When I pull back the lens, and just kinda squint my eyes, what stands out is the last gasp of the angry white guys and gals. I suppose as they see it, after 8 years of being led by a black guy, they see the rumpTus as their just reward, the F U to the libtards they loathe. Corruption and all the rest, Russian interference, a questionable mental stability and just general ability of the man to actually hold office are irrelevant details to this bunch, absolutely not even on their radar.

Oh sure, the guy ran on a platform of drain the swamp, and only the best people, but seriously, that is just campaign speak, we’ve heard that before, nothing to see folks. For them, it’s all just one big joke on the rest of us.

No, they gobbled it up, his rhetoric tasted just right for them, yes, just didn’t really register as significant all his promises, and what he said, what he represented was attractive. What they focused on was who he was, his vocabulary, or lack of. They focused on his bank account, and who he said he was, you know, big successful business person, just like his reality TV show portrayed him, someone, who couldn’t be bought.

In recent weeks, between Trump’s growing disdain for Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Paul Manafort’s financial fraud conviction, Michael Cohen’s plea deal with federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, and the “flipping” of formerly loyal Trump lieutenants like David Pecker and Allen Weisselberg, it’s begun to feel as if things are really starting to happen, like a steam pipe heating up to its inevitable explosion. If nothing else, that looks like the makings of a best-seller or two.
[ vanityfair.com ]

Ahem.

Anywho.

See, his followers really believe he’s the guy he plays on TV. Really has the smarts, the talk, walks the walk, and all that. All this is just one big cabal, trumped-up (haha) charges. I mean, I’d have to actually watch one of those vids or FoxNews to actually understand what they think the libtards diabolical plans are, but in a nutshell, lets’ use the word WITCH HUNT. Simplified.

It just for some reason doesn’t occur to them that much of that person they saw was just made for TV, core scripting of the scene left to the participants, but the gist of the scene was HIGHLY scripted. Which the rumpTus is good at, he’s a pillow, a piece of foam, he takes on the impression of who he was just with, and so coaching him before a scene one can expect him to do well.

However, the president of the United States, while there is an element of performance, and while they have aides and advisors and staff all over, much of the major decisions are within their scope, they set the tone, and they are expected to have common sense, a sound mind, be able to read, comprehend data and process information that is presented to them, listen to advice and be able to respond with some sort of rational ideas, concerns, questions. Certainly, a comprehensive knowledge of history and policy would be ideal, maybe essential, but there are scads of knowledgeable folk around to ask, libraries of knowledge at their disposal, well, if one can read and comprehend what they’ve just read. They don’t have to know themselves, don’t even have to pretend to know, just be WILLING to know, to look, to remember, to understand.

And, that is the question. Right? Can this man do any of that? And I mean “can”. Can he? Beyond, or let’s say ignoring whether he is mentally stable, is he able to process and comprehend? From what I understand, no, he can not. According to multiple sources now, books, op-ed’s, senators, journalists, his staff, no, he’s really, really bad at all of what it takes to be president.

I mean, they have taken to drawing things out, diagraming for him what they need him to understand. Also, now, it would appear that perhaps he’s not even running the show at all, or hardly at all. What so far has been accomplished by this administration, what he’s accomplished, would apparently be what his handlers have allowed him to accomplish? I mean, that is sort of scary, kind of very bothersome, worrying, that the military isn’t even taking his commands seriously, or so the current crop of books and such would confirm.

Not that hard to see where the alt-right and white nationalists and Qnon, or whomever, easy to see where they get all their “deep state” beliefs from.

Taking that higher view though, getting up above and looking at it from that angle, what kind of stands out is that if the rumpTus is all that and a bag of chips, then how are they able to get away with all this? How can someone actually take a piece of paper off his desk and that’s that, he’s forgotten, thing swept under the carpet, never spoken of again?

Well, the rumpTus ain’t in Kansas anymore, that’s for certain. Neither is he in his black tower at the heart of the island of Manhattan, purveying his domain. Nope, he’s way out of his league.

Robert Paxton, a professor emeritus of social science at Columbia University in New York who is widely considered the father of fascism studies, defined fascism as “a form of political practice distinctive to the 20th century that arouses popular enthusiasm by sophisticated propaganda techniques for an anti-liberal, anti-socialist, violently exclusionary, expansionist nationalist agenda.”
[ livescience.com ]

Let’s not forget though, no government, fascist or democratic, run on its own. Even Hitler, a narcissistic manipulator with ideas of murder and mayhem was not how it started out. He had help. He had surrounding him a bunch that, well, had much the same ideas in mind, new ideas, some more heinous than others, and the final solution was born out of MIND _ S_, not just “a” mind. Let’s never forget that Hitler did not stand alone. He was a little man with crazy hair and a purpose, a manifesto, and he was just the right guy to use as a lance to egg on the crowds, he was a gregarious speaker, and could whip up the multitudes with a practiced tone, style, and vocal manipulation, starting out quiet, and building in volume as he went.

Certainly, across Europe Germany used that manipulation, the growing anxiety, for Germany to get back what they thought was their right, and might, to take. Oh yes, he had staff. Was he a malignant narcissist? Probably.

Fascism can seem very attractive. It arrived on North American shores, just as surely as it did on British soil, and all throughout Europe, born out of much the same circumstances as today – globalization changing the economy, jobs disappearing to new technology, rich getting richer, poor getting poorer, and then the great depression hit, and by the late 1930’s the movement had taken a foothold internationally, not just in Europe, but everywhere.

{…}seven feelings that act as “mobilizing passions” for fascist regimes. They are:

*The primacy of the group. Supporting the group feels more important than maintaining either individual or universal rights.
* Believing that one’s group is a victim. This justifies any behavior against the group’s enemies.
* The belief that individualism and liberalism enable dangerous decadence and have a negative effect on the group.
* A strong sense of community or brotherhood. This brotherhood’s “unity and purity are forged by common conviction, if possible, or by exclusionary violence if necessary.”
* Individual self-esteem is tied up in the grandeur of the group. Paxton called this an “enhanced sense of identity and belonging.”
* Extreme support of a “natural” leader, who is always male. This results in one man taking on the role of national savior.
* “The beauty of violence and of will, when they are devoted to the group’s success in a Darwinian struggle,” Paxton wrote. The idea of a naturally superior group or, especially in Hitler’s case, biological racism, fits into a fascist interpretation of Darwinism.
[ ibid]

Lest We Forget. Fear creates knee-jerk reactions to one’s circumstances, and fascism wraps you in a warm blanket of big bad guy security, feeds on anxiety, ramps up the chaos, encourages it, and then provides the solution…there, there, the big bad guy’s on your side now.

The biggest problem with Fascism is, that you can not just put the genie of individuality that defined the 20th century back in its bottle. Regardless of how messy Democracy can be, fascism is a short-term solution, a quick fix as it were not a long-term strategy.

It’s based on a cult of popularity, and fictitious scenarios devised in the minds of, well, generally men, but women too. It is not sustainable long-term, not a long-term solution to 21st-century issues. It is chaotic at its core. It requires obedience to the idea’s of ONE, not the many, there is no diversity of thought, and as such is weak at the foundational level.

So, when I look at that op-ed, think about the so-called Republican author, who agrees with many of the 45th’s actions, it does almost feel a little too, em, close to home? Manufactured crisis? Are we being had? Was the New York Times had? Is this the means by which this administration is going to take the next step towards fascism 2.0?

Deep state? Stable state? Fascist state in the making?

Today to deny that the authoritarian fascist ideals are seeping through the cracks into the Washington D.C. establishment is a dangerous ignorance, they are ripe, all of them.