Fascism is on the march in the US and around the world, and the leader of the slo-mo coup in the US is our very own special “fucking moron” in the White House, Donald Jackass Trump. With his sycophants willing to use him to further their own evil agendas—fascists in his administration are ruining the Executive Branch; fascists in the US Congress are doing nothing constructive while he walks all over them; and fascists in SCOTUS are turning jurisprudence on its head and making Il Dulce into a monarch; and the fascists who contributed to “Project 2025,” along with all the far-right Catholics, Evangelicals, white supremacists, and toady Blacks, Latinos, and other minorities who prefer “strong leaders,” meaning “fascist pricks,” over any reasonable and sane leader are rubbing their hands in glee—all of these fascists have jumped on Trump’s slow train of death and doom to inexorably erode American democracy and our constitutional rights.
The march of that slo-mo coup is speeding up, though. You see it in the takeover of LA and DC, Chicago, Boston, and NYC soon to follow. You see it in the gerrymandering just passed in the fascist-dominated Texas legislature and the creation of those inhumane detention centers in Florida and other places. You see it in the mass deportations where men, women, and children are rounded up and sent overseas, often to foreign countries that aren’t the deportees’ homelands, so they don’t even know the language, and splitting up entire families in the process. You see it in the raid on John Bolton’s house and his place of work for writing a book critical of Trump with the reason for the search being an alleged crime that Trump himself should have been convicted for, illegally possessing classified papers. Who’s next? Cheney, Kinzinger, George Conway, Romney? (Of course, Trump the Skunk should have faced a firing squad long ago just for January 6, 2021!)
This wannabe fuehrer and absolute jackass now in the White House can’t take honest criticism. In fact, he seeks retribution against anyone who dares to criticize him, declaring that person to be an enemy of the state. (I guess that’s me?) Members of Congress, those few who won’t jump on the fascists’ train heading toward a fascist hell, are leaving Congress to wait out the Armageddon with their loving families. (Fascists rarely have loving ones, though, just more sycophants like Narcissus le Grand’s two oafish sons, daughter, and in-laws.) I know people who are fleeing to Canada or European countries like I almost did during the Vietnam era (unlike the “fucking moron,” I didn’t claim to have bone spurs!). They’re fleeing the slo-mo coup because they find it intolerable to continue to live in the Fascist States of America. I’m getting there too, but I’m too old to escape abroad now.
It took centuries to build a US democracy that could stand up to fascism. We almost lost it to those World War Two fascists—Hitler and his Nazis and Hirohito and his emperor—but we managed to survive. We also managed to survive McCarthyism, white supremacy haters during the Civil Rights era, and Newt Gingrich and his fucking Tea Party haters. The difference now is that the slo-mo coup is like an incurable cancer that’s slowly eating away and destroying all our freedoms and rights we fought so hard for. I’m afraid that most people will realize far too late that this loss of freedoms and rights will turn their lives into hell on Earth. I already feel that way.
I witnessed fascism in Europe and Latin America as a young man. Soldiers in cities gave me the willies. I once read Cry, the Beloved Country about the struggle against apartheid in South Africa; I might end up writing Volume Two soon about what’s occurring in the US…if Donald Jackass Trump and his fascist MAGA hordes don’t come after me! It’s already looking a lot like a combination of Orwell’s fictional 1984 or the very real 1930’s Germany. Can we stop this slo-mo fascist coup that seems to be gathering speed? I fear not.