Embers

Fascism builds from embers. First there is rhetoric about victimization; you are being overrun by immigrants, the deep state is out to get you, etc. Slowly but surely it builds towards a crescendo and usually advanced by a cult of personality. Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Pinochet, Orban, the list goes on and on.

The problem is that it is so subtle at first and thus it is underplayed with "it cannot happen here" laissez-faire dismissals which is the major failing. The autocrat ramps up the attacks and allows the most base instincts of the population take over. The deplorables then all come out of the woodwork and join the chorus.

In the Trump Manhattan tax fraud trial, presiding judge Engoron receives hundreds of threatening phone calls every day. Some threaten to have him killed and use the most vile and disgusting language you can imagine and as you might expect attack his heritage. All this because their psychopathic leader needs to be defended against a justice system trying to do the right thing.

It's going to get a lot worse before it gets better and, after the dust clears, one hopes there is still a democracy standing; battered and flawed as it might be.