Timothy Snyder: What does it mean that Donald Trump is a fascist? - We should expect him to try to cling to power until death, and create a cult of January 6th martyrs
Timothy Snyder: What does it mean that Donald Trump is a fascist? - We should expect him to try to cling to power until death, and create a cult of January 6th martyrs
Trump takes the tools of dictators and adapts them for the Internet. We should expect him to try to cling to power until death, and create a cult of January 6th martyrs.
Trump has always been a presence, not an absence: the presence of fascism. What does this mean?
When the Soviets called their enemies “fascists,” they turned the word into a meaningless insult. Putinist Russia has preserved the habit: a “fascist” is anyone who opposes the wishes of a Russian dictator. So Ukrainians defending their country from Russian invaders are “fascists.” This is a trick that Trump has copied. He, like Vladimir Putin, refers to his enemies as “fascists,” with no ideological significance at all. It is simply a term of opprobrium.
Putin and Trump are both, in fact, fascists. And their use of the word, though meant to confuse, reminds us of one of fascism’s essential characteristics. A fascist is unconcerned with the connection between words and meanings. He does not serve the language; the language serves him. When a fascist calls a liberal a “fascist,” the term begins to work in a different way, as the servant of a particular person, rather than as a bearer of meaning.
[...]
Fascism is a phenomenon, not a person. Just as Trump was always a presence, so is the movement he has created. It is not just a matter of the actual fascists in his movement, who are scarcely hiding, nor of his own friendly references to Hitler or his use of Hitlerian language (“vermin,” “enemy within”). He bears responsibility for what comes next, as do his allies and supporters.
Yet some, and probably more, of the blame rests with our actions and analysis. Again and again, our major institutions, from the media to the judiciary, have amplified Trump’s presence; again and again, we have failed to name the consequences. Fascism can be defeated, but not when we are on its side.
The non-voters and the dipshit third party voters will spend the next however many years blaming “Democrats” instead of themselves for whatever horrors come out of Trump and his administration. Was it worth it to keep a normal person like Harris out of office? Not asking now, it’s just a question to ponder if we’re allowed to have Midterm elections.
The 900 page Project 2025 document is still freely available, if you’re curious about what’s coming.
No need to blame third party. At least they voted.
Voters didn't show up, period. It's so bad that literally every democratic voter could have instead voted 3rd party and Trump still would have won.
Blame the DNC for not having a primary, and blame voters for not showing up to vote for things like Ranked Choice Voting.
But third party voters actually voted this time. The fault is not on them. (Unless they were saying there's no point to voting)
“No primary” is the excuse I keep hearing. Well, given the three months notice, wtf did people want? Harris is VP, next in line for the presidency. So she’s the obvious choice. They could have had an open convention. But Harris appeared to have overwhelming support from Democratic voters. So an open convention would have had no challengers. I’m sorry a whole bunch of people couldn’t muster a vote for her in light of the alternative authoritarian POS that will now run the country.
And the Greens are 100% a spoiler party, trotting out their unqualified (Stein couldn’t answer how many people are in Congress, a basic bit of civics) shill candidate every four years while doing absolutely jackshit as a party at any other time. They have never got someone elected to Congress in the entirety of their existence. Because they don’t even try.
Has anybody read up on dictatorships in general? If we are fortunate we'll endure a 30-50 year autocratic government headed by Trump monarchs and then a ten year period of juntas and civil wars and then finally piss weak liberal democracy again for a bit.
For the record I was hardly blaming you; in fact I was sort of building on your point. People who nonvoted or voted Trump or third party will spend the rest of their lives experiencing fascism and civil strife like they've read about in history. We are done hypothesizing. There are two months before America becomes really really whacky. I hope supposed left leaning people remember where they were and how they felt when they chose ABSOLUTELY FUCKING WRONG LMAO
Fascism is, at heart, at least as much an economic system as it is a political one, and broadly, more so.
Fascism, alongside its political control of the populace, establishes economic control of the populace, and it does it very simply, by organizing the government to serve businesses and the wealthy few who control them, and by establishing a revolving door by which a relative few are allowed to freely move between control of the two.
This is the underlying point of Project 2025, and specifically the reason for the planned purge of civil servants. They are to be replaced by people who can be counted upon to serve the interests of the wealthy few and to deny the interests of the rest of the populace.
Again and again, our major institutions, from the media to the judiciary, have amplified Trump’s presence; again and again, we have failed to name the consequences. Fascism can be defeated, but not when we are on its side.
Those in power in those institutions, even if they don't share the political goals of Trump and his coattail-riders, are driven by their own greed to at the very least not stand too much in the way, since they too expect to profit.
That sounds a lot like corruption.
Not every country plagued by corruption is fascist, but every fascist country has been plagued by corruption.
Mmm... sort of.
In some very broad sense, yes, it's corruption.
In a narrower and more precise sense though, it isn't really, since "corruption" implies a violation of higher standards, which is what we've had, to a greater or lesser extent, pretty much throughout our history.
The difference in the coming era is that there will be no higher standards to corrupt. The things that were previously violations of higher standards will become the new standards. Theft and graft and cronyism will no longer be crimes or even (meaningfully recognized) wrongs - they will be the institutional norms.
And I don't mean this as mere pedantry - the point is that when what used to be corruption becomes the overt norms, things will get much, much worse than they ever were or could be when they were still corruption.
At this point, I'm just resigned - let us go to the brink, allow the forces of Mordor to assail the walls of Gondor - either the white tree blossoms or doesn’t.
When people see that the doors are torn down and the city is burned, 10 million people will decide they shouldn't have sat out the election.
Why blame the people who didn't vote? They didn't vote for a reason surely, just as you and I voted for a reason. Just because their reason isn't the same as yours doesn't mean it isn't just as valid. Maybe it's ignorance or perhaps it's misinformation, but at this moment there's no way to know that, so discounting 10 million peoples conscious choice only serves to widen divides and alienate more people.
Blame Harris and the DNC for running bad campaigns and candidates. It's on them to win the voters and an election, and it should have been clear that 'the same campaign as last time and the time before' wasn't working.
No matter who we point at, we're going to have to start reengaging with our communities and supporting each other, and having those 10 million (likely somewhere left of moderate right) people on side going forward is vital.
Why blame the people who didn't vote?
Because voter participation was only 65% and dropped compared to 2020 (in fact, Trump effectively got the same votes) and this was an election about continuing our democracy, or enabling a fascist to avoid accountability. People were worried about who Kamala was and what she would do - that pales in comparison to what Trump will do
It been all over since the guy[shrub] who lied us into two 20 year wars & brought us the Patriot act, got re elected
Haliburton won, the DoD who can't pass an audit continues to have an open checkbook & ever increasing budgetThen we moved to Hope & Change, that turned out to be great for banks & insurance companies
Every cycle is portrayed as vitally important with a platform of
We Suck Less
The Donor Class calls the tuneAllowing money to overtly be speech removed the pretense of representation for the rest of us
The expectations have changed
Avoiding the appearance of impropriety
Degraded to Maintain Plausible Deniability
Eroded to
Prove it in a Rigged Court of Law Beyond any Conceivable Doubt no Matter How AbsurdEnabling all this is a solid 1/3rd of the population that have reduced empathy
Energized by the various corporate media that have been consolidated into unanimous support for our not so benevolent overlordsEvery cycle is portrayed as vitally important with a platform of We Suck Less
Not this time. GQP actively campaigned for all the worst policies and actively making things worse and people still voted for it.
The new Horst Wessel Lied will be performed by Kid Rock.
The ridiculous histrionics continues until every liberal publisher gets paid.
They wrote the exact same shit in 2016.
and there was a massive violent insurrection only controlled by shooting a couple people in the face before they were able to tear the speaker of the house and the vice presidents limbs from the rest of their bodies in their hidding places. go away, you fool.