Are we now in full blown fascist totalitarianism?

[DrZoidberg]

The problem with calling Trump a fascist is that it relatvises actual fascism. It's the "cry wolf" problem. It's the same thing with calling his policies racist. It relativises actual racism. Has he put in place any laws that limits people based on race? If not, then his policies aren't racist. He can be a racist while his policies aren't racist. To the rape accusation. He hasn't been convicted of rape. So calling him a rapist relativises rape.

The problem with all of this is that it will make us blind to being taken over by actual racist rapist fascist.

You don't need to like Trump to insist that we call him what he actually is, a lying orange clown

Huh?

How is he not a fascist? He's rapidly turning our government into fascism.

This is like calling someone who was rude to you once for a narcisist.

Fascism - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It's just hyperbole. Yes, there's fascist traits. But he's right at the top of a slippery slope, that's not particularly slippery.

Not a racist? You realize some of his crowd have admitted they intend to purge the country of non-whites?

Where are the racist laws that he's passed?

Not a rapist? He's admitted to rape.

No, he hasn't. Don't relativise rape. It's a serious crime. Not cool.

 

[DrZoidberg]

The problem with calling Trump a fascist is that it relatvises actual fascism. It's the "cry wolf" problem.

Evidence of fascism (not an exhaustive list):

• Arrests and deportation of legal residents
• Consolidation of power & undermining checks and balances
• Attacks on media, speech, and dissent
• Purges of opposition
• Rhetoric, demagoguery, and scapegoating of groups
• Using the military against civilians

I also find it troubling. None of that is good. But he's not arguing against democracy.

He literally told Texas to re-gerrymander their maps to make the US House elections in that state even less democratic and help save the GOP majority in the US House. Said it out loud.

That sounds like he's working within the legal and democratic framework of USA. The opposite of fascism. An important feature of fascism is that they argue against democracy. Trump hasn't done that once. When he was crying about the election being stolen, that's a clue that he respects the democratic process. It's also a clue that he's fucking idiot. But that's another matter.

He's not tried undermining free press.

He has pressured both WashPo, CBS, NBC, and ABC. Both verbally and dangling delays and rejections of corporate mergers that involved said companies.

Do you pay any attention to the news?

That's not what undermining the press means. He's more like a petulant child lashing out. I can't see any strategy involved.

The public discourse is heavily skewed to the left. Or was until quite recently. He wasn't wrong about that. That's what he is upset about.

Now it seems like the woke lunacy trend is finally over. It'll overcorrect in the opposite direction. Which will be bad for different reasons. But the basis for his complaints are not imaginary.

What purges of opposition has he done?

They arrested a judge, does that count?

Are you referring to judge Hannah Dugan? As far as I can tell Trump had nothing to do with it. It seems to be FBI, because she did something naughty.

United States, for all its problems is very married to democracy.

Was, "was very married to democracy". But you apparently don't pay attention to any of the news regarding the US to see the rather notable changes in the past 9 years.

Correct. I get limited news about USA. In Europe news is either glorifying or vilifying USA. We rarely get a sober account. So it's hard to evaluate general trends from over here.

A fundamental aspect of fascism is that its got a violent fanclub, given special status, that are protected by the law to run rampant and terrorise people.

Sounds like you are talking about ICE. You know, the people racial profiling, sending some people to a torture prison in El Salvador or some country in Africa, many without due process.

Just stop it. They don't murder people and spread terror in the general population. It's not cool to relativise political violence like this.

I suggest going to torture museums from around the world, set in the torture camps where the political tortures were committed. It'll give you some perspective on this.

That is just not happening today. The capitol rioters were arrested and sent to jail. And it was a one off.

They were pardoned.

Because Trump got re-elected. The QAnon Shaman isn't back to his old nonsense. He retired. The capitol rioters weren't trying to bring democracy down. They were trying to uphold democracy. You're completely confused about what fascism is

Actual fascism is much more sinister and brutal. Iran is a good current example. You cannot criticise the regime from inside Iran. Iran sends agents abroad to murder refugee Iranians who criticise the regime. Its on a whole different level

Correct, Kimmel and Colbert haven't been sent to a Mongolia Dung Mine. However, Trump tried to get both of them fired for not saying nice things. In America, that is somewhat unusual, as fascism hasn't been part of our ethos. Populism at times, but rarely fascism.

Agreed, it's not a great development. But that doesn't make him a fascist. It's more like he's just a regular guy who accidentaly became president and is in way over his head.

He's not even authoritarian.

He has been leading via declaration for a while. Including attacking law firms, media companies, illegally enacting tariffs, illegally impounding Congressional spending, pardoned the J6 rioters, having the DoJ target who he considers his political enemies. He isn't an authoritarian, he is acting authoritarian-lite at the moment.

Sure. It's still right at the top of the slippery slope.

Like Orban, Putin or Erdogan. Who have fascist traits, but are way more cuddly

Wait, you are saying Putin only has "fascist traits"? barbos, is that you?

Putin is supported by a group of oligarchs/gangsters. There's no mass movement supporting him. There's no brown shirts. He just uses the police. He doesn't have a third of the country press ganged into spying on the rest of the two thirds of the country. He's not comitting crimes on his own population and manipulating members of his mass movement (that doesn't exist) to be complicit in his crimes.

Putin ticks a lot of the boxes. But he's still not a fascist.

 

[bilby]

It's just hyperbole. Yes, there's fascist traits. But he's right at the top of a slippery slope, that's not particularly slippery.

Don't relativise fascism. It's a serious crime against humanity. Not cool.

 

[bilby]

That sounds like he's working within the legal and democratic framework of USA. The opposite of fascism. An important feature of fascism is that they argue against democracy. Trump hasn't done that once. When he was crying about the election being stolen, that's a clue that he respects the democratic process.

Surely you can't genuinely be so stupid, and still remember to breathe?

When Trump was crying about the election being stolen, he was putting on a show to justify his demolition of the democratic process.

How anyone smart enough to read without moving their lips could have missed that, completely eludes me.

 

[DrZoidberg]

That sounds like he's working within the legal and democratic framework of USA. The opposite of fascism. An important feature of fascism is that they argue against democracy. Trump hasn't done that once. When he was crying about the election being stolen, that's a clue that he respects the democratic process.

Surely you can't genuinely be so stupid, and still remember to breathe?

When Trump was crying about the election being stolen, he was putting on a show to justify his demolition of the democratic process.

How anyone smart enough to read without moving their lips could have missed that, completely eludes me.

I somehow doubt Trump is a machiavellian mastermind. I agree that it looked like an attempt of a coup or the start of a civil war. The reason it's not, is that he's got zero ground troops willing to fight for him. American conservatives are extremely enthusiastic about democracy. When they whine about liberals it's the non-democratic aspects of liberalism, ie the intolerance and lack of intellectual curiousity, that they react against. That's not a foundation upon which to build a dictatorship.

If Trump would call himself a dictator he's got zero powerbase to back him up.

Right now it's typically liberals who struggle with respecting the democratic principles. Not conservatives. That's not how it used to be. But that's how it is now.

edit: I'm not saying that a civil war can't happen. Trump may very well trigger a civil war. But the moment it gets going I can't see Trump leading anything. He's an entitled whiny populist. He's not Cromwell.

 

[DrZoidberg]

My analysis of why Trump won is that he's not part of the old lying political elites. Him being anything else, and has the celebrity to win, is why he wins. At least he says what he's thinking. No filter. Nobody needs to wonder what Trump really thinks about anything. It's all there. And there's lots of Americans who prefer that. I have not detected any segment of the American population who are turning against democracy?

Am I wrong?

edit: Fascist coups tend to not happen in countries with a healthy democratic tradition. Two things tend to trigger civil war. A lack of bread or a lack of jobs for college graduates. USA is still doing alright. So I'm not worried

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

My analysis of why Trump won is that he's not part of the old lying political elites. Him being anything else, and has the celebrity to win, is why he wins. At least he says what he's thinking. No filter. Nobody needs to wonder what Trump really thinks about anything. It's all there. And there's lots of Americans who prefer that. I have not detected any segment of the American population who are turning against democracy?

Am I wrong?

Yes, you are wrong. Let’s review.

1. “My analysis of why Trump won is that he's not part of the old lying political elites.”
   Holy Bejeebus, why are you always so contradictory? You just called him a lying orange clown — so clearly, you believe he’s a liar. As for not being part of the “old political elites,” he absolutely is. Trump has been intertwined with America’s elite class for decades, wheeling and dealing with political power brokers, donors, and lobbyists. He was socializing with Epstein and the Clintons, and long before running for office, he was part of Reagan’s 1980 finance committee — hardly an outsider. He was also mentored by Roy Cohn, a notorious political fixer and McCarthyite who later advised Reagan and other GOP figures. Trump’s political lineage connects him to Nixon and Reagan through operatives like Roger Stone and the old “dirty tricks” network. If you think of political power as a family tree, Nixon and Reagan are one branch, Roger Stone and Roy Cohn another — and Donald Trump is the inheritor of both. He’s not outside the system; he’s the culmination of it.
2. “Him being anything else, and has the celebrity to win, is why he wins.”
   Celebrity is part of it, but not the whole story. Trump wins because he built — and inherited — a vast infrastructure that rewards loyalty and punishes dissent. He uses his celebrity as the entry point for an authoritarian feedback loop: he praises loyalists, humiliates and purges defectors, and floods media channels (both traditional and social) with disinformation. As political scientist Timothy Snyder wrote in On Tyranny, “Post-truth is pre-fascism.” The cult of personality surrounding Trump isn’t accidental — it’s the point.
3. “At least he says what he’s thinking. No filter. Nobody needs to wonder what Trump really thinks about anything.”
   That’s one of the biggest myths about him. Trump doesn’t “say what he’s thinking”; he says what’s most useful to manipulate his audience at the time. He’s a calculated liar who plays the role of the unfiltered truth-teller precisely because it lowers people’s defenses. When he repeats the “stolen election” claim, he knows it’s false — his own officials told him so — but he also knows that repetition will make it seem true to his followers. That’s classic propaganda technique, not transparency. The vulgarity and “no filter” persona aren’t honesty; they’re theater for a short-attention-span audience conditioned by reality TV and outrage algorithms.
4. “I have not detected any segment of the American population who are turning against democracy.”
   Trump has used his political connections, infrastructure he took over, and oligarchic power to turn partisans into a cult. That cult as well as the rest of the party getting dragged along will excuse any unconstitutional or extraconstitutional action of his. Over and over the observation is made, but one of the more recent events is to send in the military to civilian areas to do law enforcement without a request from a governor in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act. It is far too obvious that such a person is ruling by decree and eliminating opposition. A significant portion of his base now supports the idea of “strongman” rule or overturning elections when their side loses. That is a segment turning against democracy — and he led them there.

Trump isn’t an outsider fighting the establishment; he’s an elite manipulating populism to entrench personal power. His old rhetoric of “draining the swamp” was projection — he replaced one oligarchic network with another that answers directly to him. His newer rhetoric about "the enemy within" is about how he can extend that power over all opposition. What’s worse, his defenders, including you, often confuse his shamelessness for honesty.

 

[Shadowy Man]

“

When he was crying about the election being stolen, that's a clue that he respects the democratic process.

this is likely the craziest thing I’ve ever read on this site. I’ve read a lot of stuff by DrZ here that indicates a strong lack of understanding of American culture and politics but this takes the cake.

 

[ZiprHead]

Very disturbing...

Your closing words made me reflect on how disturbing the Trump phenomenon has always been, for me and most of my friends. I have never understood how he attracted anything like the number of voters that consider him an ideal leader. First of all, do they have any character assessment skills whatsoever? He is manifestly a liar, first and foremost. Other striking facets of the man are his juvenile and sadistic thinking and his utter contempt for knowledge. His swearing and abusive name calling are on display every week of the year. Who are these Christians who revere him? What good is their religion if they support this man?
A few minutes ago I googled 'What is the American spirit?' to see what the AI collective brain answer would be. Google wrote a message about our core values being optimism, independence, self-determination, unity, and resilience. Our most important ideal is freedom, which encompasses personal liberties like free speech and freedom of religion. But Trump squats on this definition of America and contradicts most of it. How can those values embody Americanism when we've elected a man who talks about going after the 'vermin' in the country; who talks about protesters as if they are all paid, corrupt agents and allied with terrorism; who tells his DOJ to indict his political foes, and sees that it happens; who says that he is so popular that 'negative reporting' is 'illegal'? Trump crafted his rise to power by playing on the darkest side of our national character. I get it. It's still a baffling problem for me, that so many Americans think this is the way we should be.

There are many supporters of Trump well aware he is borderline authoritarian. But how else to fix our country at this point?

The serious damage of open borders and lack of industrial productivity isn't just going to be fixed easy without acting like a dictator.

There were many who also viewed FDR a dictator during a similar time in our history when big decisions had to be made quickly....

 

[TV and credit cards]

Very disturbing...

Your closing words made me reflect on how disturbing the Trump phenomenon has always been, for me and most of my friends. I have never understood how he attracted anything like the number of voters that consider him an ideal leader. First of all, do they have any character assessment skills whatsoever? He is manifestly a liar, first and foremost. Other striking facets of the man are his juvenile and sadistic thinking and his utter contempt for knowledge. His swearing and abusive name calling are on display every week of the year. Who are these Christians who revere him? What good is their religion if they support this man?
A few minutes ago I googled 'What is the American spirit?' to see what the AI collective brain answer would be. Google wrote a message about our core values being optimism, independence, self-determination, unity, and resilience. Our most important ideal is freedom, which encompasses personal liberties like free speech and freedom of religion. But Trump squats on this definition of America and contradicts most of it. How can those values embody Americanism when we've elected a man who talks about going after the 'vermin' in the country; who talks about protesters as if they are all paid, corrupt agents and allied with terrorism; who tells his DOJ to indict his political foes, and sees that it happens; who says that he is so popular that 'negative reporting' is 'illegal'? Trump crafted his rise to power by playing on the darkest side of our national character. I get it. It's still a baffling problem for me, that so many Americans think this is the way we should be.

They have a simple, childlike view of the world. The flag goes out because they are patriotic. They drive vehicles with American names because they are American. And to them, there is nothing wrong with wanting to live with people who look, think, and act just like them. They've taken on all the happy aspects of this American life and have ignored, dismissed, and now fight against what makes them unhappy.
If you asked them to differentiate between patriotism and nationalism, you'd out yourself as a liberal. Every good American knows in their gut what it is to be a patriotic American. Character takes a backseat when they are fighting for the very soul of America.

Anyone can scream emergency. If you're President, I guess you can scream it over and over and get people to indulge your tantrum.

What's sickening is that anyone believes his screams. He lies all the time. Don't they see this? Of do they like to hear his lies?

I believe the first time I saw Trump on TV was late 2011. The Birther Hoax. He said, "I have investigators in Hawaii, and they can't believe what they're finding." I thought, this is the most shameless and obvious liar I have ever seen in my life. I didn't need to hear any reporting from Hawaii that would dispute Trump's lie. It was 100% obvious he was a liar.
Just this past summer he made up, on the spot, a ridiculous lie about his uncle at MIT and the Unabomber. The story was a lie from beginning to end (well, he did have an uncle who taught at MIT) but, as he found out in 2011, if he calls the media the liars then all his bushels and bushels of lies don't matter.
It is still the mystery of the age we're in that his supporters have such dysfunctional character assessment skills. We are, for the time being at least, fucked.

Unless they go after the education system. Then we'll all be thinking like a Russian.

 

[Elixir]

It is still the mystery of the age we're in that his supporters have such dysfunctional character assessment skills.

^^^ THAT!!
I have been mystified by that since the first time I heard “John Barron” calling an LA AM radio station to heap praise upon himself.
Such a BLATANT scumbag, and yet more than half of Americans are fucking oblivious to the fact. This is beyond stupid, bordering on non-sentience.
If there was a god, they’d all get raptured the fuck off this planet and we’d live happily ever after.

 

[Jarhyn]

His Truth Social and Musk's X are free speech "extremists"

No, they are not. This is the image, the lie, that these accomplished liars are trying to sell to idiots and child rapists too dumb or evil to say otherwise.

The reality is that they are fascists who value freedom for themselves, and will pretend not to have even heard you when you bring up your own freedoms.

Please look at the evidence of this, in the form of many pages of documented lies and alternative agendas for both Musk and Trump, especially with respect to visits to child rape island.

They are not free speech extremists, neither of them. They are just concerned that their particular extreme speech stays free.

There are literally emails and orders from the White House of the United States of America going out about regulating liberal/Democrat speech.

The president discussed exterminating Democrats like bugs, as president, just this week.

If you continue making such claims, be informed making those claims is LYING.

 

[scombrid]

Someone that says Truth Social and Twitter are free speech "extremists" cannot be taken seriously.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Someone that says Truth Social and Twitter are free speech "extremists" cannot be taken seriously.

How aren't they?

 

[ZiprHead]

Someone that says Truth Social and Twitter are free speech "extremists" cannot be taken seriously.

How aren't they?

I don't know anything about "Trothe Sential" but people get suspended and removed if they criticize Galaxy Brain.

 

[bilby]

I'm not saying that a civil war can't happen. Trump may very well trigger a civil war. But the moment it gets going I can't see Trump leading anything. He's an entitled whiny populist. He's not Cromwell.

No, he's much more Charles I. As I alluded to previously. Charles I was basically an entitled whiny populist, and declared war because (despite his position as holder of supreme executive power, and his wide base of public support) parliament refused to do as he demanded.

He led his forces until his capture and imprisonment; Then his cult-like followers broke him out of jail, and he started the war all over again.

The second time they caught him, the parliament had the good sense to execute him to prevent a third round of war.







BTW, Cromwell came to power towards the end of the English Civil War, and was a relatively minor cavalry commander for most of the conflict. The leaders were Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex, and later Sir Thomas Fairfax and Edward Montagu, 2nd Earl of Manchester; Cromwell manoevred Mantagu out of his job under the terms of the Self Denying Ordinance, which disallowed any individual from being both an MP and a serving military officer, and giving those who were both forty days to resign one or other of their positions. Cromwell "forgot" to resign his commission, leaving himself in charge of the New Model Army.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

“

When he was crying about the election being stolen, that's a clue that he respects the democratic process.

this is likely the craziest thing I’ve ever read on this site. I’ve read a lot of stuff by DrZ here that indicates a strong lack of understanding of American culture and politics but this takes the cake.

You couldn't pay someone to come up with that defense in a troll farm. Dr. Z's latest posts in this thread are beyond farcical.

 

[Elixir]

The second time they caught him, the parliament had the good sense to execute him to prevent a third round of war.

Maybe next time The Felon gets caught... ?

 

[Patooka]

The second time they caught him, the parliament had the good sense to execute him to prevent a third round of war.

Maybe next time The Felon gets caught... ?

I think we're now at the 315,485,265,975th time he's been "caught" pulling fascistic shit like this...

 

[GenesisNemesis]

The right wingers will keep tone policing the left and ignore things like this.

Attorney for woman shot by Border Patrol claims agent said, 'Do something b----' before shooting

Body-camera video appears to contradict the government's claim that Marimar Martinez drove toward officers before one of them opened fire at her Saturday morning in Brighton Park, her attorney alleged.

chicago.suntimes.com