It’s hard for most of us who are rational, living outside of the United States, to conceive of living in an autocracy. Most of us have no living memory of what living in an autocracy means, and very few WWII survivors remain alive, so there is no living public memory of fascism as an existential threat to our being.
That may be about to change.
Americans are within reach of creating their own destruction as a democracy, as electing a racist, misogynist sociopath is within reach of Americans. Immune to the reality of living under a hate-filled dictator, Americans both uneducated and angry, are about to impose Armageddon on themselves. It is illogical, irrational and terrifying. Once done, there will be little chance of reversing autocratic rule without civil strife, possibly civil war.
Similarly to the 1930’s experience in Germany, Americans are being wooed by charlatans to the promise of a better America. How a man whose hate and willingness to focus on retribution for perceived acts of injustice against him, is actually going to ‘make America great again, is impossible to divine. His sociopathic delusions will destroy democracy, whilst he focuses on dismantling the organs of power necessary to effectively govern.
Every facet of American life will be degraded. Health, education, the natural environment, stability, the economy and sustainability, will all be undermined or placed in peril. Without ability, ethics, morals or intelligence, trump will lead America into a wasteland for Americans, and once done, the road back may possibly not be found for generations.
This morning I read an article by a German Jewish survivor of the holocaust and WWII, who as a child experienced Nazism and the rise of Hitler. His analogies and observations of trump, his populism, his lies, retribution and sociopathic behaviour have illustrated to him the same behaviours, actions and rhetoric that Hitler used to enthral Germans with his cult of personality. He is now, in his late eighties having a visceral response to fear. A fear he has not felt since he was a small child. Trump, in his living memory is the recreation of Hitler.
This old man spends his days attempting to engage young people in conversation and dialogue as to what autocracy and dictatorship actually will mean for America. He is saddened and disconsolate that so many American youth cannot grasp the danger to their futures that now is within days of transpiring.
As a foreigner, I too fail to understand how Americans are willing to enable a man so devoid of human value to lead their nation. Unintelligent, arrogant, simple-minded, poorly educated, irrational, a pathological liar, convicted rapist, racist and misogynist, trump is hateful, and everything that I eschew, everything anathema to my psyche, my values and my life.
I equate trump to a natural disaster of cataclysmic proportions. If elected, a Tsunami of hate, retribution, and a mission to roll back the rights and freedoms of Americans will occur. It will happen deliberately and in a manner so profound as to seem implausible, – even impossible a scant ten years previous.
Democracy will end, and with it America’s leadership, influence, standard of living, and earned trust throughout the world. It will become a pariah as a nation, from which rational and reasoned people will either flee or resolve to rebel against in revolution.
Civil War will become a real possibility as democratic states revolt against the autocracy of trump. Open violence will escalate to repression and then direct, armed conflict, leading to a zero-sum outcome that will devastate America generationally.
Democracy has five days to deny autocracy. America has but five days to chart a rational path or be immersed in a battle for the survival of the nation that will cause chaos and immense pain.
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