Thinking it a term best avoided for reasons of decorum is part of what got us here.
For another, the term has been overused to the point of meaninglessness, especially by left-leaning types
Jonathan Rauch is holding out on the one thing we want to see: the websites of these left-leaning types, because they’re the ones whose voices we should be hearing and promoting.
Oh well now that YOU say it, king of the obvious, now we are allowed.
You know, Start by saying you’re fucking sorry for being an idiot. Because that’s what you’re actually reporting.
I am so upset by articles like this, but the saddest part is that they’re needed. Months ago a professor who studies fascism fled the country due to rising fascism. There were articles about it. I sent them to family and friends in an attempt to warn them about what was coming. Some did listen, but there are so many people we will have to pick up along the way and “meet where they’re at”. I wish all articles like this were “I’m a huge idiot and was horribly wrong and will devote myself to fixing this now”, but in reality that helps no one. I can keep sending out articles like this and since it’s not “wow! I and by extension you were a dumb idiot” people may feel like maybe realizing it now is smart and can have their minds changed. I would appreciate a better note at the end, once the reader may be swayed, that was about what to do going forward and how to learn to listen, but it is what it is.
How can I upvote this comment more than once?
So you literally ignored hitlers plot playing out until it was to late, and now it’s okay to call them hurtful name. Another banger from the Atlantic.
Worst “hair”/toupee/failed transplant/hairspray/hair gel mess ever. JFC.
Yes, we know.
See, everyone knows that fascism is a bad thing. That has been taught in every school since the end of WW2.
It’s just a shame that most people never bothered to look up what fascism actually is, and it can be something your guys do as well.
Our general discourse has been so deeply and deliberately poisoned that people don’t pay attention to words broadly anymore. So many different foreign and domestic forces have worked so tirelessly to amplify the chaos and boost the worst takes on both sides of every social issue, that the general population of the US stopped paying attention. (The horrific 2024 exit-polling confirms this too.)
This is why people are latching onto character over policy, it’s why Trump retains power despite not having any clue what he’s doing and is just obviously being led around by his cabinet. It’s why we all seem to care a lot more about what our favorite internet streamer has to say about a candidate than AP our Routers or the evening news, because the words have been said so much that people stopped paying attention.
This is not a new, modern ploy either. The KGB and CIA both have written how to destabilize nations using these tactics as far back as the 50’s or earlier.
Who’s that kgb guy that runs Russia loves trump and had been accused of interfering with international elections. Has a bigger army of Internet bots than the army he fields?
I would wager that the army Elon employs is bigger. He deliberately monetized blue-check twitter accounts for high views and shares. Not much, just a few dollars a month, maybe a couple hundred dollars if you break some thousands of shares and views.
For the average American this is not worth the time and effort to stay on Twitter all day and night farming engagement, but for the average citizen of a place like India, this is a living. So now in addition to the Russian bot-farms, Chinese espionage orgs, domestic groups of angry incels employing bot armies, we also now have millions of people in countries like India, Philippines, Pakistan and other countries who have been holistically outsourced to push rage-bait and propaganda through US culture and conversation.
This has had a devastating effect on our domestic conversations. These people are probably fine, normal, decent people, but they have no stake in the USA’s future and are wrecking our present day so they get a meal tomorrow.
We have to start treating the information feeds in new ways. Namely, by turning them all off and spending more time in local communities and socializing to form protective groups and power blocs in our neighborhoods and cities. The most sensational bullshit someone reads online will not withstand peer-pressure to think critically and not act stupid.
Fascism is bad, communism is bad, socialism is bad. Leftists have successfully been labeled socialists and communists, why would the other side care about being labeled fascists anymore? They’re just words, meaningless abstractions now.
Right, but if you say to a Leftist “You are a socialist!” they’ll say “Yes, that’s correct”.
The MAGA hats aren’t owning the word fascism. They don’t know what it is. They know it’s bad. It’s something that happened in WW2. It’s something others do.
I’d link Michael Rosen’s “I Sometimes Fear” poem, but this administration did walk in saying exactly that, and half the people still didn’t connect the dots.
It’s an old man’s anger and need to be worshipped that turned into fascism.
I feel like this debate over whether it’s fascism or not misses a big point:
It’s an oppressive nationalist state with practically unchecked presidential power. It is responsible for numerous war crimes. It instates hardline policies targeting everyday Americans. It puts people in detention camps. It is fueled by exceptionalism on all levels, from foreign policy to religion. And at the same time, it doesn’t provide for its people, cutting all forms of social support.
It also erodes democratic institutions in an attempt to cement itself, so that other powers couldn’t change course.
You can call it fascism. You can call it authoritarianism. What matters is that America is turned into an angry shithole hostile to both others and it’s own people. Isn’t that a reason good enough to stand strongly against it? Why do people wait for a “fascist” label, like it’s some sort of red cloth, and would it change much if tomorrow Trump would plead allegiance to Hitler?
America needs a New Deal for both wealth inequality and authoritarianism.
America just needs to stop being America imo. Countries in general should be smaller and not so powerful.
“Oh gee wiz, turns out he’s doing the dictator thing like he said he would”
So now he will realize he doesn’t know shit and shut up, right?
Right?
Holy shit is this author intellectually incapable.
Trump himself may be a pure “patrimonialist”. But to act like the rest of the American ruling class aren’t textbook corporatist fascists defies credulity.
What a fucking idiot. People like this can’t be trusted with a pen, much less a goddamned ballot.
I’m glad you got there eventually. Keep listening closely to the people who told you this years ago, they are clearly more perceptive than you.
It was literally fucking YEARS of me dealing with variations of “he’s not a fascist! He’s just an impotent wannabe dictator, we’ll be fine. You’re overreacting!” from acquaintances and family. Not friends, I don’t have friends that stupid.
I will stand arm in arm with every person who mocked me for “being a worrier”, not just because it’s the only way out of this, but because it’s the best way, maybe the only way, to build a better future.
With that having been said, I hope each and every one of them gets a terrible case of genital lice at some point in their lives.
An impotent wannabe dictator is a fascist lmaoooo. That is some wild level of cope. “ he is not a fascist. He is just a fascist light. It will be fine.”
Once we give the impotent wanna be dictator, a little more power it will be fine! If I didn’t know people, I wouldn’t think this was real
This is the best response.
And too late to matter. Thanks.
It was fascism this time 12 months ago when Trump had women and people of colors plaques and images covered at national museums and at nasa.
When they banned words from research. Like: women. Female. Bias, transgender, equality. Privilege.
When they prosecuted women as murderers for having a safe first trimester termination of pregnancy.
When they started demanding a woman must die before any medical procedures would be performed that could harm a fetus, even if that fetus was dead or non viable.
When they removed black veterans stories from the VA websites and other government websites.
When they changed the dod to the department of war.
My gawd. This all started a year ago. It was fascism then.
Sure, all of that is true.
Why would you (not you, daannii, the general ‘you’) want to alienate an ally by rubbing that in their face?
You get a little emotional boost by feeling self-righteous in exchange for helping splinter the enemies of Fascism.
Welcome converts, don’t spit on them.
It was fascism in 2016 when he promised to ban people from entering the US based on religion.
It was clearly fascism when Project 2025 was leaked.
It wasn’t leaked. The people who made it made a website and publicly posted it. They announced their fascist agenda and still people ignored it
Shocked. I am shocked. Shocked I tell you.
