Current Events > The Early Warning Signs of Fascism

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This has been thrown around the past 4 years in political discourse. I think now is the time I want to bring it up and really go through it, to illustrate why I think a Trump victory would fuck up America's principles in an unprecedented way.

Here's the poster:



How does Trump's government hit these points?

Powerful and Continuing Nationalism: easy - Make America Great Again. All the tariffs and shit he put on other countries, and all the bitching he did when tariffs were imposed in retaliation. He thinks he can get away with whatever he wants, and he spins this as America being the greatest nation on earth for his fanbase - according to his rhetoric, because they're so great, they should be able to impose tariffs on exports but shirk import tariffs from other nations. Trump plays to nationalists - not patriots, who love their country for right or wrong, but nationalists, who believe in America's superiority.

Disdain for Human Rights: locking refugees in cages, cramming 3x the recommended amount of prisoners into inhumane containment facilities, making them sleep on concrete, separating children from their families and losing them in the system, refusing to properly sanitise the camps during a pandemic, forcing refugees to work with dangerous cleaning chemicals without adequate PPE when the former fact was leaked to the press. Oh, and conducting unlawful hysterectomies on women who didn't consent to the procedure. That's all refugee stuff, I didn't even get to his administration authorising the National Guard to kidnap people in unmarked vans.

Identification of Enemies as a Unifying Cause: the way he nicknames his opponents and sends his base after them. Sleepy Joe, Lyin' Hillary Clinton, Slippery James Comey. The way he scapegoats Antifa as a terror group, in direct response to criticism of the alt-right, Proud Boys and Boogaloo Boys.

Supremacy of the Military: in a completely superficial way, of course. Committing millions of taxpayer dollars to holding a military parade in Washington, which would have damaged infrastructure. And yet he has a track record of calling veterans "suckers" and "losers", preferring the ones who "got the job done" and came home. This applies all the way back to World War 1 vets, by the way, and he also actively attacked John McCain for being a PoW in Vietnam. He praises the military when he can use them to make him look good, but the way he talks about veterans goes against that image.

Rampant sexism: "Grab 'em by the pussy", calling Hillary Clinton a skank, saying you can do whatever you want to a beautiful woman "because you're a winner", multiple counts of women accusing him of walking into their dressing rooms, insinuating that sexual assault in the military is the natural result of men and women working together. Source for that last one, because I had forgotten about it: https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/331907383771148288

Controlled Mass Media: taking press passes from organisations he deemed to be critical of him, such as CNN. Becoming so dissatisfied with Fox News not outright praising everything he does that he directed his followers to One America News Network, a far-right tabloid that actively participates in misinformation tactics and panders to extremists.

Obsession with National Security: "Build the Wall", characterising refugees as "thieves and rapists" - saying that the countries were only sending their "worst" in an effort to undermine America. Prioritising ICE, and allowing them to distribute misleading documentation to non-native English speakers that indicated that ICE was allowed to detain them and search their residences without a warrant. Again - authorising the national guard to take protestors off the streets in unmarked vans, take them to undisclosed locations, intimidate them into signing legal documents and taking pictures of their face for easier identification.

Religion and Government Intertwined: churches receiving coronavirus stimulus money, despite being tax-exempt institutions. Trump's campaign remarks in 2016 promising pastors the ability to spend tax-exempt money on political causes.

Corporate Power Protected: Trump's tax cuts for corporations, taking the rate down from 35% of profit made in America to 21%. Most businesses don't even pay that, with Fortune 500 companies averaging about %11.3 in tax. These tax cuts have left America with a deficit, and there are Republican politicians championing the removal of property tax - which is like a couple of hundred bucks to a thousand dollars for a mansion, and roughly $50 for your average home - and championing the privatisation of roads and libraries for corporate profit.

Labor Power Suppressed: America's gutted out unions. They've been a problem for decades, but worker's rights continue to erode under Trump's administration, fueled by the removal of safety regulations. Amazon is the poster boy for this problem - productivity is measured by the second by a machine, which takes your movement into account and counts how long you're in the bathroom. Efforts have been made to create non-ergonomic toilets which slope downwards, which make it impossible to sit on them for longer than 10 minutes without putting significant strain on your body. If you take too long or don't physically work hard enough according to the readings of a machine, you can be fired in the spot by another machine - with no human input required. The only union with any modicum of power today is the police union, which is abused to keep cycling corrupt or law-breaking police through the system with little to no accountability.

Disdain for Intellectuals & the Arts: "colleges are liberal brainwashing cults". The way that Republican-aligned news sources cut off researchers or speakers who go counter to Trump's claims or who actively disprove current Republican talking points.

Obsession with Crime & Punishment: on a personal level, Trump put out full-page ads urging for the imprisonment of the Central Park Five - a group who was not guilty of the crimes they were charged with. Trump's focus on imprisoning immigrants and characterising them as "thieves and rapists". Turning "Lock Her Up" into a battlecry against Hillary Clinton, and floating the suggestion that his opponents are criminals who need to be put in jail. Again - calling the national guard into protest zones to kidnap American citizens off the streets and have them sign legal papers under duress.

Rampant Cronyism & Corruption: visiting his own businesses and billing the government for it. Climate deniers being employed in scientific institutions, and people who speak up about climate change being removed. Packing his initial cabinet with millionaire business owners, and pursuing policies which would benefit their bottom line.

Fraudulent Elections: calling the 2020 election in his favor before half of American states even began counting votes, threatening to go to the Supreme Court to throw out all mail-in ballots. Refusing to commit to a peaceful transmission of power, putting an unscalable wall up around the White House prior to the election, placing a Supreme Court Justice prior to the election to stack a Republican victory in the event of him contesting the 2020 electoral results.

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MrMallard posted...

Religion and Government Intertwined: churches receiving coronavirus stimulus money, despite being tax-exempt institutions. Trump's campaign remarks in 2016 promising pastors the ability to spend tax-exempt money on political causes.

Pretty sure both Fascism and Communism opposed religion.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Nazi_Germany

For one, the idea that the greatest authority is God is fundamentally rejected by a fascist way of thinking.
Furthermore, the free exercise of religion is opposed to fascism.

And yet, religion was still allowed in places like Nazi Germany as long as they furthered the social values of the ruling party. Things such as the Ubermensch, or traditional family values - a man works, a woman serves his needs and spits out pure Aryan worker bees.

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MrMallard posted...

And yet, religion was still allowed in places like Nazi Germany as long as they furthered the social values of the ruling party. Things such as the Ubermensch, or traditional family values - a man works, a woman serves his needs and spits out pure Aryan worker bees.

Allowed to exist with scrutiny is alot different than intertwined with the government.

It is weird to target religion in this context when we know anti-religious governments like the communist ones can easily make us vs. them happen.
But I guess why this happens is the person who made this poster might lean towards that system seeing how fascim and communism are sorta opposites (in that they are both the extreme of one end of the political pole)

I put a fair bit of effort into this post, so I'm gonna bump it.

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10/10 topic

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The people afraid to call Trump a fascist are:

1. Those ignorant to what fascism means
2. Those complacent with Trump's brand of fascism

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