Wednesday, November 2, 2022

American Fascism: Closer Than You Think

Last night I had a bad dream—a nightmare really. I just don’t understand how half of this country can turn so fascist. It makes no sense. I hear all the time, commentators on the left like Bill Maher trying to make peace between the two sides—but the right isn’t listening. It doesn’t matter how much we try to accommodate them, the right-wing voter is truly stupid to believe the lies that Republicans tell them. It’s all a load of crap, and they’ve bought into every word of it. Even while they’re being screwed by the politicians they elect, they just don’t seem to care—or more inescapably, they are simply too stupid to understand how they are voting against their own self-interest. Politicians on the left want only to make life better for everyone in this county. Those on the right, however, are merely the employees of the corporate oligarchy, and have only two goals: to eliminate taxes for the rich, and regulations for corporations. That’s it. The people can go to hell. The Congressional employees of the rich have tapped into the ignorant, anti-intellectual hatred of the underbelly of this nation, and they realize now that it is the only way for their corporate bosses to remain in power. The left is increasingly trying to socialize—though not nearly fast enough for me—but that is the fear of the oligarchy. And now their only hope of wresting power from the people is through fascism.

But to my dream. About a week ago something popped up on YouTube that I glanced at, read, and then tried to ignore. But it obviously stayed in my subconscious because this nightmare bubbled to the surface. The title of the piece, from MSNBC, said something to the effect that if Republicans take control of the House and Senate that they will attempt to impeach Joe Biden. For nothing. Because they have absolutely nothing to impeach him for. But if that succeeds, then they truly have found a way to subvert the will of the people. They will no doubt do the same thing to Kamala Harris, and then the Republican Speaker of the House will simply move into the White House and fascism will reign in this country. It’s unbelievable. In my dream I was watching a sort of documentary about the new president: Scoop Jackson. Not our Scoop from Washington State in the seventies, but a black guy who had been made the new president by the new fascist Congress. It was as though I had woken up one morning and the world had tipped on its side. The inmates had truly taken over the asylum. And to have to watch news coverage that wrings its hands and nearly weeps at what is going on is akin to someone giving a detailed description of the Titanic going down . . . while we’re all onboard. And worse yet, half of the people cheering as the fucking thing sinks.

Well, I couldn’t get back to sleep, and that’s why I’m writing this now. I simply can’t believe that a time will come in this country when the will of the vast majority of the people will simply be ignored, a right-wing fascist government will be installed, and the oligarchy will finally have won. I can’t even find the strength to hope to believe that things will eventually right themselves, that the people will finally come to understand how they have been lied to and stop the madness. I know too much about history to do that. People are fucking morons. All you have to do is look at religion to know that. In a week either the tide will be stemmed—temporarily—or we will find ourselves staring into the abyss. It’s so ironic now that I once wrote a whole piece on this very blog about how the mid-term elections are of no importance whatsoever. But if the oligarchy and their employees in Congress take over, then the end of our democratic society will have come about as a direct result of a mid-term election. I truly hope my dream is not prophetic, but at this point I refuse to hope. Until the voters on the right, who only care about hatred, turn their back on lies and deceit, everything I thought was true about this county will be in peril. I guess we’ll find out what happens in another week. The previous president was bumbling, stupid idiot, but we didn't know how good we had it. We won’t be so lucky next time.