Moshiach or not . . .

The Chinese have a saying: may you live in interesting times. It's intended as a curse. The rabbis say much the same thing when they pray: May Moshiach come and may I not live to see it.

Details about Moshiach aside, there can be no doubt that we are living in dread & interesting times, to wit, among other things: the Republican Party is fracturing.

Lest we yell in triumph, remember this is precisely as  Steve Bannon would want it.

Bannon wants to purge the Republican Party not only of moderates — put paid — but even tried and true right-wingers. He wants to replace them all with zealots and fanatics of the Trump persuasion, committed to crushing the media and civil liberties in favor of a white supremacist mass movement, not averse to some neo-Nazi impetus.

Emphasis here on movement, emphasis on crushing and on Trump as supreme leader and enabler (or as Milo Yiannopoulos calls him "Big Daddy.")

It's time to read some history, and not only American history. Think about interesting times in Europe, while you're at it.

Though the parallels are necessarily inexact and though we have a long way to go before the victory of totalitarianism in the United States, it's worth knowing that Bannon's goal is nothing less than following/guiding Trump into the triumph of Fascism with American Characteristics.

We are living in interesting times. As for me, I see no signs of Moshiach, though some of his supporters think Trump fits the bill.