It's Happening Here

   The death of Philip Roth reminded many of his novel, "The Plot Against America" (2004), which dealt with a conspiracy to overthrow the government. It was reminiscent of an earlier book by Sinclair Lewis, "It Can't Happen Here" (1935).
   Meanwhile, a new book has hit the best seller lists dealing with the same theme. It's called "Fascism: A Warning," written by Madeleine Albright, former secretary of state and ambassador to the United Nations.
   The difference is that the Albright book is true. It compares the characteristics of fascism as it rose in Europe in the 1930s to the actions, attitudes and strategies of the current occupant of the Oval Office today.

   On Page 4 of her new book, Albright writes, "If we think of fascism as a wound from the past that had almost healed, putting Trump in the White House was like ripping off the bandage and picking at the scab."
   
   Still another book," The Plot to Seize the White House," written by Jules Archer and published in 1973, documented a real conspiracy by isolationist radicals of the 1930s who wanted to close all borders and build a Fortress America.
   Sound familiar? Build a wall. Keep out those somehow deemed undesirable, who don't speak the same language or follow the same religion as those already here.
   Call them "animals," or somehow less than human, which enables a dominant group to exterminate them.
   Sound familiar?

   Neither Benito Mussolini nor Adolf Hitler were directly elected to power by a majority vote of the people. Both manipulated their national systems in order to gain control. Along the way, their speechifying and demagoguery planted the seeds of doubt on the land of truth.
   That's another strategy used by would-be dictators on the fascist trail: Say something long enough, to enough people and loud enough to outshout those who speak and write information that exposes the lies, and eventually a demagogue will persuade enough people that he's right and everyone else is wrong. And with that leverage, the demagogue rises to power and strengthens his control.
   And once in control, the new leader can eliminate by whatever means he can anyone opposed to his own version of "truth."
   Sound familiar?

   In America today, there are still enough people who recognize the tactics and strategies being deployed to erode and eliminate certain of the freedoms that people have long enjoyed, as guaranteed by the Constitution.
   But already, there are undercurrents of movements to cancel the First Amendment by establishing a state religion, and to require that only adherents of a certain religion be admitted to America, thus wiping out Article VI of the Constitution itself.
   Remember what it says? "No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."
   Citizenship is a public trust. It is also a responsibility.