Comment by kolektiv
18 hours ago
Also wild that they're willing to just put "Anti-Fascist" in there as the enemy - if you're anti-anti-fascist, that's kind of hiding in plain sight, as if they weren't already. Simply staggering to think that in such a short space of time a country can head off the rails quite so much, but it should be instructional - whenever you look at history, the collapse often happens slowly - and then all at once...
"Anti-Fascism" is not an objective terminology to describe a stance against fascism. There are a million ways in which you can oppose fascism, most of which follow democratic traditions of the social, classical liberal, or conservative flavor.
Antifascism is a self-designation of popcultural dimensions, similar to a Che Guevara shirt. It can be appropriated by anybody who's willing to sign off on the same vague image of an enemy. I have no idea if there are, indeed, terroristic cells in the US that appropriated the brand of Antifascism, but there are some in Germany[0][1].
But more interestingly, the brand hasn't always been free of ownership: it was first created by the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in 1932 as a part of their internal and external stalinisation and their adoption of authoritarian structures and policies, which started from 1928 under the influence of the USSR. During that time, KPD proclaimed the main fascist adversary to be no other than the Social Democrats (SPD):
"Stalinisation of the KPD began under the leadership of Ernst Thälmann. Freedom of discussion and internal democracy were replaced piece by piece by (...) authoritarian leadership. (...) in 1929 Thälmann and Stalin agreed upon an ultra-left course against the SPD, concluding that the Social Democrats represented a form of 'social fascism'. (...) The theory of social fascism dictated that Nazis and Social Democrats were essentially two sides of the same coin. The primary enemy of the Communists was supposedly the Social Democrats" [2]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dresden_left-wing_extremism_tr...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Complex
[2] https://isj.org.uk/divided-they-fell-the-german-left-and-the...
Yes, and in this case it's because idiots decided anyone they disagreed with was a fascist, and hey, guess what? It's fine to hit a fascist with a wrench, so let's do it.
The degradation of real terms such as "fascist", "racist", "misogynist", or even "rape" means, as predicted, that no one trusts the use of them any more. They only work with the full force that they should carry if they are used correctly.
I fail to see how the term is being misused when applied to the current administration.