Hedges

Please go to

https://www.altnet.org/2020/01/american-fascist-the-u-s-is-a-failing-democracy-and-the-peddlers-of -hope-are-lying-to-us/  for the complete article.

Chris Hedges framed it this way:

"The United States is a country built on genocide and violence and racial exclusion.  We are a deeply violent culture.  When a people lie to themselves-which is what Americans have done collectively--then you don't know who you are.  And when you don't know who you are, then you can't respond rationally, and you can't correct the problems.

That inability to face reality means that in a crisis you cannot respond rationally. And this crisis essentially creates a social environment where people do not look for healthy political leaders.  The yearning for the cult leader, the political strongman, is a sign of an infantilized country and people......  And that is what makes a figure like donald trump so dangerous.  the people who follow trump do not care how crude he is.  Trump's followers want to get more power because they look to the cult leader as a way of healing their own sense of powerlessness....  There is a similar dynamic with the Christian Right.  A cult leader is really about the death instinct.  Cult leaders cannot create anything positive.  All they do is destroy.  Then the sell that destruction  as a form of creativity.  That is exactly what trump does."