Thread of What Is Fascism And Is Donald Trump A Fascist

http://harpers.org/archive/1941/08/who-goes-nazi/

this comment of mine has aged "well"

TLDR: he's a fascist

― wizzz! (amateurist), Tuesday, June 14, 2016 9:02 PM (seven months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Corey Robin:

Before I wrote my book on conservatism, I was a student of the politics of fear. My first book, which was based on more than a decade of research, was an analysis of how political theorists since Hobbes have understood the politics of fear. In the second part of the book, I offered my own counter-analysis of the politics of fear in the United States. Fear, American Style, I called it.

Here’s what I learned about it: the worst, most terrible things that the United States has done have almost never happened through an assault on American institutions; they’ve always happened through American institutions and practices.

These are the elements of the American polity that have offered especially potent tools and instruments of intimidation and coercion: federalism, the separation of powers, social pluralism and the rule of law.

All the elements of the American experience that liberals and conservatives have so cherished as bulwarks of American freedom have also been sources and instruments of political fear. In all the cases I looked at, coercion, intimidation, repression and violence were leveraged through these mechanisms, not in spite of them....

The truth of the matter is that Trump and Bannon could get most if not all of what they want – in terms of the revanchism of race, gender and class, the white Christian nation that they seem to wish for – without strongman politics.

American institutions offer more than enough resources for revanchism. That Trump and Bannon seem not to know this – that they are willing to make opponents of the military and the security establishment, that they are willing to arouse into opposition and conjure enemies out of potential friends – may be their biggest weakness of all. And if they do know this, but seek strongman politics anyway, then they’re willing to put strongman politics above and beyond the project of social revanchism that their base seeks. Which may be their second biggest weakness of all.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/02/american-institutions-wont-keep-you-safe-trumps-excesses

xxp I got eight paragraphs into that before thinking to check the date.

this comment of mine has aged "well"

TLDR: he's a fascist
― wizzz! (amateurist), Tuesday, June 14, 2016 9:02 PM (seven months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

― wizzz! (amateurist), Thursday, February 2, 2017 1:04 PM (seventeen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yep

Actually Donald Trump isn't a fascist, he is a dumb whiny man-baby with freedom fries where his testicles should be

I'd like to amend my previous post:

Actually Donald Trump isn't just a fascist, he is also a dumb whiny man-baby with freedom fries where his testicles should be

Sometimes the difference between being a whiny man-baby or being a fascist man-baby is whether you are the head of state.

that dorothy thompson piece is awesome

Dorothy Thompson == Esquire link

Very telling quote:

I think young D over there is the only born Nazi in the room. Young D is the spoiled only son of a doting mother. He has never been crossed in his life. He spends his time at the game of seeing what he can get away with. He is constantly arrested for speeding and his mother pays the fines. He has been ruthless toward two wives and his mother pays the alimony. His life is spent in sensation-seeking and theatricality. He is utterly inconsiderate of everybody. He is very good-looking, in a vacuous, cavalier way, and inordinately vain. He would certainly fancy himself in a uniform that gave him a chance to swagger and lord it over others.

Remind you of anyone?

Esquire Harpers (sorry)

so it turns out that even if he'd like to be an authoritarian, it's too much work

btw someone just wrotes a book about the Nazis' use of opioids, so i suggest we all send it to Yam for his birthday.

wasn't it about nazis and speed?

yes, the rank-and-file Nazis relied largely on speed, acc to the NYTBR piece i read, but the Fuhrer's personal cocktails were a bit more diverse.

At some point, wasn't he getting loaded up with a lot of same shit JFK would regularly get dosed with?

i'm an ilxor, not a doctor.

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/03/07/518986612/author-says-hitler-was-blitzed-on-cocaine-and-opiates-during-the-war

just mr morbius, please

really want to read that book, thanks for the reminder doc

"Dr. Morell prescribed well"

Great chemists, the Germans.

Hmm, is the jury still out on this?

Well, you can't say we did not give him a chance ... to prove beyond a doubt that he is a fascist.

Perhaps "dysfunctional fascism" is the best description of this admin

can't even make the trains run on time ffs

My old teacher has written a book about Trump as a fascist, based on his campaign and his inauguration speech, and we discussed it yesterday in my anti-fascism study-group. And it struck me, while his argument that Trump is a fascist was pretty well done, based on his campaign style/imagery/rhetoric and the speech, and the politics that he had done in the first few weeks, the analysis didn't really describe what has happened since then. If 'Trumpism' is a thing, if Trump was trying to be a fascist leader, then his project has pretty much failed completely by now. The Luther Strange fiasco might have been the final nail in the coffin.

Of course, Steve Bannon is still out there, trying to create a new wave for 2018 with people like Roy Moore, so it's not as if fascism in America has been defeated. But 'Trumpism'? That's pretty much over, and has left a semi-senile twitter-feed in charge of a country. IMO.

The “kneel before Zod” approach is closer to how Trump thought the job would be than most folks understood at the time https://t.co/dIYrXEeyGi

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) December 14, 2017

I still can't believe that clip exists, it sends chills down my spine just thinking of it

she is 100% one of those reality show contestants whose villainy was actually maybe underplayed.

This thread hasn't been updated in a while. I guess the question is moot now, isn't it?

the answer is yes

If 'Trumpism' is a thing, if Trump was trying to be a fascist leader, then his project has pretty much failed completely by now. The Luther Strange fiasco might have been the final nail in the coffin.

Of course, Steve Bannon is still out there, trying to create a new wave for 2018 with people like Roy Moore, so it's not as if fascism in America has been defeated. But 'Trumpism'? That's pretty much over, and has left a semi-senile twitter-feed in charge of a country. IMO.

― Frederik B, Saturday, November 4, 2017 6:26 PM (eight months ago)

That's our Freddie.

in the sense that Trumpism is comprised of a single characteristic - fealty to Trump - it definitely has a short shelf-life. once he isn't around to win elections it's not like he's left any kind of coherent ideology behind him that the GOP is going to follow.

The man will go down as one of the greatest con artists in history. Its breathtaking.

that his marks were among the greatest suckers is more breathtaking

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was taking a decades-long piss all over the American educational system. A fact is just an opinion uttered with more indignance and volume.

I disagree that Trumpism will go away when he does, because it's not really about fealty to him specifically, it's about the fascist qualities that he represents--that "our guy" can and should violate any laws/rules/norms/mores towards the end of empowering "our side" (conservative white people). The Right-Wing Authoritarian personality demands that there always be a single powerful face on this fascist impulse, but I think you'd be surprised at how flexible the fascist-voting (i.e. Republican) base could transfer all of that energy to someone else if Fox News told them to.

It's the "we've always been at war with eastasia" thing. Because their entire ideology is characterized by dishonesty and bad-faith, even the most militant 'pedes could easily wake up tomorrow, get the new talking points, and start shouting about how they've always loathed Trump and they're 100% behind the new guy.

that "our guy" can and should violate any laws/rules/norms/mores towards the end of empowering "our side" (conservative white people)

this is standard GOP operating procedure going back as far as I can remember and is independent of Trump (and reflective of a much deeper problem in the american polis) - it can't be accurately called Trumpism, because it predates him.

they've always loathed Trump and they're 100% behind the new guy

exhibit A: Dubya

ie someone the GOP backed to the hilt, broke laws for, violated norms, followed into the abyss of military and economic disaster - then promptly completely disavowed as if it never happened and none of them were complicit

Yeah, that's just it, I think "Trumpism" is just a word for the fully-unveiled Right. Among many other functions, the authoritarian leader serves as a ready-made scapegoat

The Good Germans can let their very intentional ignorance absolve them, and let the face of their party take the blame

The fucker's military chopper escort just flew over my flat. Only time in my life I've regretted not keep an RPG in the spare room...

i think it's likely the key difference with Trump vs virtually anyone else in the GOP who might wind up in the WH is that he feels no shame about his bigotries and revels in them, and his core feeds off it and it encourages them. Even a vile fucker like Pence, for all the damage he'd be capable of politically, would never do the kind of damage DJT has done in that regard. I'm not saying no one else at present it out there who is capable of it, i mean now that they see it works it's entirely possible it would work again, but I think Trump is somewhat singular in that aspect. a combination of his image and his personality and his complete gleeful sociopathy and deep stupidity. i'm not saying the GOP isn't full of people like this, i'm just saying Trump may possibly be the only one for whom completely going all-in on it works for him.

nothing we don't already know but

https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000006154922/fascism-leaders-america-trump.html

https://www.nytimes.com/video/opin--

nope

it's just a professor talking about how donald trump is a fascist

on a video

sitting on a chair

Yes