uspol, reality check please
Just because I just got in an online argument which pressed my "you are wrong" buttons; am I just being paranoid or is an Administration which
* has an obedient internal police rounding up people to put in camps
* has a consistently anti-union, homophobic stance, consistently has anti semitic dogwhistles and supporters
* has supporters who clearly demonstrate a racist agenda and who have used Nazi symbology
* glorifies militarism and is connected with violent buildup
* has a leader who holds rallies about his personality
* stems from a party historically connected with the actual NSDAP
re: uspol, reality check please
@Leucrotta I don't have the time to have it out in great detail, but... I did do some reading about the rise of Hitler, and right now my position is it's *not* quite accurate to call the modern GOP Nazi, but it is accurate to call it proto-fascist.
For instance, I'd argue we really *don't* have the level of utter totalitarianism, with an effective death penalty for criticism. Also, the right is currently forced to at least play lip service to not being openly, virulently racist -- which doesn't make them any better or less covertly racist, but it *does* make it a different species with different tactics.
Trump doesn't have the same absurd level of popular suppor that Hitler did. Also, fascism was really more of a late industrial-era ideology. I don't see the Republicans being nearly so focused on direct militarist conquest as the Nazis. Never mind a martial tradition that demands valor and sacrifice -- we can't even get most Republicans to endure two months of stay-at-home.
Ultimately, I feel like what we've got now is more taxonomically like Russian under Putin: it's a criminal oligarchy that excels in propaganda, subversion, and reality-manipulation but is pretty inept at domestic policy. It's definitely got fascist elements and I think at last count I gave it something like a 10/14 on Umberto Eco's famous Fourteen Points, so you're not wrong; it's a matter of precision, not accuracy.
And I would definitely agree there are fascist *elements* in the modern alt-right. But Trump honestly reminds me of nobody so much as the string of inept reality-averse old men who rules Russia between Brezhnev and Gorbachev...
re: uspol, reality check please
@Leucrotta Oh, I accidentally skipped a step in my argument. n.n; I was going to point out that in the 1940s, direct force was much more effective and people were both much more inured to privation and much more insulated from events outside their immediate lives. That was a rich breeding ground for fascism, which is a very *directly* forceful sort of ideology that was totally unashamed about committing its brutality right out in the open.
In the information age, right-wing populism has had to a much less *directly* violent form. The will for massive state force is still there... as we're seeing with Trump and Sen. Tom Cotton this week... but you can also see the massive backlash which would never have been possible under Fascism.
Instead, Trump has a regime where that kind of backlash isn't devoured... it's DILUTED until it's lost harmlessly in the media backwash and spun out of existence. Trump's brand of plutocratic oligarchy is, again, much more reminiscent of the KGB playbook. Why shoot someone when you can just peacefully neutralize their reputation and poison the public debate? It sure saves money on bullets...
And if anything, I'd argue it might be MORE dangerous in the grand scheme... for the same reason COVID-19 is more dangerous than Ebola. Fascism burns itself out, trying to annex neighbors and set the world on fire. Whatever Trump and Putin have inflicted on the world can just sit there in its tower like Sauron and quietly poison the countryside for years.
re: uspol, reality check please
@zebratron2084 Okay, so more nuanced; my paranoia and upset *is* taking me right to "these guys are Nazis," but there's plenty of reasons for me to jump that direction.
Would it be a safe assumption that someone really arguing the semantics as "but it's a historically different entity" and "every regime does that", especially on Twitter, is probably doing so to defend the Administration?
re: uspol, reality check please
@Leucrotta Oh, that I agree with you completely. If the subtext is "nah, you're totally off the wall to imply there's ANY reason to fear fascistic tendencies from this administration," I not only think the obvious "well, fuck 'em," I think they have a pretty weak historical argument. Like I said, Eco's 14 Points is my gold standard for authoritarian movements, and Trump does NOT have a good score on that scale.
I personally prefer to avoid comparing the GOP at large to Nazis, but only because I think it's walking into a rhetorical trap, and gives our political opponents the opportunity to point to horrible things they *don't* do and accuse us of hyperbole -- even though the comparisons are still IMHO totally valid.
I think there are definitely fascist tendencies in the modern alt-right, Trump has been perfectly happen to encourage them, and I personally think one must have their head pretty far up their ass -- and be unconcerned with how many "nice, normal" Germans just put Nazi atrocities out of their minds -- in order to not see Trump as at least proto-fascist. I prefer to compare him to Mussolini or Franco, simply because Hitler is pretty much our culture's 10/10 for violently oppressive right-wing statism. It's hyperbole... but *only* because they don't have the power or cultural will for mass lethal violence that they can't at least couch as Fake News (e.g. dismissing the treatment of detained migrants as leftist hype). "They don't generally machine gun civilians for dissent" isn't a very strong endorsement.
