You did not see this coming? Trump is a fascist!

Any sentient voter has had this information for years.

Golly! Donald Trump is a fascist? Wow! Who knew?

Um, everybody.

This unsurprising October Surprise is just now unfolding in the MSM, where many of these journalists have been bending over backwards to “sane-wash” Trump and his authoritarian impulses.

I will make a non-original observation, just to say it, for the record. He’s practically openly running as a fascist and has been for nine years.

Now, why about half of the American electorate is OK with this is baffling. That’s the real problem here. It’s not what Trump says and does, it’s that he has a willing audience who either:

A) Actually believe this, or

B) Enables it.

It’s the B Group that’s the real problem here.

They microscopically focus on their personal detestation of Nancy Pelosi, or Barack Obama, or Kamala Harris, and say to themselves, oh, well, they’re worse than Trump.

I see a Trump sign or two on my street, and one guy in particular is someone I know in passing who is actually a really nice, friendly guy. But he’s secretly OK with journalism being put out of business or being threatened with violence, or the destruction of NATO, or the wholesale decimation of the world order, which has worked very effectively over the course of his long life.

Is my acquaintance a Nazi? Well, I don’t think so, per se. But it doesn’t matter. He’s enabling fascism, and that’s just as bad.

Trump as Nazi-lover is the least-breaking news story out there.

His wife Ivana, who is buried on his New Jersey golf course as a tax break, said he had a copy of Mein Kampf in his nightstand. Surprise.

Trump studied under the tutelage of Roy Cohn, the late psychotic persecution- complex social-climber lawyer who taught him that McCarthyism (remember that phrase? Now Trumpism) works. We don’t have Dwight Eisenhower around to put the brakes on Trump now. We don’t really have hardly any Republicans to do that.

Some are trying. Witness Dick Cheney, Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, and a few others stepping forward. A few.

What about Ted Cruz, who had his father accused by Trump of being a Kennedy assassination mastermind? No. Lindsay Graham, who told the truth about Trump and now soils himself on news talk shows, most recently last week on Meet the Press, where he said “What are you doing? You’re trying to convince me that Donald Trump’s rhetoric is the danger to this country? The danger to this country is the policies of Biden and Harris. And I can’t take four more years of this crap. You support her, you’re supporting four more years of garbage policy,”.

Is fascism and Nazism garbage policy, or is that cool now? Asking for dead friends who won World War II for us.

The past week has featured Gen. Mark Milley quoted in Bob Woodward’s too-late book, but this week hasn’t featured a news conference with Gen. Milley sounding the alarm.

Nor has it featured the oh-so-pained-by-the-entire-Trump-experience Mitt Romney appearing on Meet The Press to say what everyone knows he thinks.

Not has it featured the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush, showing up and endorsing Vice President Harris in person at a rally. Oh, he’s out of politics now, you know. Lotsa painting. Time consuming. Who has time to stop proto-Nazis these days when there are bass ponds to be fished?

We do, however, have former White House Chief of Staff, a Gold Star father and four star general, finally saying something.

“Well, looking at the definition of fascism: It’s a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy,” Kelly said.

Take that, Central Pennsylvania College Dropout Low Information Voter.

Just say the words, General.

“Trump is a wannabe Nazi”. Say the words.

That’s a soundbite.

“Certainly the former president is in the far-right area, he’s certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators — he has said that. So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure.”

Fer sure, dude.

The thing about Trump is that he’s also a clown, a performer, a carnival barker, a walking brand extension, and lots of people thought Hitler was clown as well.

At first.

Still waiting for a five column banner The New York Times headline that hasn’t run for eight years and change:

TRUMP IS A FASCIST AND A NEO-NAZI; WOULD JAIL EVERYONE AGAINST HIM, AS HE REPEATS EVERY DAY

But no, we get the McDonald’s photo-ops and all the other silly blather he spews each and every day, and the NYT, NPR (they’ve become particularly bad recently), and the rest all shrug and talk about tariff policy.

Now, let’s say there was a mass shooter in Times Square. How would the NYT write that headline?

GUN AFICIONADO TRIES PUBLIC TARGET PRACTICE, CREATING NOISY NUISANCE IN MANHATTAN, TRAFFIC JAMS; SIDEWALKS SUFFER DAMAGE AND BLOODSTAINS, OH, AND SOME PEOPLE WENT TO HEAVEN

Ahem.

Lots of political cartoonists were going there about Trump in 2016, when this country had a chance to avoid this outcome, but hey, cartoonists are irrelevant. Ask the New York Times, who took the Pulitzer for editorial cartooning after banning them from their pages.

I haven’t touched on Trump’s obvious sanity problem. That, too, merits a banner NYT hed each and every day. Let’s check today’s NYT front page, for fun.

For Trump, a Lifetime of Scandals Heads Toward a Moment of Judgment

No, no. Try this one:

For GOP Rapist-Con Artist-Convicted Felon, a Lifetime of Fraud and Lying Heads Toward Several Years in Jail If He Loses

That’s better.

Some early signs that Trump is a fascist?

Remember when he wanted to run tanks and other military vehicles down Pennsylvania Avenue, like his buddies Putin, Xi, and Kim do? And that the Pentagon said, well, no, that’s not how we do things here, and it would literally destroy the asphalt.

Remember when Trump spent January 6th, a “Day of Love”, watching tv while his own Vice President’s life was on the line, was told as such, and Trump said, “Maybe Mike deserves it?”

Here’s another good every day of the year NYT headline:

TRUMP CONDONES POTENTIAL LYNCHING OF HIS OWN VICE PRESIDENT ON JANUARY 6th, ASSASSINATION THREATS BEING A FELONY AND ALL

Remember when Trump hosted authoritarian fascist jerk Viktor Orban at Mar-A-Lago, and even gave him props in his only debate? Remember the main headline from the debate?

OMG HE SAID THEY’RE EATING THE PETS IN OHIO!

Remember how he routinely threatens political opponents with violence? remember how he thought it so very fantastic to encourage his mob rallies to beat up hecklers and journalists?

You don’t?

OK, here’s a thought.

Maybe we deserve this man. We fell asleep at the switch for years, gave him money for his stupid television shows, his product lines, stayed at his hotels, went to his casinos, and talked about his as if he were admirable?

You don’t?

We have one more chance here, folks. My guess is to a person you agree with me.

But as we head to Election Day feeling like we’re on a semi-trailer on a mountain pass with brake failure, frantically looking for the runaway truck exit ramp, remember this.

Trump told us he was a fascist for decades.

He told us because he lies as easily as he blow dries his hair. It’s not just a big lie, it’s an encyclopedia of lies, an ocean of lies, an internet of lies. His latest lie is his rich buddies funding junk polling to make his election seem likely.

I don’t believe that one, either. I think Harris will win.

Because when people say “Trump isn’t who we are”, that’s a little generous. Trump is slightly less than fifty percent of who we are.

And that scares the hell out of me.