I guess the history of democracy makes for a wider and deeper Rubicon for authoritarianism to have to cross before it can do what it wants? Like America has centuries of democracy, and even if that democracy is being eroded we still have an ingrained emotional attachment to it that would make overt authoritarianism a much harder sell than it was to Germany with its not even two decades of uneasy democracy. How much that would mean when it came time for the populace to actually do something about it that required more than getting off their fatasses once every four years to vote I don't know.

Yeah Liberalism with the big "L" supports capitalism and "freedom" via the marketplace which supports the elites who support consolidation of power and wealth so never ****ing trust Democrats because at the end of the day they give the actual left the side eye just like Republicans do.

I think that to counter the emotional attachment to democracy, fascism would be rebranded as a true or effective form of democracy to rope in the buzzwordly.

Actually, this convo ends here. Gonna sell my propaganda talents to the White House.

Could work, given how a lot of alt-right and alt-lite personalities on the internet always get a lot of cheering for being "pro free speech", unlike those evil lefties with their weird pronouns and ****. It's pretty easy to re-brand leftism as fascism if you don't care about nuance.

Tired of those anti-democratic, authoritarian lefties? Come join the far right! Where no one will tell you that maybe you should let people be "***gots" in peace? You can say whatever you want! Provided you're not trying to suggest that people should be nicer and show understanding, of course. That's anti freeze peach.

I mean American fascism would probably deify democracy as it's a traditional cultural touchstone to manipulate the people with just like Blue Angels flyovers at the Super Bowl but where would be the wiggle room in that for authoritarianism? At some point you'd either have to abolish voting to maintain the regime or risk losing power in the next four years, and how do you sell abolishing voting in America? It's kind of a mindless truism that it's the bestest.

You could start with banning all sorts of groups of people from voting. Like gays, colored people and "communists" (known lefties). I could see that working very easily if fascism had gotten a strong enough foothold.

I know America is painted as right wing religious and homophobia, racism, and Cold War propaganda still rear their ugly heads but we've at least reached a point where overt hatred towards gays and minorities are political bombshells you have to tiptoe around at least on a national level. We're willing to be dickwads but we have evolved standards that would be very hard to rollback after a certain point. Genocide against gays, minorities, and communists would still be unthinkable to the vast majority of the country.

I don't doubt you're right about that. But I do wonder how many steps it would really take to roll that progress right back again.

It's not just modern cultural mores to be reckoned with, but we have actual historical precedents to give us pause. Martin Luther King shamed the whole country to a powerful extent that won't be forgotten simply because racism still exists. Will and Grace made gays likeable even if we're not sure if they should be able to adopt children.

Another 9/11 would definitely add crazy amounts of fuel to the fire.