✮✮✮ !Trump Dump! ✮✮✮

Nicker on 26/5/2023 at 12:16

True. He's too slovenly to be a real fascist. They always have the best uniforms.

lowenz on 26/5/2023 at 12:20

Well, uniforms play a big role when you're uniforming and compartmentalizing the society

heywood on 26/5/2023 at 13:25

Guys like the bogan dude above tend to lean anarchist. I'm sure he'd be all-in for racial/ethnic cleansing, but not a government that makes him conform to their expectations of a citizen in a dictatorship.

Nicker on 26/5/2023 at 17:34

I find that many "anarchists", like most "libertarians", actually don't stand for individual freedom but rather the freedom to be exactly like them.

Like the survivalist rugged individualism who rely heavily on technologies they could never design or engineer themselves.

Cipheron on 26/5/2023 at 21:32

Well you wanted more posts? I was going to put this into ChatGPT, but it might be more fitting here. ChatGPT nailed this one first try, it's based on a song "friends" by Australian shock musical comedy group DAAS. But ChatGPT riffed on the idea and wrote it's own lyrics:

Quote:

(Verse 1)
I had a friend, a gentle soul,
Whose heart was warm, his smile took its toll,
He had a charm that you couldn't define,
But deep within, a troubled mind,
His name was Al, a friend of mine,
Al Capone was a friend of mine.

(Chorus)
Oh, the friends we choose, the tales they hide,
Beneath their masks, secrets reside,
The world is full of surprises untold,
In the company of friends, we unfold.

(Verse 2)
There was a friend, so full of grace,
With eloquence and a charming face,
He led a nation with power and might,
But beneath the surface, darkness took flight,
His name was Joe, a friend of mine,
Joseph Stalin was a friend of mine.

(Chorus)
Oh, the friends we choose, the tales they hide,
Beneath their masks, secrets reside,
The world is full of surprises untold,
In the company of friends, we unfold.

(Verse 3)
I once knew a friend, so full of zeal,
With fiery speeches, his vision was real,
But behind the rhetoric, a ruthless game,
A legacy stained by blood and pain,
His name was Ben, a friend of mine,
Benito Mussolini was a friend of mine.

(Chorus)
Oh, the friends we choose, the tales they hide,
Beneath their masks, secrets reside,
The world is full of surprises untold,
In the company of friends, we unfold.

(Bridge)
In this grand theater of life we tread,
Friendships forged in a web so widespread,
Yet amidst the shadows, truth will shine,
Revealing faces obscured in time.

(Verse 4)
I recall a friend, so full of might,
Whose words inspired with every fight,
But history shows a darker side,
Innocence lost, a nation's divide,
His name was Don, a friend of mine,
Donald Trump was a friend of mine.

(Chorus)
Oh, the friends we choose, the tales they hide,
Beneath their masks, secrets reside,
The world is full of surprises untold,
In the company of friends, we unfold.

Point being, I didn't even specify any figures who should be included in this, just "a controversial public figure, often a criminal, or controversial political leader", and these are the ones ChatGPT thought to use.

Starker on 26/5/2023 at 21:50

There is a well-documented libertarian to fascist pipeline with many examples -- the Crying Nazi aka Christopher Cantwell being one of the perhaps more recognisable/famous ones.

I delved into the far right spaces in the US a couple of years ago and what I found was a horrific and widespread underbelly of hate and bigotry. There are so many brands and varieties of authoritarians of various stripes, and they all have a unmistakable fascistic bent to them. From the Southern Nationalists to the actual National Socialist Movement to Christian Identity to many, many others. And it's not like they have to come from a specific Italian region for people to call them for what they are. Hell, look at the MAGA movement (and arguably the wider US conservative culture in general) and how well it conforms to the 14 characteristics, whether it's Britt's or Eco's.

And yes, not all of them are presentable like Richard Spenser. But if you look at just the Unite the Right rally, these people were all marching together, whether uniformed/presentable or tattooed and unkempt. Any fascist movement will also need thugs to spread fear and terror. If fascism ever gets more political power in the US, you can bet that these people will be at least tacit allies.

Cipheron on 26/5/2023 at 23:21

Quote Posted by Starker

Hell, look at the MAGA movement (and arguably the wider US conservative culture in general) and how well it conforms to the 14 characteristics, whether it's Britt's or Eco's.

On that note, Behind the Bastards is an excellent podcast, and I'm working through the backlog, having caught up my other pods. I used Podbay, because it has easy sorting from oldest -> newest, but also has an mp3 download button on each episode. So I link this site for those reasons.

This is an episode I listened to the other day, it's about that exact topic, in the context of the US. It's also the start of a seven-part arc on the history of the American far right, but the first episode covers the overview and the Eco stuff in the US context.

(https://podbay.fm/p/behind-the-bastards/e/1565690400)

Starker on 27/5/2023 at 00:30

If you want to delve into the subject a bit deeper, (https://idontspeakgerman.libsyn.com/website) I Don't Speak German is a pretty good primer into the various subcultures and figures of US fascism and also some stuff like the heterodox sphere/IDW/various right wing pundits that are not explicitly fascist, but tie into the wider culture war context.

Nicker on 27/5/2023 at 01:58

In any case, it's not what T***p is doing or not doing specifically it's what his surrogates in Congress are doing and not doing, at his behest, for his benefit and to reinstate him as Emperor.

And that's just the tip of the shitburg.

But I get that there is a lot of orange fatigue.

demagogue on 27/5/2023 at 03:49

More like it's what the constituency of his surrogates in Congress are doing. Just about every GOP politician except for the nut core spoke out against T* before he became the frontrunner, whatever they could get away with, until they couldn't. It's not the politicians' fatigue that matters.