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Ten Signs of Fascism. America has all of them

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Re: Ten Signs of Fascism. America has all of them

#101

Post by tomhow »

krapp wrote: post #34
ngruhn wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Welcome to Hacker News. Blood in the streets doesn't spark curious conversation so let's talk about compilers! Probably for the better. Otherwise it quickly becomes politics all day everyday. There are plenty of other places where you can get that already.

>Otherwise it quickly becomes politics all day everyday. No, it doesn't. This is one of Hacker News' weird phobias but it doesn't reflect reality. I know the mods believe it too so there's no point in debating it but even Reddit isn't politics all day every day. The nature of the community here is a self-correcting mechanism. This thread is not a flamewar, the posted article isn't low quality (certainly not on a foru…

> The nature of the community here is a self-correcting mechanism

As if by magic ;)

> This thread is not a flamewar, the posted article isn't low quality... it poses literally no threat to the community, but HN still treats it like a cancer

These threads are bad for HN because they’re not new topics and they don’t yield new insights. The question of whether this label applies to this administration has been discussed for over a decade. What difference does it make to talk about it again? Who is going to be changing their mind or their plans now, in response to this post? Do we ever see any interesting new ideas in these threads?

If we had a steady supply of articles that spawned discussions on HN that could generate new ideas about how to address the political/economic dysfunction we see all over the world, we’d happily have them on the front page every day.

Re: Ten Signs of Fascism. America has all of them

#102

Post by [deleted] »

Schmerika wrote: post #50
drdrek wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I'm actually saying that while the US is getting worse, it is in fact not fascist. You obviously disagree, and the fact that you do proves the point that it can get a lot worse. Did you know Germany has really fascist laws on regarding displaying Nazi symbols even more than the US? You can get deported for it! In China you can disappear talking about Taiwan, In the UAE you can by saying something anti Islam. Ther…

> You obviously disagree, and the fact that you do proves the point that it can get a lot worse. Are people being thrown in camps for what they say? Are they being gunned down in broad daylight in the street for peaceful protest? ... If so, maybe my disagreement is backed up by facts. And maybe "it can get worse" isn't pulling much weight here. Right now we have a ~100% pro genocide party, and a roughly 90% pro genoc…

[deleted]

Re: Ten Signs of Fascism. America has all of them

#104

Post by cindyllm »

ethbr1 wrote: post #100
te_234343546 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that America is not in a terribly healthy democratic state, and pretty much all of the indicators show it. At best, America is a "flawed democracy" ala The Economist. The worst evaluations label America as a "hybrid regime" / "competitive authoritarianism" / "electoral autocracy" or many other terms to describe a democracy-on-the-surface that has, in reality, become heavily titled in favor of one party…

> Orbán's government never got to the full-on violent oppression used in actual autocracies, but instead used many of the tools that the Republican party uses today to attempt to stay in power. That being: gerrymandering and other aggressive vote meddling; media manipulation (not full on censorship, but attempting to ensure that dominant media voices were party line); propaganda using social / culture war rhetoric; a…

[dead]

Re: Ten Signs of Fascism. America has all of them

#105

Post by litoE »

ethbr1 wrote: post #100
te_234343546 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that America is not in a terribly healthy democratic state, and pretty much all of the indicators show it. At best, America is a "flawed democracy" ala The Economist. The worst evaluations label America as a "hybrid regime" / "competitive authoritarianism" / "electoral autocracy" or many other terms to describe a democracy-on-the-surface that has, in reality, become heavily titled in favor of one party…

> Orbán's government never got to the full-on violent oppression used in actual autocracies, but instead used many of the tools that the Republican party uses today to attempt to stay in power. That being: gerrymandering and other aggressive vote meddling; media manipulation (not full on censorship, but attempting to ensure that dominant media voices were party line); propaganda using social / culture war rhetoric; a…

Frightening thought: Alito and Thomas resign now, giving Trump two seats to fill with younger Justices of their "textualist" persuation who will be there for a very long time.

Re: Ten Signs of Fascism. America has all of them

#106

Post by k310 »

stephbook wrote: post #20

The Führerkult also has a problematic conclusion: Everything needs to happen during the Führer's lifetime, for only he can restore the nation. That's obviously a problem when your Führer is 80+ years old and overweight. It means the Führer will try and fix everything as soon as possible.

He is hurrying, but his $1.7 Billion militia and ICE will soon be fighting behind an El Cid propped up rider. It looks like he has had repeated strokes. Not the golf kind.

But fight they will because he will fully become a chatbot. FIRST DECEASED LEADER.

The Hallucinating ChatGPT Presidency[0]

Tue, Apr 29th 2025 09:34am - Mike Masnick

> We generally understand how LLM hallucinations work. An AI model tries to generate what seems like a plausible response to whatever you ask it, drawing on its training data to construct something that sounds right. The actual truth of the response is, at best, a secondary consideration.

> But over the last few months, it has occurred to me that, for all the hype about generative AI systems “hallucinating,” we pay much less attention to the fact that the current President does the same thing, nearly every day. The more you look at the way Donald Trump spews utter nonsense answers to questions, the more you begin to recognize a clear pattern — he answers questions in a manner quite similar to early versions of ChatGPT. The facts don’t matter, the language choices are a mess, but they are all designed to present a plausible-sounding answer to the question, based on no actual knowledge, nor any concern for whether or not the underlying facts are accurate.

> This is not the response of someone working from actual knowledge or policy understanding. Instead, it’s precisely how an LLM operates: taking a prompt (the question about job losses) and generating text based on some core parameters (the “system prompt” that requires deflecting blame and asserting greatness).

> The hallmarks of AI generation are all here

    • Confident assertions without factual backing

    • Meandering diversions that maintain loose semantic connection to the topic

    • Pattern-matching to previous responses (“ripped off,” “billions of dollars”)

    • Optimization for what sounds good rather than what’s true
[0] https://www.techdirt.com/2025/04/29/the-hallucinating-chatgp...

Re: Ten Signs of Fascism. America has all of them

#107

Post by ookblah »

klamann wrote: post #23

As a German, I started wondering if every nation has to experience a fascist catastrophe on its own, before a majority agrees that a fascist takeover is possible at home (surely the peoples who failed to stop all the other fascist regimes were just dumb). Then again, 30% of German voters would vote for the fascist AfD party today, so there's that... I agree with the premise of the article wholeheartedly. Minor nitpic…

"yes" heh. more a human problem i'm slowly figuring out, spend enough time on this earth and it's honestly tiring. social media and modern new cycle prob just accelerates it.

Re: Ten Signs of Fascism. America has all of them

#108

Post by dh2022 »

DavidPiper wrote: post #10

Another opportunity to recommend "They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-45" by Milton Mayer. The audiobook is great too. A critical but empathetic look at how fascism rises and spreads through, and alongside, ordinary people in ordinary society. Excellent book, incredibly relevant. An excerpt, if you don't want to commit to the whole thing: https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html

I am reading this book now and from reading the book to me it seems there are some differences between 1930s Germany and 2026 US:

1. Germans back then were conformist people and following other Germans; especially authority figures. Americans are anything but.

2. Germans did not know what was going on; today there is a ton of media.

3. Nazi party took care of the “good” Germans: Nazis gave Germans jobs (anyone else, Jews, Romas, communists had to fend for themselves). Trump and his goons openly shit on American people.

4. It took about 8 years from boycotting Jewish businesses to burning synagogues, then another 2 years to start implementing the Final solution. Trump’s goons shot and killed Americans less than 1 year since taking power.

(Also important is that Adolf Hitler became chancellor at 44 years old, Trump’s most consequential presidency started when he was 79.)

Similarities to today’s situation that I got from the book are charisma both Hitler and Trump have, and how people seem to identify themselves with Hitler and Trump (for ex: which other American president had people put his name on flags, tattoos, cars, houses?)

Freedom is fragile and needs constant support. Trump touched a raw nerve but he is too vain, greedy and old to follow through with a full blown dictatorship. The goons around him are dangerous but lack his charisma and connection to the average person (do you see JD Vance filling up stadiums while spouting non-sense?)

Re: Ten Signs of Fascism. America has all of them

#109

Post by smackeyacky »

dh2022 wrote: post #108
DavidPiper wrote: post #10

Another opportunity to recommend "They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-45" by Milton Mayer. The audiobook is great too. A critical but empathetic look at how fascism rises and spreads through, and alongside, ordinary people in ordinary society. Excellent book, incredibly relevant. An excerpt, if you don't want to commit to the whole thing: https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html

I am reading this book now and from reading the book to me it seems there are some differences between 1930s Germany and 2026 US: 1. Germans back then were conformist people and following other Germans; especially authority figures. Americans are anything but. 2. Germans did not know what was going on; today there is a ton of media. 3. Nazi party took care of the “good” Germans: Nazis gave Germans jobs (anyone else,…

Americans are astonishingly conformist. Don’t let the myth making of American exceptionalism blind you to the amazing cult of MAGA or the reach of evangelical churches.

It only takes a small minority of violent thugs to make a bigger population of people who only want to stay out of trouble compliant.

Re: Ten Signs of Fascism. America has all of them

#110

Post by maratc »

cosmicgadget wrote: post #75
maratc wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The nature of the community here is a self-correcting mechanism. It looks like the community has deployed its self-correcting mechanism in this case.

133 points, 66 comments. Maybe people want to discuss fascism.

Most of them downvoted, including yours (and mine).

This is like a poster example of posts and discussions that we want less of here, not more.

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