America is in danger of Fascism

Imperialist ≠ fascist

America was often imperialist, only had periods of fascist political movements and has been transitioning for a while.

Which dictionary are you reading? A key component of fascism is a dictatorship. You can argue about controlling oppositional voices or segmentation of society in the US, but a dictatorship is pretty core to fascism in any definition I've seen. And yeah, our voting system sucks that still doesn't make it a dictatorship.

Umberto Eco's Ur Fascism definition I think is pretty good. Often times, the "dictionary definition" isn't the best definition to use, especially when it comes to topics like political ideologies, which tends to be a bit more complex and nuanced than what can be encompassed in a simple colloquial dictionary definition.

Imma post the ur fascism aspects here.

1."The cult of tradition", characterized by cultural syncretism, even at the risk of internal contradiction. When all truth has already been revealed by tradition, no new learning can occur, only further interpretation and refinement.

2."The rejection of modernism", which views the rationalistic development of Western culture since the Enlightenment as a descent into depravity. Eco distinguishes this from a rejection of superficial technological advancement, as many fascist regimes cite their industrial potency as proof of the vitality of their system.

3."The cult of action for action's sake", which dictates that action is of value in itself and should be taken without intellectual reflection. This, says Eco, is connected with anti-intellectualism and irrationalism, and often manifests in attacks on modern culture and science.

4."Disagreement is treason" – fascism devalues intellectual discourse and critical reasoning as barriers to action, as well as out of fear that such analysis will expose the contradictions embodied in a syncretistic faith.

5."Fear of difference", which fascism seeks to exploit and exacerbate, often in the form of racism or an appeal against foreigners and immigrants.

6."Appeal to a frustrated middle class", fearing economic pressure from the demands and aspirations of lower social groups.

7."Obsession with a plot" and the hyping-up of an enemy threat. This often combines an appeal to xenophobia with a fear of disloyalty and sabotage from marginalized groups living within the society. Eco also cites Pat Robertson's book The New World Order as a prominent example of a plot obsession.

8.Fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies as "at the same time too strong and too weak". On the one hand, fascists play up the power of certain disfavored elites to encourage in their followers a sense of grievance and humiliation. On the other hand, fascist leaders point to the decadence of those elites as proof of their ultimate feebleness in the face of an overwhelming popular will.

9."Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy" because "life is permanent warfare" – there must always be an enemy to fight. Both fascist Germany under Hitler and Italy under Mussolini worked first to organize and clean up their respective countries and then build the war machines that they later intended to and did use, despite Germany being under restrictions of the Versailles treaty to not build a military force. This principle leads to a fundamental contradiction within fascism: the incompatibility of ultimate triumph with perpetual war.

10."Contempt for the weak", which is uncomfortably married to a chauvinistic popular elitism, in which every member of society is superior to outsiders by virtue of belonging to the in-group. Eco sees in these attitudes the root of a deep tension in the fundamentally hierarchical structure of fascist polities, as they encourage leaders to despise their underlings, up to the ultimate leader, who holds the whole country in contempt for having allowed him to overtake it by force.

10."Everybody is educated to become a hero", which leads to the embrace of a cult of death. As Eco observes, "[t]he Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death."

11."Machismo", which sublimates the difficult work of permanent war and heroism into the sexual sphere. Fascists thus hold "both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality".

12."Selective populism" – the people, conceived monolithically, have a common will, distinct from and superior to the viewpoint of any individual. As no mass of people can ever be truly unanimous, the leader holds himself out as the interpreter of the popular will (though truly he alone dictates it). Fascists use this concept to delegitimize democratic institutions they accuse of "no longer represent[ing] the voice of the people".

13."Newspeak" – fascism employs and promotes an impoverished vocabulary in order to limit critical reasoning.

Edit: numbered

That still doesn't prove the claim "America was always fascist"

Partially because being copied by the Nazis doesn't intrinsically mean you're fascist (they copied a hell of a lot of things, including but not limited to fascism)

And partially because that doesn't cover the "always" part at all

Doesn't really prove much. If the meme said "the US has always beaten down its minorities" or something like that, we wouldn't be quibbling over the wording here.

Don't know why you're getting down voted. Hitler literally said he looked to the US Army's genocide of Native Americans as a proof of concept for his own Jewish Holocaust.

In art i use tactics by bob ross, am i now as great of a painter as bob ross? Am i now bob ross? No! See how your argument is shit?

Those are definitely trait you'd expect from fascism, but they are neither necessary nor sufficient to be fascist. Fascism is not just doing a bad thing. It's a very specific set of traits, which the US does not meet —in my opinion and any other informed opinion that I've seen.

Doing evil things =/= fascism.

Fascists do evil things, so do others.

I think this is the best video on fascism https://youtu.be/5Luu1Beb8ng?si=Bfyx8qpyz9EbuFQX

I don't disagree that fascism has been part of the US always but it has been everywhere, it never went away, but it really came out with trump whether you think Trump is a fascist or just a useful idiot/ opportunist capitalist is up to debate imo. But his following has a large group of fascists.

They worship trump to an almost religious degree, they use fascist symbolism, they are predominantly white and believe they have a right to rule and be on top just because, they accept minorities and some lgb (not T) people as long as it lets them get into the position of power, then turn on them ( as seen by the many leopardsatemyface posts about gay republicans)

Fascism is a specific political ideology that has some telltale signs not just a collection if evil deeds, what's the point of using words if we bend the definition to whatever we want to say?

That's imperialism, fascism is a very, very specific concept.

I am pretty sure England allowed the Anschluss and for Germany to take parts of Czechoslovakia before WW2, because they thought that would be enough for Hitler, so does that mean England was fascist?

China has an active genocide going on, recently effectively annexed Hong Kong, and is threatening Taiwan. They're also a dictatorship, while the US at least has some semblance of democracy. A country like that exerting their power over the world unchecked seems in no way better. Probably not really worse than the US either, at least whenever there's a republican president.

The Ku Klux Klan was a tool of the slave owning oligarchs.

In his book How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them (2018), Jason Stanley defined fascism as "a cult of the leader who promises national restoration in the face of humiliation brought on by supposed communists, Marxists and minorities and immigrants who are supposedly posing a threat to the character and the history of a nation" and that "The leader proposes that only he can solve it and all of his political opponents are enemies or traitors."

While this resonates with trump, could you tell me how this fits to other American presidents? What traits US poses to call it "fascist"?

They're just casualties of his war of principles. He might as well be a billionaire - he's calling for the war but it won't really affect him and he doesn't care who it hurts. He'll just watch from his couch while eating popcorn.

Imagine it looking like Russia's collapse if Russia's military was the most expensive in the world with the among the best logistics, and 800 military bases across 70 countries. That's about the future of it.

He must be in the "but I did nothing, for I was not _____" stage.

A lot of people seem to be under the impression that if open fascists spouting fascist rhetoric at every opportunity take full control of THE MOST EXPENSIVE MILITARY IN THE WORLD, that it will just self-implode into a nice neat little controlled demolition.

Lmao that is naive at best. And actually wishing for it is downright stupid. I don't want Russia to collapse and kill itself, I want the scum leading their politics and militaries to be dealt with in the only manner befitting such filth. Anyone wishing different for the US or Russia, or ANY current or former world superpower that still has massive amounts of sway and firepower, is just wishing for collateral damage.

When shit hits the fan, it goes everywhere. When their backs are against a wall, they will strike out and take what they want, to hell with the fallout. Possibly literal.

A sad number of people just go "[large country] bad lol die" like their lives will be unaffected by such a massive global power shift.

The US has been continually committing terrorist acts (or enabling them) around the world for at least the last 70 years.

If the US is collapsing, perhaps they will have to let up a little and focus on its own civil war and take the boot off of the developing world somewhat.

People seem to forget that we actually maintain those things, and we are the only ones that have ever used one, well two. The only way the American collapse goes softly for the rest of the world is under a liberal or leftist government. They'll focus internally. Trump literally tried to use nukes multiple times in his last administration.

Sounds like we should let Russia continue because they have nukes.