Thread of What Is Fascism And Is Donald Trump A Fascist

I don't think it's sociopathy as much as the immoral logic of power. Ends will always seek means, and the felt urgency of reaching those ends will (almost) always override the much more remote imperatives of ethics or morality. The very fact that such means (NSA surveillance, drones) exist ensures they will be used. It is an axiom of power.

Ends will always seek means, and the felt urgency of reaching those ends will (almost) always override the much more remote imperatives of ethics or morality.

Obama could almost have stood to do more of this, but this is a completely bizarre characterisation of someone who spent so much of his term tying his own hands behind his back in the search for bipartisanship.

I'm not defending any POTUS in particular, but I honestly don't know how anyone still believes that it's possible to skate through the presidency morally unscathed.

sorry, obama is sociopathic?

― akm, Monday, March 14, 2016 12:05 AM

Yes.

I'm not sure how you can sign an order requiring a drone to vaporize an American citizen and his son and go downstairs to Michelle and the girls and watch "Modern Family" and not exhibit sociopathy. I guess guidance counselors would call it "compartmentalizing."

Protip: If someone is running for president, they are probably a sociopath.

yep

yall need to hang out with real sociopaths more

but I follow Obama on Twitter.

what's the diagnosis for vaporizing foreigners?

If being a sociopath means being willing to authorize someone's death, then all presidents have been and will be sociopaths, since that's part of the job description.

Almost as if they commanded an army or something

i share most ppl's discomfort with the idea of drones but i think it's unfair to suggest that obama's just using them because they exist; he's responding to the continued existence of al-qaeda and related groups. you can argue that the negatives of using drones outweigh the benefits or that we shouldn't do anything that kills civilians no matter what or that the killings are creating more terrorists than they get rid of (all of which are good points), but if any leader responsible for signing orders that kill ppl is a sociopath then lincoln and FDR are presumably right down there with obama.

surely this belongs in the what is sociopathy and is barack obama a sociopath thread, which i am not making up

I think so. It's a description, not criticism.

sxpost

http://i.imgur.com/pIdOAV3.jpg

Aslan!

i don't think obama is a sociopath any more than i am a sociopath for using an iphone created with lithium strip mined from bolivia. everyone compartmentalizes.

you should've seen how I tore into my bag of organic sweet potato chips over lunch today!

Curious if any of you read the NYT Sunday Mag piece on an Arizona Trump rally, which had a near-transcript of a stump fiction he tells ("The Bullet," NYT author called it), about General Pershing executing Muslims in the Philippines with bullets soaked in pig guts. Had a very fascist demagogue vibe, even for DT.

Thread of What Is Fascism And Is Donald Trump A Fascist

http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/04/19/trumps-putin-fantasy/
http://www.salon.com/2016/04/19/donald_trumps_avenging_angels_how_the_orange_haired_monster_has_rewritten_the_history_of_american_conservatism/

my intro to the word fascist was when my ill-tempered spoiled nerd friend called his mom one for not driving him to a magic the gathering tournament when we were 11

― flopson, Thursday, 24 December 2015 16:45 (3 months ago)

http://i.imgur.com/mfoTccj.jpg

for a second i read that where the infowars repost was going to end up being about the results of an M:TG tournament

flopson that is the greatest thing

There he goes! To the center!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87yzwq7X8yE

Astounding 2011 Prophecy!!! 'Donald Trump Chosen to Lead America'

"Some pious people say casino owner Donald Trump is not a godly man. Should we, however, ask: Is Donald Trump God’s man? Retired firefighter Mark Taylor claims the Lord has chosen Mr. Trump to pull America back from the cliff. Rick Wiles interviews Mark about his amazing 2011 prophecy that Donald Trump has been marked by God to lead America."

http://i.imgur.com/nv4C4QH.jpg

I thought this had to be satire, but a part of me wanted it to be real, so I checked out the guy's description for his Youtube channel:

http://i.imgur.com/UqrEXr3.jpg

If these people are part of Trump's coalition, I sure as hell hope he doesn't win. I don't want to know what an emboldened version of this guy looks like.

That video is amazing. And the comments are even better.

Mussolini never had a pen

https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/731882367493808128

With a speech balloon from Tiny Elvis, apparently

Greil Marcus, on whether DT is a fascist:

I think it’s less a matter of policy—though mass deportations would require suspension or abrogation of civil liberties and the affirmation of or acquiescence to rule by decree—than the encouragement of violence by supporters against opponents that suggests an acting out of Mussolinism. On a national scale with executive resources that would be fascist. Read Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America, but remember that Sanders supporters have lately tapped into the same strain and their candidate has responded with a condemnation of violence that translates as “Go for it.”

https://greilmarcus.net/ask-greil/

idiot

Marcus with the moral equivalency.

so fascism is a latent impulse w/in the populace that can be evoked and actualized by authoritarian leaders (and would-be leaders) w/ who frame nationalism as a narrative of heroic redemption in a moment of terrible crisis.* so the trump question need only be, "is he an enabler?" does he give his supporters an opportunity to express the fascist impulse?

* as of this post, i mean

I wonder if this question hinges on whether you take fascism to be a distinctive political (even "rational") ideology or more like an ever present human instinct to be kept in check through civilization, sublimation, etc.

I feel like the whole 'GET 'EM OUTTA HERE' aspect of trump rallies is totally fascist. I hadn't seen it in a long time but I got to see it today during his carny barking tour stop in Anaheim.

https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/714189569793646597

the "i alone" thing is pretty fascist. also the fact that his platform is always changing, which means the campaign is about voters placing their faith in him rather than concrete proposals.

his very clownishness evinces a disdain for parliamentary procedure.

Third question itt is what does it matter
Fourth might be should usa ilx be so fixated on possible fascist d trump
Fifth prob could be could my hands be doing something less wringy and more beneficial like making a nice sandwich or playing the lute or holding the pages of a fine book or hitching a ride to a carefree place in which i could more productively and less frettishly pass the interminable fucking delay between this sorry shitheap of a process and actually casting my vote

This site is dying for want of a less stupid topic tbh

Sad!

:-(

I am appealing to u wonderful, intelligent and capable people to just not do this anymore

"topics are stupid, site dying, i alone can solve"

I wish that last were true, but im clearly begging for a community effort here

i agree with deems, actually, but i still feel drawn to worrying about stuff i can't control.

We'll have to get you all into watching the euros

can i recommend https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=brexit&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8#q=when+is+the+brexit coming up v soon