We always thought we were safer than everyone else. The United States had a centuries-old, stable democracy and a relatively isolated geography, giving the illusion that the country was protected from domestic or international threat. We were dead wrong.
This “Can’t-Happen-Here” illusion came crashing down on September 11, 2001. Despite forewarnings of terrorism abroad, many Americans assumed it wouldn’t happen here in the U.S. But the terrorists had judged correctly that America was wide open and defenseless due to our complacency, and they exploited our lack of precaution. Then, only twenty years later, we watched in horror and disbelief at an attempted coup in our Capitol – something that previously had seemed truly unimaginable. So IT CAN HAPPEN HERE…
Now flash-forward to another threat – fascism, now raising its head in Europe and other parts of the world. In the early 1900s, Mussolini’s Italian fascists imposed totalitarian rule and crushed political and intellectual opposition, while forcing traditional and Christian values on the population. A few years later, following Mussolini’s playbook, Hitler and his Nazi party added antisemitism, rampant nationalism, hatred of immigrants, and a “cult of violence.” SOUND FAMILIAR?
We have learned that fascist regimes operate by promoting fanatical nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political/cultural liberalism, and the rule of the elite at the expense of the masses. Again, SOUND FAMILIAR? It should – just see Project 2025, the MAGA vision of the future of the United States.
If we Americans do not wake up to the fascist threat by Trump and his MAGA policies, history will repeat itself. We will again be caught flat-footed, as we were on 9/11 and on Jan 6. But this time we may lose our democracy. YES, IT CAN HAPPEN HERE. And it could, unless we work hard to prevent it. Read on…