‘Vichy America,’ Or: I Know Way Too Many Fucking Fascists



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarer


Repeatedly over the last few days, I’ve found myself talking to people who were American fascists. Such fascists make a point of establishing that the United States is a “constitutional republic” and not a democracy. To me, this seems a pretty obvious setup to crowing when Trump steals the election in the fall and somehow magically remains president after, on a democratic level, he loses.

Another interesting thing is how absolute these fucking fascists are in their support for Trump. They crow that we should expect “36 years” of Trump rule. They say this nearly in the same breath as the one they just used to talk about the United States not being a democracy but a “constitutional republic.” Having a family stay in power that long definitely doesn’t sound like a republic to me.

Of course, I guess these shithead fascists would would bob and weave when I pointed out that under their definition of a “constitutional republic.” Russia is one, too. Which, of course, is what they want. What I see as a tragedy, the see as “making America great again.” They want the very nightmare of a fascist America that I desperately hope to avoid.

The even greater irony is these very same people are extremely delusional (at least relative to what I find demonstrable) by saying things like I’m going to “have to learn Russian and Chinese” if Biden wins. Given what a fucking suckup Trump to both President Putin and President Xi, this seems a dubious suggestion to say the least.

But the whole point is, not since Vichy France has a democracy so willingly allowed itself to slip into tyranny. I read a lot of people talking about how the Republican Party needs to be burned to the ground after Trump (should this ever happen), but this is extremely clueless.

Trump is the Republican Party and the Republican Party is Trump. Even under the best of scenarios, neither he nor the Republican Party are going anywhere and he’s likely to continue use his absolute control over the GOP to destroy what’s left of any form of liberal democracy in the States. Instead of living in a dream world, we need to start to figure out how we’re going to survive in fascist America for the next 20 to 40 years.

The Republican Party has a bloodlust for absolute power that, to date, has been mitigated by how bonkers and incompetent The Dear Leader is. There are about a dozen would-be successors to Trump who are younger, more focused and a lot less incompetently bonkers who are comping at the bit to finish the process Trump began.

As I’ve said before, someone like Trump was bound to become president at some point between 2016 and 2024 for demographic reasons, if nothing else. Something about Obama’s second term turned the Republican Party into fascists and Trump was the vessel for our decent into fascism.

In real terms, a lot of this fascism is simply the modern equivalent of the Roman Republic becoming the Roman Empire. So, in a sense, the only thing stopping House Trump — or whomever the fuck else — from simply going full Darth Vader on us is what kept the Roman Empire from never actually having a “king” — it goes against America’s collective self-perception too much.

While it is inevitable that the 1st and 4th Amendments will be…uhh…radically reinterpreted in Trump’s stolen second term, even if he does, somehow leave office, then that very same reinterpretation will happen under a President Pompeo or President Cotton. All Trump did was slice the seal on tyranny.

On a macro demographic level we are all very much fucked and there’s nothing we can do about it but either get out of the country or think about what we’re going to say when the Little Green Men finally come for us.

Author: Shelton Bumgarner

I am the Editor & Publisher of The Trumplandia Report

Leave a Reply