The Most Terrifying Day for the Survival of America Yet: Fascism Is Here

Robert S. McElvaine

On September 30, 2025 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was deliberately attacked by Donald Trump and his sycophants.

When I wrote a draft of this essay on Sunday, the title was “Ten(+) Days that Shook America” and the subtitle was “We have seen the past, and it doesn’t work.” That title and subtitle are modifications of statements by American leftists after visiting Russia during and after the Bolshevik Revolution. They come, respectively, from the title of John Reed’s firsthand account of witnessing the October Revolution in November 1917 [sic.], Ten Days That Shook the World (1919), and Lincoln Steffens’ oft-repeated assessment of Soviet Russia, “I have seen the future and it works,” after his 1919 visit to the new Soviet Russia.

The full-frontal fascist takeover of the United States has accelerated so much in the two days since that a new title and subtitle and many revisions and updates are necessary. The headlong rush into fascism is getting worse — much worse — by the hour.

I’ll go deeper into why this 9/30 has been the most terrifying day for the United States at least since 9/11 … and potentially much more terrifying. For now, I’ll just give a brief summary of what happened on this horrifying day and then go back to what I wrote on Sunday, with a few modifications.

https://www.lincolnsquare.media/p/the-most-terrifying-day-for-the-survival