I can't think of anything trump has done in this term which is that authoritarian. Maybe that's just the "tan suit" syndrome where the media reports on every little thing it drowns out the big picture, but nothing really comes to mind for me.
I'd consider discharging an entire minority group from the military on the basis of their identity to be pretty damn fascist. Also the whole y'know, threatening to invade and annex Canada thing.
How does it match the definition of facism? From what I know fascism has components like having the collective prime over the individual, and cult of personality, that Trump's administration does not have.
(Before you think I'm a Trump supporter/fascist, I'm not even American, and my great-grandparents fought Nazis)
> and cult of personality, that Trump's administration does not have.
What? It clearly has a cult of personality, MAGA people are absolutely in a cult.
GOP politicians can't go against Trump at any point, even in the most ridiculous of cases, in fear of losing their seat since Trump can activate his cult of personality against any GOP figure.
The absolute definition of Fascism is only reached at the end of the process, fascist tendencies are pretty clear right now: attacking the free press, persecution of minorities, rejection of modernism, anti-intellectualism, appeal to a frustrated middle class, machismo, selective populism, I'd invite you to just read the 14 points of Ur-Fascism and come back to me saying that the Trump admin is not matching most points: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ur-Fascism
Perhaps you need a primer on how it is to be inside the spiral into Fascism:
> Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don’t want to act, or even talk alone; you don’t want to “go out of your way to make trouble.” Why not?—Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty.
> Uncertainty is a very important factor, and, instead of decreasing as time goes on, it grows. Outside, in the streets, in the general community, “everyone” is happy. One hears no protest, and certainly sees none. You speak privately to your colleagues, some of whom certainly feel as you do; but what do they say? They say, “It’s not so bad” or “You’re seeing things” or “You’re an alarmist.”
> And you are an alarmist. You are saying that this must lead to this, and you can’t prove it. These are the beginnings, yes; but how do you know for sure when you don’t know the end, and how do you know, or even surmise, the end? On the one hand, your enemies, the law, the regime, the Party, intimidate you. On the other, your colleagues pooh-pooh you as pessimistic or even neurotic. You are left with your close friends, who are, naturally, people who have always thought as you have.
> But your friends are fewer now. Some have drifted off somewhere or submerged themselves in their work. You no longer see as many as you did at meetings or gatherings. Now, in small gatherings of your oldest friends, you feel that you are talking to yourselves, that you are isolated from the reality of things. This weakens your confidence still further and serves as a further deterrent to—to what? It is clearer all the time that, if you are going to do anything, you must make an occasion to do it, and then are obviously a troublemaker. So you wait, and you wait.
> But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds of thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions, would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the “German Firm” stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all of the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.
> And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying “Jewish swine,” collapses it all at once, and you see that everything has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.
> Suddenly it all comes down, all at once. You see what you are, what you have done, or, more accurately, what you haven’t done (for that was all that was required of most of us: that we do nothing). You remember those early morning meetings of your department when, if one had stood, others would have stood, perhaps, but no one stood. A small matter, a matter of hiring this man or that, and you hired this one rather than that. You remember everything now, and your heart breaks. Too late. You are compromised beyond repair.
Please elaborate. From what I know fascism has components like having the collective prime over the individual, and cult of personality, that Trump's administration does not have.
(Before you think I'm a Trump supporter/fascist, I'm not even American, and my great-grandparents fought Nazis)
Unfortunately the kind of people who support Trump aren't smart and only see adjectives as either complementary or as a pejorative. They don't care about what the words actually mean. See: "woke".
Centralized power, promises of historical greatness (literally in the campaign slogan), ostracization of the other. He speaks like a dictator, makes extra-legal threats to his domestic enemies and has surrounded himself with people who have repeatedly made strong endorsements for white nationalism.
I think you know this, it's just that you probably want all those things because, ding ding, you're a fascist.
Concentration camps in El Salvador, with extrajudicial extradition and no due process?
Or, less dramatic, a drive for national autarky. A very much dirigiste economy. (Cf. massive tariffs). A drive towards a one-party state without a rule of law - explicitly punishing people with dissenting viewpoints to the point of economic exclusion. (Columbia. Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Garrison & Wharton. Jenner & Block).
Let's use Wikipedia's definition, sure? "far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy."
>>forcible suppression of opposition
There's the revocation of citizenship, the deporting people to foreign jails without full due process, crackdowns on protestors generally, opposition to trans existence. Do you want links to where this has happened or can we agree these are actions and policy the state has taken recently?
>>subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation
"We need an economic reset, so don't worry about the inflation", DOGE cutting services, tariffs as a means to...whatever the fuck the tariffs are supposed to fix?
I think it is pretty obvious that trump doesn't have any real political ambitions besides being popular and powerful, and seeking personal retribution against those who tarnish his reputation. In fact, he increasingly just seems like a tired old man fulfilling his political obligations he made in his last campaign. Even when he was running, he would pretty much cosy up to any political group that held him in high regard. He has always been a sleazy businessman who takes advantage of his brand name — not much has changed.
The idea that trump cares about "fascism", or is even capable of holding such high-minded political beliefs is some hysterical leftist nonsense. Trump is the type of politician that would support any topic "X" as long as you campaigned on the basis of "X is cool and trump is also cool". In our timeline X was cryptocurrency, antivax, Qanon, charlottesville protesters, etc. but it could have just as easily been environmentalists, gay rights activists, BLM, etc.
When most people talk about facism, they are referring to a regime like those under hitler or mussolini. I am pretty sure hitler and mussolini had actual political goals they cared about. There will never be a "night of the long knives" because there is nothing that trump even wants that's worth backstabbing his allies over. To use the word fascist is ridiculous, because he is just acting as a ouija board for his dopey supporters.
I hope you're right, because his dopey supporters have destroyed any balances or opposition to him other than the courts (which he is also busy attacking and undermining).
Non-hysterical people aren't concerned that there's a night of the long knives imminent, but are concerned that there now could be. It's the breakdown of the rule of law - if he won't punish legitimate law breaking, provides pardons to people that support him, uses the government and justice department to go after people who don't agree with him...what will stop him if he decides to, short of popular uprising? And let's be clear, that's civil war/domestic terrorism territory.
The word "fascist" still applies as a descriptive term, even if Trump doesn't identify with or intentionally pursue it.
I mostly agree with your characterization of him, but those tendencies of sleazy egoism naturally lead to authoritarian policies. When your ego must be stroked and your word must be last, you naturally fight against important democratic safeguards that would restrain you, like apolotical bureaucracies and separation of powers, both of which we're seeing play out literally right now. Trump is defying Congress's sole authority of appropriating government funds, and has strongly signaled intent to defy court orders (and only hasn't technically defied them yet because decisions are still pending). DOGE is a thin excuse to purge federal agencies and fill them with partisan yes-men (or simply destroy them altogether and give Trump full control).
Despite Trump's personal politics, it's obvious that those in his orbit (including several cabinet appointees and his VP) do have intentionally fascist ideals and goals. Whether Trump personally cares or not is a distinction without a difference. He may not care about pursuing a "night of long knives", but many who have influence in his administration do, and Trump probably won't care to stop them, especially if it makes him seem like a strong, no-nonsense leader.
Fascism is coming to America and Donald Trump is the one commanding the cult of personality that is making it happen. That alone is worthy of criticism. It should be concerning to anyone who opposes fascism, regardless of who exactly is to blame or how exactly it is being done. Arguments like yours are mostly a distraction.
When are people allowed to call this administration fascist? What's the exact line they have to cross for you to stop gatekeeping it?
I can't think of anything trump has done in this term which is that authoritarian. Maybe that's just the "tan suit" syndrome where the media reports on every little thing it drowns out the big picture, but nothing really comes to mind for me.
I'd consider discharging an entire minority group from the military on the basis of their identity to be pretty damn fascist. Also the whole y'know, threatening to invade and annex Canada thing.
Attacking the free press isn't anything authoritarian?
How does it match the definition of facism? From what I know fascism has components like having the collective prime over the individual, and cult of personality, that Trump's administration does not have. (Before you think I'm a Trump supporter/fascist, I'm not even American, and my great-grandparents fought Nazis)
> and cult of personality, that Trump's administration does not have.
What? It clearly has a cult of personality, MAGA people are absolutely in a cult.
GOP politicians can't go against Trump at any point, even in the most ridiculous of cases, in fear of losing their seat since Trump can activate his cult of personality against any GOP figure.
The absolute definition of Fascism is only reached at the end of the process, fascist tendencies are pretty clear right now: attacking the free press, persecution of minorities, rejection of modernism, anti-intellectualism, appeal to a frustrated middle class, machismo, selective populism, I'd invite you to just read the 14 points of Ur-Fascism and come back to me saying that the Trump admin is not matching most points: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ur-Fascism
Perhaps you need a primer on how it is to be inside the spiral into Fascism:
> Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don’t want to act, or even talk alone; you don’t want to “go out of your way to make trouble.” Why not?—Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty.
> Uncertainty is a very important factor, and, instead of decreasing as time goes on, it grows. Outside, in the streets, in the general community, “everyone” is happy. One hears no protest, and certainly sees none. You speak privately to your colleagues, some of whom certainly feel as you do; but what do they say? They say, “It’s not so bad” or “You’re seeing things” or “You’re an alarmist.”
> And you are an alarmist. You are saying that this must lead to this, and you can’t prove it. These are the beginnings, yes; but how do you know for sure when you don’t know the end, and how do you know, or even surmise, the end? On the one hand, your enemies, the law, the regime, the Party, intimidate you. On the other, your colleagues pooh-pooh you as pessimistic or even neurotic. You are left with your close friends, who are, naturally, people who have always thought as you have.
> But your friends are fewer now. Some have drifted off somewhere or submerged themselves in their work. You no longer see as many as you did at meetings or gatherings. Now, in small gatherings of your oldest friends, you feel that you are talking to yourselves, that you are isolated from the reality of things. This weakens your confidence still further and serves as a further deterrent to—to what? It is clearer all the time that, if you are going to do anything, you must make an occasion to do it, and then are obviously a troublemaker. So you wait, and you wait.
> But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds of thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions, would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the “German Firm” stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all of the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.
> And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying “Jewish swine,” collapses it all at once, and you see that everything has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.
> Suddenly it all comes down, all at once. You see what you are, what you have done, or, more accurately, what you haven’t done (for that was all that was required of most of us: that we do nothing). You remember those early morning meetings of your department when, if one had stood, others would have stood, perhaps, but no one stood. A small matter, a matter of hiring this man or that, and you hired this one rather than that. You remember everything now, and your heart breaks. Too late. You are compromised beyond repair.
It's not an insult any more than "rapist" or "fraudster" is. These have all factual definitions, and Trump meets all of them.
Please elaborate. From what I know fascism has components like having the collective prime over the individual, and cult of personality, that Trump's administration does not have. (Before you think I'm a Trump supporter/fascist, I'm not even American, and my great-grandparents fought Nazis)
You don't think Trump commands a cult of personality? I don't know where to begin with that.
HN is simply deranged about Trump and now Elon, and want to slap Fascism on everything.
Unfortunately the kind of people who support Trump aren't smart and only see adjectives as either complementary or as a pejorative. They don't care about what the words actually mean. See: "woke".
[flagged]
Centralized power, promises of historical greatness (literally in the campaign slogan), ostracization of the other. He speaks like a dictator, makes extra-legal threats to his domestic enemies and has surrounded himself with people who have repeatedly made strong endorsements for white nationalism.
I think you know this, it's just that you probably want all those things because, ding ding, you're a fascist.
16 replies →
Concentration camps in El Salvador, with extrajudicial extradition and no due process?
Or, less dramatic, a drive for national autarky. A very much dirigiste economy. (Cf. massive tariffs). A drive towards a one-party state without a rule of law - explicitly punishing people with dissenting viewpoints to the point of economic exclusion. (Columbia. Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Garrison & Wharton. Jenner & Block).
Let's call a spade a spade, shall we?
3 replies →
Let's use Wikipedia's definition, sure? "far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy."
>>forcible suppression of opposition
There's the revocation of citizenship, the deporting people to foreign jails without full due process, crackdowns on protestors generally, opposition to trans existence. Do you want links to where this has happened or can we agree these are actions and policy the state has taken recently?
>>subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation
"We need an economic reset, so don't worry about the inflation", DOGE cutting services, tariffs as a means to...whatever the fuck the tariffs are supposed to fix?
6 replies →
Start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_and_fascism
People need to look at the totality of his actions and policy. It is about character rather than litigating a particular argument.
6 replies →
Just go down this list:
https://www.keene.edu/academics/cchgs/resources/presentation...
I think it is pretty obvious that trump doesn't have any real political ambitions besides being popular and powerful, and seeking personal retribution against those who tarnish his reputation. In fact, he increasingly just seems like a tired old man fulfilling his political obligations he made in his last campaign. Even when he was running, he would pretty much cosy up to any political group that held him in high regard. He has always been a sleazy businessman who takes advantage of his brand name — not much has changed.
The idea that trump cares about "fascism", or is even capable of holding such high-minded political beliefs is some hysterical leftist nonsense. Trump is the type of politician that would support any topic "X" as long as you campaigned on the basis of "X is cool and trump is also cool". In our timeline X was cryptocurrency, antivax, Qanon, charlottesville protesters, etc. but it could have just as easily been environmentalists, gay rights activists, BLM, etc.
When most people talk about facism, they are referring to a regime like those under hitler or mussolini. I am pretty sure hitler and mussolini had actual political goals they cared about. There will never be a "night of the long knives" because there is nothing that trump even wants that's worth backstabbing his allies over. To use the word fascist is ridiculous, because he is just acting as a ouija board for his dopey supporters.
I hope you're right, because his dopey supporters have destroyed any balances or opposition to him other than the courts (which he is also busy attacking and undermining).
Non-hysterical people aren't concerned that there's a night of the long knives imminent, but are concerned that there now could be. It's the breakdown of the rule of law - if he won't punish legitimate law breaking, provides pardons to people that support him, uses the government and justice department to go after people who don't agree with him...what will stop him if he decides to, short of popular uprising? And let's be clear, that's civil war/domestic terrorism territory.
The word "fascist" still applies as a descriptive term, even if Trump doesn't identify with or intentionally pursue it.
I mostly agree with your characterization of him, but those tendencies of sleazy egoism naturally lead to authoritarian policies. When your ego must be stroked and your word must be last, you naturally fight against important democratic safeguards that would restrain you, like apolotical bureaucracies and separation of powers, both of which we're seeing play out literally right now. Trump is defying Congress's sole authority of appropriating government funds, and has strongly signaled intent to defy court orders (and only hasn't technically defied them yet because decisions are still pending). DOGE is a thin excuse to purge federal agencies and fill them with partisan yes-men (or simply destroy them altogether and give Trump full control).
Despite Trump's personal politics, it's obvious that those in his orbit (including several cabinet appointees and his VP) do have intentionally fascist ideals and goals. Whether Trump personally cares or not is a distinction without a difference. He may not care about pursuing a "night of long knives", but many who have influence in his administration do, and Trump probably won't care to stop them, especially if it makes him seem like a strong, no-nonsense leader.
Fascism is coming to America and Donald Trump is the one commanding the cult of personality that is making it happen. That alone is worthy of criticism. It should be concerning to anyone who opposes fascism, regardless of who exactly is to blame or how exactly it is being done. Arguments like yours are mostly a distraction.
1 reply →