"Through the roof?" Really? I was all ready to write a scathing rebuttal to this evidence-free diatribe designed to once again scare the bejesus out of all us poor Medium folks (welcome back, Umair!), when I remembered: we've done this before, and nothing has really changed. This post is essentially identical to a Umair post back in March 2023, titled “(How) Fascism Is When People Don’t Want You to Exist". There, like here, we're told the USA is on an inevitable glide path to fascism. And here we see all the same fears (it's a bit of an exaggeration to call them arguments), this time with the avatar of our doom, the Orange Menace, placed in the starring role. He is inevitable! He is unstoppable! We are helpless before his awesome power! Please visit my subscription service for more!

I was about to start ticking thru all the reasons why this analysis is, shall we say, missing a few things. Then it hit me, I already did this. In response to that Fascism post, I wrote "My too-long-to-be-a-comment response to Umair Haque’s '(How) Fascism Is When People Don’t Want You to Exist'". So instead of repeating myself, I'll just provide the links here, so if your readers want to talk themselves off the ledge you have so kindly provided for them, they can give it a read. I have to admit, everything I wrote then is equally applicable, if not more applicable, today. Nothing fundamental has changed, it’s only gotten worse.

The future is uncertain. Anything can happen. But there are reasons why some outcomes are more likely than others. And a Trump win in Nov 2024 is very, very unlikely. The GOP is dying, not ascending, and we should all calm down and just finish the job.