Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

This past March, I wrote an article (You Are Here) comparing the moves the Trump administration made to the rise of Nazism in Germany. My only mistake was underestimating the speed by which the transformation would occur.

Here we are, seven months later, and the takeover by the authoritarian Trump regime is essentially complete. Literally any minute now, the U.S. military will invade Venezuela and install a puppet, fascist Vichy government. It will be done with drones, missiles, and bombs instead of tanks, soldiers, and bombs. Other than that, it will echo the Blitzkrieg of Poland that opened World War II.

What will not happen is other powerful nations rising up to stop us, which may be for the better – less chance of nuclear Armageddon swallowing up the world – or worse, because unchecked, U.S. power will continue to run amok. At some point in our arrogance, we will start war in Taiwan or North Korea, or cross the line in Ukraine into direct conflict with Russia. It may all end up in a mushroom cloud regardless.

Of course, we’ve already signed off on the genocide and destruction of the Palestinian people and their land. And anyone who objects can and will be swept off the street, deported, imprisoned – or, likely soon, summarily executed by ICE agents or National Guard soldiers. That’s how far down the path of despotism we have come.

Congress has effectively been dissolved. By means of the “shutdown,” there is no effective legislative body to check the Executive – not that it hasn’t already been controlled by Trumpists, lacked a coherent opposition, and shown zero inclination to do anything but rubber stamp what Trump wants. The shutdown has just made it moot. (I don’t entirely blame the Democrats for standing on the principle of healthcare; I blame them for being handmaidens to the uni-party Reichstag to begin with.) Even so, Trump felt the need to state the obvious, that he needs no Congressional authorization to start his Venezuelan war. The shutdown has also allowed Trump to hollow out the federal government of everyone except loyalists and sycophants, as I predicted in March.

The federal courts have, to some extent, been the last line of resistance, but the Supreme Court has nullified most of the lower courts’ rulings and rolled over for Trump (also predicted). In rare instances in which SCOTUS has tried to rein Trump in, he has simply ignored them, as he did in March when he disregarded their ruling and shipped Abrego Garcia off to a Colombian hellhole.

Trump’s promised attacks on his political opponents have gone from threats to action, with Letitia James, James Comey, and others now facing trumped-up (pun intended) charges. He is not stopping at career politicians. Opponents of genocide like Mahmoud Khalil will be disappeared by any means necessary, legal or not. Anti-genocide groups have been declared illegal by presidential decree; imprisonment or worse awaits thousands of people.

Finally (not that this is an exhaustive list), the dictator-in-chief is now accumulating power, wealth, and control on a daily basis. Like Hitler and his ministers, he is beginning to tear down Washington, D.C., to erect monuments to his power and ego. History is being rewritten and whitewashed by government agencies and museums. The new “Germania” will take shape at home, while a glittering playground for the Reich and its uber-wealthy benefactors will rise from the ashes of Gaza on soil stained by the blood of hundreds of thousands of innocents.

Fascism and authoritarianism are not looming in these United States. They have arrived. We are here. We are the Germans of 1938 watching helplessly—or colluding—as our country becomes a world-destroying terror. Who will stop it?

The post Dystopia Now appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org.