seacoaster wrote: ↑Sat Sep 19, 2020 3:52 pm
cradleandshoot wrote: ↑Sat Sep 19, 2020 2:17 pm
There is a chitload of ways to criticize trump. Why do so many of you libs keep playing the nazi card all the time?
Assuming this is a serious question, I will try to give you a serious answer, and sorry in advance if this sounds pedantic.
Broadly, speaking, fascism is the politics of "us" and "them." It follows a cult-like reverence for a leader figure, who promises to restore a national identity that has been lost, and lost because of its theft or dilution by an "other." Nazism's other was Jews, who, the populous was told, had rigged the system in their favor, and did so through their secret and walled off avenues of cheating success. Trump's followers -- and I hasten to say that I only see one of two of this sort on these boards -- buy into his message of deep grievance, and I think it is fair to say largely white grievance, at having been displaced by a mongrelized melting pot, which doesn't follow their ways, religions, and cultural norms, and which seeks to diminish them further. Trump, it simply must be admitted, is a divider and demonizer. He settles one set of Americans into the role of "loyal" and "faithful" followers of him and by extension the America that once was the best, the strongest. "MAGA" is a motto that fits neatly with the rise of the Nationals Socialists in the late 1920s and early 1930s. MAGA says, in a neat little acronym, join us to make us what we once were, how things once worked, and how society once looked. And its leader, Il Duce, has identified minorities, leftists, and immigrants as the internal enemy that fascism absolutely requires to thrive.
To almost all observers with any background in history, the RNC was a near-fascist revival meeting. I described its scripted demonization of the left, and scripted falsities about the "other" and their standard bearer, Biden, as "far left radicals as a latter day Triumph of the Will.
More specifically, Trump is a minority vote President. So was the Fuhrer. Trump threaded the EC needle, and lost the popular vote by nearly 3,000,000 votes. Combined with the votes that went to Doober Gary and Dr. Jill, votes not for Trump outnumbered votes for Trump by something on the order of 7,000,000. He has, since the inauguration, attempted to repel this reality.
Trump directly and effectively whips up his base in an unvarnished manner. So did his counterpart in the 1930s, through mass rallies and at least two dedicated news dailies. Both demonize the opposition, and call into question their patriotism. That is, and I think this is crucial, Trump equates opposition to him as unfaithful to the national interest, and willingness to follow him as an act of patriotism. No American leader in my lifetime has come anywhere close to making this binary distinction so often, so clear, and so greedily as Trump: if you don't support me, you hate America, you hate the Constitution (notwithstanding his constant assault on it and perversion of it), you hate your neighbors who do tow the loyalty line. You see this message resonating clearly from the Idiot PB in nearly every one of his blindingly stupid posts.
There are others: enriching elites and choosing winners; there are plenty of latter day KruppWerks operating here now. Mass rallies to soak up and project adulation. Intense nationalism. Threats and acts of deportation. Threats of violence against citizen protests and citizen action. The rejection of erstwhile international institutions and governing norms. Glorification of the military, and "ownership" of "my generals."
I'll conclude with three parallels that I think are important:
(1) Trump and his functionaries constantly attack the media. He did this again last night to his crowd in Minnesota, when he said he should "pull the licenses" of CNN and NBC.
(2) News that is loyal and positive about the President is not only good news, but "true news;" the rest is fake or false. Trump's most consistent and ardent act has been to destabilize facts, to lie about them, and to get his followers to echo-echo-echo the falsities.
(3) Deep and serious attacks on institutions on which Americans have long depended and relied. There is nary a single Executive agency that is not in the process of being bent to the will of the reelection campaign. Foreign policy is undertaken by loyal amateurs instead of the long trusted and professional diplomatic corps, and is used to look for information that will consolidate the President's domestic power and position. The FBI, CIA and DOJ are either excoriated as unreliable -- which means not totally loyal -- or is already under the leadership of people whose loyalty to the President's wishes and whims is clear and acted upon.
I am not suggesting that Democrats will one day be ushered in special reeducation camps. I am suggesting that our government is dangerously and seriously out of balance, and that unless Congress has the will to admonish and control the baser instincts of this President, and fall under the power of his followers, we are in for a very rough time.