[busterarm]

> than the threat of communism, which is rather dead.

Huh? The largest nation on the planet is literally a Communist nation and has its eyes set on being the global seat of power while simulatenously bribing half the world to look the other way.

The internment camps should be a clue.

[azernik]

"in any given Western nation"

[sdwa]

Well China isn't really communist any more, it sort of began to abandon that with Deng Xiaoping, but regardless, my point is there's truly minimal risk of communists coming to power in any Western country that I know of. I perceive the thread of fascists gaining power in the West as far greater. I should have been clearer, my mistake.

[busterarm]

It's still a single-party state guided by a Marxist-Leninist philosophy.

Also, given the not even guarded political opinions of my overwhelmingly-Marxist peers who work in federal civil service jobs in the DC area, I think that we're far closer than you think.

But I will certainly agree the danger is in any collectivist-utopian promise for a government. They all rely on the same brutal methods like ethnic cleansing and tend to look the same other than what's written on their red armbands.

[sdwa]

I don't think there's any remotely plausible prospect of America becoming a Marxist state. Your paranoia is noted, however, and it is typical of Americans, and probably in part why your society is so often so unwell (at least, that's my pet theory).