I worry that a person like Trump might be rare but not unique. 
… so that enough non-Republicans in swing states decide not to vote to tip the balance to their favor.
Trump is what this Republican party wants. They want fascism, at least right now. Fighting this requires accepting it.
Does this comment by Canadian politician Tommy Douglas (1904-1986) CCF/NDP resonate with people here?
“Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege.”
I think it reminds us of an important element of fascism that often goes missing when we tend to equate it simply with “authoritarianism.”
As for wondering if the US is only one election away from fascism, we might look at the career of Paul Löbe. German SPD politician and president of the Reichstag from1925-1932, he was in prison in 1933.
FWIW, I didn’t think fascism was on the ballot back in 2016. Trump was inexperienced as a politician, and I generally went along with the sentiment at the time that the Republican Party would reign in his worst impulses. That Trump would end up changing/revealing the truth of the Republican party instead of the other way around hadn’t occurred to me. It’s only in hindsight that it became obvious.
He knows.
Some of us figured it out in 2016. Now it’s too late.
The moment a ruling class begins? By this definition, the U.S. became fascist the first time FDR lost a New Deal Supreme Court case. Douglas may be a great Canadian, but this quote is nonsense.
There’s a big difference between how democracy dies in a parliamentary and presidential system.
I admire, but do not share, your optimism.
No, it’s more fleshed out than that – not merely “begins”, but “begins to destroy …”. To paraphrase Douglas by removing and recasting the dependent clause:
Fascism begins the moment a ruling class begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege. A ruling class would destroy political democracy for fear that the ruled people will use their political democracy to gain economic democracy.
Or dies, gets too senile or decrepit to mess with this stuff. He’s 78 years old, so if Biden wins, we’d be looking at an 82 year old Trump in 2028.
Anyway, I could be entirely wrong, but I feel like the MAGA movement is basically the Tea Party, but with a figurehead and a sort of direction, i.e. Trump. And once he’s out of the picture, there’s not a clear heir apparent that’s being groomed to take the ideological and popularity reins. Basically I feel like Trump’s charisma, such that it is, is holding the whole thing together in its current shape.
So my suspicion (and no small amount of hope) is that when Trump is out of the picture, the MAGA types will be pretty unfocused, and the GOP will more or less revert to what it used to be, but with a sort of inchoate MAGA/Tea Party element that bedevils the party especially at a state and local level.
So in a sense, we’re buying time for Trump to be out of the picture, and for things to revert back to what it was before his weird, meteoric rise as a sort of populist demagogue.
I also feel (no actual proof) that the SCOTUS justices will be less likely to be as politically motivated once he’s out of the picture.
Right. Trump didn’t elect himself.
Trump’s popularity and power is the symptom.
And we will be seeing that message (‘don’t bother voting, your vote doesn’t count, it changes nothing, it doesn’t matter, they’re all the same’ etc. etc. etc.) all over all media in the coming five months.
There will be humans tap-tapping away, but with current AI capability, much of the messaging will be automated*. That makes it possible to saturate even small/medium message boards like this one. And of course the most popular media (TikTok, Instagram, etc.) will be a sea of ‘don’t bother voting’ messaging.
We need to be ready to point and laugh every time we see it.
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*I’m not attempting to refer to any particular account on this site or any other; AI accounts and paid-operative accounts clearly exist in the world, but it’s as pointless as it is against Straight Dope rules to say or imply that these classifications might apply to any specific account. My remarks are intended merely to highlight the fact that such accounts will be very active all over the internet in coming months.
Has anyone defined “fascism” for the purposes of this thread? I think of Hitler and Mussolini, to be honest, and not “the USA in August 2019.”
I mean, this is all a self-reinforcing circle-jerk, right? Hyperbole for the sake of supporting idiot #1 instead of idiot #2? Just like the dumb claims that idiot #2’s supporters make, but only in the other direction?
No one can ever make Amtrak run on time.
Sure, fascism in America , even if trump wins, could be Hyperbole- It may never happen.
But the idea that the two candidates are in any way alike is what the Kremlin is pushing as propaganda- “why vote, they are all the same” etc.
No, there is a start difference between parties and candidates this year. Joe Biden is the candidate of sanity and reasonableness.
trump is the opposite.
Are you suggesting that Biden and Trump are the same, and you don’t see how one of these is much closer to fascism than the other? I’m just trying to make sure I’ve got your analysis straight, it’s hard to cut through the above cloud of sophistry and both-sides-ism.
Right. Personally, since he’s so concerned about defining commonly used words, I’m also curious what his definition of “idiot” is here that it applies to both candidates equally.
That doesn’t make sense. Trump didn’t pick them and they have no allegiance to them. Trump picked who the Heritage Society told him to pick.
They even brag about it, it’s no secret.
That’s why they often rule against Trump (but not always); if anyone is pulling their strings it’s them. That isn’t changing when Trump goes away, unfortunately.
As we’re talking about the danger of fascism in the US, that’s one organization we need to be wary of.
He’s already said that he doesn’t think that the winner of the next election for president matters.
I posted this last August; it may be useful again.
Umberto Eco’s 1995 essay, “Ur-Fascism,” in The New York Review of Books, is an excellent discussion of fascism. Eco outlines 14 points or characteristics of fascism, and notes it is incoherent, syncretic, and contradictory in its nature. A précis and link to the whole article is here Umberto Eco Makes a List of the 14 Common Features of Fascism | Open Culture
Some other points commentators have made about fascism:
- it is a phenomenon of developed industrial states that have a powerful capitalist class, a large working class, and a large “middle” classs, or “petty bourgeoisie” that is stuck between those two classes and may go with either, but most likely will side with the rich and powerful
- fascist movements are always around, but they only become politically important when there are socio-economic crises
- despite some of their populist rhetoric, fascist politicians are connected to the “ruling class,” that is, the rich and powerful. They are not all in complete agreement, but the fascists do not propose, like Communists, to do away with capitalists and capitalism, and in power they use the state to crush workers and others.
- fascism relies on fear and terror, either through the use of the state–police, military, courts, once in power–or the violence of its members against other groups.
- usually fascist governments pursue aggressive, expansionist, imperialistic foreign policies
- fascist parties and politicians and governments use ideology to manipulate and divert the anxieties of people away from the real source of their problems. Not making enough money to get by? Blame “foreigners!” Etc.
There is an old (1976?) little volume by Martin Kitchen, titled “Fascism,” that is still worth a read. The key is the connection to capitalism: fascism doesn’t exist without it. Authoritarianism, Caesarism, Bonapartism, sure, but fascism is a modern variant dependent on the development of capitalism.