President-elect Donald Trump does not herald the advent of fascism. He heralds the collapse of the veneer that masked the corruption within the ruling class and their pretense of democracy. He is the symptom, not the disease. The loss of basic democratic norms began long before Trump, which paved the road to an American totalitarianism. Deindustrialization, deregulation, austerity, unchecked predatory corporations, including the health-care industry, wholesale surveillance of every American, social inequality, an electoral system that is plagued by legalized bribery, endless and futile wars, the largest prison population in the world, but most of all feelings of betrayal, stagnation and despair, are a toxic brew that culminate in an inchoate hatred of the ruling class and the institutions they have deformed to exclusively serve the rich and the powerful. The Democrats are as guilty as the Republicans.