US Politics Thread

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SWP's back said:
There are enough books from historians that specialist in fascists strongmen that disagree with you.
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You might very well be right, however the definition of fascism has changed so much it becomes just another watered down term thrown as an insult.

The point remains that America will make its decision and choose what they deserve, we can huff and puff but it's on them.
 
mexico1970 said:
If that's your political view then sing it from the rooftops, but not everyone is a fascist if they don't agree with you.

And strangely not everyone in America agrees with you.
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Can people not just be fascist because of their speech, actions, and advocacy?

Do they have to say “I am a fascist” to be a fascist now? Everything else has to be ignored until they self-designate?

And if they never do, whilst turning the Supreme Court in to a Christian white nationalist oligarch revolution rubber stamp troop, purging the government of non-loyal personnel and replacing them with people that have no expertise but are simply party loyalists, rounding up people deemed to be “illegal immigrants”, putting them in camps, and then deporting them en masse, stripping away women’s and LGBTQ+ rights, dissolving federal agencies tasked with protecting the environment, educating citizens, fighting disease, combating climate change, and investigating crime and corruption (particularly in government), and attempting to breakdown the checks and balances between the branches of government so Congress and the Supreme Court is subservient to the President, we should call them, what, “Your Highness”?
 
mexico1970 said:
You might very well be right, however the definition of fascism has changed so much it becomes just another watered down term thrown as an insult.

The point remains that America will make its decision and choose what they deserve, we can huff and puff but it's on them.
Click to expand...
I've always liked the 14 points of fascism which if we're being objective are Trump to a tee

  1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
    Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
  2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
    Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of “need.” The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, and long incarcerations of prisoners.
  3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
    The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists…
  4. Supremacy of the Military
    Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
  5. Rampant Sexism
    The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation.
  6. Controlled Mass Media
    Sometimes the media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation or by sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Government censorship and secrecy, especially in war time, are very common.
  7. Obsession with National Security
    Fear of hostile foreign powers is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
  8. Religion and Government are Intertwined
    Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government’s policies or actions.
  9. Protection of Corporate Power
    The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
  10. Suppression of Labor Power
    Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed .
  11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
    Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.
  12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment
    Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.
  13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
    Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
  14. Fraudulent Elections
    Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.
 
ChicagoBlue said:
You’re mistaken…a new, better, cheaper plan is coming in two weeks!

I think I heard that every two weeks for almost 4 years.
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When we saw an advert for healthcare.gov in January, my immediate response was, "There’s no point, as Trump is going to repeal it in 2017!"

It did make Mrs Vienna laugh.
 
SebastianBlue said:
Can people not just be fascist because of their speech, actions, and advocacy?

Do they have to say “I am a fascist” to be a fascist now? Everything else has to be ignored until they self-designate?

And if they never do, whilst turning the Supreme Court in to a Christian white nationalist oligarch revolution rubber stamp troop, purging the government of non-loyal personnel and replacing them with people that have no expertise but are simply party loyalists, rounding up people deemed to be “illegal immigrants”, putting them in camps, and then deporting them en masse, stripping away women’s and LGBTQ+ rights, dissolving federal agencies tasked with protecting the environment, fighting disease, combating climate change, and investigating crime and corruption (particularly in government), and attempting to breakdown the checks and balances between the branches of government so Congress and the Supreme Court is subservient to the President, we should call them, what, “Your Highness”?
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I think it's all hyperbole and as I said the Americans will choose. The prediction will be that there will be another 4 years of wailing and crying then a Democrat will get in again.

Do I believe America should deport illegal immigrants? Yes I do.

Is Trump a ****? Yes I believe he's absolutely bonkers but that's on the yanks.
 
yankblue said:
I've always liked the 14 points of fascism which if we're being objective are Trump to a tee

  1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
    Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
  2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
    Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of “need.” The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, and long incarcerations of prisoners.
  3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
    The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists…
  4. Supremacy of the Military
    Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
  5. Rampant Sexism
    The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation.
  6. Controlled Mass Media
    Sometimes the media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation or by sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Government censorship and secrecy, especially in war time, are very common.
  7. Obsession with National Security
    Fear of hostile foreign powers is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
  8. Religion and Government are Intertwined
    Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government’s policies or actions.
  9. Protection of Corporate Power
    The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
  10. Suppression of Labor Power
    Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed .
  11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
    Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.
  12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment
    Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.
  13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
    Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
  14. Fraudulent Elections
    Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.
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I'm not fighting a cult, get out and vote American and stop wasting your time telling us your country is shit...do something about it.

The Tories were Nazis here too you know, or so we were told CONTINOUSLY.
 
mexico1970 said:
I think it's all hyperbole and as I said the Americans will choose. The prediction will be that there will be another 4 years of wailing and crying then a Democrat will get in again.

Do I believe America should deport illegal immigrants? Yes I do.

Is Trump a ****? Yes I believe he's absolutely bonkers but that's on the yanks.
Click to expand...
What I described in my posts was either what Trump and the MAGA apparatus have already done or what Trump and the MAGA apparatus have said they would do (specifically laid out in a 900+ page document entitled “2025 Presidential Transition Project”, commonly known as Project 2025, and repeated ad nauseam at his rallies and during interviews).

How is it hyperbole when Trump and his cronies are the ones doing it or saying they will do it?
 
mexico1970 said:
I'm not fighting a cult, get out and vote American and stop wasting your time telling us your country is shit...do something about it.

The Tories were Nazis here too you know, or so we were told CONTINOUSLY.
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Not the best rebuttal I’ve ever seen tbf.
 
SebastianBlue said:
What I described in my posts was either what Trump and the MAGa apparatus have already done or what Trump and the MAGA apparatus has said he would do (specifically laid out in a 900+ page document entitled “2025 Presidential Transition Project”, commonly known as Project 2025).

How is it hyperbole when Trump and his cronies are the ones doing it or saying they will do it?
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Wasn't the world coming to an end when he won last time out? Americans must have a short memory if they let the orange Hitler back in the hot seat.
 
mexico1970 said:
Wasn't the world coming to an end when he won last time out? Americans must have a short memory if they let the orange Hitler back in the hot seat.
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Below is my comprehensive answer to that question (posed by someone else in the Trump thread).

And the rise of Christian white nationalism (fascism) that Trump and his MAGA surrogates helped bring about is largely the cause of the orange Hitler having a shot at the hot seat again.

SebastianBlue said:
Trump was completely unprepared for winning the election—there are entire books about how much of a scramble it was just to get the bare minimum personal in place when he was inaugurated. He ran a very lean staff for his entire term relative to previous administrations, with record levels of turnover and, by all accounts, infighting. And he still had large amounts of opposition to much of his policy aspirations and desired actions, even within his own party and administration. Over the course of those four years, he was not able to do a lot of what he wanted largely due to the internal opposition within the Republican Party, the federal government system, and, later, a Democratically lead House.

Even so, he still was able to lay the ground work for the dissolution of democratic institutions. He has created a far-right controlled Supreme Court which is stripping away women’s rights, rendering federal agencies tasked with regulating the environment, economy, and social welfare toothless, has essentially anointed anyone holding the office of President as the American King through a ludicrously ambiguous decision on Presidential Immunity, have essentially made the criminalisation of homeless people the law of the land, continues to gut voting rights, and will likely go after LGBTQ+ rights after the election. He undermined (in some cases eviscerated) several federal agencies and sold the regulation carried out by others to the highest bidder. He helped to create the immigration crisis the US faces right now, along with the insane, counterproductive policies of Republicans, even going so far as to recently kill a bipartisan bill that Republicans and Democrats negotiated for months and had the votes to pass so that immigration could continue to be an issue he could campaign on (that was while he wasn’t even president). He undermined US leadership of NATO and support of Ukraine, which partially emboldened Putin to mount a full invasion (and since sabre-rattle about doing so in other former Soviet-controlled regions) and encouraged Xi to become more aggressive with China’s efforts to take Hong Kong, Taiwan, and expand their claims to the South China Sea and surrounds. He mismanaged the pandemic leading to thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of excess deaths; there are still debates as to whether it was—at least initially—an intentional mismanagement. He further undermined public faith in the integrity of the office of the Presidency, even extending to Congress (not that the public had much faith in that body to begin with), and introduced unprecedented levels of corruption, all the while advocating, agitating, acting to be more of a dictator. He was able to almost destroy the Department of Education (which has long been a goal of the far-right and ultra-conservative Republicans); it has famously taken a massive effort to try to reconstitute it under Biden. He empowered Christian and White nationalists at both the federal and state level through both rhetoric, funding, and political appointments. He and his cronies embedded dysfunction, corruption, and distrust in to the election system, which itself is perhaps one of the most damaging, dangerous, and long lasting accomplishments. He worked to undermine public confidence in the free press, in direct rhetoric calling the media the “enemy of the people”, policy (the FCC was an absolute shambles under him and the SC continues to chip away at press freedoms), and by constantly and egregiously spreading dis- and misinformation in an official capacity. His aim was the same as Putin’s: not to simply undermine the truth, but to destroy the very concept that “truth” existed.

And, arguably the most sinister of his first term efforts, he managed to begin the process of purging the ranks of people that he deemed adversarial and/or disloyal to him—many of his previously most “trusted” associates were a part of that purge. Not disloyal to the nation or the constitution: disloyal to him and his MAGA apparatus. He has continued and accelerated that to the point that now he essentially has complete control over the Republican Party, right down to the RNC and officially related entities. He has put his family members in top level leadership roles and has completely focused all campaign efforts on his presidential bid, literally leaving senate, house, state, county, and local campaign coordination to volunteer groups. His campaign is not even allowing non-Trump related political signs or other campaign materials at his various regional campaign headquarters. The Republican party was divided and in civil war in his first term; MAGA was still only a part of the right- and far-right-wing environment when he took office. Now the Republican Party, for all intents and purposes, is the MAGA party. It is unified and behind Trump, with many ultra conservative (or straight up far-right) entities spending literally millions (perhaps billions when all is said and done) to make sure they have a comprehensive plan and carefully selected “loyal” people to fill every role if he wins this time. They plan to further purge the federal civil service’s ranks to ensure no opposition to his every whim (or the whims of those enriching him, whether foreign or domestic) exists in his second term. And that is just one of a bevy of actions and policies his camp plans to enact as soon as he takes the oath.

The only thing that might have a chance of slowing him down would be an opposition or split Congress. But if he gets both the House and Senate, he would control all branches of government.

And I want to be clear: when I say “Trump” or “he”, I mean him and the vast network of far-right, ultra-conservative, Christian/White nationalist (I group them together because there is A LOT of overlap), corporate, and foreign actors behind him. He is not a lone figure, bending America to his will, by any means. But he is very much a reflection and embodiment of all the bad actors that want to see him back in power.

He will continue to use the “slow ramp” tactics of incrementally increasing the darkness and intensity of his speech and proposed actions/policies until, like Hitler, his supporters don’t even flinch when he announces he will round up all “illegal immigrants” and put them in camps for mass deportation. Or begin a programme of mass arrests of dissenters and political opposition. Or pass laws returning women’s rights back to the 1700s. Or institute policies (and agitate for Supreme Court decisions) to abolish the first amendment, installing Evangelical Christianity as the official religion of the US and allowing him to have unchecked powers over the media.



See above. He managed to lay the ground work in his first, largely disjointed term. His second term will be very different. His Supreme Court’s truly catastrophic Presidential Immunity ruling will empower him to far more, far more quickly. And his term will likely not end at the constitutionally-mandated 4 years (8 years in total). Do you really think he will just leave at the end?

I would clarify, as well, that my comparison is of Trump now to Hitler prior to his rise to absolute power, which occurred in the mid-1930s. Trump obviously has not become a “fuhrer” type figure yet. But “yet” is the operative word. People tend to focus on Hitler at the height of his power, and later his demise, without really studying exactly how he got there.

And if you do, you’ll see many similarities in the track and trajectory between Trump and Hitler. And in the rhetoric, behaviour, and outcomes.

It’s also important to point out that Hitler’s (and the Nazi party’s) popular vote share in the last free and fair elections in 1932 were 37% in July and 33% in November, so he barely had a third of the voting population’s support. And even in the election in 1933, after his Nazi forces raged a campaign of intimidation and terror (even acting as poll “monitors”), and shortly after they burned down the Reichstag, he only got 44% of the popular vote. He didn’t need 100% support, he just needed enough to gain power and access to the institutions and resources of government. Then he could work to demolish those institutions and replace them with ones that served his aims without question or hesitance.

And guess what anachronistic system is employed for presidential elections in America that can enable someone to win the office without winning the popular vote (something Trump exploited in the 2016 election, where he got just 46% of the popular vote to Clinton’s 48%)?

As I have said in previous posts, the time to highlight a dangerous bad actor’s similarities to Hitler (and his rise) is not after he has assumed absolute power. The time, when there are legitimate parallels, is well before that.
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mexico1970 said:
I WOULDN'T be voting for Trump if I was an American, not because he's a fascist but because he comes across as unhinged.
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So you’d vote for Harris or Biden or any Democrat? Yeah, right. Bullshit.

You’d sit on your ass and not vote while telling everyone else here three posts ago that America needs to “get out and do something.”
 
Citizen of Legoland said:
Fascinating from here on in. US politics is all bonkers to me but it’s fun to watch.
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It isnt that much fun, the shitgibbon will walk it. May as well switch off from it now. Just hope that the rest of the world pull together to deal with it. Sounds like they have resolved to, judging by the NATO conference and what countries said. Just got to leave the loons over there to it now and hope no major fall out for the civlilised world for 4 or 5 years.
 
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