Since there is no answer other than your opinion, I am putting it here in IMHO.
Say Bush declares martial law before election in effort to stay in office and successfully establishes him self as the life long benevolent leader of the USA, does away with elected state government and rules effectively as a totalitarian leader. During this process he changes the flag and name of the country to reflect one nation truely united under his blanket of protection
How do you think the flag would look ?
and
What would our new name be?
Bush would not change the flag at all if this were to happen. In all likelihood he would keep the flag exactly the same. The best strategy for a would-be dictator actually trying to pull something like that off would be to minimize the changes that would accompany the new rulership, and play up the idea that it’ll be the same as it was before, only better. America is way more attached to its flag than other nations are. Pushing forward with a striking, bold new flag would be unwise.
I immediately pictured the current American flag, but with a Cross in the blue field in place of the stars. I think the name would be the same, or something like the United Christian States of America.
You really think Bush would alienate his Jewish neo-con allies and advisors, not to mention the state of Israel, by adding a cross to the flag? More to the point, a cross would be an awkward shape to put into the blue canton, from a design perspective. The canton is a rectangular shape wider than it is tall, while the Christian cross is an inherently vertical shape which is definitely taller than it is wide. The latter would look very ugly combined with the former.
And do you really think he would stir up shit and create controversy by doing such a polarizing and divisive thing? A successful dictator keeps his people ideologically united. In the case of America, keeping religion out of it would be most efficent from the perspective of the dictator.
There already is a Christian flag with a cross in a blue rectangular field. From a design perspective the cross only has to be reduced in size to be proportional to the canton.
and since when did dictatorships avoid polarization? All dictators require an “other” to unite the masses: Nazi Germany certainly polarized society by targeting Jews and other groups. Polarization is the key to mobilization and the threat of an enemy within society justifies the curtailing of civil liberties and police action.
Seriously? How about this: a single large pentagon outlined in two nested stripes of red and white, with a single white five-pointed star in the center, all against a blue background.
No succesful strongman taking over the USA would do jack with the flag. It would be too much of a blatant signal that things are not all right.
Besides, why assume…
(a) that “fascist” America would necessarily be a “christian” fascist America.
(b) that “fascist” America would be assembled out of what we currently know as the “neocon” ideological camp
(c) that the antagonistic “other”, the Goldstein, should be a group within, as opposed to a group without – an American dictator could just as well adopt an “US against the World” theme, no need for internal polarization.
(d) obviously, that of all people, George could pull such a thing.
Well, the OP tossed out a hypothetical question asking what would happen if Bush did this. Since Bush (and certainly, his supporters) have an undeniable history of expressing a Christian tint, it’s not an unreasonable assumption.
Disclaimer: I am no fan of President Bush but I in no way think he would be able to start some sort of dictatorship, religious or otherwise.
Why would they care, when they have nukes ? If a city rebels, nuke it and announce that anyone else who tries gets the same. And yes, the military would do such a thing, or you wouldn’t have a dictatorship for long. A military unwilling to turn upon it’s own people is one of the first things a dictator would replace.
Who else ?
They are good canididates, although I was thinking of the Christian Dominionists.
Except that a Christian dictatorship would almost certainly spend a great deal of time looking for and purging heretics; it’s how Christian fanatics think.
I’ve disagreed with Trihs on this very issue multiple times before - I believe that the only god in America is the dollar. “Christian dominionists” are not the ones with the power here. In fact, they’re not the ones with the power anywhere. America is too educated, too young of a culture, and too religiously diverse in general for it to be turned into a theocracy.
Which is how a major segment of American Christianity has always thought; that one’s financial worth is a direct reflection of your worth in the eyes of God. You think that the worship of the dollar is proves Christianity has little power; I say that that attitude is at the heart of much of Christianity.
America is rather poorly educated; look at how many creationists we have. And America has been pretty close to a theocracy for most of it’s history.
