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Fascism is a word that has an actual meaning. I understand that outside the motte it has become a snarl word which basically just means "political ideology I don't like" but I was under the impression that people here actually try to use the word properly. Donald Trump isn't a fascist - though I have no doubt that if he fails to do what his base want him to do his replacement most likely will be. He's already had four years to be in power, and none of the calamities that your crowd promised were on the way ever actually showed up. If you want to look at the actual actions committed by people in government Trump represents the only break from the Beltway consensus in living memory, and that consensus is responsible for so much more evil and destruction than anything Trump has done. Can you actually look at the long history of military interventions undertaken by the US since the defeat of Hitler and tell me that Trump represents some brand new evil that deserves a revolution to overthrow? How exactly is building a wall with Mexico some grand act of fascism but dropping agent orange on Vietnam or using depleted uranium rounds in Iraq to help establish a hardline Islamic theocracy is just business as usual?
But on top of that, if you're actually serious about opposing people using the military to expand their borders and impose second-class citizen status on a bunch of poor people of the wrong ethnicity, why aren't you talking about Israel? They build walls, they set up apartheid, they kill children in terror attacks, invade foreign states, ask the US to invade others and supplied military equipment to all sorts of distasteful regimes. You still get to attack Donald Trump when you do to boot!
Leftists do talk plenty about Israel, I observe, when they're not in "those devious jews amirite" company (for obvious reasons). Themotte is closer to being such company than not.
In order to have a discussion on why Israel is wrong from the leftist world model (questions of universal human rights), you first have to have an agreement on the idea that human rights are universal (as opposed to only your ingroup's).
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It has a meaning which does at times resonate quite a bit with Trump though, I’d argue that although he doesn’t fully meet the definition there is a reason it keeps getting applied to him specifically. For example,
Fascists often:
Dismantle the systems of democracy. Trump didn’t do this, I don’t think you can call him a full fascist at this point, but he has tendencies on this point. For many people, including his former vice president, he’s the first US president to try to break the system of transfer of power. Whatever you believe about that situation, he said from the beginning that he’ll consider the electoral process rigged if he loses. And once he did, he loudly and consistently employed a whole host of means to try break the system, trying to get governors to “find votes”, to put up alternative electors, to halt the system of certification, etc. He got his followers so riled up about this that they formed a mob and broke into the US capitol building. These are all definitely tendencies toward the dismantle democracy aspect of fascism, and if you were in a country where someone did try these things, you might pre-emptively call that person a fascist.
Promote ethnonationalism and typically delineate a group of people as an enemy. Trump often takes steps in this directions and then pulls back. Actual ethnonationalists often have a love hate relationship with the guy because he’ll use promising rhetoric and then say something else which is pro x or y ethnicity and which pisses those guys off. But in the end he was elected on the central promise to conduct the greatest mass deportations in American history, and those vibes certainly match what would be expected for historical fascists to say as well.
Use authoritarian state force on internal minority groups. I don’t think he’s done this, kudos. Other people often think he has, “children in cages”, etc. But fascism tends to be crueler than this and less within previously established norms. There are obviously fears around this happening during the mass deportations, but that remains to be seen.
Crush dissent violently. This is often part of the dismantle democracy thing. I don’t think Trump has done this and this would be the biggest American norm to violate in order for a fascist to emerge. I do believe that Trump the man himself has these tendencies that could have emerged in a different context (consider his rhetoric in quotes such as his praise of China’s strength during the Tiananmen massacre, and lamenting that were not strong like that). There are many similar quotes that could be mined to paint a case that he sometimes has somewhat of a fixation on this type of “strength”.
Idealize the military and often use military force in expansionist ways. Trump has sometimes idealized the military in ways that previous American norms have not, e.g. calling for the US to begin doing military parades in the style of China or N Korea. But up until this point he has not shown much tendency to launch any sort of military adventure, much to his credit. (And of course to your point about previous presidents, much to their demerit). Recently he’s been making people edgy on this point, yesterday saying that he would use economic and perhaps military force to annex various territories around the world. Knowing Trump, this is likely his typical “start with the most extreme statement” bluster. But I think it can be pretty clear to understand why for people who think he does have certain fascist tendencies to become concerned when he suddenly starts talking about expansion or annexing territories. We’ll see if he actually is serious about using economic force to try and annex other territories. If so he fits the point about territorial expansionism. If he broke with norms so extremely to threaten Panama with the military in order to take territory from them that would obviously be extremely fascist coded behavior. The whole thing, in the end, shows hints of him breaking with norms that liberal democracies have had in the postwar era. Like in the Helsinki accords, to which the US is signatory; they respect each others sovereignty, they respect territorial boundaries, they do not threaten one another for territory, etc. Breaking these norms is definitely fascist coded, and we’ll see if he continues down that path or if it’s just another passing Trumpism to sit back and enjoy.
Drink water.
Which is to say, that characterizing something that fascists do, even correctly, does that make thing a distinguisher of fascism.
Well there’s not a great definition of fascism, but I do think it’s a valid category that we shouldn’t do away with, nonetheless.
Me too. It should be reserved for believers of "All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state".
It should be permissible to use it to say "this movement will lead to a totalitarian state being imposed in which minorities are exterminated in camps."
You, and other leftists, are allowed to make the argument that Trump will impose a totalitarian state in which minorities are exterminated in camps.
You haven't.
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That’s fair.
And do note, I never said Trump was a fascist.
But I get why he gets pattern matched as one.
You might look at what the commenter I responded to said.. “trumps replacement very well could be a fascist.”
You could look at breaking norms in a somewhat fascist coded way while having a cult of personality associated with you as a danger even if the subject himself isn’t likely to declare himself generalissimo.
But to talk about why that might represent a sort of danger you’d need to invoke fascism.
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Do things that have been done in every other system including liberal democracy?
Liberal democracies tend not to do things like for example:
Crush a protest against the leader with authoritarian force, dismantle the system of democratic choice.
If you read my statement, I said that Trump didn’t do either of these things.
But he often does show tendencies toward these things, causing people to pattern match him to them.
Of course, if you are someone who is concerned about fascism, it’s important to pattern match potential fascists before they become actual fascists, so for those people it can be considered a worthwhile exercise.
Point of order: Trudeau and others pretty clearly did the first (crushing the trucker protests) albeit with financial force not physically. I can’t remember if other European countries used water cannons etc.
And moves like Germany constantly flirting with banning the AfD and France’s cordon sanitaire seem like moving in the direction of dismantling democracy, along with the attempted jailing of Trump and the general tendency of lock policy away behind non-democratic quangos, rights and treaties feel quite a lot like dismantling the system of democratic choice.
Growing up, everyone was making a lot of pro-liberalism arguments that basically boil down to the double-edged sword. “If you impinge the liberties of others, what happens when they get into power?” And it feels like in the past decade people have been increasingly willing to test that.
Financial force first, then physical force (trampling them with horses, how Canadian).
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My understanding is that the impact of that has been vastly overstated, usually by the same sorts of people who think the radiation from being near a nuclear power plant is worse than the radiation from being near a coal plant.
I think the acceptable number of birth defects caused by the use of your weapon systems in an unprovoked war of aggression against another state is zero, and the depleted uranium rounds used in Iraq have handily surpassed this number.
Uncleared minefields (and UXO in general, though to a much smaller degree) tend to produce injuries similar to congenital birth defects, up to and including the sorts of defects incompatible with life, like missing limbs or heads. They can be found wherever wars are fought.
DU by contrast is merely toxic, much like lead and TNT are.
I believe there are international efforts to ban the use of minefields that linger and cause problems after the war, and cluster munitions frequently cause similar issues.
This does not change my position that the acceptable number of mutilated and dead children caused by your advanced weapon systems is zero. I'm opposed to minefields, depleted uranium, the use of white phosphorus in civilian areas, the use of chemical/biological weapons etc.
Call me when a country whose military actually fights wars commits to that in any meaningful way. They haven't (and won't) for obvious reasons; the ultimate problem with mines is that they're both extremely useful, and extremely cost-effective. You can make them on 3D printers, and the Ukrainians are doing exactly that. That treaty did them a whole lot of good, clearly.
Cluster munitions are the same way (and again, relevant military powers all retain them for that reason)- they're great for exploding the slightly-older-children when they come out to repair the areas (typically runways) we drop them on. Of course, they're not as cute, so they're fair game, naturally.
If you're not willing to shell your own position and kill your own soldiers [that haven't even been born yet, in this case], you are not willing to win. Hamas is willing to win (that's why they position their forces in schools). The Ukrainians and Russians are also willing to win (that's why the Ukrainians are mining their own territory even though they pinky-swore not to do that).
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The radiological hazard of depleted uranium is overstated; U-238 decays very slowly, and is sometimes (due to its density) used as shielding for more rapidly-decaying nuclides.
However, it poses a chemical hazard, as uranium is chemically toxic in a similar way to other heavy metals.
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this is factually incorrect, but more importantly, it's stupid
this is obviously a deflection
you're afraid, aren't you? you're afraid that you missed the fascism
Factually incorrect? News to me. I was told there'd be a wall, mass deportations, crackdowns on civil liberties and the manifestation of Gilead into reality. I guess I actually did miss the fascism, because I didn't see any of that shit - have you got a source for any of this that's more rigorous than your arse?
I'm pointing out that every single thing you're threatening is on the way due to Trump IS ALREADY HERE. Why should I believe your stated motivations when you're supporting and condoning people who are far worse according to your own standards?
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Nobody is afraid that they "missed the fascism", except possibly you because your brain is fried from huffing too much politics. Any "fascism" that is so subtle that you can fail to notice it while it's taking place in the cultural center of the world in the midst of a global political media circus (i.e. the election) is no fascism at all.
Fascism is not a mystic totem which once invoked will trigger Armageddon. If it's too subtle to notice, it's also too subtle to affect anyone's life in any way. If it's too subtle to affect anyone's life then it doesn't matter, no matter what scary words you use to describe it. If we can live in a fascist dystopia without noticing or being affected by it, then maybe the problem is that the word "fascist" is being used too lightly.
His comment was bad, but please don't respond in kind.
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Just a quick tip. The mods very literally and explicitly police on tone here. It’s an intentional, foundational part of the rules.
You can argue for virtually any viewpoint that you want, as long as you’re polite and charitable about it.
I’d really like you to stay because we have a shortage of leftists here, but if you don’t moderate your tone, you’re likely to get banned in short order. So please try to be a bit more level-headed in your posts. (Accusing someone of “being afraid they missed the fascism”, being seen as a generally impolite and uncharitable thing to accuse someone of, must be supported with substantial argumentation, rather than simply offered as a one-liner).
Any thoughts on how to get leftists back that aren't sockpuppets of trolls plaguing Scott Alexander spinoffs for 10+ years now?
Going with Amadanb's belief this was an Imp, so not the kind of leftists we actually want.
No, I don’t have any thoughts!
I’ve written some posts in the past detailing the reasons why leftists tend to self-select out of spaces like this. I don’t think it’s a problem that can be fixed unfortunately.
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This. I want more leftists here but please don't do the "it's fascism and I don't need to explain why" thing antifa. If you want to argue Trump is a fascist, You DO need to explain in detail how you think Trump is a fascist because I and many others here don't see it, but I also DO see that ACTUAL fascism is growing as you normalize calling people "fascists" (and also fail to solve common people's troubles while doubling-down on identitarianism).
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