Philadelphia Inquirer: The Scary, Slow Creep of Trumpism. Is it Fascism?

By Will Bunch:

Item: Trump -- who once pompously stated during the campaign that he "knows more than the generals" -- has pulled "a 180" since his November election and named an unprecedented number of recently retired generals to his administration. That includes possibly his scariest pick -- former Gen. Michael Flynn as national security adviser, who won't have to face a confirmation hearing to defend his bizarre conspiracy tweeting or his recent hookup with Vladimir Putin -- and the more down-to-earth former Marine Gen. John Kelly to run Homeland Security.

Then there's the curious case of the man that Trump has tapped to run the Defense Department, recently retired General James Mattis. I say "curious" because Mattis is arguably Trump's best cabinet selection -- a fierce warrior but with mature, sensible positions on hot-button issues like torture and the Iran nuclear deal -- yet also one of the most troublesome. Troublesome, because the post-war architects of the modern Pentagon were determined to see civilian control of the military, following in the founding tradition established by George Washington when he resigned his military commission to become the first president.

The job of defense secretary was created with a restriction that appointees must be out of the military for at least 10 years, later knocked down to seven.  The only way Mattis can get the job is for Congress to pass a waiver (which happened once previously), and the 48 Democrats technically have the votes to filibuster and force Trump to name a true civilian. That probably won't happen; Mattis is popular with Democrats, who even asked him to address their convention before he spoke at Trump's RNC instead.

Mattis should be defeated, however. The growing presence of military men running key civilian agencies, the influence of shadowy security men inside the coming Trump White House, the idea that we'll get used to seeing more soldiers and more cops around, whether in the streets of Chicago or at something as innocuous as the inaugural parade...each of these, alone, isn't a seismic shift. But the slow militarization of American society here in "the homeland" is a creeping danger that should alarm all of us.

The Full Story (January 5, 2017)