You got me, you're so smart. How do you do it.

This isn't a call to violence is it......

You didn’t have to quote Eco, you just repeated his buzzwords without context. And no, we’re not “reliving Germany in the 1930s.” That comparison gets thrown around by people who know how that decade ended but not how it actually unfolded. Germany in the ’30s had a one-party regime, a silenced press, outlawed unions, political imprisonment, and a militarized propaganda machine. The U.S., for all its dysfunction, still has open elections, a free press, armed political opposition, and a population that can’t even agree on a movie to watch, let alone a dictator. So maybe instead of reenacting Weimar trauma on Lemmy, you could start by actually reading the essay you’re invoking, or that history book you just recommended.

Yeah, I’ve read Eco’s Ur-Fascism, the full nine-page essay everyone likes to name-drop as proof we’ve hit fascism 2.0. It’s not a checklist where you can tick a few boxes and yell “we’re fascist now.” Eco’s whole argument is that fascism isn’t a single coherent system; it’s a messy collage of emotional instincts that can appear anywhere, left, right, religious, secular. He even calls it “a fuzzy totalitarianism,” meaning it has no fixed core.

If you actually line up his 14 points against the U.S. in 2025, the comparison doesn’t hold. There’s no cult of tradition or sacred national myth, America is perpetually arguing about what to change, not what to preserve. There’s no rejection of modernism; we’re obsessed with technology and innovation. We don’t live in a culture of permanent warfare or heroic martyrdom; most Americans recoil from both. There’s no state-mandated Newspeak or enforced ideology, if anything, the problem is too much speech, not too little.

Sure, some traits echo faintly: populism, conspiracy rhetoric, social polarization. But those exist in every democracy during high-stress periods. Populism isn’t fascism; nor is cultural stupidity the same as dictatorship. Fascism, as Eco lived it, required one-party rule, abolished dissent, outlawed unions, censored the press, and built a cult of death and war. None of that defines the U.S.

So when you insist we’ve gone “full fascist,” you're not channeling Eco, you're contradicting him. He warned against moral laziness, against turning “fascism” into a universal curse word. Reducing every political decay or populist movement to fascism doesn’t enlighten anyone, it just proves how little critical thinking you've retained from the man’s essay in the first place.

And as for the part about not assuming people here are “politically uneducated”? You don’t need to assume anything, it’s self-evident when someone quotes Eco like scripture while missing the entire argument. Dressing it up in intellectual language doesn’t make it any less shallow

Scrolling through the replies, it’s hard not to notice that the rule set here, ‘no misinformation, good-faith discussion, be excellent to each other’, isn’t really being applied evenly. If posts that mock or dehumanise an entire group count as ‘political humor,’ then the rule about misinformation or harassment doesn’t mean much. I’m fine if this gets me booted, but it seems fair to ask: what’s the point of the rules if they’re only enforced for one side?

To be specific, this meme frames European colonisation as ‘illegal immigration.’ It’s rhetorically clever, but factually inaccurate, there was no unified legal system, no concept of national borders, and no codified immigration law in pre-colonial North America. There were many Indigenous nations with their own governance systems, but nothing resembling the modern legal idea of “illegal entry.”

By the literal reading of this community’s rule, ‘No misinformation. Be prepared to back up your factual claims with evidence’, that should qualify as misinformation.

What worries me is that if someone posted a meme using the same format but with the political roles reversed, it probably wouldn’t be given the same leniency. I don’t see examples of opposing humour being treated the same way, and that makes me think there’s a double standard at play. If that’s how the community operates, fine, but it would be more transparent to state that openly rather than pretend neutrality.

Well, yes, that’s exactly what I’m getting at. The image presents a list of statements as ‘THE FACTS,’ yet none of them are backed by evidence or citations. They’re framed as literal confessions of criminal activity that have never been legally established.

For example: • It claims he ‘staged a coup’ and ‘incited sedition’ — those are legal terms implying conviction, which hasn’t happened. • It says ‘I knew I lost, I lied anyway,’ but that’s speculation about his internal thoughts, not a verified fact. • It concludes with ‘We belong in prison,’ which again asserts guilt without due process.

That’s why I questioned it under the ‘no misinformation’ rule. Even if it’s meant as humor, it’s still presented as a factual list and I'm unsure if there’s similar treatment allowed for jokes about the opposite side as there seems to be none.

I’m not asking for it to be removed, just trying to understand where the boundary is between political humor and posts that make factual claims without evidence.

I’m new here, so this is a genuine question — not trying to stir things up.

I’m trying to understand how images like this fit within the community rules, especially the parts about ‘no misinformation’ and ‘good-faith arguments.’ It’s clearly political humor, but it also reads as a literal accusation list.

I haven’t seen any similar memes from the opposing perspective, so I’m wondering where the line is drawn. What qualifies as humor versus misinformation or bad faith here? I’m asking because I’d like to participate without accidentally breaking the rules myself.

Legendary.

Ok great! From the sounds of it, certainly seems like Lemmy is promising. Hasn't quite grown to the point where smaller niche subs have made it here just yet, but *hopefully * with a growing user base those niche subs may make their way onto the platform. I do love the idea of Lemmy.

As for your culture response I'm a little confused as quite the contrary was my experience on Reddit. Seemed to be an echo chamber of liberals who were incapable of debate and so therefore mods would often times delete posts or worse ban users even with sound rebuttals. (I am conservative, quite conservative I might add.) A moderators ideological or political stance shouldn't be the determining factor as to whether a post or user gets banned.

In addition, as a side note. I'd gladly be the first conservative to debate you in good faith sometime. ;)

Regardless, thanks for the post! Going to start wrapping my head around Lemmy. I'm virtually walking in pitch black running into walls. Need to dig deeper in setting the account up!

Well thats fantastic to hear. It's my biggest issue with Reddit. I'm big into debating. Don't mind being wrong, but I sure as hell don't want to be be banned for trying to create dialogue.

amen.

That’s a really good point, I hadn’t thought about the AMA angle or how unique those niche pro communities were. Thanks for sharing that, definitely gives me a better picture of what people feel is missing.