5 ms·

This is fascism. Stick your heads in the sand all you want, whine about how "overused" that phrase is all you want, but fascism is exactly what we are facing in

This is fascism. Stick your heads in the sand all you want, whine about how "overused" that phrase is all you want, but fascism is exactly what we are facing in the United States.

websiteapi 10mo ago
[flagged]
- mint5 10mo ago
  What’s up with all these posts that try to normalize the current admins turning ice into the gestapo, waging a war against the environment, and blatant overt corruption like pardoning every white collar criminal and fraudster they can. Because bush invaded Iraq the current guy gets a free pass to round up immigrants with gestapo like tactics? These “but in the past…” posts come off as excusing current wrongs and it seems willful
  - krapp 10mo ago
    I think they're less excusing current wrongs and more attempting to point out that Trump and the nature of the current regime aren't anomalous. Believing such means getting rid of Trump alone is sufficient. Rather the attempt here is to illustrate that Trump is a manifestation of deep and systemic problems with American culture and that simply waiting for the "pendulum to swing the other way" or "Democrats to clean up the mess" isn't going to help. We need to have a much more complex and nuanced conversation than "Orange man bad," even given that orange man is very much bad. Otherwise he won't be the last, much less the worst.
    - scarecrowbob 10mo ago
      Yeah, I believe there is a difference between "hey, welcome to the party, isn't this horrible" and "what are yall complaining about, this is totally normal". The latter is "normalizing", the former is attempting to get folks to understand a broader context.
    - mint5 10mo ago
      The house is burning down, we should put it out!!. “it burned down before this is more of the same hurrrummmph.” Democracy cannot rest or it is eroded, so yes bad things happened. American is flawed but over time has worked towards improving itself and going towards its ideals of equality. But every inch forward is hard fought against the likes of the current administration. Suffrage, voting rights, environmental regulations, abolition were all won as huge battles against those clinging to and abusing power. The way these “but America has always been…” post are toned, if we listened to the likes of them then none of those victories would have occurred. Listening to them, we backslide. Dwelling on past imperfections instead of fighting today’s fire? Thats Self sabotage. These posts are never framed in a constructive way, like how do we right the wrongs of the past, how can we make reparations for them. No, they’re framed like “we’ve always been bad, so this current bad is not so bad” They seem to be insidiously on the side of injustice, trying to diminish current ills so that they may continue.
      - 93po 10mo ago
        The better metaphor is: the house has been on fire for decades, and hyper-focusing on throwing water on a single part of the fire that's only been around for a few years isn't going to fix the gas pipe leak that's the actual reason for it going on for decades. People say words like "fascism" as dog whistle for "Trump" which is exhausting because of reasons other posters have been made clear: he's a symptom, not the root cause. It's boring partisan politics and very naive to the real systemic issues that people are blind to due to many reasons, and at least in part because of group think and tribal mentalities and a lack of class consciousness. And it's a perspective/dog whistle ignorant to nearly any establishment politician being at least, in part, complicit for the gas leak not getting fixed. And it's exhausting that the same accountability and frustration isn't being held when it's someone they voted for who's in office despite them still being an enabler of a broken system.
        mint5 10mo ago
        I strongly disagree that it’s pointing out the gas leak, it’s posting the way a foreign dictator would gleefully like his minions to post. “See that democracy has always been just like us” If I were a totalitarian leader of any sort, I’d definitely be having my propagandists go after any country more liberal and try to paint them as also authoritarian and bad, and always that way. Are you denying America has not improved itself? Slavery was horrible but slavery was ended even though it took a massive bloody war. Thats an extreme example but there are plenty. No no, to the Debbie downers we are and always have been the equivalent of mao, Stalin, mussolini, and polpot
- throwaway290 10mo ago
  show a country that doesn't have some dark stuff in its history? This is not whataboutism. Trying to shift it to the past is not helping the cause. If all countries are fascist because they did something like this some time ago then the word has no useful meaning anymore. So now in the eyes of some centrist American who has any national pride and half a brain you are making a biased argument. Then yall act surprised why they elect Trump AGAIN. > It’s not about the past. You literally said US has always been fascist. This is wrong if you look at the dictionary of what fascist is. Show how authoritarian, intolerant, oppressive US was under Obama for example. It's one thing to say US could do better and another thing to say US has always been fascist while there are tons of countries that were 50x more fascist (and racist too, which is a different thing) than US, like PRC or USSR (side note it's funny how some american lefties I meet straight up admire them).
  - websiteapi 10mo ago
    It’s not about the past. United States has significant institutionalized racism today. Slavery is still legal today. Go read the 13th amendment and then look the change in prison population since reconstruction… It’s a shame how brainwashed Americans are. You think everything was great under Obama? lol
    - throwaway290 10mo ago
      I'm not American and here's some news for you: - "everything was great" does not imply "not fascist" - "not everything was great" does not imply "fascist" you did not answer my simple question. you clearly refuse to have a serious discussion Good luck.
      - websiteapi 10mo ago
        No discussion to be had with whatsboutism. Good luck to you too. Hopefully we get another Obama lol. FYI Jim Crow is worse than anything happening now, and if you don’t think so look in a mirror.
        10mo ago
- useless_foghorn 10mo ago
  It's true that these patterns and problems have existed and will likely continue. It's also true that common rhetoric and bias have changed dramatically in the last 10-15 years. I don't forsee any simple or easy ways to replace the social and political dams that tamed the pressures of power. It's very difficult to make power useful instead of destructive and it's very unlikely that this entropy will reverse. It's also illogical to do nothing about it.
- mcv 10mo ago
  The US has always had some fascist tendencies, but it's absolutely become a lot more fascist under Trump. The censorship, the expansion of cruelty, the policy of lies, the teardown of the rule of law and democratic institutions (though they were flawed before), and the worship of a single "strong" leader, are all massive steps in the direction of more fascism.
  - websiteapi 10mo ago
    Define a robust set of fascist indicators we can use across presidents beginning with the first and let’s see.
crises-luff-6b 10mo ago
[dead]

This is fascism. Stick your heads in the sand all you want, whine about how "overused" that phrase is all you want, but fascism is exactly what we are facing in the United States.

websiteapi 10mo ago

[flagged]

mint5 10mo ago
What’s up with all these posts that try to normalize the current admins turning ice into the gestapo, waging a war against the environment, and blatant overt corruption like pardoning every white collar criminal and fraudster they can. Because bush invaded Iraq the current guy gets a free pass to round up immigrants with gestapo like tactics? These “but in the past…” posts come off as excusing current wrongs and it seems willful
- krapp 10mo ago
  I think they're less excusing current wrongs and more attempting to point out that Trump and the nature of the current regime aren't anomalous. Believing such means getting rid of Trump alone is sufficient. Rather the attempt here is to illustrate that Trump is a manifestation of deep and systemic problems with American culture and that simply waiting for the "pendulum to swing the other way" or "Democrats to clean up the mess" isn't going to help. We need to have a much more complex and nuanced conversation than "Orange man bad," even given that orange man is very much bad. Otherwise he won't be the last, much less the worst.
  - scarecrowbob 10mo ago
    Yeah, I believe there is a difference between "hey, welcome to the party, isn't this horrible" and "what are yall complaining about, this is totally normal". The latter is "normalizing", the former is attempting to get folks to understand a broader context.
  - mint5 10mo ago
    The house is burning down, we should put it out!!. “it burned down before this is more of the same hurrrummmph.” Democracy cannot rest or it is eroded, so yes bad things happened. American is flawed but over time has worked towards improving itself and going towards its ideals of equality. But every inch forward is hard fought against the likes of the current administration. Suffrage, voting rights, environmental regulations, abolition were all won as huge battles against those clinging to and abusing power. The way these “but America has always been…” post are toned, if we listened to the likes of them then none of those victories would have occurred. Listening to them, we backslide. Dwelling on past imperfections instead of fighting today’s fire? Thats Self sabotage. These posts are never framed in a constructive way, like how do we right the wrongs of the past, how can we make reparations for them. No, they’re framed like “we’ve always been bad, so this current bad is not so bad” They seem to be insidiously on the side of injustice, trying to diminish current ills so that they may continue.
    - 93po 10mo ago
      The better metaphor is: the house has been on fire for decades, and hyper-focusing on throwing water on a single part of the fire that's only been around for a few years isn't going to fix the gas pipe leak that's the actual reason for it going on for decades. People say words like "fascism" as dog whistle for "Trump" which is exhausting because of reasons other posters have been made clear: he's a symptom, not the root cause. It's boring partisan politics and very naive to the real systemic issues that people are blind to due to many reasons, and at least in part because of group think and tribal mentalities and a lack of class consciousness. And it's a perspective/dog whistle ignorant to nearly any establishment politician being at least, in part, complicit for the gas leak not getting fixed. And it's exhausting that the same accountability and frustration isn't being held when it's someone they voted for who's in office despite them still being an enabler of a broken system.
      - mint5 10mo ago
        I strongly disagree that it’s pointing out the gas leak, it’s posting the way a foreign dictator would gleefully like his minions to post. “See that democracy has always been just like us” If I were a totalitarian leader of any sort, I’d definitely be having my propagandists go after any country more liberal and try to paint them as also authoritarian and bad, and always that way. Are you denying America has not improved itself? Slavery was horrible but slavery was ended even though it took a massive bloody war. Thats an extreme example but there are plenty. No no, to the Debbie downers we are and always have been the equivalent of mao, Stalin, mussolini, and polpot
throwaway290 10mo ago
show a country that doesn't have some dark stuff in its history? This is not whataboutism. Trying to shift it to the past is not helping the cause. If all countries are fascist because they did something like this some time ago then the word has no useful meaning anymore. So now in the eyes of some centrist American who has any national pride and half a brain you are making a biased argument. Then yall act surprised why they elect Trump AGAIN. > It’s not about the past. You literally said US has always been fascist. This is wrong if you look at the dictionary of what fascist is. Show how authoritarian, intolerant, oppressive US was under Obama for example. It's one thing to say US could do better and another thing to say US has always been fascist while there are tons of countries that were 50x more fascist (and racist too, which is a different thing) than US, like PRC or USSR (side note it's funny how some american lefties I meet straight up admire them).
- websiteapi 10mo ago
  It’s not about the past. United States has significant institutionalized racism today. Slavery is still legal today. Go read the 13th amendment and then look the change in prison population since reconstruction… It’s a shame how brainwashed Americans are. You think everything was great under Obama? lol
  - throwaway290 10mo ago
    I'm not American and here's some news for you: - "everything was great" does not imply "not fascist" - "not everything was great" does not imply "fascist" you did not answer my simple question. you clearly refuse to have a serious discussion Good luck.
    - websiteapi 10mo ago
      No discussion to be had with whatsboutism. Good luck to you too. Hopefully we get another Obama lol. FYI Jim Crow is worse than anything happening now, and if you don’t think so look in a mirror.
      - 10mo ago
useless_foghorn 10mo ago
It's true that these patterns and problems have existed and will likely continue. It's also true that common rhetoric and bias have changed dramatically in the last 10-15 years. I don't forsee any simple or easy ways to replace the social and political dams that tamed the pressures of power. It's very difficult to make power useful instead of destructive and it's very unlikely that this entropy will reverse. It's also illogical to do nothing about it.
mcv 10mo ago
The US has always had some fascist tendencies, but it's absolutely become a lot more fascist under Trump. The censorship, the expansion of cruelty, the policy of lies, the teardown of the rule of law and democratic institutions (though they were flawed before), and the worship of a single "strong" leader, are all massive steps in the direction of more fascism.
- websiteapi 10mo ago
  Define a robust set of fascist indicators we can use across presidents beginning with the first and let’s see.

crises-luff-6b 10mo ago

[dead]