Thread of What Is Fascism And Is Donald Trump A Fascist

People are surprised, they become indignant. They say: "How strange! But never
mind-it's Nazism, it will. pass!" And they wait, and they hope; and they hide the truth from
themselves, that it is barbarism, but the supreme barbarism, the crowning barbarism that
sums up all the daily barbarisms; that it is Nazism, yes, but that before they were its
victims, they were its accomplices; that they tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted
on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it
had been applied only to non-European peoples; that they have cultivated that Nazism,
that they are responsible for it, and that before engulfing the whole of Western, Christian
civilization in its reddened waters, it oozes, seeps, and trickles from every crack.

What am I driving at? At this idea: that no one colonizes innocently, that no one
colonizes with impunity either; that a nation which colonizes, that a civilization which
justifies colonization - and therefore force - is already a sick civilization, a civilization that is
morally diseased, that irresistibly, progressing from one consequence to another, one
repudiation to another, calls for its Hitler, I mean its punishment.

https://b-ok.cc/book/834691/7bf6cb?dsource=recommend

Césaire OTM, always OTM afaic.

it's easy to look back in 2016 through the lens of 2021, but despite all of the troubling things he said/did in the lead-up to the election, in modern times, we couldn't really comprehend an autocratic leader like Trump. those of us, at least, who have never lived under one.

I was afraid as hell of him and I laid up scared at night when he won but I didn't foresee this. but there are things now I didn't have a clue about 4 years ago

I mean, I'm not trying to be an asshole, but understanding an autocratic leader like Trump isn't that difficult.

It's understanding the people who want an autocratic leader like Trump that did me in during 2016, and while it doesn't do me in now in the same way, it remains disheartening to say the least

Politics are big and confusing and scary, and a lot of people choose not to think about them in any way. Some people find relief in surrendering their thought to an external service provider.

it's easy to look back in 2016 through the lens of 2021, but despite all of the troubling things he said/did in the lead-up to the election, in modern times, we couldn't really comprehend an autocratic leader like Trump. those of us, at least, who have never lived under one.

I have been saying that Trump would be a fucking disaster since before he was elected, even when I didn’t think he would win. No rational minority in this country is surprised by this shitshow; we are only surprised it didn’t happen to Obama.

I mean I knew he'd be a disaster, and was terrified of him winning, but I didn't expect "former reality TV star succeeds in getting minions to break into Senate building" on Nov 9th, 2016

i think a lot of things would be clearer/less blinkered about mainstream american political conversations come from the generic familiarity and blandness (tho not meaninglessness) of the two party names. if we had a multi-party system and/or continental party naming tendencies, and could see regularly how many reps and senators hailed from the straight up Patriot Strength Party or National Christian Conservative Homeland Party or whatever shit it would be called....

Or you could just be Black

Matt Goodwin is busy deleting tweets. pic.twitter.com/R5BoVL5DyY

— Luke Dyks (@LukeDyks) January 6, 2021

He should eat them

@ DJP - fair!

In case you were wondering: yes, yes he is.

I thought this was really good and expresses a lot of things I have felt but found difficult to put together.

http://newpol.org/is-it-still-fascism-if-its-incompetent/

This is inchoate fascism, fascism in its experimental, speculative phase, in which is forming a coalition of minoritarian popular forces with elements in the executive and the repressive wing of the state. It would be devastatingly stupid, complacent beyond belief, to expect US democracy to remain sufficiently stable in the coming years to deny this incipient fascism more opportunities to congeal, and grow.

from 1994:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v16/n07/edward-luttwak/why-fascism-is-the-wave-of-the-future

I hate the term 'gaslighting' because I can never remember what it means. I wish there was a good trick using the visual cues of gas and lighting to help me remember; but I can't find a memorable connection of the cues and "sowing seeds of doubt to manipulate a targeted individual/group".

Maybe a part of the problem is that people on the internet don't always use 'gaslighting' correctly.

lmgtfy

I hate the term 'gaslighting' because I can never remember what it means.

never seen this term before, are you sure you're ok

lol

Very few if any such terms had much use to begin with except as shorthand for one person to miscommunicate to another, widespread use aint helped

IMO you've just described language

"gaslighting" is an extremely useful and important term, especially for people who have been the victim of it!

a mnemonic device will probably remain elusive, since it's based on the title/plot details of a play about this form of abuse.

gaslighting is a useful term.

unfortunately it's now been co-opted on the net to mean "you are disagreeing with me".

but actual forms of gaslighting should be called out as such.

This discussion of Adorno’s writing on the Authoritarian Personality seems both helpful and relevant: https://leftanchor.podbean.com/e/episode-53-adorno-on-the-psychology-of-fascism/

in the US they called that play Angel Street.

glad it's not called "angelstreeting"

In the 80s, they called the act of falling in love with a coworker you initially hated “moonlighting”

Flopsy Duck, have you never seen the film "Gaslight?"

In the 80s, they called the act of falling in love with a coworker you initially hated “moonlighting”

widespread use aint helped

― Ole Blueyes Solskjaer (darraghmac), Wednesday, 13 January 2021 15:18 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

IMO you've just described language

― Totino's Fortnite Training Room (DJP), Wednesday, 13 January 2021 15:21 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

This works too

Whenever I read the definition for 'gaslighting' I forget it within a week or month. People use it all the time and I constantly have to relearn it. (I can't think of other words that give me such problems.)

Maybe the problem is that I developed a misleading mnemonic where I always visualize construction workers catcalling woman passing by (I don't even remember why) or gas headlights in old-timey cars.

women*

I developed a misleading mnemonic where I always visualize construction workers catcalling woman passing by

"Hey hot stuff! Lookin' good, baby! I think you left the oven on! No, I think you are misremembering that you turned it off, I am pretty sure the oven is definitely still on, you could burn your house down! You should go in and check it! *whistles* You want fries to go with that shake? Why don't you wiggle back down to the house to check the oven? I know you are saying you turned it off but I think you're misremembering, it's definitely on!"

haha

This helps :)

i think of someone turning the gas on but not lighting it, a little each day, so that someone gets nauseous and ill but doesn’t know why

i think of someone saying "can you pass the gaslight" and the other says "what gaslight?" and then first one says "oh, i guess you don't remember that either now"

I know about the play and movie but I confess that my main mental image of "gaslighting" involves, like, a Bic lighter and a frat bro in acid-washed jeans who thinks farting is hilarious

Mine is Ingrid Bergman, which I confess I prefer.

your fart is Ingrid Bergman?

Notorious.

Murder on the Orient Fartspress

Lol.

I always think of someone shining a lamp in another person's face, the second person saying 'hey could you stop that,' and the first person going 'stop what' while continuing to shine the lamp.

lol, not bad.

Robert Evans answers the thread premise with "no, but..."

Trump’s encouragement of violence against his opponents at home has been unsystematic. He has told his supporters to rough up reporters and suggested during the 2016 election campaign that his followers might like to make use of the Second Amendment of the US constitution (the right to bear arms) against Hillary Clinton. He has also described white supremacists as “good people”. But this bears no comparison to the hundreds of thousands of armed and uniformed stormtroopers and Squadristi that the Nazi and fascist leaders deployed on to the streets daily in the 1920s and early 1930s to intimidate, beat up, arrest, imprison and often kill political opponents.

Hitler and Mussolini sought to transform their countries into perma-war states: a combination of education and propaganda on the one hand, and street-level violence and intimidation on the other, aimed to forge a new kind of citizen, one that was aggressive, regimented, arrogant, decisive, organised and obedient to the dictates of the state. GM Trevelyan poured scorn on Mussolini’s efforts to turn Italians into second-rate Germans, as the historian put it; but even in Germany this endeavour failed, except with a minority of Hitler’s most ardent followers.

The society Hitler wanted was portrayed in the final minutes of Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will (1935), with endless serried ranks of uniformed SS troops marching across the screen like well-oiled automata. The reality was different, as the majority of Germans retreated from this dehumanising prospect into their own private lives.

Trump by contrast has encouraged a warped vision of personal freedom: a society in which people aren’t subject to government regulation or supervision, where anarchy and confusion reign, self-restraint is abandoned, violence is unchecked, and self-aggrandising corruption permeates politics.

https://www.newstatesman.com/world/2021/01/why-trump-isnt-fascist

fuck off bob

TL:DR version = he loves fascism but is profoundly lazy

We all just lived through four years of Trump's presidency, preceded by a year of campaigning. I, for one, don't need a hundred thinkpieces telling me what I saw happen. It was like being force fed sewage through a tube for five years.

the focus on state power (either as protection against fascism or as “what fascism is” when it falls into the wrong hands) is misguided in the first place but the idea of trump as some kind of libertarian anti-statist (even just rhetorically) is total nonsense. the lock her up/build the wall/blue lives matter guy is big on personal freedom (even a warped version thereof) and an enemy of government regulation? I know those phrases are code for other things for the Right but there’s no need to adopt their framing

Otm