...there are several anecdotes of individuals acquitted by German courts of trumped-up charges against them only to have the individuals whisked away by Party paramilitaries and vanishing into the Nazi gulag. This constant declaration that the courts are illegitimate and must have their decisions "corrected" (or having the court benches themselves be depopulated by obstructing appointments, systematically purged or replaced with more appropriate ones), is only part of the initial preparatory stages of a fascist takeover.

Some of the early signs are the obscuring or downright refusal to reveal tax and health records of political candidates or appointees, the failure to divest or declare conflicts of interest, or the "joking" egging-on of supporters to inflict violence on critics, especially in the press. This sort of behavior is not unheard of in political movements in democracies, but when it becomes accepted as trivial or even acceptable from government officials, elected or appointed, there is cause for alarm.

No, we don't have concentration camps and organized Brownshirt street violence yet, but the preliminaries are already here, and they tell me fascism is wrapping up its initial consolidation phase. A strong showing by the Right in the mid-terms will signal the go-ahead for the next step in the program. The summer of 2018 is going to be the critical time. Our future will be fully in place by this fall.