One a certain group decide to have a right wing based state it is only natural that those who lean left will protest. So what is to be done about them? In democracy the usual thing is a swing from left to right wing governments as middle of the road voters change.

Once though a group decides they want extreme right wing policies to be permanent then the problem of what to do with the left is more acute. Historically there are only a few alternatives.

The first alternative is propaganda and hopefully to cow the left into accepting what the right want. This is the main tool being used currently.

If this doesn't work then if the right still insist on having things their way the next alternative is rigging elections. We've seen ample evidence of that with Jeb Bush taking so many blacks off the roll, refusing to do a full state recount of under and over votes in Florida, and of course having your own judges on the Supreme Court declaring your candidate the winner.

In future elections it is then necessary to make sure they can be rigged as well. Since all the electronic voting companies are owned by extreme Right Wing Republicans that contribute to Bush's campaign the stage is set for this as well. Since it has been repeatedly shown that electronic voting machines can be easily rigged by those in control of them there is nothing to stop them using that power but their (ahem) honesty.

But say that doesn't work. The left demand that the blacks be put back on the roll and public complaints make it hard for the Supreme Court to decide future elections. They demand the voting machines have a verifiable voter trail. While this is being resisted by the Republicans for now, more suspicious results as occured in the 2002 elections make it appear this potential ruse won't work for long. Currently we don't know if the elections are being rigged or not, but the point is a democratic country should know for a fact whether it's elections are fair or not.

If the left won't be cowed or defrauded into dominance by the right then the next alternative is a dictatorship by the right, with the support of the military. Left wing politicians typically wind up dead, cowed, or narrowly escape assassination. Plane crashes claim a few Senators (like they have already with Democrats), others are attacked (like some were with Anthrax).

A secret government is ready to take the reins (as was set up ready to go around the time of the Anthrax attacks). Typically the verbal attacks are intensified, like questioning patriotism and calling the left treasonous (Coulter). But say even this doesn't keep the left from demanding their share of power.

The next stage is a fascist dictatorship, much along the line supported by the US in South America. Left wing publications would be censored or put out of business. Protestors would be incarcerated, put into camps, or held without trial. Signs of this are like Guantanamo, and Padilla, and of course draconian parts of the Patriot Act. Ideally enough are made examples of to cow the rest of the left.

In this case then the model for the US would be closest to Nicaragua and Somoza. The country would be run by cronies of the dictator and receive special business deals and subsidies (like Enron, Perle) as well as protection from prosecution (Plame affair). Those high in the government would have businesses on the side. Welfare is eliminated.

At this point the fascist state can only control the left by terror. The models for it would be like Franco's Spain, Hitler's Germany (if there had been no war started by Hitler and it had remained a peacefule Fascist state), Mussolini and Italy (again if they had not joined a war), Pinochet and Argentina, Somoza and Nicaragua, El Salvador, Noriega and Panama, and so on. Note that many of these models of the fascist state were supported by the US.

So the whole direction of things depends on the right and how ruthless they are at getting their way. If they restrict themselves to grumbling then democracy survives. If they try to rig things to keep themselves in power then it becomes more like perhaps Serbia before the war.

If they push things further then the next step is to become something like Franco's Spain, Somoza's Nicaragua, or Pinochet's Chile. Of course the next step is Hitler and Mussolini.

So ultimately it depends on the ideology of the right and how much they are prepared to accept the left. At this stage very little of this has happened though there are some worrying signs. Certainly the rhetoric on the right makes you wonder if some people are considering pushing things further. The US has supported similar regimes in the past so for some people at least there is little stopping them for pressing for say a Somoza style regime in the US. people who supported Somoza are unlikely to be against a similar government for themselves.

What it all boils down to is when you have the rhetoric of these people, the questions is what are they going to do about it? Are they just grumbling or are they angry enough to take it further, and if so how far? What is their vision of a right wing state? What do they do about the left wing people who don't like it? How do they stop the left regaining power? What scruples do they have?