That word makes a lot of people uncomfortable and many will shut their brains off when they see it. It's a perfect word to describe what's happening, but sometimes describing the characteristics of it is better for engagement.

There are a lot of reactionaries in today's political landscape.

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Ygg2 7 hours ago | parent [-]

> It's a perfect word to describe what's happening

I don't think it really fits, but the US is sliding towards illiberal democracy.

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Spivak 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Fascism isn't really a form of government though, it's a political ideology and aesthetics that we see echoed through different regimes. You can be a democracy on paper while in practice being a single party corporate oligarchy with a cult of personality surrounding the head of state.

Ur-Fascism describes the ideology of MAGA exactly. Clearly there's some apprehension admitting this, it's a strong-man political ideology that has evolved many times organically throughout history. It doesn't necessarily imply that the regime is bad or evil or anything but the problem ends up being that the term exists because governments that adopt this ideology end up converging on the same unsavory behaviors despite any initial differences. That convergence is I think what a lot of Americans are afraid of because we're already doing most of them.

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hypeatei 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Ultra nationalist, cult of personality, using violence to suppress opposition... you don't see any parallels, really?

EDIT: Illiberalism is a tenet of fascism as well.

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gadflyinyoureye 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You forgot to couple with that the oligarchy. https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746

So yes, the US has enough of the hallmarks to be considered a fascist state. It doesn't need to tick every single box for that title.

Edit from Wikipedia: Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/ FASH-iz-əm) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement that rose to prominence in early-20th-century Europe.[1][2][3] Fascism is characterized by support for a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived interest of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.[3][4] Opposed to communism, democracy, liberalism, pluralism, and socialism,[5][6] fascism is at the far-right of the traditional left–right spectrum.[1][6][7] What constitutes a precise definition of fascism has been a longrunning and complex debate among scholars.

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Ygg2 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Ok, but what are the hallmarks of a fascist state?

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maxfurman 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Look up "On Fascism" by Umberto Eco, it's not that long and was written long enough ago that you can't say it was influenced by any of our current leaders.

	▲	Ygg2 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Umberto Eco is a great writer, but whenever his list of ways to describe Blackshirts comes up, it fails. First, it's very fuzzy. You don't have to have all aspects, but many aspects are present in many systems without it being outright fascist. --- Is 5 out of 14 enough to make something fascist? Are "Appeal to a frustrated middle class", "Fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies as 'at the same time too strong and too weak'", "Newspeak" and "Obsession with a plot" enough? I think it confuses rhetorical devices like "Fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies as 'at the same time too strong and too weak'" and "Newspeak" as hallmarks of Fascism when they are just a tool. George Orwell famously pointed that calling things "fascist" and "Nazi" is in itself an example of Newspeak, because it's not used to describe a government system that is far-right, authoritarian, and extremely xenophobic, but it's used as a label to say something is Bad™. It also confuses its populist roots and enemies at the time. "The cult of action for action's sake," and especially anti-intellectualism. --- Like take Starship Troopers, an extremely fascistic society. Let's score it on Eco's scale. It definitely has "Rejection of Modernism", "Disagreement is treason", "Cult of action", "Fear of Difference", "Life is Warfare", "Everybody is a hero", and "Newspeak". So 7/14. - Cult of tradition doesn't exist that much per se. Granted, I could have missed it. - Appeal to the frustrated middle class; as far as we see, there isn't one . - Obsession with plot isn't really a thing, because the Bugs aren't really a plot; they are a clear and present danger. The internal enemies if any aren't mentioned. - Casting enemies as "at the same time too strong and too weak." Bugs are shown more or less realistically, they are a difficult enemy that can be defeated. - "Selective populism". It's not so much selective populism as state enforced labor to gain citizenship. - "Contempt for the weak" there isn't much out-group to belong to. The Terran Federation covers the globe, and almost everyone is a citizen. There isn't any contempt for underlings, even if there are military cross branch out-groups. Like real world counterparts jarheads, squids and wingnut. - If Machismo exists, it's mutated to cover both sexes. Granted, I might have missed a few, but still, shouldn't Eco's 14 traits light up more for a more fascistic society?

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Ygg2 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Sure, I see ultranationalism. And if I squint, I can see that a huge chunk of the US population is pro-Trump, but that's not culty overall.

You can still speak against him, as far as I can tell. Compare this to, say, Mao Zedong. If you spoke against him, your life was forfeit, and even that's not fascism.

If this is one of those fuzzy definitions, it definitely isn't on the strong side. Where is the rampant militarism, the worship of death, and of the military?

	▲	alistairSH 6 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Where is the rampant militarism ICE budget increases. NG deployed domestically several times. Renaming DoD to DoW. Invasion of ~2 sovereign nations
	▲	voidUpdate 6 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		There's been quite a lot of worship of the military in america... Also haven't armed forces been deployed domestically a few times in the current presidency?
	▲	philk10 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		the worship of death? try all the videos of 'lethal kinetic strikes' on speedboats
	▲	miltonlost 6 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		> Where is the rampant militarism ICE
	▲	hypeatei 6 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		> rampant militarism, the worship of death, and of the military? See: the recent events in Minneapolis and the massive increase in funding for ICE. You don't have to look very hard to see what the new brownshirts are doing in blue cities and the MAGAs covering for them. Oh also the federalization of the National Guard and US Marine deployment to Los Angeles. Things move quickly and people forget but that's exactly their playbook: flooding the zone with so much shit that it's hard to keep track.
	▲	donkeybeer 6 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
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