Comment by throw10920
16 days ago
> fascism and fascist ideologies
This is political dog-whistling. As Orwell pointed out almost eight decades ago: "The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable’."[1] and is now obviously only a dog-whistle for fellow ideologues. This does not belong on HN.
[1] https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...
I agree the term is vague. But what then would you have us call it? The whole, constitutional crisis, outright flouting of the rule of law, suspension of due process/disappearing of political enemies in the streets type thing that is verifiably happening right now. Are you requesting that the word fascism be banned from HN? Have you seen the videos of legal college students being shoved into unmarked vans by unmarked and masked officers of the law? What do you call that? The talk of a third term?
I'd love to say, "he's just blustering", it's what my father said but he's enacted just about every thing he said. Should he begin speaking about a third term i don't think we have the luxury to ignore that anymore. To annex our nearby "allies" who've now become a united front opposing any economic relationship. What is that called? What would you have us say?
>But what then would you have us call it?
Most people say "fascist" when at most they mean "authoritarian". But maybe the latter's not scary enough for the boogeyman you want to evoke. Sometimes they say it when they should say demagoguery (which is, in my opinion, more than alarming enough of a word in ways that I can forgive people for feeling "populist" isn't). Quite often though, people merely mean "distasteful", but since tastes vary quite a bit, this might not alarm anyone at all.
>suspension of due process/disappearing of political enemies
You mean that when they send people back to their home countries because they're no longer welcome here?
>The talk of a third term?
From a man so old and in such ill health it seems quite likely he won't survive his second term? Mostly he's just trying to get a rise out of you. I don't like bullies, but when they do the "made you flinch" thing, part of me wants to smirk. Couldn't you just this once not flinch?
>To annex our nearby "allies"
He did it in the most asshole way possible, but offering them a proportionate number of votes in our Senate is hardly the insult they make it out to be. Especially when they're all dragged along by our policy already and just have no say in it whatsoever. "We want you to join the richest and most powerful nation on Earth and the benefits are truly too long to list" shouldn't send them running away screaming in terror.
>You mean that when they send people back to their home countries because they're no longer welcome here?
> I don't like bullies, but when they do the "made you flinch" thing, part of me wants to smirk.
You like bullies, actually - you just don't like thinking you like bullies.
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> You mean that when they send people back to their home countries because they're no longer welcome here?
Illegally, without due process. That's why a federal judge has been ruling against them on this. They also lied that everyone deported was part of a Venezuelan gang (or at least that they had proper grounds for thinking so, thus the importance of due process), and they lied that it was some kind of invasion.
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> I agree the term is vague. But what then would you have us call it?
That right there is an admission that you're just using the term as a generic "person bad" term, which is bad in itself. It's evil to intentionally conflate and manipulate language to serve political goals. You would object to taking a person that's known to be a Nazi and calling them autistic, or vice-versa. That you are not objecting here is malicious.
You can't call Trump a fascist, he has yet to have the trains run on time.
Why not give it a new name? We could do so with Marxism, Leninism, Maoism, etc. There is no reason we have to stop giving these phenomena a new name. You can always talk about the similarities, but if you mix it carelessly you'll lose the differences.
Even if you think it’s a dog whistle, Facism does mean something and it’s rather more accurate to use it now than say, 30 years ago.
No, it does not mean anything. Different people from the same side of the political spectrum define it differently, let alone different parts of the spectrum. If you don't define it before using it, it's a dog-whistle, full stop.
I've heard this dismissal a good bit often ("that's just a nothing word that means 'bad thing I don't like' ") but that's really just not true.
It has been consistently defined through the decades, especially during the 20th century. Here's one common example you can find from the 1983 American Heritage Dictionary and it sounds pretty familiar:
"A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."
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One could do worse than using Eco's Ur-Fascism[1] as the starting point. The man had personal experience and he could write (oh how he could write.) However, I'd expect that some would dismiss him as an inveterate lefty (he wasn't), so we're back on square one.
[1] https://archive.org/details/umberto-eco-ur-fascism/umberto-e...
Dog whistle for what? Please define what it is a dog whistle for. Maybe in that context you'll find the common definition understood by people using it
Speaking of words having meanings, what exactly do you mean by dog-whistle here? I understand dog-whistle to mean coded language for a different concept.
The word is starting to be used by the left in the same way the right uses "woke": It's become watered down and an over-used way to simply say "anything my side doesn't like".
- Climate change is real: "woke"
- Firing people in government: "fascist"
- Compassion and fairness: "woke"
- Cruelty toward political enemies: "fascist"
- Expertise-driven and reason-driven policies: "woke"
- Stacking government positions with loyal cronies: "fascist"
- Rights for women, minorities, gay people, and so on: "woke"
- Handouts to corporations: "fascist"
They've become vague words that mean the same thing: "Politics I don't like"
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In the academic community the term still has a useful meaning and is often used appropriately in those circles.
But you could substitute neoreactionary in GP and it would still be referring to real bloggers that are treated as if they're making legitimate and justifiable arguments.
It's a serious concern, I think it's good to criticize this tendency.
This is the opposite of a dog whistle it's entirely explicit. There are people being thrown into vans for speech right now. There are law firms that are negotiating to lift bills of attainder for their prior political litigation. They are _literally_ throwing people in El Salvadorean prisons without due process, including people that were in this country legally.
You do not have to look very far to find prominent voices on the right who are apologetically anti-democracy.
Or even unapologetically.
if what you mean by anti-democracy, is government oppression, then the left and right both use this equally.
there is only one continuum: liberty from government oppression, or lack thereof.
I hope you don't seriously consider the oligopoly of two parties and small circle of connected elites, dependent on financial backing from ultra high net worth oligarchs, corporations, special lobbying groups - a democracy. This is not democracy, it is plutocracy (the power of capital/rich)
There is bad, and there is worse, far worse.
And, it's a kleptocracy, more and more, for a very long time now.
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Eh, I really do call BS on that.
Umberto Eco's 14 tenants of fascism still stands strong and is highly visible in modern discourse.
*tenets