Trump has not suspended the Constitution. He has not declared martial law. He has not proclaimed himself president in perpetuum. He is not rounding people up into barb wire detention camps. He is not having critics assassinated. He is not having protesters machine gunned on the streets. He has not shut down newspapers, magazines and television stations. He has not ordered military trials for “traitors”. He has not abolished the existing security organs and created a new security apparatus. In short, if Donald Trump is a “fascist”, he is the most laughable bubblegum fascist in history. Yet to hear the left tell it, we’re in Germany circa 1933. IMHO, this only makes the left look exactly like the snowflakes their worst critics accuse them of being.
Yep. Also the most laughable bubblegum president.
That’s why it is so enjoyable to watch.
For some reason so many people on the left think that their hysterics over Trump are going to bring them electoral victories in the future. I think it’s going to be exactly the opposite.
Wait, you believe the only criticisms of Trump going round are that he’s a fascist (or at least kinda likes the freedom of action that fascists seem to have)?
Also, nice how you manage to work in a pre-emptive, blanket insult, right from the git-go, toward anyone who might end up challenging your straw man.
Sorry, you aren’t accurately characterizing me, or, I believe, the majority of posters here who happen to dislike Trump.
You’re right, Trump is no more a fascist than Obama was a socialist. I wold say, however, that he’s closer to being one than Obama is to being a Communist.
Yeah but, Russian Spies…
Actually I could forgive his or Hillary’s [ she would have got exactly the same treatment had she won the vote, although she might not respond with his grace ] incipient Peronism, far more than their illiterate libertarianism, which is driving his social / economic policy .
His campaign followed the Authoritarian Playbook quite closely, he wants to ignore the constitution as his repeated attempts to ban people from entering the US based on their religion shows, and he’s threatened to “send in the feds” because…well, I’m not sure what he thought they’d do when they got there, but he seemed willing to send them.
He’s installing family members with no qualifications into offices of some importance; he’s carting around his own security personnel who are presumably loyal to him and not subject to whatever rules the Secret Service abide by; he threatened to have his opponent jailed should he win the election. He has not shut down newspapers and TV news channels, just declared them invalid. Or if you will, “fake news”; one of his chief advisors admitted in public that his goal is to dismantle your government, and I don’t think Bannon was planning to retire after that. And now prominent Republicans, not shmucks on the street but politician-type shmucks who could possibly make this happen, are calling for Muslims to be put in concentration camps. He shuns your western democratic allies and cozies up to the worst of the world’s leaders, probably looking for tips on how to govern; he demands loyalty oaths from government officials; he has officially stopped regarding white right-wing terrorists as terrorists; he has defunded scientific research that proves his party’s propaganda is a lie.
All this in the first four months of his first and what ought to be only term. Is there anything about Trump that doesn’t shout “I wanna be a dictator!”?
Heh Trump’s grace? Thanks for the spit-take.
It’s been interesting watching the reduction in expectations. Trump started out as someone who his supporters thought was going to be a saviour. Now, more and more I’m seeing comments like yours. Which amount to a face saving attempt to suggest he’s OK because he’s not actually the anti-Christ.
Also, you completely miss a key point. Sometimes people are democratically elected and then become fascist despots. There are any number of historical examples. And those examples show that fascist-despots-to-be do not do or say overtly that they intend to or are likely to become a fascist despot.
By the time it becomes so obvious that is their intention that the apathetic population realises what is going on, it is usually too late.
That is why politically aware people are somewhat paranoid about early signs of despotism.
I think he would happily do many of these things if he a) had the energy, which he doesn’t, and b) could get away with it, which he can’t, at least not yet. What he wants is the glory and the profitability of the office, to which end he wants to be re-elected in a walk. So he panders to his base and stokes outrage among his opponents, thereby tending to make them ineffective (focusing on the outrage instead of practical strategies, which didn’t work in this election and won’t work in the next one).
I don’t think he cares much about anything else, not even how history will view him after he is dead. He certainly doesn’t care about preserving American democratic institutions, except for making the band play Hail To The Chief when he comes into the room.
Does this read like hyperbole to you? I guess it all depends on your point of view.
I think one major reason for the frenzy/hyperbole about Trump is that the man himself and his persona invites that sort of hyperbole.
Trump tackled Vince McMahon at a WWE event and entered a WWE ring himself, was a TV mogul, thrived on outrageous living, lived an outrageously gilded lifestyle, spoke of himself in hyperbolic comments/remarks, etc.
I don’t think it’s actually about Trump’s policies. Someone like Mike Pence - a much quieter, calmer, more reserved figure - could have proposed policies twice as hardline, twice as conservative, twice as tough as Trump’s, and still not gotten half the hyperbole of Trump. And in fact Pence may be exactly that.
More opinion seeking than debate. Moved from Great Debates to IMHO.
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Where are these people you speak of? I’ve never met anyone that thinks Trump is literally Hitler, and I live in one of the most liberal parts of the country.
On the other hand, I know people that genuinely thought Obama was running secret military exercises in order to impose martial law, ultimately suspending the Constitution and remaining in office for a third term.
This is just the usual false equivalence as far as I can tell.
He’s pretty much shut down the senior state department, and he’s barely appointed any staff to Justice.
I speculate that he may to be trying to prevent anyone in the USA’s government from stopping his international criminal deals.
He also literally wants to build Iron Curtain II: Wall Harder.
Are you familiar with Projection?
Democracy is democracy… until it isn’t. We’ve been seeing, globally, a long string of backsliding away from democracy and towards authoritarian rule. Poland, Turkey, Venezuela, Hungary… There’s no sharp, “Okay, the military is taking over now, now we are no longer a democracy” moment, just a long, slow string of political moves that entrench the power of the executive while weakening other institutions. Things like stacking the courts, ignoring or disabling watchdog institutions, filling the government with cronies, creating a culture where questioning the executive or the party leads to consequences, and firing anyone who steps out of line. All of these things by entirely legal means, albeit not ethical ones.
Sound familiar?
Trump may not be an authoritarian, but he and his party are taking enough actions straight out of that playbook that we should be worried. At the very latest, if you didn’t start worrying about authoritarian tendencies when he publicly admitted to firing James Comey because of his role in the Russia investigation, then you should spend some time reading up on authoritarian regimes, how they’ve started happening lately, and also Watergate for good measure - Trump has already committed the action that finally got Nixon impeached.
And of course, that’s by far not all that’s wrong with Trump. Nearly every appointment and decision out of this administration is so bafflingly wrong-headed that it makes me want to despair for my country. Abolishing net neutrality? Pulling out of a non-binding climate agreement looking for a “better deal” (than a non-binding agreement)? Trying to get rid of the tools the Obama administration put in place to prevent the financial collapse of '08 happening again? Trying to deal with the opioid epidemic with the same fucking failed “war on drugs” tactics that just don’t fucking work? Even if this isn’t aiming for authoritarianism, it’s still a goddamn garbage fire.
No one says most of those things.
But he is a fascist. Just because he doesn’t have the power he’d need to actually make the government fit a fascist model doesn’t mean the man himself doesn’t fit the definition. The government he wants to have is a fascist government. He wants to be able to control the opposition, crush dissent, and control commerce. He pushes a cult of personality based on favors. He pushes hyperpatriotism, and creates the scapegoat that is causing all our problems (immigrants and Muslims).
He’s not Hitler. Hitler was a lot smarter. Hitler had a lot more charisma. Hitler knew how to actually get the ability to do the things that Trump wants to do. But he is a fascist.
As for why there is hyperbole about Trump, it seems obvious to me. He’s evil. But at least a quarter of the country seems completely unable to understand this. It’s infuriating. So people are angry, and anger is the emotion that causes you to overstate your case.
Plus there’s just a lot of stuff that seems like hyperbole but isn’t. Like me saying Trump is evil, or an enemy of the United States. Or when I say he is a psychopath. When I say things about his supporters (not just those who voted for him). Or, hell, when I called him a fascist. I genuinely mean all of those things.
Yes…but RIGHT OUT OF THE GATE…were the Hitler comparisons. And numerous thinkpieces written about how he’s Hitler. THE FUH.
When you open the discussion with Hitler…it kind of poisons the well.
Even today, wayyyyyyy too many people call others ‘Nazis’. They arn’t Nazis. (Well…except the ones who literally are). And its kind of offensive given what people had to endure at the hands of REAL Nazis. Besides all the fallacy stuff.
As for Trump, I agree that he probably couldn’t be worse if he tried.
It’s hard to respond to this. In a way you’re right, but you’re also missing the point entirely. Those things you are dismissing are just as if not more important than the specific policies Trump puts forth. They speak to his motivation as a person.
Trump isn’t conservative. He isn’t hardline. He isn’t tough. He is evil. Other people could do those other things, and they would not be treated the same, because those things are different from who Trump is.
In as much as people have said those things the OP cites about Trump, it’s because people had their fundamental understanding of how reality works upended. They see a man who broadcasts his evil and see the people they thought were good voting for him.
It’s easier for those people, in their hurt and anger, to believe that Trump really is all that crafty than it is to believe that a quarter of the country is just that awful.
Give him time?