Has anybody ever inserted Trump into Appleās 1984 ad?
Seems like a worthy use of a few minutes of somebodyās skilled timeā¦
Well, thereās this.
Eh, Obama supporters already did it with Hillary eight years ago. Thatās the problem with pointed political satire: itās so timeless that it stops having meaning.
Similar case: Trump is a fascist. But people start saying āBut weāve been calling Obama a fascist for years, and have been painting little Hitler mustaches on him, and you called us loonies! No fair!ā
Just because somebody else diluted the meaning of a term doesnāt mean I need to let go of its actual meaning.
Fascism is still fascism, not just whoever the republicans donāt like.
After yesterday, it looks like Bernie is toast. Yāall got your Hillary yard signs yet?
Mr. Trump, or how I learned to stop worrying and love fascism
To add a non-joke comment, itās obvious at this point that fascism is a pejorative term for any government that the speaker doesnāt like, but going back to actual fascism (something people advertised themselves as before 1945), I think we could make the argument that America is already a fascist-like state. My family economic historian says that fascism is really the merging of corporations with the state. In the early 20th century that was envisioned as politicians running industry, but in the early 21st century it instead takes the form of corporations having politicians on their payroll and writing the laws that lawmakers dutifully pass.
I feel like what Trump is doing (sometimes, when he isnāt musing about walls and tracking Muslims) is pointing out that fascism-like elements of US government. āInsurance companies control politiciansā is a quotation from him. He complains about laws that give unfair advantages to big business. But in his case, the remedy is to replace it with actual fascism; heās just saying letās turn it on itās head and have the government tell corporations what to do instead of the other way around.
Ultimately the difference between a few large corporations controlling the government and the government controlling and giving advantages to a few large corporations is pretty small. And the difference between that and a just having a king and aristocracy with the rest of people being serfs is maybe not that large either.
In a sketch, one of my favourite comediansā character says āā¦and thatās why America is such a great company.ā before ācorrectingā himself.
Iāve never forgotten that little jab, the show continuing without requesting a laugh. Itās just right, now more than ever.
Arenāt all governments fascist? Pretty much every politician I see uses the āIts us or them argumentā, or, as Ben Franklin put it, āWe must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.ā
In the pejorative sense all governments are thought to be fascist by someone. I was talking about what actual fascists thought was a good idea, which was having the government control industry. It came out of the way the government was able to mobilize the population during the first world war - āwhy not put everyone to work like that all time?ā they thought. Snopes says Mussolini didnāt really make the trains run on time, but the idea that he did or could is the appeal of fascism.
I donāt think āItās us or themā is all that universal if you look at other nations (itās on the rise right now, though), but thatās not why I would describe America as a fascist-like society. The Nazis were fascist but not all fascists were especially bent on eliminating some religious or ethnic group (this is obscured by the fact that the whole world was pretty racist and anti-semitic when fascism was on the rise so itās a difference in goals but not necessarily in action). I say America is fascist-like because of the merger of the government and the large corporations.
Nope. Iām writing Bernie in.
Precisely. This is how we tell the difference between fascism and communism.
But the US is not fascist because there is not one unique centre of power.
I havenāt read Snopes but as I recall Mussolini did actually (a) sack ministers who didnāt do their jobs and (b) try and reduce corruption to corruption that he approved of. These were actually positive achievements. A friend married to an Italian says that his wifeās family still get into furious rows at family gatherings over Mussolini.
Yeah, the more I tried to explain why I would say the US is fascist the more I realized that I couldnāt actually defend the idea. To really make the case Iād have to put forward two ideas that go too far:
- Government power is completely usurped by corporate money
- Large, influential corporations essentially work together as a group
Iāll step off of āfascistā and settle back into āplutocracyā. 
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Well, the Snopes thing was really about how most of the repairs to the Italian railway after WWI happened before Mussolini took power and he just sort of took credit for them after the fact. But I donāt doubt he got some things done that benefited the country. I think the big problem with fascism is that itās all about being efficient and increasing production, but production of what? Itās not going to be production of well-being-for-the-citizens because the citizens arenāt being consulted. That wasnāt the way people thought in the first half of the 20th century, when leaders tended to use āscienceā to treat people like cattle.
Bolling says it doesnāt touch on the horrific racism angle, but note that the strip is in black and white. Get it? Like the commonly used terms to refer to folks of different races in America? āBlackā here represents African-Americans; and āwhiteā represents Caucasians and others of European origins. Get it, you guys? Look deeper. Join me on this adventure!
Ummm no. Please stop repeating $hillary propaganda.
https://pivotamerica.com/real-primary-begins-today-bernie-still/
Wow, still a chance? I guess Iāll keep my eyes on June 7.
