Pardon me for saying but you sound kinda unhinged with all this facism stuff. Seriously.
The fact is people seldom know what is happening, while it is happening. And, at the moment, that very much seems to be happening in the United States. Hindsight, or so it’s said, is always 20/20. I’m just not in need of hindsight in this instance. Neither is Robert Reich. Neither is Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a brilliant scholar of fascism and its history. I don’t believe they are the least bit unhinged, for the effort they make in providing simple historical perspective. If warning people of what is happening, of which they themselves may be blind, is being unhinged, then I’m fine with that.
You call me unhinged, yet the growth of a fascist movemet, is apparent to observers far more knowledgeable than I am. Yet, I can still see it happening. At least I had no blinders at all where right wing populism of a fascist flavor was concerned. For that, I thank an education, one that did not prove otherwise all that relevant at times. But I sure recognized the appearance of a fascist-inclined authoritarian. And it is an absolute earth shattering development within the body politic of the United States. And we’re far from over it, far from an understanding of exactly how this will, or will not, transform this country.
At any rate, “all this fascism stuff” really couldn’t be more relevant to our present moment. And that is not my fault, and I am clearly not unhinged in recognizing that very simple, and quite visible, fact. Extreme right wing movements are appearing in several nations, MAGA is ours….
That said, I’ve believed all along that liberals and conservatives respond to the world in starkly different ways, and I must acknowledge that this fact may be part of the reason the two “world views”, for that is what they amount to, find it near impossible to understand where the other side is coming from. On top of which, in any democracy, a very healthy % of the electorate actually prefer authoritarianism, and that too plays into not being alarmed in the least by a Trump. So, regardless of where you stand, I’m certainly fine with you not understanding where the hell I’m even coming from. It’s almost a baseline condition in our body politic at the moment, for each side to see the other side as fundamentally mistaken/dangerous, as we prepare for what should be a most tumultuous 2024.
Nothing helps more in recognizing what’s happening, while it’s happening, than a good understanding of history. And the clearest understanding is reached of the present moment, IMHO, when one can achieve that. If we could all come back in a hundred years we could all learn what history has to say about the present moment. But we don’t have to depend on historical hindsight to at least recognize what historical forces are presently at work, if we work at reaching that understanding.
I do respect your opinion, and if fascism bears no relevance to you, in our present moment, then I can at least understand why you are sick of hearing it from me…..