I saw that Kamala Harris, doing a town hall on CNN last night, "agreed" that Trump meets "the definition of a fascist," but she did not, herself, define "fascist," so I wondered what she was doing, embracing a conclusion, calling names. I live in a city where you can get called a "fascist" for venturing that Justice Scalia wrote a well-reasoned opinion. Among left-wingers, the definition of "fascist" is: right-wing. It's a shibboleth. To call someone a "fascist" is to identify yourself as on the left.
So it's a good thing to interpose the idea that a definition is needed, and it's interesting to see that Anderson Cooper did not ask Harris is Trump a fascist. But he did not task her with providing a definition. He just asked her whether Trump met the definition of a fascist. What's a home viewer to do?
I didn't watch the town hall live. Frankly, I didn't know it was on. Which is odd considering that I read the news all day yesterday and it was a 90-minute CNN extravaganza. Hard to hide, one would think. And yet it was hidden from me.
The first headline I saw this morning was "Harris says in CNN town hall she agrees Trump is a fascist" (WaPo). Agrees? Who is she agreeing with? It was confusing, because the article only says that the moderator, Anderson Cooper, asked her if she believed Trump is a fascist. Who is she supposedly agreeing with? I don't think Cooper expressed an opinion. (That would be wrong. He was the moderator. Whatever he may think, he can't properly say it.)
I quickly figure out that this traces back to an October 22 article in the NYT, by Michael S. Schmidt: "As Election Nears, Kelly Warns Trump Would Rule Like a Dictator/John Kelly, the Trump White House’s longest-serving chief of staff, said that he believed that Donald Trump met the definition of a fascist." Boldface added.
In response to a question about whether he thought Mr. Trump was a fascist, Mr. Kelly first read aloud a definition of fascism that he had found online.
Good for Kelly for sensing that a definition is required. Bad for Kelly for just finding something on line and reading it out loud...
“Well, looking at the definition of fascism: It’s a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy,” he said.
... and quickly concluding that the definition is met:
Mr. Kelly said that definition accurately described Mr. Trump.
“So certainly, in my experience, those are the kinds of things that he thinks would work better in terms of running America,” Mr. Kelly said.
He thinks... but didn't do in 4 years in office? When did Trump ever say that the better way to run America is through "centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition [and] belief in a natural social hierarchy"?
Are you wondering where on line Kelly found his definition? Make the most obvious guess and you will be right:
Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, and social outlook that emphasizes the intrinsic worth of the individual. Individualists promote realizing one's goals and desires, valuing independence and self-reliance, and advocating that the interests of the individual should gain precedence over the state or a social group, while opposing external interference upon one's own interests by society or institutions such as the government. Individualism makes the individual its focus, and so starts "with the fundamental premise that the human individual is of primary importance in the struggle for liberation."
To a leftist, that sounds right-wing and... ironically... fascist. But we only have 12 days left. We can only use short nasty words and sentence fragments. No time left for the extra credit assignment: Using the Wikipedia definition of "fascism," outline the argument that the Democratic Party presents the greater danger.
Posts
130 comments:
Who knew our public officials were so dumb??
Didn’t Mussolini serve fries to his people?
I grew up with the understanding Fascism is only to the right of Communism, which are both far left ideologies. A person that believes in centralized autocracy would support Roe over Dobbs.
Apparently, then everyone is a dumbass.
Beyond trite. And that's why I've tuned the Left out for ...decades now.
The eternal subtext of the "fascist!" accusation: The leftist is about to lose an election, not narrowly, but epically.
Kevin writes, "Didn’t Mussolini serve fries to his people?"
No. That's a vicious myth. But he did make the fries run on time.
Kelly quotes Wikipedia:
“Well, looking at the definition of fascism: It’s a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy,” he said.
Wikipedia on far-left politics:
Far-left politics, also known as extreme left politics or left-wing extremism, are politics further to the left on the left–right political spectrum than the standard political left. The term does not have a single, coherent definition; some scholars consider it to be the left of communist parties, while others broaden it to include the left of social democracy. In certain instances—especially in the news media—far left has been associated with some forms of authoritarianism, anarchism, communism, and Marxism, or are characterized as groups that advocate for revolutionary socialism and related communist ideologies, or anti-capitalism and anti-globalization.
I disagree with the anti-globalization part, since the Left in all its multivaried flavors seems to be all in for globalization.
Other than that, I see no daylight whatsoever between fascist authoritarianism and radical left (=socialist) authoritarianism. Kelly provides no substantiation for his claim that Trump is a fascist, as Althouse points out.
Can't seem to talk about
The things that bother me
Seems to be
What everybody has
Against me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJR_KGZO4U0
The PTB are simply going to have the dictionaries redfine “facism” like they did with “vaccine” a few years ago.
Speaking of "making the trains run on time," who was it that broke the rail workers strike because he was worried about inflation leading up to the mid-terms? Benito Robinette Biden.
Yeah, but Kamala is a poopie face bed wetter.
David Harsanyi points out another issue with Kelly's story.
It’s also odd that Kelly, whose own son was killed in Afghanistan, heard Trump, then-president, who he believes to be a Hitler-loving fascist, mock his own child as a “sucker and loser” on numerous occasions, and said nothing for six years. Kelly is now saying that the president was regularly demeaning fallen heroes in the White House. So, how has not one other person heard it?
Now Kelly could maybe make a case that he's become aware of this over time, or that something about Trump's behavior has changed since he worked for him but as far as I know nobody is asking Kelly to explain himself.
From a synopsis of Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism" (even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then):
Contrary to what most people think, the Nazis were ardent socialists (hence the term “National socialism”). They believed in free health care and guaranteed jobs. They confiscated inherited wealth and spent vast sums on public education. They purged the church from public policy, promoted a new form of pagan spirituality, and inserted the authority of the state into every nook and cranny of daily life. The Nazis declared war on smoking, supported abortion, euthanasia, and gun control. They loathed the free market, provided generous pensions for the elderly, and maintained a strict racial quota system in their universities—where campus speech codes were all the rage. The Nazis led the world in organic farming and alternative medicine. Hitler was a strict vegetarian, and Himmler was an animal rights activist.
Sounds exactly like what Trump wants to do.
This is the president who thought that important things such as abortion should be decided by the people in their individual states and during covid railed against certain governors for their covid restrictions yet still deferred to them their constitutional authority. He started no wars.
So the guy happily showed up to work everyday for a fascist…longest running, it says…
…as discussed earlier, one of the hazards of a month long election day is it has not been established when to release your dead hooker story. Yes, you know you are behind and the billions you’ve wasted thus far haven’t produced the results your cartoon villain billionaire sponsors demand…but what to do? So far it seems the strategy is spaghetti on the ceiling- throw them all out there and hope something sticks. Unfortunately the paid off to be disgruntled former employee story gets mixed up with the changed party voted out politician says he’s dangerous story gets mixed up with the girl says he got kind of handsy if you use a novel definition of handsy and kind of story…its all so chaotic…
Matt Taibbi noted that leaked documents from Labor regarding how they won their election in the UK included the killing off of the true left. As if the DNC, which kneecapped Bernie Sanders by manipulating the primaries, twice! needed to be told about this strategy.
My understanding of fascism also includes the combination of government and big corporations. Examples would be free federal money to companies in the solar and wind energy business. Or forcing people to take vaccines. Or censoring people online for expressing opinions that the government doesn’t like. Or government agencies persecuting guys the government doesn’t like.
The title on this post misnames John Kelly as Mike.
John Kelly is the new Anita Hill/Christine Blasey Ford.
“Fascist” was a bankrupt term as of 1946, as Orwell explained in “Politics and the English Language”. After decades, it was joined by “Racist”, then — almost overnight — by “White Supremacist”, “Hateful” “Harm” and “Safety”.
FREDER!!!
The Democrats always accuse the other side of whatever they are doing, from "destroying democracy" by making fraud in elections impossible to detect, to fascist policies. Who was it who lined the streets of DC with soldiers to prevent demonstrations?
It’s a good thing Kelly didn’t graduate from West Point, as that would be quite troubling.
It's a shibboleth.
The left can't pronounce the 'sc.'
I always thought that fascism and communism were two sides of the same coin. Both believe in authoritarianism and a strong central state. The biggest difference was the designated enemy. In communism it was class, for fascists/Nazis it was race. Though, a quick google search indicates that Fascist Italy did not start creating race laws until they started to cozy up to Hitler.
Cook will be here to straighten this out as soon as he wakes up.
Democrats should just own their visceral hate of Trump and his supporters, rather than continually trying to rationalize it. Otherwise they might run out of names to call him.
He made the internet run on time.
Is Trump a fascist? The correct answer is "No, he's straight."
Actually an etymology joke.
Plus ca change... “It will be seen that, as used, the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else.” -- George Orwell
Now that was a treat! “I’m up to here in lies”… got me thinking about 93 KHJ, DJ Sam Riddle… Boss City and SoCal of teh 60s!
Interesting how John Kelly, the only named source for the debunked "suckers and losers" quote, tends to keep inflammatory comments he (allegedly) "hears" to himself for years, only telling (alleged) "journalists" about the horrible things Trump (allegedly) "says" at convenient times just prior to elections. And then the whole "Trump says without evidence" crowd runs with the juicy new fake quote proclaiming it as if they heard it themselves, never questioning the provenance or the obviously untrumpian wording of the convenient NAZI reference.
Garage Rock Rules!
Truman: it's no crime for a general to be a dumb son of a bitch.
Facist makes the trains run on time. Nazi builds highway systems. (Cf. The Audubon Society)
Rush’s old 11am Wake-up Call!
If he weren't still dead he would be surprised to hear he is now a Far Right dictator given he "meets the definition" of a leftist.
Big Media. They know how dumb our officials are, but rather than expose that fact they destroy their own reputation, hence the huge decline in public trust the "news" business has garnered in our lifetime.
"Total meltdown tonight at the Harris-Walz campaign:
- the Hitler hoax didn’t gain any traction; they’ve already overplayed that hand.
- the “f-ing Mexican” hoax backfired, with the sister of murdered soldier Vanessa Guillén going on National TV and calling Harris and the Atlantic out for politicizing her sister’s death.
- the “he grabbed my ass 32 years ago” hoax unraveled in less than an hour and is being universally mocked.
- a new WSJ journal poll released tonight shows Kamala losing the popular vote by 3 points.
- Kamala bombed the CNN Town Hall which was supposed to be her opportunity to present her closing argument to undecided voters.
The joy is gone."--Bad Hombre on X
Makes me wonder what sort of blackmail material do they have on Kelly?
Heather MacDonald sees terrible trouble coming.
https://www.city-journal.org/article/prophets-of-doom
[Shrug] The Democrats’ efforts to attract Muslims and antisemites into their coalition at the expense of Jews have come undone, and this is merely an effort to try to lure back Jewish voters who are wondering why Jewish students are no longer welcome at elite universities and why roughly half of the Jewish students currenrly attending those schools feel afraid to move about on campus.
It’s just a gambit, and a desperate one, because if the Biden-Harris administration wanted to do something about forcing the various college administrations to do something on rete about the antisemitism, they have plenty of levers to make that happen — starting with a threat to cancel all grants ding the “for the good of the government” clause.
Way easier to trot out Kelly and be him to call his old boss a fascist.
Points to the NYT as prevaricator.
Kelly is scum, and his son deserved to get blown apart in Afghanistan.
Does Mussolini get any say in what the definition is?
I would not trust anyone's definition wh has not read his manifestó "The doctrine of fascism"
https://sjsu.edu/faculty/wooda/2B-HUM/Readings/The-Doctrine-of-Fascism.pdf
It's only 10 pages. Not that hard to do.
John Henry
Brandon seems closer to the definition cited, as well as mussolini, than president trump was in office.
John Henry
When people push back against you calling a political opponent "Hitler" you have to find something else. Why not Fascist!?
Seconding Kate, I think it was: typo in the post headline. It should be JOHN Kelly.
That's beyond the pale, Wibble.
Skitter back under your rock, sad boy!
Let's ask an EXPERT!
Robert Cook.. What Is THE DEFINITION of a fascist?
Is it someone (anyone?) to the right of you politically?
The Democrats have A/B tested both calling Trump "Actually Hitler™" and alternatively calling Trump a "fascist" and have found out that they get more engagement (clicks, comments, etc.) if they use the Fascist label.
It has nothing whatsoever to do with the veracity of the charge.
Think Harry Reid: "It worked, didn't it?"
They're staging the battlefield for the ultimate time when they murder Donald Trump. They need people to feel relieved that he's dead so that we'll all just go on about our day instead of hanging every last one of them sons a bitches from lamposts.
She's a prostitute who only got ahead because she was smart enough to get her clients on videotape.
Tucker Carlson rule: they always accuse us of what they have done or are planning to do.
“Well, looking at the definition of fascism: It’s a far-left authoritarian, globalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy,” he said.
Fixed it for you.
In the end, this is their final battle. This is the place that the entire Blob, the entire Democratic Party and their sidekicks on the Establishment GOP side will make their stand.
That Donald Trump is a fascist. A Nazi. Just like Mitt Romney and George W. Bush, and George H.W. Bush, and Dick Cheney (before he turned good), and Antonin Scalia, Ted Cruz, and so many others before him. We're all fascists, Ma'm.
Anyone disagreeing with how the Biden/Harris team has abused the US and has overseen the eruption of the world is apparently a fascist.
Good of John Kelly to notice this four years after he served. One wonders just how much it took to get him to destroy his reputation forever?
If you happened to see any of the many video clips of Kamala in this town hall, you'll be happy to know that she is still, even with a pre-agreed to script for this town hall, a moron. An empty headed, ill-equipped, out of her league, nonsense talking moron- that millions in this nation are about to vote for.
In the end, Democrats have nothing to run on. And so once again they are down to calling the other guys, 'Racist, Fascist, Nazis'. This is their message for the nation and the world.
This is what desperation looks and sounds like.
"he operated at the level that would deserve an F in a high school social studies class.""
Holding him to a level any higher than that would brand you as a fascist as well, Althouse. Standards and rigor do not bend any arcs toward justice, for this Democratic Party. Just do what you are told like a good academic and there won't be any trouble.
I’m glad that these definitions are starting to roll around in the public square. Too many people don’t have a clue about them, so they believe MAGA is fascist when it’s truly anti-fascist (not the mob kind though lol).
We've had eight years of "Trump is Hitler."
The only "news here is that the top of the Democratic ticket has stooped to that level; and it's not even news because everyone knew it was coming.
Fascism in common parlance is what a leftist calls any conservative. Historically, say German, Italian or Spanish fascism was communism, with a couple of notable differences. They are both dictatorships, but communists control the economy by owning and operating the means of production. Under fascism, the government has the power to tell businesses what to make, how to price it, etc--it really dilutes the meaning of "ownership" but it's enough for the titular owners to at least try to make a profit, which makes it more efficient than communism, but a lot less efficient than a free market. Free markets are free and fans of dictatorships are uncomfortable with freedom. The other major difference is outlook: Fascist countries are all about their particular people: Germany for Germans, Italy for Italians, etc. Communism was international in outlook. Not to say that communists weren't often very racist, but it wasn't part of their theoretical framework.
The difference was more one of scope than enemies. The Communists had a vision of socialist dictatorship being created by an international revolution. The fascists limited themselves to working to impose socialist dictatorships within existing nation-states. The Nazis, while basically socialist, were a whole 'nother animal in terms of racial emphasis after Hitler took over the show.
Another transparent and flagrant attempt to incite Trump’s assassination.
It might be nice to think he's being blackmailed but I doubt it. Like the Cheneyes and the Bushes I think he's basically unable to deal with the reality the Zombie Global International order which lasted for about a generation after the end of the Cold War and provided a lot of iron rice bowls for people in his class is coming to an end. The Democrats provide a haven for people who think it can be extended indefinitely.
Sounds like battlefield prep for what they're about to do. Yelling "Fascist!" gives ugly people with power justification for excretable acts.
What word is prominently missing from the offered definition of Facism?
Socialism. Odd considering Facism was national socialism. National socialism as opposed to international socialism.
After having fought for international socialism for years, Mussolini decided the workers of Italy were never going to see themselves as workers first and Italians second. He basically concluded that he could successfully institute socialism in his own country and become its leader or he could remain one of Stalin's expendable minions and continue to bang his head against the wall of insisting on world-wide socialism or nothing until the day Stalin had him assassinated which was bound to happen sooner or later because that's how Stalin rolled.
Mussolini chose the option 1. The Nazis, the NSDAP, the National Socialist German Workers Party, followed suit.
So why no mention of socialism in the definition of a socialist ideology? We all know the answer to that.
Democrats only have to be lucky once.
The Memory Hole is real. Sadly.
I know it's JOHN Kelly. Sorry I had "Mike Kelly" in the post title for so long!
This is what the magic eightball came up with
Dont get me wrong a psycho leftist stabbed bolsonaro and nesrly killed him he lost a lung
General kelly works for caliburn that profits off the invasion
Trump does the same thing:
“This is Communist, this is Marxist, this is fascist,” the former president said about Harris at an August 27 rally in Pennsylvania.
“She’s a Marxist. She’s a fascist…“Comrade Kamala Harris,” Trump told a crowd in Michigan on August 29.
Socialism, whether practiced by Stalin or Mussolini or Hitler, turned into the darkest living nightmares in human history. The American left still want a chance to try it themselves, so they run from its history and ascribe its history to their opponents.
Trump is not any kind of socialist. If they described Trump as a socialist, no one would buy it for a second. People calling him a Fascist don't even know what the word means and they don't care. It's just another ugly name to call Trump.
He was Irish on his father's side.
When one gets right down to it, does it really matter?
There was more variety among fascists than communists. I would argue that Wilson was the first fascist head of state, FDR was an admirer of fascist Italy, Mussolini himself was influenced by the American pragmatist philosophers. Peron was a fascist, Allende was fascist in his youth, Mosley came from the Labour Party. Hitler I would regard as fascist in some respects, but also influenced by traditional German nationalism, the communists, and the German welfare state. I don't think there is any legitimate reason to regard fascists as right wing, nationalism itself has been around on the left since the beginning.
Dubois even dabbled with fascism, with his perfect record of bad judgement stattimg with endorsing wilson ending in stalin
In both cases, the word “fascist” did not rise organically from either Kelly or Harris, but was prompted by the interviewer.
To call someone a "fascist" is to identify yourself as on the left.
I know you read the comments on your own blog. What I don't understand is how you can make this statement after reading them. Don't you know, that according to many of your commenters, fascism and nazism are left wing movements? Never mind that everyone who proudly call themselves a fascist or nazi are inevitably right wing and associated with home grown far right groups (e.g., the KKK).
Actually, this thread demonstrates my point exactly, and makes your original assertion bullshit.
“My understanding of fascism also includes the combination of government and big corporations”
Dave got this exactly right. Communists eliminate private business. Facists partner with big businesses. Like Facebook,
Accordijg to them:
Fascist = Right-wing
Right-wing = Far-right
Far-right = Not gay like them
Not gay like them = Does not suck dicks
Amidoinitright?
We are now entering peak “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!?” season.
Freder = Left-wing
Left-wing = Sucks dicks
Our political discourse is embarrassing. Harris stupidly calls Trump a fascist, which he obviously is not. Trump stupidly calls Harris a Marxist, which she obviously is not. But go ahead, AA commenters, rebuke me for being only half right, thereby exposing your charmingly irrepressible ultracrepidarianism.
That has a real possibility of making student votes evaporate, as opposed to merely collapse, and get administrators pondering how "relevant to the discourse" they were under Trump.
Meanwhile, President Trump has to be looking at the 70% of American Jews voting Democrat while wondering "why am I bothering with these people?" He hasn't exactly been hiding his frustrations.
Yeah, the New York media is right to be worried.
Kelly was Trump's longest serving Chief of Staff. Why? Why did he continue to serve the terrible Fascist who he believed was working to become a dictator?
What specific actions taken by Trump convinced him Trump was working to institute a Fascist regime?
Can he give a single example of Trump adhering to any ideology whatsoever, much less an extreme one?
I am bummed out that Franco is still dead.
The difference being Trump has actual evidence of the symmetry of the policies and actions of Harris and other Democrats with the policies and actions of real Communists. The only thing Harris has is out of context quotes and perjured testimony.
Musk campaigning for Trump would line right up with that.
Don't care any more.
rhhardin writes, "Actually an etymology joke."
Well...
The fascis was an axe surrounded with a bundle of rods carried by a member of the bodyguard (lictors) of a magistrate as a symbol of authority. The more senior the magistrate the more lictors accompanied him, thus the common plural form, fasces. (The mace carried by the Congressional Sergeant-at-Arms is a representation of a fascis). In Middle English a faggot is a bundle of sticks to be used as firewood, so there's a meandering connection between the symbolic weapon (rods to beat with, an axe to kill with) and a convenient means to carry fuel. In the 17th century, faggot became contemptuous slang for a first-year student at Oxford or Cambridge, deriving from the right of upperclassmen to demand and receive menial services from the new arrivals, fetching firewood, for example -- a usage that persisted into the 20th century. In the 19th century, faggot became a term for cigarettes because they were sold in bundles bound with a strip of paper. The individual smokes were termed fags. However, there's no etymological connection between fascist and the slang for a homosexual. It's merely an accidental homophone (not a queer communication device, you dirty-minded Althousians!) between two unrelated words in two unrelated languages.
Mike "King" Kelly was, and remains, one of the most famous 19th century baseball players, and the inspiration for the then-popular pop sing "Slide Kelly Slide".
I've been in the I'm-voting-for-him-because-fuck-you-that's-why stage for a loooong time now.
The world would have been much better if both kathy griffith and anderson cooper had never gotten off that reality show
Fascist derives from "fasces" - a bundle of sticks tied together. The bundle can't be broken like an individual stick could be. The downside is that the individual sticks lose their freedom of movement. In extreme fascism, party nominating election results could be completely ignored, and you would not hear a peep from individual voters as the nominee was replaced by the party's decision makers
Wait'll those bunches-of-cigarettes get a load of the double fasces hanging on the walls of both houses of congress, they'll probably need to console themselves by going left-wing (left-wing = suck some dicks) cause their country has been fascist all along.
"Ultracrepidarianism": the act of using big words in comment sections in a desperate hope that they'll impress somebody. They don't.
Nazism has some similarities with fascism, but they are not the same. It is fair to consider German nazism to be a variant of socialism insomuch as it was inspired by certain common assumptions (even if not that many, really), but that case is harder to make with fascism properly understood. That said, Hitler admired the mystical elements of fascism and eventually incorporated similar elements into Nazi thinking.
The word bassoon comes from French basson and from Italian bassone (basso with the augmentative suffix -one).[3] However, the Italian name for the same instrument is fagotto, in Spanish, Dutch, Danish, Czech, Polish, Serbo-Croatian and Romanian it is fagot,[4] and in German Fagott. Fagot is an Old French word meaning a bundle of sticks.[5] The dulcian came to be known as fagotto in Italy. However, the usual etymology that equates fagotto with "bundle of sticks" is somewhat misleading, as the latter term did not come into general use until later. However an early English variation, "faget", was used as early as 1450 to refer to firewood, which is 100 years before the earliest recorded use of the dulcian (1550). Further citation is needed to prove the lack of relation between the meaning "bundle of sticks" and "fagotto" (Italian) or variants. Some think that it may resemble the Roman fasces, a standard of bound sticks with an axe. A further discrepancy lies in the fact that the dulcian was carved out of a single block of wood—in other words, a single "stick" and not a bundle.
Franco was a monarchist. The King is dead, long live the King :)
@RMc I rest my case! 😂
Trump is not a Fascist, he is a buffoon.
Let’s use Kelly’s formulation and apply it both candidates:
Dictatorial Leadership: I go. Ack to Obama’s “pen and phone” comment which is a direct challenge to the separation of powers. Harris e plicity desires to neuter the Supreme Court. The winner near is Harris.
Centralized autocracy: Whether it be elections, abortion, and a host of other issues it is the Democrats that want the big decisions made in Washington.
Militarism: Trump does like the parades, etc. so the nod goes to him.
Suppression of opposition: Whether it be lawfare against Trump, the investigation of traditional Catholics, the sustained assault on the First Amendment, etc. it is clearly the Democrats who actively engage in the suppression of the opposition.
Belief in a natural social hierarchy Under the Democrats as long as you went to the right school or you are a suburban white female, or you are a member of the LGBTWTF community you are in like Flynn.
Progressivism is the gateway drug to Fascism.
Trump is not a Fascist, he is a buffoon.
Let’s use Kelly’s formulation and apply it both candidates:
Dictatorial Leadership: I go. Ack to Obama’s “pen and phone” comment which is a direct challenge to the separation of powers. Harris e plicity desires to neuter the Supreme Court. The winner near is Harris.
Centralized autocracy: Whether it be elections, abortion, and a host of other issues it is the Democrats that want the big decisions made in Washington.
Militarism: Trump does like the parades, etc. so the nod goes to him.
Suppression of opposition: Whether it be lawfare against Trump, the investigation of traditional Catholics, the sustained assault on the First Amendment, etc. it is clearly the Democrats who actively engage in the suppression of the opposition.
Belief in a natural social hierarchy Under the Democrats as long as you went to the right school or you are a suburban white female, or you are a member of the LGBTWTF community you are in like Flynn.
Progressivism is the gateway drug to Fascism.
”She’s a Marxist. She’s a fascist,” the former president declared last week, weirdly combining labels that normally contradict each other.
Trump claimed, without a shred of evidence, that Vice President Harris, whom he has dubbed ”Comrade Kamala,” “wants this country to go communist.”
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-09-02/presidential-election-donald-trump-calls-kamala-harris-a-marxist-a-communist-even-a-fascist-why-his-wild-punches-arent-landing
Althouse didn’t blog about it when Trump said this, or am I mistaken?
Also from Wikipedia, on the article about the Fasces, from which the word Fascism originates:
The fasces, as a bundle of rods with an axe, was a grouping of all the equipment needed to inflict corporal or capital punishment. In ancient Rome, the bundle was a material symbol of a Roman magistrate's full civil and military power, known as imperium. They were carried in a procession with a magistrate by lictors, who carried the fasces and at times used the birch rods as punishment to enforce obedience with magisterial commands.[7] In common language and literature, the fasces were regularly associated with certain offices: praetors were referred to in Greek as the hexapelekus (lit. 'six axes') and the consuls were referred to as "the twelve fasces" as literary metonymy.[8] Beyond serving as insignia of office, it also symbolised the republic and its prestige.[9]
After the classical period, with the fall of the Roman state, thinkers were removed from the "psychological terror generated by the original Roman fasces" in the antique period. By the Renaissance, there emerged a conflation of the fasces with a Greek fable first recorded by Babrius in the second century AD depicting how individual sticks can be easily broken but how a bundle could not be.[10] This story is common across Eurasian culture and by the thirteenth century AD was recorded in the Secret History of the Mongols.[11] While there is no historical connection between the original fasces and this fable,[12] by the sixteenth century AD, fasces were "inextricably linked" with interpretations of the fable as one expressing unity and harmony.[11]
Nailed it, AMDG.
Many of us would agree that Harris is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. How she ever got to be the Presidential nominee of a major political party is a scandal.
Many of us would agree that Harris is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. How she ever got to be the Presidential nominee of a major political party is a scandal.
I think we now know one of the major problem causers in the Trump administration.
I see a Fasces>>>Feces<<<Democrats Venn Diagram through the mist…
https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-harris-fascist-jd-vance-b2614984.html
“CNN shows supercut of Trump calling Harris ‘fascist’ – after JD Vance said no one should be using the word. JD Vance called for Democrats to reduce their ‘ridiculous and inflammatory political rhetoric’ as his running mate repeatedly calls Harris a ‘fascist’.”
You are right. Harris is many unappealing things, but Marxist is not one of them. She could no more define Marxism than she could define Fascism. Trump calling her a Marxist is just a way to get voters to fear his extremism, just as Harris calling him a fascist is simply a way to get voters to fear his extremism. The difference is that her extremism rests with her policy preferences, whereas his rests with his obnoxious personality.
John Kelly is an unreliable narrator. He needs about ten years of psychiatric care. I first realized this when I read his comments about a speech by Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL), and then I watched the speech. Kelly got it totally wrong. I couldn't understand how he could mischaracterize what she said so completely.
Here is CNN's report from 2018:
"In a briefing that took place in October 2017, Kelly took to the podium and erroneously claimed Wilson took credit for securing “$20 million” in federal funding to build a new FBI field office in Miami in 2015. A video of the dedication ceremony posted by the Sun Sentinel shows his claim is false."
The fascist/Hitler nonsense that the left keeps throwing at the right has increased in intensity with the dying off of the WW2 generation. Soldiers on the left and on the right who fought side by side and had the experience of encountering real Nazis served as a brake to the hysteria on the left
"Trump is a buffoon" is so 2020.
“Well, looking at the definition of fascism: It’s a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy,” he said.
It's hard to find anything in that definition that applies to Trump. "Belief in a natural social hierarchy," though, stands out from the rest. If people are really honest with themselves, they'd have to admit that such a belief is more common than they'd like us to think. It's one of those things that it's inconvenient to admit in public.
Because fascists have been know to do bad things all fascists are bad.
Because communists have been known to doo bad things all communists..
Because democracies have been known to do…
America has had more Hitlers in my lifetime than you could shake a bundle of sticks at.
Nixon was Hitler, Reagan was Hitler, Bush Sr. was Hitler, W was Hitler.
I can't remember if McCain was Hitler, he probably was and Palin was probably Lady Hitler at the same time.
Romney is still pissed that Trump stole the Hitler mantle he worked so hard for.
Even DeSantis was Hitler for brief a shining moment.
The Dems have dialed the Hitler thing up to eleven for Trump. It's about all they have and it's not scaring anyone but Democrats.
If you remove the far right label, this directly describes the democrat party. It literally does. The democrat party is a fascist one. That is a fact per that definition.
Check out all the pictures of Trump showing that he IS Hitler!!!
https://twitchy.com/samj/2024/10/24/fuzzychimp-thread-trump-hitler-n2402666
Here's an example!!
Fuzzy Chimp 🇺🇸🍌
@fuzzychimpcom
·
Follow
Replying to @fuzzychimpcom
Date Unknown: Hitler meets with John Kerry.
https://x.com/fuzzychimpcom/status/1849218641268555893
Mussolini was originally a socialist politician and journalist at the Avanti! newspaper. In 1912, he became a member of the National Directorate of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), but was expelled for advocating military intervention in World War I. His philosophy was socialist long before he founded the Italian fascists, and the fascist party incorporated socialism where convenient.
”She’s a Marxist, Communist, Fascist, Socialist”
I always remember the bottom right frame from this page of Mad Magazine's Planet of the Ape's satire from March 1973.
FASCIST PIGS!
The donor class, composed of the ten or twelve thousand wealthiest families in America, is really getting panicky (again) about Trump ending their thirty-year-running neoliberal gravy train. At least that's my personal interpretation of what is propelling all of these libelous descriptions of who Trump "really is."
"My opponent is literally Hitler in a fancy top hat." - Stephen Douglas, 1858
Over 80 years of every Republican presidential candidate being compared to or called "Hitler" and "Nazi." Their playbook never changes. Occasionally they like to throw in "Fascist" especially when, like now, they are acting like fascists by trying to jail their political opponents.
Uh. No, Mark. Musk has not been compelled by the state to participate. Do you understand the difference?
Post a Comment