GOP is "neo-fascist"

Discussion in 'Political Discussions' started by Stanislav, Jul 8, 2021.

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  1. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

  2. Bill Huffman

    Bill Huffman Well-Known Member

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  3. Bill Huffman

    Bill Huffman Well-Known Member

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  4. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Will they? Virginia Republicans haven't learned that lesson yet even though it's cost them chances at statewide office for several cycles now. Hardline social conservatism just doesn't play well in the suburbs.
     
  5. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    That'll be something to see. I would LOVE this to play out in Texas; Chairman Abbott is a familiar figure and is very hard to beat for Governor. Comandante West might just be toxic enough to give a Dem challenger an opening, finally.
     
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  6. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Similarly, last cycle, Danica Roem (D), who is transgender, beat notorious social conservative Bob Marshall (R) in the state legislature general election because his campaign strategy was to say bad things about her while her campaign strategy was to say bad things about traffic. Turns out Northern Virginians care a hell of lot more about traffic.

    That said, you'd better hope it's the right challenger, because this sort of thing both ways. I'm thinking of Lee Carter (D), the only avowed socialist in the Virginia legislature, whose district was adjacent to Roem's yet who lost his reelection primary to a moderate challenger. Seems extremism of neither kind plays well in what is still a purple state.
     
  7. Bill Huffman

    Bill Huffman Well-Known Member

    Hate on display: A guide to the symbols and signs on display at the Capitol insurrection
    https://www.jweekly.com/2021/01/07/hate-on-display-a-guide-to-the-symbols-and-signs-on-display-at-the-capitol-insurrection/

    Here's some quotes from the above article.

    “Camp Auschwitz,” it read, along with the message “Work brings freedom” — a rough translation of the message that greeted Jewish prisoners at the infamous Nazi concentration camp.

    In addition to the man wearing the Auschwitz sweatshirt, another mob member was spotted wearing a T-shirt that said 6MWE, which stands for “Six million weren’t enough,” referencing the Jews murdered in the Holocaust:

    In a video, at least one participant can be seen brandishing a flag bearing a swastika. Originally a Buddhist symbol representing the dharma wheel, the swastika since 1935 has become the defining symbol of Nazism and neo-Nazis. The Anti-Defamation League calls it “one of the most potent hate symbols worldwide.”
     
  8. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Is there still a Republican Party? The name still appears on the ballots but it is a very different organization from Before Trump. Having said that, I'm hesitant to call the current membership "fascist". I don't see the widespread highly organized para-militarism or expressed intent to invade other countries. I agree that the GOP Base has become a personality cult and that is a deeply disturbing thing. I also agree that the Base is there because it feels Trump "listens to their concerns" in a way that the political elites haven't for years. But fascism isn't the only political theory that has these characteristics. Xi Jinping is not a fascist. Modi is not a fascist I don't think although he comes closer than Trumpism.
     
  9. Bill Huffman

    Bill Huffman Well-Known Member

    Trump is not the whole party. Trump is the leader of the party and as such has more sway in the definition of the current Republican party. It is more from that perspective that I agree with the claim that the current Republican party is neo-fascist. There are strong movements within the party like the militia movement and the white nationalist movement that are neo-fascist. Trump embraced the right fringe of the party more than any other modern President. Trump probably embraced those far right views more than any major political candidate since George Wallace. (Who I'm ashamed to admit my parents voted for. :-( ) Trump was an autocrat wannabe.
     
  10. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Fair, but at least there's finally some organized pushback from the remaining sane people in the GOP: https://www.renewamericamovement.com

    So, "fascism with American characteristics"?

    You could see it in the way he fawned over foreign autocrats like Putin and Erdoğan.
     
  11. Bill Huffman

    Bill Huffman Well-Known Member

    Yes and it is a bit encouraging.

    I'm a strong believer in at least two party rule. Single party rule leads to corruption and autocracy, like the communist party countries and 70 years of PRI rule in Mexico. We need two parties that are based in reality though. We need at least two parties that are concerned with policy. Whereas the current Republican party is a personality cult, that no longer has a policy agenda only a thirst for power. That tells lies about the last election even though it damages our democracy. That is lead by <insert lots of derogatory terms in here that I'm feeling too lazy to fill in at the moment>

    On the more positive note and strengthening your point is the fact that the Republican base is slightly more fractured than they were. Only slightly more than half of the Republicans actually believe Trump's Big Lie. The vast majority believed his more routine daily repeated lies. Like our own beloved Lerner doesn't believe Trump's Big Lie.
     
  12. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    He doesn't?
     
  13. Bill Huffman

    Bill Huffman Well-Known Member

    Lerner has said that he doesn't believe the Big Lie. Although he has also said to you, IIIRC, when you stated that there was no evidence to support the Big Lie. He responded "Not yet". Or something similar.
     
  14. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    We will. We always have. The Founders did not want political parties--some of the provisions in the Constitution blatantly assume there would not be any--but the system's winner-take-all elements all but guarantee that there will be two parties. Not one, not three. Two.

    But which two? If the Republicans are successful, they'll implant themselves so deeply that it will take a miracle--or a revolution--to pry them loose. They'll adopt the ability to suppress voting from "those" people, plus the power to nullify elections. Additionally, the Republicans are forming their own private militia--the only things missing are the brown shirts.

    If the Democrats fend this off, the Republican Party will implode, then fracture. But, sooner not later, a new party will emerge to oppose and run against the ruling Democrats. It's inevitable, as long as our democratic republic stays intact. That's not assured.

    What is very true is that the people who are causing all of this unrest, who are threatening our very system of self-government, make up tens of millions of our fellow Americans. And they're not going anywhere anytime soon. (Well, except for some going to prison now that they don't have their guy to pardon them.)

    2022 is shaping up to be the most important election since, well, 2020.
     
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  15. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    The Trump Movement hopes to regain power through discouraging voters from what they see as anti Trump parts of society. They might not succeed. The Trumpiest states have historically engaged in voter intimidation and exclusion, often with violence, yet here we are with the GOP having lost the White House and both Houses of Congress. Besides, the Trumpiest states are already in the Trump Party's camp. Making them even Trumpier won't affect national politics.
     
  16. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    They've largely lost Georgia, and once they'll lose Texas it's all over for the GOP nationally, at least until the next generational shift.
     
  17. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Don't hold your breath. Democrats have been claiming for some years now that "Texas will tilt Blue in the next election". Hasn't happened. Living where I do, I see close up and I don't think it will happen for awhile yet if at all. Beto says he came close to beating Ted Cruz. Well, he did I guess, but all the effort, all the money, all the excitement in Beto's Base were insufficient to dislodge a deeply flawed and very polarizing Senator. Cruz SHOULD have lost but he didn't. He won't next time, either.

    Texas is different. As in really, really different.
     
  18. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Fair enough, we'll see. If I had to bet (and thankfully I don't) I'd say still red in 2024 but tossup in 2030 (which is a lot sooner than it may sound).
     
  19. Bill Huffman

    Bill Huffman Well-Known Member

    I love this line. It sounds so trite yet it is so true.

    Politics is in great flux right now. On the one hand with redistricting giving Republicans a big boost that should take over the House. On the other hand, Trump is a wild card that could hurt the Republicans as he uses his "king maker powers" to exact revenge on elected Republicans he sees as insufficiently servile to him. Then throwing in the potential of more violence being caused by the Big Lie, it makes it very difficult to guess at what might happen.
     
  20. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    Umberto Eco listed characteristics of "ur-fachism":
    1. The cult of tradition. “One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements.”
    2. The rejection of modernism. “The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.”
    3. The cult of action for action’s sake. “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”
    4. Disagreement is treason. “The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.”
    5. Fear of difference. “The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.”
    6. Appeal to social frustration. “One of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups.”
    7. The obsession with a plot. “Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged.”
    8. The enemy is both strong and weak. “By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.”
    9. Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. “For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.”
    10. Contempt for the weak. “Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology.”
    11. Everybody is educated to become a hero. “In Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death.”
    12. Machismo and weaponry. “Machismo implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality.”
    13. Selective populism. “There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.”
    14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. “All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.”
    Trumpism and Ne0-Trumpism is not this clearly articulated, but scores at least a "somewhat" on 14 out of 14. Perhaps people should start calling it what it is before, you know, the "highly-organized militarism" (as opposed of ragtag militia movement already gravitating to the fold) or intent to invade other countries (might take a while, lots of internal enemies to hate first).
     

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