Service Guarantees Citizenship: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Fascism

[Cutlass]

It's not just, or even mostly, about the attacks on the media. Trump and the Republicans are hitting every aspect of a fascist movement.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

It's not just, or even mostly, about the attacks on the media. Trump and the Republicans are hitting every aspect of a fascist movement.

Fascist is as fascist does. Is this even a surprise at this point?

 

[REDY]

Trump is good in rampant sexism and obsession with natural security but in other he looks like pupil in comparison with Obama.

 

[REDY]

I have allways considered Starship troopers as an excellent satire, after all I have avatar from another Verhoeven´s movie.

 

[Camikaze]

What is the difficulty in people making assessments from a domestic standpoint?

There is no real problem with simply viewing Trump in the American context, in which he's a massive outlier, but there is evidently a difficulty in doing so when the words used have a meaning informed by global context. You cannot meaningfully label anything in American politics as 'fascist' without some recognition of that global context (which is where the term exists), and once you've moved into that global context, American exceptionalism presents analytical difficulties, or betrays a certain ignorance of the global context that is being implicitly referenced.

It's not just, or even mostly, about the attacks on the media. Trump and the Republicans are hitting every aspect of a fascist movement.

I certainly agree that the word 'fascist' can be used in relation to a lot of what Trump is doing or states that he plans to do. But my problem is with the lack of nuance that is used in applying the term. Really it's a matter of tactics. If, because Trump's general approach to the media is strongly redolent of fascism, you label every possible encroachment on press freedom as being fascist, then it becomes easy for your opponent to say, "but this is a measure that exists in western democracies X, Y & Z", which is true, and which thereby undermines the force of your attack and leaves you open to accusations of hysteria. Applying the term 'fascism' in a more nuanced and globally aware manner, doesn't leave you open to such easy rebuttals, and makes your argument stronger.

 

[NinjaCow64]

While I understand where you are coming from, Trump has a deep disrespect for western democratic traditions. Right-wing authoritarism is often conflated with fascism and I truly believe that that is what Trump is.

Besides, it makes more sense than calling Trump a Nazi. Don't get me wrong, both Trump and Nazis are abborrent, but calling Trump a Nazi is like call Stalin a Nazi. Perhaps in fifty years we will refer to Trump and his alt-right friends as "Trumpism". Yuck.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Perhaps in fifty years we will refer to Trump and his alt-right friends as "Trumpism".

It started long before election day down there.

It doesn't take long to coin -isms anymore.

 

[abradley]

KmDubya said: ↑
Personally I think if you are on welfare you should not get a vote. When you are capable of taking care of yourself then you can have a say in how things are run, till then shut up and be thankful.

.

Hmmm. I wonder what /Thomas Jefferson would say about this?

{Snip}

Thomas Jefferson wouldn't have a say ... he never served a day.