Rational Warning

Steve M. at No More Mister Niceblog:

But I actually think fascism could eventually be what Americans turn to.

I say this not because Americans have an insatiable spiritual hunger for community that's being crushed by a mechanized ethos, or whatever the hell Douthat is saying. I think fascism might, someday soon, appear to offer a way out to a society for whom traditional politics and economics have offered absolutely nothing. We have a major party that allows the have-nots to keep losing (including, now, the middle class) and another major political party that wants the have-nots to lose much faster. Our economic overlords now consider any gains by the middle class and poor to be thoroughly unacceptable. If traditional politics offers most Americans nothing forever, sooner or later the guy who wants to send intellectuals or certain ethnic groups or certain sexual minorities to camps might start to seem pretty appealing. That's my fear, not an unsatisfied thirst for belonging.

Every time a Democratic candidate goes mealy-mouthed on Democratic values or runs away from Democratic accomplishments (I'm looking at you, Alison Lundergan Grimes), every time a Democratic voter sits at home on election day because no one on the ballot is standing up for her, every time liberals fail to call out the repug motherfuckers for fucking their mothers, we get one step closer to fascism.