Disgusting IMO, but possibly correct

[Timsup2nothin]

The recent troll thread here isn't the only place where the alt-right are claiming they represent the future of western civilization. It's actually a pretty common theme in their insular little world...which recent events indicate is not so little.

I've had this discussion about fascism several times lately, including at least once here, so I won't belabor the point in detail. Fascism, the word, has all this nasty baggage, so we are safe from any self proclaimed fascist, or "neo-fascist" or anyone else that doesn't acknowledge that people are put off from that baggage. The danger comes from this observed fact: the tenets of fascism are still just as attractive as ever. Someone like Trump can openly embrace every tenet of fascism, and as long as he doesn't accept the label plenty of people like what he "stands for."

Fascism didn't spring whole cloth and unfamiliar into existence. Many of its basic tenets are shared with paternalistic tribal structures. Those who voted for Mussolini's fascist party wouldn't have voted for the paternal tribalism party, because the name had baggage, but they embraced the tenets just the same.

To pretend that just because many people are disgusted by the tenets of fascism we don't have to worry about it, or that the people who are embracing the tenets while they would be offended at the accurate label of fascism will suddenly recognize it, seems unrealistic. Strength, security, stability, making the trains run on time; all the same old selling points still sell. They don't sell well enough for the alt-right faithful to follow a banner clearly labeled "fascism," but does the presence of the word really make any difference?

So, I'm not trying to rekindle the dispute between gloating fascists by whatever name and those who believe they would stand in opposition. I'm trying to open a realistic discussion about the fact that the current state of western civilization does seem to point to it being ready to turn down that path, with or without me. Anyone who participates would do well to keep in mind that this intent, if ignored, will undoubtedly get the thread justifiably locked.

 

[Omega124]

I think this is an absolutely fair and reasonable assessment of the rise of the alt-right in western politics.

You know, we as a society promised to never forget the Holocaust. Never forget the political prisoners, jews, homosexuals, roma, slavs, religious minorities, and other groups that were targeted for mass extermination. That we wouldn't allow for anything tragic like that to happen on our watch.

But could we forget what we didn't remember in the first place? Sure, most people (dare I say, all reasonable people) agree that mass genocide is an inherently unjustified act. Yet, we refuse to condemn the conditions that led to the Holocaust, which was certainly not an isolated act.

The same hatred we once reserved for Jews is mostly gone, but other groups have taken up their mantle. Hispanics, Muslims, etc are becoming the scapegoats of society, the new perpetual race enemy of America/Western World, respectively.

When we refuse to condemn bigots and racists, and instead hand them the reigns of power, that us much of an indictment of us as a society as it is on the leaders themselves. Are we truly any more civilized than Europe in the 30s? At least they had the benefit of not knowing what industrialized genocide looked like.

And no, I'm not saying we are literally about to commit a second holocaust tommorow. But the social and cultural institutions of mass hatred already exist and have been the norm since 2001. And that all it takes is one fire in the reichstag for things to go downhill fast

 

[Zelig]

Isn't "alt-right" already pretty much already synonymous with "fascism" by popular understanding?

Tough to get ahead just by rebranding in the internet age.

 

[shadowplay]

"Alt-right" is just another way of saying "wrong."

 

[Old Hippy]

I don't like being adopted by them, they always do it in the name of protecting my 'White rights ' thankyou but I am doing OK' without you the Alt right

 

[innonimatu]

Paternalistic tribal structures? Truly, you don't know what you are talking about. Fascists were about being "modern". Big. They had empire as their goal, not tribe. Global, not local. People as cogs in a structure, to be taken care of but act passive and defer to their superiors. Tribes do not have that kind of dynamic. Hint: democracy was invented within tribes, and city states had the first democracies recognized by historians: organized around tribal structures and notions of equality before the law.

Fascist is the product of the marriage between state and capital, the product of modernity. A rupture with tradition, tribe and small community. It sought to replace those small communities (that existed still very string in early 20th century Italy) with a big community and small tame "corporations" of people assembled by the state as the leaders of the nation saw fit. It did sprang whole cloth and unfamiliar into existence upon most of its victims. Who accepted it because they were forced to accept it, under the shock of modernity more than the mere power of guns. To be fascist was the future, was to be modern... trong propaganda they had.

You know where I see similar propaganda now? It isn't from the Trumps and their supporters, who are traditionalists. It's from the technocrats and captains of industry, from Silicon Valley and the "liberal Media". The tale is different, now it's even more ambitions: globalization. Trade deals that empower corporations (as in companies, but it's not a coincidence that this new corporatism is similar to the old corporativism of fascism in goals and methods...) above individuals, and culminate in some kind of corporate government.

 

[timtofly]

Not here to argue the pros and cons of political systems, but this new thingy ma jig sounds like another Holy Roman Empire, which spat out most of the despicable government types.

 

[red_elk]

I would rather label neocons as fascists. I dislike them more.
On a serious note, fascism has clear definition, there is no need to devaluate the term by arbitrarily applying it to right-wing and conservative parties.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Truly, you don't know what you are talking about.

If you've ever said anything that would make me believe your judgement is qualified this would bother me.

Meanwhile, the same totalitarian offerings of belonging to the powerful group, having stability and security, the satisfaction of the base mammalian dominance drives...that's what made the tribe a functional unit, it's what made Mussolini attractive as well as Hitler, and it is the attraction of Trump for his followers as well. The trappings and scale change with technology, but the desires and how they are met are the same.

That's why it was so easy to go through any discussion of the tenets of fascism looking at Trump and check them off. People want fascism. Most of them look at the word and think they don't, and some of us recognize the principles even in the absence of the word and know that we don't. But is that going to affect the final outcome?

 

[Terxpahseyton]

In my humble opinion to have something approaching actual fascism you must have (para)-military groups controlled by the fascist leaders and devoted to the fascist ideal. Mussolini had the black shirts. Hitler the brown shirts. Those groups are were the crude ideas of unity and oneness fascism centers on actually are lived and from which they can be imposed on the whole of society. They are the place of realization and indoctrination.
I think it is very hard to implement that kind of thing without people seeing the fascism in it, though. I certainly see no danger for that to happen in the US.
Xenophobia, revival of nationalist sentiments etc may share some characteristics with fascism and that not by accident. But IMO there is still no sliding scale. To get from one to the other requires specific and very visible measures and doesn't happen by mere accident or natural momentum.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

In my humble opinion to have something approaching actual fascism you must have (para)-military groups controlled by the fascist leaders and devoted to the fascist ideal. Mussolini had the black shirts. Hitler the brown shirts. Those groups are were the crude ideas of unity and oneness fascism centers on actually are lived and from which they can be imposed on the whole of society. They are the place of realization and indoctrination.
I think it is very hard to implement that kind of thing without people seeing the fascism in it, though. I certainly see no danger for that to happen in the US.
Xenophobia, revival of nationalist sentiments etc may share some characteristics with fascism and that not by accident. But IMO there is still no sliding scale. To get from one to the other requires specific and very visible measures and doesn't happen by mere accident or natural momentum.

Trump has already talked about turning local police forces into auxiliary units for immigration enforcement. You think "police auxiliaries" to help "make America safe again" are all that far behind? If you think there aren't any Americans ready to step into those shirts you are sadly mistaken.

 

[warpus]

Someone like Trump can openly embrace every tenet of fascism, and as long as he doesn't accept the label plenty of people like what he "stands for."

I mean it's not like Trump would have won the election under the "Make America Fascist Again" banner. The baddies usually don't admit they are baddies until it's too late

 

[W|M]

I find it weird that people say that alt-rightists aren't Nazis when r/altright used to have Hitler in its banner, and many of its adherents praise Nazism. I'm even seeing some posts here saying that we shouldn't punch them because they're ''just'' white nationalists, not Nazis

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Trump has already talked about turning local police forces into auxiliary units for immigration enforcement.

Local police used to enforce immigration law.
???
Fascist militias

Don't see it

Weather some fringe Trump fanboys are ready to go full fascist militia doesn't really matter. There is a system in place larger than Trump which controls the monopoly of violence. Trump would have to destroy this system first before he can replace with a new fascist order of things.
That is very far out there.
America still has a very strong, functional and stable state apparatus and rule of law, all things considered. Same goes for its democratic culture. It is impossible for me to imagine a plausible scenario how Trump or his associated could even begin to fundamentally challenge that. Damage, okay. But not in an existential manner, by a long shot. And as long as they can not do that, there is no wiggle room for a fascist movement to get dangerous unless there was wide popular support for an actual fascist movement (because, as was my point, - if you actually want to go fascist, you can't hide it for too long).

 

[sophie]

1) Local police asked to enforce immigration law.
???) Local police refuses, or else local government orders local police to refuse (because taking on such duties would lead to a total breakdown of law and order in the local jurisdiction)
President orders military into city to enforce law, or else creates a paramilitary force to enforce law, or else empowers private citizens to enforce law themselves, or else suspends habeas corpus in city to ensure law is properly enforced

Et voilà: fascist militia.

It's not even beyond the scope of what Donald Trump has already done. In the leadup to the election Trump created a de facto paramilitary force of his supporters and charged them with going to polling places to ensure no instances of fraud were taking place.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I mean it's not like Trump would have won the election under the "Make America Fascist Again" banner. The baddies usually don't admit they are baddies until it's too late

That's half my point. The more important half is that some 40% of the population, to varying degrees, is actively approving the unlabeled badness. They refuse to follow "these are the tenets of fascism, these are Trump's positions, notice they are all the same" to the obvious conclusion because apparently taken one by one they like the tenets of fascism.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Local police used to enforce immigration law.
???
Fascist militias

Don't see it

Look closer. Using local police to enforce immigration law is no more legal than creating a civilian police auxiliary to do it. He is openly proposing one and meeting little resistance. In fact his core supporters rave explosively about how any local government that refuses to have their police co-opted in such a way should be removed from office, or jailed, or hanged. Do you really think that response will push him away from the other?

So this will eventually go to the courts. The courts will rule that the law must be followed. Trump, Bannon, et al, will lead their followers even deeper into the weeds of their already full bore crying for the scalps of these "left wing liberal judges that are preventing Trump from keeping us safe." Those people don't understand that judges follow the law.

Eventually we reach congress, currently run by spineless Republicans who haven't stood up to Trump yet. He points out that the people are outraged that he is being obstructed, and that since he does understand that these judges are just following the law we must have new laws to satisfy the people.

People should seriously look at things that Steve Bannon has written. They may not be collected in a nice single book form, but one day people will be saying "how could anyone have not seen this coming, he wrote it all down ahead of time" just like they say about Mein Kampf.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

Looks like somebody had woken up little late. USA has been a propagator of a global corporate fascism for some time now. At this point Trump represents a leadership moving away from that.
Also you cant have proper fascism without an ideology and so far I see non. Perhaps I should be reading some Braitbart to get the idea...

 

[FriendlyFire]

Liberalism has failed, its time to try National socialism again
Remember one mans corporate fascism is another mans libertarian free trade

Anyways I just find it amusing that you think Trump and Republicans are the answer. If anything Republicans will accelerate the process.

 

[Kyriakos]

You know, US people massively accepted the patriot act, and many still think it was just fine or not really authoritarian/police state. Now they think Trump came out of the blue, when this sort of thing has been building up since 2001 at least. Moreover Trump (whether in rhetoric or not) campaigned on the premise of disbanding those acts.
So it seems to be a rosy picture that the democrat party has been anti fascist, and the current voters of Trump are fascist, but reality is sadly a lot bleaker, and both support tenets of fascism (just focus on different issues within).
Which is the scariest thing, imo.