Some heavy, heavy Poe’s Law vibes there.
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It’s a weird needle for the TFG wannabes to thread, as they have to simultaneously be more outrageous, more entertaining, smarter and more reasonable than TFG to be able to eclipse him. And as soon as they suggest they’re running, TFG attacks them.
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This is why I’m following Chris Christie’s attacks on 45. Beau has covered this a couple of times:
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Um, that photo isn’t working for me. As i understand it, he got the death he got because he threatened Western elites’ financial intersts, not because he was a dictator. Those interests are fine with dictators who are willing to help increase their financial interests.
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Drumpf and his ilk have figured out that outrage media will give them free 24x7 coverage.
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The thing is the Republicans and Tories are only fascists because that’s what their voters want. If their voters were communists they would be waving the red flag to get into power. If there were enough green voters, they would be hugging every tree in sight. They want to be in power and that’s their only policy.
When Blair was deciding to get into politics he weighed up the Tories and Labour and decided Labour was the party he had better chance of becoming the leader.
When the Brexit referendum was proposed, Johnson wrote two letters, one in support, one against, and sent the one that he thought would get him into power to the Telegraph. He even thought the referendum would fail, but in the fallout he would become the leader. It’s reported that on hearing he won, he was stunned, muttering to himself “WTF do we do now, we don’t have any plan!”
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I’ve heard that Tromp too was surprised he actually won, and had little expectation of actually doing so.
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And of course, he lost the popular vote, and only “won” because of a knife edge advantage in a few crucial areas. I believe it was something like 80,000 votes in the right places. The ballot happened a few days after the FBI announced their new investigation (soon to be abandoned) into Lock Her Up’s emails.
But you all know the story.
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Man for the moment Joe Biden was worried prosecuting Trump would foster disunity.
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Sure, but isn’t that true for both the fascist party and the fascist-lite party alike? If the idea behind representative government was to harness the power hungry to serve the needs of the masses, then that idea was murdered by the two party system. The power hungry don’t have to do what people want or need in order to be elected, all they need is media coverage that paints them as “better than the other guy”.
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Are you seriously trying to bothsides fascism here? We have hashed out the “there is no difference between the parties” too many times to count. At this point there is a stark difference between the one trying to end democracy, and the one trying to protect it. I would love the Dems to be more progressive, but to call them “fascist lite” is beyond ridiculous.
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SSDY.
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If R% is the percentage of R voters who would be helped if R get in, and D% is the percentage of D voters who would be helped by D if they get in, which do you think is the larger, R% or D%?
And for the UK, which is the larger, T% or L%?
The fact that R (and T) voters think they will be helped is the real tragedy.
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But isn’t that true about fascists and those who minimize fascists and call representative government untenable?
There’s really no meaningful difference between them.
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The thing is the Republicans and Tories are only fascists because that’s what their voters want.
They want to be in power and that’s their only policy.
… that’s fascism. There is no such thing as a principled fascist, so stop looking for one. It’s not a set of considered policies and preferences. It’s the choice of a particular identity to defend, at all costs, and power to be wielded by the in-group. It’s amorphous and fills whatever policy niche will let it subsist.
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This forum is more prone for people making their own stories out of other peoples posts than any other I’ve ever posted on.
There is more to fascism than wanting to be in power. It’s what you do when you get there that makes you a fascist, otherwise all politicians are fascists.
Do you think Trump for example cares at all about abortion policies? He really doesn’t care one way or another, but he knows people will vote for him if he pushes that. Also predjudice against minorities. All he cares about is enriching himself, but if his voters hate minorities he give them a nod and a wink.
That’s what I meant, there’s no way I’m looking for a principled fascist, so don’t accuse me of it OK, it’s insulting to me, whether you meant it or not.
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Word, testify. Axe grinding festival.
I didn’t say there was no difference between the parties. They have to be different, that’s how the system works. That’s essentially my entire point, the two party system is a coin with two faces, the faces are different so that people can stay angry at each other and the ruling class can continue to rule.
I wasn’t trying to accuse you of washing your hands of it: I was simply saying that not having any actual principles is a de facto component of fascism. Fascism isn’t a policy set to adhere to like environmentalism or communism; it’s policy agnostic. Quite literally: devoid of principles.
I’m not saying, “don’t paint any of these people as saints”, I’m saying “Don’t kid yourself that there’s any internal rationality in any of them to be hypocritical about”. Inconsistency is the name of the game.
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If they were two faces of the same coin, why would one of them be trying to prevent free elections and even attempt a coup to keep the other out of power? You’d think you’d have reconsidered this opinion at some point in the last decade, as the right moved into open fascism, but I guess it’s still an article of faith that “both sides” have to be equivalent in some way. 
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