Live data from Hacker News

Is Donald Trump a fascist? A historian of fascism weighs in

slate.com

11–20 of 63 posts

Re: Is Donald Trump a fascist? A historian of fascism weighs in

#11
This is a political story, but it's also unusually interesting in HN's sense, so we've exempted it from the usual penalties.

If you're going to comment, please be sure you're doing so out of intellectual curiosity, the guiding value of this site. Partisan boosting and bashing is off topic.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Is Donald Trump a fascist? A historian of fascism weighs in

#13
post #10
post #2

There's a famous joke that "fascist" in politics just means "I don't like you" It's just an ill-defined insult at this point. George Orwell had interesting things to say. http://orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/efasc

I've seen more than a handful of presumably right-wing commentators on Reddit of late arguing that the Nazis were actually socialists or 'communists' rather than a right-wing group. The ensuing (typically unresolved) argument comes down to how fascism is defined for each person. Fascism is clearly in the eye of the beholder.

"Nazi" actually stands for "Nationalsozialismus", or in plain English, National Socialism.

Re: Is Donald Trump a fascist? A historian of fascism weighs in

#15
post #10
post #2

There's a famous joke that "fascist" in politics just means "I don't like you" It's just an ill-defined insult at this point. George Orwell had interesting things to say. http://orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/efasc

I've seen more than a handful of presumably right-wing commentators on Reddit of late arguing that the Nazis were actually socialists or 'communists' rather than a right-wing group. The ensuing (typically unresolved) argument comes down to how fascism is defined for each person. Fascism is clearly in the eye of the beholder.

[deleted]

Re: Is Donald Trump a fascist? A historian of fascism weighs in

#16
"Hello, editor, I've got this great idea for an article on the presidential race -- I'd like to do something serious; you know, not one of those fluffy hatchet jobs or gotchas, but really get some proper perspective and analysis and delve deep into the heart of the issue. I think our readership would really appreciate us respecting their intelligence, their judgment, and laying out the different sides of the argument, and all the facts in all their detail. Let the reader make up their own mind, rather than just seeing the same old biased spin. Sorry, what's that? What the issue is? Oh, yes, I'd like to write something really serious and analytical on whether this politician I don't like is dumber than a day-old turd."

Re: Is Donald Trump a fascist? A historian of fascism weighs in

#17
post #8

The things Donald Trump says (such as "stop Mexicans from coming into our country illegally" or "ban Muslims from immigrating to our country until we're confident in our terrorist screening process") offend a LOT of people. People who don't believe such things should be said, or even talked about. People who, when someone says these things, viciously attack them, saying they are morally wrong for thinking those thing…

You're misusing the word fascist. You probably mean something more like 'hard-liners' or 'extremist'.

[deleted]

Re: Is Donald Trump a fascist? A historian of fascism weighs in

#18
Fascinating stuff. As ever, the answer is "it's complicated". We can see Trump adopting (presumably unconsciously) some of the tropes of fascism; the business with the plane, for example. This doesn't, of course, make him a fascist in itself.

I suspect that he would qualify as an authoritarian nationalist on some level, but whether he is interested in the kind of martial law usually associated with fascism seems less certain to me.

Post reply on HN