Your corporate activist media was responsible for hundreds of deaths, inciting American riots a few years ago. Nobody is in jail.
People rioted because they watched a police officer murder a civilian in broad daylight, and noticed that this had happened many times prior with no consequences. That's not on the media.
All you said before that is what it is... but from this point on, everything you say begins with the assumption of picking one of eight definitions of "fight," and you miss of context, as I said, drives the rest of your claims. Nope. Wrong definition by context.
What are you talking about?
The discussion here is about Trump's language and whether it should have been interpreted as a call to violence. That's a question that isn't answered by just looking at the sentence before and after as if his speech occurred in a vacuum. To understand what he was conveying to the crowd you need to take into account everything which includes everything he did and said about this issue prior to his speech and logical implications of what he was telling them in real time.
"Peacefully" make your voices heard contradicts everything he told the crowd within that speech and over the two months prior, as well as everything he had endorsed up until that point including the preceding speeches carrying a very similar message. The lack of effort on his part to clarify his peaceful intentions by relying only on this one sentence while disregarding the rest also speaks volumes about whether he really wanted this one sentence to be absorbed.
"Peacefully" make your voices heard also makes absolutely no sense. The central claim he was making about the "other side" is one in which peaceful assembly would be deeply inadequate as a response, that's like telling a student to deal with the guy bullying him at school everyday by writing that bully a very strongly worded letter. You would question of you were understanding that directive correctly
So the conveyance of a desire to be peaceful fails on every level. Meanwhile the idea that he wanted the crowd to be violent is entirely consistent with everything he said on that speech as well as everything he said over the months prior, and consistent with the rest of his speech.
It is plainly obvious that the peaceful line was thrown in there so he could point to it later and go "duh see I told them to be peaceful". And guess what, the crowd that marched into the Capitol understood that very well.
Context, not only content, is king, my friend, in language.
Correct, so let's put his speech/statement in context.
Trump had spent the prior two months telling his supporters that democrats had stolen the election. Not stolen like a crazy last minute play at the end of the game, stolen as is a deliberate, coordinated and brazen attempt to defy the most basic rules and principals of Democratic governance in order to attain power over the will of the people standing in that very crowd.
Trump then calls on them all to come to DC to "stop" this from succeeding. Stop how exactly?
In his message he tells them the protests "will be wild". Have you ever heard of a peaceful protest described as wild? Of course not, that's an oxymoron.
Then the rally commences and Trump is preceded by speakers saying things like "let's have trial by combat", and "Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass!".
Then... Trump speaks.
In his speech he delivers 11k words over 70 minutes. One line... One... Ostensibly urges calm. The rest of his speech is remarkably inflammatory, telling the crowd they have to show strength, they have to fight, and if they fail they won't have a country anymore. This isn't the language and posture of someone who wants peace.
So now, with all of the context, we can evaluate Trump's "peacefully and patriotically" line. One of these things is not like the others.
Again, how do you make your voices heard to people who are literally in the process of stealing your voice? In any society, power is only achieved in one of two ways; agreement or force. Agreement is what democracy is founded on. If that is broken, force is the only thing remaining. So if the election is literally being stolen as Trump explicitly alleged for two months prior, revolution is the only option left. You can't accomplish that by yelling really loud.
The idea that Trump wanted them to be peaceful contradicts everything Trump demonstrated to the crowd that day and in the months prior. They were riled up to be violent before that speech even began. So you're absolutely right - context is king. But you have to apply the entire context, not just the cherry picked version that appeases your predisposition.
And if there was any doubt as to what Trump wanted, that was no longer reasonably debatable after Trump's 187 minutes of watching the riots on TV taking no official action to stop it.
No. Wrong. The line in question from Trump’s 1/6/2021 speech is, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” Page 4 of the 15-page transcript. https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/08/politics/trump-january-6-speech-transcript
Wrong? That's literally the exact same words I wrote.
Do you have a response to the rest? Did you notice how no where throughout the rest of the 15 page transcript could any other sentence urging calm be found? Do you really think this is how one who does not want violence behaves on stage? And do you really think this one sentence you and every other MAGA sympathizer loves to cherry pick makes any sense at all within the context it was uttered?
Read or listen to the trasncript of Trump's speech. "Go peacefully to the Capitol."
The line was "peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard". It was the single reference in an almost 11,000 word speech that was not inflammatory. The idea that any observer would hear that one line and drown out the rest of his speech is absurd.
It's also wildly incoherent when recognized in it's context. Make your voices heard to who? The people whom Trump just spent the prior two months telling the crowd were hell bent on stealing it?
I think federal prosecutors usually use discretion but if they really choose to screw you they can in a way that’s actually pretty grotesque.
Agreed, in fact that's kind of my point. The split picture of that this president chose to ignore and later sanction, vs what his administration is now choosing to throw the book at, is damning. If we were a serious country this would be the topic of our national discussion and this administration would be dragged out of the oval office. But we're not.
Do you agree that when atheists make positive claims, they have the onus of substantiating?
Of course, but that doesn't make their claim 'atheism'.
If a Pro lifer says Hitler was right, that doesn't mean Pro-life = fascism.
No, MAGA is not fundamentally unserious, it's fundamentally dishonest, fundamentally against free speech, fundamentally fascist, but we can't stop taking them seriously.
It’s all the same. I don’t mean “unserious” as in just goofing off, I mean it in the sense that they’re not actually trying to persuade anyone, because even they know how ridiculous they sound. It’s more like: “I know you know I don’t believe this, but I’m going to say it anyway, because I can.” It’s about power. Forcing us to sit through their nonsense, knowing it’s nonsense, and enjoying every second of how furious we get at the sheer absurdity of it.
And we're the morons he predicted would elect him.
Human nature really is predictable.
Throwing a sandwich at a police officer... 8 years in prison.
Beating the crap out of police officers as you break your way into the US Capitol... You're a hostage deserving of a presidential pardon.
Lately I find it difficult to even care about hearing MAGA clowns out, this is just fundamentally unserious.
To the Mandami supporters that I have heard from, it does.
Irrelevant, you made the claim. Own it or acknowledge it's nonsense.
They saw what Trump did in 2016 (appealing to the hard right base and they saw that it worked) and they are trying to emulate that.
I don't necessarily disagree with that. Mamdani and Trump both rode the same populist wave to their party's nomination. The difference is that Mamdani it so far appears, actually cares about the thinks he's campaigning on, whereas Trump just recognized what buttons to push in order to really up the stupid people.
So your opinion that TW can't compete with cis women in women's sports (I think this is what you agree with), is cancelable by the left, because to them, this means you think TW are men (because the belief that they should compete with women in sports is directly tied to the belief as to whether or not they are women).
Addressed this nonsense in the other thread. Respond to it.
None of this makes them "pro Trump"
Trump’s meeting with Putin will show how effective Trump is.
Oh yeah, that definitely came across in Helsinki.
Alright, so you then agree that Cuomo and Adams are de facto republicans because they are pro Trump, correct?
No. The fact that these guys are further to the right than the most left wing NYC mayoral candidate we've seen in our lifetimes doesn't make them "Pro Trump". Where are you getting that from? I can see a case for Adams given his legal troubles but that's not him being pro Trump, that's subservience as a means of self preservation.
What does it mean to be left wing in America? Left wing = Anti Trump. Right wing = Pro Trump.
Unfortunately, Trump has so co-opted our politics so deeply that this is mostly true. Traditionally, left wing generally means pro government involvement on economic issues and anti government involvement in social issues, and right wing is vice versa.
One good thing about Trump is that he has exposed the fact that the right wing base never really believed this as they continue to cheer Trump on as he uses the government to take over everything the right would have decried if a democrat even so much as postured that they might do such a thing.
Cuomo is not going to win, but even if he did it says nothing about pro Trump vs anti Trump. The choice is between establishment left and far left.
There is a good reason why they don’t. There is nothing to see there.
There are no beliefs to see there within atheism because that's not what atheism is. If an atheist expresses a belief it is by definition a belief expressed as an individual human being, not as an atheist.
Even atheists admit their beliefs.
Yes we do. What's your point?
We cannot assume every group is n group-think, just to have a convenient box in which to put people with whom we disagree.
Agreed. Most accusations of group think are a combination of laziness and projection. Essentially, "I don't have the ability and/or willingness to understand this, so I'm going to assume those who argue it are just flowing others, which makes sense to me because that's what I do, because I often lack the ability and/or willingness to understand."
Meaningfully implies an either/or.
Meaningfully implies a scale, which is the opposite of an either/or.
You would go on to argue that there should be a scale, which is just baffling. It's like you're arguing just for the sake of arguing. If you recognize the concept of a scale being applied to something like fascism then why do you argue as if we're dealing with an either/or?
So you are saying authoritarianism is a requirement for fascism, but fascism is a gateway to authoritarianism?
No. Authoritarianism is an umbrella term, fascism is a category under that umbrella.
You don't have to be fascist to be an authoritarian, but the traits we see within fascism (charismatic leader, scapegoating, glorification of violence, crushing dissent) are all specifically designed to help the leader achieve and enforce their power.
Why is charisma important? Because it softens the target audience for the other traits.
Why scapegoat? Because it's a very powerful tool in getting people to look the other way while you take their freedoms. It also crates a climate of fear making people more cautious about opposing you.
Why glorify violence? To show people what their fate will be if they cross you.
Why crush dissent? Because widespread criticism strengthens the opposition.
Authoritarianism is in a nutshell, a belief in centralized control. You have to believe in that (making you authoritarian) before you can employ the tactics above to achieve said centralized power.
You're confusion is that you keep thinking of those traits themselves as fascism under my conception, as if they're necessarily tied to it. They're not, what makes them tied to fascism is the purpose of employing them. Scapegoating doesn't make you fascist. Scapegoating as a means of trying to centralize power within yourself or your group is a trait of fascism. The fact that they are all part of the bigger picture is the key to all of this.
If you still don't understand this please read it again, slowly, before responding.
If there was a science teacher that wanted to teach about something the government doesn't think they should (ex: transgenderism for either side), then a lot of governments would prosecute them for doing it (usually not by jail, but by firing).
Anecdotal examples are irrelevant. What I just did was demonstrate a pattern of behavior. That's the part that matters. When one side regularly and predictably engages in tactics like this, only when the other side violates these espoused principals, it demonstrates that they're not principals at all. Espousing these principals is just rhetorical cover for abusive control.
Everytime I hear a theist claim atheism is a religion all I hear is "yeah my beliefs might be silly, but your beliefs are as silly as mine".
Your definition has 5 traits. Are 100% of them required to become a fascist? Or can you have 20% and it still counts as fascist? What % of these traits are required to become a fascist?
You're entire approach to identifying fascism is off. Fascism isn't a black or white issue where one is either a fascist or not a fascist with nothing in between. We're not talking about something like pregnancy with a nice either/or answer, we're talking about what point the term can be used meaningfully.
The first trait (authoritarianism) I would argue is essential, because fascism is basically a category of authoritarianism. None of the other traits would make sense of we took that first one away.
I suppose one of the other traits could be missing in theory, but that would only make the extremeness of the others more blatant to qualify.
While fascism is often thought of as an ideology, I think it's actually better thought of as a strategy (more likely guided by impulse) to achieve authoritarianism. The charisma of the leader is included because that is a crucial element in getting people to turn off their moral compass, which is needed for the other traits to work. Scapegoating is essential and central to fascism, but I think of it as another one of those traits that is a means to the end because it provides the distraction the leader needs to get people to look the other way while their rights are being taken. Suppression of dissent and glorification of violence; again, tactics of intimidation meant to secure the leader's power.
This is why I take issue with all of these attempts to point to random behavior on the other side that might be similar in some way as a means of equivocating. You can find examples of anything if you look hard enough, the question is whether these things are interconnected. It's like the difference between a bunch of random events occurring that produces a certain result, vs those events being part of an orchestrated plot. With Trump all of this is done to serve his ultimate purpose, to maintain power and bolster his ego.
So then is hypocrisy a tenant of fascism?
No, but it is prevalent within fascism. That's how you hide your true motivations, which is necessary when you're trying to get others to go along with the horrific things you are doing.
Alright; so you are saying cancel culture is fine as long as it's individuals doing the canceling and not the government? I can respect that standard, but I'm worried that these individuals might elect a government that enacts those viewpoints that they have
First off all, everyone wants content or people they find objectionable to be cancelled (Colin Kaepernick anyone?) so "those viewpoints" are prevalent within every side, thus you are voting them no matter who you vote for. The difference is whether you are voting for someone who believes in using state power to facilitate it, which is as you eluded to, a very different thing.
This is where it is crucial to understand Wich side actually believes in free speech and which side merely purports to. The side that supports government locking up students for protesting or writing a critical op ed, the side that supports punishing universities for not teaching what the government thinks they should, that punishes law firms for defending the "wrong" clients, that through both lawsuits and government regulation agencies goes after news organizations who report unfavorably about the administration... That's the side who is only pretending here. There is nothing remotely like this on the opposite side.
Why would Trump take anything from the White House.
My answer was very obvious tongue and cheek.
If he has no reason to take anything with him, that would apply to the plane too, right?
She's a politician with power; she's not fringe.
Don't have enough service to watch at the moment, don't care to anyway. I wasn't being literal when I said "no one", that should have been obvious. Regardless, I was speaking for myself and how I didn't say anything like that. Engage with my actual points.
What exceptions are those?
Exceptions that would give an unfair advantage.
If that feels like we just went around in a circle is cause we did. I already told you I couldn't go any further into detail cause I've never cared enough about this subject to read any further. We have people working all over the country running these sports programs and doctor's they're deferring to. Ask them.
Drug dealers know more about running a business than business professors. That's how useless degrees are
Drug dealing is a business, so of course someone who does something for a living will know a lot about it. It's a pretty vague to the point of meaninglessness to claim drug dealers know more about it than a business professor. More about what exactly? What data are you using to assess what each group knows in order to compare them? And How is this relevant to our conversation?
I agree; if I wanted a military, then I would be fine with trans people being in it because of freedom. But I'm anti military; war is mass murder.
This is just stupid. You asked me for examples of being against transgender rights so I provided the example of banning them from the military. Your personal preference for having no military at all has absolutely nothing to do with this conversation, it just comes off as a desperate and childish attempt to win the argument for the sake of it.
Then what else are they supposed to do? Stay silent on the trans issue? That's societal censorship.
Having an opinion and respecting others rights are two entirely different things.
So then essentially, open minded people operate on "facts" and logic whereas close minded people don't?
As it's been said, you cannot reason a person out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.
I don't care about facts; I care about logic; they are different.
Logic alone cannot reach a conclusion. It's only as good as the facts (aka premises) you're starting with.
By, "very unlikely", you mean, "virtually 0% chance within the next year".
Yes, but where you're wrong is to conflate that with closemindedness. I am unlikely to change my mind because I've given the subject a tremendous amount of thought to the point where there is almost nothing relevant about him you could tell me that I don't already know.
My conclusions are based on facts and logic, and so long as I'm being thorough and careful, neither of those will change, thus my opinions wouldn't either. That's what it looks like when one embraces critical thinking. The point of slowing things down and doing it right is to make sure you don't have to do things over again, the same exact thing applies to building a world view.
We've had plenty of wealthy presidents, so whey is it Trump who is willing, and has secured other private donors, to fund this project rather than taxpayers?
It’s probably being funded by Quatar and will be for Trump to take with him when he leaves office.
First, this is a silly Umbarto Eco-esque definition of fascism. A regime can be simultaneously authoritarian and not fascist, unless you think that fascism just means "mean dictatorship".
Perhaps you should read the criteria I provided again. Note that the first checkbox I provided was authoritarianism, followed by other checkboxes. That means authoritarianism is just one element, one test of whether we’re dealing with fascism. So yes, I understand what fascism means and the difference there.
If there's any sphere of society that a mass movement wants to lessen government interference over, said movement probably isn't fascist, even if it is authoritarian and/or autocratic.
Certainly this movement wouldn't tolerate the idea of homeschooling, or of churches that operate free of state control and don't pay taxes, or making health decisions for yourself and your children contrary to what state-employed experts recommend.
MAGA only tolerates these things when they agree with them. “Churches that operate free of state control” is only a value when we’re talking about Christian churches. Let’s see MAGA stand up and fight for the right of a mosque to exist. Making health decisions for yourself and your children? They’re trying to outlaw gender affirming care for minors.
These principals are only espoused when it aligns with their views, which is to say they’re not principals at all.
And assuming that Trumpism is generically authoritarian, the same is true of the contemporary left, evidenced by more anecdotes of canceling, deplatforming, firing, academic expulsion, pulling of books, cancellation of lucrative contracts, doxxing, violent assaults in the streets, and death-threat laden harassment campaigns than could possibly be counted in a lifetime.
This is all categorically different. First of all you can find anecdotes of anything, and if there’s anything the political right loves to do it’s scower the internet for every anecdote they can find so the can bootstrap them into “the left” rather than dealing with typical left wing ideology.
When we’re talking about fascism and authoritarianism, we’re talking about political movements utilizing or attempting to utilize state power for said means. That’s what’s happening on the right, there is no equivalent to this on the left. A bunch of people sitting on their couch or jumping on Twitter deciding that they don’t want to support someone or call them out for expressing horrific views is everyone’s right to freedom of speech and expression. Cancellations only occur when a significant portion of society agrees, that’s called the free market, that’s exactly how the system is supposed to work. Authoritarianism is bad because it defies how the system is supposed to work.
So, him calling Mexicans an inaccurate and mean name made him a fascist?
You are remarkably thick headed. I’ve already explained numerous times now that no one position or quality makes anyone a fascist. I’ve explained that we’re talking about a broad term that requires multiple tests in order to assess whether any individual meaningfully qualifies. If you’re not interested in understanding how terms such as this work just say so.
Mean names don't matter if they aren't coupled with mean policy
Meaningless opinion, fails to address the significance I’ve already pointed out, and fails to take into account how this is relevant to the actual topic at hand.
First off, it’s yet another demonstration of your lack of seriousness to try and downplay the significance of what Trump did by using childish characterizations over substantive argument. You said you debate for the fun of it, I’m truly wondering what is fun about being mindlessly dismissive at best and disingenuous at worst.
I already explained that Trump’s demonization of Mexicans is a large part of what set the stage for his treatment of South American migrants today. Rhetoric isn’t disconnected from policy, it forms the basis of it. If you really want to educate yourself, review any psychological study on how the usage of terms by political leaders helps to shape a country’s attitude towards the topic. Start by Googling the Overton window and why it moves.
The purpose of pointing all of this out is to further make the point that you cannot reasonably dismiss what Trump said within the context of discussing whether he is a fascist. These terms aren’t just uttered for the fun of it, there’s a purpose. It’s part of a bigger picture, Trump understands intuitively if nothing else what he’s doing there. That, is what makes him a fascist.
lets say 0 is as left as you can go and 100 is as right wing as you can go. Lets say 90 or higher is fascist and 10 or lower is communist. Why is it 90 and not 89 or 91? Conversely, why is 10 the communist marker and not 9 or 11? It's an arbitrary line at the end of the day.
The drinking age is arbitrary, that doesn’t mean we let 4 year olds down shots of tequila.
This ‘arbitrary = bad’ point is only impactful to someone who prefers to think about everything in binary terms. The world doesn’t work that way. If you want to understand it you have to do the work and stop trying to oversimplify everything.
Trump did that with Cheney and Harris did it with RFK. Neither should have kicked them out.
Blatant false equivalence. What Harris “did” to RFK wasn’t remotely similar to what Trump did to Cheney. Trump didn’t just get Cheney kicked out of the party, he attacked her personally, relentlessly, not because of her beliefs but specifically because she defied him. That is something entirely different.
Moreover, Cheney was just one example. With Trump this is how he operates. It is strikingly predictable, and it is that very predictability that makes this a meaningful box to check on the fascism scale. One-offs do not demonstrate an ideology, consistency is what does.
He was asking a question, and people called him a fascist over him asking questions.
Accepting your characterization for the sake of argument… then those people are idiots. That has nothing to do with whether Trump is a fascist.
The annoying thing is as much as the left wants the right to call out Nazis, virtually no left winger would call out the crazy woman who argued that desalination plants are depriving fish of their natural recourse
Irrelevant to whether Trump is a fascist
At least Trump's cult doesn't make you bodily suffer to join.
Not really.
Reading this part reminded me of what I consider to be a useful illustration of the difference between a religion and a cult; In a religion, your savior sacrifices themselves for you. In a cult, you sacrifice yourself for your savior.
This describes Trump and MAGA perfectly. Trump is forever demanding unflinching loyalty, but he is loyal to no one. In Trump world, it’s all about him. The minute you cross him or are no longer useful to him you will be discarded, and if you voted for him he will fight for you only so long as it benefits him.
This is a euphemism for, "I can't define it but I'm going to use the term anyway to disparage the right because it's scary"
Wow, you really don’t understand how any of this works.
Fascism is an ideology, and like all ideologies, it’s not defined by one’s position on any one issue, just as your position on any one issue doesn’t make you a liberal or a conservative. These terms are inherently vague to define, which is why we use tests to measure it, the exact same thing psychologists have to do in order to diagnose you.
What was the 1st piece of evidence that Trump was a fascist?
The day he first announced that he was running for president and called Mexicans criminals and rapists. He showed us then that his campaign was going to be all about scapegoating a particular segment of the population, a central quality of fascism.
I do not, BUT I think every politician is at least a little bit authoritarian.
Everyone has at least once in their life told a lie, does that make everyone a liar?
This is a meaningless way to define terms. The test of when such a label would apply is when the behavior is extreme.
They defend him no matter what (and they shouldn't). But this would be an issue with Trump's base, not Trump himself.
Wrong. While this certainly does apply to MAGA more directly as being a fascist movement, MAGA’s treatment of Trump as the center of their politics is not an accident. This is exactly what Donald Trump wants and demands from anyone who supports him. When any Republican takes a position against him, he doesn’t respond by pleading his case and arguing why he is right and why his position is better for the people he purportedly serves, no, he responds by attacking them personally and threatening to primary them.
In Trumpworld, dissent is unacceptable. Liz Cheney voted with him something like 93% of the time, more than nearly every other Republican in Congress, but she refused to pretend the election was stolen so she was booted out of politics altogether. That’s what cults do, and Trump purposefully facilitates this.
All deportations are equally bad
This is just plain stupid. You might as well argue that all theft is equally bad, so the guy who once stole a candy bar and the guy who professionally robs banks are the same.
Rhetoric is only useful on people that don't do their research and operate on emotion/stupidiy (synonyms).
Yeah, that’s the majority of most societies, and that’s the point.
All of this strong man rhetoric is designed to take advantage of easily gullible and manipulable people, it’s a science and has been proven to work many times over. Have you seriously never thought about why an entire country would go down the path of executing 12 million jews? It’s built into human nature and can be exploited, that’s why fascism and authoritarian experts have been ringing the alarm bells about Trump for years. It’s not to say that he will or even would do the same things as Hitler, but that nothing good comes from going down this path. We’ve seen it many times throughout human history, we are no different.
So it's mere rhetoric then, not actual policy.
The rhetoric is where policy comes from. We just booted 12 million people off of Medicaid to make room for millions more ICE agents to go arrest abuelitas. That doesn’t happen without Donald Trump inciting half the country to think these people picking fruit and cleaning out houses are really all secret MS13 gang bangers.
What my point was trying to hint at is that the left basically, "cries wolf" at fascism to where I can't believe them if they are genuine about it. They called Trump a racist over a border wall (when it was built by Bush and they didn't label him a fascist over it). It's billionaire media hype. That's all that it is.
Instead of assessing the proposition based on your reading of the messengers character, you’d be better served by applying critical thinking.
I'm unsure if he is a fascist. I'm not trying to dodge, but I'm just not sure.
We’ve been talking about this for days now. What’s stopping you from reaching a conclusion?
You could argue Christianity and Islam are fascist for this. So because of that, I don't think your definition of fascism is good unless you would argue that Christians and Muslims are fascists.
If you don’t like my definition you are free to do your own research and offer an alternative.
That aside, fascism is explicitly a political ideology, so I don’t think religious ideology even applies. Regardless, I wouldn’t argue that religions are not fascistic, in fact it kind of makes sense because it explains why the most religious among us are more likely to support Trump. If these ideas have been crammed into them since birth, of course they’re less likely to see a problem with it in real life.
If someone then identifies as a woman and that's all that it takes to become a woman…
No one is saying this. Have you paid attention to anything I’ve written?
What exceptions would you make?
Exceptions that ensure TW do not have an unfair competitive advantage.
Who are the experts?
An expert is someone who has spent a significant amount of time devoted to studying or implementing a particular field, and has demonstrated knowledge or abilities within that field that far exceed the average observer.
JFK does not qualify. Not only has he not put in the time in any real sense (peddling internet conspiracy theories doesn’t qualify), but he has also shown himself to be a kook on these issues.
If one thinks TWAM, then they kindof have to either call a TW a man or lie about their opinions.
This makes no sense.
Every country worldwide should spend $0 annually on the military budget; this means no more troops.
Setting aside the absurdity of this proposal, it’s irrelevant to this discussion. If you believe America should have troops, but no trans troops, you’re discriminating against trans people. Not complicated.
That was the point I was making earlier among the many examples I listed, offering alternative ways to deal with the issue doesn’t change the point.
It's very easy to change your mind before Trump; many did. It's a lot harder during the Trump era because he polarizes virtually everybody.
Again, irrelevant. We’re talking about open mindedness and I gave you very specific criteria on what it is and how it’s tested? Did you have any thoughts on that?
I would be very unlikely to change my mind about Trump because I know what my values are and Trump is the antithesis of pretty much all of them. Even setting aside values, to get me to move significantly in Trump’s direction you would have to convince me that a man who shows himself to be a complete and total narcissistic childish petulant imbecile is actually a brilliant strategic caring thinker, so at best the man is a complete and total fraud.
It’s a tired tactic replying to each individual example and pretending like those are the only examples and pretending that each one exists in isolation. Fascism, like any other political ideology, is broad so it cannot be established by any individual example. You need to look at the greater picture, if you’re unwilling to do that then that’s your business. You do not need to be in tune with reality if you don’t want to, but it will still be there.
Authoritarianism: Basically, being an electoral sore loser and getting violent with it. The left called Trump fascist before Jan 6, so it's not the reason they were calling him fascist in 2018.
While there was plenty of evidence available in 2018 that Trump was a fascist, that is irrelevant. When we form a belief we do so based on the best evidence available to us, and we update our beliefs as better information comes in, so in 2025 it is grossly disingenuous to argue based only on what we knew in 2018.
To the first point, characterizing Trump’s post election actions as “being a sure loser” is also grossly disingenuous. The man spent months spreading the lie that the election was stolen, called the mob to DC, incited them to attack the Capitol, then did nothing for 187 minutes while the US Capitol was overrun. Along with everything else, he went far, far beyond being a sore loser, that’s trying to steal an election.
Do you dispute Trump is an authoritarian? Yes or No?
What's wrong with being charismatic and having a cult following
What’s wrong with it is that democratic governance is supposed to be about representatives of the people working on behalf of the people, not the people working on behalf of their elected leaders.
In a democracy, you’re supposed to challenge your leaders, hold them to account, and demand results. Trumps cult following couldn’t care less about any of that, they defend him no matter what he does. We just got the worst jobs report since the pandemic. Is the base furious being that Trump was supposed to be the guy who was going to fix everything and is now making it worse? No, he blamed the person who released the report, something no one has ever done, and now the base is following suit. Because in a cult reality is whatever the cult leader says.
Demonizing the "other": How does MAGA do this to left wingers where it's not vice versa? The closest thing I can think of is immigration; but Harris and Obama deported more people than Trump did (more harmless people without papers as well). Trump is the honest deporter.
Firstly, the whole “Obama deported more people” is a tired nonsensical retort. Retire it. The issue isn’t how many people got deported, it’s how Trump is going about doing it. Obama didn’t instruct ICE to go grab illegals working on farms and at Home Depot’s. He didn’t grab them right out of their immigration hearings. He didn’t pretend abuelitas were part of MS13. He didn’t send people to foreign prisons in blatant and egregious violation of their due process. He didn’t ignore court orders. He didn’t build concentration camps to store all of these people, many of which have done nothing wrong. And he didn’t pretend every illegal immigrant was a violent criminal as an excuse to carry out all of this.
That’s what’s at issue here.
Fascism is an ideology, not a policy position. The question isn’t your policy, it’s what’s driving your policy. One of, if not the core feature of fascism is turning a society against itself through scapegoating. Don’t like how your life is turning out? It’s because of those immigrants. It’s because of those gay and trans people. It’s because of those liberal cities. If Trump did not have scapegoating he would have nothing.
Glorification of force/suppression of dissent: The left called Trump fascist before Jan 6 and before he got a Harvard professor fired over her being anti Zionist.
Same point, so what? Even if you had a point here and there were not tons of examples pre Jan 6th we could use, your argument is at best that we were eventually proven right.
So instead of doing this thing where you just pretend the examples I gave are the only examples out there and pretend they’re not serious at all, not with argument but with characterization, let me just ask - Do you believe Trump is a fascist? Yes or No? Do you accept my criteria as a good representation of what fascism is?
If no and then yes, please pick one of the categories and we’ll focus on that one.
