The Breathing Hills, 52nd Day of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Aldebaran): This is it. We're there. This country is no longer moving toward fascism, we're no longer in danger of becoming fascist. We're crossed the tipping point. Fascism is here. This is a fascist nation.

Evidence? The Stable Genius has declared antifa to be an "enemy of the state." An executive order signed September 22 declares, "Antifa is a militarist, anarchist enterprise that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law." To be sure, antifa is not an "enterprise" or an "organization," but the general concept of opposition to fascism. But when the state declares opposition to fascism to be antithetical to the interests of its government, then that government is by definition fascist. 

But this isn't just word games or twisting the meaning and intention of an executive order to score political points. The Stable Genius has deployed federal forces to L.A. and D.C. ostensibly to combat crime and to stifle protests, and troops are scheduled to mobilize to Memphis, Tennessee on Monday. Today, he announced that troops will be deployed to Portland, Oregon, ominously authorizing them to use "Full Force, if necessary,” whatever that means. Local officials and the state’s congressional delegation argue that the S.G. is either misinformed or lying about the nature and scale of a single, small protest outside one federal immigration enforcement office, and that federal troops are neither wanted or necessary.

Mobilizing federal troops against a nation's own citizens not enough to persuade you? This week, the Stable Genius ordered the indictment of the former FBI director, a political adversary who had investigated Russia's role in the 2020 election. Yesterday, the Stable Genius announced that more people whom he considers his political enemies will also face criminal charges, claiming, "they’re corrupt. They were corrupt radical left Democrats.”

If weaponizing the Justice Department to persecute the president's political enemies, charactering the opposing party as "corrupt" and "radical," mobilizing armed federal troops to American cities, and declaring anti-fascism to be a criminal philosophy doesn't convince you, perhaps you refuse to be convinced. To be honest, part of me doesn't want to accept it, either, because I grew up believing we were the "good guys" and "it can't happen here." And yet, here we are. It has happened.

I also believe that there are others who don't accept that we've become fascist because they are so upset by immigration, they so hate people who look and act differently and speak different languages, who aren't white and straight and, if not men themselves, at least support patriarchy, that they're willing to overlook, ignore, or deny the evidence right in front of them. I also believe that some of them are, in fact, fascists themselves, although they may use different terms (MAGA, amerika first, law-and-order) to describe their positions.

The United States has a fascist government. It's happened. Now, what are we going to do about it?