Except, where he does. ICE+DHS+fragments of others are used as a paramilitary for specific and sweeping purposes. The welfare is pardoning away fines and liability for donors who enrich him. He's growing his base power, without being in full command of the nation. He's a populist. When it suits him, he'll hand out free bacon to the masses, while he supports porkbarrel for his oligarch friends.
Paramilitaries are unofficial forces — Proud Boys, Klansmen, and what are commonly called “militas” are paramilitary orgs, in that they have structure and organization and ideological backing, but do not receive explicit governmental sanction and are not under direct governmental control. The Sturmabteilung supported Hitler and his ideals, but were not an arm of the German government at any point.
If you're a non-military federal agent who is masked when apprehending a civilian, the purpose is to shield yourself from civil consequence because your actions are likely unlawful.
It needs to be recognized that Trump is acting with legitimate authority. Everyone carrying out and implementing his policies believes he can do them. They’re not in rebellion; they are obeying state direction. It’s important to recognize what stage of fascism we are in.
The issue is future culpability, not current prosecution.
> They’re not in rebellion; they are obeying state direction. It’s important to recognize what stage of fascism we are in.
Irrelevant.
> It needs to be recognized that Trump is acting with legitimate authority.
SMH Fascism is not rebellion. Fascists are often elected and granted authority, in the vacuum they are responsible for. Kim Jong Un has legitimate authority, in the same vein.
This feels like you're trolling. Good luck with that.
There is no definition of facism and as far as I know there almost never was. The reason the term is so popular in politics is because it can be used to label anything without being falsifiable.
Trump probably is facist, but the tricky thing to define is what properties a politician would need to have to be not-facist because a lot of his opponents also appear to be facists. All the bad things that characterise facism also characterise non-facists systems. Nationalism is not facism, nor are hierarchies. Nor is violence. Nor are cults of personality. Lots of systems have those things individually or in combination (like communism, for that matter).
In practice facists are precisely the people who self-identify as facists. People have stopped doing that because facist ideologies lost to liberal ones in literal and metaphoric senses.
Man, i feel bad for coming up with this. But when everyone can identify as $gender regardless of their physical condition and respecting that decision is part of societal norms (or be an asshole)... what if Trump said "I'm not a fascist, mislabeling me as such is harassment"? Do we have grounds to say that's invalid?
I'm from Russia and out there we know what real fascism looks like, it isn't mean tweets or cutting government funding, it's direct oppression from speech, activism, etc.
In Russia if you wanted to go protest something the government is doing, there is a very very high chance that you will get picked up by the cops. Sure that could happen in the US or other western countries but in a place like Russia or China, it's highly likely.
Here in the US and other western countries, a person can go their entire life without being exposed to what real fascism is and what real oppression is. So it's easy for us to take relatively small things and assume that means we are headed towards a fascist state. I would say the situation in the US isn't great, but ask anyone from Eastern Europe or Russia and they will all tell you that compared to their home country, the US might as well be disneyland.
The current system of government in the US under Trump is an instance of fascism
Trump and his movement have strongly fascist characteristics
The primary bulwark has been the socialization of the populace to oppose this behavior. The courts are viewed as a shelter, as feckless as they have been over the last 6 months. When moves are made over the next few years, that are more desperate and heavy handed, I would hope for conciliation.
One can argue about the specifics but Trump's administration certainly fits that style to a very large degree.
> direct oppression from speech, activism
People have been arrested in the US lately for activism and in many cases without any justification. I doesn't seem like the administration will get away with it, but they certainly seem to try.
Real fascism is no different than the current US Executive. The difference is the amount of power currently wielded.
> Here in the US and other western countries, a person can go their entire life without being exposed to what real fascism is and what real oppression is
The common case is that Americans don't recognize it because it's so incremental that the larger goals are a footnote in discussions around specific acts or outlive the constituents/promoters. This state of executive vs a compromised judicial has been in the works since before I was born.
The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies "something not desirable"...In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning.
― George Orwell, Essays
Mussolini's original meaning was as a metaphor of a bundle of sticks where the sticks are cooperating government and corporate entities. In modern times both major party administrations loudly and proudly proclaim their corporate partnerships, but don't care to label that as fascism.
This view captures nicely populist movements whose ideologies fit to short slogans and don't usually hold much water. Their leaders are never visionaries beyond how to get elected and staying in office, even if it means undermining democratic processes and institutions.
palmfacehn•1d ago
Of course if we observe that both the left and the right tend to increase the scope of the state rather than reduce it, we can better understand the scenario. Today's right is no more authoritarian than the illiberal left. Both sides advance the scope of authoritarianism by appealing to different, sometimes opposing interests.
The post 9/11 era pursued Muslims. The Obama era increased the scope of medical regulation and further cartelized health insurance. TSA and VIPR interceptions increased. Internal border patrol checkpoints became normalized. Gun owners were pursued. There's actually too much to list here. Trump's crusade against illegal immigration is yet another disaster for civil liberties. Not to mention the vaccine mandates and lockdowns...
For these reasons I find the Timothy Snyders of the world totally ridiculous. The selective outrage is nothing more than a partisan device. Sure, make comparisons to Fascism, but be consistent. Both sides expand the scope of the state as the pendulum swings to their respective corner.
zoklet-enjoyer•1d ago