Jan. 6th: The start of the second great experiment in American democracy is about to be certified. Something wicked this way comes. By Hal M. Brown

The United States is about to embark on its second great national experiment with Donald Trump being certified as the winner of the 2024 election as president. Very possibly this will mean Project 2025 will be initiated laying out the guiding principles of his administration. (Click above to enlarge)

There's nothing astonishingly original in my saying this. Critics of Trump and Trumpism have been saying this for over a year. To be candid, in writing today's blog I just wanted to have an excuse to use the illustration I put together. My fear that this experiment may represent the death knell for democracy is expressed in the illustration. 

You now doubt know that Benjamin Franklin, when asked whether the federal constitution of 1787 established a monarchy or a republic famously said  “ a republic, if you can keep it.” George Washington, in his first inaugural address, described the “republican model of government” as an “experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.”

There should be no need to remind Americans that our democracy has been considered an experiment since the nation was founded. A good article about this is "Why Franklin, Washington and Lincoln considered American democracy an ‘experiment’ – and were unsure if it would survive" by Thomas Coens. 

The country has survived as a democracy, even through Trump's first admisntration. It has never had a president like a supercharged Donald Trump. There was never a playbook like Project 2025. Trump appears to be following this. We can judge this by his statments and his nominations. There is plan afoot to change the fundamental way our country is governed.  This made me think of the Ray Bradbury novel "Something Wicked This Way Comes."

Above, one  of the many covers of the book.

Here's a summary of the novel from Wikipedia:

Something Wicked This Way Comes is a 1962 dark fantasy novel by Ray Bradbury, and the second book in his Green Town Trilogy. It is about two 13-year-old best friends, Jim Nightshade and William Halloway, and their nightmarish experience with a traveling carnival that comes to their Midwestern home, Green Town, Illinois, on October 24. In dealing with the creepy figures of this carnival, the boys learn how to combat fear. The carnival's leader is the mysterious "Mr. Dark", who seemingly wields the power to grant the townspeople's secret desires. In reality, Dark is a malevolent being who, like the carnival, lives off the life force of those it enslaves. Mr. Dark's presence is countered by that of Will's father, Charles Halloway, the janitor of the town library, who harbors his own secret fear of growing older because he feels he is too old to be Will's dad.

The novel combines elements of fantasy and horror, analyzing the conflicting natures of good and evil that exist within all individuals. 

The title comes from the line  in Macbeth said by the three witches. Consider what the witches represent (also from Wikipedia): 

The Three Witches represent evil, darkness, chaos, and conflict, while their role is as agents and witnesses. They appear to have a warped sense of morality, deeming seemingly terrible acts to be moral, kind or right, such as helping one another to ruin the journey of a sailor. Their presence communicates treason and impending doom. During Shakespeare's day, witches were seen as worse than rebels, "the most notorious traitor and rebel that can be". They were not only political traitors, but spiritual traitors as well. Much of the confusion that springs from them comes from their ability to straddle the play's borders between reality and the supernatural. They are so deeply entrenched in both worlds that it is unclear whether they control fate, or whether they are merely its agents. They defy logic, not being subject to the rules of the real world

I shouldn't have to elaborate about why the witches and the Bradbury novel's plot reminds me of what kind of carnival Trump will bring to town.

We may remain a democracy through Trump's administration, although if he achieves half of what he has said he wants to accomplish we will be perilously close to becoming a dictatorship. 

We may end up having tanks on both our borders and deputized Trump vigilantes with AR-15s making sure only the purest of pure are allowed entry.

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