Thread of What Is Fascism And Is Donald Trump A Fascist

List a = listens. I can't wait til I have a place to live again and I don't have to type stuff on a phone in the pub.

(I remember that lots of fascist ideologues rejected the idea of a statement of values, or a party programme, of a manifesto. But it's been a while since I sturdier that, and now it's just a vague assertion on my part)

@maggieNYT
"Everntually, it's not going to survive, just so you understand," Trump says of the United States.

Don otm

Yeah, cool, so let's elect President Kevorkian.

http://thebaffler.com/salvos/pity-o-god-republican-faludi

Jesus, I had no idea what's been going on in Hungary. The fuck is happening to this world

@BruceBartlett
In 1999 Trump said of his now strong supporter Pat Buchanan, he "has enjoyed a long psychic friendship with Hitler."

http://articles.latimes.com/1999/oct/31/opinion/op-28208

Faludi article of special interest to me as a Jew married to a Hungarian, things over there are definitely sad-making. Have always talked about taking our kids to visit but man, not any time soon it sounds like.

shakey did i ever tell u about my friend i went to yeshiva w/ whose grandfather was a hungarian language poet and one of the 1,700 jews that kastner arranged w/ the nazis to escape the country? if you haven't already read it, there's a v provocative book on the topic that iirc is super readable (and is about hannah senesh as well), you might want to check out called Perfidy by Ben Hecht. it used to be impossible to find (after a couple years of looking i finally located a copy in the crown heights tzivos hashem bookstore lol) but now it looks like amazon has a bunch of copies including for the kindle.

oh, great. the austrian courts have decided to give the fascists another shot at the presidency.

i have no idea why i bother sobering up.

sounds interesting mordy! will see if the library has it

x-post

'cause the mainstream Austrian parties are fucking clowns too busy tripping over themselves to prove their hatred for foreigners and doing favors for their friends at the tabloids to run an election properly. The Austrian Court decision was good, what could come out of it is very, very bad indeed -- and rightwing English-speaking ratfuckers are already at work convincing the Angry Fascist Voter that the court decision was based on widespread fraud, which is simply a lie -- the court was clear that absolutely no evidence of voting fraud was presented, even by the FPÖ who brought the case.

the mainstream Austrian parties are fucking clowns too busy tripping over themselves to prove their hatred for foreigners and doing favors for their friends at the tabloids to run an election properly.

Sounds familiar.

Yup.

Is there some better dictator to use as an analogue for Trump than Hitler? I have a feeling there is but my historical knowledge of dictators is limited in depth.

Successful dictators are more competent than Trump. But I have to say his proclaiming "I am your voice" was a particularly fascist way to phrase that sentiment.

Trumpolini
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TPM had suggested Mussolini back during the early primaries. It was pretty well argued imo: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/know-your-fascists-dictators

Also it was a Mussolini quotes account that Gawker successfully got Trump to RT.

Yeah, I mean he seems a little too bumbling and lacking in a coherent plan to be a Hitler. He operates by instinct.

not sure there is someone who trump imitates exactly but a lot of his corporatist gov't talk kind of reminds me of italian fascist corporatism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism#Fascist_corporatism

Mussolini is the closest analogue

Similar stupid macho peacockery.

how bad do we think this is going to be? (if he wins -- which he could)

today i argued with someone that he was qualitatively different than bush because he draws rhetoric and talking points from the conspiratorial far right. other times i think his presidency would mostly seem like a joke. there are already too many deportations under obama and it's not clear how much trump would be able to accelerate that program. maybe all that will happen is that the republican party will try to implement some version of his trade platform, but watered down to an extent that it wouldn't be so bad. maybe he will instinctually stay out of war because it wouldn't put "america first." and maybe elon musk will discover an elixir of immortality, allowing the supreme court to remain unchanged.

like i can imagine him as president but i can't really imagine how he would govern. like, with the crime shit he kept bringing up last night, what could he do about that as president? what would a "law and order" presidency look like in america? does he even aspire to do anything or is this just for attention? (the interview with his ghostwriter seemed to indicate "attention" is the only thing he truly craves)

you should go hang out with hoos for a while

No, Treeship, if he wins, then the debt rating of the USA would immediately drop, the value of the dollar would plunge, we would have to find a way to immediately re-assure our treaty partners, our trade agreements would be in question, and every other aspiring superpower would start encroaching in whichever direction they felt like. The day after his election would make Brexit look like a dinkleberry. And instead of having two years to figure out how to deal before it really takes effect, the world would have two and half months. It would be a disaster for global stability. His inauguration could quite conceivably take place while a war is breaking out and a depression is settling in.

^ realistic assessment.

It honestly has nothing to do with what he actually does or what Congress tries to do around him. It has everything to do with the fact that he is a known liar and promise breaker who does not understand or believe in any of our institutions and cannot be relied upon by other states to heed promises that our country has made, like paying bills on time, or sending aid when allies are threatened.

Also him getting elected would be a terrifying endorsement/validation/legitimation of a number of loathsome and terrifying views, which will likely have very serious material consequences even if he were unable to get any legislation passed or enact anything from the Oval Office.

it seems like his presidency would immediately consist of a bunch of legal battles about his insane executive orders, followed by his terrifying threats to somehow work around the judicial system

The real question is, does our system of government have enough checks and balances in place in order to prevent him from doing anything really catastrophic? Hell they've been able to prevent Obama from accomplishing a whole lot and his ideas were downright reasonable.

(of course, a Trump presidency is terrible in a million other ways, and Tomboto's claim that the debt rating would drop is almost certainly true, which would be a disaster)

If anything could stir bipartisanship in congress, it would be uniting to impeach Trump over something he does (take your pick!) within his first 9 months in office.

on day 1 trump will sign an executive order demanding that the credit rating increase

xp to me = Ted Cruz and his goons would lead the charge, and every person with a (D) behind their name would sign on.

Like for me the biggest disconnect is that the POTUS may be the most criticized person on the planet (whoever it is) and there are hundreds of examples of Trump being unable to take any criticism whatsoever

He's Putin with ridiculous hair.

Ted Cruz doesn't really have goons, but I can see Paul Ryan taking that role.

ted cruz is his own goon

Goos thoughts tombot. Makes sense that Putin would try to undermine the democrats via hacking/wikileaks

tom otm basically which i think will become clearer and become a lot of hill strategy as we go into the fall

For the sort of voter who finds Trump palatable, the idea of our debt rating being downgraded would be so remote from their concerns that Trump could simply flip it and make it a point of pride that the USA is the best and most powerful country in the world and can thumb its nose at debt ratings. Kind of like with Brexit voters.

idk, some voters are probably just voting for him bc he is a republican.

i talk to people who don't recognize trump's uniqueness

people who don't recognize Trump's uniqueness are not going to recognize the importance of debt ratings either

I'm still blown away by the absolute ignorance required to vote Trump. Either you'd really have to have no idea how the world, let alone America, works, or you'd have to completely not care, and with every interview of a Trump voter I hear, it sounds like a scary combination of these two things. Factor in Trump's near complete lack of details to date - he'll make America great/strong/rich though sheer force of will, it seems - and it's like watching people ride the world's biggest escalator to nowhere.
https://mollylauterbach.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/ic6gn6e0tapnh.gif

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-nato-we-have-to-walk

Is this shit for real? Was he actually referring specifically to NATO when he said they don't pay us enough?

he wants to run the US military like the mafia. we will protect their allies..... if they pay up

wtf is he even talking about?

oh, i guess this stuff: http://www.wsj.com/articles/nato-calls-for-rise-in-defence-spending-by-alliance-members-1434978193