According to the current Leftist narrative, everything evil in the world is the fault of white Christian men, for this world is the world that such men built and have maintained. If this is true, then either white Christian men are just that much better than every other sort of human, and therefore in justice *ought* to rule the planet, or else they are the only sort of men who have free agency, ergo any real power. Notice that the second alternative is just the most extreme version of the first: if white Christian men are the only sort with real agency, then they are categorically superior to all others, who are their pawns and puppets, whom they have always ruled, and will always rule, despite appearances to the contrary.
Is the Leftist narrative true? If so, then white Christian men have no one to blame for our sorry state of affairs but … white Christian men. The devolution of the West in all its aspects is in that case nothing more than a project of white Christian men. Feminism, anti-colonialism, modern “art” and architecture, the corruption of tradition, the destruction of sex, of language, of music, of the family, of religion: all, as having been permitted, abetted, encouraged, indeed even executed by white Christian men, are their own projects.
There is some truth to this ascription. White Christian men have cooked their own goose.
But of course, the Leftist narrative is utterly, risibly false. Not everything in the world is the fault of white Christian men. Almost nothing is. All sorts of people have agency, and responsibility, for what happens as history wends her tortured way to the eschaton. And all sorts of people are an admixture of wickedness and virtue. White Christian men are not the only actors on the stage of the world. To suggest otherwise would be rather like proposing that the outcome of a football game was entirely due to the excellence of the winning team.
It’s a silly notion.
So, no one really believes the Leftist narrative, in practice. Leftists rather only protest their belief in their ideology as loudly and obviously as they can, meanwhile conducting their lives by means of myriad unprincipled exceptions. If their belief were genuine and wholehearted, they would not need to protest it so much, or so stridently: true, honest, confident belief is quiet. Their passionate howling cloaks and bewrays their deep anxiety at the incoherence of their ideology, and their bad faith. Their lack of confidence in their basic doctrines is the reason they are so defensive, prickly, and prone to anger, responding to any murmur of challenge to their notions as if it were a personal attack.
That agency and responsibility – and guilt – are pervasively distributed among humans does not, NB, mean that white Christian men are *not* just that smidge better on average – more intelligent, lethal, curious, enterprising, inventive, or whatever – than other sorts. They may be; no one after all would ever be so foolish as to suggest that the outcome of a football game had nothing at all to do with the excellence of the winning team. Nor therefore does it mean that their late conquest of the globe was merely adventitious, or that they cannot recapitulate and complete it when and as they wish. They might; certainly they well can, if history is any indication. We shall see, I suppose. It means only that the easy comfortable notion that they are uniquely responsible for history, and that everyone else is therefore blameless, is absurd.
But then, the fact that the current Leftist narrative assigns all blame, and thus all agency and power, to white Christian men is happenstantial. The logic of Leftism is such that it must learn eventually, despite its prejudices, to assign all blame, agency and power to *whatever class of people rule society.* Sooner or later, then, as its campaign of vilification of white Christian men drives them more and more from any positions of public authority, it must begin to realize that the sort of people now in the driver’s seat of the West are no longer predominantly and truly Christian, and are furthermore less and less white or male. They are in fact all Leftist. So the Left is doomed to devour itself, not just because it needs a steady supply of suitably abhorrent scapegoats (it does), but because it is now itself, as the ruling class, more and more the most abhorrent and suitable target of persecution.
As the Left more and more surmounts the commanding heights of the culture, its hatred of the ruling class must more and more find expression in hatred of Leftists.
More tumbrils, stat!
The Orthosphere 
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When the left is out of power, all evil is due to the oppressive elite that is in power. When the left is in power, all evil is due to wreckers and conspiracies. If the Left takes control of planet earth, they will explain evil as the work of Emmanuel Goldstein and his pig Snowball operating from some secret hideout near Alpha Centauri.
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Well, that would be a silly thing to assert. Fortunately:
One might wonder why you are spending so much time on something that nobody believes. And very few people assert, although I suppose you can find some.
A.morphous, I know well that you are far too sensible a person, far too rooted in reality, to wander about spouting the current Leftist narrative. Your sort of Leftist is of the level-headed variety who are going to ride in the second or third wave of tumbrils.
Naturally then you overlook that narrative, or dismiss it as the idle maundering of children. As, indeed, it is. But we notice it everywhere, readying the tumbrils and assembling the guillotines.
The Revolutionaries may tire of their shenanigans before they get serious about them, of course; or grow bored, more likely. So far, though, I see no prospect of that. Let us pray together that it may soon come, lest we be both immolated.
Gee thanks.
Consider the role that magnifying your own self-importance may be playing in your perception.
Not that there hasn’t been plenty of politically-motivated murder in the world, from both the left and right. But let’s look at present-day American politics. Which side do you think has the inchoate anger, the burn-things-to-the-ground mentality, and the guns? It’s not the left. You are imagining tumbrils, but the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination is actually right now calling for mass deportations, ethnic badging, and other authoritarian syndromes, to the point where leading pundits from his own side are calling him a fascist.
I don’t imagine that I’m important. But I know quite well that I could be professionally and familiarly defenestrated at any moment on account of my views. Not literally, to be sure; not yet. But the theoretical groundwork for hospitalization and “therapy” for conservatives is already being laid.
Perhaps it is hard for you to imagine how conservatives – not to mention reactionaries such as I, or Christians – must stifle our speech from one moment to the next in order to avoid bitter recriminations from all sides. We must avoid all appearance of thoughtcrime if we are to stay out of trouble.
You are not seeing the rage on the Left? Did you miss the kerfuffles in Ferguson, Baltimore, and now Chicago, Princeton, Mizzou? Academics and civil servants forced to resign, police officers executed, stores looted, buildings occupied, riots, neighbourhoods burned? That all passed you by? I suppose you won’t notice it until they start coming for your own ilk.
This is not a Tea Party rally. He won’t be voting for D.T.
The guy could be a libertarian, judging from the legend on his sign:
Indeed, he could even be a distributist.
No, he’s some sort of communist. The photo comes from an interesting collection from a 2011 OWS march in Denver. You can see it at http://www.lookingattheleft.com/2011/10/evil-clowns-and-anti-capitalist-revolution-in-denver/
“the burn-things-to-the-ground mentality”
Something tells me a.morphous has never heard of ‘Black Lives Matter’ – the quintessential ‘burn things to the ground’ movement, enabled by people like him.
The article is correct in its prognosis, the left must devour the left. I am sure a.morphous is himself white, and wonder how he feels about lily white leftists being run out of top university positions by howling black mobs. Quite a poetic justice, the indoctrinated weaponize the ideology against their own indoctrinators.
Mass deportation – nothing wrong with it. Minority populations who are causing problems and fueling growing anger against them ought to be deported for their own sake before the situation grows in volatility. The Jews of Europe demonstrate this fact, and the people Trump wants to deport aren’t even in the United States legally.
Ethnic badging – merely a facilitation to the aforementioned mass deportation. a completely neutral procedure, not that its been proposed at all.
You call Donald Trump a Fascist and you mention Republicans, failing to see that we are neither. Trump is a populist. He would not be popular if his opinions were not popular. The fact is, many white Americans are starting to look at demographics and deciding they don’t wish to become a minority (and with how much current minorities whine about how oppressed they are, who would?). I know whites voting their racial interests is definitely racist, while when any other race does it (South Africa?) its totally okay, but we see something of a double standard there. Putting this aside, your association of Reaction with Trump is eye-roll-worthy. He might serve some short-term interests by enlarging the sphere of acceptable discourse and normalizing a more authoritarian kind of politics, but I don’t think many Reactionaries give much thought to musical chair elections. Personally, I would prefer it if he lost the nomination through some underhanded tactic by the GOP. This would, in bold terms, confirm what we have written about democracy in the minds of fence-sitters.
The left is like a corrosive. The longer you are allowed to corrode society, the weaker you become and the stronger we become, because you are the ones in power and have been in power without any pause since the ‘Enlightenment’. The society is yours, as much as you’d like to think some evil patriarchal conspiracy is still controlling everything.
Going back to what I said about university professors, it is of benefit to us when the white crypto-Marxists are called racist and run out of town. Who will replace them? Affirmative action administrations with 1/10th the competence of their predecessors in terms of functionality and leftist propagation.
Think of it like this: the anti-white nature of the left (forget the religious component for now) is a godsend. The higher the bullhorn-cry rises that cis-white men are the devil, the fewer and fewer of such men will subscribe to leftism in the abstract sense. Once leftism is itself a non-white institution, unless it hastily opens death camps, its time in the Occident is finished. I know you worship at the shrine of minorities, but trust me, they are not nearly as competent as the bearded white Marxists who are now drawing scorn from their students.
Black Lives Matter is a burn-it-to-the-ground movement? You are a hysterical ninny if you believe that. Honestly, I don’t understand how people like you manage to get through a normal day.
It’s not me calling Trump a fascist, it’s major conservative pundits like Max Boot.
Translation: you feel powerless, and are dealing with it by spinning fantasies of overthrowing the people and institutions you imagine have power and are keeping it from you. It’s funny how parallel your fantasies are to those of the dumber parts of the left, although at least the left has a better notion of who actually wields power. These fantasies all have the same form: The world is being run by the wrong people, and someday there will be a glorious revolution where justice will be restored, the usurpers will be cast down, and the powerless will be empowered.
White nationalism and the rest of your toxic brew of terrible ideas is truly the socialism of fools.
Since we do manage to get through a normal day, there must be some limitations to your understanding.
I think Kristor is saying that BLM is essentially a destructive movement. It can burn down a store, but it cannot build one. The university protests exhibit hostility towards, perhaps incomprehension of, the very nature of higher education. If I organized rallies around the country “demanding” that MLK’s name be removed from every street and pubic school in the U.S.A., I wouldn’t be surprised to be described as “burn-it-to-the-ground.”
Calling Trump a “fascist” is just a belch of political stupidity, whoever says it. Anyone who knows the history of the word can see that Bernie Sanders is closer to Mussolini than Trump is.
Writers on this site may be guilty of paranoia, but when it comes to the Will to Power, we’re pretty pathetic. Heck, the recent commotion over Thordaddy was in part due to discomfort with his careless use of the word supremacist.
“spinning fantasies of overthrowing” – You truly haven’t read much sphere literature have you?
“people and institutions you imagine have power” – Left defined by the politics of those on the lefthand side of the French Assembly, name one institutional power in the West not under their control? You have absolutely no case. It is demonstrable because EVERY political party in the West is of the left, by the etymological definition of that word.
“someday there will be a glorious revolution where justice will be restored” – No. A sick man dying and a son inheriting his wealth is not a revolution.
“Black Lives Matter is a burn-it-to-the-ground movement? You are a hysterical ninny if you believe that.” – 10 points. would laugh again.
I think people suspect that BLM is a burn it to the ground movement because the last literal burn it to the ground movements in the US looked a lot like BLM.
Just so. Once you escape the mind prison, you have to constantly remind yourself that there are people who think communism and libertarianism are fundamentally opposed ideologies. Which leads to the main thing I disagree with in the post:
which is the tense of the verb. The left long ago surmounted the commanding heights of our culture. It has been fighting wreckers for a long, long time. It’s all Mensheviks vs Bolsheviks. I mean, seriously, Max Boot is supposed to be a man of the right? The Koch brothers are men of the right? It’s Spock-with-a-beard world. Furthermore, the BLM clowns disrupting university life are not noticeably different from the peace clowns disrupting university life fifty years ago. Cowards pushing on an open door. Crybullies taunting the Amish.
It is interesting that the US has developed Brezhnevism without first going through a Lenin/Trotsky/Stalin phase. I don’t think a Lenin/Trotsky/Stalin phase is very likely at this point. Napoleon/Mussolini is next up. Maybe it will be Trump and maybe not. As is typical in the kind of preference falsification equilibrium we are in, it’s hard to tell what people really think, and it is hard to tell what would be the trigger for the preference falsification equilibrium to break.
Yes, Dr. Bill, I was more referring to the actual ideology of Fascism put into practice in Italy, rather than the boogeyman the word has become. The left scarcely engaged with Giovanni Gentile for example. They’re not really concerned with what Fascism means or doesn’t mean, but what they have made it mean which is “pour all your worst fears in here”
There are many varieties of the Second Reality. One variety (A) is the current Grand Narrative in which Christianity (and most especially the Christian man) equals all evil. Another variety (B) is the one that pretends – to itself, and quite effectively – that A is no one’s Second Reality.
Concerning A: The ones who espouse it might not, in their private lives, really believe it, as their self-interested actions declare; but they believe it in respect to those indicted by the opinion, the necessary pre-designated victims of the Left’s social mechanism, as their other-directed actions again declare. This description might well be a supportable generalization in respect to ideologies. The most dubious premise survives inspection because it represents a call to action. For the death-affrighted, which is what liberals are deep down, the call to action invariably trumps the call to self-assessment and contemplation.
Socialism for thee and thine, but not for me and mine, as we might say. Public schooling for all (but Sidwell Friends for my own girls)! No one should be extraordinarily wealthy or powerful (except me)!
Sidwell.
(That was pedantic, wasn’t it?)
Thanks. I had a nagging feeling I’d gotten that wrong. Will correct it.
A is something we analysts tease out of the narrative, though, not something they explicitly admit to (very often). We do it in order to make sense of their behavior. The fact that they have this endlessly mutating, temporally and instantaneously incoherent critique of Christendom (and only Christendom) is what leads us to infer that their real problem is with Christendom, full stop.
I don’t think most of them even know. Because they are in the frame of reference of the swirling maelstrom, they don’t perceive the swirling maelstrom. If anything, they find us the moving, incoherent target. There really seem to be people who think it’s incoherent to be pro-choice and pro-capital punishment. There really are people who think “You showed your commitment to life by killing people” is some kind of criticism. Who think “you say you’re a Christian, but you’re nasty” is some kind of criticism. Etc.
The logical conclusion of the leftist narrative is ultimately a sort of soft bigotry that says only white males have moral agency. I was reminded of this in a recent discussion with a friend who was lamenting the paucity of women in elective office, and implying that this situation was somehow that fault of the “patriarchy” (cue ominous-sounding music). I reminded him that, because of longer life-spans, high rates of male incarcerations, etc. etc., women are a much higher percentage of the electorate than men (I recall having heard 54%), so how can it be the fault of men if there are so few women in elected office? His answer? Brainwashing! The women have been brainwashed. Which is to say, they can’t think for themselves. They have no moral agency. They cannot be responsible for their decisions. If all of that were really true, then I could only conclude that they SHOULDN’T hold elected office. But I don’t think it’s true. My friend was implying that I have a misogynist streak in me, but who is the real misogynist here? The same applies to many other lines of argument in the leftist narrative.
My hunch is that, just as one can’t preach nominalism, skepticism or relativism except by implicitly presupposing and deploying their contradictions, so likewise one can’t be a Leftist except by presupposing and deploying the analytical terms and social forms Leftism rejects. E.g., if *all* power issues from the barrels of guns, then Leftist power is no different than any other, in which case we might as justly be governed by some other sort of power.
In reference to “Sidwell.” Yes, Sidwell – and gated communities with cinder-block walls and concertina-wire atop. But no wall on the southern border. No. That would be wrong.
Here’s the best thing I’ve seen so far on Trump’s relationship with fascism.
Neiwert writes “those of us who study fascism,” and yet doesn’t appear to know the difference between fascism and Nazism. Then he gives us crackpot psychology about “the organized violent will of an angry and fear-ridden id upon the rest of humankind.” To what does he attribute the hundred million victims of communism? Was that just a group hug that went wrong?
Of course I was taken aback to learn that several deep thinkers at Salon have called Trump a fascist. I think he gets close to something important when he writes, “there really is no agreed-upon definition,” and this is because fascism, as described here, is a phantom of leftist psychosis. It is a word they use to dehumanize people outside the liberal frame. Read that again. It is a word they use to turn dissent into mental illness. I know that people on the Right have called Obama a communist, but no one takes these remarks for deep thoughts.
The Trump phenomenon isn’t really all that hard to understand, and there is no need to call his supporters vile names. (1) There is a widespread feeling that immigration is out of control. This is a legitimate political sentiment. You may disagree with the sentiment, but do you disagree that people in a democracy are permitted to form a sentiment on this question? (2) This is a populist revolt by Republican voters for whom Jeb Bush was the last straw. A lot of these people didn’t want to be Republicans, but they were pushed out of the Democrat Party and have nowhere else to go.
“fascism, as described here, is a phantom of leftist psychosis.”
Bingo. Fascism is very hard to describe as an ideological point of view, separated from just its manifestation in action, and this is largely because Fascist theorists disagreed with each other and were universally ignored by Mussolini when it suited him. It’s become a truly hollow ideology, unlike National Socialism, which has quite a rich and detailed theory behind it.
But like you say, when a.morphous uses it, its just a buzzword to trigger knee-knocking in leftists. I mentioned before, Donald Trump is a populist pursuing what agenda can get him elected. When a.morphous says “Trump is a Fascist!”, you have to realize Trump isn’t really anything but a reflection of his potential voter base and their demands, so what a.morphous is saying is that 43.7% of the American population are Fascists, while 44.3% who would vote for Hillary Clinton are good little non-Fascists like him. It’s moral signaling at its most boring.
Yes, invariably, “studies have shown…” – whatever the Left wants them to have shown.
The idea that Donald trump has some kind of organizational institutional continuity with Mussolini is pretty funny. That would, of course make him a fascist, but that can’t be what people mean.
Do they mean Donald trump, the great student of history that he is, has studie d the writings, actions, and speeches of the Duce and confected some kind of neomussolinian ideology? That’s almost funnier.
Do they mean Donald trump has become an avowed enemy of the revolution. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
My god you people project more than a 12-screen multiplex.
Trump is engaging in quasi-fascist rhetoric, according not to me but to many of the intellectual leaders of the conservative movement. And of course this entails a large measure of dehumanizing his selected victims, such as Mexicans or Muslims. But to point this out is dehumanizing to the sensitive souls on the right.
And where do you get the part about “turning dissent into a mental illness”? Certainly nothing I have said fits that, and I don’t think anything in the Neiwert article does either. As far as I can tell he is actually analyzing the content of right-wing belief and its sources, with more respect than I would, but he does this sort of thing professionally.
On the other hand, pretty much every post here is filled with incredibly stupid theories of how “the left” is crazy or depraved.
Is an opinion on appropriate levels of immigration a legitimate political opinion? I would say that it is because (a) the level of immigration is determined by public policy, and (b) the level of immigration has public costs and benefits (i.e. affects the “general welfare”). No one denies (a) or (b), and this is what makes the level of immigration different than an opinion about men’s facial hair or the relative merits of Brahms over Bach. Everyone (I hope) agrees that there should be a Wall of Separation between mustaches and State, but everyone also agrees that immigration levels cannot be a matter of private opinion.
Citizenship demands civil political discourse, and civil political discourse demands respect for differences of opinion on matters that are legitimately political. Privately, you may think I’m a nut, but publicly you are required to concede that I am, as people say, “entitled to an opinion.” This phrase does not mean that you think my opinion is justified, for if you did you would share my opinion. It means you recognize that this is an opinion on a public question, and that I am therefore entitled to form an opinion on that question. A person is not entitled to form an opinion on matters that are “none of their damn business.”
The opinion of Trump supporters may be wrong, meaning unjustified by facts, economic theory, and appropriate moral considerations; but it is not an opinion about a question that is “none of their damn business.” This is why those who disagree with them should answer with sober arguments, not vile slanders and vicious name-calling. Calling Obama a communist was not a civil objection to the ACA; calling Trump a “fascist” is not a civil objection to his proposals.
After calling Trump and his supporters fascists, Neiwert attributed their fascism to “the organized violent will of an angry and fear-ridden id upon the rest of humankind.” If this doesn’t “turn dissent into a mental illness,” I don’t know what does. I have read the Authoritarian Personality and much of the puerile crap that it inspired. The Left has had the Right “on the couch” since the 1930s! There is a very short shelf of reciprocal psychoanalysis written from the Right, mostly centered on envy, but it does not warp the public mind like the Authoritarian Personality.
I imagine the dissent into mental illness idea is a reference to “the authoritarian personality”. Your article clearly comes out of the school of thought that treats middle Americans as potential nazis, not that he appears to know anything about the actual facts of the rise of that party. It’s just a latent psychosis in the coservative mob, right. What else does one need to know if all me wants to do is to make rhetorical point?
“Eliminitavist” is a stupid adjective, by the way.
This proves, at most, that Trump is the boogeyman in the eyes of movement conservatism. It is very clear why he is the boogeyman in their eyes. There is a real prospect of him winning the Republican nomination without asking for or taking the money, endorsement, or help of the conservative moneymen. Not only is that, from their POV, bad, per se, but it is a bad precedent. You mean all I have to do to parlay my wealth into a presidental nomination of a major party is to unapologetically give the voters of a major party what they want? Seriously? It’s that easy? Now, where would that end?
I don’t think that’s really the reason. “Fascist” for left-liberals is sort of like “collectivist” for right-liberals. It’s a name for the boogeyman. It’s an aid to their characteristic guilt-by-association argument. I’ve got this box, here, see. And what I put in the box is Hitler and whomever I currently disagree with, see. Thus, anyone I disagree with is a Naziwhowantstokillsixmillionjews. The non-existence of fascism’s definition is a feature not a bug.
I need to stop writing things on my iphone. Sorry for the typos and syntax errors.
“Of course this entails a large measure of dehumanizing his selected victims, such as Mexicans or Muslims.”
Daily Mail (Friday, Dec 4th 2015)
Fourteen dead and twenty-one wounded. But Trump is the one who “dehumanizes.”
This is a mode of argument I’m unfamiliar with. How does the murderous actions of a couple of unrelated people have anything to do with the actions of Donald Trump? Hitler and Stalin killed a lot of people too, does that mean that any criticism of anybody else is somehow invalid?
I don’t watch the news or read the papers, so maybe the Donald is calling for gas chambers or something.
Would you disagree that a reasonable person might think that Islam and western society are incompatible?
Would you disagree that reasonable person might think we should decrease the amount of Muslims in our country through deportation of people who don’t have legal right to be here, not extending the visas of those that have them any longer than their current terms, changing our laws that allow “chain migration”, and purposefully avoiding immigration of Muslims in the future?
At the same time, would you disagree with the idea that a reasonable person might think that it is important that a large majority of people in a society should be able to support themselves and their families through their own labor? And that having a basically flat labor supply curve for unskilled labor undermines this ideal so that the only way we can accomplish this goal (particularly for the large percentage of the population who are incapable of intellectually rigorous work) is to limit the supply of labor greatly reducing immigration?
Do you think it is possible for a reasonable person to value the preservation of his own culture and that a reasonable person might think such preservation is incompatible with our current system of mass immigration and capitalism?
Do you think a reasonable person might believe that social cohesion is important and that it is undermined by transience, and income based market segmentation in housing, and a population that has less and less a common conception of the collective good, and less and less feels itself part of the same collective?
Do you think a reasonable person might think the potential Balkanization of a country that was once not balkanized, might be something to be avoided?
Which of these ideas do you find particularly fascistic?
Btw, Donald trump is not charismatic, contra your article. I think even his supporters consider him second rate.
Donald Trump’s perceived charisma and thus his popularity does not stem from any oratory or rhetorical capabilities, but rather his general attitude, which is that he is successful enough to feel entitled to say what he wants to say, how he wants to say it. The man does not pause before saying things like “bleeding from her wherever”. There is something to be said for authenticity, and since our current political climate is completely devoid of authenticity, the crassness matters little.
Again, I’d ask a.morphous, are the 43.7% of the American population who would vote for Trump in a hypothetical matchup Fascists? It seems unlikely that if his policies were so extreme and out-of-the-mainstream, he would be chosen by voters who disagreed. This must be quite scary for you, a.morphous. On any given day, think how many blackshirts you are actually interacting with!
I live in San Francisco, so the number of Trump supporters or fascists I have to deal with on a daily basis is pretty small.
I don’t think most Trump supporters are fascists, nor is Trump really, as the article I linked to said. They do seem to be some combination of angry and moronic, which is scary enough.
“I don’t think most Trump supporters are fascists, nor is Trump really, as the article I linked to said”
So, essentially your original statements were hollow. Trump is just someone you disagree with, so you applied the Fascist label as a form of virtue signaling.
And of course we know the average Democrat voter isn’t angry…
or moronic…
Be fair. What mass group of political supporters does not come off as angry and moronic. You think the folks at a gay marriage rally aren’t angry and moronic? Who on earth would take time out of their day to go to a Hilary Clinton event besides an angry moron?
Josh, your post reminds me of the “life at conception” legislation Oklahoma was pushing a few years back. There was a “pro woman” rally at the capitol, and the Tulsa World published a photo of a middle-aged white woman posing arm-in-arm with a black, female state legislator, holding a half-*ssed homemade sign that read “If I wanted the government in my womb, I’d go out and F_ck a Senator!” The sh*t-eatin’ grin the legislator had on her face seemed to indicate she wasn’t “angry” per se. But a moron: no doubt about it! As for the white woman, well, she was clearly angry. A moron? Probably not. Moronic? Absolutely!
I’m not sure why you keep saying that. I disagree with Rick Santorum or Jeb! Bush just as much as I do Trump, maybe more, but I’m not tempted to use the Fascist label with them, it doesn’t seem nearly as applicable.
And for the umpteenth time, the point was that many right-wing commenters are also applying the label to Trump, and even if you don’t consider them your ideological soulmates you can at least acknowledge that they are not in the habit of using the term to signal disagreement and/or virtue.
“I’m not sure why you keep saying that. I disagree with Rick Santorum or Jeb! Bush just as much as I do Trump, maybe more, but I’m not tempted to use the Fascist label with them, it doesn’t seem nearly as applicable.”
It’s not applicable at all, as you yourself pointed out, (“I don’t think most Trump supporters are fascists, nor is Trump really”) If Trump is not really a Fascist, how can the label be applicable to him? You should admit, you just mean “nasty guy”.
“And for the umpteenth time, the point was that many right-wing commenters are also applying the label to Trump, and even if you don’t consider them your ideological soulmates you can at least acknowledge that they are not in the habit of using the term to signal disagreement and/or virtue.”
This coaxed a smile. Yes, we all know Republicans, particularly ones who are employed as consultants, party chairmen, media commentators, etc. NEVER go to the greatest possible lengths to prove they aren’t racist and thus garner the never-delivered approval of Liberals
If anything, Republican figureheads do more virtue-signaling than the left, and its even more pathetic because they never gain anything from it.
Not to pile on or anything, but if a.morphous’s claim that he disagrees with Rick Santorum and Jeb Bush “just as much” has any truth to it whatsoever, it is only in a very narrow definition of the phrase. If he disagreed with them “just as much” in the broader sense, he’d be labeling them fascists too. But he knows that. He’s just trying to jerk our chains.
Well, I’ll only say it one more time, because this is getting tedious. Trump may or may not be a fascist at heart but his campaign, his personal style, and the actions of his supporters all have distinct elements about them that suggest fascism. These include: a charismatic leader without clear policies but a determination towards action, a populist ethonationalistc/paranoid streak, encouragement of violence at his rallies, rhetoric of national decay and renewal. A buffoonish quality to the leader that makes him seem ridiculous to elites but beloved of plebes. Painting ethnic minorities as a dangerous invasive force. I could go on.
The Republican intellectuals who are attacking Trump are not “virtue signalling”, they are trying to preserve their party from becoming wholly owned by the crowd of angry morons they have inspired. It’s not working.
I guess this is good for you. If there’s no niche for establishment Republicans any more, the world is split between liberal elites and wingnut/populist/quasifascist masses, who no doubt will be seeking you out to provide intellectual leadership.
So, Trump is “really” fascist, then?
By the way, you just described Obama.
I’ll take this step by step:
“Trump may or may not be a fascist at heart”
Except you just said he wasn’t really.
“a charismatic leader without clear policies but a determination towards action”
Describes Obama.
“a populist”
Populism does not mean Fascism, nor is it really related, but go on…
“ethonationalistic”
Wrong. This would mean Trump was advocating for a presumably white ethnostate. At no juncture has he said any such thing. He has never voiced any desire to deport all African Americans for example, and has repeatedly said he wishes immigrants to come to America legally.These are not things ethnonationalists say.
“paranoid streak”
Paranoid of what? Islamic terrorists? Not really a bad thing to be paranoid about. Ask Paris.
“encouragement of violence at his rallies”
He has encouraged people to throw out BLM protesters who are violent hooligans themselves.
“rhetoric of national decay and renewal.”
National decay is an objective fact. Obama also spoke of renewal.
“A buffoonish quality to the leader that makes him seem ridiculous to elites but beloved of plebes.”
Opinion. He is ridiculous to elites because they don’t control him.
“Painting ethnic minorities as a dangerous invasive force.”
He has painted illegal immigrants as such, not ethnic minorities in general. Illegal immigrants are largely people who cannot make a life for themselves in Mexico or Guatemala, which often includes murderers, gang members, drug pushers, and rapists. The scum of society. Yes, they are dangerous, as that woman who got shot in the head on a park bench found out.
“The Republican intellectuals who are attacking Trump are not “virtue signaling”, they are trying to preserve their party from becoming wholly owned by the crowd of angry morons they have inspired. It’s not working.”
This is just incorrect. Do you seriously think they write these articles for the audience of Donald Trump supporters, to sway them not to support him, to come back to the “light side”? No! Often they attack the supporters themselves with more vicious language than they use against Trump. The articles are meant for one audience: you. They are looking for your approval, that you’ll stop calling them racists.
“I guess this is good for you. If there’s no niche for establishment Republicans any more, the world is split between liberal elites and wingnut/populist/quasifascist masses, who no doubt will be seeking you out to provide intellectual leadership.”
Actually, I have said I hope Trump is denied primary victory based on some fraud or technicality. It is not positive for our ends if democracy provides an outlet for growing discontentment and disillusionment, which is what Trump is, and what his presidency could serve as. For the short term, the longer that people like Barack Obama remain in office, the better.
What a bizarre comment. Fascist is a term of abuse generally on the left, including the neocon left. Here, look.
The Formless One wrote: “Trump may or may not be a fascist at heart but his campaign, his personal style, and the actions of his supporters all have distinct elements about them that suggest fascism.”
Formless One –
What is the difference between a “fascist” and a “fascist at heart”? What do you mean by “heart”? And what is “fascism”?
What is the difference between “a man” and “his personal style”? What do you mean by “style”?
What “actions” have Trump’s “supporters” taken that boast the “distinctive elements” that would “suggest fascism”? What do you mean by “suggest”? What, specifically are those “distinctive elements”? And what is “fascism”?
How do you square any of these quoted statements and characterizations with your previous statement, after you wrote that Trump is a fascist, that “I don’t think most Trump supporters are fascists”? And what is “fascism”?
Are you actually a person, or are you the Postmodern Discourse Generator?
Supposing that you are the Postmodern Discourse Generator, Christ can help you to be a person. That is what The Orthosphere is about…
I am in Christ yours,
TFB
I think I get it. Trump is not a fascist in the sense of a definable political ideology associated with Benito Mussolini. He is a fascist in the sense that he is a kind of gauche white guy that is liked by unfashionable people.
I must be hitting a nerve if you have to resort to pretending not to understand plain English.
What are you afraid of?
Are you going to accuse us of being on the wrong side of history next?
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This article is rational and logical, and therefore useless as a tool against the Left, which defies reason and logic.