I had time to catch on the news this morning, but the rest of my day has been nothing but work work work.

I need to write performance reviews for a bunch of people and I can't figure out how to motivate myself to do it right now.

So I just voted. Worked until 5, went to my torture workout class for an hour and got to the polls 10 min before closing. One of the candidates was at my polling place with his kid. I shook his hand and voted for him. Apparently only about 400 people voted in my precinct. I was torn between my mayoral candidates, but went for Jim because I have broke bread with him. He opened his home to a bunch of strangers to host a Hillary campaign event the night of one of the debates. So I ended up having to vote for him. As of the moment Shelley is ahead 65/35, which likely has to do with the higher % of women voters in low turnout elections. That's cool if she wins. She knocked on my door and I had a nice long talk with her. Both candidates are fine. The really shocking part is that Jim has ALL the endorsements. All 7 previous mayors, both major papers, Police & Firefighters, and many more. We'll see.

Frankly I care more about the PA race. The candidates here are all good guys I can live with.

One of the things that helped me understand the Trump administration was reading up on Fascism on Wikipedia. After all the neo-Nazi tiki torch dockers dudes, I thought to myself "I'm not sure I have a clear understanding of the philosophical basis for Fascism as separate from Nazism and whackadoodle eugenics, antisemitism and racism."

So I got it sorted down to a basic Nationalistic Authoritarianism (unchecked executive) but then they had a little sub-heading on Capitalist Fascism. And that was illuminating because they talked a lot about Mussolini, and how he placed heads of industry in charge of the State run departments relating to their industry. And that's when the penny dropped because - of course they did! - that's exactly what Trump did over and over.

So...he's pretty much a fascist and set up a fascist administration.

People kept barking about "putting the fox in charge of the hen house" but that's exactly what Capitalistic Fascism does.

Yup, he's a fascist, pretty much text book, as you say

His voters are such blooming fucking idiots. I'll say that here, but try not to say it on FB in part in case a student looks me up and wants to try and peg me, and in part because I have family (by marriage) who support him, and while I will gladly call them out to their face (because I already have a rep for being opinionated), I am loathe to do it in public where they will get their hackles up. I'd rather have a fighting chance of getting them to admit they are wrong, and that is only going to happen in private.

I filter on FB and don't post to my 'non-political' group anything that might raise hackles. It is in ways a wimp position, but mostly it is people that never talk politics so I spare them, and of course the few remaining Trumpians because, why bother.

Well, my mayor race ended up 53/47 in favor of Shelley. Considering the huge number of endorsements for Jim I am really surprised. It has to be the woman factor. Hear us roar or something. Interesting.

I am 50% done writing performance evaluations, but I think I need to break for dinner now.

Go shrift!

Yeah, I took a Cultural History of Early Twentieth Century Europe class during my second try at a Master's. Heavy on the fascism, as one might expect. Little details from that have been floating up in my memory and paralyzing me with fear of what will happen next at random moments for a while now. And I don't know of any models of How to Successfully Fight Fascism from Underneath, as it were.

I just started on my last one. Sigh.

Have they called the PA special election yet? I'm afraid to look.

Too close to call, afaict.