They're Baaack!

Don't have much right now to say about the election. I went into it fully expecting it to be fairly close, but I thought PA and MI would go blue. Earlier today, I was pretty down about it, so I took the afternoon off to have some down time, study some Old English for class tonight, have some wine, etc.

Turning the US (back) over to fascists (who would say that "the wrong side lost in WW2") is the lowest that I have seen the US go. I mean, yea Madison Square Garden had a Nazi rally before WW2, and yea, the mean-spiritedness and mistreatment of others by many Americans has been with us all along, and yep, the stain of slavery has never been washed out. But at least since around WW2, there had been a kind of congeniality to American politics that largely disappeared during the Gingrich years.

So all the things I want in a leader, right? (I'm of course being sarcastic):

• Paying a woman to keep quiet after he had an affair.
  
• Multiple felony convictions.
  
• First president with multiple impeachments.
  
• Mocking of disabled people.
  
• Using locker room talk in public and over the air.
  
• No understanding of US government (or desire to understand).
  
• Provoking an attack on the Capitol.
  
• Seemingly unable to read at even a 6th grade level.
  
• Showing increased mental deterioration.
  
• Narcissistic and sociopathic behavior.
  
• Multiple failed businesses.
  
• Admitted admiration for dictators.
  
• Mob boss-like threats towards others.
  
• Misogynistic
  
• Party plans to gut social programs, like the ACA, Social Security, Medicare. And plan to raise the retirement age.

I could go on and on!

I read that there are plans to build prison facilities near every major population center, presumably for immigrant deportation purposes. That's bad enough. But it also reminds me of another time and another place when prison facilities were built.

A warning about demagogues from Alexander Hamilton back in 1792:

The truth unquestionably is, that the only path to a subversion of the republican system of the Country is, by flattering the prejudices of the people, and exciting their jealousies and apprehensions, to throw affairs into confusion, and bring on civil commotion. Tired at length of anarchy, or want of government, they may take shelter in the arms of monarchy for repose and security.
....
When a man unprincipled in private life desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents, having the advantage of military habits—despotic in his ordinary demeanour—known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty—when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity—to join in the cry of danger to liberty—to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion—to flatter and fall in with all the non sense of the zealots of the day—It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may “ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.”

Old quotes like this hardly help, but at least they illustrate that the danger of demagogues and provocateurs has been considered from the very beginning.