Creeping Fascism - Trump is bringing Fascism to the US

http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/creeping-fascism-it-cant-happen-here-can-it?akid=14058.294211.aNP3Vg&rd=1&src=newsletter1052471&t=6

This piece originally appeared onTomDispatch.

You must have noticed the Hitler comparisons, right? Amid the recent“Nazi” controversy (over whether those right hands raised in a pledge to vote for Donald Trump at his “movement” rallies are actually copycat Sieg Heils), a bevy of pundits, commentators, and other figures, including the Mexican president and Anne Frank’s stepsister, have been comparing The Donald to Adolf Hitler.  But have you noticed that others are pointing to Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, Argentinian caudillo Juan Perón, right-wing Italian newspaper magnate, billionaire, and former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, present head of the far-right National Front Party of France Marine Le Pen or her father, the founder of that party and Holocaust denier Jean-Marie Le Pen (who endorsed Trump recently), and even left-wing Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez? And that’s not to speak of PresidentRichard (“Tricky Dick”) Nixon, segregationist Alabama governor and presidential candidate George Wallace, senator and Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, Louisiana governor and populist Huey Long, and former car manufacturer, presidential possibility, and notorious anti-Semite Henry Ford, which is just to begin a list of history’s potential Trump impersonators, not end it.  (And don’t even get me started on mentions of “fascism” and “authoritarianism” in the media these days!)

If nothing else, such a strange and varied list of comparisons tells us one thing: that Trump has taken the American political system and white working class voters in particular into territory uncharted in recent memory.  Hence all those fingers pointing to whatever extreme figures come to mind.  Of course, since at least the Clinton years, the Democratic Party has been slowly melting down, leaving a political structure lacking much of a base as the power of the unions has evaporated, big city political machines have largely been relegated to oldThomas Nast cartoons, and “neo” has been added to those liberal politicians who have started making their off-hours money by preaching the good times gospel to the big banks rather than regulating them.  Of course, that meltdown is mostly ancient history these days, as Bernie Sanders takes many of the party’s voters on a trip elsewhere.  On the other hand, the Grand Old Party is melting down right now, before our eyes, and it couldn’t be a more dramatic spectacle.  There was, for instance, that recent assault on Trump as a failed businessman, con artist, and fraud by 2012 losing presidential candidate Mitt Romney, the casino capitalistwho had a knack for pillaging companies and jobs.  A recent poll now tells us that his verbal assaults and tweets on Trump actually helped increase both The Donald's voters and their commitment (as last Tuesday’s primaries seemed to indicate).