Comment by h335ian
1 year ago
So disappointed by the irrational and hyperbolic comments from my fellow nerds. Why are folks reading into this so much!? Clearly folks aren’t actually reading the content and just reacting based on a headline. Read, contemplate, compose. This really shouldn’t be an inflammatory exec order - from what I can tell this is precisely within the purview of a POTUS and precisely in line with historical exec orders. Why the cray cray reactions? Just cause Trump I guess. For shame. Be nerds. Look stuff up. Stop with the hyperbolic “fascist” “coup” business. If you disagree with strategy, fine!! But at least recognize that these ideas aren’t new - nor fascistic - they’re inherently American and we’re in the midst of an adjustment cycle where these old ideals will be expressed in new modalities that we don’t all agree with. Doesn’t make it “fascist”. Ugh. So juvenile.
Rather than gesturing generally at all of these "irrational" and "hyperbolic" comments, why not take the time to thoughtfully rebut any specific comment that you believe is engaging in irrationality and hyperbole?
I would also cool it with the dismissive tone and avoid saying things like "cray cray" before accusing anyone else of being juvenile.
Kushner said it best. "Noone goes as low as Trump." So you also get to deal with what politics looks like when it reaches its lowest, nastiest form.
Trump's a hero to the right, but on the left there's a pretty reasonable sense that Trump's actions have already amounted to literal treason if you consider him to have an obligation to uphold the oaths he has taken.
He attempted to get Zelensky to go on US TV and execute a political attack on Democrats as a condition of the US helping Ukraine.
He attempted to get the 2020 election flipped by making mafia-don style calls to Georgia asking them to "find" precisely the number of votes which would have made him win that election. He next asked Pence to change the result for him. All of these were acts of open treason against the People of the United States, so long as you count the People of the United States as including people who didn't vote for him.
To make it crystal f**ing clear: him changing the policy of the US isn't treason. Cozying up to Russia or trying to reduce the size of the government are his prerogative as elected leader in a way that trying to change the result of an election is not. Ohh yeah and I forgot that he tried to get everyone to stop counting the votes while he was ahead! That also goes in the treason most foul bucket.
> trying to reduce the size of the government are his prerogative as elected leader
No, that function is within the purview of the legislature, not the executive branch.
What's your personal threshold for gatekeeping when people are supposed to call it fascist?
Have you done your nerd research on how Nazis dismantled the democratic state? If so, at what step would you have gatekept calling it fascist?
Blanket calling worried people as "juvenile" as a dismissal is in itself pretty fucking juvenile, hope you can see that.
Progressives are using words like Nazi and fascist, purely as a slur against a political rival, without really understanding what those words mean nor the attrocities they represent.
What the Nazi's did was horrifici, and it's incredibly insensitive, inappropriate, and, yes, juvenile, to water that down by using it for political point scoring.
What’s the threshold before you can say it? Doing nazi salutes and mass deleting the public research / books / info pages isn’t far enough yet?
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Not only progressives are calling it fascism or proto-fascism, do you understand the steps fascism takes to fully take hold? Don't you see any parallels? Have you read any books on the subject?
It seems like you get butthurt from reading people calling moves very similar to fascism done by politicians you support, fascism takes many flavours, Italian fascism was different from German fascism. The way it's going the past month looks like to be shaping an American flavour of fascism.
There's no watering down, you are seeing with your own eyes a movement happening where the leader of the executive is attempting to snatch power, it never happens at once, it's always through salami slicing. What will be the breaking point for you, specifically? What signs do you expect so it can be called fascism?
You are all around this forum whining about "progressives" trying to heed a call about a dark path being traced. You never seem to acknowledge there are very worrying moves happening, for some reason you do not want to hear it, you want to shut off the discussion at every turn by using progressives as a slur, and anything said by that out-group as wrong or hysterical a priori. Can't you see how stupid it is? You are always attempting to throw a wrench into these discussions with vitriol, as a non-American I really ask you to inform and educate yourself better, to learn about the process of fascism before coming with knee-jerk reactions because you don't like "progressives".
Go read "Hitler's Beneficiaries", read any book on historical recounts of the process of fascism unravelling from the 1920s to the 1930s, you are behaving exactly as the citizens enabling Mussolini and Hitler. American Fascism will not be Nazi or Italia Fascista, it has its own shape and form (such as not being anti-semitic, completely different to Nazis) but even though the topography differs, the core principles are pretty much the same.
Don't be an enabler, you won't like to be on the wrong side of history.
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I don't call Trump's recent actions as strictly Nazi, but they are definitely Fascist.
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From Hitler's mouth itself[0]:
> "Why," I asked Hitler, "do you call yourself a National Socialist, since your party programme is the very antithesis of that commonly accredited to socialism?"
> "Socialism," he retorted, putting down his cup of tea, pugnaciously, "is the science of dealing with the common weal. Communism is not Socialism. Marxism is not Socialism. The Marxians have stolen the term and confused its meaning. I shall take Socialism away from the Socialists.
> "Socialism is an ancient Aryan, Germanic institution. Our German ancestors held certain lands in common. They cultivated the idea of the common weal. Marxism has no right to disguise itself as socialism. Socialism, unlike Marxism, does not repudiate private property. Unlike Marxism, it involves no negation of personality, and unlike Marxism, it is patriotic.
> "We might have called ourselves the Liberal Party. We chose to call ourselves the National Socialists. We are not internationalists. Our socialism is national. We demand the fulfilment of the just claims of the productive classes by the state on the basis of race solidarity. To us state and race are one."
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2007/sep/17/greatint...
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This is not hyperbolic. In one month Trump has taken full unchecked power on almost anything. In 4 years, you won’t vote, that’s a given.
Republicans were saying the exact same thing when Obama was elected.
That doesn't actually argue anything, though. One group can be wrong about something, and another group can be right about a similar thing in a different context and different time.
(For the record, I don't agree with GP, and do believe that we'll have free and fair elections in 2028.)
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I hope so!
So when 4 years pass and we’re still voting, are you going to admit you are hyperbolic and divorced from reality?
Would you be around if he does what he says ?
At what point are your personal thresholds crossed?
I dont understand personally, how any conservative could tolerate this man.
Nor any techie lose their minds when someone without a security clearance gets access to sensitive national networks.
I’ve seen more complex plans used by spies to break into state secrets.
Yet, people are surprisingly chill.
So perhaps I am wrong. And perhaps there are other signs I should be looking for.
At what point should I or anyone say “major redlines have been crossed.”
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Sure. As long as:
- there are non Republican candidates to vote for
- the right to vote hasn't been crippled somehow
- elections are fair
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I'm saving a link to your comment along with a reminder to check back in 2028.
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