2024 Presidential Election Thread

[USUC]

All this fascist stuff Harris land and the shock trolling stuff from Trump world is nothing but a sideshow and won't significantly move votes in either direction. It all comes down to the ground game and getting out the votes in battle ground states. There is a public perception of momentum for Trump right now but I've read from those u trust that democrats have a more organized ground game in these states. I still think it's a dead heat and all the publicity (both positive and negative) isn't necessarily indicative of Trump pulling away. But who knows.

[frank ryan]

[QUOTE=Northwestcoug;n2329673]Point to USUC: Trump does a lot of fascisty things, but he is not, in the purest sense of the word, a fascist. From Jonah Goldberg:



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I like Goldberg as a person and respect him as a conservative thinker, but recognizing Trumps and his inner-circle as fascistic isn't far-fetched or hyperbolic.

Alex Jones, who is a legit Trump inner circle guy, is now predicting a race war. Fascism doesn't have to be complex it's less technocratic than Communism, and consider Hilter wasn't the only fascist.

The hallmarks of fascists regimes are there and these criteria were identified way before Trump ran anything.

Umberto Eco, who grew up in fascist Italy and died at the begging on 2016 has come up with these 14 elements of fascism:

URL]https://thedispatch.com/newsletter/gfile/the-fascist-lie/[/URL]

1. look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements.”
2. The rejection of modernism. “The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense, Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.”
3. The cult of action for action’s sale. “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”
4. Disagreement is treason. “The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture, the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.”
5. Fear of difference. “The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.”
6. Appeal to social frustration. “[…] one of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups.
7. The obsession with a plot. “The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia.”
8. The enemy is both weak and strong. “[…] the followers must be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.”
9. Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. “For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.”
10. Contempt for the weak. “Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology.”
11. Everybody is educated to become a hero. “in Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death.”
12. Machismo and Weaponry. “This is the origin of machismo (which implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality). Since even sex is a difficult game to play, the Ur-Fascist hero tends to play with weapons—doing so becomes an ersatz phallic exercise.”
13. Selective Populism. “There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.
14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. “All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.”

Many of these fit completely, imho. They also fit Putin.

Goldberg may or may not be right about holding off putting too much energy into calling Trump fascists in terms of political strategy, but Trump fits the bill.

[Maximus]

sorry ted

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What is a good apologetic view of a statement like america is for americans and only americans?

[frank ryan]

Yeah, Bob didn't testify in front of congress...

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UFOs are cool and shit and I'm open to the unexplained, but Lazar was just a fun chat Rogan could have while he was high AF.

[Uncle Ted]

Bob Lazar is FOS. He has made a career out of bullshitting. So he is similar to Trump.

Yeah, Bob didn't testify in front of congress...

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