3 ms·

I wasn't making that comparison. I was pointing out that getting elected doesn't make a candidate centrist, especially when that candidate doesn't win a majori

I wasn't making that comparison. I was pointing out that getting elected doesn't make a candidate centrist, especially when that candidate doesn't win a majority. Hitler's NSDAP got about a third of the seats in the Reichstag to put him at the head of government in 1933. Trump got about 46% of the votes in the US Presidential election of 2016. Neither of these needed to be mainstream to win, even though Hitler is a great deal further right than Trump. The error is to claim that Hitler became "center-right" or "middle of the road" upon becoming Reichskanzler. The center didn't move ultra-rightward (remember: the Communists also did well in that election), an ultra-rightist happened to win the plurality in a heavily polarized election.

dmix 9y ago
What policy has Trump enacted that demonstrates the current administration is (functionally) far right? The difference being of course that it went beyond rhetoric of a political (marketing) campaign and beyond the checks-and-balances of the US government? If it is purely a matter of some random emotional tweet Trump made or some journalist filling in the gaps between what Steve Bannon may or may have not meant when he said x, then I will remain unconvinced that the US government is at any risk of being comparable to 1930-40s era fascist regimes.
- eli_gottlieb 9y ago
  >What policy has Trump enacted that demonstrates the current administration is (functionally) far right? There's Betsy DeVos' new move to eliminate Income-Based Repayment plans for student loans, and many state-level bills to criminalize any protests that interfere with economically significant business (including labor pickets). And of course Jeff Sessions trying to restart the Drug War when basically everyone else just wants it ended. Remember, "far-right" doesn't just mean "fascist". It also just means "extremely capitalist" or "authoritarian in a conservative or capitalist cause". The American Right has actually spent a lot of political capital treating Trump as outside movement conservatism, as an aberrant far-right movement hijacking the Republican Party. They still have some of the William Buckley spirit to them, in which the John Birch Society or the Ku Klux Klan get purged rather than integrated.

dmix 9y ago

What policy has Trump enacted that demonstrates the current administration is (functionally) far right? The difference being of course that it went beyond rhetoric of a political (marketing) campaign and beyond the checks-and-balances of the US government? If it is purely a matter of some random emotional tweet Trump made or some journalist filling in the gaps between what Steve Bannon may or may have not meant when he said x, then I will remain unconvinced that the US government is at any risk of being comparable to 1930-40s era fascist regimes.

eli_gottlieb 9y ago
>What policy has Trump enacted that demonstrates the current administration is (functionally) far right? There's Betsy DeVos' new move to eliminate Income-Based Repayment plans for student loans, and many state-level bills to criminalize any protests that interfere with economically significant business (including labor pickets). And of course Jeff Sessions trying to restart the Drug War when basically everyone else just wants it ended. Remember, "far-right" doesn't just mean "fascist". It also just means "extremely capitalist" or "authoritarian in a conservative or capitalist cause". The American Right has actually spent a lot of political capital treating Trump as outside movement conservatism, as an aberrant far-right movement hijacking the Republican Party. They still have some of the William Buckley spirit to them, in which the John Birch Society or the Ku Klux Klan get purged rather than integrated.