(01-31-2017, 02:00 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Well, I hope that I don't come off as a crank. Intensely partisan and opinionated -- OK. I know that.

There are no perfect parallels in history, and we have multiple cycles in operation.

Even the Vietcong got a bad mauling from the USA, even if their allies the North Vietnamese Army ultimately prevailed. .

(01-31-2017, 10:22 AM)SomeGuy Wrote:

(01-31-2017, 02:00 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Well, I hope that I don't come off as a crank. Intensely partisan and opinionated -- OK. I know that.

There are no perfect parallels in history, and we have multiple cycles in operation.

Even the Vietcong got a bad mauling from the USA, even if their allies the North Vietnamese Army ultimately prevailed. .

To be honest, you can come off as a bit of crank sometimes.  You're about as in to the impending rise of American fascism as AlphabetSoup is to WWIII.  The fact that you actually responded this time in normal fashion is a good sign.  Thanks.

I don't mind partisan and opinionated that much, it's when people do the discussion board equivalent of responding to requests for clarification by staring intently at my left ear lobe and ranting away that I get a bit concerned about how I am spending my time.

I mean, this is an odd topic for a discussion forum, broadly speaking, so we're all at least a little bit crankish.

David Kaiser Wrote:Thursday, January 26, 2017
As I see it

We are a week into the Trump Presidency, and it is taking shape more rapidly than any since Franklin Roosevelt's.  That is no accident: both men took office in the midst of a great crisis or Fourth Turning, as described and predicted by Bill Strauss and Neil Howe about 25 years ago.  Both represent the death of an old political order and both are determined fundamentally to reshape America.  This has excited some Americans and worried a great many others, especially in the blue states.  As usual, I find my own feelings to be quite different from those of many others.  We are just beginning the rule of Trump, but I would lay to lay the groundwork for future analyses with some observations.

1.  Talk that Trump "is not my President" is silly--unless one wants to secede from the union.  Whatever your politics, if you are an American citizen you have one and one president at all times, and right now, he is it.  He was clearly elected, albeit without a plurality of the popular vote.  (We have no idea, by the way, how he and Clinton would have done if they had actually been competing for the popular vote of the whole nation, and we never will.)  He is legally exercising the powers of his office, which are indeed very broad.  He also disposes of friendly Congressional majorities, just as Obama did in 2009.

Now the Republicans clearly intend to undo as much as they can of the last 85 years of American government.  Much of the New Deal is already gone.  The SEC does not effectively regulate markets and the NLRB has not been able to protect the rights of labor for some time.  Antitrust laws, which the New Deal vigorously enforced, have been a dead letter for quite a while, and the government is not an employer of last resort.  Social Security (which was significantly increased under Nixon) and Medicare, which is 50 years old, may be severely modified.  The Republicans have announced plans to eliminate agencies such as the National Endowment of the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, which, frankly, serve Democratic constituencies.  There is also talk of abolishing the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, although I am pretty sure that was established by law in the 1950s and I can't imagine that even this Congress would abolish it by law.  They also plan a new round of budget-busting tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.

Now like it or not--and I certainly don't--the Republicans have used our Democratic processes to reach the position from which they can actually make these things happen.  It is characteristic of fourth turnings that engaged people stop caring about process and start caring about outcomes.  Lincoln used implied war powers to do unprecedented things during the Civil War.  FDR was prepared if necessary to proclaim a dictatorship when he took office, and said so in his inaugural address.  He was also ready, at one key point, to defy a Supreme Court decision if it did not go his way.  On the other side, the Confederacy, of course, took up arms to defy the Constitution of the US, and many elements of American society viewed FDR as anathema.  Those of us who still believe in our democracy, however--it seems to me--must not deny the Republicans the right to put their beliefs into practice.  That is how democracy is supposed to work, and that is how I hope new Democratic leadership will make it work when and if they have secured majorities.  Like Richard Nixon and George W. Bush, Trump will probably try to stretch executive power beyond the law, but the courts and Congress successfully restrained those men, and they still provide legal rccourse now.  But much of what Trump wants to do--including, sadly, the deportation of immigrants--is well within our legal traditions, and ardently supported by large parts of our populaton.

And let's be frank: the Democratic side of the fence is particular vulnerable because it has won some of its greatest victories in the last 70 years or so not through the legislative process, but through the courts.  Brown vs. Board of Education, Roe v. Wade, and Oberkfell v. Hodges were three decisions that reshaped important areas of American life without consulting the electorate or the national legislature.  Now I happen to believe that the legal case at least for Brown and Oberkfell was very strong--even if I would have preferred to see Oberkfell decided on equal protection grounds--but at least the first two of those decisions have probably mobilized more voters in opposition to them than on their behalf.  And that is a big reason for the political mess in which we find ourselves today. 
"The only cure for the ills of democracy," a great governor of the early twentieth century frequently said, "is more democracy," and I agree.  In blue America, in academia, and in the major media the principles behind tehse decisions are regarded as sacrosanct and unchallengeable.  But the inhabitants of the red states are citizens too, and they have elected leaders who have never accepted some or all of those decisions.

2.  Partly because of the attitudes I discussed in (1), the breakup of the country, or violence between the federal government and local authorities, has now become a possibility.  Immigration is the flash point here.  It is, of course, disgraceful that Republicans have for so long refused to do anything to legalize the status of millions of immigrants who are actively contributing to our society and who have lived here for at least a generation.  Yet if we believe in the rule of law, and in the supremacy clause of our Constitution, I do not think it is in the power of big-city mayors to shield illegal immigrants from action by the federal government, any more than it was in the power of southern governments to stop integration.  Already President Trump is also threatening to exceed his own powers with respect to this conflict.  He has warned of cutting off all federal aid to "sanctuary cities," even though the Supreme Court in 2012 ruled that the federal government could only punish local authorities for infractions in this way by withholding money specifically related to those infractions.  In my opinion, it's entirely possible that Steve Bannon, in particular, would be glad to unleash an armed conflict against liberal municipal authorities.  Those authorities must ponder their courses of action carefully and try to enlist Congress in solving a very real problem.

3.  Finally, as I indicated last week, another problem of a different character faces us.  Like William II of Germany, Donald Trump may rather quickly turn out to be intellectually and emotionally unfit to be President of the United States.  His decision to push for an investigation of non-existent massive vote fraud suggests that he is counting on the federal government to act out his irresponsible fantasies.  The ABC interview that will screen this evening is not reassuring.   If serious bipartisan opposition to Trump emerges, I think it will be on those grounds.  But if Democrats want civic virtue to prevail over partisanship among Republicans, they had better set a good example.

(02-01-2017, 10:16 AM)SomeGuy Wrote: And now you're firmly back in crank territory.  You've even brought back "Wagnerian bombast, adulation of the Roman Empire, and samurai shtick", word for word.

You keep saying this is about Trump, but you were making the exact same posts back in 2013, just after Obama was re-elected.  You've even brought back some of the same lines.

(02-01-2017, 10:25 AM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: Source  http://historyunfolding.blogspot.com/

David Kaiser Wrote:Thursday, January 26, 2017
As I see it

We are a week into the Trump Presidency, and it is taking shape more rapidly than any since Franklin Roosevelt's.  That is no accident: both men took office in the midst of a great crisis or Fourth Turning, as described and predicted by Bill Strauss and Neil Howe about 25 years ago.  Both represent the death of an old political order and both are determined fundamentally to reshape America.  This has excited some Americans and worried a great many others, especially in the blue states.  As usual, I find my own feelings to be quite different from those of many others.  We are just beginning the rule of Trump, but I would lay to lay the groundwork for future analyses with some observations.

1.  Talk that Trump "is not my President" is silly--unless one wants to secede from the union.  Whatever your politics, if you are an American citizen you have one and one president at all times, and right now, he is it.  He was clearly elected, albeit without a plurality of the popular vote.  (We have no idea, by the way, how he and Clinton would have done if they had actually been competing for the popular vote of the whole nation, and we never will.)  He is legally exercising the powers of his office, which are indeed very broad.  He also disposes of friendly Congressional majorities, just as Obama did in 2009.

Now the Republicans clearly intend to undo as much as they can of the last 85 years of American government.  Much of the New Deal is already gone.  The SEC does not effectively regulate markets and the NLRB has not been able to protect the rights of labor for some time.  Antitrust laws, which the New Deal vigorously enforced, have been a dead letter for quite a while, and the government is not an employer of last resort.  Social Security (which was significantly increased under Nixon) and Medicare, which is 50 years old, may be severely modified.  The Republicans have announced plans to eliminate agencies such as the National Endowment of the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, which, frankly, serve Democratic constituencies.  There is also talk of abolishing the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, although I am pretty sure that was established by law in the 1950s and I can't imagine that even this Congress would abolish it by law.  They also plan a new round of budget-busting tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.

Now like it or not--and I certainly don't--the Republicans have used our Democratic processes to reach the position from which they can actually make these things happen.  It is characteristic of fourth turnings that engaged people stop caring about process and start caring about outcomes.  Lincoln used implied war powers to do unprecedented things during the Civil War.  FDR was prepared if necessary to proclaim a dictatorship when he took office, and said so in his inaugural address.  He was also ready, at one key point, to defy a Supreme Court decision if it did not go his way.  On the other side, the Confederacy, of course, took up arms to defy the Constitution of the US, and many elements of American society viewed FDR as anathema.  Those of us who still believe in our democracy, however--it seems to me--must not deny the Republicans the right to put their beliefs into practice.  That is how democracy is supposed to work, and that is how I hope new Democratic leadership will make it work when and if they have secured majorities.  Like Richard Nixon and George W. Bush, Trump will probably try to stretch executive power beyond the law, but the courts and Congress successfully restrained those men, and they still provide legal rccourse now.  But much of what Trump wants to do--including, sadly, the deportation of immigrants--is well within our legal traditions, and ardently supported by large parts of our populaton.

And let's be frank: the Democratic side of the fence is particular vulnerable because it has won some of its greatest victories in the last 70 years or so not through the legislative process, but through the courts.  Brown vs. Board of Education, Roe v. Wade, and Oberkfell v. Hodges were three decisions that reshaped important areas of American life without consulting the electorate or the national legislature.  Now I happen to believe that the legal case at least for Brown and Oberkfell was very strong--even if I would have preferred to see Oberkfell decided on equal protection grounds--but at least the first two of those decisions have probably mobilized more voters in opposition to them than on their behalf.  And that is a big reason for the political mess in which we find ourselves today. 

"The only cure for the ills of democracy," a great governor of the early twentieth century frequently said, "is more democracy," and I agree.  In blue America, in academia, and in the major media the principles behind these decisions are regarded as sacrosanct and unchallengeable.  But the inhabitants of the red states are citizens too, and they have elected leaders who have never accepted some or all of those decisions.

2.  Partly because of the attitudes I discussed in (1), the breakup of the country, or violence between the federal government and local authorities, has now become a possibility.  Immigration is the flash point here.  It is, of course, disgraceful that Republicans have for so long refused to do anything to legalize the status of millions of immigrants who are actively contributing to our society and who have lived here for at least a generation.  Yet if we believe in the rule of law, and in the supremacy clause of our Constitution, I do not think it is in the power of big-city mayors to shield illegal immigrants from action by the federal government, any more than it was in the power of southern governments to stop integration.  Already President Trump is also threatening to exceed his own powers with respect to this conflict.  He has warned of cutting off all federal aid to "sanctuary cities," even though the Supreme Court in 2012 ruled that the federal government could only punish local authorities for infractions in this way by withholding money specifically related to those infractions.  In my opinion, it's entirely possible that Steve Bannon, in particular, would be glad to unleash an armed conflict against liberal municipal authorities.  Those authorities must ponder their courses of action carefully and try to enlist Congress in solving a very real problem.

3.  Finally, as I indicated last week, another problem of a different character faces us.  Like William II of Germany, Donald Trump may rather quickly turn out to be intellectually and emotionally unfit to be President of the United States.  His decision to push for an investigation of non-existent massive vote fraud suggests that he is counting on the federal government to act out his irresponsible fantasies.  The ABC interview that will screen this evening is not reassuring.   If serious bipartisan opposition to Trump emerges, I think it will be on those grounds.  But if Democrats want civic virtue to prevail over partisanship among Republicans, they had better set a good example.

(02-01-2017, 11:51 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(02-01-2017, 10:16 AM)SomeGuy Wrote: And now you're firmly back in crank territory.  You've even brought back "Wagnerian bombast, adulation of the Roman Empire, and samurai shtick", word for word.

You keep saying this is about Trump, but you were making the exact same posts back in 2013, just after Obama was re-elected.  You've even brought back some of the same lines.

I bring this up as Donald Trump and a Party show themselves beholden to people whose idea of government is rule of the economic elites, by the economic elites, and for the economic elites for eternity. Anyone outside of the winning coalition is to just accept the change as a permanent reality beyond any challenge. Such may be strictly the ethical hollowness of Donald Trump -- but his practices resonate in people who see the working man solely as someone to exploit and degrade for the gain of economic elites.

You are right -- I hate the man viscerally. I see him as a renunciation of just about everything that I have admired in America. He considers the greed of elites the highest expression of human nature, and anything that gets in the way something to be rendered permanently irrelevant, if not obliterated. His moral values are pure egoism. He rejects the Enlightenment valuation of open inquiry when such challenges the agenda of profit maximization. He seeks a rigid class structure in which people have value to the extent of their proximity to economic power. His style of management is dictatorial, and he admires dictators. He has said flattering things about Vladimir Putin, Moammar Qaddafi, and even Saddam Hussein. His political appeal that associates his desirability as an economic steward ignores that he has gotten rich largely by exploiting permanent shortages in real estate, one of the easiest ways to get filthy rich. Trump Steaks, Trump Vodka, and especially Trump University have been fiascos, demonstrating that he is not so much an entrepreneur as he is a rentier. I have heard of how he does business -- shake hands with him and make sure that you do not lose a finger. He has stiffed many people who have dealt with him. Media star? I have never been able to watch much of his output. I can think of far better uses of viewing time than The Apprentice -- like reruns of Bonanza, M*A*S*H, I Love Lucy, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Star Trek, The Honeymooners, Taxi, Home Improvement, Perry Mason, The Andy Griffith Show, The Simpsons, Twilight Zone... classic movies or maybe a sporting event. Sure I have a bias against people who ridicule the quest for intellectual enrichment and aesthetic delight, for I am little else.

If one is a conservative one could do better with praise for Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher; they at least do not have blood on their hands as do Putin, Qaddafi, or Saddam. He lacks the spine to reject someone so venal and bigoted as David DuKKKe, whose ideology is an attempt at synthesizing Ku Kluxism and Nazism. (OK, Ku Kluxism and Nazism share white supremacy, antisemitism, economic hierarchy, extreme nationalism, and contempt for workers' rights).

All people are flawed. We will never get the perfect leader. That is why we need liberalism with its free and competitive elections, government responsible to the People, openness to cultural diversity, and political transparency.

This is no longer 2013. We do not live in the same moral and political environment, at least in the USA, that we had six months ago. I look at the Trump agenda and I see something that could cause me to hate life so much that suicide could be an option. I am too old to do sixty hours of toil that taxes the raw stamina of people a third my age. I see a political order that can turn on me fast, not because I am a thug, but because I am a good person. He used a campaign slogan "Make America Great Again" that he offered as an objective beyond any need for explanation. So far as I can tell, that 'greater' America is one in which ethnic minorities know their (subordinate) places in the context of white supremacy, in which natural resources are simply objects for sale, in which women are baby machines that must work to exhaustion if they are not rich, in which plutocrats and bosses have complete power, and in which greed is recognized as a virtue but only if it is by the rich and powerful.

It is an endorsement of the 'Twenties -- the 1920s, a time that most people who knew them from personal experience had no desire to return.

(02-03-2017, 02:07 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: Patrick Buchanan has been cheering Trump every step of the way.  Seriously, read through the archive of his articles on The American Conservative.

(02-01-2017, 12:59 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(01-31-2017, 10:22 AM)SomeGuy Wrote:

(01-31-2017, 02:00 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Well, I hope that I don't come off as a crank. Intensely partisan and opinionated -- OK. I know that.

There are no perfect parallels in history, and we have multiple cycles in operation.

Even the Vietcong got a bad mauling from the USA, even if their allies the North Vietnamese Army ultimately prevailed. .

To be honest, you can come off as a bit of crank sometimes.  You're about as in to the impending rise of American fascism as AlphabetSoup is to WWIII.  The fact that you actually responded this time in normal fashion is a good sign.  Thanks.

I don't mind partisan and opinionated that much, it's when people do the discussion board equivalent of responding to requests for clarification by staring intently at my left ear lobe and ranting away that I get a bit concerned about how I am spending my time.

I mean, this is an odd topic for a discussion forum, broadly speaking, so we're all at least a little bit crankish.

We are all aware of Lawrence Britt's fourteen signs of fascism

1. Pervasive nationalism
2. Disdain for the value of human rights
3. Scapegoating of pariahs
4. Avid militarism
5. Sexism
6. Controlled mass media
7. Corporate power exalted
8. Labor power crushed
9. Majority religion co-opted
10. Exaggerated concern for national security
11. Contempt for arts and intellectualism
12. Brutal treatment of offenders
13. Cronyism and corruption
14. Fraudulent elections

These are all pathologies to the extent that they are unnecessary for the survival of the society.  I look at that list and I also see many Commie regimes. Ask yourself how many of those fourteen warning signs apply to North Korea or to Romania under Ceausescu and his Dracula cult. Look also at Baathism and ISIS.


I am tempted to believe that for every culture there is one style of fascism that fits the culture. Wagnerian bombast, adulation of the Roman Empire, and samurai shtick are just too alien to fit America. But Celtic mysticism and the plantation order of the Old South make the KKK possible. 

I also look at that list and examine Donald Trump, who has more forcefully left his imprint upon political culture faster than any prior President. Because I consider Barack Obama an above-average President with a political ideology compatible with mine and Donald Trump offending so many of my sensibilities that I can't count the offenses - let's see how they apply to George H W Bush. Not much. Donald Trump? To use one of his ludicrous coinages, "bigly".

(02-03-2017, 06:57 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: You've become MORE tolerant of neoconservatism in recent years?  That's an interesting position, could you elaborate?


Pat Buchanan is, to my immense surprise, consistently an enjoyable and interesting read.  The whole The American Conservative site is one of my primary news sources these days.

(02-04-2017, 02:59 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: I look at that list and I see the US under FDR during WWII.

(02-04-2017, 02:59 AM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(02-01-2017, 12:59 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(01-31-2017, 10:22 AM)SomeGuy Wrote:

(01-31-2017, 02:00 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Well, I hope that I don't come off as a crank. Intensely partisan and opinionated -- OK. I know that.

There are no perfect parallels in history, and we have multiple cycles in operation.

Even the Vietcong got a bad mauling from the USA, even if their allies the North Vietnamese Army ultimately prevailed. .

To be honest, you can come off as a bit of crank sometimes.  You're about as in to the impending rise of American fascism as AlphabetSoup is to WWIII.  The fact that you actually responded this time in normal fashion is a good sign.  Thanks.

I don't mind partisan and opinionated that much, it's when people do the discussion board equivalent of responding to requests for clarification by staring intently at my left ear lobe and ranting away that I get a bit concerned about how I am spending my time.

I mean, this is an odd topic for a discussion forum, broadly speaking, so we're all at least a little bit crankish.

We are all aware of Lawrence Britt's fourteen signs of fascism

1. Pervasive nationalism
2. Disdain for the value of human rights
3. Scapegoating of pariahs
4. Avid militarism
5. Sexism
6. Controlled mass media
7. Corporate power exalted
8. Labor power crushed
9. Majority religion co-opted
10. Exaggerated concern for national security
11. Contempt for arts and intellectualism
12. Brutal treatment of offenders
13. Cronyism and corruption
14. Fraudulent elections

These are all pathologies to the extent that they are unnecessary for the survival of the society.  I look at that list and I also see many Commie regimes. Ask yourself how many of those fourteen warning signs apply to North Korea or to Romania under Ceausescu and his Dracula cult. Look also at Baathism and ISIS.


I am tempted to believe that for every culture there is one style of fascism that fits the culture. Wagnerian bombast, adulation of the Roman Empire, and samurai shtick are just too alien to fit America. But Celtic mysticism and the plantation order of the Old South make the KKK possible. 

I also look at that list and examine Donald Trump, who has more forcefully left his imprint upon political culture faster than any prior President. Because I consider Barack Obama an above-average President with a political ideology compatible with mine and Donald Trump offending so many of my sensibilities that I can't count the offenses - let's see how they apply to George H W Bush. Not much. Donald Trump? To use one of his ludicrous coinages, "bigly".

I look at that list and I see the US under FDR during WWII.

(02-04-2017, 01:24 PM)TeacherinExile Wrote:

(02-03-2017, 06:57 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: You've become MORE tolerant of neoconservatism in recent years?  That's an interesting position, could you elaborate?


Pat Buchanan is, to my immense surprise, consistently an enjoyable and interesting read.  The whole The American Conservative site is one of my primary news sources these days.

Perhaps you can answer this: Did I miss something in the Bacevich article?  I don't think he was necessarily advocating a neoconservative approach to managing American foreign policy.

(01-28-2017, 05:30 PM)beneficii Wrote:

(12-09-2016, 04:13 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Thanks for your input, beneficii. I agree with your statement about the rise and fall of fascism.

Regarding the fall of Rome and the Huns, I'm not so sure. I think when the Visigoths invaded under Alaric in 410 and conquered and sacked Rome, the Empire was dead in all but name. The Huns just put the nail in the coffin.

It was a mix of factors perhaps: decline from within was certainly happening by all historical accounts. Authority was increasingly desperate and more tyrannical, most people were poorer and more miserable, and in the last century of Rome the people retreated more and more into a proto-medieval set up of lords and walls protection. It could be that these were the "islands in the ocean" referred to in your post. And the "barbarian" peoples were expanding and ready to fight more and more strongly and capably and take over.

Following up on the issue of Alaric the Visigoth sacking Rome as being evidence for Rome already being in an advanced state of decline. Kim disagrees, and in his other book, The Huns (Routledge, 2015), explains on pages 154-155 how in 395 a Hunnic invasion of Moesia province prompted the Visigoths under Alaric to unify their polity and to imitate Alanic and Hunnic practices. They shifted their emphasis to mounted warfare like that practiced by the Huns and were able to get a contingent of Huns to serve in their army. Because Hunnic military tactics were superior to Roman military tactics, this gave the Visigoths an advantage.

As mentioned elsewhere, the Roman army was not smaller than it was before and the Germanic soldiers serving there were no less loyal than the native Roman soldiers. Even before the arrival of the Huns, the Visigoths and Ostrogoths had the most complex societies of any Germanic peoples, and had already mixed quite a bit with the Alans.

So it wasn't so much that Rome declined, but rather it came to face new opponents it simply couldn't handle.

(02-04-2017, 02:59 AM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(02-01-2017, 12:59 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(01-31-2017, 10:22 AM)SomeGuy Wrote:

(01-31-2017, 02:00 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Well, I hope that I don't come off as a crank. Intensely partisan and opinionated -- OK. I know that.

There are no perfect parallels in history, and we have multiple cycles in operation.

Even the Vietcong got a bad mauling from the USA, even if their allies the North Vietnamese Army ultimately prevailed. .

To be honest, you can come off as a bit of crank sometimes.  You're about as in to the impending rise of American fascism as AlphabetSoup is to WWIII.  The fact that you actually responded this time in normal fashion is a good sign.  Thanks.

I don't mind partisan and opinionated that much, it's when people do the discussion board equivalent of responding to requests for clarification by staring intently at my left ear lobe and ranting away that I get a bit concerned about how I am spending my time.

I mean, this is an odd topic for a discussion forum, broadly speaking, so we're all at least a little bit crankish.

We are all aware of Lawrence Britt's fourteen signs of fascism

1. Pervasive nationalism
2. Disdain for the value of human rights
3. Scapegoating of pariahs
4. Avid militarism
5. Sexism
6. Controlled mass media
7. Corporate power exalted
8. Labor power crushed
9. Majority religion co-opted
10. Exaggerated concern for national security
11. Contempt for arts and intellectualism
12. Brutal treatment of offenders
13. Cronyism and corruption
14. Fraudulent elections

These are all pathologies to the extent that they are unnecessary for the survival of the society.  I look at that list and I also see many Commie regimes. Ask yourself how many of those fourteen warning signs apply to North Korea or to Romania under Ceausescu and his Dracula cult. Look also at Baathism and ISIS.


I am tempted to believe that for every culture there is one style of fascism that fits the culture. Wagnerian bombast, adulation of the Roman Empire, and samurai shtick are just too alien to fit America. But Celtic mysticism and the plantation order of the Old South make the KKK possible. 

I also look at that list and examine Donald Trump, who has more forcefully left his imprint upon political culture faster than any prior President. Because I consider Barack Obama an above-average President with a political ideology compatible with mine and Donald Trump offending so many of my sensibilities that I can't count the offenses - let's see how they apply to George H W Bush. Not much. Donald Trump? To use one of his ludicrous coinages, "bigly".

I look at that list and I see the US under FDR during WWII.

(02-05-2017, 09:54 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: No worse than anyone else.

Quote:Intellectual life went on after Pearl Harbor as it did before -- and there was practically no sympathy for fascism in America before, let alone after.