It's happened before, and it will probably happen again.

You have a powerful, prosperous nation, with citizens who are confident about their future, and their kid's future, and the future of the nation in general. Within their memory, and the memory of their parents, things have been on a roll, getting better all the time. After a while, these folks come to believe (and not without some justification) that its because they are doing things right, and that their country is doing things right. The system works and they are loyal to it. They deserve their freedom and their prosperity because they've earned it. They are entitled to it. And to a certain extent, they are right.

Then things start to go wrong, perhaps its a military defeat, or possibly an economic downturn. Things start to slide, like they may have often done before, but this time it doesn't stop, it just seems to get worse. It really doesn't matter WHY its happened, it could be government mismanagement, or the rise of a ruthless oligarchy, or foreign competition, an overall laziness and complacency, or any of a dozen things, or perhaps even a combination of things. It could be someone's fault, or maybe its just the forces of history catching up with you. Maybe its just bad luck.

But for whatever reason, the party is over, and it finally starts to sink in. People finally start getting hip to it. The news all seems to be bad any more and things seem to unravel. After a while, the fear starts to poison their outlook, little problems start looking like big ones, even the things that go right are quickly overlooked, or forgotten, or swept under the rug because it doesn't match a fashionable sense of gloom and despair. The idea that maybe things might not be as good as we'd like, but that they are not as bad as they could be, just isn't enough for us any more.

People start looking for a villain, a scapegoat, and demagogues arise to exploit that despair, by feeding the hate, the anger, the fear and the ignorance. Unavoidable but tolerable change becomes suddenly unacceptable, expectations become unrealistic, There is a sense of bitterness and betrayal in the air, and it feeds on itself, becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

And Camelot, that wonderful remembered paradise that is the past (which really wasn't all that wonderful) is constantly brought up to reinforce the idea that "they" have betrayed us, "they" have taken our country away from us, "they" are out to get us.

Revolutions aren't always brought about by the desperate, the poor, the helpless who have nothing else to turn to but violence, those who feel they have the most to gain. Sometimes they come from those who feel they have the most to lose.

It isn't inevitable just because it happened in Italy, Spain and Germany almost a century ago. It never took hold in Britain, or France or America, even though it came pretty close. History never repeats itself because the future never duplicates the past exactly. But sometimes you see patterns that look hauntingly familiar.

Fascism is the dictatorship of the middle class.