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Posted
On 3/8/2025 at 10:26 PM, Brian Fantana said:

There's one coming out with Sam Seder vs. 20 conservatives tomorrow I think lol

Just watched it this morning.....oh boy......

 

Posted
16 minutes ago, speed817 said:

Just watched it this morning.....oh boy......

 

The way these young people "debate" feels like the result of right wing YouTube/podcasts over the last decade. A bunch of people that bought the disinformation from Ben Shapiro, Charlie Kirk, Tim Pool and the cast of characters Joe Rogan books. 

Zero ability to critically think or even listen to Sam Seder. He brought facts and information and not a single person absorbed a word of it. They had their off-topic talking points ready and fired away. Completely hopeless to even discuss issues with them. 

 

Posted
On 3/9/2025 at 9:51 AM, 956 Worldwide said:

“Would a real fascist do X policy” is a fools errand because fascism, its implementers, and its philosophical forefathers were explicitly anti-rationalist and uninvolved with political science as we know it.  This is especially true of the economy, which Hitler was notoriously uninterested in.  Franco did an about-face between planned autarky and market reforms and saw no conflict with the fascist state. 
 

Fascism is an anti-rational mood or vibe that places collective “national greatness” and the interests of a nation (inseparable from the state as controlled by a leader) above all else while completely subordinating the individual and attacking or eliminating those defined as outside the “nation”. The economy is an instrument to achieve those aims and there are no prescriptive economic policies or even political principles.  Even racism isn’t required, an out-group can be selected along other grounds. A genuine theocrat or free-market zealot might be brutally authoritarian but would not be “fascist” because elevating a faith or the market above the “nation” and its leader is antithetical to fascism which identifies “national greatness” as the highest metaphysical, spiritual, and temporal value. 
 

In the past I’ve been cautious about using fascism to describe anything in the United States, preferring “authoritarian” even for DJT.  But I believe that MAGA has coalesced into a fascist movement.  MAGA’s instrumental and incoherent stance towards market economics and Christianity (where the latter two may be useful, but MUST be subordinate to MAGA) rhymes with historical fascism.  The rhetoric about Americans being ready to suffer economic hardship to restore America is very fascist.  And on the economic front,  the emerging partnership between tech and MAGA and especially Musk is resonant of fascism’s relationship to industry. 

The best definition of fascism comes from Roger Griffin, who defines it as palingenetic ultranationalism. That can sound kind of wonky though since nobody knows what palingenesis is and still sort of sounds like an ideology even though fascism isn't really ideological, so Umberto Eco's 14 traits of ur-fascism is probably the best way to explain it to most people:

Quote

1. "The cult of tradition", characterized by cultural syncretism, even at the risk of internal contradiction. When all truth has already been revealed by tradition, no new learning can occur, only further interpretation and refinement.

2. "The rejection of modernism", which views the rationalistic development of Western culture since the Enlightenment as a descent into depravity. Eco distinguishes this from a rejection of superficial technological advancement, as many fascist regimes cite their industrial potency as proof of the vitality of their system.

3. "The cult of action for action's sake", which dictates that action is of value in itself and should be taken without intellectual reflection. This, says Eco, is connected with anti-intellectualism and irrationalism, and often manifests in attacks on modern culture and science.

4. "Disagreement is treason" – fascism devalues intellectual discourse and critical reasoning as barriers to action, as well as out of fear that such analysis will expose the contradictions embodied in a syncretistic faith.

5. "Fear of difference", which fascism seeks to exploit and exacerbate, often in the form of racism or an appeal against foreigners and immigrants.

6. "Appeal to a frustrated middle class", fearing economic pressure from the demands and aspirations of lower social groups.

7. "Obsession with a plot" and the hyping-up of an enemy threat. This often combines an appeal to xenophobia with a fear of disloyalty and sabotage from marginalized groups living within the society. Eco also cites Pat Robertson's book The New World Order as a prominent example of a plot obsession.

8. Fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies as "at the same time too strong and too weak". On the one hand, fascists play up the power of certain disfavored elites to encourage in their followers a sense of grievance and humiliation. On the other hand, fascist leaders point to the decadence of those elites as proof of their ultimate feebleness in the face of an overwhelming popular will.

9. "Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy" because "life is permanent warfare" – there must always be an enemy to fight. Both fascist Germany under Hitler and Italy under Mussolini worked first to organize and clean up their respective countries and then build the war machines that they later intended to and did use, despite Germany being under restrictions of the Versailles treaty to not build a military force. This principle leads to a fundamental contradiction within fascism: the incompatibility of ultimate triumph with perpetual war.

10. "Contempt for the weak", which is uncomfortably married to a chauvinistic popular elitism, in which every member of society is superior to outsiders by virtue of belonging to the in-group. Eco sees in these attitudes the root of a deep tension in the fundamentally hierarchical structure of fascist polities, as they encourage leaders to despise their underlings, up to the ultimate leader, who holds the whole country in contempt for having allowed him to overtake it by force.

11. "Everybody is educated to become a hero", which leads to the embrace of a cult of death. As Eco observes, "[t]he Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death."

12. "Machismo", which sublimates the difficult work of permanent war and heroism into the sexual sphere. Fascists thus hold "both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality".

13. "Selective populism" – the people, conceived monolithically, have a common will, distinct from and superior to the viewpoint of any individual. As no mass of people can ever be truly unanimous, the leader holds himself out as the interpreter of the popular will (though truly he alone dictates it). Fascists use this concept to delegitimize democratic institutions they accuse of "no longer represent[ing] the voice of the people".

14. "Newspeak" – fascism employs and promotes an impoverished vocabulary in order to limit critical reasoning.
 

 

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