Anybody have the figure of how many more Floridians died than normal because of DeFascist’s anti-mask and anti-vax demogogary? Maybe he’s starting small…
Of course not. That’s just sparkling authoritarianism.
Unfortunately, that’s not how modern journalism works. NBC, ABC, ABC Aus, FOX, BBC, Reuters, CBC, CNN; they are looking for clicks. If they can influence you thoughts, more clicks.
So “modern journalism” is not protected. Only the quill on parchment version?
This.
This, this, this.
And this doesn’t trivialize anything. It takes a serious warning seriously. Ignoring that warning is what trivializes it.
ISWYDT. 
It also isn’t just like Amelia Earhart, Thomas Jefferson, Babe Ruth, Lex Luthor or The Great Gazoo either. Do you know what all of these names (Hitler included) have in common?
When you look up “Fascism” in the dictionary, none of their pictures pop up next to the definition.
Yes, yes it is. And it’s also how old journalism works.
And old journalism was not free from their version of clickbait: cf. yellow journalism.
• scare headlines in huge print, often of minor news
• lavish use of pictures, or imaginary drawings
• use of faked interviews, misleading headlines, pseudoscience, and a parade of false learning from so-called experts
• emphasis on full-color Sunday supplements, usually with comic strips
• dramatic sympathy with the “underdog” against the system.
That description is from 1941 and refers to the newspaper wars of the late 19th century. Looks familiar?
There comes a point when arguing for one thing against the vast body of evidence, cites and quotes starts looking quixotic or sisyphean. That might be the point where taking a break and pondering one’s position might turn out enlightening.
Sounds like a good idea.
Right, it is also taking into account a position that is more rooted in reality.
As for myself, I can report that in Latin America (I fled El Salvador’s civil war to the US back then), there was a lot of fascism or Neo fascism coming from the military regimes of the recent past. In the USA that was not recognized as such and many of those authoritarians were trained in the US, one big failure of a lot of the media in the US by not pointing that out then.
One can make the point that a lot of what was done during the dirty wars in Latin America is that a good portion of Americans never stopped looking fondly about fascist solutions to many of the “problems” that they see.
https://www.dukeupress.edu/transatlantic-fascism
As Finchelstein explains, nacionalismo, the right-wing ideology that developed in Argentina, was not the wholesale imitation of Italian fascism that Mussolini wished it to be. Argentine nacionalistas conflated Catholicism and fascism, making the bold claim that their movement had a central place in God’s designs for their country. Finchelstein explores the fraught efforts of nationalistas to develop a “sacred” ideological doctrine and political program, and he scrutinizes their debates about Nazism, the Spanish Civil War, imperialism, anti-Semitism, and anticommunism. Transatlantic Fascism shows how right-wing groups constructed a distinctive Argentine fascism by appropriating some elements of the Italian model and rejecting others. It reveals the specifically local ways that a global ideology such as fascism crossed national borders.
Weirdly. if you ask Argentinians if they are “Nacionalistas”, most would say yes, but not because they are fascists (even if some are), but because the distinction between “Nationalism” and “Patriotism” is not clear in Argentinian discourse, most think it’s the same thing (and for “Argentinian Spanish” purposes you can say they mostly are).
If you explained what you mean by “Nationalist” obviously it would be rejected by most.
Not strange, one has to remember that, as Hegel could say, Nationalism could have good points, but he made those remarks (I think) decades before Hitler came to power and the fascists twisted (and continue to twist) the good items what Nationalism could have, currently in Argentina and other Latin American countries Nationalism’s meaning is a bit more mellow. Again, it depends of when the term was used and by who.
Hell, for that matter people don’t always draw that distinction in the US either.
Or, more commonly, people subscribe to nationalism and call it patriotism. Or claim that anyone who is not a nationalist can’t be a patriot. For example, if you want to change something for the better in the US, and you do so because you love your country enough to try to improve it, you’re admitting that the US has flaws which means you can’t be a patriot.
Definitely not a problem that we’re unfamiliar with in the US. 
Considering that he died 102 years before Hitler came to power, I’d say so.
They do it because they hate our freedom.
TL;DR - Nationalism and fascism are entwined but, as the saying goes, correlation s not causation.
Nationalism, at least from a European perspective, goes hand in hand with the nation states. And in turn, those came about during the second half of the 19th century for a couple of reasons:
• It was possible for a central government to wield its power over large territories because railroads and telegraph made it possible. The need for feudalism, i.e. rule by proxy, vanished in a few decades.
• There were wars, revolutions and counter revolutions shaking up status quo. The nation states emerged in large as a solution to the constant convulsions in France. Germany and Italy became nations.
• To consolidate the nation state and turn it into a Nation (yes, capital N) it was necessary to create a citizenry that felt they had a stake in the nation. Universal education, museums and large libraries became tools to educate the masses to become subjects of the states, before they were objects of the crown.
• Another part was to invent, or maybe rather retcon, a National History to justify and make legitimate the new nations. So we got Romantic nationalism.
• Most of all, the industrialization and modern capitalism really got going at this point. And the new middle class factory owners needed workers. And workers needed basic skills in the three r’s to perform their tasks in the factories, mines. Schools became essential in providing labor and telling people who they were (i.e. German or Italian or Dutch).
One could then argue, and many have, that the birth of nationalism came with a price: WWI.
It’s interesting that universal franchise was enacted in most of the European countries shortly after WWI. One might think that the Russian revolution scared the shit out of the ruling class and seeing that the survivors, hardened by war, was returning home, made the case for voting rights appealing, as compared to what had happened in Russia.
And the reaction to that was fascism; some in the ruling class couldn’t abide that the vote of one ‘filthy worker’ would carry the same weight as one of the gentry.
DeSantis is now asking for $100 million to fund his own army, which is a normal thing that no -fascist politicians do.
But Florida is a low-tax state! I wonder what they’ll cut to fund this thing? Hint: education, especially higher education.
When you’ve eliminated every textbook because they’re all ‘woke’ you can save a lot of money. And then when teachers quit because they can’t actually educate their students, you save even more. This probably solves itself!
Stranger
Fascist snowflake poses with a fascist snowflake.
That’s pretty clever! And a nice design, too.
Masterful trolling. I stand in awe, especially catching a double (Iowa Governor Kim Richards, a Trump booster) on that swing.
Stranger