The Biden Administration and All Things Politics

[Red]

Me: I hate fascism!
AI: Why do you hate something just because you disagree with it?
Me: WWII, we were supposed to have learned lessons that were never forgotten. Some of us seem to have forgotten the lessons.
AI: OMG stop being so ridiculously dramatic.
Me:

As soon as the fascists stop being so ridiculously dramatic, violent, unhinged, traitorous, lunatic, cultists I'll start thinking about how ridiculous I'm being.

Until then, I hate fascists!

There’s an excellent essay, by Sarah Churchwell, from 2 years ago, and representing a brief history of fascism in the United States. It’s still available at the 2nd link I’m posting here, though requires registration to read it.

Recommended Reading: Sarah Churchwell’s “American Fascism: It Has Happened Here.” - The Constitutionalist

Last week on our blog I wrote about the authoritarian/illiberal threat to democracy posed by Trump, as a post-electoral follow-up to an essay I published in The Bulwark on October 31. In the essay for The Bulwark, I took on the question of Trump’s fascism as it has been discussed and debated, at...

theconstitutionalist.org

“….the single essay that most transformed my thinking on the matter was Sarah Churchwell’s “American Fascism: It Has Happened Here.” Churchwell’s essay was published in the New York Review of Books in June of this year. It is essential reading for anyone who has been skeptical of the threats posed by Trumpism. Churchwell’s essay offers a clear and powerful overview the very plain parallels between European fascism and Jim Crow America. Furthermore, she reminds her reader that fascism always takes a local and indigenous shape. As she puts it, in response to Moyn, “its claims to speak for “the people” and to restore national greatness mean that each version of fascism must have its own local identity. To believe that a nationalist movement isn’t fascist because it’s native is to miss the point entirely.”

American Fascism: It Has Happened Here | Sarah Churchwell

“When Americans think of dictators they always think of some foreign model,” wrote the anti-fascist journalist Dorothy Thompson in the mid-1930s, but an American dictator would be “one of the boys, and he will stand for everything traditionally American.” And the American people, Thompson added...

www.nybooks.com

 

[LogGrad98]

...And the fascists who are being so this, that, and the other that you feels justifies your hatred, are they whoever you define them to be at the moment? I don't feel like you are referring to our WWII opponents and there aren't any major groups in the US now who call themselves fascists, soo......

You do you, but try not to hurt anybody, Okay, champ?

So as long as they don't call themselves that then everything is fine, right? Good thing your uncle said he wasn't a pedophile. Whew! All those kids he molested can rest easy knowing he doesn't call himself that. I'm sure that will hold up in court.

If it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck and walks like a duck and has the DNA of a duck, don't believe it for a second when it claims it isn't a duck.

 

[One Brow]

... and there aren't any major groups in the US now who call themselves fascists, soo......

There are people in government, or recently out of government, supporting behavior indicative of fascist regimes.

 

[Al-O-Meter]

So as long as they don't call themselves that then everything is fine, right? Good thing your uncle said he wasn't a pedophile. Whew! All those kids he molested can rest easy knowing he doesn't call himself that. I'm sure that will hold up in court.

If it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck and walks like a duck and has the DNA of a duck, don't believe it for a second when it claims it isn't a duck.

One of these things is not like the others. One of these things just doesn't belong. Can you tell which thing is not like the others...by the time I finish my song?

Did you guess which thing was not like the others? Did you guess which thing just doesn't belong? If you guessed fascism is not like the others, then you're absolutely...right!

People know what ducks and pedophiles are but who is or is not a fascist in Gameface's mind is a thing he makes up as he goes along to justify a deep seated anger that is already there. It is the same mechanism as when a child makes up an imaginary friend because they aren't ready to deal with a thing so they create an external entity they can project upon.

 

[LogGrad98]

One of these things is not like the others. One of these things just doesn't belong. Can you tell which thing is not like the others...by the time I finish my song?

Did you guess which thing was not like the others? Did you guess which thing just doesn't belong? If you guessed fascism is not like the others, then you're absolutely...right!

People know what ducks and pedophiles are but who is or is not a fascist in Gameface's mind is a thing he makes up as he goes along to justify a deep seated anger that is already there. It is the same mechanism as when a child makes up an imaginary friend because they aren't ready to deal with a thing so they create an external entity they can project upon.

So you describe an attempt to overthrow an election as patriotism? Or what exactly. Please put a definitive label on what happened on Jan 6th. Don't waffle around things like well it didn't happen, wasn't successful, didn't mean anything, was just Americans protesting. What do you call it when a mob enters the halls of Congress with zip ties and causing deaths while calling outright to overturn the election. What do you call it? And you can't call it a negative thing like "well, I don't call it fascism" or some other cop-out. What was it. One single statement expressing your view boiled down to as few words as possible.

 

[Al-O-Meter]

There’s an excellent essay, by Sarah Churchwell, from 2 years ago, and representing a brief history of fascism in the United States.

Interesting that she chose Jim Crow and the Progressive Era KKK as examples of fascism in America. Both were democrat. Woodrow Wilson was showing The Birth of a Nation in the White House. She also mentioned Henry Ford, who was asked by KKK-loving Woodrow Wilson to run for the Senate.

My personal example of the closest America ever came to fascism was the National Industrial Recovery Act, also a democrat creation and thankfully ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Many of the same examples Sarah Churchwell relies upon are presented in this book:

It is hilarious how people keep giving examples from the history of the political left for how Trump is like mid-20th century European socialists.

 

[Al-O-Meter]

So you describe an attempt to overthrow an election as patriotism? Or what exactly. Please put a definitive label on what happened on Jan 6th. Don't waffle around things like well it didn't happen, wasn't successful, didn't mean anything, was just Americans protesting. What do you call it when a mob enters the halls of Congress with zip ties and causing deaths while calling outright to overturn the election. What do you call it? And you can't call it a negative thing like "well, I don't call it fascism" or some other cop-out. What was it. One single statement expressing your view boiled down to as few words as possible.

Boiled down to as few words as possible: Trump is a prize fighter who never stops swinging.

Trump will fight the media. When on a debate stage full of other republicans, he'll fight them. Trump's supporters desperately wanted someone to throw haymaker punches for them. I'm not saying Trump was truly fighting for them as I think he was fighting for his own ego and adulation but his supporters believed he was fighting for them. When Trump lost the election, he did what Trump does and kept right on fighting because that is his only mode of operation. He was exactly the animal they elected in 2016 even when it reached a point of being destructive for the country. What happened on January 6th had nothing to do with ideology, fascist or otherwise. It was a thing born out of lower level baser instincts. It was people who wanted to fight, seeing that their leader was still fighting, and channeling that into a spectacle that had no chance of doing anything beyond self destruction.

 

[LogGrad98]

It was people who wanted to fight, seeing that their leader was still fighting, and channeling that into a spectacle that had no chance of doing anything beyond self destruction.

So from all that spin, this is the part that is interesting. No accountability. No holding anyone to task because it would fail anyway, right? Deaths don't matter, they were just misguided patriots, right? Following their dear leader. Why all this silly court stuff, they were just followers, and followers aren't accountable for anything, right?

 

[One Brow]

Interesting that she chose Jim Crow and the Progressive Era KKK as examples of fascism in America. Both were democrat.

Dinesh D'Souza rides again.

Sure. Back when the Democrats were the party of the Southern states, the conservatives, and the rural population, we saw them support the same things that the Republicans support today. Conservatives are much more consistent that political parties.

Many of the same examples Sarah Churchwell relies upon are presented in this book:

The difference being that Churchwell discusses them with more honesty.

It is hilarious how people keep giving examples from the history of the political left for how Trump is like mid-20th century European socialists.

It's even funnier how right-wingers try to distance themselves from the fascist movement, which has always appeal to people on the right and gained political power from opposing socialists, not being socialists. You can try to argue a carefully-selected handful of abstract principles to pretend that fascists are socialists, but no one is being deceived by your pretense, except maybe those who want to agree with you.

 

[Al-O-Meter]

So from all that spin, this is the part that is interesting. No accountability. No holding anyone to task because it would fail anyway, right? Deaths don't matter, they were just misguided patriots, right? Following their dear leader. Why all this silly court stuff, they were just followers, and followers aren't accountable for anything, right?

The part you found interesting was the part you made up. I never mentioned anything at all about patriotism, there being no accountability, or being doomed to failure from the outset means no one should be held to account, or followers being free from responsibility for their actions. All of that was invented by you.

There was no spin. I suspect you found what I wrote to be so obviously true that you had to create what you'd wished I said to find fault with it.

 

[LogGrad98]

The part you found interesting was the part you made up. I never mentioned anything at all about patriotism, there being no accountability, or being doomed to failure from the outset means no one should be held to account, or followers being free from responsibility for their actions. All of that was invented by you.

There was no spin. I suspect you found what I wrote to be so obviously true that you had to create what you'd wished I said to find fault with it.

LOL

I asked for one sentence describing what you felt happened on Jan 6th. You provided a paragraph of spin about Donald Trump being the leader of a group of people who expressed themselves. Given your complete lack of anything remotely akin to a statement that anyone from Jan 6 should be held accountable, what else was anyone to surmise?

Let's look at the rest, for context:

Trump will fight the media. When on a debate stage full of other republicans, he'll fight them. Trump's supporters desperately wanted someone to throw haymaker punches for them. I'm not saying Trump was truly fighting for them as I think he was fighting for his own ego and adulation but his supporters believed he was fighting for them. When Trump lost the election, he did what Trump does and kept right on fighting because that is his only mode of operation. He was exactly the animal they elected in 2016 even when it reached a point of being destructive for the country. What happened on January 6th had nothing to do with ideology, fascist or otherwise. It was a thing born out of lower level baser instincts. It was people who wanted to fight, seeing that their leader was still fighting, and channeling that into a spectacle that had no chance of doing anything beyond self destruction.

Spectacle. That is the single word that describes how you view Jan 6th. Fighting because their leader fought. so justified, right? Are you saying they were or were not justified in their attack on the capitol....oh sorry, on their spectacle at the capitol. In short, do you feel the spectacle at the capitol in which people literally died is worth holding people accountable for, or not? And if so, who?

 

[Al-O-Meter]

In short, do you feel the spectacle at the capitol in which people literally died is worth holding people accountable for, or not? And if so, who?

Of course, up to and including Trump himself should be subject to prosecution for any laws that were broken.

As for what to surmise, maybe you should surmise that your question to which I provided the answer was about January 6 being fascism. Sure I didn't include anything about accountability but I also didn't include anything about the trend in the 80's where people would put dye dispensers in their toilet tanks so that when you flushed, the toilet water would be blue. I didn't include those thing because you didn't ask about those things.