You just haven't been convinced by the argument, but let's be honest here, you weren't ever going to be convinced by any argument.
Sure I could be convinced by a good argument. I can be as stubborn as the next guy but I try to keep an open mind about stuff like this. Your argument was bad. Basically the logic would mean almost everyone is fascist.
That said, plenty of people joined or supported the Nazi Party because of the very real failure of the Weimar institutions to deliver anything for them. Here's the thing: while on one level I believe that it's only by solving these "legitimate grievances" that we ultimately put a stop to fascism as a politcal force, the fact that there are legitimate grievances is completely irrelevant to the immediate problem presented by the emergence of fascism in the Republican Party. The fascists need to be stopped, not "understood" or catered to. Nazi Germany needed to surrender uncondtiionally: similarly what needs to be accomplished today is the utter destruction of the Republican Party in its current form. If the Republicans want to be a parliamentary party that competes for a majority coalition within a liberal democracy, that's fine, but that is not the Republican Party that exists today. The Republican Party as its exists today is the largest obstacle standing in the way of the reforms that need to be made to prevent the emergence of fascism (unfortunately the second-largest obstacle is the Democratic Party).
I like the bold part, even if you mostly undermined after. Ideas of fascism do need to be defeated, I agree with that.
There is additionally a huge empirical problem with this "they're only fascists because they're SUFFERING" line, which is that there are a number of populations in this country who are suffering far more than anyone who voted for Trump and they overwhelmingly vote Democrat. Poor black people overwhelmingly vote Democrat. Poor immigrants overwhelmingly vote Democrat. Hell, the average income of Trump's voters was higher than the average income of Hillary's voters. And the demographic makeup of Trump's coalition was not "struggling people," it was "white people."
Yeah it's not suffering alone, of course. But, given a certain number of specific conditions surrounding the suffering, you get fascism. The broader point is that extreme situations produce extreme reactions. Some people fight, and some people flight, but the reason they are doing anything is the suffering. Regarding the demographics, yes, more white than it is suffering. But the point is, with Trump, he got much more of the struggling vote than past republicans which you can point to as a major reason he won.
This elevation of the suffering of white people to some greater importance than the suffering of other groups who nonetheless voted for the "status quo candidate" in Hillary Clinton is yet another example of how this country systematically treats the perspectives of white people as more important than the perspectives of non-white people. The reason so many whites voted for Trump is because of simple racism but it's also the product of different expectations. People in this country who have been victimized by racism their whole lives have much lower expectations than the group that has been dominant. White people tend to internalize meritocratic and just-world narratives to a much greater degree than non-whites, and this obviously has a psychological effect because the world is not just and we do not live in a meritocratic society.
I think boiling down to racism is a weak answer. Yeah, people are racist, always have been. Why did so many Obama voters vote for Trump? Racism doesn't answer that question, not in a satisfactory way.
I didn't make it clear, but I was mainly referring to the millions of people who simply voted for the Nazis without joining them. Would we call them Nazis too? Would referring to them as "Nazis" in passing draw all this handwringing about how I need to see people as individuals and they have legitimate complaints? Permit me to doubt it.
I wouldn't have a huge problem if you called someone who voted for the republican party a republican, but maybe strictly speaking it isn't necessarily true. I don't really think that is the point. In my mind the Nazi party was clearly fascist in the policies and principles they supported, so calling members of the party fascists is completely legit. I disagree with your assessment of the republican party as fascist and so I disagree with you calling all republicans fascists.
The individuals point is more about caring for people, and in that respect it would extend to actual Nazis. The methods might be different, and certain ideas there must be defeated, but I think the whole loving your enemies idea does extend to them. I want to see them change, to care about the people they hate, and to have their own struggles and problems solved.
Random thought here, have you seen "White Right: Meeting the Enemy" by Deeyah Khan? It's absolutely fascinating. If you haven't I would really recommend checking it out.
