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Post by Amadan on Jan 4, 2017 11:13:37 GMT -5
The critical point is, I think, that just because Trump isn't a fascist, that doesn't mean he can't be bad news. People have a hard time with such situations, I think, where they assume that the label is some sort of necessity. Yes. A lot of the leftist responses to articles questioning whether or not Trump is a fascist have been basically "Why are you engaging in pedantic arguments over definitions? Trump is really, really bad so you're hurting the fight against him to equivocate over whether or not he's a fascist!" Um, words mean things. We can agree Trump is really, really bad without agreeing that therefore he is whatever bad label you want to attach to him ("fascist," "Nazi," "white supremacist," etc.).
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Post by Optimus on Jan 4, 2017 15:27:16 GMT -5
I find that most of the people who cry "fascism!" and "socialism!" have no idea what those terms mean anyway. They just don't like the person or thing and they hear other people saying it so they just know it's somehow "bad," so they join they mindlessly join the chorus and start chanting along.
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Post by Don on Mar 31, 2017 5:41:37 GMT -5
ARE YOU PEOPLE HAPPY! You've polluted my high-minded thread with runaway silliness! Gah! Okay, to get back on topic, what of Umberto Eco's Ur-Fascism and his eleven features (summarized in this article)? The Trump regime checks most of those boxes, IMO. Or perhaps John T. Flynn's As We Go Marching? I've just started that one, but Tucker's preface has me interested. His exploration of common fascist elements in Italy, Germany and the US should be worthwhile. These are also the common traits I think come to the mind of a lot of people when they hear the "F" word.
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Post by franklymydear on Feb 1, 2018 17:42:44 GMT -5
Interesting thread. Terminologies evoke and change over time I’m sure Nazism in the early 1930s was different to what it became to be after the liberation of Europe Initially is was nothing more than the name of a political line of thinking Over the decades the name evokes images of the darkest side of humanity
Ponder this thought. How will future generations use the word Trumpism? What will the term be associated with? How will the history books use it ? " Trumpism plunged the world into nuclear war"
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Post by Don on Feb 3, 2018 7:33:09 GMT -5
I'm still wondering which of Eco's points today's America fails to check off, and where Flynn is wrong. I think people are terrified of calling out today's regime for what it is, because they still want to believe it can't happen here. Seriously. Which of Eco's eleven points noted above, or the 14 more detailed points in the original article, does today's regime fail to check off? Damned few, as far as I can determine. And it wasn't drastically different under Obama. Trump's ascension hasn't drastically changed the number of checkmarks that apply; Obama's implementation of those checkmarks were simply more palatable to the left than Trump's. Points 7 and 9 receive more emphasis, and 11 isn't as focused, but overall, there's not a tremendous difference. And where does today's regime fall short of Flynn's definition? Let's not be afraid to call a playing card by it's correct name just because it's scary to do so. It's time to recognize that both versions of the Yellow Brick Road the Dems and Reps are selling are just two forks of the Road to Serfdom.
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Post by robeiae on Feb 5, 2018 9:31:25 GMT -5
Well with regard to Flynn's "definition," today's regime is miles away, by my reading. Because Trump and company surely don't think "the present economic system is washed up and that the present political system in America has outlived its usefulness." Arguing that such is the case requires some serious stretching. Sure, one can stretch to make the argument, but with such a general claim, that's almost always the case.
As to Umberto Eco's "features," they're not much different' They're general enough to allow almost any regime to fit the bill, merely by shifting the framing.
As to future generations and "Trumpism"...sorry, I don't think "Trumpism" is really a thing. If Trump lasts only one term, his Presidency will portrayed for exactly what it is: the regime of a reactionary populist who was ill-equipped for the office he won, who perhaps smartly peeled back some Fed overreach in the economy, yet simultaneously made a mess of pretty much everything else. Hardly a top-drawer fascist...
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Post by franklymydear on Feb 5, 2018 10:54:57 GMT -5
I'm not convinced that a form of " Trump" won't enter the vocabulary in future generations.
A parent to their child " stop Trumping " Basically means don't look me in the eye and lie.
A doctor to their patient " you have acute Trumpelepsy ". You are a raving lunatic and should be in a straitjacket..
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Post by Don on Feb 5, 2018 12:08:59 GMT -5
"debt-supported state" - check "autarchial corporative state" - working on it. See also "imperial presidency" "state bent on the socialization of investment and the bureaucratic government of industry and society" - check "the establishment of the institution of militarism as the great glamorous public-works project of the nation" - check "the institution of imperialism under which it proposes to regulate and rule the world" - check "proposes to alter the forms of our government to approach as closely as possible the unrestrained, absolute government" - check
Where's he wrong?
As for " "the present economic system is washed up and that the present political system in America has outlived its usefulness" you should note that Flynn's writing is not contemporary. His "present" economic and political systems have already been drastically altered to produce all the checkmarks above. Note the expansion of lines three through five over the last 50 years or more. The ruling class is pretty happy with the way those things have been progressing. The economic system has been "updated" with billions of laws and bureaucrats, and they no longer consider this new, modern version "washed up."
This is not our grandfather's economic or political system, other than in name.
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Post by robeiae on Feb 5, 2018 14:19:06 GMT -5
The corporative fascist state isn't based on private, modern corporations. I thought we'd beaten that horse to death; do we need to do it again? So right there, he's wrong.
And the deregulation aspects of the Trump crowd reflect the wrong direction, as well.
As to the other "checks," AGAIN it's easy to offer up such a list and force-fit a given government/society into those boxes. That's the problem with such lists, when it comes to concepts like fascism, imo. Your arguments are evidence of what has been repeatedly said in this thread: fascism is becoming a simple pejorative, nothing more, because every "bad" government can have the label applied with minimal intellectual effort.
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Post by robeiae on Feb 5, 2018 14:22:48 GMT -5
I'm not convinced that a form of " Trump" won't enter the vocabulary in future generations. A parent to their child " stop Trumping " Basically means don't look me in the eye and lie. A doctor to their patient " you have acute Trumpelepsy ". You are a raving lunatic and should be in a straitjacket.. It's possible, I guess. But fringe slang that may or may not last doesn't seem all that significant to me. After all, Jimmy Carter royally fucked up a number of things. And so did Nixon. No one says "boy, you Cartered the shit out of that," or "stop being such a Nixon."
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Post by Don on Feb 5, 2018 16:38:09 GMT -5
They do, however, say "Stop being a Dick." Isn't that a Nixon reference?
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Post by mikey on Feb 5, 2018 16:48:45 GMT -5
I'm sure "tricky Dick" is a pretty popular Nixonion
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Post by robeiae on Feb 5, 2018 18:27:17 GMT -5
They do, however, say "Stop being a Dick." Isn't that a Nixon reference? Lol, no. I'm pretty sure "dick" as slang predates Nixon by quite a few (hundred?) years.
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Post by franklymydear on Feb 5, 2018 22:51:53 GMT -5
I'm not convinced that a form of " Trump" won't enter the vocabulary in future generations. A parent to their child " stop Trumping " Basically means don't look me in the eye and lie. A doctor to their patient " you have acute Trumpelepsy ". You are a raving lunatic and should be in a straitjacket.. It's possible, I guess. But fringe slang that may or may not last doesn't seem all that significant to me. After all, Jimmy Carter royally fucked up a number of things. And so did Nixon. No one says "boy, you Cartered the shit out of that," or "stop being such a Nixon." That's true. And because I'm looking to the future I'm speculating. In 12 months Trump has generated a unified global hatred I've never seen before. So who knows.
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Post by iolo on Mar 22, 2018 9:47:34 GMT -5
In times of total crisis the capitalists, knowing they can't win elections, resign power in favour of lower-middle-class reactionaries, racists or whatever who use relatively-popular reactionary ideas to gain power and destroy the unions, left-wing parties and the like. Usually they end up fighting some insane war, which clears them out and lets the rich get back in.
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