It seems to be a pitfall of the thinking “it can’t happen here.”
Sorry if this offends some US citizens, but seen from here this just seems a slightly louder and smooth-riding drift in the same direction the USA has always navigated towards.
A lot of media depict the United States as being invaded by fascists from the outside. Nobody thought fascism will come from within until now.
Submitted 5 months ago by TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world to showerthoughts@lemmy.world
Comments
biofaust@lemmy.world 5 months ago
ghosthacked@lemmy.wtf 5 months ago
Everyone thought Billy the redneck was just dumb. We didn’t think he’d end up being the vehicle for the end of america.
Zexks@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Nah this was predicted decades ago. First quote i remember talking about it was “when facism comes to america it will be drapped in an american flag carrying a bible”. And thats pretty much exactly how it happened.
SippyCup@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
I was in college in 2004 when my philosophy 101 professor said with confidence that fascism was on the horizon for the US and that it would happen in our lifetimes.
Fucking Plato predicted this. And I argued with him like a jackass.
To quote Judd Hersh as Julius Livingston: We knew! We knew then! And we did nothing!
1984@lemmy.today 5 months ago
Its not like it just started over night.
But news and social media are turning everyone against eachother, which is a perfect environment for fascists. It also doesnt help that we have Trump in the white house.
ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
youtube.com/watch?v=uW3-q_oPv4k
Was always funny.
Treczoks@lemmy.world 5 months ago
A lot of media depict the United States as being invaded by fascists from the outside.
Apart of “Man in the high castle”, nothing comes to mind. I’d say media-wise, the US gets invasion from zombies, aliens, or monsters. But aside of MITHC I’m drawing a blank.
Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
Red Dawn.
Treczoks@lemmy.world 5 months ago
“North Korean paratroupers”? If they pose a recognizable problem for the USA, so many things must have gone wrong…
balance8873@lemmy.myserv.one 5 months ago
Alternate, simpler explanation: watching the trump administration in movie form isn’t fun. Fascism is boring.
Randomgal@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
Probably not boring for the people killed, reported and tortured. Wtf?
balance8873@lemmy.myserv.one 5 months ago
So you want to watch a movie of people being tortured and deported and killed? I don’t get what you’re trying to argue here.
FreeMindFreeAss@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Nah we did, we’re just not filmmakers.
bartlonvb@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
Funniest thing I realised about american propaganda is how in your fiction there’s always a threat of an authoritarian evil nation dropping a nuclear bomb, and these countries are usually Russia, North Korea, China, Iran… Now cut to real life and tell me what is the only authoritarian evil country that ever dropped a nuclear bomb.
ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
You realize the most nuked country is the US and 2nd most was the USSR right?
bartlonvb@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
You’re actually right. My mistake as I was meaning to say atomic bomb, not nuclear.
markovs_gun@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Plenty of people expected that, we just don’t like to think about it because it makes us feel bad to think about our own flaws
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
I think plenty of media actually depicted that. Watchmen the tv show is a clear example. I also think Captain American Winter Soldier have that topic.
Those are some recent popular ones, surely there are more.
TheObviousSolution@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
Star Wars the Prequels sort of dealt with the subject, although it framed the fascist as an exceptionally skilled statesman and not the reactionary populist personality cults they usually are.
captainlezbian@lemmy.world 5 months ago
The general understanding of experts on fascism after figuring out what the hell went wrong in Germany was that America was particularly vulnerable to it and it would use the flag and the cross to gain influence.
jerkface@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
CptOblivius@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Hell Hitler and his crew got a lot of his ideas from America at that time. Plenty of our rich elite supported it to. Including Ford.
Texas_Hangover@lemmy.radio 5 months ago
Hell Hitler?
JadenSmith@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Adolph’s cousin, who was a big proponent of raw fruit diets.
He hated juice.
5in1k@lemmy.zip 5 months ago
What the fuck are you talking about. Hunter S. Thompson wrote about it, Punk rock has spoke about it since it’s inception, I’ve been worried about the fascist threat since I became politically aware during the end of Bush 2 saying we’re just waiting for a Caesar.
“Coming of age in a fascist police state will not be a barrel of fun for anybody, much less for people like me, who are not inclined to suffer Nazis gladly and feel only contempt for the cowardly flag-suckers who would gladly give up their outdated freedom to live for the mess of pottage they have been conned into believing will be freedom from fear.
Ho ho ho. Let’s not get carried away here. Freedom was yesterday in this country. Its value has been discounted. The only freedom we truly crave today is freedom from Dumbness. Nothing else matters.
Hunter S. Thompson
“Germany lost the second World War, fascism won it.” - George Carlin
JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Anyone thinking “it can’t happen here,” wasn’t paying attention in history class. It has always been a part of us from the very start.
FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
In fact America was founded on the genocide of natives. The founding fathers were such hypocrites, preaching about freedom while owning slaves
VerilyFemme@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
People were calling George Dubya a Nazi. Reagan’s entire economic plan was “make the rich richer becauze they’ll give poor people money.”
The fact of the matter is, most Americans have been propagandized into thinking communism is the greatest threat they face. Fascism isn’t even on their radar. That’s why they get more upset about people calling others fascists than they do fascists - they don’t have any concept of the legitimate threat, and quite a few think that authoritative power is the only thing that can fix society.
I told my mom in 2021 that I thought the next major threat the US will face is from right wing groups, because I was seeing a sharp rise in alt-right ideology and meme pages on Instagram. She just looked at me like I was crazy and said, “Really?”
It also took me way too long to wake up. I didn’t start calling it fascism until last year, and I certainly didn’t see the warning signs in the first Trump term - I just thought he was an asshole.
But it’s been going on for a while. Since Reagan at least. “Give your people bread and circuses, and they will never revolt.” Except now we have ultrabread delivered to your home and megacircuses in every living room. 70s-90s America, especially, were kind of a paradise for the middle class. Even in the 80s, when people were upset at having to work corporate jobs, consumer products were being cranked out nonstop and affordable to boot. We’ve just had it too good for too long, and we didn’t notice the structure of it all eroding until the floor fell out from under us.
FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
The Handmaid’s Tale depicts fascism rising from within America
FrowingFostek@lemmy.world 5 months ago
jerkface@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
A lot of people very famously not only knew, but told you and told you and told you and told you.
KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
Well, I can think of one
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
People def thought
Strider@lemmy.world 5 months ago
As a German, on the contrary, it was blindingly obvious. Starting with your massive(ly overblown) patriotism. No insult intended.
Dragonstaff@leminal.space 5 months ago
As a Black American the number of white people saying “Who could have known” what we have been screaming at them is infuriating.
As a leftist, the people who said we were overreacting about the Patriot Act 25 years ago (and continuously since) are now saying that we devolved into fascism quickly.
Lots of insult intended. More insult than you can imagine. If you’re reading this and you have been complacent, it’s time to get into the streets.
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
When I was getting really nervous that Obama and the Dems, when they had a trifecta, back a decade ago now… when they had that, and they were not going to repeal the Patriot Act?
My other white ‘leftist’ “friends” called me racist for being too critical of Obama.
Oh lordy do I still feel the rage at their immense, performative, entitled hypocrisy.
Strider@lemmy.world 5 months ago
It’s painful to watch. And aware it’s always been far worse for you. I’m sorry. You lost the birth lottery.
(I did too in biological ways critically btw, but I still ‘enjoy’ the German health system and white privilege)
princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
Yeah, as an Australian, when I learnt as a teen that they do the “pledge of allegiance” everyday in school, I kind of wondered how easy it would be to hijack that into something evil.
Dragonstaff@leminal.space 5 months ago
I’m not sure how many classrooms still do this, but it is becoming less common.
samus12345@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
I remember doing it in elementary school, but not later on. I can say that as a kid it doesn’t mean shit. It’s just an annoying chore you have to do to start the day.
ZephyrXero@lemmy.world 5 months ago
They slipped “God” into it in the 1950s. So probably a sizable factor in why we have Christian nationalists now
SARGE@startrek.website 5 months ago
Lol.
LMAO, even.
This particular downslope has been around for 20+ years, and it’s been arguably more like 50 years.
Hell, the only reason we have the small amount of gun control we do is because Regan was afraid of black people owning guns.
Fascism has been festering for a long time, most people only notice now because it’s finally affecting them.
Pat_Riot@lemmy.today 5 months ago
“when fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross” - Sinclair Lewis
bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Fricken spot on. I say this quote a lot when I see what’s happening.
Especially because there’s a gun store near me and their logo is the American flag hanging on the cross. Not joking.
ICastFist@programming.dev 5 months ago
So, you’re telling me 'Murica, the place known for:
- putting money above EVERYTHING
- exploiting half of the world’s countries
- supporting coups and bloody dictatorships
- invading countries using shitty excuses when the real reason is money
- never hunting down its own extremist “good” terrorists like the kkk
- school shootings
- exporting their propaganda to all aligned countries
- being super xenophobic
- being a fucking chicken because “muh freeze peach!” when it comes to glorification of nazi ideals
Wasn’t expecting fascism to grow from within???
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 5 months ago
But we’re the good guys. :(
muntedcrocodile@hilariouschaos.com 5 months ago
People thinking trump is a fascist seriously underestimate the evil of fascists. Trump is a pretty moderate person in most regards. I’ll get downvotes to hell for saying this but that’s the truth. Trump hasn’t done any mass executions or genocides hence on the comparative scale of politics he is a moderate. Not to mention that Hillary Clinton, Joe biden, and kamala Harris said many things that are more extreme than trump just a couple years ago (go google the clips).
shalafi@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Trump can’t get away with mass executions or genocide. Hitler could not have at the beginning of his rule.
paranoid@lemmy.world 5 months ago
You’re getting downvoted not because this is some hot take people disagree with, but because you’re objectively wrong.
muntedcrocodile@hilariouschaos.com 5 months ago
A claim to objective reality requites specifics. It requires objective proof that a claim is incorrect. I ask you to present such evidence. I made a claim from a place of personal opinion from my observations of global politics and history. You’ve set urself up with a very hard task of proving something is counter to objective reality. Good luck.
altphoto@lemmy.today 5 months ago
From the 90’s on things felt like they were getting better for a few years. Then things started going south.
This whole time the Democrats and the Republicans have had their endless political battles while ratcheting our rights away. We need the opposite.
Simple example, I want the right to immunization. If I think injecting myself with bleach is a great idea, I should be able to do that. But that’s stupid so we need a CDC to tell us that explicitly and to prevent other stupid formulations from being legal. MRNA vaccines and other vaccines work for example. So one minor thing could be not denying vaccines. Another minor thing is to help the development of vaccines. One way is by not de-funding projects working on vaccines. Another is by not de-funding the education system that creates teachers, professors, doctors, scientists and engineers.
Twig@sopuli.xyz 5 months ago
That’s the plot to XIII isn’t it?