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The current administration is absolutely showing hallmarks of illiberal democracy and autarkic economic policy, but constantly overusing the term "fascist" has
by alephnerd 2y ago
The current administration is absolutely showing hallmarks of illiberal democracy and autarkic economic policy, but constantly overusing the term "fascist" has and will continue to reduce it's staying power.
If every opponent is called a fascist, you'll grow numb to actual fascists or extremist organizations exploiting low information voters.
The same holds if you call every Democrat a "Marxist" or "Socialist".
This mudslinging will only accelerate illiberal democracy and when a real monster joins a poltical platform, much of the base is immune or indifferent.
Look at how decimated the opposition in Turkiye and Hungary became due to this kind of oratory flourish.
End of the day, we live in a political world where Citizens United is the law. If we lump actual donors who formerly leaned D barely a decade ago with bad actors, there's no reason for them to support us.
- giraffe_lady 2y agoI'm not sure this is the biggest or most relevant problem and I can't think of many sincere good faith reasons why you'd bring it up here. It's the consensus mainstream position on this subject on HN, and is discussed and ultimately endorsed many times a week for the last few years.
- alephnerd 2y ago> I can't think of many sincere good faith reasons why you'd bring it up here instead of some other aspect of the scenario. Concepts like "fascism" are ill defined in American political discourse, and can enable actual fascists (as in ethno- and religio-nationalists) to run for office while our valid criticisms are ignored. Calling crony capitalists like a Musk fascists means we cannot call out actual authoritarian religious or ethnonationalists like a JD Vance or Tom Barrett without eliciting a groan from voters who do not follow politics constantly. I sincerely believe this is a messaging issue that can absolutely have a downstream impact.
- giraffe_lady 2y ago[flagged]
- alephnerd 2y agoI'll agree with you on Musk w/ regards to extremism, but then calling out Sundar Pichai or Jeff Bezos (who largely flipped only because of unearned capital gains tax and potential anti-trust issues) means we lose actual donors who can help us rebuild. We live in a political environment where Citizens United is the lay of the land. It sucks, but that's the reality. We can't piss off potential donors who could help us flip in 26 and 28.
- giraffe_lady 2y ago[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- happytoexplain 2y agoYes, in general we over-apply extremism labels to political opponents, but specifically in the US in the last 8 years, the things labeled "fascist" tend to check more fascism checkmarks than the things labeled "socialist/communist" check socialism/communism checkmarks, by a pretty significant margin too (subjectively).
- alephnerd 2y agoI don't deny that, but we haven't reached that actual precipice point yet. If messaging remains as hamfisted The Atlantic article, it can make 2026 and even 2028 much more difficult to compete in, and actually puts us at a potential precipice point.
- jakeinspace 2y agoIt's easy to imagine that we'll have fallen off the precipice well before you or I can definitively say "this is the moment, democracy is at stake, we must go to the streets."
- Zigurd 2y agoThere was a lot to disagree with about Ronald Reagan. But he wasn't a fascist. It's not the same now.
- unearth3d 2y agoApart from the apparent atheist Musk, the rest is being driven by the US Council for National Policy, operationalised by the New Apostolic Reformation and their 7 Mountains Mandate. Texas Observer on some of this: https://www.texasobserver.org/new-apostolic-reformation-texas-leaders/ https://www.texasobserver.org/new-apostolic-reformation-texa... These people are Christo-Fascists busy making govt so small it can be drowned in a puddle.
- ZeroGravitas 2y ago> Look at how decimated the opposition in Turkiye and Hungary became due to this kind of oratory flourish. Or was it the Fascism itself that decimated the opposition? If your closing argument is "Don't anger the oligarchs or else we'll end up in Fascism" then maybe you need to reassess where we are along this process.
- jfengel 2y agoCalling every Democrat a "Marxist" or "Socialist" appears to be working out great for the politicians who do it. Nobody appears to be growing numb to it.