This post first appeared at Government Cheese – Chronicling the collapse of democracy.

In 2005 I wrote a post titled “They Mean It” that warned about Christian fascism and the intent to take over the US. This is how it ended:

These people mean it. America is an experiment. Democracy is an experiment. American democracy has not been around very long, and we have never been so perilously close to losing it. All the checks and balances have been removed by allies of these people. They mean it. The leader of the Senate is saying that Democrats hate “people of faith.” They mean it. Time magazine puts on their cover a person who calls for murdering us.

They mean it. A Supreme Court Justice declares that rulers should be chosen by God, not the people. They mean it. The Vice President is the keynote speaker at a conference where other speakers called for “a new McCarthyism” to bring “terror” to intellectuals, saying “let’s oppress them [liberals],” and that “the entire Harvard faculty” are “traitors.” They mean it. They mean it.

Watch your backs. I mean it.

Well, now we know. They meant it. People didn’t watch their backs – and they did it.

They meant it, and they did it. And here we are.