With the primaries in full swing now, the rhetoric has gotten very hot, some of which is good and much of which is bad, very bad. Barring any significant change, it is almost assured that the Republican nominee will be Donald Trump. The specter of a "proto-fascist" such as Trump being nominated by one of the two major political parties is frightening. I do not believe that I am going all Godwin on this as other notables such as Robert Reich, Dana Milbank of the Washington Post, and Roger Cohen of the New York Times have all expressed concern about Trump's fascistic parallels.

Trump’s incendiary verbal attacks on Mexican immigrants and Muslims – even his reluctance to distance himself from David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan – follow the older fascist script.

That older generation of fascists didn’t bother with policy prescriptions or logical argument, either. They presented themselves as strongmen whose personal power would remedy all ills.

The rise of Trumpism is the closest this country has come thus far to diving totally down a tragic rabbit hole to a place where we should never want to go.

A lot of Americans struggle to get by, their pay no match for prices.

Along comes Trump, the high-energy guy. He promises an American revival, a reinvention, even a renaissance. He insults Muslims, Mexicans, the disabled, women. His words are hateful and scurrilous. They play on fears. They are subjected to horrified analysis. Yet they do not hurt him. He gets people’s blood up. He says what others whisper. He cuts through touchy-feely all-enveloping political correctness. This guy will give Putin a run for his money! His poll numbers rise.

It would be foolish and dangerous not to take him seriously.

Still other experts on fascism conclude that Donald Trump, while exhibiting some characteristics of fascism, is not really a true fascist.

Bob Dreyfuss has written a lengthy article on Trump and the potential for fascism in the United States. This article was re-published to TomDispatch earlier this week. And Dreyfuss notes the following early in his article.

For figures ranging from comic Louis C.K. to right-wing commentator Glenn Beck, making direct Hitler-Trump comparisons has become the fashion of the moment. I must admit, however, that “proto-fascist” sounds about right to me. Certainly, the rise of Trump has caused many voters to take notice -- the question being whether the real estate mogul (who further stirred the pot recently by retweeting a quote from Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini) could cobble together enough of a coalition of nationalists, Angry White Men, “poorly educated” working-class backers, the disaffected religious right, Islamophobes, immigrant-bashers, and others to wield the figurative pitchforks in a march to victory in November.

As Dreyfuss so accurately points out, not only is Trump's rhetoric incendiary, but also his association with very right wing groups is very disturbing. Not surprisingly, those on the left are concerned, but even conservatives in the Republican party are now sounding that alarm.

Trump, of course, has repeatedly played with fire when it comes to violence, intimidation, and the role of white supremacists, the radical right, and others. His dog-whistle refusal to instantly disassociate himself from David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan on the eve of the Super Tuesday primaries in the Deep South was widely condemned even by Republican officials. But in at least one case, an actual neo-Nazi, Matthew Heimbach, the leader of the Traditionalist Workers Party, used physical force against protesters at a Trump rally in Louisville.

As I was preparing this Open Thread, I listened to Chauncey DeVega's podcast commentary of his experience at the Chicago Trump rally which was called off at the last minute. In particular, what fascinated me was his interview of a black Trump supporter.

In this episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show, Chauncey also interviews a black Donald Trump supporter who wanted to engage in fisticuffs with two Black Lives Matter folks, gives some color commentary about what he saw and heard while in line and inside the venue, and ponders how Trump's white racist base will come to think about the Chicago event as their Alamo or battle against the Zulus or Mau Maus.

So who are the typical Trump voters? We must understand why Trump has been so appealing and knowing who his voters are as one way to understand the Trump phenomenon. Several surveys have been conducted to determine why certain candidates appeal to which demographic of voters. These surveys give us a snapshot of the demographics of voters as they relate to the candidates. What we have seen is that, in general, Trump's voters are white, male, and poor according to analysis published in the Washington Post in December of 2015. One demographic predictor of a Trump voter that stands out is the lack of education. Of all the candidates, Trump has the least educated supporters. As educational attainment goes up, voter support for Trump precipitously drops.

But according to a survey from RAND Corporation, there is one that’s even better: Do you feel voiceless?

RAND tested several queries to clearly divide Trump’s support from his rivals. For example, they found that Trump crushes Ted Cruz among voters who both strongly believe that “immigrants threaten American customs and values" and among voters who "strongly favor" raising taxes on the richest American households. But voters who agreed with the statement “people like me don't have any say about what the government does” were 86.5 percent more likely to prefer Trump. This feeling of powerlessness and voicelessness was a much better predictor of Trump support than age, race, college attainment, income, attitudes towards Muslims, illegal immigrants, or Hispanic identity.

Many of the Trump demographic of voters are among the hardest hit by globalization and have watched their jobs and financial prospects diminish over the years. They are looking for someone to blame and feel as though they have no voice. They find Trump's bluster and bullying appealing. He may be a bully, but he is their bully.

And I was thinking to myself how far we have fallen as a nation that someone who preaches demagoguery could attract even some minority supporters. In fact, it has occurred to me that maybe we as a nation and Trump's supporters, in particular, have no clear understanding of what is before us. Therefore, we are forced to "see through a glass darkly" because we " have an obscure or imperfect vision of reality."

Donald Trump, even if he is simply a carnival barker, a con man, or a narcissistic deal maker, is a very overt symptom of things that have gone horribly wrong in this country. His strongman rhetoric of bullying, threats, racism, nativism, and promises to make America great again play right into the conditions facing so many Americans desperate for something positive in their lives.

In my next essay, I will examine the factors that have given rise to a Donald Trump.