7 ms·

The U.S. has fallen to fascism, where will you go?

kahrkunne 10y ago
I don't think you can describe the democratic election of a president who wants smaller, not bigger government as "fascism". It suggests a pretty poor understanding of the fact that fascism is pretty narrowly defined, and not another word for "thing I don't like"
- Certhas 10y ago
  No but Trump was/is promising to jail the opposition, promising to curb freedom of press, and generally using the language of fascism. I recently read for the first time Burkes rhetorical analysis of Hitlers Mein Kampf: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rhetoric_of_Hitler's_%22Battle%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rhetoric_of_Hitler's_%22Ba... These tropes show up all over political speech of course, but I think it is undeniable that Trump has pulled together an unusually large concentration of them. Make no mistake, Trump is no Hitler and he might have autocratic tendencies but the US is not a fascist state. I agree with you there. But criticism of Trump is more than the usual "someone I disagree with got elected". Trumps election heralds a crisis of liberal democracy of a magnitude I have not seen in my lifetime. Principiis obsta.
  - benevol 10y ago
    > Trump is no Hitler Well, Hitler was no Hitler either. Until he suddenly was. The thing is, power is continually being increased and concentrated in the hands of fewer people, thanks to technology (which by definition has an exponential rate of growth of efficiency). Technology can make the transition from "weak democracy" to "fascism" potentially instant. And that is the danger.
    - Spooky23 10y ago
      Great point. "Efficiency" in government has negative implications.
  - kahrkunne 10y ago
    Well you know, that opposition did commit actual crimes on multiple occasions, and that free press did conspire against him... Being the opposition doesn't make you exempt from justice, and being the press doesn't mean you can lie (more like the opposite) There's many things wrong with Trump, but these things aren't among them. (the things that are are "the wall", his conflict of interest, his stance on climate change) I consider myself a proud Trump supporter, but I also think there's things about him we need to question and watch out for - and comparing him to fascists or casting undue doubt on the legitimacy of the election is just distracting from the real important things. For the sake of both "camps" (though I hate to see the world divided up like that - we're all on the same side, really) I wish we could stop this nonsense and focus on the future. But I'm going off topic, so I'll leave it at that.
- Spooky23 10y ago
  Fascism doesn't mean "Nazis". Fascism is a form of government that pursues nationalist polices and advocates for self-sufficiency, including public-private industrial partnerships with chosen winners. Many of the more wacky people surrounding Trump are almost certainly a modern American spin on fascists. The major test of Trump as President will be whether he will let those folks define his presidency (the way Cheney usurped Bush 2) or whether he will kick them to the curb. He lacks political allies, so watching the trusted family members he surrounds himself with is crucial to understanding what is happening. Politically, a major part of the conservative movement originated from the "western convservatives", whose funders are people who run extraction industries (oil, mining) who joined "conservative democrats" (ie. southern racists) after civil rights. Western conservatives hate government because any government intervention (except for giving them leases on Federal land) increases costs. A great resource to learn about the early days of this phenomenon is Robert Caro's series of biographies of Lyndon Johnson -- particularly "Master of the Senate".
benevol 10y ago
> The U.S. has fallen to fascism Not really, yet. But, trust me, America will have the best fascism you can get. I'm highly educated. And I have the best words. And let me tell you, it's gonna be tremendous. It's gonna be yuuuuuge.
JumpCrisscross 10y ago
The Austrian side of my family fled Anschluss [1]. Within this context, the hyperbolic ("I am upset about our political system") and literal ("I will likely be killed soon") uses of the term "fascist" are meaningful. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anschluss https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anschluss
- georgespencer 10y ago
  One of the most disappointing things about the last election cycle in the U.S. and Brexit here in the U.K. has been people happily accepting euphemism and hyperbole as part of political/social rhetoric. Maybe it's been happening for a while, but to me it felt like a sudden shift. Bannon is a "white supremacist" because he was accused of making a single antisemitic remark by his ex-wife, during divorce proceedings, which he denies. Trump is a "fascist" and a "white nationalist" because he wants to bring down legal and illegal migration, and is skeptical of Islam's role in modern day terrorism. People who voted for the U.K. to remain in the EU are being branded "enemies of democracy" because they're pleased that the representatives elected to parliament will get final say on what was a non-binding referendum, in a country which is not a plebiscite. "Genocide" is being used on Twitter to describe the decline of the white race as a % of the population as a whole in North America, despite the fact that genocide is a legal term which the UN's OSAPG defines as requiring dolus specialis. I.e. to believe it's actually genocide you have to believe that not only are actions being undertaken which singularly target and try to kill white folks, but also that there is a specific intent from those in power to do so: that the tens and thousands of white people in government, the CIA, the NSA, etc. are trying to kill themselves off. Maybe it's just that compared to the atrocities of the early twentieth century the bar is now comparatively low, and what constituted "disaster" in 1935 is incomparable to what constitutes a disaster in 2016. But it feels like we're not using the precision and care we should with words.
  - smcl 10y ago
    Trump was called a fascist because he wanted to create a registry of muslims and spent a good while castigating Mexicans before somehow attempting to walk it back. He was called a white nationalist because he courted extremely controversial figures like David Duke. I do think people are often too quick to go to extremes when using terms like "fascist" and "socialist" (abused by both sides), but I don't think it's a stretch to start applying those to Trump.
dingaling 10y ago
Fascism: everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state. If you can freely choose to leave then that's a strong indicator that your nation is not fascist.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- x0137294744532 10y ago
  > If you can freely choose to leave then that's a strong indicator that your nation is not fascist. So the people who decided to flee from Nazi-Germany, the Soviet Union or North Korea were not fleeing from a fascist country?
  - georgespencer 10y ago
    Two points on this: 1. OP said strong indicator. It's by no means the only indicator and a state can be fascist whilst still allowing people to leave. 2. Many people who were not targets of the regime were unable to flee Nazi-Germany, the Soviet Union, and North Korea.
    - x0137294744532 10y ago
      > 1. OP said strong indicator. It's by no means the only indicator and a state can be fascist whilst still allowing people to leave. OP said that: > If you can freely choose to leave then that's a strong indicator that your nation is not fascist. I'm saying that it isn't an indicator for fascism: there is no country where every person who wants to leave, is unable to (whether it's illegal to leave is another question). Therefore, in all countries, fascist or not, there will be people who can freely choose to leave. I think that a better indicator would be: > If no ethnic/religious/politic/whatever group of people are prevented in a legal or physical way to leave the country, then that's a strong indicator that your nation is not fascist.
- late2part 10y ago
  ... yet.
walrus01 10y ago
Bhutan
- kobeya 10y ago
  Except Bhutan doesn't want you.
crispyambulance 10y ago
US falls to fascism...where to go? I think its a science-fiction scenario at this point. Trump is a petty authoritarian with a history of scamming and self-promotion. He will do some amount of damage but nothing irreversible state-side. The best thing to do is to stay where you are. There are enough sane rational people to turn things around if everything really goes to hell. Mainstream republicans won't go "all the way", there aren't enough alt-right maniacs to sustain a fascist revolution, and the honey-boo-boo crowd who actually got The Donald elected will soon enough realize/remember what it means to trust a scammer.
- Jemmeh 10y ago
  This has been said the whole time, "Ah it's not a big deal", "ah he can't do much" but we keep underestimating him and now here he is, president elect.
dang 10y ago
Please stop posting unsubstantive comments to HN. The ideological and partisan tangent you bestowed upon us with this one is what we're trying to avoid here. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13276396 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13276396 and marked it off-topic.

I don't think you can describe the democratic election of a president who wants smaller, not bigger government as "fascism". It suggests a pretty poor understanding of the fact that fascism is pretty narrowly defined, and not another word for "thing I don't like"

Certhas 10y ago
No but Trump was/is promising to jail the opposition, promising to curb freedom of press, and generally using the language of fascism. I recently read for the first time Burkes rhetorical analysis of Hitlers Mein Kampf: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rhetoric_of_Hitler's_%22Battle%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rhetoric_of_Hitler's_%22Ba... These tropes show up all over political speech of course, but I think it is undeniable that Trump has pulled together an unusually large concentration of them. Make no mistake, Trump is no Hitler and he might have autocratic tendencies but the US is not a fascist state. I agree with you there. But criticism of Trump is more than the usual "someone I disagree with got elected". Trumps election heralds a crisis of liberal democracy of a magnitude I have not seen in my lifetime. Principiis obsta.
- benevol 10y ago
  > Trump is no Hitler Well, Hitler was no Hitler either. Until he suddenly was. The thing is, power is continually being increased and concentrated in the hands of fewer people, thanks to technology (which by definition has an exponential rate of growth of efficiency). Technology can make the transition from "weak democracy" to "fascism" potentially instant. And that is the danger.
  - Spooky23 10y ago
    Great point. "Efficiency" in government has negative implications.
- kahrkunne 10y ago
  Well you know, that opposition did commit actual crimes on multiple occasions, and that free press did conspire against him... Being the opposition doesn't make you exempt from justice, and being the press doesn't mean you can lie (more like the opposite) There's many things wrong with Trump, but these things aren't among them. (the things that are are "the wall", his conflict of interest, his stance on climate change) I consider myself a proud Trump supporter, but I also think there's things about him we need to question and watch out for - and comparing him to fascists or casting undue doubt on the legitimacy of the election is just distracting from the real important things. For the sake of both "camps" (though I hate to see the world divided up like that - we're all on the same side, really) I wish we could stop this nonsense and focus on the future. But I'm going off topic, so I'll leave it at that.
Spooky23 10y ago
Fascism doesn't mean "Nazis". Fascism is a form of government that pursues nationalist polices and advocates for self-sufficiency, including public-private industrial partnerships with chosen winners. Many of the more wacky people surrounding Trump are almost certainly a modern American spin on fascists. The major test of Trump as President will be whether he will let those folks define his presidency (the way Cheney usurped Bush 2) or whether he will kick them to the curb. He lacks political allies, so watching the trusted family members he surrounds himself with is crucial to understanding what is happening. Politically, a major part of the conservative movement originated from the "western convservatives", whose funders are people who run extraction industries (oil, mining) who joined "conservative democrats" (ie. southern racists) after civil rights. Western conservatives hate government because any government intervention (except for giving them leases on Federal land) increases costs. A great resource to learn about the early days of this phenomenon is Robert Caro's series of biographies of Lyndon Johnson -- particularly "Master of the Senate".

benevol 10y ago

> The U.S. has fallen to fascism Not really, yet. But, trust me, America will have the best fascism you can get. I'm highly educated. And I have the best words. And let me tell you, it's gonna be tremendous. It's gonna be yuuuuuge.

JumpCrisscross 10y ago

The Austrian side of my family fled Anschluss [1]. Within this context, the hyperbolic ("I am upset about our political system") and literal ("I will likely be killed soon") uses of the term "fascist" are meaningful. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anschluss https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anschluss

georgespencer 10y ago
One of the most disappointing things about the last election cycle in the U.S. and Brexit here in the U.K. has been people happily accepting euphemism and hyperbole as part of political/social rhetoric. Maybe it's been happening for a while, but to me it felt like a sudden shift. Bannon is a "white supremacist" because he was accused of making a single antisemitic remark by his ex-wife, during divorce proceedings, which he denies. Trump is a "fascist" and a "white nationalist" because he wants to bring down legal and illegal migration, and is skeptical of Islam's role in modern day terrorism. People who voted for the U.K. to remain in the EU are being branded "enemies of democracy" because they're pleased that the representatives elected to parliament will get final say on what was a non-binding referendum, in a country which is not a plebiscite. "Genocide" is being used on Twitter to describe the decline of the white race as a % of the population as a whole in North America, despite the fact that genocide is a legal term which the UN's OSAPG defines as requiring dolus specialis. I.e. to believe it's actually genocide you have to believe that not only are actions being undertaken which singularly target and try to kill white folks, but also that there is a specific intent from those in power to do so: that the tens and thousands of white people in government, the CIA, the NSA, etc. are trying to kill themselves off. Maybe it's just that compared to the atrocities of the early twentieth century the bar is now comparatively low, and what constituted "disaster" in 1935 is incomparable to what constitutes a disaster in 2016. But it feels like we're not using the precision and care we should with words.
- smcl 10y ago
  Trump was called a fascist because he wanted to create a registry of muslims and spent a good while castigating Mexicans before somehow attempting to walk it back. He was called a white nationalist because he courted extremely controversial figures like David Duke. I do think people are often too quick to go to extremes when using terms like "fascist" and "socialist" (abused by both sides), but I don't think it's a stretch to start applying those to Trump.

dingaling 10y ago

Fascism: everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state. If you can freely choose to leave then that's a strong indicator that your nation is not fascist.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
x0137294744532 10y ago
> If you can freely choose to leave then that's a strong indicator that your nation is not fascist. So the people who decided to flee from Nazi-Germany, the Soviet Union or North Korea were not fleeing from a fascist country?
- georgespencer 10y ago
  Two points on this: 1. OP said strong indicator. It's by no means the only indicator and a state can be fascist whilst still allowing people to leave. 2. Many people who were not targets of the regime were unable to flee Nazi-Germany, the Soviet Union, and North Korea.
  - x0137294744532 10y ago
    > 1. OP said strong indicator. It's by no means the only indicator and a state can be fascist whilst still allowing people to leave. OP said that: > If you can freely choose to leave then that's a strong indicator that your nation is not fascist. I'm saying that it isn't an indicator for fascism: there is no country where every person who wants to leave, is unable to (whether it's illegal to leave is another question). Therefore, in all countries, fascist or not, there will be people who can freely choose to leave. I think that a better indicator would be: > If no ethnic/religious/politic/whatever group of people are prevented in a legal or physical way to leave the country, then that's a strong indicator that your nation is not fascist.
late2part 10y ago
... yet.

walrus01 10y ago

Bhutan

kobeya 10y ago
Except Bhutan doesn't want you.

crispyambulance 10y ago

US falls to fascism...where to go? I think its a science-fiction scenario at this point. Trump is a petty authoritarian with a history of scamming and self-promotion. He will do some amount of damage but nothing irreversible state-side. The best thing to do is to stay where you are. There are enough sane rational people to turn things around if everything really goes to hell. Mainstream republicans won't go "all the way", there aren't enough alt-right maniacs to sustain a fascist revolution, and the honey-boo-boo crowd who actually got The Donald elected will soon enough realize/remember what it means to trust a scammer.

Jemmeh 10y ago
This has been said the whole time, "Ah it's not a big deal", "ah he can't do much" but we keep underestimating him and now here he is, president elect.

dang 10y ago

Please stop posting unsubstantive comments to HN. The ideological and partisan tangent you bestowed upon us with this one is what we're trying to avoid here. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13276396 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13276396 and marked it off-topic.