A Deeply Fractured US

[FJAG]

I'm not sure of the agreed definition but I've always understood fascism as an anti-communist, authoritarian-totalitarian, racist-nativist movement at least

I'd say that the "racist-nativist" is optional but many are nativist which generally leads to racist.

:Tin-Foil-Hat:

 

[Donald H]

I'm not sure of the agreed definition but I've always understood fascism as an anti-communist, authoritarian-totalitarian, racist-nativist movement at least

Fascism certainly has it's identifiable traits and priorities and you are especially right, in my opinion, to say that fascism is anti-communism. Many (maybe most) Americans just consider fascism to be the same as communism but we know that's utter nonsense.

I'll also suggest that most Americans consider everything left of themselves to be either socialist or communist. For example, Bernie Sanders is labelled a socialist while he's no more left than Canada's politics of either the Liberals or the Conservatives.

The plot thickens.

 

[shawn5o]

I'm not sure of the agreed definition but I've always understood fascism as an anti-communist, authoritarian-totalitarian, racist-nativist movement at least

I aggree for the most part but the last "racist-nativist movement" I'm not sure if it qualifies under fascism.

it seems there are many varients of fascism. From Wikipedia (about Fascism) - Christian fascism, Clerical fascism, Crypto-fascism, Dictatorship, Economics of fascism, Fascism and ideology, Fascist syndicalism, Islamic fascism, Nazism, Neo-fascism, Neo-nazism, Pact of Pacification, Proto-fascism, Right-wing authoritarianism, Reactionary modernism, Revolutionary nationalism, Squadrismo, Strongman (politics)

 

[suffolkowner]

On the racist-nativist element, I'm just unfamiliar with enough fascist movements to identify ones that weren't

 

[Retired AF Guy]

Claiming that Trump is a fascist has zero, repeat zero, basis in reality.

An extract of the definition of fascism from the The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics and International Relations (Oxford Quick Reference) (p. 193). OUP Oxford. Fourth Edition (2018)  Edited by Brown, Garrett W; McLean, Iain; McMillan, Alistair.

fascism A right‐wing nationalist ideology or movement with a totalitarian and hierarchical structure that is fundamentally opposed to democracy and liberalism.
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Genuinely fascist ideologies are: monist, that is to say, based upon the notion that there are fundamental and basic truths about humanity and the environment which do not admit to question; simplistic, in the sense of ascribing complex phenomena to single causes and advancing single remedies; fundamentalist, that is, involving a division of the world into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ with nothing in between; and conspiratorial, that is, predicated on the existence of a secret world‐wide conspiracy by a hostile group seeking to manipulate the masses to achieve and/ or maintain a dominant position.

In content, these ideologies are distinguished by five main components: (1) extreme *nationalism*, the belief that there is a clearly defined nation which has its own distinctive characteristics, culture, and interests, and which is superior to others; (2) an assertion of national decline— that at some point in the mythical past the nation was great, with harmonious social and political relationships, and dominant over others, and that subsequently it has disintegrated, become internally fractious and divided, and subordinate to lesser nations; (3) this process of national decline is often linked to a diminution of the racial purity of the nation— in some movements the nation is regarded as co‐extensive with the race (the nation race), while in others, hierarchies of races are defined generically with nations located within them (the race nation), but in virtually all cases, the view is taken that the introduction of impurities has weakened the nation and been responsible for its plight; (4)the blame for national decline and/ or racial miscegenation is laid at the door of a conspiracy on the part of other nations/ races seen as competing in a desperate struggle for dominance; (5) in that struggle, both capitalism and its political form, liberal democracy, are seen as mere divisive devices designed to fragment the nation and subordinate it further in the world order.

With regard to prescriptive content, the first priority is the reconstitution of the nation as an entity by restoring its purity. The second is to restore national dominance by reorganizing the polity, the economy, and society.Means to this end include variously: (1) the institution of an authoritarian and antiliberal state dominated by a single party; (2) total control by the latter over political aggregation, communication, and socialization; (3) direction by the state of labour and consumption to create a productionist and self‐sufficient economy; and (4) a charismatic leader embodying the ‘real’ interests of the nation and energizing the masses. With these priorities fulfilled, the nation would then be in a position to recapture its dominance, if necessary by military means.

Such priorities were explicit in the inter‐war fascist movements, which indulged in racial/ ethnic ‘cleansing’, established totalitarian political systems, productionist economies, and dictatorships, and of course went to war in pursuit of international dominance. But such parties can no longer openly espouse these extremes, and national/ racial purity now takes the form of opposition to continuing immigration and demands for repatriation; totalitarianism and dictatorship have been replaced by lesser demands for a significant strengthening in the authority of the state, allegedly within a democratic framework; productionism has become interventionism; and military glory has been largely eschewed.

While the US under Donald Trump is not a fascist dictatorship, if you look at the examples I posted above you can see that parts of his platform does include elements that we would describe as fascist.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

An extract of the definition of fascism from the The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics and International Relations (Oxford Quick Reference) (p. 193). OUP Oxford. Fourth Edition (2018)  Edited by Brown, Garrett W; McLean, Iain; McMillan, Alistair.

While the US under Donald Trump is not a fascist dictatorship, if you look at the examples I posted above you can see that parts of his platform does include elements that we would describe as fascist.

What parts?

 

[PuckChaser]

An extract of the definition of fascism from the The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics and International Relations (Oxford Quick Reference) (p. 193). OUP Oxford. Fourth Edition (2018)  Edited by Brown, Garrett W; McLean, Iain; McMillan, Alistair.

While the US under Donald Trump is not a fascist dictatorship, if you look at the examples I posted above you can see that parts of his platform does include elements that we would describe as fascist.

An extract from Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/science/confirmation-bias

Confirmation bias, the tendency to process information by looking for, or interpreting, information that is consistent with one’s existing beliefs. This biased approach to decision making is largely unintentional and often results in ignoring inconsistent information. Existing beliefs can include one’s expectations in a given situation and predictions about a particular outcome. People are especially likely to process information to support their own beliefs when the issue is highly important or self-relevant.

 

[Retired AF Guy]

What parts?

My bad. I had originally highlighted the sections that I had thought relevant, but deleted prior to posting. In hindsight should have left highlights in place.

simplistic, in the sense of ascribing complex phenomena to single causes and advancing single remedies(e.g. Giving tax breaks to corporations will boost the economy or starting a trade war with China will help the economy); fundamentalist, that is, involving a division of the world into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ with nothing in between (e.g. United States vs everyone else); and conspiratorial, that is, predicated on the existence of a secret world‐wide conspiracy by a hostile group seeking to manipulate the masses to achieve and/ or maintain a dominant position (e.g. fake news; deep state; Q-anon).

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(2) an assertion of national decline— that at some point in the mythical past the nation was great,..(Trump harps on this all the time about how previous administrations were negligent in signing deals/treaties with other countries and this has led to the US decline).
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(4) a charismatic leader embodying the ‘real’ interests of the nation and energizing the masses. (Donald Trump in all his glory!)

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[n}ational/ racial purity now takes the form of opposition to continuing immigration ... (A major plank of Donald Trumps political platform from Day 1; hence the push for a border wall, Muslim immigration bans, among other restrictions in immigration); totalitarianism and dictatorship have been replaced by lesser demands for a significant strengthening in the authority of the state, allegedly within a democratic framework(Stacking the SCOTUS with right-wing judges; the same for appointing dozens of federal judges who may be more beholding to ideology than rule of law; firing Inspector-Generals for investigating Trump loyalists; appointing lapdogs to head the DOJ and DHS, etc); .... and military glory has been largely eschewed (Rather than invading someone, President Trump instead instigated a trade war with China that has cost American taxpayers billions and not only that has attacked Americas closest trading partners pi$$ing everyone off and upsetting world trade).

As I earlier posted, the US is not at present a fascist dictatorship, but in the last three years, thanks to a complacent Senate he has been able to get away with stuff that no other US President has been able too. So much so that the US Founding Fathers are probably spinning in their graves.

And as Puckchaser posted earlier I may be just a victim of Confirmation Bias. But I truly believe that if Donald Trump is President come 12:01 20 Jan 2021 then look out.

Enjoy.

Off to the pool!

 

[Brad Sallows]

communism A left‐wing nationalist* ideology or movement with a totalitarian and hierarchical structure that is fundamentally opposed to democracy and liberalism.

*Rodina!

 

[Brad Sallows]

>parts of his platform does include elements that we would describe as fascist.

Parts of many platforms or ideologies include elements from the lists people propose for "fascist".  The problem with making the case for fascism is firstly to show that the government is illiberal, and then to identify the factors that distinguish it from the other illiberalisms.

A person has a high temperature, a runny nose, a cough, chest pain.  What ails him?

Collectivism of any kind is prone to deteriorate into totalitarianism, and thereafter tyranny.  Either dissent - allowing people to go their own way, to have their own beliefs and express them - is tolerated, or it is not.

Nearly all political movements are hierarchical.  Governments as we know them certainly are.  The mythical "collective" has never really been tried, except by small communities.  Families are hierarchical, and I can guess that most "collectives" have some sort of council at least which usurps true mass collective decision making.

It is easy enough to find governments and regimes that are basically cargo cult democracies or are more illiberal than liberal.  Few of them are just temporarily taking a vacation from democracy and liberal ideas.

People who claim that they will fund their programs by "taxing the rich" are simplistic.

Antifa and its supporters are fundamentalist; the staff at the NYT and WSJ who want to divide the world into opinions they will accept and opinions they will not are fundamentalist.

Trump hasn't even managed to do what Obama did.  Obama did DACA by executive action; Trump isn't even allowed to undo it using the same mechanism.  What is it you imagine that Trump has been able to do that no past president could do?

 

[Edward Campbell]

A tangent rather than a full-scale  :highjack: but, see Frank Ching;s article in the Globe and Mail in which he explains some of the reasons East Asian societies have done better than many Western ones in combatting the COVID-19 virus.

(The big weakness in his analysis is that it ignores Australia, which is very Western-liberal, but is also doing exceptionally well. The other big reason for "Easterm" success is that unlike America, Britain and Canada and so on, Australia and most East Asian societies cut travel ties with China very early on in the crisis.)

Anyway, Mr Ching notes that Confucian societies place family above all else, certainly above the individual, and after family comes clan and then community and so on. It is easy in Hong Kong, for example, to get people to wear face masks; it was almost automatic. They already do so, en masse, every flu season. As soon as someone said it spreads as an aerosol the whole country ~ and Japan, South Korea and Singapore, too ~ "masked up" without being told.

They do it, largely, as matter of good manners. The normal (non-N95) mask does not do much to protect you or me from a virus but it does protect others if you or I are carriers. Therefore good manners and our strong community values mean that we all agree to wear masks to try to help protect everyone else from us. It's not a clasasically liberal notion. 

 

[MarkOttawa]

A tangent rather than a full-scale  :highjack: but, see Frank Ching;s article in the Globe and Mail in which he explains some of the reasons East Asian societies have done better than many Western ones in combatting the COVID-19 virus.

One sometimes wonders if Mr Ching should be considered a usual suspect, e.g., he quotes the PRC's constitution with a straight face as if the CCP takes it seriously and allows the party's conduct to be governed by it:

...
The Chinese constitution is notable for coupling rights with responsibilities. For example, Article 51 declares: “Citizens of the People’s Republic of China, in exercising their freedoms and rights, may not infringe upon the interests of the state, of society or of the collective, or upon the lawful freedoms and rights of other citizens.”

Thus, rights are to be exercised in a responsible manner; an individual’s rights are subordinate to the community’s rights...
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-why-eastern-countries-are-more-successful-in-fighting-covid-19/

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

Further to post above on Globe piece by Frank Ching, a tweet:

Rick Knowlan
@strategyrick
Replying to
@nspector4

His thesis is undermined by the performance of predominately white Asia Pacific regions like BC, AUS, NZ, with high levels of individual rights. He ignores the performance of governments in setting and executing policy, which is a huge causative variable.
https://twitter.com/strategyrick/status/1290270287380926464

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Brad Sallows]

A neighbourly society can be and often is a liberal one, without having any deep-rooted deferential customs to family, community, etc.  I've lived in communities that are very neighbourly, with voting patterns ranging from NDP through LPC to CPC.  It's the people who make the communities and respect each other; no government imposes it from above.

 

[Donald H]

Further to post above on Globe piece by Frank Ching, a tweet:

Mark
Ottawa

How again is his thesis undermined? It's pretty clear that population density is the largest factor (US being an exception on account of Trump's behaviour)

Not just China but also several other Asian countries, including *H.K. have outperformed others, as he suggests. BC., AUS, and NZ comparisons don't fit due to low density populations.

How does Vancouver's high density population stack up compared to large Asian cities?

* bastion of capitalism

 

[OceanBonfire]

Unsurprising when the Trump administration divides the US further and further:

U.S. whistleblower was pressed to exaggerate leftist role in urban protests, lawyer says

A former acting chief of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s intelligence office has told Congress that DHS leaders pressed him to overstate illegal border crossings from Mexico and overplay the role of far left groups in violence during anti-government protests last summer, his lawyer said.

In testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, former intelligence chief Brian Murphy accused department leadership of urging him to “blame Far Left groups in an exaggerated fashion” for violence during summer protests in Portland, Oregon, according to lawyer Mark Zaid.

...


https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN28R33L

 

[Brad Sallows]

We are in that delicate and brief interval of time during which the incoming administration and the people who support it can avoid "whatabout" and choose to do things differently with a view to repairing the fractures.  No blacklists, no gratuitous censorship, no insults, no swamp-dwellers appointed to positions of influence, no excuses for hooligans, no efforts to thwart transparency and accountability.  We shall see.

 

[Weinie]

Unsurprising when the Trump administration divides the US further and further:

Come January, you may not have anything to post about.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Hmmm 11 million or so Illegals in the country

330,000+ backlog in the refugee claim system (Interesting as it was around 700,000 a few years ago)

Borked immigration system with major backlogs (200,000+)

Questionable voter ID requirements , along with 50 different methods of counting votes

Critical industrial processes and resource supply sent overseas and now controlled by a country who is in conflict with the US

Blatant spying and espionage by China

Trump did not create these problems or conjure them up. They exists and both parties were not doing much about them, tapping into resentment about them is not Fascism. Trump never intended to stop all immigration and was not advocating racial purity. The broken systems above favour the Democrats, so they have little interest in fixing them, even at the cost of the long term health of the country.   

 

[FJAG]

Come January, you may not have anything to post about.

Ignoring the issues which fragment the US for the moment, there are the social media communications processes which every day become more and more effective at elevating these divisions to new heights.

Good article in the The Atlantic about why the media companies will be the death of us all. (Hint: the algorithms are tuned to analysing what pushes your buttons and then hyper targeting you with more and more of the same dreck on a mega scale)

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/12/facebook-doomsday-machine/617384/

Even if we wanted to, the vast majority of people will continue to be influenced by a massive onslaught of conflicting and mostly untrue information which will continue to divide the US. The closer-to-home question is how long will Canada escape this onslaught?

:stirpot: