It would seem that many people we might know well, friends and family are in favor of an American right wing dictator. As uncomfortable as this notion (based upon direct observation for years now) may be, we must come to grips with it. Indeed some may have justified their apparent radicalization in convincing themselves that the Republican Party of the MAGA may not be significantly different from that of fifty years ago. Or they may fear communism still by the left, or actual socialism as a viable threat to the country, as the image of Truth Social posts image below might indicate. They however do not understand the government to any extent, relying upon right-wing sources of information, or the words of people like Donald Trump to influence their beliefs and behavior. Trump will use the word fascist and communist both within the same sentence in describing his opponents, calling them radical in a very projective manner. Such nonsense poisons the minds of millions, and a small percentage of them will gladly take up arms in an imaginary battle described by their political savior. This itching for a strong man dictatorship by the right and by today’s Republican Party concerns me, and millions of others greatly. So I wrote a verse today (certainly not my first) on this phenomenon.
A search of X on “serfdom,” I was interested in what might be said about the extreme loss of personal freedom which seems to be the aims of the right-wing of America today. The “serfdom” of old Russia seems to be appropriate to keep in mind, at least it seems applicable to what might be planned by certain powerful individuals who have an outsized influence upon our future.
I had to try and see what those on the MAGA right might say about ‘serfdom.’ The image below from a search on Truth Social presented:
The following excerpts are from a 1992 paper by political scientist Nancy Bermeo, Democracy and the Lessons of Dictatorship. The paper presents ideas on how dictatorships might evolve into democracies. It is my amateurish opinion that perhaps some of the principles outlined in this paper may have relevance today in America where a certain large faction might indeed have dreams of the country having a strong man dictator who will save our nation (in their minds). That this paper might even be considered as having bearing upon our current state is quite disturbing to me. I have found a little information on Nancy Bermeo, including a recent book she has had published, and two images of excerpts from the paper. I thought it might be advantageous to consider our current situation as already being a dictatorship, to understand how it might be corrected back to democracy.
Four quotes which I found that I liked below which might enhance the subject at hand.
“A man's tyranny is measured only by his power to abuse.”
- Donn Piatt.
Donn Piatt (June 29, 1819 – November 12, 1891) was an American journalist, military officer, and public official. Born in Cincinnati, Piatt attended schools in Ohio and began contributing to newspapers as a young man. He started his career as a lawyer and was briefly a judge in the early 1850s. He represented the United States as a diplomat in Paris for about a year starting in 1854. Piatt served as an officer in the Union Army in the American Civil War from 1861 to 1864. After the war, he held a seat in the Ohio House of Representatives for a single term. He then moved east—first to New York, then to Washington, D.C. He began a journalism career in Washington, founding a newspaper and contributing to others. After retiring from journalism around 1880, Piatt returned to Ohio and wrote works of fiction and plays.
“Tyrants have not yet discovered any chains that can fetter the mind.”
— Colton.
Charles Caleb Colton (bapt. 11 December 1777 – died 28 April 1832) was an English cleric, writer and collector, well known for his eccentricities. For two years Colton traveled throughout the United States. He later established a modest residence in Paris. There he invested in an art gallery and had a large private collection of valuable paintings. Other pastimes included wine collecting and partridge-shooting. He also frequented the gaming salons of the "Palais Royal" and was so successful that in a year or two he acquired the equivalent of 25,000 English pounds. He continued gambling, however, and lost his French fortune. At the time of his death, Colton was living on funds received from his immediate family. An illness required surgery, but Colton dreaded the operation. He eventually killed himself rather than undergo the procedure.
“It was one of the greatest errors in evaluating dictatorship to say that the dictator forces himself on society against its own will. In reality, every dictator in history was nothing but the accentuation of already existing state ideas which he had only to exaggerate in order to gain power.”
— WILHELM REICH
Wilhelm Reich (24 March 1897 – 3 November 1957) was an Austrian doctor of medicine and a psychoanalyst, a member of the second generation of analysts after Sigmund Freud. The author of several influential books, The Impulsive Character (1925), The Function of the Orgasm (1927), Character Analysis (1933), and The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933), he became one of the most radical figures in the history of psychiatry. Following two critical articles about him in The New Republic and Harper's in 1947, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration obtained an injunction against the interstate shipment of orgone accumulators and associated literature, calling them "fraud of the first magnitude.” Charged with contempt in 1956 for having violated the injunction, Reich was sentenced to two years imprisonment, and that summer over six tons of his publications were burned by order of the court. He died in prison of heart failure just over a year later.
“In a democracy, you believe it or not; in a dictatorship, you believe it or else.”
— EVAN ESAR
Evan Esar (1899–1995) was an American humorist who wrote Esar's Comic Dictionary in 1943, Humorous English in 1961, and 20,000 Quips and Quotes in 1968. He is known for quotes like "Statistics — the only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions." He also wrote The Legend of Joe Miller, which was privately printed for members of the Roxburghe Club of San Francisco by the Grabhorn Press in 1957.
Why we must fear the propensity of others to give away their freedom along with ours so readily is a mystery to me. I can not square this in my mind, regardless of how I try. I can only look to history and look at countries such as Russia as an example that it can and does happen without a united effort to prevent it from happening. That a handful of the ultra-wealthy continue to push for this infuriates me, and brings about a feeling of powerlessness which undoubtedly they wish for me to experience. One can only show up in our own way, using the gifts we are endowed with to fight against this insanity is all we can do it seems.
81st posting, August 26, 2023