Authority

This piece about American authoritarianism on Vox is getting a lot of play on the intertubes, and it is of some value. But it begs as many questions as it illuminates.

It does help frame the devolution of the GOP from a national party to a Congressional and local party. It adds some helpful nuance to the picture of the fracturing Nixon/Reagan coalition.

But it acts as if the Civil War had never happened, as if race were not America's primal sin, and as if this had not happened before to the Democrats -- remember the Dixiecrats?

Yes, the GOP is dissolving, and will probably not win the presidency for awhile. And yes, fascism is always a political possibility. But we don't need the latter to explain the former.