Posted by dahsdebater on 7/24/2020 5:51:00 PM (view original):
Posted by tangplay on 7/24/2020 3:18:00 PM (view original):
Fascism is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, as well as strong regimentation of society and of the economy which came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe.
"Sounds like Antifa to me!"
There's a pretty big spectrum of political beliefs in the world. I'm just saying that a group who's most famous actions involve wanton destruction of private property and suppression of speech have what I would consider to be a fairly naive view of what it means to be 'anti-fascist.' It's very level-0 thinking of "we oppose people we think are fascist," but their actions are far from the opposite of fascism. An enlightened anti-fascist would look, to me, quite a bit different.
More importantly, you now accept that fascism does in fact differ from nationalist authoritarianism via the presence of a command economy? Because that would confirm my assertion that Trump - who has campaigned hard for deregulation and took a lot of criticism for failing to invoke the defense production act to direct manufacturing - is not, in fact, a fascist.
Oh, I never called them "enlightened anti fascists," or whatever. I would never compare them to MLK. But they aren't fascists, obviously.
As for Trump, I already agreed that the more accurate term is nationalist authoritarian, but I still call him a fascist anyway because
a) He's extremely close to being one
b) It sounds better and makes for a more emotional reaction
Let's be honest - when we think of fascism, we don't generally think of a command economy first. I don't think the distinction is all that important anyway. Bernie Sanders would probably accept people calling him a Socialist generally, even though he would specifically identify as a Democratic Socialist (Except he's actually a social democrat, but I digress). Again, I agree that your term is more accurate.