Thom Hartmann gets to the heart of the matter

[Joinfortmill]

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/12/31/2072020/-Do-Americans-Have-the-Will-to-Battle-a-Wealthy-Rightwing-Authoritarian-Movement

When fascism reared its ugly head in Europe and Japan in the 1920s, it signaled a coming war. As a newer and slicker form of that despotism rises here in America, it may well bring the same type of crisis.

We stand on the threshold of momentous change in this nation. While it’s rarely discussed in this frame, the next two elections will almost certainly determine what form of government we’ll have for at least a generation.

Will America become more free and democratic, or will we devolve into a 21st century form of Trumpy fascism?

The Democratic Party is institutionally committed to America finally realizing a republican form of democracy, rejecting gerrymanders and voter suppression while embracing the kind of “maximum participation” ease of voting seen in every other advanced democracy in the world.

Three significant pieces of legislation to reverse the Supreme Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act and protect the integrity of the vote have passed the House and if Democratic Leadership (looking at you, Biden and Schumer) can get them through the Senate there is a vastly improved chance for the survival of our form of government.

Additionally, most federally elected Democrats support strengthening our democracy by ending the filibuster in the Senate and adding at least Washington, DC as a new state (with high support for Puerto Rico as well).

But do Democrats have the will and power to fight a battle against financially well-armed rightwing billionaires and their predatory and polluting industries?

Not to mention taking on today’s GOP version of Mussolini’s Blackshirts, the volunteer civilian “tough guy” militias that initially roamed around Italy beating up Jews and lefties?......click on link to read more.

[gab13by13]

1. Real news,

I listen to Thom every chance I get.

Thom mentions 3 pieces of voting legislation, people don't talk about the 3rd piece which closes loopholes in the Electoral College.
If this bill fails to pass the Senate we won't have to worry about a military coup in 2024, they won't need the military, just the Supreme Court. Republican controlled states can send their electors to the convention even if a Democrat won the popular vote. Democrats will object at the convention so the decision then goes to the House and if Republicans control the House they will seat their electors. Democrats will appeal to the SC where I fully expect the court to rule that states have an absolute right to run their own elections.

The fucking sky is falling, something had better happen in early January.

[dutch777]

2. Scary but right on.

[Poiuyt]

9. Getting rid of the Electoral College would be really difficult

Getting around it would be easier, but still extremely difficult.

[Wounded Bear]

3. K & R...nt

[Grasswire2]

4. Thank you, Thom.

His voice is important.

[2naSalit]

5. K&R

[Stuart G]

6. K and R

[NQAS]

7. It's an interesting point

In the mid-20th century it took a war to stop the spread of fascism. But remember. The democratic European countries kept trying to negotiate with Hitler and didn't step in militarily until the Germans invaded Poland in 1939. The US stood on the sidelines until the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor 2 years later. And you might even argue that until the Japanese attack we were generally fine with whatever might happen in Europe. The German Bund was active in the US during the 1930s, and remember, there was an America First movement led by Charles Lindbergh.

So, what now? Does the world stand by and watch as fascists crank all the levers of power and propaganda in the US to install, rather than elect, a fascist party in 2024? Does "the world" then figure out how to deal with a fascist America? And what if there's something akin to a civil war, whatever form it might take, does anyone step in? Or do things just fall apart and do Americans as a whole, like the victims of school shootings and forest fires, stand there scratching our collective heads wondering what the fuck just happened.

W.B. Yeats was probably spot on:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

For the whole poem: https://poets.org/poem/second-coming

Whether it's Yeats or Thom Hartmann, you can't say we haven't been warned.

[Joinfortmill]

11. Yes.

[Steven Maurer]

8. I've met Thom many times; he's being overly dramatic

The public is in no mood for fascism. The economy is good and wages are rising.
The only thing that's different right now is the economic business model of making money off of extremism, due entirely to the ability to create ever more narrow vertical markets. That, and that racism has come back in style for lower class whites (not that it ever really went out of style).

[dchill]

10. K&R.

[Tommymac]

12. K&R