"Not a lot changed" is a pretty bad take. Civilian drone strike deaths increased at least 330% under Trump (and that figure might be even higher), we went from détente with Iran to committing acts of war against them, the federal judiciary is now stacked with Federalist Society psychopaths to a degree that requires historic changes to even balance out, open fascism is more normalized than it's been since the 30s, and that's just what immediately comes to mind. Then there's the idea that Trump pushed a lot of limits that hadn't been tested in decades, if ever, which would give a slightly more competent or slightly more popular fascist a hell of a lot of data on how to do a lot more damage.
The fact that having Gorka, Miller, etc. in high places didn't turn out even worse is more a factor of their lack of familiarity with the bureaucracy, how difficult it is to make any major change happen in a continent-spanning country, and how easy it is to slow things down in the U.S. government in particular.
How much of this would have happened with or without Trump? idk.
Hillary largely ran on the promise of continuing the Obama years, and as a former cabinet member under Obama, that was plausible. She probably would have followed through on the Iran deal, at least kept in place the Obama thaw on Cuba, continued the bad-but-not-as-bad-as-Trump drone program, and done the coup attempts in Bolivia and Venezuela. Maybe some bad things she would have done a bit more competently (e.g., the Venezuela coup), but that gets back to your point about edging into "great man" territory. Presidents almost certainly don't plan the fine details of stuff like that, and the idea that Trump's incompetence hindered the national security state is overblown anyway -- they just started lying to him when he had a broken clock good instinct.
The US judiciary has always been stacked with RW freaks and every Republican president has furthered that mission.
American presidents constantly renege on deals, especially ones created by earlier presidents.
I find the hypothesis that Trump's Fascists didn't understand the bureaucracy to be a much less convincing explanation than the alternative: the United States of America has never not been Fascist. Fascists aren't popping up because Trump became President; both issues are the result of the United States being a Fascist nation with Fascist culture. The US already invades and plunders whoever it pleases. It has 1/4 of the world's prison population, and effectively enslaves minorities via racist criminal justice. It kills millions around the globe and occupies several countries. The country is largely run by unaccountable, bloodless lawyer psychopaths. The United States is already at just about Maximum Fascism.
Trump was not uniquely bad, but he definitely changed things for the worse compared to Obama (who was also bad, of course).
As for the idea that everyone in mainstream American politics is just a different shade of fascist, that's an ideological dead end, not to mention an enormous oversimplification. We will get nothing done if we call the vast majority of politically active Americans fascists, so believing that would be tantamount to giving up. Luckily, it's only believable if one uses an incredibly loose definition of "fascist" that renders the word almost meaningless.
The United States is the Third Reich with a PR department. I don't know how any Marxist can disagree.
95% of Jewish Israelis supported Operation Protective Edge. From this, the conditions in Gaza, and the ongoing occupation of Palestine, it is safe to say that Israel is a Nazi country with a Nazi society.
You can do this with any number of American genocides and wars. The genocide in Korea vegan with 80% support. The genocide in Vietnam began with 65% support.
Does this mean 65% of the country are bloodthirsty Nazis, stomping on babies and operating concentration camps? No, but that was also not true of the civilian population of the Third Reich.
As with the population of the Third Reich, Americans are fed a steady diet of lies and propaganda. As with the Third Reich, wars are based on false flag attacks and billed to the populace as defensive. As with the Third Reich, there is a criminally prosecuted race that is openly brutalized by the state. As with the Third Reich, there are many agents of the state perfectly willing to commit everyday atrocities, whether they're police, prison guards, ICE agents, FBI agents, CIA, or any other number of death squads. As with the Third Reich, there is an ethnic cleansing campaign conducted by official agents of the state, ICE. As with the Third Reich, there are concentration camps operated by the state: Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, ICE camps, etc. Like the Third Reich, the state collaborates with corporate interests in the utter crushing of the Left. Like the Third Reich, the US has enacted a Holocaust, unlike the Third Reich that Holocaust has been diffuse and global.
The US is the #1 influence with a bullet on the Third Reich. The Nazis admired our race laws, our pioneering concept of second-class citizenship in the form of a "national," our genocide of the natives, our subjugation of black Americans, our vibrant eugenics movement, and more. Nazi lawyers studied the American legal system and its numerous ways, covert and overt, of maintaining racial supremacy. Hitler outright stated that the US was the first nation to advance the interests of the white race. Lebensraum is literally Manifest Destiny in Europe.
Does this mean 65% of the country are bloodthirsty Nazis, stomping on babies and operating concentration camps? No
This is what I was getting at. The issue is that -- in practice, when we're trying to win people over to our side -- it's extremely difficult to square "most people aren't fascists" with "everyone in mainstream American politics is a different shade of fascist." There's a ton of overlap between "most people" and "everyone in mainstream politics" at the lower levels of government, which is where a huge amount of governing actually occurs (including the vast majority of policing, for instance). There are a ton of people who would be considered mainstream politicians who oppose the fascist stuff the government does, and who are actively trying to change it. There are a ton of people outside politics -- and this does reach a majority of the country -- who oppose fascist stuff, but not so actively that we would have considered them real opponents had they lived in Nazi Germany.
So it's an ideological dead end, because you can't build a mass movement by calling basically everything people recognize as legitimate politics "fascist." It simply will not compute for most people, and if it won't work, whatever other merits that idea has are immaterial. And that's not even getting to how stacking up each country's list of atrocities glosses over crucial differences in how the U.S. and Nazi Germany function.
I've been saying for a while it's very revealing how Trump got actual fascists into the government like Gorka and Miller and not a lot changed.
"Not a lot changed" is a pretty bad take. Civilian drone strike deaths increased at least 330% under Trump (and that figure might be even higher), we went from détente with Iran to committing acts of war against them, the federal judiciary is now stacked with Federalist Society psychopaths to a degree that requires historic changes to even balance out, open fascism is more normalized than it's been since the 30s, and that's just what immediately comes to mind. Then there's the idea that Trump pushed a lot of limits that hadn't been tested in decades, if ever, which would give a slightly more competent or slightly more popular fascist a hell of a lot of data on how to do a lot more damage.
The fact that having Gorka, Miller, etc. in high places didn't turn out even worse is more a factor of their lack of familiarity with the bureaucracy, how difficult it is to make any major change happen in a continent-spanning country, and how easy it is to slow things down in the U.S. government in particular.
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Breaking deals, enforcing sanctions, assassinating world leaders, and hiding civilian casualties are all standard fare for American presidents.
Even Obama's "reports of civilian deaths" (in quotes because, well...) are 10 times lower than the lowest independent estimates
Yeah we literally just watched a whistleblower be imprisoned for revealing the Obama-era civilian casualty rate of drones.
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Hillary largely ran on the promise of continuing the Obama years, and as a former cabinet member under Obama, that was plausible. She probably would have followed through on the Iran deal, at least kept in place the Obama thaw on Cuba, continued the bad-but-not-as-bad-as-Trump drone program, and done the coup attempts in Bolivia and Venezuela. Maybe some bad things she would have done a bit more competently (e.g., the Venezuela coup), but that gets back to your point about edging into "great man" territory. Presidents almost certainly don't plan the fine details of stuff like that, and the idea that Trump's incompetence hindered the national security state is overblown anyway -- they just started lying to him when he had a broken clock good instinct.
The US judiciary has always been stacked with RW freaks and every Republican president has furthered that mission.
American presidents constantly renege on deals, especially ones created by earlier presidents.
I find the hypothesis that Trump's Fascists didn't understand the bureaucracy to be a much less convincing explanation than the alternative: the United States of America has never not been Fascist. Fascists aren't popping up because Trump became President; both issues are the result of the United States being a Fascist nation with Fascist culture. The US already invades and plunders whoever it pleases. It has 1/4 of the world's prison population, and effectively enslaves minorities via racist criminal justice. It kills millions around the globe and occupies several countries. The country is largely run by unaccountable, bloodless lawyer psychopaths. The United States is already at just about Maximum Fascism.
Trump was not uniquely bad, but he definitely changed things for the worse compared to Obama (who was also bad, of course).
As for the idea that everyone in mainstream American politics is just a different shade of fascist, that's an ideological dead end, not to mention an enormous oversimplification. We will get nothing done if we call the vast majority of politically active Americans fascists, so believing that would be tantamount to giving up. Luckily, it's only believable if one uses an incredibly loose definition of "fascist" that renders the word almost meaningless.
The United States is the Third Reich with a PR department. I don't know how any Marxist can disagree.
95% of Jewish Israelis supported Operation Protective Edge. From this, the conditions in Gaza, and the ongoing occupation of Palestine, it is safe to say that Israel is a Nazi country with a Nazi society.
You can do this with any number of American genocides and wars. The genocide in Korea vegan with 80% support. The genocide in Vietnam began with 65% support.
Does this mean 65% of the country are bloodthirsty Nazis, stomping on babies and operating concentration camps? No, but that was also not true of the civilian population of the Third Reich.
As with the population of the Third Reich, Americans are fed a steady diet of lies and propaganda. As with the Third Reich, wars are based on false flag attacks and billed to the populace as defensive. As with the Third Reich, there is a criminally prosecuted race that is openly brutalized by the state. As with the Third Reich, there are many agents of the state perfectly willing to commit everyday atrocities, whether they're police, prison guards, ICE agents, FBI agents, CIA, or any other number of death squads. As with the Third Reich, there is an ethnic cleansing campaign conducted by official agents of the state, ICE. As with the Third Reich, there are concentration camps operated by the state: Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, ICE camps, etc. Like the Third Reich, the state collaborates with corporate interests in the utter crushing of the Left. Like the Third Reich, the US has enacted a Holocaust, unlike the Third Reich that Holocaust has been diffuse and global.
The US is the #1 influence with a bullet on the Third Reich. The Nazis admired our race laws, our pioneering concept of second-class citizenship in the form of a "national," our genocide of the natives, our subjugation of black Americans, our vibrant eugenics movement, and more. Nazi lawyers studied the American legal system and its numerous ways, covert and overt, of maintaining racial supremacy. Hitler outright stated that the US was the first nation to advance the interests of the white race. Lebensraum is literally Manifest Destiny in Europe.
This is what I was getting at. The issue is that -- in practice, when we're trying to win people over to our side -- it's extremely difficult to square "most people aren't fascists" with "everyone in mainstream American politics is a different shade of fascist." There's a ton of overlap between "most people" and "everyone in mainstream politics" at the lower levels of government, which is where a huge amount of governing actually occurs (including the vast majority of policing, for instance). There are a ton of people who would be considered mainstream politicians who oppose the fascist stuff the government does, and who are actively trying to change it. There are a ton of people outside politics -- and this does reach a majority of the country -- who oppose fascist stuff, but not so actively that we would have considered them real opponents had they lived in Nazi Germany.
So it's an ideological dead end, because you can't build a mass movement by calling basically everything people recognize as legitimate politics "fascist." It simply will not compute for most people, and if it won't work, whatever other merits that idea has are immaterial. And that's not even getting to how stacking up each country's list of atrocities glosses over crucial differences in how the U.S. and Nazi Germany function.
:curious-marx: :thinkin-lenin: :curious-sickle: