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One good indicator of if someone is a fascist is that if they actually stop being in charge for reasons other than death or military defeat they are not a fasci
by gfodor 5y ago
One good indicator of if someone is a fascist is that if they actually stop being in charge for reasons other than death or military defeat they are not a fascist.
- monocasa 5y agoThat would exclude obvious fascists like Pinochet.
- gfodor 5y agoEven if Pinochet was a fascist, it is hardly "obvious." Dictators may step down. Fascist dictators, not so much. Trump could have kicked off a civil war and retained his power past the deadline with one or two sentences. If he is a fascist, he is a fairly uncommitted one.
- monocasa 5y agoPinochet is one of the clearest fascists of the past half century. It's very obvious.
- gfodor 5y agoIn any case this is irrelevant. My point was that if you want to know if someone is a fascist, a good sign they are not a fascist is if they step down from power for reasons other than by force. Particularly if they had the ability to start an armed conflict to maintain their power up until they were removed by force.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jokethrowaway 5y agoYou don't know what fascist means: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_Pinochet#Accusations_of_fascism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_Pinochet#Accusations_o... Pinochet was a violent dictator but not a fascist
- monocasa 5y agoI do, I just disagree with the wiki article. It even contradicts itself within a few paragraphs there. For instance it lists in your quoted section that > argues that such regimes may be considered populist ultra-nationalism but lack the rhetoric of national rebirth, or palingenesis, necessary to make them conform to the model of palingenetic ultranationalism. And if you scroll up to the section header it says > Pinochet himself expressed his project in government as a national rebirth inspired by Diego Portales, a figure of the early republic:[127] > [Democracy] will be born again purified from the vices and bad habits that ended up destroying our institutions.... [W]e are inspired in the Portalian spirit which has fused together the nation... — Augusto Pinochet, 11 October 1973.
- gfodor 5y agoWikipedia aside, the idea that Pinochet was a fascist is disputed. I recently read a book that defended him as serving the role of a dictator in the Roman sense. It is not "obvious", as you claimed. You don't get to decide if something is obvious, if its disputed, it's not obvious.
- monocasa 5y ago> I recently read a book that defended him as serving the role of a dictator in the Roman sense. That's literally one of the base ideas of fascism. The term 'fascism' itself refers to a 'fasces', the Roman and Etruscan style of axe carried as a sign of governmental power and authority in ancient Rome.
- gfodor 5y agoI suppose I've assumed that the modern definitions of fascism that I've encountered which separate the symbology from the actual purpose and limitations of the legal dictatorship in Roman Republic are sound. Which is why I consider people who relinquish power after the end of a single term not fascists in the way we typically describe the fascist dictators of the 21st century, who generally passed laws to cement their absolute and open-ended authority before they were exposed to being ousted by the normal political processes.
- whateveracct 5y agoFascists can't be losers?