Goal posts

Authoritarianism does not come all at once. In the early 1930's Germany succumbed to it in small steps with Hitler given power such that no one move seemed excessive. It was the sum of the parts that gripped the country and sent it into a spiral which later shook the rest of Europe.

The current right wing appetite for authoriarian rule in the US has been much the same with incursions into areas previously thought immovable. Each step moves the goal post into new territory which then becomes normalized. It is only when one looks back at the starting point that the realization becomes stark.

The American right has been taken over by a fever of cultural change which necessitates a unifying figure no matter how stupid. Having no policy to unite behind, they have decided that selling rhetoric is more effective than delivering progress. The people who are united under the GOP umbrella all want what they were promised and these groups represent ideas which are antithetical to the health of a society. More gun freedom, book banning, control of women's bodies, anti-immigrant fervor, hatred of LGBTQ people, etc all unite within a party which has become a parody of its former self.

As bad as things first appeared under a Reagan administration that many liberal Americans hated, it now looks tame by comparison when one looks at the current republican party.

The goal posts get moved slowly.