"How Did We Get Here?"

Every day is somehow more dystopian than the last, and we have a long dark path in front of us. I don't mean to be alarmist, it's just how I feel. Every day I'm reminded of the entirety of America's historical context which brings us to this moment. But I keep seeing and hearing people ask, "How did we get here?" No shade to the people posing the question, but the answer is that we never left.

The United States isn't suddenly morphing itself into a fascist state, fascism was always here. It was lurking behind a curtain of privilege for many of us and (can you imagine?) the curtain is being pulled back to reveal the nastiness that is an oppressive regime. Germany took notes from us on Jim Crowe and our treatment of Indigenous people. Class and race have always been interwoven castes in the U.S., where elite white men have run the show. Just in the last few decades, have women and minorities been able to break through the barriers into political spaces in numbers, and our current president wants to replace the glass for a bulletproof variety.

Trump hasn't been allowed to do what he's doing because he's this all-powerful being just by nature. He's empowered by the billionaire class, the legislative dereliction by representatives we've chosen as a nation, and the judicial failure to hold him accountable for crimes he committed. He was even convicted of some of those crimes! If our checks and balances had held, he wouldn't be where he is. He weighted the scales in his first term, building his cult to include judges and legislators and voters alike. This is what unchecked executive authority looks like. But he didn't do it alone. He is not an aberration; millions of Americans are lapping up his bigotry. They're cheering him on, blessing him for his service to the United States of America.

We're here, as a country, because we failed to fight back hard enough against the white supremacist elites, and their cult following. We've been kicked, and we're down on the ground again. Will we stand back up?