Thread by @dcpetterson

The biggest danger to democracy rests in creeping fascism's lack of impact on everyday life. As we slip further into a hereditary kleptocratic kakistocracy, most Americans see their lives proceeding as normal.

This hides the danger and the horror.

1/13

The exceptions are immigrants, Muslims, and a few others, already marginalized, targeted for hatred and scapegoating. Their suffering is encouraged and celebrated by the ruling kakistocrats, and fed to the masses as gladiator-reality-show-type entertainment.

2/13

In the meantime, while you're not watching, your ability to alter the downward slide of civilization is methodically destroyed. The rulers steal from the nation until the nation is bankrupt. Regulation of commerce, protections for civil and work rights all gradually erode.

3/13

Public education dies. Streets and highways go unmaintained. Food inspection ceases, leading to outbreaks of disease. What services remain are privatized, their quality deteriorates, their cost skyrockets, until only the wealthiest can use them.

4/13

All along, these slowly-but-inexorably worsening conditions are blamed on the scapegoated minorities, and/or on "gubbermint regulation" (the latter of which was the only thing preventing the collapse; it is the end of regulation that causes it).

5/13

Until, one day, perhaps a decade hence, there are breadlines, massive bank failures, monumental disruptions of electricity, water, gas lines, whole industries ending, unemployment well into double digits.

And army tanks on street corners to keep the peace.

6/13

Make no mistake. As wealth is concentrated into fewer hands, as more demographics are targeted and marginalized, as rights erode--you won't see a difference in your everyday life; your favorite TV shows will still air, movies will be made, McDonald's will sell hamburders.

7/13

All will seem to be okay, except your bills continue to mount, Those People (whom you never trusted) will cause more trouble, and one day you'll look back and no longer recognize America.

And perhaps realize you haven't been able to vote for years.

8/13

This is where we are heading, into a hereditary neo-feudal kleptocracy that is a monarchy in all but name, with a few elements of a facade of vaguely-recalled democratic institutions, a docile serf-like public ruled by royal families--

9/

-- and a collection of Hispanics, Blacks, gays and too-upitty women who don't know their place, all of whom serve as scapegoats or incarcerated slave labor.

Oh, and runaway climate change.

That is the Republican ideal. That is the world Trumpocracy is building.

10/13

For anyone who ever was a single-issue voter, anyone who is tempted not to participate in upcoming campaigns and elections, anyone who wants to slime qualified candidates or defend Russian-backed traitors, I mean this from the bottom of my soul: Fuck you.

11/13

If we do not get a Democratic president and a Democratic Senate in 2020, absolutely nothing else matters. It doesn't matter if a Democratic candidate isn't left enough, or isn't purple enough, or is the wrong gender or won't say the precise right words.

12/13

Ignore the manufactured scandals and who placed a hand on a shoulder.

If Republicans maintain a whiff of power, nothing else will matter.

It's make-or-break time. The world is in your hands. Don't blow it.

13/13

The collapse is already happening.

https://twitter.com/MAK7591/status/1118543031982903298

Another example: officially legalized bribery.

https://twitter.com/bennydiego/status/1118370400587657217?s=19