In five parts, actually.

Slate.com been running a veddy interesting series this week on how the U.S. might come to an end, if the U.S. were to come to an end. Part 1 was environmental catastrophe; yesterday’s bit was secession; today’s bit is totalitarian rule. What particularly piqued my interest was Josh Levin’s invocation of American slippage as a path to fascism; he points to a book by Benjamin M. Friedman called The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth - and this, a review from the Amazon.com page, rang a very loud bell:

[Friedman] contends that periods of robust economic growth, in which most people see their circumstances palpably improving, foster tolerance, democracy and generous public support for the disadvantaged. Economic stagnation and insecurity, by contrast, usher in distrust, retrenchment and reaction, as well as a tightfisted callousness toward the poor and—from the nativism of 19th-century Populists to the white supremacist movement of the 1980s—a scapegoating of immigrants and minorities.

That the rise of the Fox News right - “reaction” - should parallel middle class economic stagnation makes perfect sense. It will get worse.