One nazi less?

[Lorizael]

1. nothing "militaristic" brought Trump to power.

The MAGA movement is absolutely militaristic. The parades, the obsession with strength and guns, "2A solutions" and violence more generally. I didn't say imperialistic; I said militaristic.

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.

The opposition to LGBT rights, to Bad Bunny doing the Superbowl Halftime Show, to how things have gone "downhill" since women got the right to vote (or blacks got equal rights--see again direct statements from Charlie Kirk)--these are all reactionary.

There are no norms this man is not happy to stomp all over.

I didn't say MAGA was conservative; I said it was reactionary.

furthermore if the academicians you favor...

There it is. I was waiting for you to get here. You have decided that the MAGA movement is not fascist, based on your own personal ideas about what fascism is, and because you think of yourself as a smart, thoughtful, informed person, you've also concluded that your ideas about what constitutes fascism are actually the obviously correct and true definitions of fascism. Thus when I say something like "uhhhh buddy a bunch of historians and political scientists say MAGA is fascist" your only recourse is to conclude not that you may be incorrect about what fascism really is, but that I must be getting my definition from biased academic sources, and not the real true sources that only you have the insight to recognize.

...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".

There are clearly strong elements of reactionary politics in both Nazism and Italian fascism. Like the primary motivating factor in Nazism is the idea that the core German spirit has been corrupted by Jews and other forces which must be driven out of the country in order to restore Germany. Not everything about Nazism was reactionary, but it's definitely a big part of it.

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?

No? Authoritarianism is about centralization of power. That certainly could involve repression but doesn't have to. What's necessary is a dismantling of checks and balances and local political power.

[Lorizael]

Anyway here's Trump literally and explicitly saying that he is taking away freedom of speech but let's all quibble over definitions. https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3m2pfkrmyxg2k

[Elok]

Fascist has a number of concentric definitions, with the strictest being "believes in the specific philosophy propounded by Mussolini," the next strictest including Hitler, Franco, and maybe Tojo (don't know much about Imperial Japan TBH), the next including various later right-wing governments in Latin America, etc. I understand a lot of academics use a framework by Umberto Eco? And that one contains fourteen criteria, a lot of which are broad enough that they could credibly be stretched to cover a lot of conservative stuff going back decades, and has been used in that way to attempt to discredit conservatism more broadly--much like "white supremacy" can be stretched (in academic circles!) to cover everything from firebombing churches and lynch mobs to telling racist jokes at the water cooler. We have a horror-association with fascism because we associate it with death camps, purges, and military expansionism; it accordingly gets used to mean "political movements that check these boxes" to bring down the horror association on something that frankly doesn't deserve it. And last I heard, progressives outnumber conservatives in the social sciences by something like twenty to one (and the one's usually an economist). So "academic historians of fascism" should raise at least a cursory red flag or two, yes.

[Lorizael]

Geronimo is the one arguing that those who think MAGA is fascist are being sloppy and imprecise with their definitions. Presumably he has access to the correct definition of fascism, but he's yet to offer it. He only scoffs at the mere idea that MAGA could be fascist.

[Uncle Sparky]

Why don't we just call this type of babbling, unfocused, right wing, racist, 'christian', hokum Trumpism?
But I don't want to be accused of being anti-semantic though...

[Geronimo]

The MAGA movement is absolutely militaristic. The parades, the obsession with strength and guns, "2A solutions" and violence more generally. I didn't say imperialistic; I said militaristic.​

you can't even begin to compare MAGA "militarism" to what the fascist states demonstrated. They are miles apart by any measure.

The opposition to LGBT rights, to Bad Bunny doing the Superbowl Halftime Show, to how things have gone "downhill" since women got the right to vote (or blacks got equal rights--see again direct statements from Charlie Kirk)--these are all reactionary.

show the rights before Trump and after Trump.

There it is. I was waiting for you to get here. You have decided that the MAGA movement is not fascist, based on your own personal ideas about what fascism is, and because you think of yourself as a smart, thoughtful, informed person, you've also concluded that your ideas about what constitutes fascism are actually the obviously correct and true definitions of fascism. Thus when I say something like "uhhhh buddy a bunch of historians and political scientists say MAGA is fascist" your only recourse is to conclude not that you may be incorrect about what fascism really is, but that I must be getting my definition from biased academic sources, and not the real true sources that only you have the insight to recognize.

not *my personal ideas* but original and long attested definitions. revisionist historians move the definitions for overtly stated political aims. This deserves an entire thread which I may not have the time to give its due attention. I have at least tried to demonstrate how the definitions offered here either extend fascism well before its inception on the historic stage or even more ridiculously risk removing major prototypes of fascism from qualification as such.

There are clearly strong elements of reactionary politics in both Nazism and Italian fascism. Like the primary motivating factor in Nazism is the idea that the core German spirit has been corrupted by Jews and other forces which must be driven out of the country in order to restore Germany. Not everything about Nazism was reactionary, but it's definitely a big part of it.
​

​The only contemporary sources willing to call either of them "reactionary" were the socialist and communists who also called the US "reactionary". Could FDR be fascist as well? Almost unanimously everyone who was a self-described reactionary in ether country rejected both as such and of course Hitler wouldn't stop trashing reactionary sentiment any chance that he got.

[Geronimo]

Geronimo is the one arguing that those who think MAGA is fascist are being sloppy and imprecise with their definitions. Presumably he has access to the correct definition of fascism, but he's yet to offer it. He only scoffs at the mere idea that MAGA could be fascist.

I merely want any definition to be useful and consistent historically. The ones offered to support including Trump as fascist laughably fail to meet that modest bar.

[Geronimo]

Why don't we just call this type of babbling, unfocused, right wing, racist, 'christian', hokum Trumpism?
But I don't want to be accused of being anti-semantic though...

I think when the dust has settled in historical hindsight, that there is the danger that Trumpism will spawn even more imitators than fascism ever did and be more difficult to defeat where it matters.

[Lorizael]

show the rights before Trump and after Trump.

Oh my god, man. SCOTUS just gave DHS the green light to engage in racial profiling. You can literally be detained for walking while brown right now. Again, just get your head out of your ass.

I merely want any definition to be useful and consistent historically. The ones offered to support including Trump as fascist laughably fail to meet that modest bar.

​

not *my personal ideas* but original and long attested definitions. revisionist historians move the definitions for overtly stated political aims. This deserves an entire thread which I may not have the time to give its due attention. I have at least tried to demonstrate how the definitions offered here either extend fascism well before its inception on the historic stage or even more ridiculously risk removing major prototypes of fascism from qualification as such.

lol, until you're willing to say one damn thing about what fascism actually is, you're not arguing in good faith. until then, i eagerly await your definitive, authoritative thread on what real fascism is.

[Lorizael]

​The only contemporary sources willing to call either of them "reactionary" were the socialist and communists who also called the US "reactionary". Could FDR be fascist as well?

This is ridiculously disingenuous. This is "lolol so you're saying all vegetarians are Nazis" level argumentation. If X has features A and B, and Y has features A and C, then logically you would have to conclude Y=X. No, buddy, your willingness to insert logical fallacies into my definition doesn't make my definition bad.

[Dauphin]

I merely want any definition to be useful and consistent historically. The ones offered to support including Trump as fascist laughably fail to meet that modest bar.

If you really want to go down the path of defining something that has no defined edges consider the following 'characteristics' to be indicative of a fascist regime. It's not necessarily the only one you can use, but these 14 tenets have been documented long enough that it's not 'tailored' to Trump - it just happens that he ticks a lot of boxes or wannabe boxes.

Also, you don't need all of them to be fascistic, and you don't become fascistic just because you have some:

Strong nationalism (wrapping up in the flag, symbols, etc)
Disdain for human rights (willing to torture, abuse, etc)
Disdain for arts, elites and intellectuals (attacks on academia, defunding)
Identification of a scapegoat enemy or class (ethnic groups, religious groups, liberals, communists, etc)
Exaltation of the military (increased funding of armed forces, glamorization)
Rampant sexism and stereotyping of genders (women in traditional roles, anti-gay agenda, opposition to abortion, etc)
Control of mass media
Co-opting the dominant religion (used as tool to manipulate public opinion even if the religious teachings are antithetical to the messaging)
Co-opting corporate power (mutually symbiotic relationship where corporate powers props up the leaders, and the leaders give 'protection' to the corporations and owners)
Suppressing labour unions and labour bargaining powers
Obsession with crime and punishment (law enforcement at a national level with unbridled power and resources, suppression of civil liberties)
Rampant cronyism (friends, associates of the leadership are put in senior positions, resources are pilfered and appropriated or outright stolen, with no accountability or recourse)
Fraudulent / sham elections (pretence of elections to give veneer of will of the people)

[Elok]

Eco's, right? Or some variant. The problem is that a lot of those boxes are poorly defined and subjective. The GOP has "exalted the military" since forever, "strong nationalism" and loving the flag are found in plenty of Democrats, disdain for elites and intellectuals is common with many people (and the feeling is often mutual), scapegoating is pretty much universal in politics, etc. It's just a crummy set of criteria and mostly useful for implying that conservatives in general are veering fashy.

I'd go with something like, "an authoritarian or totalitarian right-wing government which identifies the nation (typically defined racially) with the person of the leader, which places a strong emphasis on overt physical aggression, domination and conquest of external enemies, and the purification or perfection of the race through the elimination of interior enemies." You could add on some secondary traits as well like the obsession with hidden enemies (but that's implied by authoritarian/totalitarian). Trump tends to give a false appearance of fitting these traits by, in essence, coincidence. He doesn't explicitly believe in fuhrerprinzip, for example, and probably wouldn't understand it if you explained it to him; he's just a garden-variety narcissist who thinks everything is about him as a matter of course. He's obsessed with internal enemies because he does, in fact, have internal enemies. Lots of them. Half the executive branch spent his whole first term thwarting his terrible, terrible ideas. Also he's just a total jackass and makes enemies very easily in general.

[SlowwHand]

If you don't like having your leader be Nationalist, you're insane.

[Lorizael]

Trump is not a nationalist; he's a narcissist. The MAGA movement, however, is ultranationalist to the point of jingoism.

[The Mad Monk]

Eco's, right? Or some variant. The problem is that a lot of those boxes are poorly defined and subjective. The GOP has "exalted the military" since forever, "strong nationalism" and loving the flag are found in plenty of Democrats, disdain for elites and intellectuals is common with many people (and the feeling is often mutual), scapegoating is pretty much universal in politics, etc. It's just a crummy set of criteria and mostly useful for implying that conservatives in general are veering fashy.

I'd go with something like, "an authoritarian or totalitarian right-wing government which identifies the nation (typically defined racially) with the person of the leader, which places a strong emphasis on overt physical aggression, domination and conquest of external enemies, and the purification or perfection of the race through the elimination of interior enemies." You could add on some secondary traits as well like the obsession with hidden enemies (but that's implied by authoritarian/totalitarian). Trump tends to give a false appearance of fitting these traits by, in essence, coincidence. He doesn't explicitly believe in fuhrerprinzip, for example, and probably wouldn't understand it if you explained it to him; he's just a garden-variety narcissist who thinks everything is about him as a matter of course. He's obsessed with internal enemies because he does, in fact, have internal enemies. Lots of them. Half the executive branch spent his whole first term thwarting his terrible, terrible ideas. Also he's just a total jackass and makes enemies very easily in general.

If you start with a government already installed as the first requirement, it becomes useless as a tool to prevent it -- especially since they won't give away what they're trying to do until they think they have enough power to get away with it. Eco's is clear enough for a head's up that something is worth further investigation.