Comment by renewiltord
2 days ago
It's true. This kind of authoritarian state violence is pretty reminiscent of fascism. Especially what looks like a gangland execution of a man who could only ever be described as exercising his 2A rights by carrying a firearm undrawn legally under his CCW. However, the list of things that have been called fascism are so long that I have to admit that my eyes initially glazed over the headline because many things have been described as fascism.
The US was supposedly ruled by a fascist in 2018: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/11/books/review/jason-stanle...
There was also supposedly fascism coming in 2016: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/this-is-how-fascism-comes...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09626...
And yet we had elections in 2020. So whatever, it was clearly not authoritarian fascism because we had free elections that the authoritarian fascist was ousted in. So what I think I experienced there was semantic satiation with the word fascism.
EDIT: To clarify position vis a vis reply, I am simply saying that I have heard the word 'fascism' so much I don't really react with any sense when someone says it. It's like hearing 'rape' or 'spying' on Hacker News. I assume it means "I was shown a banner ad for toothpaste after searching for toothpaste". In other contexts those words have negative valence of great significance. In this context, I just glaze over.
Likewise, the word 'fascism' from a left-leaning outlet could be anything from the end of medicare subsidies to a drone strike on an Islamic fundamentalist general to charging fares on a train.
Just sharing how I feel about it. It does not have that emotional strength that it originally felt.
A careful reader will notice that both of those warnings are about the same person. The same person who tried to illegally and violently overturn that 2020 election result. Maybe they weren't crying wolf after all?
Found another one of them...
2015: You're overreacting!
2016: You're overreacting!
2017: You're overreacting!
2018: You're overreacting!
2019: You're overreacting!
2020: You're overreacting!
2021: You're overreacting!
2022: You're overreacting!
2023: You're overreacting!
2024: You're overreacting!
2025: How could we possibly have known things would have gone this way?!
HN in a nutshell. Everyone wants to look measured and above it all. I feel like I've seen more posts about Dan Kahan's cultural cognition than about the actual killings themselves
you're saying that because as recently as 10 years ago, some people were warning about fascism taking hold in the United States, and even though they turned out to be right, they should have held off using that word until we reached this moment, where no sensible person would argue.
It's amazing that so many "leaders" (esp. in tech) seemed to not worry about or even tacitly/openly supported the Trump admin, when so many other folks could clearly see the disaster looming on the horizon.
And it isn't even like it was different people. Donald Trump has been the protagonist of the GOP for ten years. The people who were saying "this is creeping fascism" were saying it about the same guy who is doing it now.