Double_R

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.

This is just silly.

The left doesn’t call Trump supporters fascists because of edgy humor, they call them fascists because they support a fascist.

Here’s a real list of what fascism entails;

Authoritarianism - Trump doesn’t believe in any check on his power and literally tried to steal an election

Charismatic leader with a cult like following

Demonization/Scapegoating of the “other” (perhaps MAGA’s most prominent trait)

Glorification of force (pardons J6 rioters, celebrates “being tough” on everyone from criminals to illegals i.e. ‘Aligator Alcatraz’, loves watching ICE smash windows of illegals, military parades)

Suppression of dissent (sues 60 Minutes for a routine edit, locks up students for protesting or writing an unfavorable editorial, withholds funding from Harvard and other universities who don’t do what they say, gleeful about getting Stephen Colbert fired, fires the BLS commissioner for reporting unfavorable job numbers)

That is what fascism is, and Trump is an extreme example in every category. If you support him, you are a fascist, full stop.

How is it a complex question?

Because there’s more to the question of what a woman is than their genitals. How do you define a woman?

Then what does it mean to be against trans rights then?

It’s broad generalization that includes taking positions against treating trans people as the gender they identify with. It can include many different things, like refusing to acknowledge their preferred gender or name, forcing them to use bathrooms that don’t align with their physical status, banning them from the military, passing laws requiring that people like them are not allowed to be talked about in schools, stuff like that.

Alright; so things changed. What is your current position then on this?

I didn’t say anything changed here, I was referring to the fact that of all trans issues out there on the left, this is perhaps the least agreed upon and least thought about so it’s disingenuous to focus your portrayal of the left on this niche subtopic.

I generally agree that trans women should not be allowed to play in women’s sports. There are however cases where it’s debatable depending on the demands of the sport and the actions taken to ensure fairness, but I couldn’t go into any further detail because I just don’t care enough about this topic to research it any further. I leave that to the experts who deal with it.

Then what issue is representative of the greater issue?

The ones I named above. Issues that actually affect the well being and fundamental human dignity of the people who experience gender dysphoria. Anti-trans activists love retreating to the sports issue because it’s probably the only prominent example where the anti-trans position can be defended without relying on bigotry.

Alright; so you started out left wing and then become more left wing? Alright. I meant have you (by yourself, not with the party at large) went from having a left wing stance to a right wing stance on an issue? I used to be hardcore conservative, but that's changed.

Losing my faith because of argument is a pretty big example of open mindedness, not sure what more you need to recognize your initial assumption was wrong.

I can’t think of any specific examples where I changed my position from a left wing stance to a right wing, my evolution started on the right, albeit briefly. I started off in politics identifying with the Republican Party and rooting for John McCain. After watching the debates I switched to Obama. He just made more sense to me. I spent the next few months switching back and forth from Fox News to MSNBC. I settled on the latter, the former was just too much nonsense and propaganda for me.

You really seem stuck on the idea that open mindedness requires that one has to actually change their positions. I don’t buy that. Sure it’s a good way to demonstrate it, but OM requires only that one be willing.

The test of OM is whether one bases their positions on logic and reason, demonstrated by whether they can match their convictions with thought-through in depth explanations for why they believe what they believe, and whether they are consistent in their reasoning. If one is careful in forming their positions, there would rarely be a case where they would need to change their mind.

No; they say a woman is anyone that identifies as a woman.

Yeah, that’s what happens when you demand simple answers to complex questions - you get a simple answer that not only doesn’t address the issue, but one that also doesn’t represent the complexity of the viewpoint of those whom you demanded the overly simplistic answer from. Who knew?

If saying, "I don't agree with the statement, "A woman is anyone that identifies as a woman" " violates transgender human rights, then 60% of the country violates trans human rights according to Pew Research (and so do I). Buzzwords and buzz phrases like, "human rights" don't mean anything anymore.

No one is saying this. The national point of contention has nothing to do with your stated position on a phrase.

Saying you want to ban them from sports is saying TWAM which the left argues violates human rights (the % are roughly identical with sampling size being the difference).

This is such a niche issue the political right is obsessed with. I, as a lefty have never taken the position trans women should be allowed to play in woman’s sports and I don’t know anyone on the left in real life that ever gave this much if any thought til it became a political talking point on every right wing network and podcast. So no, you don’t get to pretend like every lefty thinks the same on this issue.

The reality is, the right focuses heavily on this one issue not because any of them really think this matters, but because this is the one subtopic where the right is in the majority, so they have to keep the conversation here while ignoring every other aspect of trans rights. The goal is to pretend the sports issue is representative of the greater issue. It’s not, no matter how many clicks it generates.

Fine. But for me, it's pointless because I already know of the opposing side's viewpoints and you probably do as well. It's like a 1st grader learning about 2+2=4 when they learned it last year; it's pointless.

Quite arrogant of you to presume you already fully understand opposing viewpoints, but you’re entitled to that.

If you think it’s all pointless regardless then why are you here?

Has this ever happened with you in the years that you have debated?

I joined DDO as a theist and left an atheist, so yeah.

I've decided (and this is very tough to say) that there is nothing immoral about being an ideological hypocrite.

Hypocrisy isn’t immoral, it just shows you to be an unserious person because where criticisms are valid and it doesn’t change your stance on either side, it means you don’t actually care about that which you purport to care about. The only question left is whether you are trying to convince your audience or yourself.

For example:

If you don't want to arrest the makers of this:

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/618DNn-65GL._UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg

But want to arrest the makers of generic child porn, then you're a hypocrite

Standards since then have changed considerably, accessibility to actual child porn being a major catalyst. Most people back then couldn’t really fathom the idea of an adult being sexually turned on by a photo like that, so we all just thought it was funny. Now we know better. But even setting that aside, actual child porn, where the intent is to put children on display for the sexual gratification of adults, is still orders of magnitude worse than a bad attempt at a funny picture. There’s nothing hypocritical there.

the left wants rehabilitation for rapists and murderers (unless the convict's name is Trump)

No idea where you are getting that from. To the extent there is any truth there, it’s that the left believes people can in fact be rehabilitated. Nothing about that idea though would apply to Trump because the first step to rehabilitation is admitting you were wrong, something Trump would never do.

Straight left wing men believe TWAW but wouldn't date them because they think it's gay (even if ideal in every other category). 

Left wingers take a much more nuanced view on the question of what a woman is than their overly simplistic right wing counterparts. TWAW is a statement regarding the treatment of TW by society, that has nothing to do with what the person who supports that basic human right should or shouldn’t find sexually attractive.

How can you change someone's mind on an issue when they don't really care about hypocrisy? If you just can't change anyone's mind because people are so proud of their opinions as if it's a big part of their identity, then there is no point in debating on anything.

If your marker of success when engaging with people who disagree with you is to change their minds you’re setting yourself up for perpetual disappointment. People, particularly those who have strong opinions (like the kind of people you’d find spending their free time on a debate site) are very unlikely to change their minds about anything, especially within a relatively short conversation. I carry no expectation of that, I do it for the exercise in spotting logical fallacies and the opportunity to learn more about opposing viewpoints. If I’m right, the conversation validates my position further, giving me more confidence in what I believe. If I’m wrong, even better. Now I can rid myself of previously held false or fallacious positions and become more in tune with reality.

But to your initial question, if progress is what you want then engaging with hypocrites is pointless. Either be satisfied with putting it on display for others, or move on.