The overthrow of democratic constitutional governments is, unfortunately, a mature line of business in this world. The most effective method for subverting an established democracy would seem to involve the synergy of lawyers, guns, and money. That style of coup, according to my everyday sense of things, works fastest and best in nations with only a short history of popular sovereignty or a weak tradition of same.
Lots of citizens are gloomy about the prospects of U.S. constitutional democracy, especially about America's apparent down-slope race toward something that smells like fascism (complete with state-controlled media). But even if you start from the debatable premise that most Americans live for consumerism and obsess on phony political issues that prey on their psychological insecurities, the U.S. is nevertheless far different from China or the Wiemar Republic or pre-Rat-Pack Cuba. No one has ever tried such a grand experiment in totalitarianism in a laboratory with 210 years of practice in constitutional democracy. It's fun to wonder what some of the unintended consequences of that experiment might be.
Update: I just remembered that, during Thanksgiving dinner, Nana opined that she hoped certain public figures got the "Mussolini treatment." Now wouldn't that be an unintended consequence? Blondy thought it was just hilarious.
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