of liberality in our legal system - so much so that many, if not most, people will think it's insane.
Dad observed that to avoid the cruelty of fascism - or, on a lesser scale, to avoid the cruelty of punitive, accusatory self-righteousness - it is essential that "lots of guilty people walk."
Say what?!?
Dad's reply was crystal clear.
Unless there is a very high bar of evidentiary proof that someone be found guilty -- high enough to minimize the possibility that innocent people be found guilty -- authoritarian absolutists will gain entry to a radically revised system of criminal justice, and any newly installed "low bar of evidentiary proof" will inspire them to seek control of the entire political system.

In the absence of a high bar of evidentiary proof, these proto-fascists -- who believe that they alone are "saved," and that all infidels should be crushed by the hobnailed boot of God's punitive vengeance whether in this life, or the next -- will dedicate themselves to electing candidates who are as small-minded, self-righteous and oppressive as they are.

Make no mistake.

Conservative Christians elected Donald Trump to The Oval Office because they see themselves in him: uneducated, judgmental, cantankerous and ever eager to make mountains out of molehills. (I can safely venture that neither you, nor anyone you know, has ever seen a member of MS-13, much less been threatened by one.)
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Compendium Of Pax-Barbaria Posts Concerning Absolutism, Authoritarianism, Fascism And Trumpism


And all the while, these folk don't see fit to ban assault rifles like the one that just killed 18 people in Maine and wounded 20 others who may now wish they were dead rather than grotesquely maimed..
And so it is that authoritarian-absolutists seek to impose the violence of those who are divinely ordained to be self-righteous, unthinking, vengeful and (increasingly) cruel, all of these traits rooted in their unquenchable thirst for "punitive retribution," thinly disguised as "godly righteousness."
Consider the following apt revelation from Renaissance Italy. It shows -- in one particular historical context -- how "Righteousness" progresses from the widespread perception of cultural and social corruption into implacable insistence on moral regeneration, which -- in a rocket burst of irony! -- creates the very degeneration these proto-fascists decry.
Then, as night follows day, the ever tightening noose of "Drain The Swamp; Punish The Evil Doers" begins to tighten around the necks of the very people who clamored for "absolute purity."

And so, they soon rebel against the authoritarian social and political structures that THEY THEMSELVES put in place.
We could call this historical lesson, "Make Florence Great Again!"
Religion, Perfectionism, Savonarola and The Pending Apocalypse of The Republican Party
(This Post Was Written In 2012)



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Religion, Perfectionism, Savonarola and The Pending Apocalypse of The Republican Party (This Post Was Written In 2012)
Religion, Perfectionism, Savonarola and The Pending Apocalypse of The Republican Party (This Post Was Written In 2012)
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Religion, Perfectionism, Savonarola and The Pending Apocalypse of The Republican Party (This Post Was Written In 2012)
Religion, Perfectionism, Savonarola and The Pending Apocalypse of The Republican Party (This Post Was Written In 2012)
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