FASCISM'S BAD? WHY?

[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.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@j2bryson @salixsericea We're never given a clear picture of his constantly shifting wealth, are we?

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@ponyponypony Thank you — yes, one of the best books on the topic to be published in recent years. I gave it as a kind of primer to people when it first came out, as Christmas presents.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@lolonurse Well-stated.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@lolonurse You're right, for sure. And as I read what you wrote, I think of something I read recently — can't remember who said this — which pointed out that more people in New York City voted for Trump in 2020 than in the entire state of West Virginia. Who are those New Yorkers? And what on earth are they thinking?

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@Okanogen I fear you are right about that.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@CatHerder Yes, but as some commentators are noting, not even at his worst did Wallace go the whole-hog fascist route Trump-Vance have taken.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@BlueWaver22 I agree.