It Can Happen Here. It's Happening.

OK America, it's been a week, and with Bannon's, Flynn's, and Sessions' appointments it's pretty clear where the politics of our new administration are trending--way, way further to the right than most of us (me, certainly) dreaded. Judging from Jared, Ivanka, Don, Jr., and Eric's roles in the transition, it's pretty clear too what the "ethics" of this White House are going to be--whatever supports the Trump family's interests. Autocracy, kakistocracy and kleptocracy are words that we're going to be getting used to hearing. Fascism should be another. His presidency is already a dynasty-in-waiting.Trump's outraged Tweets about the harassment Pence was supposedly subjected to last night when he went to see "Hamilton" are just harbingers of what's to come ("We are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our friends, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights," one of the actors said. "But we truly hope that this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us.") If Trump has his way (and who is going to stop him?) six months from now he'll order the show closed and its producers arrested. Hopefully there are public servants who will defy him, but who knows?Life goes on, we shouldn't give in to despair, America is better than this, he was elected by a minority, his constituency is demographically doomed and stands to suffer significantly from his policies--this is all true. That Republicans are more divided than the Democrats and will be at each others' throats in short order is true too.But we need to be perfectly clear about what we're in for. Just like Trump says about "radical Islam," if we want to defeat this enemy, we must call it by its name: Fascism, Fascism, Fascism. Let's get used to saying it.