A couple of years ago, PBS interviewed CIA analysts (retired) who stated the situation: All the conditions that typically lead to civil war are being expressed in the United States. It’s just a matter of time. I suspect MAGA / GOP / Christian nationalist movement is going to try to rig the election (through its usual array of efforts, suppression, gerrymandering, election fraud, if nothing new) and then try to coup d’etat if they lose. And hopefully, the Federal and state governments will be prepared for it.

If they lose they’ll be sorely tempted to start shooting. They may not this time. We’re not good at determining what will push us over the threshold to violence.

Those CIA analysts noted that if the federal government were to restore more democratic features so that the public can actually petition their representatives for redress of grievances and get results (right now they get zero results. Influence of the public on official positions is a flat line) then we can step away from the precipice of civil war, and a one-party autocracy with a heavy seasoning of fascism.

But the establishment Democratic Party has no interest in pushing for election reform, since that would weaken its own power. In fact, since Carter, the Democratic Party has responded by tightening rules against more public-serving candidates including their red-haired stepchildren, the social democratic wing, like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Whenever someone like them gets elected, they revise their rules to make it harder next time.

So for now, our hope depends on interfering with the steady march towards autocracy, possibly by finding opportunities in the chaos of complexity, like dinosaur clones breeding and migrating off of Isla Nublar. For now we can expect that the US Supreme Court will continue to strip away civil rights (they’ve been carving out chunks of the fourth and fifth amendments to the Constitution of the United States for years before Dobbs ) but it’s also costing them their reputation as a legitimate institution of justice in the eyes of the public. (Polls put it at around 15%-20%, but everyone I know expects SCOTUS to be corrupt and obedient to its Federalist Society masters. Clarence Thomas is just assumed to be a plutocrat shill who will do whatever Harlan Crow wants.)

At the same time, at this point we know who the Fascists are in the big game of Secret Hitler. On one hand, when Trump is out of the picture, they’ll find another charismatic strongman Mussolini wannabe that will take over in one or three primaries (and they’ll offer their usual Ted Cruz / Jeb Bush dull-minded Ayn Rand fanboys in the meantime) so there will always be a not-so-Secret Hitler. If we’re lucky, incompetence will rise to power and squander their billionaire-backed war-chest, but we may get unlucky, and find someone who can do the Hitler dance and follow instructions without ego getting in the way, and then Project 2025 is back on schedule.

The French Resistance started by just being so pissed off at ill-behaved Nazis, they couldn’t stand it. They started by tearing down propaganda, cutting phone lines and slashing tires before forming into a formidable fighting force in only a couple of years. If you’re not young and spry and daring, look to your local mutual aid groups. Check in on your neighbors striking or struggling to organize their unions. Make sure your LGBT+ neighbors (or whoever is the outsider flavor of the week) are hanging in there, and let them know you have their back (and follow through.) This is the infrastructure that punches the faces of the Nazi menace, and depletes plutocrats of the power (and money.) And heck, it may cause accellerationist efforts to trigger civil war to sputter and burn out embarrassingly.

The good news is the Republicans are bleeding money and stabbing at each other from within. Christian ministries are bleeding members, who want to respect their gay neighbors and notice even if He gets us the ministry doesn’t get us at all, and seems to only care about its big-ticket contributors. The US is well on its way to becoming a state of nones with out-of-touch religious institutions scrambling to keep their power. We can’t kill the fascist menace, but we can sure make the community toxic to it.