One nazi less?

[Bereta_Eder]

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[Elok]

WRT the guard deployments specifically, the explanation I've encountered: Trump was specifically criticized for failing to deploy troops in response to the George Floyd riots. He's deploying them now, five years later, to evidently peaceful cities, where it makes no sense. Basically (from the right-wing perspective) there was a break-in reported in the neighborhood, he declined to send police, and since he was criticized for that he's decided better late than never and sent the SWAT team in to smash down the door and shoot the owners' dog on a transparently fictional pretext long after the original burglar is gone. See? He's a big tough manly man! This isn't really "fascist puppet" so much as "I am a human being doing normal human things with my human hands" levels of absurdity. It's not being done for any coherent purpose at all, it's all just a fever dream.

EDIT: Which is not to deny that people in his administration are trying to use it to establish power-grab precedents.

[The Mad Monk]

Trump wants to be popular above all else, while also being feared and respected. He also doesn't want American troops to die, ever, for any reason. Because of this last part (and TBH, I think it's just because he thinks casualties look bad), he will only deploy troops in ways that "look good" without carrying any significant risk. Hence, putting troops on city streets to basically just stand there. Blowing up boats instead of boarding them. Drone strikes. This is why he absolutely refuses to put troops anywhere near Ukraine, and why he's been trying to draw down ground troops around the world. He will not risk them.

That is what I mean by core competencies. He wants the trappings of a dictator without the risk.

[The Mad Monk]

This is a good explanation about what typically happened around drug running boats before we started blowing them up. Of course it starts with us blowing one up.

[Elok]

That is what I mean by core competencies. He wants the trappings of a dictator without the risk.

Correct. The man is pathologically afraid of taking chances in any important way, which is why 1/6 went down with him broadly alluding to the need to "stop the steal" in a way that can't be proven to mean anything specific. So his followers broke into the Capitol and bumble****ed around like escaped monkeys, accomplishing nothing beyond tarnishing his reputation even more and getting him impeached a second time.

[Geronimo]

What would an authoritarian US president have to do to *not* qualify as a fascist? Is the idea that all authoritarians who assume power in a democracy are by definition fascist?

[Geronimo]

He doesn't lack the necessairy attributes. not all nazis wanted to exectue jews upon noticing them. there was a gradual descent to madness.

maybe he is perceived as more of a clown/incompetent than a fascist, and it is beyond certain that he will fail eventually

I mean if not, and people actually support him, then we're talking about the end of an era.

it reminds me of the (far) left wing era in Greece during the debt crisis. It went away with the debt crisis. don't know what crisis the US is going through)

dude you've been calling the US fascist for basically it's entire post-war history, so I don't know why you see fascist Trump as deserving of any special comment really.

[Bereta_Eder]

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[Bereta_Eder]

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[Aeson]

What would an authoritarian US president have to do to *not* qualify as a fascist? Is the idea that all authoritarians who assume power in a democracy are by definition fascist?

Not be a fascist.

Bernie (if an authoritarian) would not be fascist. He'd be a communist.

[Lorizael]

Is the idea that all authoritarians who assume power in a democracy are by definition fascist?

No, only authoritarians brought to power by repressive, reactionary, ultranationalist, militaristic movements.

[Geronimo]

Not be a fascist.

Bernie (if an authoritarian) would not be fascist. He'd be a communist.

I mostly agree about Bernie, and FWIW, I'm not implying that makes Bernie a communist because I recognize that there's very little authoritarian about what he endorses. But, "not be a fascist." is a trivially useless answer.

[Geronimo]

No, only authoritarians brought to power by repressive, reactionary, ultranationalist, militaristic movements.

1. nothing "militaristic" brought Trump to power.

2. Trump is not "reactionary" in any meaningful way. Where do you see "reactionary" wrt to Trump? is it the slogan "make America great again"? surely a slogan alone is not good enough. There are no norms this man is not happy to stomp all over. Tariffs seem to be the only page from the past he's willing to pursue. furthermore if the academicians you favor want to say that fascism requires "reactionary" platforms they may run into the curious outcome that Hitler and Mussolini's non-reactionary political movements might disqualify them as "fascist".

3. I'll grant you that Trump is repressive and some kind of ultranationalist though but that isn't repressive required to have authoritarianism making it a bit useless to distinguish fascism from other kinds of authoritarian?

[Bereta_Eder]

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[Geronimo]

geronimo is an alien (to me) I don't understand anything he writes

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