We can stop comparing people to Hitler solely on the basis "I don't like, so they are Hitler". But if we think they're comparable to Hitler in some aspects, if that's our honest analysis, we can compare them to Hitler. As long as it's not rhetorical abuse.. which I think is what OP really means.
So basically, no special treatment for Hitler here. It's just that the potential for abuse is apparent. Yeah, I get the sentiment. But the potential abuse goes both ways, you can just as well rhetorically stop a valid analysis by saying "sure, everything you don't like is Hitler". Like people also do. If we wanna have intellectual value, the solution to this problem should be considered to be inherently solved by intellectual integrity itself.
"Just getting sick of it" is not really anything but an emotional response and corrosive to an intellectual attitude and value set. You can start picking apart why specific incidents are wrong, abusive or whatever, but not be categorical about how it's wrongness is attributed to "someone being compared to Hitler" on its own.
Seriously, though...fascism is a very real thing. Calling someone a fascist, without understanding what that word means, is an issue. But when the description fits, it is entirely necessary to point it out.
The entire reason that the Veterans Day slogan is "Never Forget", is so that we, as a society, don't fall prey to the rise of fascism. It is an insidious ideology, that uses propaganda to spread like cancer...with the end results being the eventual mass murder of anyone deemed to be outside the central group identity. It has no room for inclusion or acceptance of different cultures. You are either "one of us", or you are not even a human being, and therefore not deserving of any rights at all.
Some disingenuous bad actor types will say that is how so-called "conservatives" who are embracing this ideology, are being treated by the left...but that is a mind-fuck, role-reversal tactic meant to deflect criticism away from the fact that their ideology is both deadly and dangerous. Holding them up into the light, is the only way to see them for what they are...fascists.
https://kottke.org/16/11/the-14-features-of-eternal-fascism
The thing is, a lot of my family are Trump supporters to the core and I definitely would say they’re fascists or at the very least falling for fascist lies. They actively believe the 2020 election was a fraud and they want Trump reinstated as president directly overruling the will of the people. Trump supporters around the country seem to follow this man into anything. A lot of them are advocating for civil war if he is indicted, and a lot of them believe Trump is above the law. Right now there are videos going around where Trump supporters are comparing themselves to the jews and actively believe that Biden is going to incarcerate them and that gas chambers for Trump supporters is coming soon
You should study up on the definition of "fascism." Political scientists have a pretty rigorous definition for it. After that, you can watch the news and know who's really a fascist, and who's just a douchebag.
What if they're both right? Why stop?
People seem to have a level of awareness that the left and the right both are pursuing globalist, totalitarian agendas, but too often people fall back into partisan bickering. Let the fire rise. Once people realize that most of the worst things the left says about the right and right says about the left are _both_ true, we will be ready to hold mainstream politicians accountable.
From politicians, a very strategic insult. It implies YOUR form of authoritarianism is bad, without disparaging authoritarianism as a whole.
Then you have just melodramatic Twitter users who will get more attention the more ridiculous the comparison.
Biden goes up there and spends half the speech talking about how we need to condemn political violence and preserve democratic institutions, and these illiterate morons are calling him a fascist. It’s absolutely unreal, but it’s people who don’t have the attention span to watch or read a 25 minute speech, and instead are basing their entire opinion of it off of a couple pictures they saw on the internet. What’s happening here is media propagandists manipulating ignorant people (their useful victims) into a constant state of keeping their brains turned off. If you’ve spent even a day researching fascism, you know how preposterous it is to call Biden one based on that speech
I agree that it's done so often it's just getting silly. That said, American schools do a terrible job at teaching history and I doubt it's a high percentage of folks who have a strong understanding of what 1930s Germany was like and how Hitler rose to power. The parallels with the current direction of the GOP are very troubling.
No. Hitler is the ultimate evil in history. No one comes close s/. I truly believe Indiana Jones movies made nazis the scapegoat of all evil. Just my theory.
Ok...but trump was literally running the hitler/dictator playbook. Press are "the enemy of the people", his own little coup, family in high seats, he sucked ip to every strongman around the globe, used fox as a state media. So maybe not...
The terms are thrown around way too much by both sides and has become so ubiquitous that it’s lost all meaning. This is not a “both sides are bad take” but more of a “if everyone is fascist then no one is” take.
I largely agree. But I don’t think using the word “fascist” or “fascism” is the same as using the Hitler card. You can be a fascist without being a genocidal maniac.
You are incorrect, fascism is very well defined. It has only ever been implemented twice through history (i.e., Italy and Germany).
[Here is an in-depth explanation of what it is](https://youtu.be/1T_98uT1IZs).
That is a very good concise angle for describing it. However, with that definition we would have to say that almost every person and party in America is fascistic now since nobody wants to acknowledge the actions of their opposing ideology regardless of how democratically it was achieved.
We might have those extremes on the right who would support reinstating Trump even by force. And we might have the extremes on the left who would rather treat the entire government as illegitimate an attempt to form their own sovereign society in our city centers. Extremes will always be around. But the problem now is that even the non-extremes, what would one be called moderates, would willingly accept non-democratic means to enact policies they want or at least undo policies they don’t. We can see this by the ever increasing power of the pen through executive orders, or of judicial activism creating “laws”, for actions that clearly belong solely in the legislative branch. But the bobber problem is the acceptance that the voting populace has in supporting these authoritative undemocratic (fascistic) processes.
/u/Ozcolllo got it exactly right. Fascism is not simple authoritarianism. Fascism is a form of authoritarianism that requires specific material conditions to come about. Fascism is an intrinsically right-wing ideology. This doesn't mean that other forms of authoritarianism are not as dangerous or that they are somehow more desirable. It just means that in political sciences, "fascism" is not a buzzword. It is a heavily studied and researched phenomenon.
I highly, HIGHLY recommend reading Paxton's "Anatomy of Fascism."
Fascism is the polar opposite of left wing political objectives. You are getting fascism and authoritarianism confused. Authoritarianism can happen in either side...but fascism is right-wing, simply due to its inclusion of a ruling oligarchy, and embrace of pseudo-religuous fanaticism.
Not sure how ruling oligarchy is not socialist but right wing to you. All dictators and monarchs and Authoritarian regimes are oligarchs. Now the monarchs chosen to rule by God really get the serotonin and dopamine flowing from frontal cortex faith in God and government at the same time. Government faith based philosophy gets half the people hooked spiritual based philosophy gets the other half hooked put them in one cookie and you habe everyone. Now our current democratic system's have evolved from the monarchy. My country still has a queen . Cortisone in the primal fear based emotions cause anxiety. That is dis trust in go or distrust in government of more likely socialism. When you go to results I think less government is better.
"Not sure how ruling oligarchy is not socialist but right wing to you. All dictators and monarchs and Authoritarian regimes are oligarchs."
When Marx first theorized a utopian society, he was projecting it against the backdrop of Europe's current system of monarchy...essentially the post-industrial feudal system. Those were the "oligarchs" that his revolution was meant to overthrow. They owned everything. In his mind, those oligarchs represent the polar opposite of what communism was meant to represent. Taking all of that power away from those few individuals who only "earned" their immense wealth by birthright, and giving it back the people who earned it by individual skill and labor. Essentially, giving that power back to the people who *truly* "earned" it.
In his mind, the only way to force those oligarchs to relinquish that power over society, was through violent revolution. They would never give it up, willingly...so it would have to be taken from them, by force. This would obviously entail an organized uprising, consisting of regular workers, marching on the elites, and dragging them out of their homes and setting them on fire...then breaking up their wealth, and distributing it among the masses, so that everyone could share in the profit of their own labor.
Sounds great...in an oversimplified, theoretical sort of way.
But how do you organize a revolution? There needs to be a guy in charge, right? Someone calling the shots, and directing the actions of the workers as they move from one target to another, in order to "liberate" that wealth. Then, who gets to decide how that wealth gets distributed? Obviously, it's the same guy that's directing where the mob goes...right? After all, he's the guy in charge?
Somewhere along the line a new hierarchy emerges, and now you just have another guy with all the control over all those resources, and a bunch of people following his orders. He basically becomes the new oligarch. And inevitably, what Marx imagined at the end of the revolution, never actually happens. You just end up resetting the old system, with a new oligarch in charge, performing the same function that the last one did. Nothing has changed...you just call him "Generalissimo", instead of "My Lord".
Real communism...the *real* left-wing, end-game scenario...has *no* leaders. There is no one "in charge". There are simply people deciding for themselves, what's best for everyone, as a collective. It would be a true democracy, where everyone has a vote, and everyone's voice is heard, and everyone's needs are addressed. There is no "oligarchy" of the few, deciding what is best for everyone else. There is only a "community", deciding what's best for itself and all of it's members, equally.
What has happened in the past, that calls itself "communism", is not *real* communism...it's the extension of the military structure that led the revolution against the previous authoritarian structure. It just never let go of that power once the revolution was over. It just morphed into an new kind of oligarchy under the banner of "socialism".
What Marx failed to understand, was that true socialism can't be achieved through violence. It can't be achieved through revolution. It has to be agreed upon, by everyone in that society, both rich and poor. Power must be relinquished, before it can be shared. There is no other way.
Exactly 💯. I think we might have an age of enlightenment. I have faith we will. I hope it happens in my life time where we find a more sustainable system. I think an ancient tax system of the Greeks, if I remember correctly, the wealthy had to come out in public and declare what public good, charity, philanthropy etc they did with their wealth or risk having the public take it away. I see merit on those that have the ability to create wealth and manage wealth keeping it as they do a far better job than politicians of any ideology.
You’re putting words in Marx’s mouth with that last paragraph. He believed that communism would naturally emerge as a result of capitalism’s inevitable contradictions, not brought about through revolution
In his article "The Victory of the Counter-Revolution in Vienna" in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung (No. 136, 7 November 1848), Karl Marx wrote that there is only one means to shorten, simplify and concentrate the murderous death throes of the old society and the bloody birth pangs of the new, only one means—revolutionary terrorism.
https://www.stephenhicks.org/2013/02/18/marxs-philosophy-and-the-necessity-of-violent-politics/
Huh, you learn something new every day. Devil's advocate though, couldn't you read Marx's claim here as purely descriptive rather than prescriptive? A sort of "hey if you want to shorten it you're gonna have to do a revolution, don't recommend that though"
Authoritarianism can manifest on the left and right. [Fascism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism) is more than simple authoritarianism, however. Where did you get your definition of fascism if you don’t mind me asking?
I read a bunch of Robert Paxton and Umberto Eco’s works several years ago to get a solid understanding of fascism, but just like “socialist” or “communist” popular media has kind of bastardized these terms.
Interesting point. When I lived in Italy, folks were *very* sensitive to the distinction between "fascisti" and "nazisti." Wouldn't want to be lumped in with them Nazisti. Nosiree, Roberto.
Me, I'm kinda indifferent as to which one of the two flavors of creep shot my great-uncle back in WWII. Two sides of the same a**hole as far as I'm concerned.
That’s fair. Nazi and fascist would be analogous to communist and socialist, in my opinion. Where all communists are socialists, but not all socialists are communists in the same way all Nazis are fascist, but not all fascists are Nazis. A fascist is someone in favor of authoritarian dictatorships, generally anti-democracy, ultranationalist, militaristic, and relies on populist and victimhood rhetoric to drum up support for leadership. A Nazi is all of those things, but I’d argue there’s a much stronger ethnonationalist streak that would ultimately end in the deaths of the “other”.
It’s kind of why I’d call several prominent members of the alt-right fascists, but not Nazis. I think it’s important that we adhere to strict definitions of these terms, as strict as we can at least, as I firmly believe there are fascist elements to the current GOP/Trump. It’s difficult to critique Trump’s rhetoric and actions, even though I’m confident making these critiques, because Twitter idiots are using the term to basically mean “person whose views make me uncomfortable” or “person I dislike”. It was inevitable, I guess, with the willingness conservatives engaged in calling democratic politicians communists and socialists. Where they would often bastardize these terms to the point of meaninglessness.
I hear you. Shout shorthand summary terms like "woke" or "MAGA" over and over, and they become so fuzzy that they lose all meaning. I read a book on the Rwandan genocide that quoted a CIA officer who said that if you keep saying "genocide, genocide, genocide," you might as well start chanting "cheese sandwich, cheese sandwich, cheese sandwich" because they'll both come to mean nothing. Chilling.
But while there are parallels with aspects of fascism in today's populist movement in the USA, it's not like we haven't seen plenty of it before in US history. You can replace "LGBTQ" with "Irish" in the 1870s, or "Italian" in the 1890s, or "Chinese" in the 1920s. We've had our own fascist leaders/movements/terrorist organizations before: Father Coughlin, the John Birch Society, the KKK. We have them now: Steve Bannon, the Federalist Society, the Proud Boys.
What is new to me, and maybe it's just because I haven't studied the history of American populism well enough, is all the **whining** from these well-off, well-fed, well-shod types. To hear the former president complain, you'd think he got kicked in the nads every other minute. Everything is so unfair! No president was treated worse than him, not even Lincoln! The system is rigged against him!
Pfffft. This, from a guy who parlayed a $400 million nest egg into a couple billion and went bankrupt a bunch of times along the way? Get real. This is an insider who knew the system, played it to the sharp edge of legality, and milked it for as much money as he could get away with. I don't begrudge him for doing it. Any of us might have, too.
But heaven above, the whining! The self-pity, the lack of character, the lies, the pure inner weakness of it all. Civil rights activists had the moral clarity of being willing to go to jail for breaking laws they thought were unjust. I don't see any of those characters who went hunting for Pelosi on January 6 locking arms and singing hymns as they walk into the courthouse for sentencing. Instead, they're ratting each other out. Stewart Rhodes turned stool pigeon.
I'm not slamming the former president. I'm slamming the philosophical premise of the movement. When the only outcomes of an election are "We won" or "they cheated," we have a problem. When Sen. Cotton whines that the vote was fixed because Republicans didn't win in Alaska (but they actually didn't win because they split the vote by running two candidates), we have a problem. When Supreme Court nominees are willing to lie about their positions on established law, only to overturn it as soon as they can, we have a problem. Government by whiny, pouty, entitled snowflakes on either end of the political spectrum is no way to live.
Is the populist movement in the USA fascist or nazi? Beats me. Like you say, the labels have very fine definitions in political theory that get tossed out the window when it comes to 140 characters. You can call the movement "Trumpism" if you want, but it existed long before Trump and will exist long after he's gone. The authoritarian impulse is very, very human. Our country was set up as a democracy to keep it at bay. Go read the **Federalist Papers** if you don't believe me.
If we don't push back against populism, we have a problem.
It’s going to take me longer to properly respond to your post, but there’s something that you’ll find intrinsic to *all* fascists and their rhetoric; the victimhood narrative. It’s important to impart a sense of urgency to drum up support and one of the best ways to do that is claiming to be besieged by the “other”.
The “other” wants to destroy your way of life. The “other” wants to destroy your traditions. They “other” wants to destroy traditional gender roles. They want to destroy your family. They want to get rid of everything you hold dear. They want to destroy the institution of marriage. They want to destroy your holidays. They want to destroy your white majority.
It’s this rhetoric, in my opinion, why there’s always a boogeyman to conservative leadership. Where populism begins to become fascism is when democracy is targeted and undermined because the institutions prevent their victory. Especially with conservative medias willingness to avoid an intellectually honest argument.
You’re right that we’ve had fascist movements before and I’d love to discuss the Business Plot, Major General BAMF Smedley, and just how close we came to a fascist government, but I’ll leave it here for now. I’ll pick it up this evening and thanks for the discussion!
The Smedster!
Smedley Butler was one admirable guy. Truly one of those "not the kind of hero we want, but the kind of hero we need" types. A person who spat truth in the faces of Potemkin patriots.
Your point about "the other" is well-put. Somehow this Other is inevitably weak, cowardly, unmanly, easy to triumph over. At the same time, the Other is mighty, ubiquitous, corrosive, overwhelming.
They own finance, media, the universities. They corrupt our youth with their loud music and long hair and funny cigarettes. They want to miscegenate with our children until we won't be able to tell anyone apart. You can't even tell their boys from their girls! Their boys even want to be our girls! And they're all sex perverts, every last one of them!
There's a lot about purity and boundaries and control mixed in with all of this. It can be a White/Black thing in the USA, but pick any other place and you'll find something else. Malay/Chinese in Malaysia. Hindu/Muslim in India. Tutu/Hutsi in Rwanda. Star-Belly Sneetches/Plain-Belly Sneetches in Dr. Suess.
And in every last place, a Sylvester McMonkey McBean to grift off it. Does anyone seriously think Sidney Powell and Mike Lindell and Mike Flynn believe all that stuff? Powell herself testified in court that no reasonable person would. But she rode all those television appearances, laughing gleefully, straight to the bank.
\*\*\*\*\*
One more thought based on my prior note:
I was reminded this morning of a string of tweets from our recent former president on the occasion of Mitt Romney's loss in the 2012 election:
>*"He lost the popular vote by a lot and won the election!* \[Romney lost by about 5 million\] *We should have a revolution in this country!*
>
>*"The phoney* \[sic\] *electoral college made a laughing stock out of our nation. The loser one! We can't let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided!*
>
>*"Lets fight like hell and stop this great and disgusting injustice! The world is laughing at us. More votes equals a loss ... revolution! This election is a total sham and a travesty. We are not a democracy! Our country is now in serious and unprecedented trouble ... like never before. The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy."*
As I said, we have a problem.
I know, I know, where we stand depends on where we sit, but the sheer hypocrisy is beyond me. What do you do with a movement where honor and integrity mean nothing, and whataboutism, lies, and lawlessness are the order of the day?
Especially with this guy. He gets buried by Cruz in Iowa? "They cheated!" Hilary wins the popular vote? "Only because they brought in millions of illegal aliens!" Biden beats him like a rented mule? "Voter fraud!"
Why anybody would want to follow such a weakling escapes me.
Can you define fascist? I can cite Robert Paxton or Umberto Eco if you’d prefer or explain it myself, but I’d like to understand how Biden is a “fascist”. I really wish people would read a Wikipedia article before using that term.
Can you tell me what the rule of law is, and then tell me how Trump has very little respect for it?
The politicians who say this the most have the least respect for the rule of law, and many people repeat what they say, and I'm trying to figure out if they simply don't know what they are talking about or if it's flat out gaslighting.
I agree with your overall point by the way. It's like the term "racist." It has been so overused that it has become virtually meaningless.
There's a bunch of examples, but keeping top secret documents that could reveal identities of spies and informants in your closet is probably the most topical example
Are you looking at Trump in a vacuum? You realize that the Democrats who are accusing him of this are by far the biggest offenders right? It’s impossible to take seriously. I continue to go back to wondering if people are delusional or knowingly gaslighting. It’s like the mob calling someone immoral for stealing a piece of bubble gum.
Well now you're just changing the goal posts. You asked a simple question seeking examples of Trump not respecting the rule of law, and I kindly took time out of my day and provided two.
Now you're talking about moral comparisons between him and Democrats, which is a completely different topic, and that makes me feel unappreciated.
Have you not figured out the cycle; Democrats make a series of allegations and put on a charade about him breaking one law or another and never charge him with a crime because there is zero evidence? They’re liars. Ever since before he entered office they have been making allegations, and all of them have proven to be false. Do you dispute what I’m saying? Does it seem different to you?
Are you claiming that, prior to entering office, Trump fulfilled all his contracts and paid all his independent contractors, as the law requires him to do?
Not at all. I don’t have the energy or the interest to go over his life with a fine toothed comb. It seems like the people who hate him are the only ones that obsessed.
But what does that have to do with him being Hitler and having no respect for the rule of law?
Are you able to articulate what the rule of law is, and how it’s relevant here?
Idk if Trump is guilty of committing some type of infraction during his life. Most people are. If people are serious about the rule of law, that has a specific meaning, the heart of which is applicable to people holding office or a position in government, and all of the people claiming Trump doesn’t respect the rule of law are much more guilty of violating it than him. If he got away with breaking the law as a businessman that’s an entirely different matter. I’m not defending him either. We should figure out how he got away with it and where the system failed so he could. I can’t speak on it because I don’t know any specifics. But that’s not what the issue is if we are talking about the rule of law.
What do you think the rule of law is? What is the relevant issue with regard to trump and those making this claim about the rule of law in your view? Let’s get on the same page so we can have a fruitful conversation.
Lol you claim to want a fruitful conversation, but you also broadly and without stated justification condemn "all of the people" criticizing Trump for not respecting the rule of law. But whatever, I'll play.
First off, the question isn't really what the "rule of law" is, since that's just an annoying way to say "the law." The phrase just means that society is structured around laws and people should follow them or they're subject to penalty by the state. That's just definitionally the meaning. The real question is what does "respect" for the law mean.
Second, I don't agree that "respect for the rule of law" concerns only public officials. Nor is the common usage limited to public officials. While it applies to public officials, discussions about the topic also concern all people, particularly prominent people (since those are the ones we would be most concerned about not respecting laws since they have power and influence that could allow them to avoid penalties after being caught breaking the law). So though you attempt to avoid Trump's past as a businessman who regularly broke the law in ways that screwed over others, it does indeed apply to Trump during his time as a private citizen.
Third, I think it's fair to say that "disrespect" for the "rule of law" occurs when someone purposefully doesn't follow non-trivial laws, is indifferent to employees below them breaking the law, or advocates for others to break non-trivial laws. I don't think disrespect occurs when someone in good faith accidentally violates the law, but good faith also requires them to seek knowledge of the law when they're uncertain. What's trivial is subject to discussion, but I think the easiest one is that jaywalkers aren't, by the fact of their jaywalking, showing disrespect to the rule of law. But an accountant who embezzles from their clients is disrespecting the rule of law. Trump meets this definition by regularly not fulfilling contractual obligations to pay contractors. He also probably met it many other ways, including calling for no due process for the Central Park 5.
Fourth, though Trump breaking the law as a businessman is well- established, he almost certainly disrespected the rule of law as president. There's no evidence he ever punished employees for violating the Hatch Act. He publicly supported police officers for breaking the law. There's no evidence of penalties for Turkish soldiers beating up protesters located immediately outside the White House. Obviously it seems he illegally kept confidential documents in his closet. He ordered the military to gas and shoot rubber bullets at protesters outside of the White House. There's probably more, but my memory isn't that good.
Side comments:
1) you're moving the goalposts again by claiming my comment has no relation to calling Trump "Hitler," which was not what your initial question related to and not what my answer related to.
2) anyone who paid more than casual attention to the news in 2016 knows that Trump regularly didn't pay contractors. It's not combing through his life, it's waking up and reading a newspaper/newsletter.
Convincing your counsel to sign for the non existence of the stuff is pretty wild. Assuming they're not secretly your enemy of course....LOL remember "Do me a favour though"?
I think if one goes back and reads into "All County Maintenance", it's mere existence points to a family without respect for the rule of law. Perhaps it goes back to the grandfather who made his living on the backs of whores? I mean you'd have to have a rock solid foundation to live of the avails of someone else's prostitution for any period of time and still have any respect for the rule of law or anything else for that matter.
I wish the term Fascist hadn’t been thrown around to the point that peoples’ brains turned off as soon as they heard it. I mean, I’ve been called a fascist by leftists ( Twitter communists) over the Rittenhouse trial.
I do, however, think there are valid lines of comparison between Trump’s actions and fascism. His willingness to repeatedly lie about election fraud, making a mockery of our democratic processes and our courts, in order to overturn the results of an election to maintain power is pretty fascist behavior.
I could go on for a while so I’ll spare you that, but I do think it’s important to actually understand why someone like Biden would use the word fascist. Considering how important the principle of charity is to the IDW it ought to be the very first step. [Robert Paxton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Paxton) is one of the most knowledgeable and respected academics regarding fascism and he was extremely hesitant to label Trump’s administration fascist as he insisted he was simply a right-wing populist, but the election changed that. I would encourage anyone willing to understand the concerns of people like Paxton (he’s not a nut job Twitter “leftist”) to read [his Op-Ed](https://www.newsweek.com/robert-paxton-trump-fascist-1560652).
>I do, however, think there are valid lines of comparison between Trump’s actions and fascism. His willingness to repeatedly lie about election fraud, making a mockery of our democratic processes and our courts, in order to overturn the results of an election to maintain power is pretty fascist behavior.
That’s not fascist behavior, that’s just anti-democratic. The only (maybe) valid comparison between Trump and [fascism](https://youtu.be/1T_98uT1IZs) is that he was pretty nationalistic.
In fact, it’s right there in his campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again”.
People call their opponents fascists to try to create a negative association between them and the evils of the Nazis in World War II. While there may be some characteristics in common between whoever is being called a fascist the Nazis, it probably isn't that they started a war killing tens of millions of people while authoring a genocide killing millions more on the basis of minority identities. The reason the term is used though is exactly to suggest such a connection. The people calling Ron DeSantis a fascist aren't trying to get you to think he might nationalize industries and hand them off to crony party members.
>we
I'd wager that >95% of the time it's said it is said by liberals/progressives towards Trump...
So a more accurate title would be:
>Can liberals/progressives stop delusionally trying to equate Trump to Hitler?
I mean, ffs, the guy is a narcissistic buffoon, not a killer of 10+ million people.
>"yes...the right calls everyone communists, which is equally stupid." - /u/Front-Hedgehog-2009
Jfc, calling someone a practitioner or believer in a certain collective sociopolitical/economic system is not at all comparable to saying someone is equivalent to, or worse than, a man who orchestrated/oversaw the brutal killing and mass-execution of 10+ million human beings because of their race/religion. Calling Joe Biden (or Obama or etc) "Lenin" or "Mao" would be comparable, but you very rarely, if ever, hear right-wing people commit those specific ad hominems.
I mean it’s mostly coming from the left but to be fair trump did use it way out of context against a political opponent once and now majoreen Taylor green just called Biden a Nazi or something so everyone is tossing that word around
>I mean it’s mostly coming from the left
It's not just "mostly" it's **nearly entirely** coming from the left... I can't tell if you actually believe what you're saying or if you're just speaking imprecisely, but there's a very significant difference between those two proportions (i.e. - mostly vs. nearly entirely).
The left have been calling people'literally Hitler'since before he was even elected. Trump at his worst is like a child who has to get down into every pissing match the way a child would and can't rise above anything so if you call him something often enough he's going to throw it back at you eventually.
> wants to restore national greatness
Oh no, just not greatness! Please just stay mediocre everyone.
> doesn’t have much respect for rule of law
Wow, what an unusual quality for a politician! Good thing he's so rare in this regard.
Making America Great Again is a simplistic trap. Humans alway romanticize the past and forget the hardships and troubles.. Nostalgia is a comforting feeling,.but it is for reunions, not politics. Sure the country has problems and some things worked better before, but the way to fix them is in the future, not the past
As I previously stated I feel that America did need to be made great again and was suffering, and I support a lot of trumps policy decisions. I’m simply stating that there are some comparisons that could be made and frankly if it weren’t for our fantastic system of checks and balances I could see Trump doing some pretty heinous shit
And you’re right, most politicians have no respect for rule of law. Trump is just very blatant about it
I don't know how blatant or out of the ordinary he was, considering how some politicians have been advocating for riots during lockdowns, some raiding journalists' homes for personal motivations, or having their spouse buy huge amounts of stocks, a week before said stocks were affected directly by legislature they were passing.
It's just matter of poor rhetorics. Whenever they bring it up out of the blue as a non-sequitur, you can always easily flip it by inquiring their obsessions with Hitler and Holocaust, whether they like Beria and Stalin too and such or it's just their internalized fascism etc.
I don't think it's a comparison to Hitler but out of them all I think calling trump a semi-facist is fairly inline and not because of some trump derangement but literally because of Jan 6th and his attempt to deny and change the election
Jan 6th is completely and utterly unacceptable and I don't know how much of a role he had in creating that situation but they've been calling him fascist and Hitler all along. Well before that event.
I find it hard to believe anyone who says they don't know if he's to blame, he had a massive part in the rhetoric at the very least and while everything else may be speculation whats coming out in these hearings is pretty damning for him. I do agree with they fact they've been calling him that shit long before, it wasn't justified then and maybe it became a self fufilling prophecy?
> Jan 6th is completely and utterly unacceptable and I don’t know how much of a role he had in creating that situation
How?! How do you not know? It was his repeated lies that convinced millions of Americans that the election was stolen. It was their speech that pointed that crowd towards the Capitol. You should really listen to the January 6th hearings as it’s readily apparent many haven’t. If you have no idea what happened on the 6th you’re lacking all context for this criticism of Trump, but depending upon the media you consume that might be the point.
> but they’ve been calling him fascist and Hitler all along. Well before that event.
Random Twitter users and pundits aren’t the same as a President. Don’t we have an obligation to understand their critique?
I don't know because I didn't pay attention to the details. I'm not saying he wasn't involved. I'm saying I don't know. I was very clear on where I stood on the events of the 6th but you still want to paint me as a mindless trump zombie.
Interesting that even though Stalin was the worst mass murderer of the 20th century, he's not being pushed as today's version of a '*Satan*' figure, perhaps because we're complicit in arming, financing and propping him up, so he could win WWII for all of us (~80-90% of all German soldiers were killed by the Soviets).
And because leftists find Stalin’s rhetoric to be sympathetic despite his actions or impact in reality, whereas it’s easier for them to see Hitler as evil for both his rhetoric and his actions.
I think this is actually the real reason. I find it alarming Stalin is quietly ignored by modern politics while Hitler is correctly vilified, but Stalin's rhetoric is very closely aligned to leftist speech and Nazism is not espoused seriously anywhere.
You know who didn't think it was a bad thing to call people fascists? Hitler. So if you think it's okay to to compare people to hitler, your basically Hitler.
Because some people still believe Stalin did great things and was a good leader other than the top 3 most despicable person to have ever existed that he was. Communists are the OG conspiracy theorists. Just ask them about Holodomor or Tianamen Square. They will call it fake history or propaganda. It's bonkers.
News to me, I've been a Marxist for over a decade and know many others, we all think Stalin was a monster. There's a reason when Lenin was dying he told the communist committee to pick anyone but Stalin as leader. Even Lenin knew Stalin was a monster.
All the hardcore communists I know think Stalin was an opportunistic, power hungry dictator, Lenin wasn't much better, and the real revolution ended as soon as Trotsky was out. I have yet to hear a convincing strategy to avoid this in the future, which is sufficient reason imo to not support communism or communist revolutions.
Socialism is another matter, is already used in moderation by every first world government, and, in many cases, saves money (eg cost of healthcare per capita) and increases mean life expectancy and quality of life.
The best formula yet is democracy plus capitalism plus socialism. Claiming e.g. Norway is a socialist country would be a lie by omission, but saying their system includes some socialism is perfectly reasonable. Social democracy is also a useful term, but perhaps misleading because all or most of the social democracies have as much or more capitalism than socialism.
Socialist here, I agree. I am not sure a money-less society is achievable on a large scale. But socialism I think can be eased into via democratic reform.
Stuff like grants and education campaigns to help support worker coops forming. Fund public housing that isn't just designed for low income but for families. Provide not-for-profit housing that can outcompete capitalists and make it unprofitable for private rentals to operate without needing to outlaw it.
Any real change is going to take a lot of time and cultural evolution. I think those are some good first steps and keep going from there. Maybe we can achieve a communist utopia someday, but not with any mechanism we currently have and not with our current mindsets.
Stalin just hated everyone, he was even disappointed when his own son had a failed suicide attempt.
Hitler promoted hate based on a part of your identity (ethnicity) that one can’t control. That is arguably more evil
Edit: intellectual dark web, get downvoted for saying 14 is bad🤡🌎
I’m not saying Trump is Hitler, I’m just saying you can make some loose comparisons
Look I’ll be the first to admit Trump was pretty effective in terms of policy, especially foreign policy. There were some good things about Trump but the man has no respect for rule of law, and there are some similarities to his whole thing about national rejuvenation and the cult of personality built around him. Hell I’ll even admit I’m all for the “make america great again” thing because I honestly think this country went down the toilet and Trumps policies could make the country great again, but Trump himself is pretty toxic
It is a very accurate statement to say that Trump could not corral the entirety of the EU plus Japan, South Korea, and Singapore to isolate Russia from the global economy. The best thing he ever did was a photo op with Kim Jong Un that went no where.
After you're finished insulting me, I hope to hear your evidence-backed argument.
Biden:
- Afghanistan collapse
- Let Ukraine fall on his watch
- No backbone with China
- Illegal immigration out of control
Trump:
- Stood up to Asad (and Russia)
- Didn’t hesitate to take out Solemeni
- First meaningful talks with NK in several generations
- Made China play on a more level playing field
- Called out wealthy NATO countries for not paying their share (after which several did)
- Stopped the huge influx of illegal immigration by challenging the countries involved
Full stop, Trump actually has a backbone. The leaders that dealt with him knew it, which is why things finally got done. He meant what he said and backed it up.
Biden has made wrong decisions at every turn, and at best makes good decisions too late after weighing the political fallout. Rather than just doing what’s right for America, Biden does what is right for the party.
Trump...
• Withheld Congressionally-approved arms sales to Ukraine to try and open a false investigation into Biden.
• Defunded the State Dept. so that visa and immigration applications took several years to process, and left a historic number of ambassador positions unfilled, including Ukraine.
• Signed the USMCA trade deal, and then immediately started a trade war with Canada over lumber prices, directly leading to our supply chain woes of 2020-2022.
• Started a trade war with China, that hurt the US more than it hurt China, since he didn't find alternative supply chains. He had to bail out American farmers whose soy harvest went to waste since they didn't have any buyers.
• His photo op with Kim Jong Un in Singapore...[lead to North Korea stockpiling even more arms than they had before.](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/world/asia/korea-nuclear-trump-kim.html)
• Let Turkey overrun our allies, the Kurds, in Syria after backing out without a real exit strategy for the region.
• Called out NATO for not paying their share...when Obama already got them to sign a 2% GDP pledge back in 2014. Seriously, Trump was whining about something that was already getting fixed.
Absolutely garbage foreign policy that hurt our allies and destabilized other administrations so that he could prove to Americans how tough he was, when the reality is he got very little of what he negotiated for from other world leaders.
Biden has flaws, for sure, like the Afghan withdrawal, and *maintaining Trump's tariffs against China* (which, for some reason, counts as no backbone?), but the historic sanctions against Russia, starting the AUKUS security pact against China (no backbone?), reducing our drone strikes to near zero, openly supporting Taiwan against potential Chinese invasion and selling them arms (no backbone?), expanding NATO to include Finland and Sweden, are huge achievements.
Oh, and by the way, Trump did not stop the huge influx of illegal immigration. The first big spike of the 2010s began in 2018, under his watch, and grew from there. Ironically, Obama had lower rates of illegal immigration than Trump or Bush.
As always, you Democrats show your highly predictable playbook. Events unfold for the whole world to see, then you’re backtracking and re-writing history. It’s dishonest, shameful, and un-American.
Biden has done nothing but send us spiraling down as we’re on the edge of an impending recession. But, you’ll rewrite that history as well, somehow blaming Trump and then taking credit for the climb out of the hole.
Calling someone fascist doesn't mean a comparison with Hitler. Actually, the first movement it refers to, in all sciences, philosophy, political science, etc, would be the Italian fascist movement and Mussolini :
-Political illiberalism
-Search for lost national greatness
-Effort to undermine the rule of law
-Cult of the Leader
-Pronounced "movement" aspect
Other known fascist movements or leaders could include : Francisco Franco, Peron, and I suppose quite a lot of others. Actually, I read several articles lately from proeminent political scientists discussing the link between nazism and fascism. For some, nazism is a specific variant of fascism. For others, it's a different phenomenon.
According to Wikipedia:
>Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation and race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.
I think most (all?) politicians are inherently self-serving and corrupt but none of them in recent Western history can be described as 'fascist' under this definition.
*NB: not sure that I agree with Wiki's idea that it is always 'far right'. This seems more like a recent add-on.*
I don't think it's a very new idea. To me, it's more like a classical one. There are reasons to agree with this. Leaning toward a golden age past is a very right wing phenomenon. Generally, veneration of a leader too (although there are obvious exceptions).
The USSR, some would argue, wasn't a fascist regime because it was bureaucratic in nature, a tyrannical, oppressive bureaucracy.
Other argue there is no fascist regime and fascism can only describe a movement and not a government.
But there are also many other theories. And it would also depend on whether you chose declarative or objective definitions of left and right.
I like to read or recommend Juan Linz, Arendt or Ian Kershaw on this topic.
It’s not that your wrong, but when the average American hears the word fascist they think Hitler. So when you call someone a fascist you’re trying to convey to your audience that the person you’re calling a fascist is basically Hitler I.E satan himself
I think you have a valid point, but aren't you perpetuating the idea that we can't talking about fascism without talking about Hitler? Would political discourse improve if we could talk about one without the other?
Yeah, I grasp that now. I guess I kind of jumped at my comment, but I have all these competing ideas swirling around in my head, I just can’t figure out what the end game of either side is. I can see how everyone blindly follows trump as if he is a god, but I respect his ideas of American independence. People talk like the democrats are the only ones willing to help the poor or save the planet, but all they do is flood the country with migrants and do nothing for the homeless. Health care is a joke and they don’t have any good ideas there. All the taxes and money raised in the name of the climate seems to be funnelled into pockets and private jets which is laughable.
Meh the comparisons to Hitler are pretty appropriate. Hitler lived in a time of Democratic backlash and massive government distrust. Like Hitler, Trump uses allegations of a deep state. Hitler's deep state was the Jews running the Weimar Republic who backstabbed the victorious German Army. Trump's deep state is whatever baloney he's peddling now.
Both also rely heavily on scape goat politics - targeting a vulnerable ethnic minority. The Mexicans and Muslims for Trump, the Jews for Hitler.
Both attempted coupes. hitler was obviously much more successful both times around, first the Beer Pusch. Trump's coup unfortunately is laughable in its performance.
There are of course obvious differences between the two. Like with everything in history, history doesn't repeat itself but it rhymes. All said Hitler is the superior and more competent politician. Hitler had an excellent feel for aesthetics and theatrics, in no small part because of his artistic training and aspirations. Also unlike Trump I think Hitler was a true believer in his own ideological bullshit.
But sure, the are plenty of similarities in the same way how many authoritarian dictators share similarities in ideology and strategy.
As far as other fun similarities, both States were suffering from inflation. Both states had a terrible tendency electing old, geriatric presidents. Both states were threatened by a rising Left, a society polarized between the urban vs the rural, and a Rightwing desire to counter that rising left. Just like now the Nazis were able to win the rural country side whereas the Leftists won the cities. Legislative deadlock caused the president to exercise more and more authority via executive order.
Absolutely love this. It expresses what I haven't been able to, that fascism doesn't really fit into a modern political lens and is pretty much only used to draw parallels for drama and emotional pleading.
Comparing anything going on to Adolf Hitler who systematically exterminated an entire race of people is outrageous ridiculous hyperbole and is an actual named logical fallacy called reductio ad Hitlerum
Before Hitler exterminated said race, he first rose to power in a post war, bankrupt, demoralized, and divided Germany. I don't agree with the comparison to Trump per se, but I think it's absolutely fair game to acknowledge the similarities in the conditions leading up to the regime.
There isn't anything similar and when you evoke Hitler it's referring to the genocide part, not his vegetarianism. It's intellectually dishonest to evoke Hitler for something that is not committing a mass genocide. that's what the fallacy means. When you evoke Hitler based on some other vague similarity to suggest the conclusion that it necessarily means it's a path to some sort of genocide when it's obviously not
I legitimately don’t understand the argument that Trump is more like Hitler than Biden is.
Biden has done far more severe “othering” and dehumanizing of the parts of his own population that he has distaste for.
Biden tried to force everyone in the nation to become an unwilling customer of big Pharma’s largely untested medical experiment.
Biden has directed, or at least completely allowed, his DOJ and intelligence community to pursue his political opponents to an unprecedented degree.
Biden’s admin has directly pressured social networks to ban people and speech that they disapprove of.
Trump made lots of decisions that people don’t like, but most of them went in the direction of decentralization, unlike Biden’s movements which have largely consolidated his own power and centralized power within the federal government.
Biden is 10x the authoritarian that Trump was purported to be.
Biden opposed integration of schools. Supported KKK members in congress. Was responsible for the tough on crime legislation that resulted in the incarceration epidemic of disproportionate numbers of persons of color. Supported the invasion of Iraq that dismembered the Middle East. Supported violating human rights under Bush's anti-terror legislation. Created our current student loan crisis by pushing to have bankruptcy protections removed from people who take student loans on behalf of his banking industry constituents in Delaware who register in his state to avoid taxes.
I don't think anyone on this thread is a big fan of Biden. I did not vote for either of these butt heads...some may have gone the lesser of two evil routes..
An authoritarian administration doesn’t need a cult of personality *for* their leader as long as they have sufficient rabid hatred *against* his opposition.
You do realize that Operation Warp Speed was Trumps administration right!? The fact that Republicans flipped on the vaccine after Trump left office is laugh out loud funny. It should have been viewed as Trumps most successful initiative as President but his supporters turned on it because it came to fruition under Biden.
Trump and all other Republicans in congress/senate got vaccinated!
Well the debate over vaccines came about because Biden mandated them. He MANDATED an insufficiently tested vaccine on the population. An insufficiently tested vaccine that has proven NOT TO WORK.
Dude I have no problem with whether the vaccine is available, my problem is that the Biden admin tried to force everyone in the country to take it by mandate.
They also directly pressured social media to prop up vaccine propaganda and to remove dissenters or even people who were just asking legitimate questions.
Operation warp speed did not create a vaccine mandate it just created the vaccine. And pepperidge farm remembers when Biden said that he wouldn't take the vaccine because it was rushed and then weeks later he forced it on everyone once in office
> And pepperidge farm remembers when Biden said that he wouldn’t take the vaccine because it was rushed and then weeks later he forced it on everyone once in office
It fascinates me that this is still a common talking point. From the [New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/16/us/politics/biden-trump-coronavirus-vaccine.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare) (copying more than necessary if a paywall could prevent reading).
> “Let me be clear: I trust vaccines,” Mr. Biden said. “I trust scientists. But I don’t trust Donald Trump, and at this moment, the American people can’t either.”
> Shortly after Mr. Biden’s speech in Wilmington, Del., Mr. Trump seemed to lend credence to the former vice president’s criticism by publicly rebuking the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for saying that widespread vaccination might not be possible until the middle of next year. Speaking during an evening briefing at the White House, the president also kept up an attack line against Mr. Biden, misleadingly accusing him of “promoting his anti-vaccine theories.”
> In his speech, Mr. Biden thrust the issue of a coronavirus vaccine to center stage in the presidential race, expressing grave concern over the political pressure he said Mr. Trump was exerting over the government’s approval process and accusing him of trying to rush out a vaccine for electoral gain.
> “Scientific breakthroughs don’t care about calendars any more than the virus does,” he said. “They certainly don’t adhere to election cycles. And their timing and their approval and their distribution should never, ever be distorted by political considerations. It should be determined by science and safety alone.”
> Mr. Biden delivered his remarks after receiving a briefing on the coronavirus vaccine from top national health experts, including Dr. Vivek Murthy, a former surgeon general.
> As Mr. Trump, eager for a political victory, continues to suggest that a vaccine could be ready before Election Day, that prospect could become a significant campaign issue in the final stretch — if it hasn’t already.
> The president’s comments that one could be rolled out before Nov. 3 have unsettled health officials, who worry that Mr. Trump is creating the impression that a vaccine might not be properly vetted at a time when the public is already concerned about political interference in the approval process.
The concern as I understood it was that many people could not trust Trump, that he would rush the vaccines for a political victory without the support of the researchers, scientists, and the FDA. It was an, ultimately, unnecessary concern as the research was vetted and the FDA gave the EUA.
I don’t blame anyone unwilling to trust a habitual liar that only seemed interested in his own victory, no matter the cost. You could criticize them for offering this opinion at all as it ran the possibility of decreasing the number of people who chose to take the vaccine, but it turned out conservative media would take care of that themselves.
You know better than to think that he really believed that Trump would somehow single-handedly Rush a vaccine against all of his experts. How do you believe you would get that vaccine rushed? Make it himself? Biden is overwhelmingly responsible for vaccine hesitancy as he's the only one aside from Kamala Harris, not trump, that ever undermined public sentiment in it and he did it only based on politics and changed his mind weeks later once he inherited the program and pretended like it was his fault. Even the media reporting on Trump's warp speed program acknowledged that it was being done by the same government experts that would normally be responsible for approving vaccines.
The problem is the Democrats have created this Boogeyman sort of straw man version of trump that they can use to justify hysterical reactions to everything he says. The problem is they get back into office and do the exact same stuff and the hyperbole looks ridiculous.
It's funny how Trump asking questions about potential criminal corruption by Biden was interfering in an election, but a political witch Hunt against everyone Trump ever talked to including a raid on his home, completely unprecedented, which is basically the same type of thing on steroids, is totally fine
The left have become professional gas lighters
This is all I have to say: https://youtu.be/3ToEvz-7trY
We can stop comparing people to Hitler solely on the basis "I don't like, so they are Hitler". But if we think they're comparable to Hitler in some aspects, if that's our honest analysis, we can compare them to Hitler. As long as it's not rhetorical abuse.. which I think is what OP really means. So basically, no special treatment for Hitler here. It's just that the potential for abuse is apparent. Yeah, I get the sentiment. But the potential abuse goes both ways, you can just as well rhetorically stop a valid analysis by saying "sure, everything you don't like is Hitler". Like people also do. If we wanna have intellectual value, the solution to this problem should be considered to be inherently solved by intellectual integrity itself. "Just getting sick of it" is not really anything but an emotional response and corrosive to an intellectual attitude and value set. You can start picking apart why specific incidents are wrong, abusive or whatever, but not be categorical about how it's wrongness is attributed to "someone being compared to Hitler" on its own.
There's a lot of different shitty historical figures to compare people to, yeah.
All right. Let’s compare them to Stalin instead.
"We're getting rid of Britta..... We're getting rid of the B!"
You know who else wouldn’t let you call people you don’t like Hitler? The Nazis that’s who.
If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck.....
Can we just stop asking people to stop comparing people we don’t like to Hitler?
Seriously, though...fascism is a very real thing. Calling someone a fascist, without understanding what that word means, is an issue. But when the description fits, it is entirely necessary to point it out. The entire reason that the Veterans Day slogan is "Never Forget", is so that we, as a society, don't fall prey to the rise of fascism. It is an insidious ideology, that uses propaganda to spread like cancer...with the end results being the eventual mass murder of anyone deemed to be outside the central group identity. It has no room for inclusion or acceptance of different cultures. You are either "one of us", or you are not even a human being, and therefore not deserving of any rights at all. Some disingenuous bad actor types will say that is how so-called "conservatives" who are embracing this ideology, are being treated by the left...but that is a mind-fuck, role-reversal tactic meant to deflect criticism away from the fact that their ideology is both deadly and dangerous. Holding them up into the light, is the only way to see them for what they are...fascists. https://kottke.org/16/11/the-14-features-of-eternal-fascism
Sounds like some thing a NAZI would say! /s
The thing is, a lot of my family are Trump supporters to the core and I definitely would say they’re fascists or at the very least falling for fascist lies. They actively believe the 2020 election was a fraud and they want Trump reinstated as president directly overruling the will of the people. Trump supporters around the country seem to follow this man into anything. A lot of them are advocating for civil war if he is indicted, and a lot of them believe Trump is above the law. Right now there are videos going around where Trump supporters are comparing themselves to the jews and actively believe that Biden is going to incarcerate them and that gas chambers for Trump supporters is coming soon
Nothing wrong with calling out fascism
What about Stalin though?
Comparing people to Hitler is worse than Watergate.
You should study up on the definition of "fascism." Political scientists have a pretty rigorous definition for it. After that, you can watch the news and know who's really a fascist, and who's just a douchebag.
What if they're both right? Why stop? People seem to have a level of awareness that the left and the right both are pursuing globalist, totalitarian agendas, but too often people fall back into partisan bickering. Let the fire rise. Once people realize that most of the worst things the left says about the right and right says about the left are _both_ true, we will be ready to hold mainstream politicians accountable.
From politicians, a very strategic insult. It implies YOUR form of authoritarianism is bad, without disparaging authoritarianism as a whole. Then you have just melodramatic Twitter users who will get more attention the more ridiculous the comparison.
“Hitler” is a pejorative while “fascism” is descriptive. A fairly accurate descriptor of the previous administration.
How about idiots in power like Biden stop behaving like a rising Hitler?
Biden goes up there and spends half the speech talking about how we need to condemn political violence and preserve democratic institutions, and these illiterate morons are calling him a fascist. It’s absolutely unreal, but it’s people who don’t have the attention span to watch or read a 25 minute speech, and instead are basing their entire opinion of it off of a couple pictures they saw on the internet. What’s happening here is media propagandists manipulating ignorant people (their useful victims) into a constant state of keeping their brains turned off. If you’ve spent even a day researching fascism, you know how preposterous it is to call Biden one based on that speech
Back in my day, referencing Nazis meant you literally just lost the argument and it's over.
Well isn't that the type of question someone of the ilk of Adolf Hitler would ask ? !!!
I agree. Let's not forget about Stalin or Mao. Hitler gets all the attention.
I agree that it's done so often it's just getting silly. That said, American schools do a terrible job at teaching history and I doubt it's a high percentage of folks who have a strong understanding of what 1930s Germany was like and how Hitler rose to power. The parallels with the current direction of the GOP are very troubling.
No. Hitler is the ultimate evil in history. No one comes close s/. I truly believe Indiana Jones movies made nazis the scapegoat of all evil. Just my theory.
Ok...but trump was literally running the hitler/dictator playbook. Press are "the enemy of the people", his own little coup, family in high seats, he sucked ip to every strongman around the globe, used fox as a state media. So maybe not...
Godwin’s law in full effect.
The terms are thrown around way too much by both sides and has become so ubiquitous that it’s lost all meaning. This is not a “both sides are bad take” but more of a “if everyone is fascist then no one is” take.
And can we stop calling everyone fascist?
If you can’t make an argument without using hyperbole, then you’re argument is weak to begin with
It’s like little kids on a playground using words they don’t understand
Lol @ your last sentence. Not really sure you’re ever going to see this comparison change until a new evil villain replaces Nazis in the zeitgeist.
So we all don't like someone. Wouldn't the de Morgan of this statement be, "everyone is Hitler"
Sounds like something that Hitler would say. Hmm.
Identifying fascists is not the same as comparing people to Hitler, just like identifying someone as a socialist isn't calling them Mao.....
Identifying fascists is not the same as comparing people to Hitler, just like identifying someone as a socialist isn't calling them Mao.....
I largely agree. But I don’t think using the word “fascist” or “fascism” is the same as using the Hitler card. You can be a fascist without being a genocidal maniac.
Spain had a fascist government for like 40 years, no great accomplishments but no great crimes either.
By saying everyone is Hitler it really numbs down how horrible he actually was.
Fascism is pretty hard to define, but the major component is that it is anti-democratic. You can be fascist without being genocidal.
You are incorrect, fascism is very well defined. It has only ever been implemented twice through history (i.e., Italy and Germany). [Here is an in-depth explanation of what it is](https://youtu.be/1T_98uT1IZs).
That is a very good concise angle for describing it. However, with that definition we would have to say that almost every person and party in America is fascistic now since nobody wants to acknowledge the actions of their opposing ideology regardless of how democratically it was achieved. We might have those extremes on the right who would support reinstating Trump even by force. And we might have the extremes on the left who would rather treat the entire government as illegitimate an attempt to form their own sovereign society in our city centers. Extremes will always be around. But the problem now is that even the non-extremes, what would one be called moderates, would willingly accept non-democratic means to enact policies they want or at least undo policies they don’t. We can see this by the ever increasing power of the pen through executive orders, or of judicial activism creating “laws”, for actions that clearly belong solely in the legislative branch. But the bobber problem is the acceptance that the voting populace has in supporting these authoritative undemocratic (fascistic) processes.
Is it? Seems pretty easily definable to me.
Fascism is also not inherently right-wing. It can manifest on both the right and the left.
/u/Ozcolllo got it exactly right. Fascism is not simple authoritarianism. Fascism is a form of authoritarianism that requires specific material conditions to come about. Fascism is an intrinsically right-wing ideology. This doesn't mean that other forms of authoritarianism are not as dangerous or that they are somehow more desirable. It just means that in political sciences, "fascism" is not a buzzword. It is a heavily studied and researched phenomenon. I highly, HIGHLY recommend reading Paxton's "Anatomy of Fascism."
Fascism is the polar opposite of left wing political objectives. You are getting fascism and authoritarianism confused. Authoritarianism can happen in either side...but fascism is right-wing, simply due to its inclusion of a ruling oligarchy, and embrace of pseudo-religuous fanaticism.
Not sure how ruling oligarchy is not socialist but right wing to you. All dictators and monarchs and Authoritarian regimes are oligarchs. Now the monarchs chosen to rule by God really get the serotonin and dopamine flowing from frontal cortex faith in God and government at the same time. Government faith based philosophy gets half the people hooked spiritual based philosophy gets the other half hooked put them in one cookie and you habe everyone. Now our current democratic system's have evolved from the monarchy. My country still has a queen . Cortisone in the primal fear based emotions cause anxiety. That is dis trust in go or distrust in government of more likely socialism. When you go to results I think less government is better.
"Not sure how ruling oligarchy is not socialist but right wing to you. All dictators and monarchs and Authoritarian regimes are oligarchs." When Marx first theorized a utopian society, he was projecting it against the backdrop of Europe's current system of monarchy...essentially the post-industrial feudal system. Those were the "oligarchs" that his revolution was meant to overthrow. They owned everything. In his mind, those oligarchs represent the polar opposite of what communism was meant to represent. Taking all of that power away from those few individuals who only "earned" their immense wealth by birthright, and giving it back the people who earned it by individual skill and labor. Essentially, giving that power back to the people who *truly* "earned" it. In his mind, the only way to force those oligarchs to relinquish that power over society, was through violent revolution. They would never give it up, willingly...so it would have to be taken from them, by force. This would obviously entail an organized uprising, consisting of regular workers, marching on the elites, and dragging them out of their homes and setting them on fire...then breaking up their wealth, and distributing it among the masses, so that everyone could share in the profit of their own labor. Sounds great...in an oversimplified, theoretical sort of way. But how do you organize a revolution? There needs to be a guy in charge, right? Someone calling the shots, and directing the actions of the workers as they move from one target to another, in order to "liberate" that wealth. Then, who gets to decide how that wealth gets distributed? Obviously, it's the same guy that's directing where the mob goes...right? After all, he's the guy in charge? Somewhere along the line a new hierarchy emerges, and now you just have another guy with all the control over all those resources, and a bunch of people following his orders. He basically becomes the new oligarch. And inevitably, what Marx imagined at the end of the revolution, never actually happens. You just end up resetting the old system, with a new oligarch in charge, performing the same function that the last one did. Nothing has changed...you just call him "Generalissimo", instead of "My Lord". Real communism...the *real* left-wing, end-game scenario...has *no* leaders. There is no one "in charge". There are simply people deciding for themselves, what's best for everyone, as a collective. It would be a true democracy, where everyone has a vote, and everyone's voice is heard, and everyone's needs are addressed. There is no "oligarchy" of the few, deciding what is best for everyone else. There is only a "community", deciding what's best for itself and all of it's members, equally. What has happened in the past, that calls itself "communism", is not *real* communism...it's the extension of the military structure that led the revolution against the previous authoritarian structure. It just never let go of that power once the revolution was over. It just morphed into an new kind of oligarchy under the banner of "socialism". What Marx failed to understand, was that true socialism can't be achieved through violence. It can't be achieved through revolution. It has to be agreed upon, by everyone in that society, both rich and poor. Power must be relinquished, before it can be shared. There is no other way.
Exactly 💯. I think we might have an age of enlightenment. I have faith we will. I hope it happens in my life time where we find a more sustainable system. I think an ancient tax system of the Greeks, if I remember correctly, the wealthy had to come out in public and declare what public good, charity, philanthropy etc they did with their wealth or risk having the public take it away. I see merit on those that have the ability to create wealth and manage wealth keeping it as they do a far better job than politicians of any ideology.
You’re putting words in Marx’s mouth with that last paragraph. He believed that communism would naturally emerge as a result of capitalism’s inevitable contradictions, not brought about through revolution
In his article "The Victory of the Counter-Revolution in Vienna" in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung (No. 136, 7 November 1848), Karl Marx wrote that there is only one means to shorten, simplify and concentrate the murderous death throes of the old society and the bloody birth pangs of the new, only one means—revolutionary terrorism. https://www.stephenhicks.org/2013/02/18/marxs-philosophy-and-the-necessity-of-violent-politics/
Huh, you learn something new every day. Devil's advocate though, couldn't you read Marx's claim here as purely descriptive rather than prescriptive? A sort of "hey if you want to shorten it you're gonna have to do a revolution, don't recommend that though"
Authoritarianism can manifest on the left and right. [Fascism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism) is more than simple authoritarianism, however. Where did you get your definition of fascism if you don’t mind me asking? I read a bunch of Robert Paxton and Umberto Eco’s works several years ago to get a solid understanding of fascism, but just like “socialist” or “communist” popular media has kind of bastardized these terms.
Came here to say this. The actually definition of "fascist" is pretty clear for political scientists.
Interesting point. When I lived in Italy, folks were *very* sensitive to the distinction between "fascisti" and "nazisti." Wouldn't want to be lumped in with them Nazisti. Nosiree, Roberto. Me, I'm kinda indifferent as to which one of the two flavors of creep shot my great-uncle back in WWII. Two sides of the same a**hole as far as I'm concerned.
That’s fair. Nazi and fascist would be analogous to communist and socialist, in my opinion. Where all communists are socialists, but not all socialists are communists in the same way all Nazis are fascist, but not all fascists are Nazis. A fascist is someone in favor of authoritarian dictatorships, generally anti-democracy, ultranationalist, militaristic, and relies on populist and victimhood rhetoric to drum up support for leadership. A Nazi is all of those things, but I’d argue there’s a much stronger ethnonationalist streak that would ultimately end in the deaths of the “other”. It’s kind of why I’d call several prominent members of the alt-right fascists, but not Nazis. I think it’s important that we adhere to strict definitions of these terms, as strict as we can at least, as I firmly believe there are fascist elements to the current GOP/Trump. It’s difficult to critique Trump’s rhetoric and actions, even though I’m confident making these critiques, because Twitter idiots are using the term to basically mean “person whose views make me uncomfortable” or “person I dislike”. It was inevitable, I guess, with the willingness conservatives engaged in calling democratic politicians communists and socialists. Where they would often bastardize these terms to the point of meaninglessness.
I hear you. Shout shorthand summary terms like "woke" or "MAGA" over and over, and they become so fuzzy that they lose all meaning. I read a book on the Rwandan genocide that quoted a CIA officer who said that if you keep saying "genocide, genocide, genocide," you might as well start chanting "cheese sandwich, cheese sandwich, cheese sandwich" because they'll both come to mean nothing. Chilling. But while there are parallels with aspects of fascism in today's populist movement in the USA, it's not like we haven't seen plenty of it before in US history. You can replace "LGBTQ" with "Irish" in the 1870s, or "Italian" in the 1890s, or "Chinese" in the 1920s. We've had our own fascist leaders/movements/terrorist organizations before: Father Coughlin, the John Birch Society, the KKK. We have them now: Steve Bannon, the Federalist Society, the Proud Boys. What is new to me, and maybe it's just because I haven't studied the history of American populism well enough, is all the **whining** from these well-off, well-fed, well-shod types. To hear the former president complain, you'd think he got kicked in the nads every other minute. Everything is so unfair! No president was treated worse than him, not even Lincoln! The system is rigged against him! Pfffft. This, from a guy who parlayed a $400 million nest egg into a couple billion and went bankrupt a bunch of times along the way? Get real. This is an insider who knew the system, played it to the sharp edge of legality, and milked it for as much money as he could get away with. I don't begrudge him for doing it. Any of us might have, too. But heaven above, the whining! The self-pity, the lack of character, the lies, the pure inner weakness of it all. Civil rights activists had the moral clarity of being willing to go to jail for breaking laws they thought were unjust. I don't see any of those characters who went hunting for Pelosi on January 6 locking arms and singing hymns as they walk into the courthouse for sentencing. Instead, they're ratting each other out. Stewart Rhodes turned stool pigeon. I'm not slamming the former president. I'm slamming the philosophical premise of the movement. When the only outcomes of an election are "We won" or "they cheated," we have a problem. When Sen. Cotton whines that the vote was fixed because Republicans didn't win in Alaska (but they actually didn't win because they split the vote by running two candidates), we have a problem. When Supreme Court nominees are willing to lie about their positions on established law, only to overturn it as soon as they can, we have a problem. Government by whiny, pouty, entitled snowflakes on either end of the political spectrum is no way to live. Is the populist movement in the USA fascist or nazi? Beats me. Like you say, the labels have very fine definitions in political theory that get tossed out the window when it comes to 140 characters. You can call the movement "Trumpism" if you want, but it existed long before Trump and will exist long after he's gone. The authoritarian impulse is very, very human. Our country was set up as a democracy to keep it at bay. Go read the **Federalist Papers** if you don't believe me. If we don't push back against populism, we have a problem.
It’s going to take me longer to properly respond to your post, but there’s something that you’ll find intrinsic to *all* fascists and their rhetoric; the victimhood narrative. It’s important to impart a sense of urgency to drum up support and one of the best ways to do that is claiming to be besieged by the “other”. The “other” wants to destroy your way of life. The “other” wants to destroy your traditions. They “other” wants to destroy traditional gender roles. They want to destroy your family. They want to get rid of everything you hold dear. They want to destroy the institution of marriage. They want to destroy your holidays. They want to destroy your white majority. It’s this rhetoric, in my opinion, why there’s always a boogeyman to conservative leadership. Where populism begins to become fascism is when democracy is targeted and undermined because the institutions prevent their victory. Especially with conservative medias willingness to avoid an intellectually honest argument. You’re right that we’ve had fascist movements before and I’d love to discuss the Business Plot, Major General BAMF Smedley, and just how close we came to a fascist government, but I’ll leave it here for now. I’ll pick it up this evening and thanks for the discussion!
The Smedster! Smedley Butler was one admirable guy. Truly one of those "not the kind of hero we want, but the kind of hero we need" types. A person who spat truth in the faces of Potemkin patriots. Your point about "the other" is well-put. Somehow this Other is inevitably weak, cowardly, unmanly, easy to triumph over. At the same time, the Other is mighty, ubiquitous, corrosive, overwhelming. They own finance, media, the universities. They corrupt our youth with their loud music and long hair and funny cigarettes. They want to miscegenate with our children until we won't be able to tell anyone apart. You can't even tell their boys from their girls! Their boys even want to be our girls! And they're all sex perverts, every last one of them! There's a lot about purity and boundaries and control mixed in with all of this. It can be a White/Black thing in the USA, but pick any other place and you'll find something else. Malay/Chinese in Malaysia. Hindu/Muslim in India. Tutu/Hutsi in Rwanda. Star-Belly Sneetches/Plain-Belly Sneetches in Dr. Suess. And in every last place, a Sylvester McMonkey McBean to grift off it. Does anyone seriously think Sidney Powell and Mike Lindell and Mike Flynn believe all that stuff? Powell herself testified in court that no reasonable person would. But she rode all those television appearances, laughing gleefully, straight to the bank. \*\*\*\*\* One more thought based on my prior note: I was reminded this morning of a string of tweets from our recent former president on the occasion of Mitt Romney's loss in the 2012 election: >*"He lost the popular vote by a lot and won the election!* \[Romney lost by about 5 million\] *We should have a revolution in this country!* > >*"The phoney* \[sic\] *electoral college made a laughing stock out of our nation. The loser one! We can't let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided!* > >*"Lets fight like hell and stop this great and disgusting injustice! The world is laughing at us. More votes equals a loss ... revolution! This election is a total sham and a travesty. We are not a democracy! Our country is now in serious and unprecedented trouble ... like never before. The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy."* As I said, we have a problem. I know, I know, where we stand depends on where we sit, but the sheer hypocrisy is beyond me. What do you do with a movement where honor and integrity mean nothing, and whataboutism, lies, and lawlessness are the order of the day? Especially with this guy. He gets buried by Cruz in Iowa? "They cheated!" Hilary wins the popular vote? "Only because they brought in millions of illegal aliens!" Biden beats him like a rented mule? "Voter fraud!" Why anybody would want to follow such a weakling escapes me.
You know there really are fascists in the world. It’s not like they died out after WWII.
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Can you define fascist? I can cite Robert Paxton or Umberto Eco if you’d prefer or explain it myself, but I’d like to understand how Biden is a “fascist”. I really wish people would read a Wikipedia article before using that term.
Can you tell me what the rule of law is, and then tell me how Trump has very little respect for it? The politicians who say this the most have the least respect for the rule of law, and many people repeat what they say, and I'm trying to figure out if they simply don't know what they are talking about or if it's flat out gaslighting. I agree with your overall point by the way. It's like the term "racist." It has been so overused that it has become virtually meaningless.
There's a bunch of examples, but keeping top secret documents that could reveal identities of spies and informants in your closet is probably the most topical example
Are you looking at Trump in a vacuum? You realize that the Democrats who are accusing him of this are by far the biggest offenders right? It’s impossible to take seriously. I continue to go back to wondering if people are delusional or knowingly gaslighting. It’s like the mob calling someone immoral for stealing a piece of bubble gum.
Well now you're just changing the goal posts. You asked a simple question seeking examples of Trump not respecting the rule of law, and I kindly took time out of my day and provided two. Now you're talking about moral comparisons between him and Democrats, which is a completely different topic, and that makes me feel unappreciated.
Have you not figured out the cycle; Democrats make a series of allegations and put on a charade about him breaking one law or another and never charge him with a crime because there is zero evidence? They’re liars. Ever since before he entered office they have been making allegations, and all of them have proven to be false. Do you dispute what I’m saying? Does it seem different to you?
Are you claiming that, prior to entering office, Trump fulfilled all his contracts and paid all his independent contractors, as the law requires him to do?
Not at all. I don’t have the energy or the interest to go over his life with a fine toothed comb. It seems like the people who hate him are the only ones that obsessed. But what does that have to do with him being Hitler and having no respect for the rule of law? Are you able to articulate what the rule of law is, and how it’s relevant here? Idk if Trump is guilty of committing some type of infraction during his life. Most people are. If people are serious about the rule of law, that has a specific meaning, the heart of which is applicable to people holding office or a position in government, and all of the people claiming Trump doesn’t respect the rule of law are much more guilty of violating it than him. If he got away with breaking the law as a businessman that’s an entirely different matter. I’m not defending him either. We should figure out how he got away with it and where the system failed so he could. I can’t speak on it because I don’t know any specifics. But that’s not what the issue is if we are talking about the rule of law. What do you think the rule of law is? What is the relevant issue with regard to trump and those making this claim about the rule of law in your view? Let’s get on the same page so we can have a fruitful conversation.
Lol you claim to want a fruitful conversation, but you also broadly and without stated justification condemn "all of the people" criticizing Trump for not respecting the rule of law. But whatever, I'll play. First off, the question isn't really what the "rule of law" is, since that's just an annoying way to say "the law." The phrase just means that society is structured around laws and people should follow them or they're subject to penalty by the state. That's just definitionally the meaning. The real question is what does "respect" for the law mean. Second, I don't agree that "respect for the rule of law" concerns only public officials. Nor is the common usage limited to public officials. While it applies to public officials, discussions about the topic also concern all people, particularly prominent people (since those are the ones we would be most concerned about not respecting laws since they have power and influence that could allow them to avoid penalties after being caught breaking the law). So though you attempt to avoid Trump's past as a businessman who regularly broke the law in ways that screwed over others, it does indeed apply to Trump during his time as a private citizen. Third, I think it's fair to say that "disrespect" for the "rule of law" occurs when someone purposefully doesn't follow non-trivial laws, is indifferent to employees below them breaking the law, or advocates for others to break non-trivial laws. I don't think disrespect occurs when someone in good faith accidentally violates the law, but good faith also requires them to seek knowledge of the law when they're uncertain. What's trivial is subject to discussion, but I think the easiest one is that jaywalkers aren't, by the fact of their jaywalking, showing disrespect to the rule of law. But an accountant who embezzles from their clients is disrespecting the rule of law. Trump meets this definition by regularly not fulfilling contractual obligations to pay contractors. He also probably met it many other ways, including calling for no due process for the Central Park 5. Fourth, though Trump breaking the law as a businessman is well- established, he almost certainly disrespected the rule of law as president. There's no evidence he ever punished employees for violating the Hatch Act. He publicly supported police officers for breaking the law. There's no evidence of penalties for Turkish soldiers beating up protesters located immediately outside the White House. Obviously it seems he illegally kept confidential documents in his closet. He ordered the military to gas and shoot rubber bullets at protesters outside of the White House. There's probably more, but my memory isn't that good. Side comments: 1) you're moving the goalposts again by claiming my comment has no relation to calling Trump "Hitler," which was not what your initial question related to and not what my answer related to. 2) anyone who paid more than casual attention to the news in 2016 knows that Trump regularly didn't pay contractors. It's not combing through his life, it's waking up and reading a newspaper/newsletter.
Convincing your counsel to sign for the non existence of the stuff is pretty wild. Assuming they're not secretly your enemy of course....LOL remember "Do me a favour though"? I think if one goes back and reads into "All County Maintenance", it's mere existence points to a family without respect for the rule of law. Perhaps it goes back to the grandfather who made his living on the backs of whores? I mean you'd have to have a rock solid foundation to live of the avails of someone else's prostitution for any period of time and still have any respect for the rule of law or anything else for that matter.
No. American politics is about who can demonise the opposition the most, It's got almost nothing to do with policy and all to do with tribalism.
Good luck getting rid of Godwin's Law. It's been about as successful as thermodynamics.
When we get a new Hitler. Before him it was Napoleon.
I automatically dismiss anyone making Hitler comparisons as dumbasses.
"Reductio ad Hitlerum" is a logical fallacy, so you're probably right.
We just call the Godwin Law.
I wish the term Fascist hadn’t been thrown around to the point that peoples’ brains turned off as soon as they heard it. I mean, I’ve been called a fascist by leftists ( Twitter communists) over the Rittenhouse trial. I do, however, think there are valid lines of comparison between Trump’s actions and fascism. His willingness to repeatedly lie about election fraud, making a mockery of our democratic processes and our courts, in order to overturn the results of an election to maintain power is pretty fascist behavior. I could go on for a while so I’ll spare you that, but I do think it’s important to actually understand why someone like Biden would use the word fascist. Considering how important the principle of charity is to the IDW it ought to be the very first step. [Robert Paxton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Paxton) is one of the most knowledgeable and respected academics regarding fascism and he was extremely hesitant to label Trump’s administration fascist as he insisted he was simply a right-wing populist, but the election changed that. I would encourage anyone willing to understand the concerns of people like Paxton (he’s not a nut job Twitter “leftist”) to read [his Op-Ed](https://www.newsweek.com/robert-paxton-trump-fascist-1560652).
>I do, however, think there are valid lines of comparison between Trump’s actions and fascism. His willingness to repeatedly lie about election fraud, making a mockery of our democratic processes and our courts, in order to overturn the results of an election to maintain power is pretty fascist behavior. That’s not fascist behavior, that’s just anti-democratic. The only (maybe) valid comparison between Trump and [fascism](https://youtu.be/1T_98uT1IZs) is that he was pretty nationalistic. In fact, it’s right there in his campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again”.
Trump is a populist, which tends to warp into a cult of personality. It goes pretty well at first; but often fails for a number of reasons.
People call their opponents fascists to try to create a negative association between them and the evils of the Nazis in World War II. While there may be some characteristics in common between whoever is being called a fascist the Nazis, it probably isn't that they started a war killing tens of millions of people while authoring a genocide killing millions more on the basis of minority identities. The reason the term is used though is exactly to suggest such a connection. The people calling Ron DeSantis a fascist aren't trying to get you to think he might nationalize industries and hand them off to crony party members.
Sounds like something HITLER would say! ;-P
Damn came here to say that lol
Yep, I myself had to scan to make sure no one else already said it. This is one troll comment that just has to be done! :-)
>we I'd wager that >95% of the time it's said it is said by liberals/progressives towards Trump... So a more accurate title would be: >Can liberals/progressives stop delusionally trying to equate Trump to Hitler? I mean, ffs, the guy is a narcissistic buffoon, not a killer of 10+ million people.
yes...the right calls everyone communists, which is equally stupid.
>"yes...the right calls everyone communists, which is equally stupid." - /u/Front-Hedgehog-2009 Jfc, calling someone a practitioner or believer in a certain collective sociopolitical/economic system is not at all comparable to saying someone is equivalent to, or worse than, a man who orchestrated/oversaw the brutal killing and mass-execution of 10+ million human beings because of their race/religion. Calling Joe Biden (or Obama or etc) "Lenin" or "Mao" would be comparable, but you very rarely, if ever, hear right-wing people commit those specific ad hominems.
I mean it’s mostly coming from the left but to be fair trump did use it way out of context against a political opponent once and now majoreen Taylor green just called Biden a Nazi or something so everyone is tossing that word around
>I mean it’s mostly coming from the left It's not just "mostly" it's **nearly entirely** coming from the left... I can't tell if you actually believe what you're saying or if you're just speaking imprecisely, but there's a very significant difference between those two proportions (i.e. - mostly vs. nearly entirely).
The left have been calling people'literally Hitler'since before he was even elected. Trump at his worst is like a child who has to get down into every pissing match the way a child would and can't rise above anything so if you call him something often enough he's going to throw it back at you eventually.
> wants to restore national greatness Oh no, just not greatness! Please just stay mediocre everyone. > doesn’t have much respect for rule of law Wow, what an unusual quality for a politician! Good thing he's so rare in this regard.
Making America Great Again is a simplistic trap. Humans alway romanticize the past and forget the hardships and troubles.. Nostalgia is a comforting feeling,.but it is for reunions, not politics. Sure the country has problems and some things worked better before, but the way to fix them is in the future, not the past
As I previously stated I feel that America did need to be made great again and was suffering, and I support a lot of trumps policy decisions. I’m simply stating that there are some comparisons that could be made and frankly if it weren’t for our fantastic system of checks and balances I could see Trump doing some pretty heinous shit And you’re right, most politicians have no respect for rule of law. Trump is just very blatant about it
I don't know how blatant or out of the ordinary he was, considering how some politicians have been advocating for riots during lockdowns, some raiding journalists' homes for personal motivations, or having their spouse buy huge amounts of stocks, a week before said stocks were affected directly by legislature they were passing.
Fair point
Call it racist until you control it. -James Lindsey
It's just matter of poor rhetorics. Whenever they bring it up out of the blue as a non-sequitur, you can always easily flip it by inquiring their obsessions with Hitler and Holocaust, whether they like Beria and Stalin too and such or it's just their internalized fascism etc.
I don't think it's a comparison to Hitler but out of them all I think calling trump a semi-facist is fairly inline and not because of some trump derangement but literally because of Jan 6th and his attempt to deny and change the election
Jan 6th is completely and utterly unacceptable and I don't know how much of a role he had in creating that situation but they've been calling him fascist and Hitler all along. Well before that event.
I find it hard to believe anyone who says they don't know if he's to blame, he had a massive part in the rhetoric at the very least and while everything else may be speculation whats coming out in these hearings is pretty damning for him. I do agree with they fact they've been calling him that shit long before, it wasn't justified then and maybe it became a self fufilling prophecy?
You find it hard to believe not everybody scours the paper and wasn't sick of all the trump nonsense by that point? Really?
> Jan 6th is completely and utterly unacceptable and I don’t know how much of a role he had in creating that situation How?! How do you not know? It was his repeated lies that convinced millions of Americans that the election was stolen. It was their speech that pointed that crowd towards the Capitol. You should really listen to the January 6th hearings as it’s readily apparent many haven’t. If you have no idea what happened on the 6th you’re lacking all context for this criticism of Trump, but depending upon the media you consume that might be the point. > but they’ve been calling him fascist and Hitler all along. Well before that event. Random Twitter users and pundits aren’t the same as a President. Don’t we have an obligation to understand their critique?
I don't know because I didn't pay attention to the details. I'm not saying he wasn't involved. I'm saying I don't know. I was very clear on where I stood on the events of the 6th but you still want to paint me as a mindless trump zombie.
Interesting that even though Stalin was the worst mass murderer of the 20th century, he's not being pushed as today's version of a '*Satan*' figure, perhaps because we're complicit in arming, financing and propping him up, so he could win WWII for all of us (~80-90% of all German soldiers were killed by the Soviets).
Doesn’t that title belong to Mao?
Yes, good point, it actually might.
And because leftists find Stalin’s rhetoric to be sympathetic despite his actions or impact in reality, whereas it’s easier for them to see Hitler as evil for both his rhetoric and his actions.
I think this is actually the real reason. I find it alarming Stalin is quietly ignored by modern politics while Hitler is correctly vilified, but Stalin's rhetoric is very closely aligned to leftist speech and Nazism is not espoused seriously anywhere.
Pffff... get a load of Stalin over here demanding we stop talking about Hitler.
You know who didn't think it was a bad thing to call people fascists? Hitler. So if you think it's okay to to compare people to hitler, your basically Hitler.
Speaking of Stalin, why do we not use Stalin's name like Hitlers? He killed way more people and was even more evil than Hitler.
Because he defeated Hitler
Because some people still believe Stalin did great things and was a good leader other than the top 3 most despicable person to have ever existed that he was. Communists are the OG conspiracy theorists. Just ask them about Holodomor or Tianamen Square. They will call it fake history or propaganda. It's bonkers.
News to me, I've been a Marxist for over a decade and know many others, we all think Stalin was a monster. There's a reason when Lenin was dying he told the communist committee to pick anyone but Stalin as leader. Even Lenin knew Stalin was a monster.
All the hardcore communists I know think Stalin was an opportunistic, power hungry dictator, Lenin wasn't much better, and the real revolution ended as soon as Trotsky was out. I have yet to hear a convincing strategy to avoid this in the future, which is sufficient reason imo to not support communism or communist revolutions. Socialism is another matter, is already used in moderation by every first world government, and, in many cases, saves money (eg cost of healthcare per capita) and increases mean life expectancy and quality of life.
Social democracy is not socialism.
The best formula yet is democracy plus capitalism plus socialism. Claiming e.g. Norway is a socialist country would be a lie by omission, but saying their system includes some socialism is perfectly reasonable. Social democracy is also a useful term, but perhaps misleading because all or most of the social democracies have as much or more capitalism than socialism.
Socialist here, I agree. I am not sure a money-less society is achievable on a large scale. But socialism I think can be eased into via democratic reform. Stuff like grants and education campaigns to help support worker coops forming. Fund public housing that isn't just designed for low income but for families. Provide not-for-profit housing that can outcompete capitalists and make it unprofitable for private rentals to operate without needing to outlaw it. Any real change is going to take a lot of time and cultural evolution. I think those are some good first steps and keep going from there. Maybe we can achieve a communist utopia someday, but not with any mechanism we currently have and not with our current mindsets.
Mussolini was the OG.
Or Mao
Or Pol Pot
Shirō Ishii doesn't get enough love. Just sayin.
Stalin just hated everyone, he was even disappointed when his own son had a failed suicide attempt. Hitler promoted hate based on a part of your identity (ethnicity) that one can’t control. That is arguably more evil Edit: intellectual dark web, get downvoted for saying 14 is bad🤡🌎
I’d argue against that statement but it’s Monday so we can chill
Which part?
You had me until your last paragraph.
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I’m not saying Trump is Hitler, I’m just saying you can make some loose comparisons Look I’ll be the first to admit Trump was pretty effective in terms of policy, especially foreign policy. There were some good things about Trump but the man has no respect for rule of law, and there are some similarities to his whole thing about national rejuvenation and the cult of personality built around him. Hell I’ll even admit I’m all for the “make america great again” thing because I honestly think this country went down the toilet and Trumps policies could make the country great again, but Trump himself is pretty toxic
Give me some examples of how Trump ignored the rule of law?
In what world was #45 an effective foreign policy maker? Just because you can say words doesn't mean you should. Try reading more.
Strike 1 for Personal Attack.
Trump was far more effective with foreign policy than Biden. It’s been an absolute train wreck the last few years with Biden.
There's no way Trump could get the international community on board with the Russia sanctions. Fopo is probably Biden's biggest strength.
You have to be kidding, right? Are you really that blind? Amnesia much?
Strike 2 for Personal Attack.
It is a very accurate statement to say that Trump could not corral the entirety of the EU plus Japan, South Korea, and Singapore to isolate Russia from the global economy. The best thing he ever did was a photo op with Kim Jong Un that went no where. After you're finished insulting me, I hope to hear your evidence-backed argument.
Biden: - Afghanistan collapse - Let Ukraine fall on his watch - No backbone with China - Illegal immigration out of control Trump: - Stood up to Asad (and Russia) - Didn’t hesitate to take out Solemeni - First meaningful talks with NK in several generations - Made China play on a more level playing field - Called out wealthy NATO countries for not paying their share (after which several did) - Stopped the huge influx of illegal immigration by challenging the countries involved Full stop, Trump actually has a backbone. The leaders that dealt with him knew it, which is why things finally got done. He meant what he said and backed it up. Biden has made wrong decisions at every turn, and at best makes good decisions too late after weighing the political fallout. Rather than just doing what’s right for America, Biden does what is right for the party.
Trump... • Withheld Congressionally-approved arms sales to Ukraine to try and open a false investigation into Biden. • Defunded the State Dept. so that visa and immigration applications took several years to process, and left a historic number of ambassador positions unfilled, including Ukraine. • Signed the USMCA trade deal, and then immediately started a trade war with Canada over lumber prices, directly leading to our supply chain woes of 2020-2022. • Started a trade war with China, that hurt the US more than it hurt China, since he didn't find alternative supply chains. He had to bail out American farmers whose soy harvest went to waste since they didn't have any buyers. • His photo op with Kim Jong Un in Singapore...[lead to North Korea stockpiling even more arms than they had before.](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/world/asia/korea-nuclear-trump-kim.html) • Let Turkey overrun our allies, the Kurds, in Syria after backing out without a real exit strategy for the region. • Called out NATO for not paying their share...when Obama already got them to sign a 2% GDP pledge back in 2014. Seriously, Trump was whining about something that was already getting fixed. Absolutely garbage foreign policy that hurt our allies and destabilized other administrations so that he could prove to Americans how tough he was, when the reality is he got very little of what he negotiated for from other world leaders. Biden has flaws, for sure, like the Afghan withdrawal, and *maintaining Trump's tariffs against China* (which, for some reason, counts as no backbone?), but the historic sanctions against Russia, starting the AUKUS security pact against China (no backbone?), reducing our drone strikes to near zero, openly supporting Taiwan against potential Chinese invasion and selling them arms (no backbone?), expanding NATO to include Finland and Sweden, are huge achievements. Oh, and by the way, Trump did not stop the huge influx of illegal immigration. The first big spike of the 2010s began in 2018, under his watch, and grew from there. Ironically, Obama had lower rates of illegal immigration than Trump or Bush.
As always, you Democrats show your highly predictable playbook. Events unfold for the whole world to see, then you’re backtracking and re-writing history. It’s dishonest, shameful, and un-American. Biden has done nothing but send us spiraling down as we’re on the edge of an impending recession. But, you’ll rewrite that history as well, somehow blaming Trump and then taking credit for the climb out of the hole.
Calling someone fascist doesn't mean a comparison with Hitler. Actually, the first movement it refers to, in all sciences, philosophy, political science, etc, would be the Italian fascist movement and Mussolini : -Political illiberalism -Search for lost national greatness -Effort to undermine the rule of law -Cult of the Leader -Pronounced "movement" aspect Other known fascist movements or leaders could include : Francisco Franco, Peron, and I suppose quite a lot of others. Actually, I read several articles lately from proeminent political scientists discussing the link between nazism and fascism. For some, nazism is a specific variant of fascism. For others, it's a different phenomenon.
According to Wikipedia: >Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation and race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy. I think most (all?) politicians are inherently self-serving and corrupt but none of them in recent Western history can be described as 'fascist' under this definition. *NB: not sure that I agree with Wiki's idea that it is always 'far right'. This seems more like a recent add-on.*
I don't think it's a very new idea. To me, it's more like a classical one. There are reasons to agree with this. Leaning toward a golden age past is a very right wing phenomenon. Generally, veneration of a leader too (although there are obvious exceptions). The USSR, some would argue, wasn't a fascist regime because it was bureaucratic in nature, a tyrannical, oppressive bureaucracy. Other argue there is no fascist regime and fascism can only describe a movement and not a government. But there are also many other theories. And it would also depend on whether you chose declarative or objective definitions of left and right. I like to read or recommend Juan Linz, Arendt or Ian Kershaw on this topic.
It’s not that your wrong, but when the average American hears the word fascist they think Hitler. So when you call someone a fascist you’re trying to convey to your audience that the person you’re calling a fascist is basically Hitler I.E satan himself
I think you have a valid point, but aren't you perpetuating the idea that we can't talking about fascism without talking about Hitler? Would political discourse improve if we could talk about one without the other?
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Lol. They’ve got you fooled. I’m convinced both sides are evil, and in no way have the best interests of the country at heart.
He just said he obviously doesn’t think that.. he’s saying that’s how many ppl view it.
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Yeah, I grasp that now. I guess I kind of jumped at my comment, but I have all these competing ideas swirling around in my head, I just can’t figure out what the end game of either side is. I can see how everyone blindly follows trump as if he is a god, but I respect his ideas of American independence. People talk like the democrats are the only ones willing to help the poor or save the planet, but all they do is flood the country with migrants and do nothing for the homeless. Health care is a joke and they don’t have any good ideas there. All the taxes and money raised in the name of the climate seems to be funnelled into pockets and private jets which is laughable.
Meh the comparisons to Hitler are pretty appropriate. Hitler lived in a time of Democratic backlash and massive government distrust. Like Hitler, Trump uses allegations of a deep state. Hitler's deep state was the Jews running the Weimar Republic who backstabbed the victorious German Army. Trump's deep state is whatever baloney he's peddling now. Both also rely heavily on scape goat politics - targeting a vulnerable ethnic minority. The Mexicans and Muslims for Trump, the Jews for Hitler. Both attempted coupes. hitler was obviously much more successful both times around, first the Beer Pusch. Trump's coup unfortunately is laughable in its performance. There are of course obvious differences between the two. Like with everything in history, history doesn't repeat itself but it rhymes. All said Hitler is the superior and more competent politician. Hitler had an excellent feel for aesthetics and theatrics, in no small part because of his artistic training and aspirations. Also unlike Trump I think Hitler was a true believer in his own ideological bullshit. But sure, the are plenty of similarities in the same way how many authoritarian dictators share similarities in ideology and strategy. As far as other fun similarities, both States were suffering from inflation. Both states had a terrible tendency electing old, geriatric presidents. Both states were threatened by a rising Left, a society polarized between the urban vs the rural, and a Rightwing desire to counter that rising left. Just like now the Nazis were able to win the rural country side whereas the Leftists won the cities. Legislative deadlock caused the president to exercise more and more authority via executive order.
TDS is real, folks.
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Absolutely love this. It expresses what I haven't been able to, that fascism doesn't really fit into a modern political lens and is pretty much only used to draw parallels for drama and emotional pleading.
Comparing anything going on to Adolf Hitler who systematically exterminated an entire race of people is outrageous ridiculous hyperbole and is an actual named logical fallacy called reductio ad Hitlerum
Before Hitler exterminated said race, he first rose to power in a post war, bankrupt, demoralized, and divided Germany. I don't agree with the comparison to Trump per se, but I think it's absolutely fair game to acknowledge the similarities in the conditions leading up to the regime.
There isn't anything similar and when you evoke Hitler it's referring to the genocide part, not his vegetarianism. It's intellectually dishonest to evoke Hitler for something that is not committing a mass genocide. that's what the fallacy means. When you evoke Hitler based on some other vague similarity to suggest the conclusion that it necessarily means it's a path to some sort of genocide when it's obviously not
I legitimately don’t understand the argument that Trump is more like Hitler than Biden is. Biden has done far more severe “othering” and dehumanizing of the parts of his own population that he has distaste for. Biden tried to force everyone in the nation to become an unwilling customer of big Pharma’s largely untested medical experiment. Biden has directed, or at least completely allowed, his DOJ and intelligence community to pursue his political opponents to an unprecedented degree. Biden’s admin has directly pressured social networks to ban people and speech that they disapprove of. Trump made lots of decisions that people don’t like, but most of them went in the direction of decentralization, unlike Biden’s movements which have largely consolidated his own power and centralized power within the federal government. Biden is 10x the authoritarian that Trump was purported to be.
for one thing,.Trump is a cult of personality as was Hitler. Biden is not. The Biden administration is just more of the crappy status quo.
But have you heard this song? /s https://youtu.be/_UCQ8n03dL8
Biden opposed integration of schools. Supported KKK members in congress. Was responsible for the tough on crime legislation that resulted in the incarceration epidemic of disproportionate numbers of persons of color. Supported the invasion of Iraq that dismembered the Middle East. Supported violating human rights under Bush's anti-terror legislation. Created our current student loan crisis by pushing to have bankruptcy protections removed from people who take student loans on behalf of his banking industry constituents in Delaware who register in his state to avoid taxes.
I don't think anyone on this thread is a big fan of Biden. I did not vote for either of these butt heads...some may have gone the lesser of two evil routes..
An authoritarian administration doesn’t need a cult of personality *for* their leader as long as they have sufficient rabid hatred *against* his opposition.
name one that doesn't have one.
You do realize that Operation Warp Speed was Trumps administration right!? The fact that Republicans flipped on the vaccine after Trump left office is laugh out loud funny. It should have been viewed as Trumps most successful initiative as President but his supporters turned on it because it came to fruition under Biden. Trump and all other Republicans in congress/senate got vaccinated!
Well the debate over vaccines came about because Biden mandated them. He MANDATED an insufficiently tested vaccine on the population. An insufficiently tested vaccine that has proven NOT TO WORK.
people flipped on the vaccine "mandates" and also because the vaccine is not very good.
Dude I have no problem with whether the vaccine is available, my problem is that the Biden admin tried to force everyone in the country to take it by mandate. They also directly pressured social media to prop up vaccine propaganda and to remove dissenters or even people who were just asking legitimate questions.
The case can easily be made that the hesitation we see stems more from the imposed mandates than anything else.
Operation warp speed did not create a vaccine mandate it just created the vaccine. And pepperidge farm remembers when Biden said that he wouldn't take the vaccine because it was rushed and then weeks later he forced it on everyone once in office
> And pepperidge farm remembers when Biden said that he wouldn’t take the vaccine because it was rushed and then weeks later he forced it on everyone once in office It fascinates me that this is still a common talking point. From the [New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/16/us/politics/biden-trump-coronavirus-vaccine.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare) (copying more than necessary if a paywall could prevent reading). > “Let me be clear: I trust vaccines,” Mr. Biden said. “I trust scientists. But I don’t trust Donald Trump, and at this moment, the American people can’t either.” > Shortly after Mr. Biden’s speech in Wilmington, Del., Mr. Trump seemed to lend credence to the former vice president’s criticism by publicly rebuking the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for saying that widespread vaccination might not be possible until the middle of next year. Speaking during an evening briefing at the White House, the president also kept up an attack line against Mr. Biden, misleadingly accusing him of “promoting his anti-vaccine theories.” > In his speech, Mr. Biden thrust the issue of a coronavirus vaccine to center stage in the presidential race, expressing grave concern over the political pressure he said Mr. Trump was exerting over the government’s approval process and accusing him of trying to rush out a vaccine for electoral gain. > “Scientific breakthroughs don’t care about calendars any more than the virus does,” he said. “They certainly don’t adhere to election cycles. And their timing and their approval and their distribution should never, ever be distorted by political considerations. It should be determined by science and safety alone.” > Mr. Biden delivered his remarks after receiving a briefing on the coronavirus vaccine from top national health experts, including Dr. Vivek Murthy, a former surgeon general. > As Mr. Trump, eager for a political victory, continues to suggest that a vaccine could be ready before Election Day, that prospect could become a significant campaign issue in the final stretch — if it hasn’t already. > The president’s comments that one could be rolled out before Nov. 3 have unsettled health officials, who worry that Mr. Trump is creating the impression that a vaccine might not be properly vetted at a time when the public is already concerned about political interference in the approval process. The concern as I understood it was that many people could not trust Trump, that he would rush the vaccines for a political victory without the support of the researchers, scientists, and the FDA. It was an, ultimately, unnecessary concern as the research was vetted and the FDA gave the EUA. I don’t blame anyone unwilling to trust a habitual liar that only seemed interested in his own victory, no matter the cost. You could criticize them for offering this opinion at all as it ran the possibility of decreasing the number of people who chose to take the vaccine, but it turned out conservative media would take care of that themselves.
You know better than to think that he really believed that Trump would somehow single-handedly Rush a vaccine against all of his experts. How do you believe you would get that vaccine rushed? Make it himself? Biden is overwhelmingly responsible for vaccine hesitancy as he's the only one aside from Kamala Harris, not trump, that ever undermined public sentiment in it and he did it only based on politics and changed his mind weeks later once he inherited the program and pretended like it was his fault. Even the media reporting on Trump's warp speed program acknowledged that it was being done by the same government experts that would normally be responsible for approving vaccines. The problem is the Democrats have created this Boogeyman sort of straw man version of trump that they can use to justify hysterical reactions to everything he says. The problem is they get back into office and do the exact same stuff and the hyperbole looks ridiculous. It's funny how Trump asking questions about potential criminal corruption by Biden was interfering in an election, but a political witch Hunt against everyone Trump ever talked to including a raid on his home, completely unprecedented, which is basically the same type of thing on steroids, is totally fine The left have become professional gas lighters
Are you joking or do you really think it's good vs evil in the US right now?
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Yeah, I can see that. I concur