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Rule of 400
(lemmy.blahaj.zone)
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this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2023
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The fact that you're equalizing US Republicans with fascists speaks magnitude of how shallow and undeveloped your position is.
And that's coming from me as a European, with absolutely no vested interest in US internal affairs.
The fact that you've blustered twice without providing any actual points whatsoever speaks magnitudes of how shallow and undeveloped your position is.
While I do believe the other commenter is making a gross simplification of the reasons the average conservative does what they do, there is genuine merit in recognizing the relationship between US Republicans (or conservative movements and groups in general) and facism. The ideological cudgels they use are based in the same foundations, utilize the same rhetoric, and are often intended by their progenators to reach the same end goals. If you are a European, you should have some interest in this - after all, the US of A is not the only country struggling with facist rhetoric being normalized in its culture.
Thanks. I personally don't like throwing the "f" word around too much. It's been losing it's meaning in the past years. But we have to have a way to analyze the rhetoric through a past lense.
The thing is, here in the US the transnational white power movement / white Christian nationalist movement features all the indicators of fascism (there are multiple lists. Choose one. I like Umberto Eco's). We could argue that it's incidentally fascist, that it's developed these features as symptoms in the process of coming out as an autocratic, identity-focused culture. But that doesn't change that it is dangerous and is stripping away civil rights from the people of the United States, and is engaging in efforts to neuter the already meager democratic features of the US, in order to hedge out the other party.
So whether or not the Republican party is a fascist party, whether or not some states have fascist elements, they are behaving in those ways historic fascist regimes have that cause harm. And as such it is doing harm to their respective publics.
And that means our attention should be focused not on what to call them, but how to stop the harm.
I never directly stated they are completely equivalent. I said the rhetorical devices they use are the same. This is hard to refute. I'm an American and I also happen to live in Europe (I was born and grew up in Italy) so I know plenty about Fascism. Why don't you provide an actual counterargument?
I think you underestimate the prevalence of the transnational white power movement in the Republican Party. We currently have the right-wing extremist factions, MAGAs and the Christian Nationalists, and then we have the old guard. I think Mitt Romney is the least right-wing throughout the federal government, and he still believes in policies that will drive the US toward fascism and autocracy. And when he wasn't in politics, he was engaging in hedge-fund shenanigans that depended on regulatory capture.
So yes, every last one of them bought the ticket to ride this train, and are financed by the plutocrats that laid the rails.
Let me introduce you to a fellow named DeSantis