Are we fascist yet?
If democracy were a caterpillar, an entomologist could tell us exactly when the Constitution went into a cocoon and metamorphosed into a totalitarian butterfly. If only an oncologist could tell us how long American democracy had to live before this malignant MAGA tumor consumed the body politic. Maybe a constitutional coroner could perform an autopsy to determine the time of death. If only there was a way to apply science to politics.
What will the end of democracy look like? Will the latest reboot of the MAGA cinematic universe be like Nazi Germany or Communist Russia? Are we headed for a dictatorship or an apartheid state? How will we even know when the conversion to fascism is complete? Will there be a formal announcement on Truth Social, or should we sit tight and wait for our deportation papers to arrive in the mail? More importantly, has the thing we feared already happened?
Thankfully, I know a guy.
Dr. Jason Johnson is a political analyst, journalist and scholar who studied government at the University of Virginia before earning a master’s and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of North Carolina. As a tenured professor at Morgan State University’s School of Global Journalism and Communication, Johnson also appears on MSNBC as a commentator and co-host.
I sat down with Johnson to explain the characteristics of autocracy, what it’s like living under a fascist government and whether we are there yet. The conversation is educational, enlightening and scary.
And the answer is: “Yes.”
Share this post