Early Warning Signs of Fascism: A point by point discussion.

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Elite Member
Super Moderator
Oct 28, 1999
62,484
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It's happening already. These abortion laws and attacks on transgender kids are there to further sort out ideologies. The people that can afford to leave, will and they'll go flee to an urban core already greatly overrepresented with the same like minded types. The ones that can't afford to leave are probably a minority and they'll solve that problem through gerrymandering and voter suppression. Just further corral democratic votes into mega dots on the map that don't help presidential elections and senate seats.

I'm still waiting for the combination of brains and long term planning + a metric fuck ton of money to come together and a bunch of billionaires get together and start paying people to move to Wyoming and South Dakota and literally turn those low population states blue. Just basically pay people to locate to a place and live there and shift the demographics enough to actually swing EC and senate votes.
 

ivwshane

Lifer
May 15, 2000
33,385
16,784
136
As I am watching the far right today, I am reminded of this thread.

As far back as 2012 I began waking up to the fact that the right had chosen propaganda and conspiracy theories over facts and policy debates. Not just the fringe, mind you, but these thigs were being mainstreamed.

Since 2015 I have been noticing many of the far right cults of personality have been grooming their followers for fascism. To support fascist dictators over the free world.

And... Here we are. The far right is full team Putin. And they are using batshit insane conspiracy bullshit to justify it. And MANY current elected right-wing officials are on board

There is a serious crisis in America. I have been warning about it for 6 years now. The right IS grooming its followers for full on totalitarianism in the name of a religious/racial/political ethno-state that matches their ""idea" of "freedom" at the expense of everyone else. And they are groomed to believe they cannot achieve that without a strong man who takes control.

The amount of people in the US and west supporting a totalitarian dictator over the rest of the free world is STUNNING. That it sits over 10% is frightening.

I have also noticed a pushback to this among the right. Which side will win?

Yep, I noticed the same thing but in think I saw it happening earlier around 2005/7 if I remember right. Shortly after that though it started ramping up to the point where having a rational conversation with someone was getting harder because we weren’t sharing the same set of facts.

However I wasn’t sure what to attribute it to but even back then Fox News was already amping up the propaganda to the extent of which I did not know.

Now though, it’s clear as day what the right has become and who more than likely is behind it.
 

pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
15,031
9,907
136
It's happening already. These abortion laws and attacks on transgender kids are there to further sort out ideologies. The people that can afford to leave, will and they'll go flee to an urban core already greatly overrepresented with the same like minded types. The ones that can't afford to leave are probably a minority and they'll solve that problem through gerrymandering and voter suppression. Just further corral democratic votes into mega dots on the map that don't help presidential elections and senate seats.

I'm still waiting for the combination of brains and long term planning + a metric fuck ton of money to come together and a bunch of billionaires get together and start paying people to move to Wyoming and South Dakota and literally turn those low population states blue. Just basically pay people to locate to a place and live there and shift the demographics enough to actually swing EC and senate votes.


Here's your strategy! Just need to get a hard-core of fanatical Dems willing to relocate in exactly the right distribution...(the difficult bit would be persuading the Republicans already strategically-positioned to move...maybe bribery?)

 

nakedfrog

No Lifer
Apr 3, 2001
62,130
17,945
136
Okay, for sake of argument we'll simply stipulate Trump is a fascist. Considering he was just elected by a democratic vote and won under the rules of the contest in place at the time what is your alternative? Do we abandon democracy since it gave us the wrong fascist result? Do those who voted against him reprise the Obama years and refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of his office? At some point this line of thinking is going to lead to actions worse than the fascist disease that we're ostensibly trying to cure. Calling Trump a fascist over and over is working no better now than calling Obama a Kenyan did for the last 8 years prior to that. Continuing to beat the "he's a fascist" drum has a decent probability of creating the Backfire Effect as well. Y'all need to have more faith in the institutions of American democracy, in 4 years the dude will be gone. Less if he continues being a fvckup and resigns before then.
Is it safe to say this post hasn't aged well?
 

MrSquished

Lifer
Jan 14, 2013
26,060
24,366
136
I realized that the GQP was more terrible than I thought, to the point of being just a horrific party, the moment Obama got elected and I saw their behavior and reactions. Then in 2010 it just solidified that. I did not realize they were full blown fascists until halfway into Trump's term.
 
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pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
15,031
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Is it safe to say this post hasn't aged well?

Actually got me musing on what exactly is the relationship between Trumpism and Fascism.

I wouldn't have said Trump was literally a fascist. He lacks many of the qualities a successful fascist requires (like, you know, a certain level of intelligence and, maybe also the capacity to control one's own emotions?), and most of all, the context/political situation wasn't, and still isn't, quite right to allow the possibility of actually being a fascist. He clearly has some fascistic attitudes though, he just isn't sufficiently good at it and exists in an era where you can't really get away with being an fascist on an amateur basis (I could imagine someone like him being the less-competent successor to a more capable strongman figure, one who did the hard work of actually overthrowing democracy).

His tendency to be submissive towards those he percieved as 'strong' (*cough* Putin *cough*) while bullying those he considered weaker, seems like a fascist-adjacent trait.
 
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trenchfoot

Lifer
Aug 5, 2000
15,669
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This thread is a perfect example of what's happened to the Repub party since Trump reared his ugly mug and conned the party faithful into a mob of fascist cult bots beholden to him and him alone.

There is no explaining away how Trump has metastasized his psychologically deranged persona onto his followers and how they are conditioned to accept him, with all of his dangerous anti-social racist personality disorders, as the leader of the free world. I mean, how dysfunctionally crippled can a party be and still consider themselves to be the only patriotic members of the nation that will exemplify what it is to be a truly free and democratically ruled nation? Or does that actually matter to them anymore?

I guess not.
 
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nickqt

Diamond Member
Jan 15, 2015
8,086
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This thread is a perfect example of what's happened to the Repub party since Trump reared his ugly mug and conned the party faithful into a mob of fascist cult bots beholden to him and him alone.

There is no explaining away how Trump has metastasized his psychologically deranged persona onto his followers and how they are conditioned to accept him, with all of his dangerous anti-social racist personality disorders, as the leader of the free world. I mean, how dysfunctionally crippled can a party be and still consider themselves to be the only patriotic members of the nation that will exemplify what it is to be a truly free and democratically ruled nation? Or does that actually matter to them anymore?

I guess not.
I think you have it backwards.

Trump hasn't brainwashed a single person. He is just the embodiment of Republican Fascism. Newer, "better" versions are already being beta tested now, like Ron DeSantis or Madison Cawthorn.

Ideal Republican Fascism is based on spreading misinformation and disinformation while having the "courage" to never admitting you would or could be wrong. That's why Trump fit the mold and not the other way around.

Republican Fascism has been carefully nurtured since the early 1990s. Gingrich, Limbaugh, Fox News...all had the intention of turning the Republican base voter into someone who would repeat the established talking points because they would hear it coming from "multiple sources" during their time being awake and absorbing media. Truth was irrelevant, the important point was getting the base to repeat the talking points over and over and over so that the base only knew how to repeat the talking points. Facebook, Social Media, and instant communication has only increased Republican Fascism.

This isn't just "going away".
 

ivwshane

Lifer
May 15, 2000
33,385
16,784
136
I think you have it backwards.

Trump hasn't brainwashed a single person. He is just the embodiment of Republican Fascism. Newer, "better" versions are already being beta tested now, like Ron DeSantis or Madison Cawthorn.

Ideal Republican Fascism is based on spreading misinformation and disinformation while having the "courage" to never admitting you would or could be wrong. That's why Trump fit the mold and not the other way around.

Republican Fascism has been carefully nurtured since the early 1990s. Gingrich, Limbaugh, Fox News...all had the intention of turning the Republican base voter into someone who would repeat the established talking points because they would hear it coming from "multiple sources" during their time being awake and absorbing media. Truth was irrelevant, the important point was getting the base to repeat the talking points over and over and over so that the base only knew how to repeat the talking points. Facebook, Social Media, and instant communication has only increased Republican Fascism.

This isn't just "going away".

I agree on everything, almost…

Trump isn’t a fascist, he’s an narcissistic opportunistic con man. He couldn’t care less about ideology, what he cares about is who he can manipulate next. It just so happens that he saw how ripe the Republican Party was for picking. He knows how to manipulate people and he did it on a massive scale and he continues to do it.

The danger of trump is that he’s showed republicans how to manipulate not only people but our system of government itself. I’m not worried about trump, I’m worried about who replaces him.
 

nickqt

Diamond Member
Jan 15, 2015
8,086
8,952
136
I agree on everything, almost…

Trump isn’t a fascist, he’s an narcissistic opportunistic con man. He couldn’t care less about ideology, what he cares about is who he can manipulate next. It just so happens that he saw how ripe the Republican Party was for picking. He knows how to manipulate people and he did it on a massive scale and he continues to do it.

The danger of trump is that he’s showed republicans how to manipulate not only people but our system of government itself. I’m not worried about trump, I’m worried about who replaces him.
Then I think we pretty much agree. Trump is Trump. Without overt Republican Fascism of the past 30 years, he'd just be a narcissistic Russian money launderer pretending to be a great businessman.

It's just that Republican Fascism and Donald Trump happened to line up perfectly in 2015-2016. Kinda like how the Sun and Moon are roughly the same size in the sky now, allowing for total solar eclipses - a fascinating coincidence but not necessarily causation.
 
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dank69

Lifer
Oct 6, 2009
37,130
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I agree on everything, almost…

Trump isn’t a fascist, he’s an narcissistic opportunistic con man. He couldn’t care less about ideology, what he cares about is who he can manipulate next. It just so happens that he saw how ripe the Republican Party was for picking. He knows how to manipulate people and he did it on a massive scale and he continues to do it.

The danger of trump is that he’s showed republicans how to manipulate not only people but our system of government itself. I’m not worried about trump, I’m worried about who replaces him.
Trump loves dictators and how everyone is afraid of them. He wishes that for himself.
 
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pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
15,031
9,907
136
I agree on everything, almost…

Trump isn’t a fascist, he’s an narcissistic opportunistic con man. He couldn’t care less about ideology, what he cares about is who he can manipulate next. It just so happens that he saw how ripe the Republican Party was for picking. He knows how to manipulate people and he did it on a massive scale and he continues to do it.

The danger of trump is that he’s showed republicans how to manipulate not only people but our system of government itself. I’m not worried about trump, I’m worried about who replaces him.


But fascist leaders often _are_ narcissistic, opportunistic, con-men. Those guys are often, maybe always, _grifters_, first-and-foremost. That part Trump absolutely has. What he doesn't have is the intelligence and competence.
 

Luna1968

Golden Member
Mar 9, 2019
1,205
687
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I think you have it backwards.

Trump hasn't brainwashed a single person. He is just the embodiment of Republican Fascism. Newer, "better" versions are already being beta tested now, like Ron DeSantis or Madison Cawthorn.

Ideal Republican Fascism is based on spreading misinformation and disinformation while having the "courage" to never admitting you would or could be wrong. That's why Trump fit the mold and not the other way around.

Republican Fascism has been carefully nurtured since the early 1990s. Gingrich, Limbaugh, Fox News...all had the intention of turning the Republican base voter into someone who would repeat the established talking points because they would hear it coming from "multiple sources" during their time being awake and absorbing media. Truth was irrelevant, the important point was getting the base to repeat the talking points over and over and over so that the base only knew how to repeat the talking points. Facebook, Social Media, and instant communication has only increased Republican Fascism.

This isn't just "going away".
meanwhile you completely ignore the fachist democrats. this whole forum is just a fap party for the democrats. this forum is so left that its disgusting.