Is it even remotely possible that the U.S. could go down a Fascist path? I don’t know. Let’s first ask if the U.S. unequivocally qualifies as a democracy. If you set the lowest possible bar, democracy could just mean that government leaders are nominally chosen by majority vote, and there is therefore a process for non-violent change of government. We pass that test. A better definition though, in my view, would be that there is a process for choosing government policies that represent a consensus among most of the people, and that represent a compromise reflecting the interests of most of the people. We clearly do not have this. We clearly have policies that represent the interests of a relatively small class of political and business elites, and we have an entrenched political party system that presents almost insurmountable obstacles to anyone who might seriously challenge that social order. It would take widespread violence or civil disobedience to do that, which is the opposite of a functioning democratic political system. So we have a fairly rigid social order enforced by traditional elites.

If our definition of fascism involves jack boots and arm bands and cattle cars, clearly we are not even close, thank goodness. But could we be headed there? What is a registry database for a small minority religious group, if not a modern version of the armband? Robert Paxton’s stages of fascism start with a sense of victim-hood, nationalism based on religion or ethnicity, anger, and some external or internal enemy to blame. We seem to have these ingredients, at least among the angry white men supporting Donald Trump. Next comes a charismatic leader. I don’t find Donald charismatic, but some people clearly do. Next comes acceptance of the extremists by the conservative establishment because they are not strong enough to govern on their own. I don’t think we are there yet, but we did have the recent capitulation of the more moderate conservative elements in Congress to the Tea Party extremists. After these stages come the assumption of power and exercise of power. That is hard to imagine, but we will find out by this time next year.

I still think Donald Trump is a clown. An amoral attention-seeking clown at best, a Fascist clown at worst. It is reassuring that demographics continue to shift so that angry white men can’t just always get their way, no matter how loud and menacing they are. But I am getting just a bit worried. More geopolitical turbulence or random acts of violence in the next year could shift more people into a scared, angry state of mind where they are more open to the extremist rhetoric.