Buttload of Faith: the 2016 Presidential Primary Thread (Pt 2)

yeah I feel like that article and the scholars cited are like "well he meets only 4 out of the 6 criteria, so no fair calling him a fascist!"

Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by:

"obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood" yes
"and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity," not really
"in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants," not really
"working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites," definitely not
"abandons democratic liberties" not really
"and pursues with redemptive violence" not yet at least
"and without ethical or legal restraints" maybe partially
"goals of internal cleansing and external expansion." not really

can we agree he's an "asshole"?

yes for sure

he's not "politically correct"

the primary contest is the test of whether he will have collaboration from traditional elites

barring all muslims from entry, even citizens, is abandonment of democratic liberties

removing 11 million people is cleansing

"not really"s doing a lot of work there

tbf shakey calling him "fascist" is doing far more work, no?

barring all muslims from entry, even citizens, if that's indeed what he advocated is an abrogation of liberties for sure but obama has deported nearly 2 million plus people; would we call him a fascist?

we'd call him an asshole

you go to die on the dumbest hills

i don't even know how to respond to that. maybe grow up a little?

barring all muslims from entry, even citizens, if that's indeed what he advocated is an abrogation of liberties for sure but obama has deported nearly 2 million plus people; would we call him a fascist?

wtf @ this

1) that is EXPLICITLY what Trump advocated
2) Barring citizens from their country is completely different from deporting non-citizens who are in the country illegally

mystified at yr cap'n-save-a-trump routine here tbh, bending over backwards to give him the benefit of the doubt about his not being a cult figure or his eagerness to abandon democratic liberties or his support from committed nationalist militants (who are explicitly and publicly thankful for making their not-so-mass movements more appealing to the masses)

shakey for pt 2 i was referring specifically to goole's contention that deporting non-citizens in the country illegally is indicative of fascism. i wasn't sure if it was explicitly what trump advocated and still am not... "After the initial public uproar, Trump quickly clarified that he did not mean to include U.S. citizens in the ban and was referring only to foreigners." so idk maybe he backtracked.

i mean i wasn't sure if banning all muslims including citizens is explicitly, etc.

like idgaf about trump and i think his campaign is destined to flameout. but i care somewhat about use of fascism to describe political movements. i think it's intended to exploit people's [rightful] deeply negative feelings about historical fascism. it should be sufficient to call him a racist asshole without getting into whether his politics are similar to mussolini or hitler.

like idgaf about trump and i think his campaign is destined to flameout. but i care somewhat about use of fascism to describe political movements.

you have weird priorities sometimes.

his demeanor and public persona is definitely similar to Mussolini fwiw

like god forbid we fail to observe the largely academic/semantic distinctions re: the term "fascism" in the service of stopping a deeply dangerous person from fomenting racial and political violence in the general public, won't someone think of the poor words etc.

I don't think he's going to win either, but I would hope you would be more than a little disturbed at a major political figure having supporters chant "Sieg Heil" and beating up black people at a rally, disturbed enough to maybe not wring your hands about whether or not Trump has sufficiently aligned himself with a "cult of energy, unity and purity" or whatever

i feel differently. trump is deeply hated by huge portions of the electorate, the media, the republican party, and his supporters are mostly uneducated, powerless bigots. my voice on ilx is not going to help or stop him from fomenting political violence in the general public. but we do talk about politics here a bunch and it bothers me when ppl throw around the term fascism loosely (a trend that predates trump significantly) esp when idk i'm hoping for a better discourse. i don't plan to die today though, and certainly not on any hills.

I do think deporting eleven million people with a "deportation force" or whatever that was is "internal cleansing."

oh goole said that, sorry

I don't throw around the term fascist lightly and resent being lumped in as part of a trend that predates Trump and you can scroll back through my decade of posts if you like to verify that.

and if we're acknowledging the low stakes here re: how much ilx impact has irl, I think my usage of fascist degrades the term about as much as your voice on ilx inhibits Trump's fomentation of violence.

xp

That quote was from Robert Paxson and you left out:

"marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline" - yes
"humiliation" - yes
"or victimhood" - yes

i didn't leave it out - that was the first thing on the list

ok sorry. I do think that's three yesses, though.

lol shakey i took yr challenge and discovered this:

fascism is a pretty specific historical political phenomenon - and while there have arguably been fascist regimes from both the left (I'm thinkin Peron here) and the right (everyone else) - any and all claims to fascism in America are usually inaccurate and overheated hyperbole.
― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, March 6, 2007 5:56 PM (8 years ago) Bookmark

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-fascism#United_States

and in 2007 I was correct

Trump is quite unusual

If anything I would think that post is evidence that I don't throw the term around lightly

I actually think a debate about the degree to which pre-Trump Republicans have been fascist is worth having - the 2000 stopping of the vote count, the invasion of Iraq, disregard for existing political structures (extreme congressional obstructionism, government shutdowns), disregard for democratic principles (extreme gerrymandering, voter law shenanigans).

http://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-fascism-was-really-the-basis-for-the-new-deal-ronald-reagan-65-35-51.jpg

the 2000 stopping of the vote count, the invasion of Iraq, disregard for existing political structures (extreme congressional obstructionism, government shutdowns), disregard for democratic principles (extreme gerrymandering, voter law shenanigans).

these were all implemented democratically and/or challenged and held up in court

https://youtu.be/GlI2rjPIRI0

whether or not trump is fascist just kinda depends on how you want to use that word so everyone's right. also who cares. he is clearly a nationalist and appeals to white-identity voters, aka the gop base. I don't think his actual political views are concrete enough to be called anything. trumpist.

he's a nationalist who, as president, would definitely be willing to commit treason if someone offered him enough money

"you and I live in a world that we don't understand much of"

ain't that the truth

xxp

anybody else check out Frum's piece in the Atlantic - nice rundown

I agree that the term 'fascist' is and has been thrown out a bit too casually about people/movements that don't fit a strict definition of the term or, in some cases, even approximate it. That said, based on the evidence he's been all-too-happy to lay out before us, Trump is a fascist.

link, ET?

let me google that for you

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/01/the-great-republican-revolt/419118

thx

http://i.imgur.com/NWKLStd.jpg

This is Jeb Bush throwing "a fist in the air."

Why is he doing this if he doesn't want to do this?

XP Check out the sex-face on this tortoise.

This is Jeb Bush throwing "a fist in the air."

look out!!! he's going to smite that poor lone supporter!!!

I like to think of myself as an "accuracy in language matters" guy. However, one of the main tools we use in the contemporary age to keep the undercurrent of white nationalism that exists in this country from metastasising into an organized militant minority capable of launching an effective national intimidation campaign, while still maintaining freedom of speech, is by making it socially unacceptable to espouse those views.

Supporting a guy who we label as a gross far-right nutbag gets an eye roll and a decision not to talk about politics at dinner from yr average American. Supporting a guy we label as reasonably comparable to Hitler gets people to stop employing you or buying your wares and your kids to stop answering your calls.

If calling Trump a fascist, somewhat incorrectly, galvanizes people and makes support for him socially unsustainable, fuck it, let's go ahead and risk misusing a word.

Trump cannot get elected, but someone smarter and more charismatic following Trump's model... probably still couldn't get elected at first. But if they cross the ~35% threshhold and start recruiting brownshirts, especially if those brownshirts' day jobs are with a militarized police force, they don't really need to, the other ~20% can be gained through making it physically dangerous to speak against them. I mean, do you really think there's a majority of Americans who would be willing to risk their personal safety and that of their families to speak up for the safety of abstracted Latinos and Muslims? I don't think it's a likely scenario, but it's a plausible one.

I think it's important to show that guy (who's totally out there) that it can't get past a certain point.