We have a country in the middle of a COVID epidemic due to a failure of leadership by Trump. We have an economy in the tank due to a failure of leadership by Trump. We have the worst income disparity between the richest Americans and the rest of us that we have seen since the Great Depression--blame Trump and the GOP Congress for that (tax cuts for the rich anyone?) We have COVID economic relief being diverted to the securely wealthy.
The working class does not know how the rent will be paid or where the next meal is coming from or even if they will still be alive next month. And yet, rather than blaming the lack of leadership in Washington, they seek to blame...
Those who have the least economic power. Those are the most likely to be disenfranchised. Those who are scapegoated as the cause of all the country's ills. This is German/Italian style WWII jack booted/goose stepping
FASCISM.
Those people who think that they are being "mavericks" for refusing to wear a mask? They are fascist foot soldiers. Those who show up at peaceful protests waving around assault rifles--they are also fascist foot soldiers. Those who hurl racist insults at little girls and old ladies are the worst kind of cowardly fascist foot soldiers.
I use the word
cowardly deliberately. The fascist foot soldiers do not do what they do because they are brave and bold.They do what they do because they are scared shitless. Their world is crumbling around them. And yet, they dare not bite the hand that is holding their leash. So they lash out at those that they think cannot fight back. They create a fantasy world for themselves in which COVID would go away, and they would have their dream job and their dream house if only
America was white again!
Here is Paxton's definition of fascism:
"Robert Paxton says that fascism is "a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion".
Remind you of anyone?