by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
As a loudmouth crank, the idea that the American Far Right is publicly and conspicuously embracing an autocratic thug like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán by giving him a starring role at the current CPAC meeting give me pause for thought. For a number of reasons, there is not a direct 1-to-1 between the United States and Hungary politically. Should the States slide into autocracy there’s a chance that we wouldn’t stop at a Hungary-style version. We could — glup — very well careen towards an autocracy that looks a lot more like Russia or Nazi Germany.
Issues like race, the far more flexible role of women, income disparity and the being a much, much bigger nation cause the US to either drive into the ditch of hard core, old school fascism or, well, a civil war.
But I’ve all but convinced myself that we’re not going to have a civil war. The center Left in the US is just so concerned about dumb shit that it’s going to be totally outmaneuvered by American fascists like those at CPAC when the time comes. It definitely seems as though this is pretty much a forgone conclusion. The only doubt that it will happen is, well, I can’t predict the future and, as such, there’s always a chance that something I can’t expect might happen instead.
What that might be, I don’t know.
The point is — it’s wishful thinking on the part of CPAC that they will get a Hungary-style autocracy in the United States. They are probably going to get an autocracy, but soon enough, once the connection between the governed and the government no longer exists, MAGA will consume the United States like the Nazis did Germany and, well, either get out or think long and hard about what you believe in, in the real world.
Long “Mueller, She Wrote” rants about how Trump is just about to be arrested won’t cut it anymore.
