…you are entitled to your opinion. But this isn’t actually a rebuttal of what I said. And there is a difference between an “authoritarian regime”, a “fascist dictatorship” and the as-yet undefined “post Democracy.”
No that isn’t how anything works.
For example, imagine Joe Bloggs is sitting there in his house, minding his own business, thinking that Trump & Co is a “fascist regime.”
And next door Jim Bloggs is sitting there in his house, minding his own business, thinking that Trump & Co is NOT a “fascist regime.”
Do either of these people who are doing nothing at all except sitting in their thoughts have any tangible effect on democracy?
Nah.
But what if Joe had the gall to actually go online and share his opinion. “THIS IS A FASCIST REGIME!” he says in all caps. Did Trump “win” now? Has it made a material difference?
Not at all. Its just noise. Whether Joe is right or wrong is immaterial. And Joe is certainly not responsible if “Trump wins.”
As I said: you are looking to history, when what we are doing is creating history. Its unlikely what will happen in America will resemble what happened in Iraq or what happened in North Korea. It’s a different thing. It could all fizzle out tomorrow. Then people like me would look like idiots. Or it could all kick off tomorrow and we have troops roaming the streets executing people and people like me would look like prophets. (For the record, I don’t think that will happen.)
Joe isn’t “enabling fascism.” People who support fascism enable fascism.
And I’ve just discovered that fascism is one of those words that no matter how many times I try to spell it I always get it wrong. Like nesecery. I’ve been trying to get that right for decades. I just can’t do it. If it weren’t for spell check, I’d be in big trouble. But for some reason I’ve never been able to figure out, nesecery doesn’t autocorrect ever in browser. I’ve got to select it, right click and google search it to get the right spelling. This is obviously the real facism.
Because it’s true and pretending it’s not is why America is where it is. The country has gone fascist and most of the people on this board are offended by the idea that maybe you should stop inviting the fascists to Thanksgiving.
…this is a split thread. And that is post eight. I don’t read that as a “definition”, but even if it were, there is a difference between what you were suggesting (a fascist dictatorship) and authoritarian regimes. Wiki defines authoritarianism as:
I think arguably that fits. I, personally, don’t think we are there yet. But that isn’t because this is not the intent. This is certainly the goal. Many institutions are still pushing back, but they can’t keep pushing back forever.
No it is not.
Making an observation is not a “pro fascist position” even if that observation in your opinion is wrong." Saying “I think Trump is leading an authoritarian government” is not an endorsement.
Yes it is. The observation “Americans criticising Trump emboldens America’s enemies, and is unpatriotic” is a pro-fascist position. So is “Potemkin Village vestiges of democracy actually support the authoritarian regime.” it actively encourages America’s descent into fascism.
That was the last post by the OPer, on the previous thread, before they split this thread off. It was what I was responding to and it definitely defined what “post democracy” means according to the OPer.
And no it doesn’t. Do you think some random person on the internet is going to stumble across this thread and read that sentence and go “I’m a fascist now?” By what mechanism is this random sentence on an obscure messageboard “actively encouraging America’s descent into fascism?”
And why are you continuing to conflate fascism with authoritarianism?
That was the last post by the OPer, on the previous thread, before they split this thread off. It was what I was responding to and it definitely defined what “post democracy” means according to the OPer.
It’s post eight in this thread. And only madmonk28 can say for sure if this is their strict definition of “post Democracy” and even if it were, as per standard SDMB protocol the OP doesn’t own the debate.
But if it IS the definition they are talking about authoritarianism, not facissm. And I STILL can’t spell the word right.
Do we have free elections? Have their been mass gun confiscations? Have “they” suspended the rights of free assembly, free press, freedom of religion? Habeas Corpus? None of these things have happened.
Yes, the current President is abusing his executive powers- and the ACLU and others are calling him on it, and sometimes they win.
Have you ever listened to Fox News? People make observations at least as pro fascist as that most segments
No but they might go “America’s Potemkin Village vestiges of democracy actually support the authoritarian regime? Then I’m not going to vote or get involved in politics” and that actively help fascists take over America. Its a pro fascist statement.
I’d argue for that reason it’s a more pro fascist statement than “its undemocratic to criticize Donald Trump”, no one who was going to criticize Donald Trump is going to read that and go “oh yeah, I shouldn’t criticize him then”. Only people who have well truly drunk the kool aid will agree with that statement, and they are already ok with fascism
If a doctor says the patient has cancer, the doctor is not expressing a pro-cancer position. The doctor is stating reality.
Thousands of masked secret police descend on Minneapolis because their governor is a political opponent of the insane game show host who allowed an unelected oligarch to dismantle the federal government. America is post democracy and being mad at the person who points that out is pointless.
I don’t know what to tell you, I think people here are clinging to an idea that is corrosive; that after Trump everything will go back to the America that was, but that’s a childish idea that refuses to acknowledge the fact that almost half of Americans are fascist and a significant portion of the remainder are allies of the fascists who refuse to hold the fascists in their own circles accountable. Trump is a symptom, not the disease.
Nobody does that. madmonk28 is one of my favourite posters. But I don’t read their posts and have a sudden conversion of faith.
But lets just pretend that this absurd scenario you’ve posited actually played out.
That isn’t on madmonk28, is it? Don’t I have agency? If I decide I’m not going to vote in the next election, that’s on me, right?
This is complete nonsense. Because madmonk28 has been crystal clear that they are sharing their opinions because they want people to take what this administration is doing seriously. It is most definitely an antifascist sentiment, with an antifascist goal. You are allowed to disagree with them. But being “pro” something implicitly implies support. That certainly isn’t true here and you should withdraw the accusation.
I happen to think that denial of how bad things are is inherently a more damaging position to take. But that doesn’t mean saying “the Trump administration isn’t fascist…yet” is a "profascist statement. A profascist statement need to at the very least be in some way profascist. But that isn’t the case here.
I haven’t drunken any kool aid. But I think America is post-past-the-point it has the chance to reverse course short-of-a-revolution. This isn’t a testable position yet though. It’s an observation that in a hundred years historians would look back on and either go “LOL he got that wrong” or “holy crap. He got everything right.”
They are a rhetorical device they can say whatever we want them to say
The statement ”chemotherapy drugs are just sugar pills, taking them actually helps the cancer” is absolutely analogous to the statement “Potemkin Village vestiges of democracy actually support the authoritarian regime.”
