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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   15316 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 6, 2025

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Fascism has an actual definition- a militaristic totalitarian state based around palingenetic ultra nationalism. This is not maga; there’s no deep history lore to justify blood and soil. There’s no actual totalitarianism, either, and Trump’s supporters mostly have attachment to institutions which would be disempowered or repressed by totalitarianism.

This is not a definition of fascism I've ever heard of, and would reject entirely. This "definition" looks suspiciously like Umberto Eco's 14 points; a blatant attempt at rigging the debate so we all can agree that "fascism" only refers to evil right-wing movements and had nothing whatsoever to do with Leftist movements of the time, and absolutely no relation at all to Socialism, that's just a right-wing talking point (pay no attention to the documented history showing membership of fascists in socialist movements)

This is not maga; there’s no deep history lore to justify blood and soil.

In support of this, I here submit Neema Parvini's "MAGA as Fulfillment of the Kali Yuga":

While writing The Prophets of Doom, it struck me several times, especially during the chapters on both Thomas Carlyle and Julius Evola, that Donald Trump and his MAGA movement are more truly liberal and truly democratic than their opponents. In other words, there are no truer believers in The Populist Delusion than the populists themselves. When Carlyle talks about the spirit of democracy as a spiral downwards and when Evola talks about involution as the inevitable consequence of American-style liberalism, it is difficult to picture the Davos set or even the decrepit incumbents of the Washington regime because these people do not embody the spirit of plebian energy ‘from below’ described by Carlyle or Evola. MAGA is a low-status ‘working people’s’ populist movement against a powerful, entitled and rich elite. If one considers the classic Anacyclosis as outlined by Polybius (see below), one can spot that the Trumpian figure comes after the oligarchy.

…

This way of thinking about the current predicament gives rise to some strange thoughts. For example, and I voiced this on my appearance on the Alexandria podcast, what if life under the populists is even more intolerably degenerate than life under the Regime? Afterall, MAGA is probably the most genuinely non-racist, pro-black, pro-LGBT, ‘easy going’ and ‘true 90s liberal’ movement ever to exist (aside from, possibly, the British Tory party since Boris Johnson). ‘We have won our country back!’ cry a right-wing led exclusively by people like Kari Lake and Caitlyn Jenner as the black Zoomer in the MAGA hat posts a video of himself drinking Coca-Cola to a Libs of Tik-Tok video to 100k+ likes on twitter. This is really what MAGA is in its core essence. Jerry Springer passed away recently, but his real legacy was MAGA, in all its gauche, loud American awfulness. Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!

we’re a nation built on hard work and puritan ethic

The slave trade didn't hurt either

On balance I think it did

"Make America Great Again" sounds pretty palingenetic and nationalist to be fair. And threatening to invade foreign countries is quite militaristic and nationalistic, I'd say.

I agree, however, that there is no totalitarianism in the US right now.

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