Short Memories

Those walking down the authoritarian / fascist road with Republicans and other extreme right groups have short historical memories. This leads to a very bad place for everyone. The vague, mythological past they want to somehow bring back does not exist. Remember the '50's? Yeah, sure the cars, early rock-n-roll and everything seemed more black and white. How easy we forget the conformity, deep racism and the growing specter of nuclear war that's with us to this very day. Our minds are selective about memories. It's easy to remember the good old days. The gambler remembers the few really big wins from by-gone poker games but easily forgets all the losses over years and years. Still, neoliberalism, the isolation of social media silos and hopelessness has made us easy targets for conmen repackaging fond mythological memories and selling them to us as a vision of a bright, hopeful future. I cannot think of a single example in history where this has ever worked out. Can you? I bet we both can come up with plenty of examples of where it has not. Fascism has thrived long past World War II with Uncle Sam's help. "As ye shall sew, ye shall reap." 

Can it happen here? Of course it can! It is already! Look around at all the dead and dying cities, the fruit of neoliberalism. People feel no longer actually represented by our government. The government of the people and by the people has been replaced by the government of the corporations for the corporations. This is not something new that happened one night a few weeks ago. It has been this way for well over a hundred years. There was a break in the usual pattern with FDR and the New Deal. It took the New Deal to save capitalism from itself. We find ourselves seventy plus years later living through another gilded age where the .1% only get richer and richer at the expense of everyone else. This is not sustainable but the powerful are still going to try. Watch what now passes for political discourse. Let's blame misfortune on everyone / anyone else but the powerful. But how? Note the never ending attacks on education and any form of critical thinking. Ignorance as a badge of honor is deeply troubling. Democracy cannot work without an educated population. We are moving into 2+2=5 territory where too many find hope and a false sense of safety in the strongman. Someone must SAVE us. This is what Trump realized that none of the others running for president did. He tapped into it and it worked just well enough for him to squeak by with an Electoral College victory. He turned out to be a wannabe, not near as savvy as say Putin in Russia. I still believe Trump and company were only a dress rehearsal for the competent strongman to come. Many are ringing the alarm but most of the Democrats are too invested in the status quo to make a stronger, better educated middle class. Joe is the sane, calming face on a brutal, insane system sleepwalking into authoritarian rule.  

So be on the lookout for that bright-eyed, cleaver and engaging politician who on the surface says all the right sounding things. But if you are brave enough to really listen, really says nothing. He will be good at pointing fingers, making absurdities into sound reasoning and political dissent into high treason. Armed mobs will be militias via executive order. There will be no defined plan or purpose only the glorious leader  endlessly pursing more and more power. His grand designs made easier via an unquestioning population. Fear the promise of a return to a bygone golden age. Watch out for ceaseless "Othering." And above all, never stop asking questions. When you can no longer question, then it will be too late...