The Fight Against Fascists (I Can't Believe This Exists)

[Dill]

(06-07-2021, 03:07 PM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: I've said before on here, but it absolutely astonishes me how casually people throw around terms like this (nazi, fascist).  I'm not sure if these people just have no understanding of history, or if they do and they just don't care as long as it advances their agenda.  And I'm not sure which one is scarier either. (Ignorance or manipulation of the facts)

Trump the fascist, his supports the nazis... meanwhile almost every nightly talk shows rips on him, he's skewered daily for 4 years on on all forms of media, and you have "comedians" like Kathy Griffen taking pictures of herself holding a dummy that's made to look like his bloody, severed head.  And this guy is a modern day fascist?

Sure, let's pause a moment to consider terminology.  I share your astonishment in how casually people throw around terms like "NAZI" and "fascist," and I note, in passing, that you and I have discussed the usage of the term "fascist" before.* 

I have generally cautioned against calling Trump a "fascist," while adding that he is definitely authoritarian, and that appears to be a major part of his appeal. (Refusing the "fascist" term shouldn't let him or his die hard supporters off the hook.) 

But let's remember that calling people like Hillary, Obama, and Biden "leftists" is also a stretch, and I cannot imagine what "hyperleftism" could be, except some kind of push to nationalize banks, railroads, automobile manufacture, corporate agriculture, along with coal and oil extraction. Is that the Lincoln Project's hidden agenda? Or is it to return the Republican party back to its roots in limited government and social conservatism? 

I'd argue that nowadays people learn much of their political terminology from the MSM and RWM, not from reading primary sources and historical/political science scholarship.  So if the RWM is calling liberals and centrists "the left" for decades, I'm not surprised millions who grow up in that media ecosphere adopt their usage, effecting a concomitant rightwards shift of the political spectrum.  Someone who contests that usage may sound like an oddball or even "biased" to persons whose views are formed in that media ecosphere, especially the RW variety, where difference is so frequently represented as "hypocrisy," "lies," and "hidden agendas." 

The expansive reference of "fascism" may be part of this confusion. Obama has been called both a "leftist" and a "fascist," and some right wingers classify fascism as "leftism." The visibility of ANTIFA doesn't help matters, as our entire government and economic system become enveloped in "fascism" in discussion of their actions. People with little background in history or political science are apt to dismiss more traditional use of this terminology as based on "personal opinion." "Not how we hear how our favorite news commentators using it, so wrong!"

There are important differences between types of authoritarian regimes and politics which can be described and catalogued just as we can describe the rules of different sports. Golf is certainly a sport, as is baseball, but if you play baseball I don't call you a "golfer" just because both are sports and you are hitting a ball with a stick. Every authoritarian is not a fascist, though general similarities may make the boundaries unclear in individual cases, and debated by historians and political scientists.  

I think the most important task at the moment for progressives and liberal democrats is to make clear the "sport rules" of authoritarian/illiberal politics so that they can be recognized when they appear abroad--or in our own midst.  Making fascism the face of authoritarianism doesn't meet that need well enough. People dismiss illiberal behavior if it's not wearing jackboots and writing manifestos for national renewal and racial purification. Also, authoritarian regimes can be pretty bad long before the reach the threshold of fascism. 


*Politics and Religion, #51, 55. http://thebengalsboard.com/Thread-Politics-and-Religion?pid=995353&highlight=hitler#pid995353.