This is Exactly How it Happens, and It’s Happening Here.

How much experience do you really have with authoritarianism? Any? If you’re a “real” American, you have precisely none.

This article by Umair Haque is one of those articles where every line is so important you end up simply cutting and pasting the whole thing into a quote.

What happened after an authoritarian showed he had the power to have people disappeared — people who protested the killing of innocents which itself was inspired by the authoritarian, at the hands of a young radicalized man?

What happened next?

Nothing.

There was a deafening silence. America’s intellectuals and pundits didn’t say authoritarianism, didn’t say fascism — again. America’s good cops didn’t exactly stand up for democracy. America’s generals didn’t assure the nation they’d intervene. America’s people didn’t wake up.

Go read the article now.

Some questions for Umair

1. How does the “silent majority” stop sleepwalking? Is that even possible?
2. Will future fascist regimes last longer than the older ones (not that that matters)? From your list, Hitler, Mussolini, Gaddafi, Hussein all seem to have come to sticky and inglorious ends… The thought of Txxxp rooming with Benito or Sadam is a pleasant one, but might modern fascism be better at surviving (looking at Bashar, Vladimir and Xi here)
3. Where is the narrative to launch the International Brigades’ mission to Spain? Has social media or computer-mediated communication more generally made such a movement impossible? Is there too much noise for anti-fascism to become a “your country needs you” moment?

Thanks for having our back Umair:-)

https://eand.co/we-dont-know-how-to-warn-you-any-harder-america-is-dying-26ff80912391