conquest/imperialism
What the FUCK do you think America loves doing exactly?
Militarised citizenry
Somehow forgotten about the literal armed fascist militias? Memory holed those I guess. Even if at large the citizens are not currently militarised they can be at any point mobilised into mass violence and have the weaponry to do so.
Elimination of our government bodies
Don't need to eliminate what doesn't work in the first place. There's no communist opposition the government bodies were built from the ground up to serve fascists so they don't need elimination
Trump isn't facist... America is fascist
I think her reasoning is not very strong but as to whether trump or these populist right wingers are "fascists" I'm on samuel moyn's side that they're an entirely new modern terrible thing and that the more rigorous you want to be when comparing them to real historical interwar fascism the less accurate the description becomes.
The mass politics aren't there, neither for them nor for us, neither is the civil militarization, not nearly at the level where it'd actually be relevant. So you're just kinda left with, "they're racist and want to reverse rights", yeah that's called being a conservative and a reactionary, but it's not fascism. And that goes both for trump (who's brand of populism is more like classic american white nativism than a fancy european ideology) and for the surging far-right in europe. The strongest claim one can make is that they're "like" fascists, or they're "neo-fascists" or something, but a 1 to 1 comparison I think loses power the more these parties turn out to not do the most significant things that fascists do, because they can't, you can't conjure up a mass social movement out of the current moment.
The 2 exceptions I make are India, since the BJP's oficial militarized gangs resemble fascist militias way more than anything in europe and north america (but that might just be my ignorance about the country).
And Israel. And I think it says a lot how much money academics, journalists, pundits, "human rights advocates" and center-left activists have made by painting the contemporary right or far-right as fascist, but are COMPLETELY SILENT about the categorization when faced with a real contemporary example.
As to whether it's good that we call all these people fascists now as a political move, if you're one of those "you gotta understand something to fight it" guys then you probably oppose it on that principle but I think after a few years of this political climate you can see how there's good and bad things about it as a strategy.
The good is that it's basically "red-tagging" (when you call every lib a communist) but for conservatives, by labeling people much to the right of where they actually are based on 1 or 2 positions, in theory that brings the overton window and the range of acceptable politics left, and that remains while the accusation has credibility, which is until the political center starts taking positions from the far right (on say migration), because the centrists CAN'T be the fascists.
The bad is that it creates an emergency situation, which might drive some people towards real (not online) leftist militancy (that's what happened to me) but it probably drives far more people into the center, because if "the fascists are coming" and you have hitler on your mind, then you're not gonna bother with radical politics, you should be afraid, and if you're afraid you're gonna want to give power only to people who uphold "democratic" institutions like parliaments, laws and norms, and not all radicals want to uphold those norms for good reason. And we've seen what that entails, it's getting in line "anti-fascitly" behind Biden-Harris, Macron (which is what the NFP still did with their alliance) or Costa (Portugal).
I had the thought just the other day that the US might be best described as "post-fascist", seeing as how elimination of any real left is an already completed project, suppression of marginalized groups and workers is fully institutionalized, and then there's of course the historical slavery and genocide that most people now just shrugs at if they're even mentioned all.
I am admittedly an idiot though, so yeah.
I tend to frequently at the moment call every lib/conservative a fascist these days on Hexbear, but honestly you're probably more spot on with this.
The question is if it matters. To me, what you describe is just fascism in the 21st century. Whereas Israel and BJP are more traditional 20th century style fascism. It's a good discussion to have!
I tend to frequently at the moment call every lib/conservative a fascist
Yeah so do I, I called the german green party Nazis the other day, sometimes you just wanna let out how much you hate these people.
To me, what you describe is just fascism in the 21st century. Whereas Israel and BJP are more traditional 20th century style fascism.
Yeah that's what makes the most sense to me too, to say that these people ARE fascist but they're, just, fascists with the material conditions that we have now, which make them not actually resemble what old-school fascism actually was.
gonna end all my posts from now on with "But I'm the 'fucking stupid' one. Okay."
This is what happens when you start with the assumption that the USA doesn't currently show signs of Fascism, and that Fascism must be done to the US.
The Citizenry is currently engaged in a series of events of stochastic terrorism
Congress is entirely undemocratic
The USA does plenty of massacres, while those are mostly outside of the US. What ICE does is within the US. But Non-citizens don't count I guess.
That's a lot of words to say you don't know what fascist means, but you want to carry water for them
But I'm the "fucking stupid" one. Okay.
Okay! On to the next problem!
This is such a dumb definition we all know fascism is objectively the right wing of social democracy
fascism requires the notion that everyone who isn't part of the master race should be massacred
That's Nazism. Fascism is the Mussolini thing.
passed criminal justice reform
I entirely forgot what Trump did. But I'm still pretty darn sure it was pure politics, superficial, and in no meaningful sense "reform".
personally pardoned black inmates
How many people? ~5? And he pardoned some rappers. That was pure politics too.
---
If some net rando gets the details wrong - I don't think anything of it. But politics is her fucking job and it pays her mortgage and her bills. How can anybody be so stupid?
Ninja edit. It's a rhetorical question of course.
brags about not starting any wars
He actually did start a war in Niger the press just didn't report on it
And he almost started one by assassinating Soleimani. It certainly seemed like he as trying to start a war then. Not to mention the trade war with China.
You get the timing wrong. He assassinated Soleimani after he withdrawn from attacking Iran, to have last word and to placate republican warhawks. There was no risk of war then already unless Iran would openly attack USA which they wouldn't did.
He attacked Iran right after he withdrew from attacking Iran? That makes no sense.
Again read my post slowly and read about the assassination itself. That attack was a bone thrown to the rep warhawks and a consolation prize to placate them after they were denied the war with Iran. It wasn't attack on Iran itself, it wasn't even in Iran, and Iran also didn't treated it like the act of war (note they did also not really declared war after multiple assassinations of Iranian offcials on Iranian soil by Isn'treal, and their answer might be the same since every now and then "someone" do bomb US bases in Iraq and Syria).
That attack was a bone thrown to the rep warhawks
You don't get to do that. You don't get to assassinate the commander of Iran's armed forces while he's on a diplomatic mission and then say 'oopsies, this is just a consolation prize as we avoid war with Iran'. That's nonsensical and also revisionist. Trump looked like shit for days after that attack while the iran war caucus was ecstatic precisely because of how much closer to war the entire region got. Iran did in fact treat this as an attack, which is why retaliations had to be arranged.
Trump and Bolton didn't step back away from war. They incited it. It was Iran who chose to deescalate when they called the Americans and arranged for face saving measures instead of starting the war we see today.
Iran and the rest of the resistance have been in a hybrid war against the US and Israel for decades. The fact that Israel can also kill whoever they want and bomb whoever they want is not an indication that peace reigns or that doves reign supreme. It's an indication that the NATO powers have been able to wage war with impunity. Nothing more, nothing less.
Jess wtf are you even talking about.
You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to assassinate the commander of Iran’s armed forces while he’s on a diplomatic mission and then say ‘oopsies, this is just a consolation prize as we avoid war with Iran’.
Unless you are the most fucking unhinged empire on planet who just geared up for war to 11:59 and then abruptly stopped because the target proven they can defend themseleves. Also you speak as if USA ever gave a shit about unnecessary detalis like diplomacy or international opinion. For fucks sake foreign secretary back then was Pompeo, possibly the worst diplomat i've ever seen (at least outside Isnt'real). For him and Trump their party bonzos opinion is 1000 times more valuable than everyone, and they were sorely disappointed no blood has flown so they get at least one head.
Trump looked like shit for days after that attack while the iran war caucus was ecstatic precisely because of how much closer to war the entire region got
Like no shit sure he was, he wanted it just the same, but most likely got advised by Pentagon to not do it in last minute when Iranian air defense proven they were much superior to anything US expected when Iran shot down their best stealth drone with old 60's Soviet missile just with more modern locally produced radar & guidance system. THIS stopped the war, nothing else. This was 20 june 2019, US backed from war soon after and Soleimani was murdered 3 january 2020.
Trump and Bolton didn’t step back away from war. They incited it.
They incited war which didn't happened? Did USA bombed Iran? Invaded it? War did started? No. So while they did pushed for it, they backed down, or more accurately Trump did, Bolton was sacked (10 september 2019, after the dron shot down but before Soleimani murder) precisely because he still pushed for it when Trump and the administration decided to back down.
It was Iran who chose to deesclate when they called the Americans and arranged for face saving measures instead of starting the war we see today.
Lol fucking lmao this would be first time in history when the potential target of US manage to avoid being attacked by "calling them". The only way you can do it is to show force, which is precisely what they did (or have nukes like DPRK). Also, did you just suggested that Soleimani's death was Iran giving him up so the US can "save face"? because there surely wasn't any other "success" of the US back then in the region.
Iran did in fact treat this as an attack, which is why retaliations had to be arranged.
yes they did, but they didn't openly attacked US in retaliation and surely didn't go to war with US. They added it to the book but regardless what US did they wouldn't escalate to war just after they avoid war just to avenge one man, funnily of you to engage in such vulgar great man theory after calling me "revisionist" lol. Also name that retaliation - what did they do, precisely, and how it even fits in you subsequent words about Iran deescalating.
Iran and the rest of the resistance have been in a hybrid war against the US and Israel for decades. The fact that Israel can also kill whoever they want and bomb whoever they want is not an indication that peace reigns or that doves reign supreme.
Again jesse what the fuck are you just strawmanning me into here, "peace reigns or that doves reign supreme"??? Lol where i did ever said that lol.
And maintaining the current wars and trying to do coups isn't exactly a good thing either. But libs are just this fucking scratched at this point.
Didn't his admin also drop an MOAB in Afghanistan? That's one of if not the largest non nuclear bomb out there
How can Ana Kasperian try to champion Trump's criminal justice reform when she uses her platform to rail against bail reform laws and do the same crime fearmongering that they do on MSM? Scratched liberal is scratched.
Just a few days she said something about the left loving crime or some shit
I mean, if you lean too hard into calling Trump a fascist, you have to start justifying why all the Democratic Party policies are the same as his. If you're trying to be a mainstream pundit, you can't call both parties fascists with little to no sunlight between them, even if it's demonstrably and obviously true.
---
US has always been fascist
