As usual, Robert Paul Wolff makes the right points:
We are now watching a full-scale fascist coup attempt in slow motion with assorted comic interludes. The attempt will almost certainly fail, thank God, but we are coming a great deal closer than most people, myself included, would have thought possible.
In order to seize control of the United States, Trump needs some or all of six elements of the American power structure: the Army, the Republican Party, the corporate elite, the judiciary, the senior administrative hierarchy of the federal government, and at least a good deal of the state and local administrative hierarchy. He has complete control of two of these six – the Republican Party and the senior administrative hierarchy of the federal government. But he has failed to take control of any element of the judiciary, he has little or no support of the state and local administrative hierarchy, the corporate elite has clearly decided to sit this one out, and far and away most important of all he has no control of the Army.
Trump is a buffoon and many of his closest aides – most notably Rudy Giuliani – are buffoons as well, but it would be a very bad mistake to suppose that because of his personal inadequacies, which are legion, he is not really a threat. Sophisticated, accomplished, well-educated elites perpetually underestimate fascist wannabes whom they would shrink from inviting to a dinner party....
As I sit in comfortable isolation and watch this coup attempt unfold, I find myself wondering what the future of American politics will be and most particularly what the future will be for the Republican Party. At the moment, only 10% of those elected on the Republican ticket to the Senate or House of Representatives have publicly acknowledged that Joe Biden won the election. I think it is extremely likely that a sizable proportion of the remaining 90% will never acknowledge that Biden won honestly. Completely lacking anything remotely resembling character and desperate to hold on to their jobs, the men and women of The Grand Old Party will continue, with winks, nods, dog whistles, and bullhorns to tell their voters that Trump wuz robbed. In the short run, this may actually help us in the Georgia runoffs but in the longer run it threatens serious social and political disorder and dysfunction....
I am desperately grateful that Trump managed to bring out enough Biden voters to defeat himself and perhaps that should be sufficient. But I fear for the future.
I fear for the future as well, as I've said before. As I recently wrote to a friend overseas, I'm not so much worried about fascism (America is too big and too diverse, and too much political power resides in the states and localities), but rather about civil unrest, scattered political and other violence, and a continuing deterioration of the basic functionality of civil society due to reactionary socio-economic policies, so that even the solidly "blue", anti-Repug cities become more like Mexico City or Sao Paulo, armed fortresses in seas of human misery and despair. In the U.S., all these worries are compounded by hundreds of millions of guns, mostly in the hands of ignorant and bitter people (recall), many of whom aren’t even fit to manage their own lives, let alone firearms.
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