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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTrump Just Broke Through the Last Level of Neo-Fascism
Never mind his latest Twitter storm of complaints and threats. Or do mind them, because their very desperation proves that its dawning on the Undapper Don that his chances of staying in the White House much longer are, as the mayor of Munchkin City put it, morally, ethically, spiritually, physically, positively, absolutely, undeniably, and reliably dead. Hell see for what will probably be the first time in his life that theres no judge he can buy (including the one he assumed he was buying, who has at least shown herself to be above mob-style corruption; hey, well take it), no fixer he can bribe, no idiot cousin he can put on the payroll to fix things.
When they start writing histories of the Trump era, I think the one-line summary will be something like this: While some portion of his appeal was based on legitimate grievances of working-class people against elites, he awakened an authoritarian impulse among the citizenry that was far larger and more rabid, and more easily triggered, than most of us ever imagined.
What do I mean by neo-fascism? Its a fairly obvious set of criteria. Here are five essential ones, though there are others: blind loyalty to a leader whos really more of a national father figure; belief that the leader is the state; belief that opposition to the leader is opposition to the state, and thus treason; conviction (instilled or ignited by the leader) that the source of the problems facing the good wholesome ethnic majority is some Other or collection of Others who must be ostracized if not banished; agreement that the rules and constraints of democratic order are sometimes useful and should be obeyed as long as one can obey them and win, because doing so confers a certain legitimacy, but if they have to be cast aside to hold power, then cast aside they must be. These principles animate every fascist regime in human history. They are at the heart of Trumpism, and they have drawn many more adherents than Id have thought possible in this country.
I think the writer makes some other good points in the article'
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-just-broke-last-level-085740834.html
Sucha NastyWoman
(2,876 posts)Between fascism and neo-fascism?
jalan48
(14,287 posts)The term neo-fascism defines primarily those political and ideological groups and parties that operated after 1945, especially in Europe, and which were directly inspired by the experience of the inter-war fascist and Nazi regimes in Germany, Italy, and other European countries. These groups were often made up of remnants of fascist and Nazi activists who were not prepared to give up their political militancy or indeed to renounce their ideologies despite military defeat. Many held radical and uncompromising views, emphasizing the revolutionary nature of fascism rather than its more reassuringnationalist or statist version. This article analyses neo-fascism after the Second World War; neo-fascism and anti-communism in the United States; neo-fascism during the Cold War; the second-generation neo-fascists after 1968; the extreme right today; and the neo-fascist legacy.
https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199594788.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199594788-e-32
Arne
(3,558 posts)Like New Nazis,
New Riech,
New Empire,
etc
True Blue American
(18,131 posts)Unless you are really, truly sick in the head!
drmeow
(5,238 posts)in the patriarchal; authoritarian; head of family, household, church,and country; and giver of rewards or punishments as he deems fit sense not in the look up to; proud of; or loving sense (although in a warped way they do look up to him).
True Blue American
(18,131 posts)Trump fits nothing of a father figure. Domineering Leader for the week, maybe.
Of course I had a great Father Figure I could trust and depend on. Grandfather, too. So I had a double does!
localroger
(3,701 posts)demigoddess
(6,673 posts)localroger
(3,701 posts)Javaman
(63,005 posts)Yeehah
(5,186 posts)but equally as malignant.
ancianita
(38,090 posts)Hortensis
(58,785 posts)and different victims to go after. That list should have mentioned that fascists always target some group(s) for persecution, and providing that red meat to those red in tooth and claw is very important for their strongmen leaders to come through on. And women are always devalued and subjugated under authoritarian regimes.
Even with the previously existing constraints of a mostly civilized society, today's version of strongman and followers here in America rushed to find and identify an extremely vulnerable group of victims, immigrant children, for extreme cruelty.
They've since managed to create and zealously insist on furthering an opportunistic holocaust that cleanses society of some of the elderly whose lives they rushed to discount, as well as chronically ill people and (dog-whistle it if you're "respectable" ) non-whites.
And with no limits to their depraved indifference to life in service to their leader, and not one awakened principle or doubt, they passionately and unquestioningly tried to give their leader the power to do whatever he wanted to next. Trump of would have rightly recognized a second term as America's permission to ramp up his destruction of our democratic laws and institutions, instill corruption that made the first term's look like nothing yet, and embark on greatly expanded persecutions, aggressions and betrayals he was afraid of in his first term. That is the USUAL, EXPECTED pattern of fascistic authoritarian leaders on reelection.
We've saved our nation, our children and other innocents, and our planet from that this time, but the danger is still very real.
ancianita
(38,090 posts)Republicans are the wholly owned subsidiary of corporations trying to control government (federal and state) and the means of production, by any means necessary, Constitution and human rights be damned.
That's fascism, and Republicans are fascists.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)are more. A ruling cabal may just exploit and abuse their populations, require obedience to laws and service whenever needed, but otherwise pretty much leave them to live and die as they can.
Fascism, and the relationship of followers and leaders is different. As Mussolini put it, fascism is the state, liberalism is the individual. Trump wants commitment of "my people" to him and the state, and fascist followers aggressively demand similar loyalty and conformity from others. Or else. Strongman Saddam Hussein didn't care what his people were thinking or doing as long as they didn't cross him. Trump would have his huge military parades and expect his people to turn out for huge ostentatious displays of uberloyal nationalism.
Also, fascistic leaders do typically partner with and use business/corporations as engines of wealth, but it's an uneasy relationship. Fascist dictators need business people, but they don't trust them and their fealty to the state instead of their profits.
Leaders like Putin in contrast gather a cabal of powerful criminals/business people who support them in power in a mutually beneficial partnership of predators.
Generally speaking, I guess.
ancianita
(38,090 posts)Politically this is it here:
Economically, it's true about "uneasy distrust," which cuts both ways, and so the corporate support for our party, because they know they do better in spite of 'regulations' than they will with a fascist party. Which is why fascist governments don't last as long as democracies.
Yet not for nothing, there is Trump's interest in securing global support for his second term. He's made extensive appointments across
United States Commercial Service
Generalized System of Preferences
International Trade Administration
International Trade Commission
Office of the United States Trade Representative
and all the DoD cyber activity that keeps him staying on good terms with globalists who don't care what our system of government is.
I say this party is a fascist fifth column for corporate and global ends. Their rule of men, bound to Trump, is how they allow the final globalist corporate capture of our government that has been beyond the reach of any popular vote. That is exactly why the fascists of the Senate will not pass the electors.
Globalism is inevitable. It's been around since trans-Atlantic slavery and tech has sped it up.
It's just that Americans shouldn't have to give up popular sovereignty over corporate and AI rule.
Democrats and corporate donors know this will keep happening in elections ahead.
Even if Trump dies, there will be the pro-corporate fascists who will fight in the courts, unless we win GA. I hate to say that maintaining democracy can only depend on GA for four more years, but Democrats will either have to harden up the enforcements of our congressional rules and all laws during that time, or face constant elections crises ahead. It only takes one loss to another version of Trump to shred this 250 year experiment.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)thought they could contain and use Hitler's movement and were destroyed by it.
Also, of Charles Koch's "What a mess." If he isn't afraid of all they helped cut loose, including ascendance of Christian nationalism and the "new right's" anti-globalist and intensely bigoted vision of "separate but equal" nationalism, which Trump seemingly ascribes to, he's as slow a learner as Germany's were. I'd give Bannon's "new right" intensely ethnonationalist authoritarian states no time at all to set off the biggest world war yet.
ancianita
(38,090 posts)Zakaria's latest book lays out a few points about how China's Belt and Road Project has invested over $120 billion in Africa and Americas, and how the TPP's successor trade pact is in force, covering 495 million people and representing 15% of the world economy.
We're in the throes of the art of the steal, and will have to decide to let our cybernet and business globalism carry us; and Democrats take away the Republican small business owners by shoveling $$ toward them, who so far represent 44% of the GDP; Congress will have to shore up the entire judiciary with enforcement laws, then prosecute (if only Letitia James or Sally Yates could be the new AG).
This drama and mess cleaning make my head hurt.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)unprecedented and unimagined growth of wealth and wellbeing (albeit not distributed as it should be) and great things are well within reach, actually may force themselves on us, as they have been, if we don't destroy ourselves to stop it.
Our crisis fatigue often slides our thinking into feeling the situation is too big to fix.
But humans made it and humans need to mend it, not end it.
I hope Americans will hang in there, not just over the vaccine, but political engagement.
I keep trying to read about the future, just to nudge others out of the dark now.
Thanks for your posts. I always appreciate your perspective.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)Neo = New.
overleft
(393 posts)Karadeniz
(23,293 posts)ancianita
(38,090 posts)lunatica
(53,410 posts)Its called neo because its a fairly recent resurgence.
ancianita
(38,090 posts)But they don't get the last word on it. The more aware public should, or antifa wouldn't have appeared in past decades.
It's not fairly recent but has been surging since Reagan's anti-big govt era and Bush's pro-big corp era,which makes its existence decades old whether media want to note that or not.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)Groups like the skinheads have been around as far back as I can remember and theyve been closely watched by the FBI. A few years back I looked up domestic terrorists and found out that the FBI had a list of about 400 groups they were watching.
Trump just united them and poured gasoline on their hatred.
SPLC has the latest hate group count at 940 as of 2019. Probably more once they update their annual report.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_organizations_designated_by_the_Southern_Poverty_Law_Center_as_hate_groups
That right there could be groups of three or groups in the hundreds of thousands. Maybe millions when you count a good number of the 3 percenters who just want a reason to shoot.
Mossfern
(3,030 posts)not the Mayor.
Just saying...
Orrex
(63,903 posts)I thought it was just me.
Mossfern
(3,030 posts)I think I probably have that movie memorized, old fartess that I am.
Orrex
(63,903 posts)It was a great many years ago, but I can still remember the kid who played the Coroner singing that line.
Mike 03
(16,616 posts)and this:
add this:
..while at the same time destroying the institutions of the state and replacing its civil servants with avowed loyalists...
Karadeniz
(23,293 posts)andym
(5,603 posts)Trump will try again-- he will be a problem: he'll call himself the "real President" trying to be Simple Simon from the sidelines.
But, the real problem is that Trump has shown the way for a power-hungry fascist to succeed in America: someone who is more intelligently Machiavellian than Trump.
The door never opened before in the U.S. has been opened. Now it becomes thinkable, even to be expected, that it will be opened again, probably sooner rather than later.
leighbythesea2
(1,206 posts)Probably next cycle. 4 years from now.
Thekaspervote
(34,363 posts)1. There are almost 8 million more of us than there are them
2. The 2016 election and the pursuant 4 yrs gave many if not most Dems, some independents and never trumper republicans PTSD...seriously. It was a BIG wake up call- never again can we look the other way, or be complacent about elections. Most will NEVER forget..or forgive as we are fully woke to their shit.
3. We harnessed the youth vote
4. The military vote is now more dem than republican
5. The hate from dotard, mcturtle, graham and others is palpable. Most understand they have to be stopped
Progress may be slow, but its on our side!
leftieNanner
(15,659 posts)for their behavior.
If some of these sycophants end up in prison, it may slow things down and give some of these bad dudes pause.
ancianita
(38,090 posts)We have to keep all these voters and increase our side's GOTV by 2024, because more gerrymandering is coming, and more reps on the Republican side after this latest Census.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)is that racial demographics are going through a fundamental change where Whites are becoming the minority. This is why theyre scared shitless and theyll embrace anything, including fascism to stay in power.
concretebluetwo
(114 posts)The author states: "Ive been writing lately that Trump foes should see him as a figure of derision and take joy in mocking him, and I believe that. That kind of moral cleansing is mentally healthy and necessary, after what hes done to our brains for four years."
Yes, but this stops well short of the whole of the problem.
Trump is the manifestation of nearly 40 years of a concerted GOP effort to normalize corruption, demonize and de-legitimize any and all opposition, denigrate and marginalize intelligence and expertise, and eliminate critical thinking while weaponizing stupidity and belligerent ignorance among the rank and file of the party.
If the media and public had taken this stance back when Newt Gingrich wrote the Contract on America we would not have had to put up with so much of the political idiocy of the last 30 years.
But mockery and derision only do so much. Without prosecution and consequences for illegal actions in service of the GOP mission, we will only face the same problem again.
OMGWTF
(4,388 posts)OMGWTF
(4,388 posts)dlk
(12,237 posts)All the while Reagan and Republicans were spouting this nonsense, he was the leader of the government! This was the first step toward Republican rejection of objective reality and any other inconvenient facts. This was by design and has seriously damaged our country. Im continually amazed at the mainstream medias continued lionization of Reagan. He was despicable!
bucolic_frolic
(46,512 posts)The towns where one employer, one industry, one industrialist owned everything plus owned the politicians, judges, pharmacies, rental housing, retailers, and set the agenda for all the rest especially education.
My Pet Orangutan
(10,342 posts)with a 21st century face.
bigtime
(732 posts)Is appearing in military uniform. I expect it every day.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)Generalissimo Donaldo Trumpo!
keithbvadu2
(39,778 posts)The GOP has no party platform of principles, policies, beliefs, values, ideology, morality, or goals.
Just their Messiah Donald to follow as a cult.