Cliff,

I never heard that the US was modeled after European Union, given the latter happened in '93; rather that our idea of a constitutional republic allowed for state self-determination. The parallel is nice, but apart from the economic relationships and political open-mindedness, each nation still acts largely autonomously—as you say, some better than others, obviously. That, too, has changed grossly since the US was founded, dozens of times, some periods exceedingly ugly.

With regard to fascism, it has places on the left (censor culture) and the right, especially recently. Fascism, has many definitions, most commonly “a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition and strong regimentation of society and of the economy.” With that said, fascism has its roots in 19th C labor and agrarian unions in Italy. So we can cherry-pick.

Bottom line: we all have different notions of where the US can, should or will go from here; and what it was initially envisioned to be. Absent a good sit down with the Founders, all we have is their ever-imperfectly realized documents; and debate as to how closely to adhere to something written that couldn't have possibly envisioned the nut-job world we live in, today.

I do agree about media being mostly ridiculous; but this, too, follows a "master" insofar as the toxic, finite game culture of economics. One could argue that the most broken model of all, globally, is one that lionizes currency over humanity, at every turn.

Thanks for the link to AllSides. Will check it out.

A