Truth

Whether they fully articulate it or not, an element that strikes terror in many hearts and minds regarding Homegrown Hitler's regime is the nightmare reversal of truth and lies.  The regime lie and because they say it, it is the truth.  There is no argument based on evidence of any kind that can contradict it, and increasingly, that support it.  And therefore, there is no recourse.  There is no democratic process, or any kind of decision-making based on verifiable evidence.

But making decisions based on facts as well as priorities, and even knowingly ignoring where the evidence leads in order to strike a compromise that brings parties together to support a common program, have had and still have an important institutional place, everywhere from city councils to courts and even occasionally in the US Congress.

Some decisions are made that way by law, such as applying rules regulating carbon in cars and power plants, as this article explains: because even a climate crisis-denying ignoramus bought and paid for by fossil fuel corporations as EPA director will have to prove a case.

But at least a couple of the regime's efforts to remake reality may be getting some resistance in Congress, even from usually fact-free Republicans.   This Washington Post article is persuasive that a couple of R leaders in the House and Senate aren't meekly cooperating with the regime's strategy of making wild accusations and then pushing them over to Congress to investigate.  They are committee chairs asking for evidence for the charge of wire tapping against President Obama, and saying pretty plainly that they don't believe the White House or the Justice Department has any.

One of these, a conservative and once (and probably future) regime apologist, Rep. Devin Nunes told to a reporter in 2015 that his biggest concern was the "spread of false information on the right:"

“I used to spend ninety per cent of my constituent-response time on people who call, e-mail, or send a letter, such as, ‘I really like this bill, H.R. 123,’ and they really believe in it because they heard about it through one of the groups that they belong to, but their view was based on actual legislation,” Nunes said. “Ten per cent were about ‘Chemtrails from airplanes are poisoning me’ to every other conspiracy theory that’s out there. And that has essentially flipped on its head.” The overwhelming majority of his constituent mail is now about the far-out ideas, and only a small portion is “based on something that is mostly true.” He added, “It’s dramatically changed politics and politicians, and what they’re doing."

From reality TV to Facebook as the prime dispenser of "news," it is the newest and most frightening of the tendencies that encourages--even deifies--ignorance.

There are somewhat more familiar components to the Dark Age Now though they are amped to brand new heights.  Jeffrey Frank recalls Homegrown Hitler's disdain for Camp David, as close to a hallowed setting as we get in America, rich with history as well as practicality, and imbued with the continuity of the American presidency.   "Seen in that light, Trump’s contemptuous remark about Camp David became another early warning that, even after taking the oath of office, there would be no end to his vulgarity and mendacity."

Frank later comments:"hard to watch what’s happening to the office and the mission of the Presidency, aided and abetted by men and women who will not be forgiven in the history books that Trump will never read."

The Washington Post has taken to adding a motto under its name on every website page: "Democracy dies in darkness."  It is the darkness of ignorance, of deliberate ignorance.  That ignorance is created not only by the dearth of information, but of shared belief in the fundamental tests of what's true and what is not.