GRACE OR FASCISM'S FUEL?

 Historical amnesia.
This, plus a refusal to look squarely at ugly facts or to think when necessary, are fascists' bread and butter.
For at least the last 42 years and probably longer, a large bloc of voters in this country have done this. Considering we elected a Grade B actor as president, with nothing inside of him except what he absorbed from those to whom he was closest (more on that) because these voters wanted to live in Disneyland, I guess it's poetic irony that Florida's caudillo DeSantis is now yanking the floor out from Disney World.
And just what did the Grade B actor absorb? Once he married the adopted daughter of Dr. Loyal Davis, a wealthy surgeon with anti-New Deal politics, he absorbed most if not all of them, and thus became a fit front-man for those who wanted to scrap every scrap of the New Deal, including Social Security.
I wonder if the vacancy inside Reagan doesn't have something to do with his son's atheism, but that's for another time. Suffice it to say for now that, while I don't agree with the conclusions of atheists, I very strongly support their right not to believe. But back to the main topic.
Conversely to fascism, democracy stands stronger when it is more inclusive. Is it perfect? No, and perhaps never will be this side of Judgment. But democracy is a process. It enables more voices to be heard than ever before and, thus, has more self-correcting potential than any other way of governance than our world hath seen to date. Its weaknesses tend to be the places where bullies, mostly financial bullies, can make their influence felt. That is, those cracks where autocratic ways come flowing through.
Democracy, both political and economic, is also based on the truth that too much power inevitably--yes, Gentle Reader, you read me right, I wrote inevitably--corrupts human beings in mind, heart and soul. Kudos to Lord Acton for re-articulating this truth. Democracies, if they are to remain so, must have a solid economic floor and a not-too-high ceiling in terms of its citizens' incomes. We must also learn to give nature a voice (voices?) for our own preservation.
Democracies also need citizens accustomed to taking action together, making common cause with each other when the need arises. It needs citizens who keep themselves informed and engaged; no matter on which level. It also needs citizens to remember that autocracies have been largely dismal failures as governments except for the handful of people who profited by them.
Democracies are also right to require of their citizens, both native and adopted, to assimilate to the ways of democracy as each country has them and including what I just wrote.
Now: considerin' that all we bipeds are equally corruptible by too much power, let s/he who can answer me this: is this not true of us collectively as well as individually? Why do so many of us need to believe that our country and/or religious community is Without Sin, aside from those sins which look like fun but are actually mostly acts of desperation in search of an anodyne and/or a human connection?
And it seems that those who are most openly 'people of faith' have forgotten the lines of Scripture about no one, no, not one, doing good. Not to mention Jesus himself asked the rich young man, "Why do you call me 'good' "? I am also a person of faith, and let me remind you we are NOT saved by the apparent perfection of our faith community, much less our countries, but only and solely by the UNEARNED Grace of God! I happen to believe that comes in fullest form in Christ Jesus, but I'll tell you why and how only if you ask.
We need to grab hold of that Grace and use it to face the ugly historical truths and their current fallout and do what we can to eliminate or at very least mitigate that fallout and also to hear the alarm bells of how much we need to change NOW if there is to be any decent future for our grandchildren! We need Grace for a clear and honest remembering of our past, including all the ugliness of it. And a word for my political brethren: no nation is without its own uglinesses. No nation is more wicked than others but some (democracies) are more open to reforming those nasty parts. It's being closed to such reform that cements any nation or people in wickedness.
Let's ask for courage and discernment in this process of Grace thus pulling us forward!