"Fascism is rising in America"

[Barbarella]

I wouldn't get out the torches and pitchforks just yet.  This entire article is little more than sensationalistic yellow journalism.  Is this development worrisome?  Yes.  But it's not like the sky is falling.

I'm with you on this.

I look at it, this way....any article that's alarmist should be taken with a grain of salt and are designed to get people feeling nuts.

Now, is there some tiny kernels of truth in it? Sure. You have "Cops Gone Wild", Plutocracy, Teabagger leaders, stupid laws & restrictions on women's sexuality in some states, etc. But it's not a lost cause, yet. Also, a Fascist govt. tends to have the people clamoring for it. We're not at this stage.

I look at it this way, unless someone stood up at a podium in Washington tomorrow and declared explicitly that the U.S. Constitution has been repealed and is no longer the law of the land, I will still consider this a free, open, progressive Democratic Constitutional Republic! All the antics showing otherwise are simply illegal actions that have no validity!!!

That's not how I judge it.  A lot of repressive systems are more subtle than that.  Me, I look somewhere else: Congress.  While a certain amount of decorum is expected, regular heated debates (non-violent ones, that is) are generally a good sign for the health of the country's democratic institutions; if politicians are openly arguing in the halls of the legislative body, it means their opinions differ, and differ publicly, and that the legislature is actually a powerful enough institution to be worth fighting over.  Dictatorships tend to have unnaturally polite and well-mannered "legislative bodies".  If Congress starts acting like the Get-Along Gang, that'll be a big red flag.

Indeed.

[Lt. Fred]

Fascism is just populist extreme conservatism (Franco!). The Republican party is far from populist.

Actually, contrary to popular belief, Franco wasn't a fascist.  He was a far-right authoritarian who enjoyed the support of many traditional institutions, whereas genuine fascists like Mussolini and Hitler held far more revolutionary beliefs and frequently criticized said traditional institutions.

While being backed by other conservative institutions. Franco was a fascist. Yes, he was.

[dpareja]

Fascism is just populist extreme conservatism (Franco!). The Republican party is far from populist.

Actually, contrary to popular belief, Franco wasn't a fascist.  He was a far-right authoritarian who enjoyed the support of many traditional institutions, whereas genuine fascists like Mussolini and Hitler held far more revolutionary beliefs and frequently criticized said traditional institutions.

While being backed by other conservative institutions. Franco was a fascist. Yes, he was.

Franco was a fascist who "won", if you like. He didn't get violently kicked out like Mussolini or kill himself to prevent getting violently kicked out like Hitler. The sweeping changes in Spain took place after he died and Juan Carlos (to whom Franco had given the title Prince of Spain rather than the traditional Prince of Asturias, possibly to emphasize that Juan Carlos was succeeding because Franco said he was and not because he had any right to the throne--Juan Carlos's claim wasn't the strongest, but his dad was an outspoken critic of Franco) became king. At that point, Juan Carlos told some people to write up a constitution and mostly got out of politics.

[Nemo]

2020 is what the progressives need to win in order to undo the gerrymandering that has enabled the Tea Party to have any potency at all.

Gerrymandering (or lack of, hopefully) is determined by state legislatures, not the U.S. Congress. Getting progressives to pay attention to state races is even less likely than getting them to vote in midterms.

I'm hoping I get to eat my words in 2020.

I agree, but getting someone who showed up to pull the lever "D" for the Presidential race to do the same for their state leaders shouldn't be that hard. Now, the fact that that is one of the "best" ways we presently have of undoing the insane Republican gerrymandering has its own problems (I don't much care for the Democrats either).