Caution. Political sentiment expressed below. Brittle folk may want to shuffle on by.

I’ve been trying and failing badly to keep my political thoughts out of this blog. I’m a left-of-center atheist white male scientist affiliated with neither political party. But things are happening in the USA. Bad things. I have come to believe they are indicators of a darker, non-democratic future. A slide away from democracy is a far too important a problem to leave to “others”.

For generations scientists have come to believe that the scientific establishment is and should remain a kind of a neutral cultural subset in the manner of Switzerland. But right now there are people aiming and succeeding to take power in the USA in order to dismantle and restructure what has been a fruitful civilization to satisfy their evangelical iron age religious urgings and their desire for some kind of ultraconservative Shangri-La where corporations rule and every teacher is a qualified sniper. While I exaggerate a little, progress is nonetheless being made.

Scientists can bring their quantitative analysis skills, their powers of persuasion and ability to find and use sources of credible information to the table. The ability to synthesize solutions to problems is another important skill that needs to be out and about. Scientists need to come out into the open a bit more.

A blog that I have long frequented but have never shared publicly is the Daily Kos. It is a popular progressive site consisting of staff writers and many guest contributors. Just as even I have to admit that occasionally a Republican writer has produced some valuable analysis and insight into things, I’ll propose the same about a progressive writer. That writer today is Thomas Hartman who is a progressive talk show host and NY Times best selling author. Recently he posted an article titled “What Would an American Fascist State Look Like?”.

I won’t waste time and bandwidth on a review of the piece, but briefly he articulates very clearly what it might look like to be in a state that is sliding into fascism and cites examples of common strong-man behavior. Now is not the time to begin to worry about a transition to a fascist state. The time to begin was 2016. We’re already behind.

As I stand here looking right then left, I see one political party that has made its intentions known regarding its determined path towards a Christo-fascist state. The other dithers and self-immolates into a dumpster fire with no strong leaders, lazy voters and ambitious ideals far too early for the present culture.