[Note: This series will focus entirely on combatting fascism in America and around the world with my only weapon, words. (I’m not an NRA member!) It’s not antifa per se; it’s pro democracy. If you recognize words blasting your political preferences here, you’re part of the problem! To the rest of you, don’t worry about me. The fascist plutocracy of the 0.1% doesn’t do their own dirty work; and their toadies who do, don’t read very much, like their lord and savior, Donald J. Trump. So I doubt these essays will even hurt my book sales, mostly because that same plutocracy has already determined they will be low!]

Trump didn’t quite get to take over America…at least not yet. He was a wannabe plutocrat (his wealth represents chump change for most of the plutocratic 0.1% in America) who pretended to be against plutocracy in order to appeal to people he himself considered losers, and he now has a stranglehold on the Good Ole Piranhas, whether the plutocrats and his fanatical followers comprising the marching morons want it or not. Most Piranhas now think they must kiss the wannabe fuehrer’s butt if they are going to win reelection. (It’s refreshing to see, though, that true conservatives like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger have reelection war chests that are larger than their fascist 2022 opponents.)

Trump came very close to being the new Hitler of the 21^st century, though. That January 6^th event at the US Capitol was an insurrection where that right-wing fascist mob was more than willing to stage a coup. Let’s call it Crystal Day in lieu of Kristallnacht, though, because Trump, the loser that he is, couldn’t quite rise to Hitler’s level—”the Nazis did some good things,” he said in 2018—but he didn’t pull off what Hitler did. Perhaps if he and his family celebrating that violence had marched ahead with their long guns (big-game guns in the case of Donald Jr.) and led that mob, the putsch would have succeeded. Perhaps if Pence hadn’t insisted on turning over the presidency to Biden, it would have succeeded. And perhaps if the Pentagon had been more inclined to participate in a coup, it would have succeeded.

The generals in the Pentagon were worried, though. Some Trump toadies (maybe even Trump himself put out the word?) delayed sending the National Guard in to quell the violence and back up the overwhelmed Capitol Police. But the generals were afraid the wannabe fuehrer would ask them to ensure the coup. You see, most coups fail if the military doesn’t support them. (In many countries, the military creates the coup.) Hitler had most of the German military behind him, for example, at least his military hierarchy dominated by ultra-right-wing types (Prussia was only one letter away from Russia, and the fascists took over in Russia even before, the only difference with the Nazis being that Lenin, Stalin, et al cloaked their fascism in a now debunked ideology—at first and for much of World War II, the European battles were  clashes between two fascists, Hitler and Stalin). With a bellicose and aristocratic tradition and sour grapes from losing WWI and suffering through the Great Depression, Germany’s military was bent on payback and conquest. European leaders up to that time often took on military trappings too—kings and emperors wore uniforms decorated with military medals and ribbons (that still occurs today, like in England).

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[Note: This series will focus entirely on combatting fascism in America and around the world with my only weapon, words. (I’m not an NRA member!) It’s not antifa per se; it’s pro democracy. If you recognize words blasting your political preferences here, you’re part of the problem! To the rest of you, don’t worry about me. The fascist plutocracy of the 0.1% doesn’t do their own dirty work; and their toadies who do, don’t read very much, like their lord and savior, Donald J. Trump. So I doubt these essays will even hurt my book sales, mostly because that same plutocracy has already determined they will be low!]

We’re all familiar with the Senate’s support of the fascist 0.1%. Merkle the Turtle aka Moscow Mitch aka The Grim Reaper aka #LeaderMcConnell set out to halt most everything President Obama wanted to do for average Americans, and mostly succeeded. Remember the ACA barely squeaked through because Dems controlled Congress during the first two years, and Moscow Mitch has been attacking it ever since. Next, the Turtle had to live with the bad taste and heartburn from the rotten fish Il Duce aka Trump the Chump gave everyone except for the marching morons, those 40% of fanatical Trump voters from white right-wing bigots and racists to the white Christian crusaders (those two groups aren’t all that distinct, of course). In spite of the irrational and idiotic Il Duce, McConnell managed to further the agenda of America’s fascist plutocrats (probably because he thought of himself as one?). Now he’s returned to the do-nothing practice used during the Obama administration to make sure the majority of Americans have their hopes for relief dashed yet again.

In all this, the Turtle is more motivated to do the bidding of that fascist 0.1% than to attack any particular president. It’s the fascist plutocracy’s agenda, and he, along with many others in the Senate, are its willing accomplices. The fascists at the top pat their attack dogs on the head for being good Rottweilers; “Good boys! Here are some bones for being so faithful…and stupid.” With all this, the fascist plutocracy has made good use of the Senate, that congressional institution created by the Founding Fathers from day one to protect those aristocratic plutocrats of the day, many of them fascists before the term even existed, slavers who knew “all men are created equal” is empty hyperbole (like the pigs in Animal Farm, the rich and powerful have always considered themselves “more equal” than others). (James Madison, “the father of the Constitution,” worried a lot about this in later life.)

But the US House has been an anti-democratic institution too, belying that colonial intention of providing a balance against the US Senate being the plutocracy’s lap dog. Led by scurrilous speakers and other nefarious members throughout its history, with many coming from districts gerrymandered into fascist strongholds, Congress’s double whammy is a powerful tool of the fascist plutocracy to use on the majority of Americans.

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[Note: This series will focus entirely on combatting fascism in America and around the world with my only weapon, words. (I’m not an NRA member.) It’s not anti-fa in the sense of that extreme left group; it’s pro democracy. If you consider that my words don’t agree with your political preferences here, you’re part of the problem! To the rest of you, don’t worry about me. The fascist plutocracy of the 0.1% doesn’t do their own dirty work; and their toadies who do, don’t read very much, like their lord and savior, Donald J. Trump. So I doubt these essays will even hurt my book sales, mostly because that same plutocracy has already determined they will be low!]

First, what is this word? Most definitions are too restrictive. Here’s part of Wikipedia’s: “Fascism is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultra-nationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy….” Why is this too restrictive? Because fascism in America isn’t yet completely authoritarian or completely ultra-nationalistic; the American plutocracy practices all the rest, just like the German one did before Hitler came to power. Hitler was the German plutocrats’ tool; Trump was the American plutocrats’; and there will be more, if not Il Duce himself.

Restriction of voting rights—that’s fascism. Doing everything to perpetuate white privilege—that’s fascism. Ignoring 90% of Americans, their complaints and wishes, to give the 0.1% in the fascist plutocracy the lion’s share of the wealth—that’s fascism. Trampling on people’s rights to adequate health care, control of their own bodies, worshipping as they wish, and freedom from gun violence, or any violence—that’s fascism.

As a writer, I spent a lot of time in every story I’ve written looking for the precise words. I know something about that, just by experience, so I know “fascism” is the precise word to describe what’s happening in America right now. It doesn’t matter that the emperor thinks he wears the clothes of democracy—this goes for Biden as well as Trump—because he (and invariably the toady is male, which might be part of the problem) is either doing the fascist plutocracy’s bidding (Trump), or he’s stymied by their control of other institutions (Biden), thus moving along that agenda of that fascist 0.1%: Not allowing anything to be done to help the 90% and ensuring the wealth gap between them and that 90% keeps increasing. Remember Hitler and Putin were both initially elected. Trump just completed that infamous trio of toadies working in behalf of America’s 0.1% fascists.

The US is now controlled by an evil mafia-like organization just like Russia; that fascist plutocracy, and these fascists, like the Nazis before them, use autocratic toadies like today’s Good Ole Piranhas as their battering ram to break down the walls of democracy. Like that forty-year-old condo in Florida, those walls suffered from shoddy construction practices from the very beginning: Those “Founding Fathers,” steeped in aristocratic privilege, kept slavery alive and created fascist institutions like the Senate and Electoral College to protect their privileged existence. Today those venerable chains of authoritarian thought mean that no matter who’s president, the fascist 0.1% always wins.

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