"Being Honest About Trump"

Elegant, piercing prose addressing an issue that should be of the utmost importance to all Americans, by Adam Gopnik in a July 14th New Yorker post:

What all forms of fascism have in common is the glorification of the nation, and the exaggeration of its humiliations, with violence promised to its enemies, at home and abroad; the worship of power wherever it appears and whoever holds it; contempt for the rule of law and for reason; unashamed employment of repeated lies as a rhetorical strategy; and a promise of vengeance for those who feel themselves disempowered by history.  It promises to turn back time and take no prisoners.  That it can appeal to those who do not understand its consequences is doubtless true.  But the first job of those who do understand is to state what those consequences invariably are.  Those who think that the underlying institutions of American government are immunized against it fail to understand history.  In every historical situation where a leader of Trump's kind comes to power, normal safeguards collapse.  Ours are older and therefore stronger?  Watching the rapid collapse of the Republican Party is not an encouraging rehearsal.  Donald Trump has a chance to seize power.