Is It Fascism? A Leading Historian Changes His Mind. Robert Paxton thought the label was overused. But now he’s alarmed by what he sees in global politics — including Trumpism.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/23/magazine/robert-paxton-facism.html?unlocked_article_code=1.UU4.eQcA.dnPOThjhb7GKOpen linkView original on slrpnk.net
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We tried telling you if you wait until this far along you won't be able to vote out the fascism. Maybe Trump doesn't get in, that doesn't stop the militias huntind down FEMA responders, or the ones who tried to kidnap a governor, or the one who successfully got into Pelosis house and assaulted her husband. That doesn't stop Paxton from getting away with everything and the kitchen sink in Texas including stopping federal agents from preventing Texases attempts to kill migrants or stop Florida from being Florida (enough said there). And that's without even talking about abortion access and threats against inter racial marrige.
None of that goes away if and when Trump does. The roots are set, no one with the power to act did anything soon enough and this fascism will linger for another decade in the best case scenario. History makes this historian look like someone who wouldn't call Hitler a fascist until aftet the night of long knives. In short, a chump.
You know, the world is not the US. Fascism's rising all around the globe and Trump is merely a symptom of a much bigger disaster.
USA is not the most powerful or influential country in the world.
In a neighborhood where every home except USA has universal healthcare, living wages, metric system, climate agreements, accountability, proportionate security, and low gun violence, USA is the crazy house that just shouts about how everyone else is wrong and waves its giant arsenal.
The fascists won't go away when trump does. They were there long before trump. Plotting a Hitler style fascist overthrow of FDRin the 1930s even as Hitler stomped around Europe. Before trump was even born. And many of those implicated suffered no personal repercussions after being outed. The son and grandson of one going on to become modern Republican war starting presidents.
The fascist rank and file don't go away because they no longer see themselves among a cavalcade of strongmen impersonators, they have been invigorated and organizing to find each other thanks to how mainstream fasicms has become. They will either identify with one, take matters into their own hands like some brown shirt vigilantes, or best case, split among a few different people. That kind of post leader schism is what turned the Black Panthers into the Bloods and the Crips.
Maga got violent when Trump won making 'random' hate crime rates spike, and they organized to attempt a coup when he lost. The violence is unavoidable at this point, thats the point behind saying you can't vote this out. There is no peaceful transition away from fascism. We can only hope they're at each others throats instead of ours.
Better late than never?
I came here to literally post what you entered - verbatim - but I was too late.
I couldn't agree with you more.
"Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
Checks out.
I was going to push back on this bit, "subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race" as the US is all about individualism but then I remembered that the MAGA people are doing this anyway. They're a homogeneous group that drives lifted trucks, obsesses about guns, and wears the same types of clothes.
A huge one is that they've stripped away the individual right to abortion by way of the right to privacy.
And the MAGA dipshits cheer it, because they don't realize what they've really lost.
Nice to see the slow ones catching up. Would have been great if they never shoved their heads in their asses in the first place.
New ideology just dropped
https://web.archive.org/web/20210312204123/https://www.newsweek.com/robert-paxton-trump-fascist-1560652 is the ny times article different substantially from his 2021 opinion?
It's very much a reiteration and amplification of those views, and connecting them to the worldwide far-right movement, to try and keep the fascists out of power.
Interesting! I'll have to read it later, then
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