Walking Toward Fascism

I had a feeling it would turn out like this.  The latest polls out of Wisconsin show that, with one week to go before the gubernatorial recall election, incumbent Republican Scott Walker is ahead of Democratic mayor of Milwaukee Tom Barrett by anywhere between five and eight points.  I had doubts about the idea of giving Barrett another shot at the office.  Now those doubts have been confirmed.

What the hell were Wisconsin Democrats thinking when they nominated Barrett a second time? He was obviously a weak candidate against Walker in 2010, an it's become equally obvious that he's such a milquetoast, he can't even defeat an incumbent Republican governor even more insufferable and more loathed than Chris Christie in New Jersey.  (Note that Walker hasn't been touted as a presidential possibility.)  Walker was caught on videotape admitting that his "reforms" were meant to destroy public unions and had little if anything to do with fiscal discipline; MSNBC broadcast the tape.  How can Barrett possibly be losing when Walker has proven time and again to be the heartless bastard he was careful not to appear to be during the 2010 gubernatorial election?  How can Barrett be such a, well, loser?

Perhaps I'm being unfair to Barrett.  Thanks to voter restriction laws and tons of money spent on pro-Walker advertising by various right-wing groups, even John the Baptist probably couldn't beat Walker in an election.  But what's happening in Wisconsin is a taste of what the rest of America can expect.  And what we can expect is that, frankly, conservative interest groups will bury Democratic candidates for office with misleading advertising funded by anonymous rich people, get Republicans elected to do the bidding of the very rich and the very powerful, and crack down on the rest of us like you've never seen.  And Scott Walker will show the rest of the Republican party and its supporters how to oppress, suppress, and depress the masses into submitting to their will.  Because if you thought Walker was mean and vindictive up to now, you folks in Wisconsin are in for two and a half more years of worse to come if he does in fact survive.  Walker will likely punish with great severity every union member, public employee, and liberal activist who tried to recall him.  After all, authoritarian leaders crack down hard on anyone who dares oppose them.  Walker, like a wild animal, will indeed be very vicious if he's only wounded.

And the Democratic members of the Wisconsin legislature, whom Republicans in Madison have so far treated as if they were  invisible, are going to be treated as  if they don't even exist.  Walker and his allies will double down on their opponents and destroy them thoroughly, This is what we can expect from President Romney and a Republican Congress in 2013.

As for the Democratic party, it's become too timid to pursue a progressive agenda, being more beholden to its own wealthy donors than to the people who elected them to run the White House and Congress in 2008.  Stick a fork into the Democrats - they're done.

It looks like we're going to start with Tom Barrett. :-O