23 ms·

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 understan

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".

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".