Jonathan von Ranson: Patterns of fascism

Raising its head in our country right now is the specter of rule by the privileged few based on the “selling” of intolerance and fear, also known as fascism. It’s masquerading, as usual, as leaders who care about the working class.

Whatever one’s complaints, it’s safe to say no traditional American voter wants such concentrated and unchecked power in the hands of their government. Not those who honestly believe the bureaucracy has gotten too big, not those who see the U.S. as having moved too far or too fast in liberalizing its social policies. Not even those who imagine a better paycheck or cheaper groceries to result.

No American with a conscience wants to see the ugliness that intolerance has tended to produce where fascism got its hold — the intimidation, imprisonment and killing in, for example, Hitler’s Germany or Pol Pot’s Cambodia. These are countries whose people gradually bought the promises of their strongman leaders.

Some wage earners today feel cheated, passed over, ignored. They’re angry. But I pray they’ll beware of leaders stoking grievance and singling out groups to hate or favor. The Trump campaign bears all the hallmarks of such an opportunistic reach for power, a pattern that hasn’t ever ended well and won’t even in the United States of America.

Jonathan von Ranson

Wendell