My family has had to live through the Nazi invasion of my grandparents' home country, and my parents had to live through multiple military dictatorships. Throw in Umberto Eco's essay on Ur-fascism and yeah, I just might have an idea of what I'm talking about.
The thing is, a whole lot of people who stood behind the Nazi party and enabled the evil were decent folks. Do you think Germany was just full of evildoers in the 30's?
That's one of the scary things about fascism and authoritarianism. It can coopt decent people into enabling the suppression of their fellow man.
See this is where the sides are not seeing eye to eye. "It can coopt decent people into enabling the suppression of their fellow man" - this is exactly what the right side thinks is happening to them. Each side thinks its the other.
mlyle: I think we need to be a bit fair here. Its not the entire voting base its the fringe. There were many who wanted election answers but did not advocate overthrowing the govt or storming the capital. Just like the fringe leftists caused riots for an entire summer, looting businesses and setting fires. We have an extremist issue on either side while moderates are throwing their hands up.
> this is exactly what the right side thinks is happening to them. Each side thinks its the other.
The symmetry is pretty shallow, though. If you look past the grievances about being criticized and ostracized by the other side and dig into the underlying public policy goals, it's pretty easy to spot categorical differences. When a BLM protestor talks about equal protection under law, they're referring to not getting shot by the government. When an alt-right protestor can be coaxed into listing the ways in which their legal rights are being infringed, they start bringing up stuff like the right to fire someone for being LGBTQ.
Its going to be pretty rare to find a modern conservative who really cares about LGBTQ to the point where they are set out to fire them based on that. (though Im sure you could find someone). I know quite a few conservatives and none of them care.
I honestly see the differences between the moderate left and moderate right as almost insignificant. If a 3rd party was formed I wouldnt even be surprised.
Were running out of room to reply here. Ill just say I guess the republican side is fractured just like the left is. For instance I know a lot of liberals who are not Marxists. Id really like that 3rd party. I feel like sane people are ready to ditch the insane people.
And yet, Republicans (let's not argue who's a true conservative) have continued to put a lot of effort into fighting against LGBTQ protections in recent years.
On the subject of "enabling the suppression of their fellow man", the only really hot-button issue for Republicans that can truly be framed as them defending against their own rights being suppressed is gun control. The rest of their major issues either fall on the wrong side of suppression, or aren't really about somebody being suppressed in any direct way.
Good point. Though a lot of the backlash against public health emergency powers actually being used when necessary is of a fairly knee-jerk, borderline anarchist nature (reminiscent of some recent anti-taxation movements that have been similarly vague). There's a difference between calling for government to have stronger protections on a particular right or freedom, vs simply rejecting any instance of government having a direct impact on your life.
It tends to be accompanied with a belief that things are not that serious or that there won't be a real benefit from the measures.
And the worst versions impute sinister motives among those implementing controls: that it's an attempt to suppress economic activity and make people slaves of the government/elites/etc.
For something you seem to think is "pretty rare"... I know quite a few people who would gladly discriminate against LGBTQ.
Indeed, a May 2020 Gallup poll says that 32% believe that same-sex consensual relations are wrong and 24% of the US believe that same-sex consensual relations should be illegal. So not only do they want to be able to not hire, they want people who like the same sex to face legal consequences.
And I think the Nazis had a list of a lot of legitimate sounding grievances, too. So I guess we just can't judge.
I'm sorry: one side doesn't get to ignore due process of law and try and overrun Congress, and then continue in the next days to make violent threats. If that can't be controlled on a platform, it's not surprising others don't want to have business relationships with that platform.
People charged the Capitol screaming for Pence's head. Then the next day, we have Lin Wood (whom Trump has repeatedly amplified) on Parler saying "Get the firing squads ready. Pence goes FIRST." Is this maybe out of bounds? Do we not think there's any chance that this call for violence might be heeded?
In most democratic countries it's quite common to see actual fascists in elections getting 5-15% of the vote. It is very much a fact that that's erring on the smaller side of the proportion of people in democratic societies who hold authoritarian positions.
> Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/) is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition and strong regimentation of society and of the economy which came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe.
"far-right" just to be clear that can mean anything and has throughout history. It also easily flips. The key thing to focus on is "authoritarian" which can occur within any political party.
pmiller2 The fact that youre saying both american parties are right wing is exactly what im trying to point out. The labels are pointless, people just call themselves whatever they want. The actions are the actions.
Debatable. Socialism is depriving people of the right to own private property and instead having a central authoritative figure decide who gets what. That sounds like fascism to me. And no public services is not socialism. The fire department is a public service funded by the capital markets. People like to confuse this.
Except that none of that is true. People still have personal property under socialism. Means of production are what's referred to as private property, and those are owned by the workers.
Fascists are just the socialists who want to keep going after socialism doesn't work. They like the "We're in power" part and don't mind the poverty/disease/war it always brings.
