Trump is a FASCIST!

[shemp]

Trump is just another politician. He's telling his targeted voters what they want to hear.

 

[a_unique_person]

I don't believe he could ever get the trains to run on time.

 

[Upchurch]

Trump is just another entertainer. He's telling his audience what they want to hear.

FIFY.

 

[Ladewig]

FIFY.

Salesman - customers ?
Con artist - marks ?

ETA
I have narrowed it down to
Promoter - chumps
Carnival barker - rubes.

 

[Trebuchet]

How We Fooled Donald Trump Into Retweeting Benito Mussolini

I thought about starting a contest to see who here could troll a Trump re-tweet.

It's still up, too. Apparently @ilduce2016 wasn't a broad enough hint for him.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/703900742961270784

At least he's belatedly disavowed David Duke. Claims he didn't know about him. And most of his Twatter today is "Little Marco Rubio". There goes the short people vote.

 

[shemp]

FIFY.

Your version is indeed more accurate.

 

[Upchurch]

Salesman - customers ?
Con artist - marks ?

ETA
I have narrowed it down to
Promoter - chumps
Carnival barker - rubes.

clown - frightened children?

 

[Maya22]

He is definitely a master manipulator who intimidates and mesmerizes.

http://youtu.be/9LR6EA91zLo

 

[dudalb]

He is definitely a master manipulator who intimidates and mesmerizes.

http://youtu.be/9LR6EA91zLo

Just like a certain politician in the 30's in Germany who had a cute little mustache....

 

[Jules Galen]

He is definitely a master manipulator who intimidates and mesmerizes.

http://youtu.be/9LR6EA91zLo

Actually, I don't think Trump either Manipulates or Mesmerizes his supporters: I think he taps into the deep root of their shame of being powerless....and makes them feel powerful.

http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/02/donald-trump-makes-powerless-people-feel-powerful.html

After seeing Trump, I'm beginning to finally understand the appeal of Hitler.

And make no mistake about this: his appeal is bigger than any party or ideology.

 

[Corsair 115]

Ah, yes, 'fascist'. Another one of those words that has been thrown around so much lately that it has pretty much lost all meaning.

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

Talk about a Godwinned thread.

 

[angrysoba]

Ah, yes, 'fascist'. Another one of those words that has been thrown around so much lately that it has pretty much lost all meaning.

"Lately"? George Orwell wrote this in the 1940s:

It will be seen that, as used, the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else.
Yet underneath all this mess there does lie a kind of buried meaning. To begin with, it is clear that there are very great differences, some of them easy to point out and not easy to explain away, between the régimes called Fascist and those called democratic. Secondly, if ‘Fascist’ means ‘in sympathy with Hitler’, some of the accusations I have listed above are obviously very much more justified than others. Thirdly, even the people who recklessly fling the word ‘Fascist’ in every direction attach at any rate an emotional significance to it. By ‘Fascism’ they mean, roughly speaking, something cruel, unscrupulous, arrogant, obscurantist, anti-liberal and anti-working-class. Except for the relatively small number of Fascist sympathizers, almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’. That is about as near to a definition as this much-abused word has come.
But Fascism is also a political and economic system. Why, then, cannot we have a clear and generally accepted definition of it? Alas! we shall not get one — not yet, anyway. To say why would take too long, but basically it is because it is impossible to define Fascism satisfactorily without making admissions which neither the Fascists themselves, nor the Conservatives, nor Socialists of any colour, are willing to make. All one can do for the moment is to use the word with a certain amount of circumspection and not, as is usually done, degrade it to the level of a swearword.

Talk about a Godwinned thread.

What do you mean by a Godwinned thread? I am clearly asking if you agree with the use of the word Fascist being applied to Donald Trump, or...not? And if you do, then I am inviting people to say why. Similarly, if you think it does not apply to him, then you may say why not. Or, if you prefer you can not participate at all.

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

What do you mean by a Godwinned thread? I am clearly asking if you agree with the use of the word Fascist being applied to Donald Trump, or...not? And if you do, then I am inviting people to say why. Similarly, if you think it does not apply to him, then you may say why not. Or, if you prefer you can not participate at all.

Just another of my failed attempts at humor. See here:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

I did participate in the poll as well.

 

[angrysoba]

Just another of my failed attempts at humor. See here:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

I did participate in the poll as well.

You know who else often failed at humour? Hitler! That's who!

Anyway, yeah, I know Godwin's Law, but the important point about Godwin's Law is that it is supposed to combat inappropriate comparisons with Hitler or the Nazis such as when it is remarked that Hitler was an animal lover, presumably to cast some spurious moral equivalence between looking after animals and gassing Jews.

But if people think that there really is an appropriate comparison between Trump and Fascism, that can specifically apply to Trump and which isn't simply being thrown around as a general-purpose insult, then I would like to know what it is.

ETA; And thanks for voting!

 

[elbe]

I'm not sure he's exactly a fascist. He has said or supported some very questionable positions, but I'm not sure how easy it is to separate the words from the man. I'm not sure about just writing him off as just another Pol, though, he's clearly something different.

 

[Corsair 115]

"Lately"? George Orwell wrote this in the 1940s:

I wonder what Mr. Orwell would make of today's times...

 

[angrysoba]

I'm not sure he's exactly a fascist. He has said or supported some very questionable positions, but I'm not sure how easy it is to separate the words from the man. I'm not sure about just writing him off as just another Pol, though, he's clearly something different.

Is that Pol Pot?

 

[elbe]

Is that Pol Pot?

No, just a lazy shortening of politician.

 

[angrysoba]

I have noticed that people are going mental on Facebook saying that Trump is a Fascist, or even the next Hitler. Of course many of them are also saying that those who don't remember history are doomed to repeat it, but it seems to me that only those who don't remember history can think Trump is Hitler.

Now, I think he's a demagogue who makes crass comments about Mexicans and Muslims, but that he's not a fascist. In fact, I think that's ridiculous. If Trump devises a 25-point plan for a racially pure Amerikan Reich and forms a paramilitary organization who beat up political opponents then I will change my mind. But not until then.

What do you fine people think?

I shall start a poll to definitively decide this urgent matter.

I still think Trump is not a fascist, or Hitler, but the quotes regarding him endorsing violence against protesters at his rallies, his offers of legal aid to those who violently assault protesters, and his suggestions that, yes, he may start sending his people over to a rival candidate's rallies to cause violence pushes him in the fascist direction.