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> Note: I don't use the 'f word' lightly. Too many on the left use it very freely with "people on the right they don't like". I think a person who loathes the f

> Note: I don't use the 'f word' lightly. Too many on the left use it very freely with "people on the right they don't like". I think a person who loathes the free press, loves dictators, chafes at the idea of the rule of law, and threatens violence against political opponents fits the bill, though) You forgot "hates an independent judiciary" and "uses office for personal enrichment". Some may quibble with the use of fascist to describe him, but he's very clearly authoritarian and anti-democratic. What has surprised me is the relatively large percentage of my compatriots who are also authoritarian and anti-democratic. All that stuff about the constitution was just lip service.

js2 7y ago
> What has surprised me is the relatively large percentage of my compatriots who are also authoritarian and anti-democratic. All that stuff about the constitution was just lip service. To the extent that the constitution maintains the status quo, it is embraced. To the extent that it upsets existing social order, not so much. According to Stenner's theory, there is a certain subset of people who hold latent authoritarian tendencies. These tendencies can be triggered or "activated" by the perception of physical threats or by destabilizing social change, leading those individuals to desire policies and leaders that we might more colloquially call authoritarian. ... Authoritarians prioritize social order and hierarchies, which bring a sense of control to a chaotic world. Challenges to that order — diversity, influx of outsiders, breakdown of the old order — are experienced as personally threatening because they risk upending the status quo order they equate with basic security. https://www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11127424/trump-authoritarianism https://www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11127424/trump-authoritarianism
yspeak 7y ago
In Comments Be kind. Don't be snarky. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive... When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3.".. Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents... Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It destroys intellectual curiosity, which the site exists for.
manfredo 7y ago
> Some may quibble with the use of fascist to describe him, but he's very clearly authoritarian and anti-democratic. That's pretty strange, seeing as he ran under the party that generally strives for lower government control in our lives - the direct opposite of fascism. And he has lessened government control in a variety of ways. One example (albeit one that is probably unpopular on HN) is deregulating telecoms. The claim that Trump is even fascist-aligned is really only defensible if one uses the modern definition of fascist: a person that holds political views one deems offensive or bad.
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js2 7y ago

> What has surprised me is the relatively large percentage of my compatriots who are also authoritarian and anti-democratic. All that stuff about the constitution was just lip service. To the extent that the constitution maintains the status quo, it is embraced. To the extent that it upsets existing social order, not so much. According to Stenner's theory, there is a certain subset of people who hold latent authoritarian tendencies. These tendencies can be triggered or "activated" by the perception of physical threats or by destabilizing social change, leading those individuals to desire policies and leaders that we might more colloquially call authoritarian. ... Authoritarians prioritize social order and hierarchies, which bring a sense of control to a chaotic world. Challenges to that order — diversity, influx of outsiders, breakdown of the old order — are experienced as personally threatening because they risk upending the status quo order they equate with basic security. https://www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11127424/trump-authoritarianism https://www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11127424/trump-authoritarianism

yspeak 7y ago

In Comments Be kind. Don't be snarky. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive... When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3.".. Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents... Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It destroys intellectual curiosity, which the site exists for.

manfredo 7y ago

> Some may quibble with the use of fascist to describe him, but he's very clearly authoritarian and anti-democratic. That's pretty strange, seeing as he ran under the party that generally strives for lower government control in our lives - the direct opposite of fascism. And he has lessened government control in a variety of ways. One example (albeit one that is probably unpopular on HN) is deregulating telecoms. The claim that Trump is even fascist-aligned is really only defensible if one uses the modern definition of fascist: a person that holds political views one deems offensive or bad.

deleted 7y ago
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