FASCISM'S BAD? WHY?

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

"I want to apologize to America. I helped create a monster.

For nearly 25 years, I led marketing at NBC and NBCUniversal. I led the team that marketed 'The Apprentice,' the reality show that made Donald Trump a household name outside of New York City, where he was better known for overextending his empire and appearing in celebrity gossip columns."

~ John D. Miller

#Trump #JDVance #Republicans #fascism
/4

https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2024-10-16/we-created-a-tv-illusion-for-the-apprentice-but-the-real-trump-threatens-america

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

“To sell the show, we created the narrative that Trump was a super-successful businessman who lived like royalty.”

But in truth Trump declared bankruptcy six times, and “[t]he imposing board room where he famously fired contestants was a set, because his real boardroom was too old and shabby for TV." Trump loved the attention, as “more successful CEOs were too busy to get involved in reality TV.”

#Trump #JDVance #Republicans #fascism
/5

[bluewaver22@genomic.social]

@wdlindsy Have been trying to tell all I know this for at least 2 yrs now...they'll damn us all if he prevails and I won't in any way forgive ANY of them!

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

As Miller notes, his team “promoted the show relentlessly,” hitting us with a “highly exaggerated” image of Trump as a successful businessman “like a heavy snowstorm.” “[W]e…did irreparable harm by creating the false image of Trump as a successful leader. I deeply regret that. And I regret that it has taken me so long to go public.”

#Trump #JDVance #Republicans #fascism
/6

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

Miller says he writes these words as a “born-and-bred Republican,” warning,

“If you believe that Trump will be better for you or better for the country, that is an illusion, much like The Apprentice was.”

He strongly urges voters to choose Kamala Harris:

“The country will be better off and so will you.”

#Trump #JDVance #Republicans #fascism
/7

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

“From a mainstream candidate, I don’t think we’ve seen this kind of tapping into the most vicious, nativist, racial backlash. He doesn’t even really use code words or anything. He’s just all in.”

~ Julian Zelizer

#Trump #JDVance #Republicans #fascism #violence #racism #xenophobia
/7

Julian Zelizer on Trump's increasingly dire rhetoric

“He doesn’t even really use code words or anything. He’s just all in.”

(www.publicnotice.co)

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

"It’s a stark escalation over the last month of what some experts in political rhetoric, fascism, and immigration say is a strong echo of authoritarians and Nazi ideology."

~ Myah Ward

#Trump #JDVance #Republicans #fascism #violence #racism #xenophobia
/8

Just a moment...

(www.politico.com)

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

Anne Applebaum hears Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini in what Trump is saying openly as the election nears:

"If you connect your opponents with disease, illness, and poisoned blood, if you dehumanize them as insects or animals, if you speak of squashing them or cleansing them as if they were pests or bacteria," (continued in /10)

#Trump #JDVance #Republicans #fascism #violence #racism #xenophobia
/9

Trump Is Speaking Like Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini

The former president has brought dehumanizing language into American presidential politics.

The Atlantic (www.theatlantic.com)

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

(continued from /9)

"then you can much more easily arrest them, deprive them of rights, exclude them, or even kill them. If they are parasites, they aren’t human. If they are vermin, they don’t get to enjoy freedom of speech, or freedoms of any kind. And if you squash them, you won’t be held accountable.

Until recently, this kind of language was not a normal part of American presidential politics."

#Trump #JDVance #Republicans #fascism #violence #racism #xenophobia
/10

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

"He and his campaign team believe that by using the tactics of the 1930s, they can win. The deliberate dehumanization of whole groups of people; the references to police, to violence, to the 'bloodbath' that Trump has said will unfold if he doesn’t win; the cultivation of hatred not only against immigrants but also against political opponents—none of this has been used successfully in modern American politics."

#Trump #JDVance #Republicans #fascism #violence #racism #xenophobia
/11

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

"But neither has this rhetoric been tried in modern American politics."

Until Trump and Vance and a Republican party that's now a driver of overt fascism came on the scene….

#Trump #JDVance #Republicans #fascism #violence #racism #xenophobia
/12

[catherder@mstdn.social]

@wdlindsy
Makes me think of Wallace.

[okanogen@mastodon.social]

@wdlindsy
The "bloodbath" will be exponentially larger if he does get elected and tries to send his flunkies out to pull off these hateful pogroms.

[lolonurse@ohai.social]

@wdlindsy
This, this, this!!! We New Yorkers knew this. But anyplace west of the Hudson River and east of the Left Coast didn't want to hear it.

[lolonurse@ohai.social]

@wdlindsy
I guess confession is good for the soul (?), but a little late for the soul of a nation... (I hope not!)

[ponyponypony@mas.to]

@wdlindsy

I’d like to link to the book he references, which is a very good in-depth look.

How Fascism Works - Wikipedia

(en.m.wikipedia.org)

#politics #fascism

[j2bryson@mastodon.social]

@wdlindsy @salixsericea Didn't he lose over half his dad's wealth?

[bohemianpeasant@mas.to]

@wdlindsy

“Robert Paxton, in ‘Anatomy of Fascism’, offers this pragmatic definition of fascism: “a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence …”
1/2
#Fascism

[bohemianpeasant@mas.to]

@wdlindsy

Robert Paxton, in Anatomy of Fascism, offers this pragmatic definition of fascism:

(continued) “ … and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.”

2/2
#fascism

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@BohemianPeasant Thank you for these insighful excerpts from Robert Paxton's book. They offer good slants for the current discussion of the term.