I think they’re right. Fascism is at its core a blind grasp for power by any means necessary. You don’t have to know anything about the history of fascism to do the exact same things as the ones of the past because it just sort of happens naturally. Now, Trump is obviously made aware that he’s following fascist tropes, but he just says they were smart guys and he likes how they think and moves on…unless you actually use the word “fascist.” That means “bad,” so clearly he can’t be that, no matter how much he does literally everything a fascist would do.
It is possible to do an internet search for a date range. Looking at 2016, there were many articles regarding fascism and Trump. Here is just one:
forbes.com/…/yes-a-trump-presidency-would-bring-f…
It is true that many people were uncertain if Trump was a full on fascist, or if he was thwarted by a lack of reading. Which sounds like a lie. I am cherry picking this quote.
Do you think that Trump is consciously using fascist tropes, or do you think that he’s just sort of stumbled into this?
I doubt it’s conscious. I don’t think he’s a bookish man. I’m sure he’s never read a book about Hitler or Mussolini.
slate.com/…/is-donald-trump-a-fascist-an-expert-o…
samus12345@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
MudMan@fedia.io 2 weeks ago
Honestly, even at the time that entire "benefit of the doubt" garbage read like some combination of active collaboration and outright denial. It's nuts that Trump rode it to a second term, honestly. As late as the week of the election people were having haughty conversations about the ties between Project 2025 and the Trump campaign and those morons still elected them again because Harris was too weak on Israel or whatever.
I mean, I'd normally not assume an entire culture is entirely incapable of parsing reality, but there are still supposed American leftists going "they're both the same" on this site right now.
Which reminds me I'm trying to cut off American politics from my media menu as much as possible, so maybe it's time to mute this stuff and move on with my day, because man, what a group of weirdos.