The news headlines paint a consistent picture, and it’s frightening. From only the last few days: A mob at a Trump/Cruz rally chants “Lock him up, lock him up”, referring to Beto O’Rourke, the Democrat running for a senate seat from TX. A man on an airplane grabs a women’s body, “because President Trump said it was ok”. A Republican congressman says that George Soros is paying members of the Central American caravan heading north, and someone plants a bomb at Soros’ house. Other bombs are sent to CNN, Holder, Biden, Hillary, Obama, and more being discovered even as I write. Meanwhile the billionaires are buying land in New Zealand, preparing for the demise of the very system that created their wealth, blindly believing that the south Pacific will be exempt from the apocalypse.

The United States could be descending into civil war. A key factor in this explosive situation are about 14 million members of the NRA (Pew study 2017), some of whom are fully armed right wing militia who will do the bidding of Trump, whom they revere as sent by god to save the purity of white, christian America. It turns out that the swamp that he promised to drain was not the corruption in Washington, but the non-whites who were seen as polluting the country. The latent racism came to a head a few years ago when demographics proved the inescapable conclusion that in the year 2043 white America would be the minority. It only took a demagogue like Trump to stoke the smoldering fears into a firestorm of hatred.

The crimes of Manafort and Cohen, implicating the Trump family as they do, have done nothing to dampen the fervor of the anti-immigrant, anti-government white supremacists. In fact, quite the opposite. Trump’s support among his Republican base is as solid as ever, if not stronger. Will Mueller’s report make any difference to them? The fear of alienating this supremacist core has transformed the party of Lincoln into cheerleaders for the fascist takeover of American democracy. There is a danger for us all, as witnessed in the pipe bomb scenario: speaking out against Trump literally marks you as an enemy of the militia.

Since taking Trump to court, Stormy Daniels has received untold death threats. She is forced to live anonymously in hotels, where even there threats are slipped under the door, forcing her to switch hotels in the middle of the night. Her daughter is forced to leave school and be privately tutored. In the state of Vermont the single legislator of color decides not to run again for office because of threats to her life while in office. Trump advises evangelicals to use the pulpit to tell people to vote Republican lest they face violence should his people lose. The activity of the militia is real and includes not only owners of AK15s. Racist leadership has emboldened its followers and supporters in the society at large to be more aggressive, hateful, immoderate and disrespectful.

There is a grievance, to be sure, targeted, however, at the wrong people. It is not immigrants who take from society, but the rich becoming ever richer. The evidence is too obvious to refute, and the current power brokers in DC are giving away the store.

A recent report shows that 40% of Americans have difficulties paying for basic necessities- shelter, food, and medical care. Almost half. Living paycheck to paycheck. The inequality is not limited to the poor. It includes the middle class as well. And that middle class includes those who believe the lies imposed on them by the right wing propaganda machine. Instead of supporting programs to have health insurance for all, tuition free college, and minimum wages that can sustain life, this group thrives on misplaced anger and self-righteous drum-beating.

Most of us in the US take our democracy for granted. We go about our lives thinking about our job, our education, our children, our retirement. We compare notes about religion, economics, cures for disease. But what if all that could no longer be taken for granted? What if the lies carry the day? What if voter suppression works? Armed vigilantes throughout human history have morphed into secret police, and life became filled with fear and threat. We are not there yet, but the time to stop it is now. Our way of life depends on it.

Those of us who oppose this attack on our democracy are hoping that the election in less than two weeks will change all this. I share this hope, but I do not see it as a certainty. It is depressing enough to hear that Republicans still support Trump after everything that has happened. It could very well be that Trump will release the bad angels in even more of us. Henry David Thoreau believed that most people lived lives of quiet desperation, which I call the void. After all, it’s kind of exciting to finger your gun while you chant “lock him up” with a bunch of guys that hail the leader.