Last night as I was tossing and turning and obsessing over the chaotic horror our country and the world are living through in the Trump regime, the product of the progressive downward spiral the United States has been in from the high point in our democracy of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, I came to the conclusion that we're seeing a contest of two conceptions of democracy and only one of those is a viable conception that will result in democracy, the other will result in fascism.
To some extent, among the aristocratic distrust of government of, by and for THE PEOPLE, and the poison pills inserted into our Constitution to prevent Lincoln's tripartite purpose of government happening, there were some legitimate concerns that if you allowed people to vote then what they voted in might be a product of them wanting the worst of what they wanted instead of what was morally defensible a being right. And that phenomenon has, in fact, proven itself to be a very real and very dangerous thing about the form of democracy, the election of office holders by people whose motives could be anything from the highest, least selfish, most informed choice for the common good and the protection of minorities to the kind of ignorant, bigoted, superstitious, greedy, envious covetous motives of the worst of the Trump voters.
Around the world the tragic phenomenon of people who escape colonial or Marxist oppression who hold their first and last truly free election is terribly common. In the United States we might find that it's possible even for a country well-practiced in conducting democratic elections to do what they have done, given sufficient corruption of the culture and minds of enough voters to have that effect. Here, in the United States, that was done last year through the combined efforts of our free press with lies told about the massively qualified candidate, Hillary Clinton, in every venue from the sub-FOX lie factories up to the Washington Post and New York Times. That was how the collective American public came to their conception of her candidacy, with appeals to sexism being another thing featured throughout the media. The other candidate was a total and complete creation of the free media, Donald Trump, "reality" show star, TV celebrity, the beneficiary of billions of dollars worth of publicity given him by alleged news shows and, we now know beyond any doubt, the ratfucking of the media and the internet by a foreign despot, the foremost promoter of criminal fascist regimes around the world.
All of that was entirely legal in the United States under the First Amendment, as interpreted by courts from the very year I mention above, 1964 in a case brought by the New York Times which resulted in the permission of the media to tell those lies, which also led to the election of Ronald Reagan who got rid of any requirement of the media to not just tell the lies it liked but to air opposing viewpoints. That later action was praised by the "civil liberties" and "free speech" industries as a great boon for freedom in the United States. That it has favored the Republican-Party and its dive into overt fascism is something I have yet to hear those lawyers and advocates of such "freedom" even admit to. And what is not legal about it will probably be made so on a defacto basis by Republicans in the Congress and in the courts.
The real contest is here and now. The contest which will determine if we have an egalitarian democracy or a fascist country with a pantomime of elections, indeed, even a country in which the very concept of truth as opposed to useful lies or, in fact, any morality matters. It is here, now, it is upon us. We are entering into government by nihilist fascists. That's the reality of it.
Democracy which means, merely, that the wants and whims of a majority of voters* is what has led us into Trumpian fascism. It has been brought to us by the very media which feeds lies and thrilling sensation to us, more effectively than it gives us Samantha Bee and Stephen Colbert - look who's in control of the government, friends. Real democracy is far more than the fact that one of the cabloids has a few hours set aside as a liberal ghetto. Even if they're finding that such hold-overs as Rachel Maddow are attracting the largest audiences in her career.
Democracy is either that expression of amoral appetites or it is a government produced by responsible adults who have the kind of morals that produce egalitarian democracy, who are prepared to forego things that they want which are not moral or which will result in Trumpian fascism instead of egalitarian democracy. Not all supposed systems of morality will produce egalitarian democracy, it's possible to have what is called democracy with even the most grinding of slavery and subjugation of women, we had it here in the first century and, really, aren't entirely shut of it, today. It is what the Republican-fascism is trying to reimpose.
The decision that liberals must make is to choose the right thing, in which case they will need to change their rote, knee-jerk support of the liberalish-libertarian stands that played such a decisive part in bringing us to Trumpian fascism. If they don't and don't bring enough voters along with them, then American democracy is a tragic failure, the victim of its vaguely defined meaning and goal and the absurd faith that it could just happen without the requisite moral precursors being followed intentionally and in a way that would defeat the nihilistic pantomime of liberalism.
Early in my blogging career, in response to listening to the then often heard Fred Wertheimer, most famous as the head of Common Cause, I came up with the label "process liberal" to describe their kooky concept that liberalsim and democracy don't rightly have ends to work to that should determine our stands and actions. It is an echo of the absurd idea that things were just going to come out by the same natural means that worked in physics and chemistry. It is a product of atheist-secularist faith but which is evidenced nowhere in human history. I understand that a lot more now than I did when the idea first came to me. Rejecting that superstition is one of the essential things we need to do to save democracy.
* And under our lunatic Constitution, with its aristocracy protecting features, such as the Electoral College - which obviously doesn't work to protect democracy, we got fascist rule through an actual minority of the voters.
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