The driver of this car just stopped it in the middle of the busy street, then got out and went to a store to get a drink for her husband/boyfriend who is sitting in the passenger seat. She was gone for over five minutes. The traffic behind the car was backed up all the way around the corner and blocking the intersection before she came back.
I donāt understand nazis from former allied countries. I genuinely wonder what he thinks about the nostalgo-jingoistic wartime myth that is so popular in the UK. You know, Blitz spirit, Spitfires and dam busters. Does he buy into it? Does he reject it?
Itās one thing to have proud boy or EDL like neo-nazis that can tell themselves that they just represent the modern interest of their people and all that shite, but this guy specifically referenced the Waffen-SS. Rooting for those guys but also being a proud patriot? Wtf?
They usually justify it as a war against Germany, and think Hitler would have been a good leader if only he was British.
Whatās EDL?
You donāt really want to know. Tommy Robinsonās old outfit
āTrump is incompetent therefore canāt possibly be a fascistā is a dumb take. As is, āheās not exactly like the Nazis, so he canāt be fascistāā¦ 
Calling a 21st-century politician a fascist is so damning ā so much worse than any other label ā because actual fascist regimes are very rare. One reason for that is none of them ever lasted. They were catastrophic failures ā catastrophes not only for their friends and enemies but for the wider world ā undone by their own appetite for relentless crisis and confrontation. Fascism was a product of a period of acute difficulty for western democracies. It arose in the aftermath of a world war, in the ruins of defeat, in places with weak democratic systems, in nations populated by very large numbers of angry young men (many of them traumatised by their experience of war), in a time of high unemployment, in the face of global economic collapse and in the shadow of Bolshevism. None of that is true of the US today. Making sense of the phenomenon of Trumpism means looking at a different set of circumstances ā an ageing population, a social media revolution, de-industrialisation, educational divisions, increased competition from China, a backlash against feminism and growing resentment about illegal immigration. That is more than enough to destabilise US politics. But it is not the breeding ground for fascism.
This is sort of typical of the articleā¦ it narrows the definition to the two fascist regimes that existed historically (he rejects Franco as being fascist, because he managed to not end in a violent dissolution). If itās not exactly like that, it canāt be REALLY fascistā¦
Unless itās from the Fascio region in Italy, itās just sparkling authoritarianism.
Michael Tomasky, editor of the New Republic, wrote in his introduction to the magazineās American fascism issue, āWe at the New Republic think we can spend this election year in one of two ways. We can spend it debating whether Trump meets the nine or 17 points that define fascism. Or we can spend it saying, āHeās damn close enough, and weād better fight.āā
Good enough for me!
eta:
I mean, when did it become my job to check the minutia, examine the mDNA, and figure out if theyāre fascists or something that just looks like them?
Yeah, I mean ultimately, this sort of debates over definitions of historical phenomenon isnāt very helpful. Does it really matter if governments fit some technical definition of fascism if they are targeting vulnerable communities? Itās just shifting where our focus should beā¦
I initially read that as tactical definition.
Tactical definition.
Hm. Adding that to my lexicon. (And if someone already used it in the 1800s, thatās okay.)
Trump is a fascist, Franco was a fascist and Runciman is an idiot.
Heck of a job, Adams.
I miss the days when the worst of the Grauniad columnists were unrepentent Blairites. That would be a massive improvement on what they are printing now.
In an academic sense I actually donāt disagree with the article. He doesnāt quite hit some of the hallmarks of fascism. That doesnāt mean I am going to stop calling him fascist, though. Itās a shorthand for his aims and policies that are close enough to fascism to be indistinguishable for the most part. And itās not like weāre not context-aware. I am calling him a fascist here and in person to my friends because I know how it is being interpreted, but if I hypothetically talked to an American swing voter (though I have no idea how that would come about), I obviously wouldnāt. Itās not that hard to tailor your messaging to your audience.
It arose in the aftermath of a world war, in the ruins of defeat, in places with weak democratic systems, in nations populated by very large numbers of angry young men (many of them traumatised by their experience of war), in a time of high unemployment, in the face of global economic collapse and in the shadow of Bolshevism. None of that is true of the US today.
Uhm, are you sure about that? I see plenty of weak democratic systems and angry young men traumatised by war over there. And the global economic collapse and high unemployment are just one collapse of an unregulated banking system away
My eyes are going to fall out from how hard iām rolling them right now
Dear Janet,
