So I've been spending the week trying to write my "Obama Wins" entry for this journal -- you know, for posterity's sake, for when a couple of hundred years from now my blog turns out to be as historically important to future generations as Samuel Pepys' is to us. But all week I've been crumpling up draft after draft, because I seemingly can't find anything different to say about it than anyone else; historic moment blah blah blah, cried for two days blah blah blah, unbelievably proud to be a Chicagoan blah blah blah. So instead I thought I'd talk about it from an aspect I haven't seen addressed very much, an aspect I'm afraid is going to eventually become forgotten as history progresses; that half the reason of why so many people are so excited these days is not just the election of Obama but the repudiation of Bush, that tens of millions of us have finally managed to stand up for the first time against what sometimes seemed like the unstoppable evil of Bushism, and that we collectively and successfully screamed to these monsters, "NO MORE. NO MORE."

Because make no mistake -- I use the term "Bushism" here not in a cutesy pop-culture way, but believe it should seriously serve as the name for a brand-new type of government Bush and his cronies ended up inventing, one that had literally never existed before September 11th; a government which uses the trappings of fascism within a democratic society, so that the illusion of "rule by the people" is maintained but is no longer actually true, and with the people in charge virtually guaranteed of their perpetual power just as surely as the Nazis in Germany in the 1930s were. And that's why it's wrong to refer to the actions of the Bush administration in the '00s as "neo-fascism" or "crypto-fascism" or whatnot, because that simplifies what actually happened way too much, reduces it to a cartoon which provides inadequate warning to future generations against it happening again, just like the previous generation's cartoonish reduction of the Nazis gave us inadequate warning.

The fact is that we live in a much more complicated, much more literate, much more media-savvy world than when the political theory fascism was first invented in the 1920s; and Karl Rove and the other Bushist scumbags realized this after September 11th, realized that they could benefit from the tenets of fascism without having to resort to the clumsy overkill aspects that plagued the Germans and Italians and Spanish and French and Norwegians and others at one time or another in the first half of the 20th century. After all, why bother sending goosestepping stormtroopers into the streets to quash citizen revolts, when you can simply get the citizens themselves to do it for you? ("SUPPORT THE TROOPS, FAGGOT! SUPPORT THE TROOPS, FAGGOT!") Under a Bushist society, there's no need to round up and kill the dissident intellectuals, when you can instead simply train an uneducated, overly religious populace to fear and hate intellectuals the moment they open their mouths. There's no need to build embarrassing concentration camps on American soil, and man them with Constitution-bound American soldiers; not when you can simply build them secretly in other countries, and staff them with brutal private militias not subject to American laws in the first place.

That's the sneakiest thing about Bushism, the thing that so alarmed so many of us when it was actually happening; that when you squint your eyes and look at just the general shape, Bush's America looked not that much different than the rest of America's history, and that all the Bushists needed to do was make sure that people never stopped squinting, never stopped and fully examined the details of what exactly was going on. Over the last ten years we have seen the systematic dismantling of our civil liberties, seen a series of uneducated religious zealots placed in nearly every position of government power; have seen over a million people placed on a draconian "terrorist watchlist" for reasons the government is under no obligation to tell us, a list that affects jobs and families and even where a person is allowed to travel; have seen dozens upon dozens of these government officials get caught red-handed in various financial scandals and sexual scandals and brutality scandals, almost none of whom faced even a single bit of punishment for their actions; have seen hundreds and hundreds of people turned down for government jobs because of their religious affiliation, or their sexual orientation, or their opinion on such social issues as abortion and prayer in public schools. And for the most part, barely any Americans even batted an eye at all this, barely even batted an eye, because the Bushists learned the important lesson about fascism that Europeans in the 1930s never did -- that as long as you're not being cartoonishly over-the-top with your hate and discrimination, as long as you're not running around slapping yellow stars on the chests of the unclean or whatever, as long as you're providing even the tiniest bit of realistic-sounding rationalization for your actions ("It's not torture, it's interrogation"), you can reliably count on the massive stupidity and apathy of most human beings to get away with it, their blind obedience to authority figures and their tendency to not give a crap about anything that doesn't directly affect their own life.

I mean, thank God those frat-boy douchebags who ran the McCain campaign decided to embrace the hillbilly racist "Republican base" at the exact late moment in the election that they did, you know? Thank God for that, because otherwise Obama would have lost. Because that was finally the moment that the well-oiled Bushist machine started breaking down, the moment that millions of normal Americans finally saw the ugly side of Bushism that so many of us had been trying for years to point out. The moment someone at a McCain rally this fall screamed out "KILL THE NIGGER!" and was allowed to get away with it (all of it naturally caught on video -- thank YOU, YouTube), that was the moment that millions of otherwise normal Americans finally got their first look at the true face of Bushism, of the hate and racism and xenophobia and occultism that made it all work. Watching people being encouraged to bring "Obama Monkeys" to GOP rallies; watching conservative politicians talk about a "real America" that consists almost entirely of white people; watching the Republicans embrace a campaign slogan like "Country First" that has such a naked double meaning (for international readers who don't know, "country" in American English refers both to a nation and to rural areas within that nation); watching all of these things turned out to be a massive wake-up call to millions of non-racist, non-rural, common-sense Americans, the exact college-educated white middle-class suburbanites who in the millions flipped to the Democrats this year for the first time since Reagan. Without them, Obama would've lost, a simple fact that absolutely cannot be denied; so thank God the economic meltdown happened when it did, that it so rattled the Bushists that their slick public mask finally slipped a little, that it finally revealed the monsters underneath at the exact moment of history when it mattered the most.

No, Obama's victory this week is much more than one of the most important moments in race relations in this country's history (although it's that too, don't get me wrong); it's also one of the most important moments in the history of the American democratic process, as important as when we rejected communism in the 1920s or monarchism in the 1770s. Because unlike any other country at any other time in the history of the human race, we defeated fascism without a single bit of bloodshed. We did it simply by standing up in public, simply by voting, simply by letting our opinion be collectively and loudly known. We did it because of having a system that allows such a thing to happen, a mostly intellectual system which is nonetheless backed up with the power of the military, a military virtually brainwashed to believe unfailingly in the democratic process, to follow the will of the people without question no matter what that will is. In fact, this is the one thing about American democracy that I find confuses international readers the most; that the Bushists could never simply declare martial law and seize power, because the military simply would never allow it, would never allow such an interruption of the normal free-election democratic process. This is how thoroughly every member of the military is indoctrinated into the importance of free-election democracy, from the moment they enter the military to the moment they leave; according to my career-Army cousin, in fact, who I've had many conversations with over the years regarding these subjects, it's the number-two most important lesson in the entire American military in general, next to the religious importance of obeying the chain of command.

It's an astounding thing we've done this week, a thing that just four years ago I would've sworn the American public was too ignorant and weak-willed to actually accomplish, a thing that all of us who treasure democracy should be proud of. It's given me a kind of belief again in humanity that I haven't had in a long time, a certain comfortable certainty that when worse comes to worst, the American people will stand up and do the right thing. Now, here's hoping that the Bushists actually get punished in the coming years for what they've done, that history will record their evil deeds and never allow them to be forgotten; here's hoping that the people who nearly ruined our country will get exactly what they deserve for doing so, both punitively and from a historical aspect.

UPDATE: Finally had a sit-down read of the entire fascism entry at Wikipedia (warning -- it's long), and was amazed at the prescient things it has to say about the Bush administration...

"[Fascism] seeks to form a mass movement of militants who are willing to engage in violence against their political opponents, and groups or individuals that the movement deems to be enemies."

"[Fascism] is both anti-liberal and anti-conservative."

"[Fascism is] a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline [think 'post-9/11 world'], in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants work in an uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites [think neocons versus paleocons, or in other words McCain versus Palin]."

"Fascism sees the struggle of nation and race as fundamental in society."

"Fascists claim the expansion of a nation is a natural process [think 'spreading democracy']."

"[Fascists] wish to renew the nation from decadence [think 'wardrobe malfunction']."

"Fascism tends to be anti-intellectual, and fascists tend to despise university professors."

"Fascists promote their ideology as a 'third position' between capitalism and communism [think 'economic bailout']. Fascists oppose laissez-faire economic policies."

"[Fascists] believe in corporatism [or that corporate executives are the most qualified people to lead a nation]."

"Fascist governments nationalize key industries, and micro-manage the national currency."

"Fascism makes taxpayers responsible to private companies."

"Fascists attempt to create a totalitarian state, but often devolve into 'cults of personality' centered around that society's leader."

"Fascism is typified by attempts to impose [government] control over all aspects of life -- political, social, cultural, and economic -- by way of a strong single-party government and a strong police force."

"Fascism exalts the nation as superior to the individuals composing it, and calls for a heroic mass effort to restore past greatness ['And I'm proud to be an American, because at least I know I'm free...']."

"Every fascist society of the 20th Century banned abortion."

"Fascism tends to promote militarism, and rejects multiculturalism."

"Fascist governments promote fertility, even when it involves pre- and extramarital sexual relations [think Sarah Palin's pregnant teenage daughter, and the rush by the GOP to defend her]."

"Fascists are opposed to homosexuality. Fascists [also believe that] homosexuality is 'curable.'"

"Fascist movements typically are militant organizations."

"In some fascist regimes, the movement itself has a paramilitary wing which is included in the armed forces of the country [think 'Homeland Security']."

"[Fascists] actively promote military service as a position of ultimate societal honor."