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2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumHillary Clinton is our Dwight Eisenhower, Maxwell Taylor, and Omar Bradley
We live in interesting times.
Who would have thunk a sixty seven year old woman and a seventy year old Muslim would defeat fascism in our time.
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Hillary Clinton is our Dwight Eisenhower, Maxwell Taylor, and Omar Bradley (Original Post)
DemocratSinceBirth
Aug 2016
OP
former9thward
(32,081 posts)1. The U.S. is not under threat of fascism.
I am confident Hillary Clinton does not share your view of "fascism".
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,711 posts)2. Trump is a fascist.
Hes not Hitler, as his wife recently said? Well, of course he isnt. But then Hitler wasnt Hitleruntil he was. At each step of the way, the shock was tempered by acceptance. It depended on conservatives pretending he wasnt so bad, compared with the Communists, while at the same time the militant left decided that their real enemies were the moderate leftists, who were really indistinguishable from the Nazis. The radical progressives decided that there was no difference between the democratic left and the totalitarian right and that an explosion of institutions was exactly the most thrilling thing imaginable.
http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-dangerous-acceptance-of-donald-trump
http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-dangerous-acceptance-of-donald-trump
Ms. Whitman also said she absolutely stood by her comments at a private gathering of Republican donors this year comparing Mr. Trump to Hitler and Mussolini, explaining that dictators often come to office through democratic means.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/03/us/politics/meg-whitman-hillary-clinton.html?_r=0
For those who take the long view, Umberto Ecos essay defining Ur-Fascism is a useful look back. I learned of it from Jamelle Bouies piece. The point here is to get away from fascism as a cheap insult, and ask what were the common factors in the mid-20th-century in what one could call classical fascism.
Eco lists 14 criteria that may seem familiar to observers of the current scene. The criteria are interesting because they were laid out by him long ago, independently of any current events. It could be turned into a checklist, like the DSM-V has for mental illness: meet 5 or more criteria, and its time to get evaluated by a professional.
I see seven items that potentially match current events:
a cult of tradition
rejection of modernism
opposition to analytical criticism
appeal to a frustrated middle class
obsession with a plot
humiliation by the enemy
machismo
There may be more see the list for yourself.
http://election.princeton.edu/2016/07/13/what-is-fascism/
Eco lists 14 criteria that may seem familiar to observers of the current scene. The criteria are interesting because they were laid out by him long ago, independently of any current events. It could be turned into a checklist, like the DSM-V has for mental illness: meet 5 or more criteria, and its time to get evaluated by a professional.
I see seven items that potentially match current events:
a cult of tradition
rejection of modernism
opposition to analytical criticism
appeal to a frustrated middle class
obsession with a plot
humiliation by the enemy
machismo
There may be more see the list for yourself.
http://election.princeton.edu/2016/07/13/what-is-fascism/