Trial runs for fascism are in full flow 
To grasp what is going on in the world right now, we  need to reflect on two things. One is that we are in a phase of trial  runs. The other is that what is being trialled is fascism – a word that  should be used carefully but not shirked when it is so clearly on the  horizon. Forget “post-fascist” – what we are living with is pre-fascism.                                                                                                                                              It is easy to dismiss 
Donald Trump  as an ignoramus, not least because he is. But he has an acute  understanding of one thing: test marketing. He created himself in the  gossip pages of the New York tabloids, where celebrity is manufactured  by planting outrageous stories that you can later confirm or deny  depending on how they go down. And he recreated himself in reality TV  where the storylines can be adjusted according to the ratings. Put  something out there, pull it back, adjust, go again.
                                                                                   
                                                                                            Fascism doesn’t arise suddenly in an existing  democracy. It is not easy to get people to give up their ideas of  freedom and civility. You have to do trial runs that, if they are done  well, serve two purposes. They get people used to something they may  initially recoil from; and they allow you to refine and calibrate. This  is what is happening now and we would be fools not to see it.
http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/f...r-fascism-are-in-full-flow-1.3543375?mode=amp