WB Yeats’ famous poem “The Second Coming” describes Europe’s atmosphere in 1919. He could feel something bad coming: “what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”

The “rough beast” turned out to be fascism and everybody paid the price. Including the Fascists.

Are we again at that moment of birth here in America? It certainly looks like it from where I sit.

Almost a year after a failed attempt to overturn a presidential election, the chief thief is hard at work around the country – Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, elsewhere – ensuring that he cannot lose the next time. Election laws are being changed and non-partisan election officials replaced with hyper-partisans.

The efforts take place in public, abetted by “respected” elected officials as well as by extremists who recognize that they can now leave the dark fringes and enter the main stage. Congressman Matt Gaetz and Steve Bannon openly discuss “shock troops” ready to take over the government “when President Trump wins in 2024 – or before.”

The populace remains largely disengaged from these labor pains, displaying no urgency to prevent this horrible birth, while the midwives work feverishly to ensure the birth of the fascist beast and set it on its slouching way. In Yeats’ words, “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

Everybody will eventually pay the price. Including the Fascists.