Not With A Thunderbolt

No worries, it just blows my mind how much the extreme abnormal has been normalized.

This has taught me how civil society in Germany failed as Hitler came to power. Not w a bang, but a whisper.

— Rachel "The Doc" Bitecofer 📈🔭🍌 (@RachelBitecofer) February 11, 2020

Bitecofer's recollection is the point Bill Maher made in his closing commentary on Friday when he noted beginning at 52:16 of the video (albeit with bad sound) below:

....that's in the old American- the nation of laws. We're living in the new America with only one law- make me. You know, when a country slides into authoritarian rule you don't get a text alert. Things will look the same on the surface. The buses will still be running. The cops will still be patrolling. You can still get your hair done. Your favorite show is still on TV- unless maybe it's this one.

Americans are always worried that we lose our freedom it'll look like the movie Red Dawn with tanks in the streets. That's not how our republic ends. We keep the names on the institutions, we just change what's inside. We still have trials- we just put up witnesses and you still subpoena people. They just don't show up. There's still an EPA; it just works for the coal companies.

Now it's like the way TV channels sometimes completely change format but keep the name. MTV- music television- hasn't had music videos for years. The Learning Channel has no learning; The Learning Channel has Honey Booboo and America's Worst Tatoos and Family by the Ton. That's us now.

When Rome stopped being a republic it didn't stop having a Senate and neither have we. It's just more like student government now because that's what dictators do. Russia has a pretend parliament; so does China and North Korea. Just about every week here I ask some Democrat "what's the plan for dealing with this new paradigm that I believe we're already living and invariably they just laugh it off.

Here's Mayor Pete last week. (Maher) "You win but Trump says there are irregularities and he can't give up the office. What do you do?" (Buttigieg) "Well, it's gonna be awkward when Chasten and I are moving into the White House."

And I like Pete, I'm a big fan and I'm glad he sort of won Iowa. But this is not funny.

Maher then went on to place faith in the Bernie mobs to force a defeated Trump out of the White House. That strategy is the one least likely to force Trump to vacate, but that's an issue for another day (maybe).  Nonetheless, Maher points out what few if any people have. If President Trump is re-elected, the "slow-moving coup" (as Maher has at other times put it) will be well on its way to completion.

And as explained, it generally won't be with soldiers in the streets or a declaration by the Attorney General that the Constitution is no longer operative. The buses will still be running while most individuals still will be driving their car to work.  The cops will still be patrolling, probably with a more widespread stop-and-frisk procedure than Mayor Bloomberg ever dreamed of.  You will still be able to get your hair done, then shop for the latest fashions. Your favorite television program will still be telecast- even if it's a news program, although only with hosts and guests the regime approves of.

The roughly 245-year old experiment in representative democracy will end not with a bang but a whimper, and so only occasionally will we stop and call up memories of the way we once were.

Share |