October 25, 2010

In fiction, these have been the modernizing years for vampires. Following the path blazed by novelist Anne Rice, in text and on screen they have become more complex, more human, and increasingly (dare I use the word) heartthrobs. Think True Blood, the Twilight series, and The Vampire Diaries. In the all-too-real and bizarre world we actually inhabit, however, the vampires have been truly regressive: think Count Dracula or Count Orlok of Nosferatu (only far, far richer). Their sole bow to modernity is that, while they — or the monetary contributions they offer in return for political cocktails made from our national lifeblood — still tend to skulk in the dark, they are also willing to stand in the light, teeth bared, ready to sink them in the nearest set of necks.

In August 2009, I wrote a piece titled Fascist America: Are We There Yet? that sparked much discussion on both the left and right ends of the blogosphere. In it, I argued that — according to the best scholarship on how fascist regimes emerge — America was on a path that was running much too close to the fail-safe point beyond which no previous democracy has ever been able to turn back from a full-on fascist state. I also noted that the then-emerging Tea Party had a lot of proto-fascist hallmarks, and that it had the potential to become a clear and present danger to the future of our democracy if it ever got enough traction to start winning elections in a big way.