The scary rise of fascism in 2016 politics

sanders at Guthrie

Could the dire issues facing our nation now be any more clear? Remember that it was only a short time ago that Americans feared the impact of having a socialist in its highest elected office. I reflected on this issue on December 12; only 77 days ago. (http://tonynovak.com/cpa/but-hes-a-socialist/). Yet that risk seems mild now compared to the terror gripping many Americans this week at the thought of a demonstratedly fascist president. Every news channel, newspaper and talk radio station – regardless of its political persuasion – seems focused on “How do we stop Trump from destroying the party, our nation and perhaps the world as we know it?” How did our political process crash and burn so quickly that the best we can offer are the two unsavory characters who appear poised to grab their party’s nomination? I see it developing as the most significant story of modern American history.

duke for trump

sanders jewish

Yet what scares me the most, from a deeply internal perspective, is how I must have grown to be so out-of-touch with my fellow countrymen that I simply can’t begin to understand how any thinking person alive with a vague recollection of history and cursory following of current events could trust either Clinton or Trump in any matter whatsoever, let alone the world’s most powerful office. It is quite clear from every international news source that the United States has suddenly become the laughingstock of the world. We are poised to destroy ourselves with our own choices.

It is quite disturbing to think that the moral compass that I believed to exist in the minds of Americans – the basic fabric of life lessons learned and embraced by millions of Americans in the 1960s – positive value messages communicated by publicly by American heros like MLK and Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger – might just no longer be alive today. Sad and scary.

What went wrong? And how do we fix it?

this-machine-surrounds-hate-and-forces-it-to-surrender

#worstelectionever


Comments

One response to “The scary rise of fascism in 2016 politics”

  1. “Like any number of us raised in the late 20th century, I have spent my life perplexed about exactly how Hitler could have come to power in Germany. Watching Donald Trump’s rise, I now understand.” – Danielle Allen, political theorist, Harvard University in the Washington Post. It is becoming clear that the force behind Trump’s rise in popularity is the same as Bernie Sanders’: the uprising of the disgruntled working class. Both men benefit from a sharply divided country and both sets of supporters look for someone to blame. Trump supporters look down and blame immigrants and minorities while Sanders supporters look up and blame the oligarchy. It’s just two different views of the same issue of the inevitable decline of human welfare on this planet.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *