Ed The Fascism Checklist, Trump 2025

[SpuriusMaximus]

Fun fact: language and the meaning of words changes.

Yes, but that's like saying that if Diogenes held up a plucked chicken in front of Plato and proclaimed, "That's your human," (according to Plato's definition that a human is a bipedal featherless animal,) then you can call people buying frozen chicken from the supermarket cannibals. At some point redefining what X is, based on someone else's redefinition of X, based on someone else's redefinition of X, based on someone else's noticing superficial commonalities, becomes pure nonsense. If someone proclaims that birds are government surveillance drones (actual conspiracy theory, look it up,) and someone else applies that to say that Flock cameras are birds, and then someone else says that, hey, camera eyeglasses do the same, so they're birds too, that's just straight into the domain of Sheogorath, the daedric prince of insanity.

Doubly so, when it gets applied willy nilly to just mean, "someone I whose views I don't like and I'm trying to browbeat into submission." As the line from the Incredibles went, "if everyone's super, no one will be." If "fascist" just means "anyone I don't like", then it stops carrying any meaningful meaning. It's like countering an argument with, "yeah, well, you're a human." As opposed to what else? Exactly who else hasn't been called that? You have to keep SOME kind of meaning above that, or it just becomes just a meaningless padding word, like adding the f-word in a sentence.

It's like the old comedy movie went:
"I play the ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ guitar at the ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ city philharmonica."
"Is that a special kind of guitar?"

Well, no, it's just a word that pretty much became just punctuation, rather than still meaning sexual intercourse.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

LOL. This is why those who screech "fascist!" are so ridiculous. The Nazis were big-government socialists - like some many of the posters here. In 1932 they'd have readily voted for that platform. If the shoe fits!

To be fair, yes, the NSDAP did have socialist ideas like free healthcare, but it only applied to "Aryan" Germans. Everyone else got the far crappier end of the stick. But there are still good arguments to be made that they were a close offshoot of fascism, rather than the same. The only party that ever actually called itself "fascist" sure didn't draw that kind of lines.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

When you sober up, you may notice that, when The Great Zaganza mentions the gnomes of Zürich (Wikipedia), he isn't talking about the name Ingotts but about how the characters are described in the Harry Potter books.
About the name, Google suggests:

The g might as well come from "gnome" (except for the pronunciation) as from "goblin."
By the way, Gott is the German word for God, so it might be a pun. Somebody who is worshipped like a god, a god of mammon (Wikipedia), in this case.

Yes, but that's the same kind of logic as saying that "carpet" sounds like "car pet", so clearly they meant a pet who lives in a car. Actually worse. That's nonsense. Anyone who isn't just looking for something to get butthurt about doesn't go into that kind of 6-degrees-of association involving foreign words, or rather initials and sound-alikes of them.

You don't read "Pope Leo" and go, yeah, the L is clearly the initial of "Lecherous" and "Eo" sounds like "Ego", which is used in psychology to mean the personality, so clearly it must mean "Lecherous personality." Normal people don't work that way. Only the ones looking for any 6-degrees-of-separation reasons to get butthurt do.

 

[arthwollipot]

At some point redefining what X is, based on someone else's redefinition of X, based on someone else's redefinition of X, based on someone else's noticing superficial commonalities, becomes pure nonsense.

There aren't that many steps here.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

There aren't that many steps here.

There kind of are when it comes to being called a "fascist."

 

[arthwollipot]

There kind of are when it comes to being called a "fascist."

Except that there kind of aren't.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Except that there kind of aren't.

Except not only thy are, they're even worse. Someone noticed some superficial similarities to the original, that didn't even match the definition, then someone else noticed some other superficial similarities to that, and so on.

It's literally like someone noticing that penguins are white on the belly, so then nuns are penguins. And some modestly dressed women look like plain-clothes nuns, so a quarter of the bus are penguins. And catgirls look like cats, which actually also typically have white on the belly, so catgirls are penguins too.

But at this point it's really more like people starting calling anyone they don't like "penguins" as some thought-terminating insult. At some point it loses all other meaning and just means "someone that someone else doesn't like." Well, congrats, then we're all "penguins." It just effectively stopped carrying any other connotation.

 

[jimbob]

Except not only thy are, they're even worse. Someone noticed some superficial similarities to the original, that didn't even match the definition, then someone else noticed some other superficial similarities to that, and so on.

It's literally like someone noticing that penguins are white on the belly, so then nuns are penguins. And some modestly dressed women look like plain-clothes nuns, so a quarter of the bus are penguins. And catgirls look like cats, which actually also typically have white on the belly, so catgirls are penguins too.

But at this point it's really more like people starting calling anyone they don't like "penguins" as some thought-terminating insult. At some point it loses all other meaning and just means "someone that someone else doesn't like." Well, congrats, then we're all "penguins." It just effectively stopped carrying any other connotation.

Of course one can define Fascism really tightly so that only the party founded by Mussolini with the actual fasces as its symbol is fascist.

One can look at fundamental (not superficial) similarities and say that Franco had a flavour of fascism. And that the Nazi were so heavily influenced by Fascism that they were also a flavour and fascism.

It is neither superficial nor unhelpful to point out the strong similarities between the flavours of 20th Century fascism and the authoritarian populist far right in many countries.

Nor is it unhelpful to point out the fundamental similarities in Trump's party, as one that wants to impose fascist ideas on the US and the world.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Fascist or not is less useful than Undemocratic or not.
A society might decide to elect right or even far right leaders. What matters is that, once elected, they don't try to remove democratic guardrails, oversight and separation of power, and don't try to cement their reign through election manipulations, media control and persecution of any credible opposition.
The path back from one political extreme must remain free of obstacles.

Trump, through words and actions, has made it very clear that he rejects Democracy and any for of oversight and separation of power.

 

[jimbob]

Fascist or not is less useful than Undemocratic or not.
A society might decide to elect right or even far right leaders. What matters is that, once elected, they don't try to remove democratic guardrails, oversight and separation of power, and don't try to cement their reign through election manipulations, media control and persecution of any credible opposition.
The path back from one political extreme must remain free of obstacles.

Trump, through words and actions, has made it very clear that he rejects Democracy and any for of oversight and separation of power.

True. Although I would say that for a party to be "far right" it's usually antidemocratic by that stage.

And fascism is inherently antidemocratic.


And the thing is there are multiple different ways of being antidemocratic. The way that Trump is being antidemocratic is neo-fascist. They are not just superficial similarities but similar ideologies and approaches.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Fascist or not is less useful than Undemocratic or not.
A society might decide to elect right or even far right leaders. What matters is that, once elected, they don't try to remove democratic guardrails, oversight and separation of power, and don't try to cement their reign through election manipulations, media control and persecution of any credible opposition.
The path back from one political extreme must remain free of obstacles.

Trump, through words and actions, has made it very clear that he rejects Democracy and any for of oversight and separation of power.

Well, that's kinda my point. IMHO if someone just wants to say "dictatorial" or "anti-democracy", they can simply say just that.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

The problem, at that point, is no longer nomenclature, but response: in a democratic society, absolutely everyone, without exception, should oppose everyone in power working to undermine the democratic process.
That is not happening.
So taking it up a notch, pointing out where Trump is going instead of where he already is (which was no red flag for millions) is a reasonable reaction.

 

[dirtywick]

you have to understand tho, it was annoying to hear the left call him fascist for the last few years. yeah, fair enough, it was true they are fascists, but i got so annoyed by it that you need to stop calling them fascist now because the term has lost all meaning.

 

[ahhell]

Sure, its only because its annoying. I have no problem with labeling the Trump and his cronies fascist over the last couple of years. It was the previous 10 where he really wasn't actually a fascist, and more importantly, the previous 70 of folks calling anyone the don't like fascist that are the problem with calling people fascists now, even if it is accurate now.

For the left, it is no different than the right calling everyone they don't like a commie for the last 70 years. All that has done is convince everyone else they don't know what a commie is and shouldn't be listened to when it comes to deciding who is a commie.

And of course, has calling anyone, including the current batch of folks who are fascists in all but name actually accomplished any good?

 

[The Great Zaganza]

He was always fascist - he just didn't have the opportunity to act on it.
Or do you think that Fascism is something you can catch like a disease?
And no, it didn't take a Hitler to build the Autobahn or make the trains run on time

 

[ahhell]

He was always fascist - he just didn't have the opportunity to act on it.
Or do you think that Fascism is something you can catch like a disease?
And no, it didn't take a Hitler to build the Autobahn or make the trains run on time

He's not actually, those around him are so his administration is, he's just a petulant bully. As I've said many times, he'd have to have an actual ethos to be a fascist, well beyond self-enrichment and self-aggrandizement. Even if he were, so after 70 years, the broken clock is finally right. Great, now what?

 

[dirtywick]

Sure, its only because its annoying. I have no problem with labeling the Trump and his cronies fascist over the last couple of years. It was the previous 10 where he really wasn't actually a fascist, and more importantly, the previous 70 of folks calling anyone the don't like fascist that are the problem with calling people fascists now, even if it is accurate now.

For the left, it is no different than the right calling everyone they don't like a commie for the last 70 years. All that has done is convince everyone else they don't know what a commie is and shouldn't be listened to when it comes to deciding who is a commie.

And of course, has calling anyone, including the current batch of folks who are fascists in all but name actually accomplished any good?

most of the worst of his crony offenders, like miller and steve bannon, were around during his first term too, and trump has systematically removed and replaced his closest advisors that weren't going along with the shift towards fascism that marks his tenure as president. in any case, time has revealed the people ignoring all the red flags and arguing against calling the maga movement a fascist one were shown to be incorrect

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

True. Although I would say that for a party to be "far right" it's usually antidemocratic by that stage.

And fascism is inherently antidemocratic.

Schoolkids carry backpacks. My coworker wears a backpack. Therefore my coworker is a schoolkid

And the thing is there are multiple different ways of being antidemocratic.

Precisely. Every communist dictator was also anti-democratic.

The way that Trump is being antidemocratic is neo-fascist. They are not just superficial similarities but similar ideologies and approaches.

The thing is not just that people use other similarities, but that they're also ignoring the lack of core concepts of fascism like the state corporatism. That's exactly as silly as what the right-wingers do, when they call someone a communist even when they don't want to seize the means of production.

If you want a perfect example of actual fascism these days, look at China.

 

[dirtywick]

https://www.cato.org/free-society/winter-2026/conspicuous-fist-trumps-state-corporatism

here's an article from the cato institute's not ignoring that the trump admin's state corporatist agenda

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Trump is very much a Real Life Fascist, seeking personal power and wealth, demanding obeisance, believing in personal Superiority, including genetic, rejecting any restraint and demanding constant attention.
It's not textbook fascism, but it's exactly what every fascist leader wanted.