If the leader of an increasingly fascistic movement can attempt a coup and incite a violent insurrection only to return to power four years later, without ever facing real consequences and while explicitly promising to establish a vindictive autocracy, democracy will not persist.https://mastodon.social/@tzimmer_history/113430722408706093

The lesson from U.S. history, if there is one, is not that progress is impossible. There has been tremendous progress at times! But we must not assume directionality in history. There is no arc, there is no linear progression, no utopian end goal we are destined to reach somehow.

People need to accept that things can change – in either direction: It really could get much, much worse. But it could also get better. There is nothing inevitable about either doom or progress. We are neither fated nor guaranteed to experience the status quo for all eternity.

Crucial piece by Mike Podhorzer on how polls are obscuring the extremist nature of Trump’s plans.I’ll add a related thought: Since the mainstream discourse stipulates that extremism must be “fringe” in America, anything that has broad support is reflexively sanitized as *not* extremism.https://www.weekendreading.net/p/poll-washing-our-way-to-fascism

Mere weeks before the election, I revisit the Fascism Debate and discuss where we stand after Trump has, even by his own standards, gone on a rampage recently. If anyone thought more evidence was needed before we could call it fascist, the Trumpists have certainly provided it. 2/

This situation is acutely dangerous, because it means that for the foreseeable future, the fate of democracy - not merely in an abstract, formalistic way, but with all the fundamental rights and respect for pluralism by which it should be defined - is on the ballot in every single election.https://mastodon.social/@tzimmer_history/113272196658840533

The stakes in 2024: Democracy itself has become a partisan issue.The fundamental reality of American politics right now: The conflict over whether or not the country should actually be a democracy maps onto the conflict between the two major parties. 1/