The latest Thom Hartmann article is well worth a careful read.
"The really dangerous American fascists," Vice President Wallace (1941-1945) wrote, "are not those who are hooked up directly or indirectly with the Axis. The FBI has its finger on those. The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power."
I don't think this is hyperbole, this is how it happens. It can happen here.
"Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue... Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say, Napoleonic times."
From Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five
It is commonly thought that we need religion to ground our morality. Most Americans will say they would not vote for a political candidate solely on the grounds that he is an Atheist. Presumably, the objection is that he will not have the proper moral values. But consider this question asked by Socrates in The Euthyphro.
"Is what is holy holy because the gods approve it, or do they approve it because it is holy?"
If we take the first answer that what is good is good because God says so, then we have something that is arbitrary. I'll admit it may be wise to obey the whims of an arbitrary God, but suppose he is an evil being. After all, God seems to approve of slaughtering innocents, stoning children, ethnic cleansing and so forth in the Old Testament.
Suppose we take the second answer, that God approves of something because it is independently good and he must approve of the good things. Then what God says is irrelevant to what is good.
When it comes to morality, God is either arbitrary or irrelevant.