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It's only a small step from rightwing populism to fascism. Rightwing populists say some things (like "we'll let Russia invade countries that don't spend 2% of t
by rob74 3y ago
It's only a small step from rightwing populism to fascism. Rightwing populists say some things (like "we'll let Russia invade countries that don't spend 2% of their GDP on defence"), fascists actually do it...
- FredPret 3y agoIt's only a small step from any extreme ideology to an even worse one
- alephnerd 3y agoI guess my metric is, would you count AMLO as fascist? AMLO and Modi are functionally the same. (Personally - I think Modi is an Authoritarian in the same mold as Indira Gandhi, Erdogan, Lula, Obran, and AMLO).
- rob74 3y agoI think you're mixing up your populists here... AMLO (Andrés Manuel López Obrador) and Lula are left-wing (so you can maybe call them communists if you want to insult them, but not fascists), Orbán, Meloni, Erdogan, Putin, Modi, Trump, Bolsonaro etc. are right-wing/nationalist.
- alephnerd 3y agoNope. This is my point exactly. All 3 are electoral authoritarians that came to power due to public anger at a corrupt status quo (Maluf in Brazil in the 90s-early 2000s, Coalgate/2Ggate/Jan Lokpal in India from 2011-13, and 2017 gas price hike in Mexico) and enabled by cheap populism and campaigning directly to the subaltern of their countries. Furthermore, all 3 are products of dysfunctional democracies where criminalization of the electoral process has been the norm since the 1990s. While electoral institutions Ann all 3 remain somewhat strong (as is reflected in the EIU's democracy index), civil society has died in India, Brazil, and Mexico. Furthermore, all 3 leaders are notoriously anti-ideological in the sense that they will take right leaning and left leaning positions on policies at a whim depending on the electoral winds