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

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

#41

Post by drjesusphd »

empressplay wrote: post #21
drewrv wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just the Tolerance Paradox. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance Except not really. There's no movement on the left to outlaw what trump is saying. Pointing out something is racist on twitter is not "squashing dissent".

Erm, people have been trying to get him tossed off Twitter [1] and banned from entering various countries [2] and apparently some of his most vocal supporters have had their Twitter accounts mysteriously locked-out [3] [1] http://tech.slashdot.org/story/16/01/30/1847207/why-does-twi... [2] http://thevine.com.au/politics/australians-want-ban-donald-t... [3] http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/02/08/twitters-attempt-to.…

That's just the free market at work!

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

#42

Post by qrendel »

jacquesm wrote: post #30
onion2k wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Owning a book and reading it are two different things. We all own books we've never read.

Why on earth would you own a book you've never read?

Because you haven't gotten around to it yet but plan on reading it eventually.

Or just because you want to signal status by publicly displaying your bookshelf.

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

#43

Post by codesushi42 »

ranko wrote: post #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…

The plane example was a weak cherry pick in a weak article overall.

Trump is a bigot, but it's too early to say whether he's a fascist.

FDR forced Japanese citizens into internment camps, but history does not remember him as a fascist.

I'm not being an apologist for Trump's comments. But they're just not enough to classify him as a fascist.

If he advocates for more foreign wars, additions to the Patriot Act, or nationalizing entire industries, then we're getting warmer. Though, maybe he can claim one or two of those.

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

#44

Post by duncanawoods »

hnhg wrote: post #10
wmil wrote: 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.

It was an evolution. The party started as an anti-capitalist worker's party with a left-wing manifesto and parts of the party wanted to collaborate with the communist party.

However, Hitler jettisoned the left-wing aspects, cozied up to the capitalists and aristocrats to fund the growth of the party and reshaped the party inspired by Mussolini's fascists. The early socialist manifestos were an embarrassment for the party as it grew and it never attempted any of what that early party sought like disbanding the army, expropriating land from owners etc.

Here is the the early manifesto. The only thing recognisable from what the Nazi party eventually became is the anti-semitism:

http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/25Points.html

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

#45

Post by gozur88 »

djmdjm wrote: post #31
venomsnake wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nazi is national socialism. Fascism was in Italy and Spain.

The Nazi party was socialist in much the same way the DPRK is democratic.

Weird that they put the word in the name of the party when they didn't know what it means.

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

#46

Post by cronjobber »

jacquesm wrote: post #36
dang wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This recent interview with a scholar of Mein Kampf is one of the best things I've heard on NPR in years. Fascinating from start to finish, way more than I expected. http://www.npr.org/2016/01/14/463028807/the-failed-coup-that...

And now even non scholars in Germany are allowed to read the book. http://forward.com/news/328950/mein-kampf-no-longer-banned-i...

It was banned by applying copyright law, so Germans could legally buy and sell existing copies. From a comment by a book dealer I understood that supply reliably exceeded demand.

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

#47

Post by onion2k »

jacquesm wrote: post #30
onion2k wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Owning a book and reading it are two different things. We all own books we've never read.

Why on earth would you own a book you've never read?

I tell myself I'll get around reading them eventually. Although the backlog well is in to the hundreds now, so I don't imagine I actually will.

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

#49

Post by dang »

jacquesm wrote: post #36
dang wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This recent interview with a scholar of Mein Kampf is one of the best things I've heard on NPR in years. Fascinating from start to finish, way more than I expected. http://www.npr.org/2016/01/14/463028807/the-failed-coup-that...

And now even non scholars in Germany are allowed to read the book. http://forward.com/news/328950/mein-kampf-no-longer-banned-i...

That was the occasion for the interview and they go into it at the end.

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

#50

Post by dba7dba »

Trump is not a fascist. No way

He is a narcist. He spent like first 8 minutes of his first speech after winning New Hampshire saying things like

I love you. You love me. I have lots of money. You love me.

Actually Hitler was a narcist so maybe Trump is a fascist.

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