I am sorry to have to acknowledge that Sinclair Lewis did not say—not in It Can’t Happen Here or in other works on similar themes—that “when fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” He and others did express similar predictions, and the saying itself loses none of its prophetic value as an orphan. Our domestic variety of right-wing tyrannical impulses is inevitably associated with the fundamentalist and evangelical sects of Christianity, thanks to our long history, going back to the earliest days of British colonization, of that religion’s absolutists. The Puritans did not come here to practice religious freedom, but instead to be the persecutors, and their descendants have been with us ever since—at times, as now, in tension and coalition with what we today refer to as libertarians. Though contemporary libertarians have made peace with the fundamentalists by agreeing that government is a tool to repress the liberties of anyone who is not white, straight, gender-conforming, and capitalist.
I live in an area of Virginia that is the birthplace of modern home schooling and has as a major Protestant church in town that is mega and also MAGA. I have neighbors that go to this church and home school their kids. They are truly nice people and neighbors who would not think twice about helping in an emergency or just as neighbors do. But I wonder ( and I'm sure you know what I wonder ) if our worst fears that our political division became active and violent, which side of the line they would choose to be on. I wonder if we are living in Bosnia in 1991. I can't think of anything worse short of an successful take over by a fascist dictatorship.
I live in an area of Virginia that is the birthplace of modern home schooling and has as a major Protestant church in town that is mega and also MAGA. I have neighbors that go to this church and home school their kids. They are truly nice people and neighbors who would not think twice about helping in an emergency or just as neighbors do. But I wonder ( and I'm sure you know what I wonder ) if our worst fears that our political division became active and violent, which side of the line they would choose to be on. I wonder if we are living in Bosnia in 1991. I can't think of anything worse short of an successful take over by a fascist dictatorship.