Subject: Re: American fascism
There was an article a few years ago about the rise of authoritarianism. Trump was mentioned, of course. And his admiration for strongmen like Putin and Duterte.

Duterte was mentioned (though he has since timed-out of office), Putin, Xi...I don't remember them all now. I do remember there was concern about hard-right people in Germany and France.

Russia had a democracy for a bit, but lost it. Duterte was all in favor of extra-judicial killings, and didn't like criticism. Putin kills his critics. Trump tried to silence the media (unsuccessfully), but managed to get a lot of people to believe only what he says. And now South Korea is joining in the fun, with their leader taking a page from Trump's playbook and pushing the meme "fake news" whenever he's criticized.

Democracy is hard. And fragile. It may take another 100 years, but I suspect that with the occasional embrace of authoritarians, combined with modern technology, that we will end up with a 1984 society. And -again, with technology- once that is in place, there will be no hope of dislodging it.