All Of This Has Happened Before

In anticipation of what I know is coming, I have found myself recently seeking out the small joys of life. A nice meal, a laugh with a friend, choosing a comedy movie over a serious drama.

It’s as if I am striving to keep my dopamine stores topped up knowing that soon they will be depleted regularly by current events.

At first, I was doing this deliberately, but as January 20th approaches it has become seemingly reflexive.

I haven’t missed the news, of course, but I find I am less willing to dwell upon it. Heartache and worry find less purchase on a heart that is light with hope and joy.

The comforting thing about recognizing the parallels of history is that the broad outcomes can be predicted. Fascistic movements always consume themselves because they are run by narcissistic sociopaths who all want to be in charge. The most dangerous fascist is never the one at the top, it is the one who is content with working behind the scenes to do all of the dirty work while remaining truly loyal to those in charge.

Thankfully, not many of those kinds exist. MAGA will topple of its own weight and all of those involved will backstab and torch each other, sometimes spectacularly so. We’ll get to watch those fireworks and delight in them.

The issue is what befalls the people caught by the tumbling rubble, and how the rest of us can act as a buffer to protect them when and where we can.

We don’t know to what extent actual damage will occur. I’ve long believed that Trump’s obsession with the stock market, and his desire to be liked by the elite wealthy class will mean that no large-scale destruction will be done to the economy. By extension, that will also mean continuing the norms our economy needs to keep chugging forward, like elections and a working justice system, will continue.

One of the reasons open fascism fails is because the people don’t go along when the bread lines get too long and their pocketbooks remain empty. Americans are used to living in excess with cheap energy and food fueling infinite growth. While that status quo hasn’t held in recent generations exactly how it used to, there are enough of us fat and happy driving SUVs around that we can ignore the remarkable strain the middle class has suffered under.

Trump’s current brand of sycophant loyalists, led by the wealthiest men in the world, are content with discarding all of those norms in pursuit of erasing Liberalism as an ideal. Self-governance is too troublesome for these people so they’ll set the rules, own the media describing the results to the populace, and declare the narrative to be whatever is most beneficial to their bottom lines.

That won’t work because it simply can’t work. Yes, people love their propaganda because it makes them feel safe knowing the billionaire real estate developer and his tech bro friends truly love them and want to do what’s best for them.

However, the plans they are attempting to set in motion, like large-scale deportations, will obliterate the GDP. When there are no workers to pick the vegetables, gather the eggs, and harvest the strawberries, American grocery store shelves are going to sit empty.

Americans haven’t faced true shortages on a large scale since World War 2. The supply chain crisis, brought on by many of Trump’s disastrous economic policies during the height of the pandemic, was a blip compared to what removing significant portions of the agricultural workforce would create.

The privileges we’re used to of having a plethora of foods, clothing, and goods available at our local stores whenever we want them have become such a staple of our everyday lives that losing them would create a massive backlash, not only from Democrats but from the populace at large.

There will be successes in the propaganda they will bring about with their state-controlled media. Fox, X, and Meta working as unofficial media establishments of the state will keep people in the dark and controlled, but it won’t work at the scale necessary to keep it completely out of the public consciousness.

Horrible, rough days are ahead and I know that to be true. People are going to be hurt by this administration and its abhorrent policies.

I take comfort in knowing how it will end, with those involved reviled and hated.

Freedom will always ultimately survive because it is humanity’s natural condition. We were meant to be free, and we will find our way back.

I’d like to end this with a quote from American Crisis by Thomas Paine: