Comments on: Whatever happened to fascism?

Whatever happened to fascism?

mittens — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 06:38:48 -0800

'I still believe the puzzle of U.S. (non-state) political violence, particularly far-right political violence, is not "why is there so much," but why, given our relative legal leniency towards violent speech, freedom of association for radicals, the widespread availability of firearms, and a long, violent history of rightist street action against racial minorities and leftists, is there still so little.' In Will the Streets Run Red?, Dan Trombly examines the tensions between Trumpism and a more traditionally violent fascism.

By: Uncle

Uncle — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 07:06:09 -0800

I haven't finished it yet but I want to know where the fuck is magas Hugo Boss? The ascetics fucking suck ass. White polos and chinos ain't shit. Where are the leather trench coats? MAGA hats and blonde extensions I guess work as in group indicators but they don't look cool god damn it.

By: pepcorn

pepcorn — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 07:23:46 -0800

.... Do those Western right-wing morons understand that symbols are only worth something when they are washed in blood? Hardly, because they are not ready to shed their own. This quote sums it up. People who are fascist-adjacent are far too comfortable. If there were a global economic crash that created more people with nothing to lose then maybe.

By: Inspector.Gadget

Inspector.Gadget — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 07:52:35 -0800

Hardly, because they are not ready to shed their own. Partly because the same people onside with brownshirts in matching Geek Squad attire think big cities are scary crime-ridden hellholes where *they* will get shot for their New Balance 624s. Nobody said that numeracy was their strong suit.

By: SansPoint

SansPoint — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 08:05:58 -0800

There won't be a red hatted goon squad committing mass violence for the most part. They're too chickenshit, too comfy, and too content to leave it to others. No, what we have to worry about is state violence. Most law enforcement has been squarely in the MAGA camp for the last eight years and they're the ones we have to be worried about. Make no mistake, the police are going to clamp down on political protest of all forms and I would not be surprised in the next year or two if there's an incident of state and police violence against the populace that makes Kent State on May 4th, 1970 look calm and restrained in retrospect.

By: grumpybear69

grumpybear69 — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 08:08:24 -0800

The fact that the would-be goons are too comfortable pretty much debunks the whole "the us economy is terrible" argument. Vibecession, baby.

By: lalochezia

lalochezia — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 08:12:52 -0800

The fact that the would-be goons are too comfortable pretty much debunks the whole "the us economy is terrible" argument. In the US, there doesn't need to be a significant venn diagram overlap for populations with the characteristics "my life is shit because of decreasing standard of living due to late stage capitalism - I'm voting for the simplistic answers/anyone-but-the-people-in-power/my prejudices" and "I'm one step away from fascist violence". It's a big country, it contains multitudes!

By: AlSweigart

AlSweigart — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 08:16:16 -0800

A ctrl-F for "police" and "border patrol" comes up empty. Ask yourself, what happened after the George Floyd protests? Did we defund the police? Did we institute new civilian oversight that had teeth? How many bad apples have been fired? Or did we, in fact, successfully gas and beat protesters into submission and then increase police budgets? Oh, but this doesn't come from the Fashy region of 1930s Berlin so it is mere sparkling authoritarianism... He does talk about this though, but I have an answer for that too: This may simply sound like a plea to understand the trivial distinction between getting beaten up by a bunch of reactionary goons versus [...] a disciplined squad of stormtroopers in a dysfunctional democracy [...]. [...] I still believe the puzzle of U.S. (non-state) political violence [...] is there still so little. Buddy, it's because there doesn't have to be right now. Even Hitler disbanded the brownshirts when he no longer needed them because he had professional, state-funded violent thugs. (Also, without going into it, given how much of the kind of fascist organizing Trombly is talking about that I'm personally aware of in my hometown that goes completely unreported by the press, I can assure you it's there. It's not romantic or dramatic like in the movies, but it's there.)

By: AlSweigart

AlSweigart — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 08:23:57 -0800

People just don't want to hear it. It's always "Trump won't get the nomination" and "Trump won't win the election" and "They won't overturn Roe v Wade" and "They won't put people into concentration camps" and "Trump won't get re-elected." Pundits and columnists keep writing about how Trump and "demographic change" might forever end the Republican Party, and then when I say, "It's more likely that the Democratic Party is the one that falls and turns the United States into a de facto one-party state for the next several decades"... Well, people want hear "WELL ACTUALLY, there's very little fascism..."

By: AlSweigart

AlSweigart — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 08:31:09 -0800

I haven't finished it yet but I want to know where the fuck is magas Hugo Boss? You might as well ask why Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk don't wear top hats and monocles like Mr. Monopoly. Times change. I never felt so old as when I saw fascist youths are really into putting anime decals on their guns and Dodge Chargers.

By: ryanshepard

ryanshepard — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 08:39:38 -0800

Partly because the same people onside with brownshirts in matching Geek Squad attire think big cities are scary crime-ridden hellholes where *they* will get shot for their New Balance 624s. I've long thought the difficulty of finding pre-shooting parking was underrated as a defense mechanism for cities against suburban Nazis.

By: MisantropicPainforest

MisantropicPainforest — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 08:46:13 -0800

The fact that the would-be goons are too comfortable pretty much debunks the whole "the us economy is terrible" argument. Vibecession, baby. The economy is actually pretty bad and denying it is foolish. Talk about going on vibes only.

By: Apocryphon

Apocryphon — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 08:48:32 -0800

A ctrl-F for "police" and "border patrol" comes up empty.

The "Years of Lead" across Europe saw many state security services and political elites make sordid arrangements with ultra-militant groupuscules. These activities were certainly indicators of danger and sometimes crisis, but fared poorly for the strength of neo-fascist movements, who remained in the dissident fringes while far-right populists increasingly focused on successful electoral programs of coalition-building.

By: I-Write-Essays

I-Write-Essays — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 08:51:41 -0800

I think people who say the economy is good are looking at stats like GDP growth that don't reflect real people's lives, because all that GDP growth is going to the people at the top. The notion that a plutocrat like Trump would fix this situation is ridiculous, though.

By: MisantropicPainforest

MisantropicPainforest — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 08:54:09 -0800

Buddy, it's because there doesn't have to be right now. A ctrl-F for "police" and "border patrol" comes up empty. Dan's a PhD candidate writing on this topic, so I guarantee you he has put a lot of thought into this. That's, frankly, an insufficient answer. He's talking about nonstate actors, the police and border patrol are state actors. He's trying to answer why there is little violence by nonstate actors. The answer can't be "there's little violence by nonstate actors because theres violence by state actors" without a further elaboration as to how state violence crowds out nonstate violence, especially because that's a pretty rare phenomenon.

By: rude.boy

rude.boy — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 08:56:30 -0800

it feels likely to me that a delegation from the proud boys will be invited to the white house in 2025. TFG is going to do all the shit he was unable to do last time. i don't think the plan going in is for proper fascism per se, but if it turns out that helps accomplish those goals, then that's what we're gonna get.

By: DirtyOldTown

DirtyOldTown — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 09:04:14 -0800

I'm gonna keep beating my "Please look at Hungary" drum here. To pick one example, 21st century fascism isn't thugs yanking your trans friends out of their homes and into the street. It's your trans friends showing up to renew their driver's license and finding out that the new ones don't say sex or gender, they simply show "sex at birth" and it has been pre-filled. It's not transition being made illegal, it's governmental interference into production and distribution of hormone treatments so that it becomes harder and harder to ever get started. It's not the government eliminating the process of legally noting a gender change. It's six years going by since anyone has seen an application even processed. It's your friend's memoir about their transition being flagged as "grooming" and banned from stores. All of these are things that have happened/are happening in Hungary. 21st century fascism is not a truck barreling down a hill. It's a paving roller moving very slowly but leaving something more or less permanent behind it. if you're preparing to defend yourself against violent militias, I do not know that that day is coming. What is coming is the government being turned into a monolithic machine of conservative shittiness that grinds away and never loses ground.

By: star gentle uterus

star gentle uterus — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 09:05:00 -0800

The fact that the would-be goons are too comfortable pretty much debunks the whole "the us economy is terrible" argument. Vibecession, baby. grumpybear69 A lot of people are really struggling with not-imaginary high costs of things like food and rent. Sneering at these legitimate concerns is a big part of why Trump won. It was really bizarre seeing Dems take this "you don't understand, morons, the economy is great" approach.

By: MisantropicPainforest

MisantropicPainforest — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 09:08:51 -0800

To pick one example, 21st century fascism isn't thugs yanking your trans friends out of their homes and into the street. It's your trans friends showing up to renew their driver's license and finding out that the new ones don't say sex or gender, they simply show "sex at birth" and it has been pre-filled. It's not transition being made illegal, it's governmental interference into production and distribution of hormone treatments so that it becomes harder and harder to ever get started. It's not the government eliminating the process of legally noting a gender change. It's six years going by since anyone has seen an application even processed. All of these are things that have happened/are happening in Hungary. 21st century fascism is not a truck barreling down a hill. It's a paving roller moving very slowly but leaving something more or less permanent behind it. Some would say that this isn't fascism at all!

By: DirtyOldTown

DirtyOldTown — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 09:12:53 -0800

Some would say that this isn't fascism at all! It's like Ian Kershaw said, "trying to define 'fascism' is like trying to nail jelly to the wall." There's definite violence in the Hungarian model, but that's secondary. It's dominated by a death by a thousand cuts type of oppression, modelled closely after the way Communist nations operated in Eastern Europe in the last century.

By: corb

corb — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 09:13:32 -0800

The fact that the would-be goons are too comfortable pretty much debunks the whole "the us economy is terrible" argument. The survey at my school says a metric fuckton of students have eaten less food because they couldn't afford to eat a great deal of times throughout the school year, so maybe we could stop banging this drum? Every time you do another person stops voting Democrat.

By: ocschwar

ocschwar — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 09:22:19 -0800

corb, apart from the price of eggs at the height the flu-related culls last year, the complaints I get to hear about the economy involve the rising price of getting goods and services involving large amounts blue collar and service sector input (i.e. restaurant meals, especially if delivered). And those have gone up in price because of wage hikes for those service sector workers. Something is just not adding up.

By: We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese

We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 09:23:45 -0800

Seriously. Most of this country doesn't have a savings account much less a stock portfolio. They do not give a single solitary flying purple fuck about the stock market. I don't care how much you made on bitcoin. When even people who are employed cannot pay their rent, the economy sucks.

By: tommasz

tommasz — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 09:25:29 -0800

This has been building slowly, but surely, since the earliest days of the Cold War. Fear of Communism drove those who fought Fascists in WWII to completely forget what had happened less than a decade prior. Eisenhower was the last of the Republicans to not fully embrace fascism. Sure, we had a couple of periods where Democrats were in power but Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush(both of them), and now Trump have just pushed the country further and further to the right. It's going to take something significant to change things given how firmly entrenched this has become.

By: We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese

We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 09:28:07 -0800

And those have gone up in price because of wage hikes for those service sector workers. Something is just not adding up. (Does schoolhouse rocks have a song about rent seeking?) Yeah, wages went up in a handful of places for those service sector workers, because a merest handful of locations raised their minimum wages. Which led to 1. a lot of those workers being fired and 2. a lot of those workers getting their hours cut. Plus, those minimum wages are still about 1/3 of what they would be if they were tracking inflation. They aren't enough! The minimum wage is still not enough to pay for a one-bedroom apartment in any major city in the entire United States, friend! I repeat: the economy sucks.

By: I-Write-Essays

I-Write-Essays — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 09:28:10 -0800

The complaints I hear are about how it's impossible to find a job, and that most of the job postings aren't even real. Meanwhile, companies are laying off workers just for the sake of manipulating investor hype.

By: mittens

mittens — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 09:29:26 -0800

The first person to post a FRED graph in this thread gets banned. But I think the fact that nobody can agree on whether the economy is good or bad, points to the trouble we have linking the economy to the current right movement. We don't have a big, obvious depression or period of hyperinflation to point to. Many of the J6 protestors were pretty well off, flying in to join the party. The essay points to "relatively older men with families, truck payments, and decent jobs; the kind of people you would expect to react to a defeat in the streets and government repression by spending more time harassing people at school board meetings, rather than uncompromising radicals willing to give their lives for a doomed cause". But this is the nature of Trump's coalition. It's broad, but it doesn't fit together well, and its members have conflicting and contradictory goals. That lack of unity points to why, while Trump may not need an army of street fighters, the potential fighters suffer from not being able to budge him, either. His transactional nature means they don't have anything to offer him to get his attention.

By: DirtyOldTown

DirtyOldTown — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 09:31:50 -0800

Meanwhile, companies are laying off workers just for the sake of manipulating investor hype. (waves) Laid off in June to appease investors, rehired by the same company in September when the company decided a hiring push would make them more attractive to buyers.

By: Kitteh

Kitteh — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 09:32:11 -0800

The survey at my school says a metric fuckton of students have eaten less food because they couldn't afford to eat a great deal of times throughout the school year, so maybe we could stop banging this drum? There has always been food insecurity, but to corb's point, it is more rampant than ever for kids, even kids you wouldn't think would be food insecure. (Stigma and all that.) Pardon me for a minute, but I am a trustee for the Kingston chapter of the Awesome Foundation. Generally, our no strings attached $1000 "grant" is meant for community initiatives to make the city better, cooler, greater. It used to be that most of the grant pitches were for arty stuff, weird fun community stuff, but looking back at the pitches for the past year alone: a startling amount have been for food pantries, shoes and coats for low income kids, etc. It goes without saying: children should not be going to school with empty stomachs. They should not be going to school with good shoes and winter coats. And the fact that teachers are coming to us for this meager amount of money to help their students speaks motherfucking volumes about how much of a shit our current Conservative provincial government isn't giving about those truly in need. The current price of food is a HUGE problem. And when you haven't eaten because you can't afford to, well, that does present a very real very now problem for Americans.

By: WatTylerJr

WatTylerJr — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 09:50:33 -0800

I continue to be baffled by the combination of greed, stupidity and hatred running rampant in a large portion of the country. There are some great books about when a disaster happens, people (regular people) come together. Why not a slow moving disaster? Yea I've heard all the rational reasons, but what I want (need) to know is why, deep down in their guts, do so many of us (Americans) hate so many others? To the extent that they are willing to sign over everything of value to 20 vile oligarchs. Why are so many people so willing to bend the knee? The upcoming regime got freaking voted into power with only the promise of harming as many of the 'undeserving' as possible, and not even a single nominal notion of making peoples lives better. I always though the phrase "fuck you I got mine" was spot on, but I think it needs an update "fuck you, I got mine, now I want yours, mostly to give to those with the most".

By: Selena777

Selena777 — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 09:57:07 -0800

When was the last time the economy was good, and what was the metric that proved it?

By: DirtyOldTown

DirtyOldTown — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 10:00:11 -0800

I've been thinking a lot lately about fascism, both as a historical phenomenon and as a political structure that can and does exist today. While I am aware of the history of self-described fascist regimes, I tend to think of fascism today as a particular kind of comprehensive one-party, strongman-led authoritarianism, one that swallows up the entire machinery of the government to serve the ends of racist/nationalist in-groups while attempting to grind dissenters and out-groups into dust. The problem with my personal definition is that it would include considering 20th century communist Hungary a fascist state, as well as even Ceauşescu's Romania. This, despite fascists having literally fought communists. Still, I feel this way because in my definition, the heart of fascism is the corruption of the government into a nationalist grudge machine that only really serves the interests of those at the top and leverages grievance and racism to win the loyalty of its less-advantaged adherents. So for me, you can have a nominally Communist state that is functionally fascist. You can have a nominally democratic republic whose bureaucratic structure closely mimics Communist-era Hungary, as 21st century Hungary largely does today. This is kind of a loose definition and maybe some people would rather stick with simply saying "authoritarianism." I get that. After all, the Communist government in Romania displaced a fascist one. Under that definition, I guess my argument boils down to: we aren't in the technical historical sense, becoming a fascist state, just a viciously, intractably authoritarian one. You know... the kind of thing that makes people shout "Fascist!"

By: Bryant

Bryant — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 10:01:19 -0800

I haven't finished it yet but I want to know where the fuck is magas Hugo Boss? The ascetics fucking suck ass. Unironically, his name is Patrick Gordon Macdonald and he's currently on trial up in Canada. There's a good summary of why he matters here (content warning: propaganda images). In short, he's the guy who defined and polished that glitchy black, white, and red aesthetic used by accelerationists. Also, while fashwave as a mutation of vaporwave doesn't have a clear originator, Stormfront owner Andrew Anglin is the guy who declared synthwave as the "truest sound of the Alt-Right." I don't like either of these aesthetics but I recognize that they work for the target audience.

By: latkes

latkes — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 10:11:32 -0800

Yeah I have no interest in pedantic debates about whether it's only fascism if it exactly mirrors interwar Europe, but I found this an excellent and informative analysis of the informal militant US right's power and limitations right now. I don't think it can predict the future though.

By: latkes

latkes — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 10:12:51 -0800

DirtyOldTown I would like to put a minus sign (instead of a plus) next to your comment - that fucking sucks. So sorry.

By: Mitheral

Mitheral — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 10:14:07 -0800

To pick one example, 21st century fascism isn't thugs yanking your trans friends out of their homes and into the street. It very much is. It's not the government eliminating the process of legally noting a gender change. It's six years going by since anyone has seen an application even processed. It is very much illegal/not legally possible to change your official gender designation in four states currently with new legislation rolling in several others. It is also defacto not legally possible to change your gender in several nominally legal to change states because they require surgery and/or court orders. What kind of surgery do you get if you don't identify as male or female? But of course Classic Fascism also incorporated government and private actions. The fact that the would-be goons are too comfortable pretty much debunks the whole "the us economy is terrible" argument. Vibecession, baby. One can be both comfortable and have seen ones quality of life/economic situation and outlook decline.

By: spudsilo

spudsilo — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 10:15:19 -0800

Where we heading is not Hitler's Germany. It's Putin's Russia.

By: I-Write-Essays

I-Write-Essays — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 10:17:54 -0800

If you need an easy way to distinguish fascism from communism, it's the belief in internationalism. Communist regimes advocated an international movement to sweep away all national borders, while fascist ones did not. Like all easy answers, it's an imperfect one, but that's the gist of it.

By: latkes

latkes — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 10:19:52 -0800

This article doesn't touch on the right wing prepper scene, and I wonder if there are other unaffiliated rightist actors this isn't included in this analysis. But it is interesting that as he points out - today's militant armed mobs are much older than the fascist street gang violence of the mid-century, but also of the 80s and 90s US racist scene.

By: DirtyOldTown

DirtyOldTown — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 10:21:00 -0800

Mitheral, I'm not saying violence against trans folks doesn't exist in Hungary, let alone the US. What I am saying is that the shift in the big picture, at least as it works in Hungary, upon whose policies Project 2025 is based, isn't to see this officially promoted, or even unofficially promoted. It's in a steady increase in organized bureaucratic dehumanization. Yes, this kind of thing existed before. But under this model, it's the primary focus. In Hungary's case, the ruling party Fidesz seems to take particular delight in constantly chipping away at the rights and sense of security of its trans citizens while still staying juuuuuuuust far enough away from anything that would make objections from the EU loud enough to have to answer for.

By: corb

corb — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 10:26:28 -0800

And those have gone up in price because of wage hikes for those service sector workers. Something is just not adding up. I have been toying for a while with making an FPP about the rising prices of goods over the last twenty years, because it's actually a complicated host of factors coming together that most people are unaware of, but tend to have a frog-boiling effect until folks start gasping. Climate change affecting agricultural feed affecting beef prices affecting dairy replacement affecting milk prices affecting cheese prices affecting mozzarella production affecting the price of a pizza type stuff. Planned obsolescence and failure of right to repair affecting big ticket items lowering discretionary spending ability. And all that stuff adds up. If it were just the wages, it would even out - but it's not. Bosses want you to think it's wages so you oppose minimum wage hikes. But that's really not it.

By: 7ajax7

7ajax7 — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 10:28:58 -0800

Someone once said that when people say 'The Economy', it really just means 'The Stock Market', so it's an easy substitution I use to put it into context (as in, the status of The Economy doesn't say or tell me anything about what's going on in people's real lives and experiences).

By: latkes

latkes — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 10:31:15 -0800

I'm no economist but there are more people living on the street in the US than there have been at least since the 30s. Housing costs separate from any other cost of goods is a huge crisis. But I just don't think economics are the only factor at play. We're in the midst of a social collapse - we lived through a horrific pandemic. Climate catastrophe is happening now. We are bombarded by images and messages that are impossible to evaluate or interpret accurately in real time. Life expectancy is going down for the first time in many decades. And crucially, fascism is on the rise internationally.

By: DirtyOldTown

DirtyOldTown — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 10:31:27 -0800

Other fun facts from my extended "We're headed for Hungary!!!!" rant: --after record numbers of migrants were expelled, the agriculture, construction, and cargo industries collapsed, causing massive inflation between 14-24%. Food prices rose as much as 40% year over year. It did start to ease up this year when Orbán quietly started to allow migrants again. --political party advertising in Hungary is strictly regulated and limited, but the government has a huge, taxpayer funded budget to advise the public on important issues. Fidesz uses this to place essentially unlimited political advertisements paid for from the national budget. --voters can choose to vote outside their own districts in many cases, and the allowances for these just so happen to shift voting majorities heavily to Orbán's ruling party. I can go on and on! I'm so fun at parties now. (HUGEST POSSIBLE SIGH)

By: DirtyOldTown

DirtyOldTown — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 10:47:33 -0800

We are so fucked.

By: kitcat

kitcat — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 11:01:28 -0800

Yea I've heard all the rational reasons, but what I want (need) to know is why, deep down in their guts, do so many of us (Americans) hate so many others? Looking at it from my Canadian perspective, I keep thinking about three main factors: 1) Trump let the cat out of the bag on being a terrible person and things that our ids wanted but that we were able to surpress previously are now allowed, even encouraged. He made hating people great again. 2) US news media is too biased and too entertaining. Even Canadians are addicted. It further divides people and 'others' them. 3) Bot armies and content farms are creating and amplifying the hateful messaging. On reddit, TikTok, YouTube, news comment sections - everywhere (except here). They used to be easy to spot but it's getting harder and harder. People are distressed and it's sadly no wonder that this entertaining hatefulness is a balm to them. And they're being intentionally manipulated. So it's also by design. And it's happening here too. It's happening everywhere.

By: ZenMasterThis

ZenMasterThis — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 11:05:32 -0800

I call them armchair fascists.

By: evilangela

evilangela — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 11:12:17 -0800

Aside - damnit, I hate that I continue to get suckered into going to substack and their "we're just fine with Nazis on our site" policies. Can we at least get warned when a link is taking us to that shithole?

By: DirtyOldTown

DirtyOldTown — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 11:16:27 -0800

If people think the history of fascism demands we not use that term more generally to describe hardline authoritarianism, maybe we could just start calling that Fully Automated Luxury Racist Churchy Authoritarianism.

By: I-Write-Essays

I-Write-Essays — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 11:21:12 -0800

FALRJA

By: DirtyOldTown

DirtyOldTown — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 11:22:02 -0800

I killed your joke by editing "Jesus-y" to "churchy." My bad.

By: MisantropicPainforest

MisantropicPainforest — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 11:22:52 -0800

Calling right-wing authoritarianism 'fascist' has historically been used to silence the outflank the left from liberals, so you can see why some people may be allergic to it.

By: jonp72

jonp72 — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 11:36:56 -0800

Somebody may have already made this point, but a major point of departure for the MAGA version neofascism vs. the Fascism 1.0 of the interwar years is that the original-brand fascism was a youth-based movement, in which the average street fighter was some guy in his teens or twenties. Now, in events like January 6, a lot of the shock troops are white dudes in their forties & fifties with mortgages, ex-wives, paunches, and back pain. That has got to change the dynamics that determine how, if, and when new forms of fascism emerge. It's a lot easier to worry about the Freikorps than about Meal Team Six.

By: SansPoint

SansPoint — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 12:15:07 -0800

jonp72: That's a good point. Remember, most of the January 6th crowd were not young conservatives but middle-aged upper middle class adults who could afford trips to DC, hotel rooms, multiple weapons, and tactical gear. This is not a revolution of the poor and disenfranchised, it's a revolution of the just well enough off but still feel disenfranchised because people of color and queer people are rising above their station.

By: hairless ape

hairless ape — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 12:23:58 -0800

Citizens United is to blame for the reason there are millions of people that can't afford basic necessities. The CEO of Purdue farms doesn't care if you have to choose between buying dinner tonight or insulin shots tomorrow. Coca-Cola and it's parenting company think you already pay too little for their scrumptious, zero nutritious delicacies. The shareholders of Microsoft won't cry when you have to live on the street. If you have anything left over after they have robbed you of everything they can grab they they aren't doing their jobs. That's not the American Way!

By: Daily Alice

Daily Alice — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 12:43:56 -0800

the government has a huge, taxpayer funded budget to advise the public on important issues. Fidesz uses this to place essentially unlimited political advertisements paid for from the national budget. This is already happening in the Great State of Florida, where DeSantis used our taxpayer money to fund advertising campaigns opposing the ballot initiatives for legalizing abortion and legalizing marijuana, both of which failed by small margins. Motherfucker.

By: ocschwar

ocschwar — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 13:08:47 -0800

That has got to change the dynamics that determine how, if, and when new forms of fascism emerge. It's a lot easier to worry about the Freikorps than about Meal Team Six. Andrew Tate and Joe Rogan are working on this.

By: DirtyOldTown

DirtyOldTown — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 13:12:13 -0800

I had been really counting on Romania to lock Andrew Tate up for life and remove him from the equation at least, but he may getting one of those mysterious legal deus ex machinas that always seem to pop up for the world's most terrible white men.

By: Selena777

Selena777 — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 13:16:39 -0800

He's not white, so maybe it won't?

By: chromecow

chromecow — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 13:31:12 -0800

If I may crib from William Gibson: The Depression is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed.

By: mittens

mittens — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 14:34:11 -0800

Reflecting on a point from earlier in the thread, DoT's "It's not transition being made illegal"--while I see the point (creating an administrative burden to crush expression is certainly a thing!)--I think we're already seeing a leap past that, an attempt to make transition literally unthinkable: 'Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) introduced a bill this week to legally erase transgender people, entitled the "Defining Male and Female Act of 2024." He claimed that the bill will stop what he called the Biden administration's attempt to "replace biological sex with dangerous radical gender ideology."' The bill reads like someone's blog, "here, let ME explain what sex and gender mean!" except, y'know, it's meant to be a law. I am assuming Marshall has no sense of irony in that what he is doing here is performatively creating sex and gender, waving it into being by codifying it into law? Kansas probably didn't realize they were electing Judith Butler.

By: Ursula Hitler

Ursula Hitler — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 15:47:26 -0800

i don't think the plan going in is for proper fascism per se, but if it turns out that helps accomplish those goals, then that's what we're gonna get. Oh, it'll be fascism in all but name. "We're not fascists! (Puts people in camps.) What are you, crazy? (Locks up dissidents.) The liberals are the real fascists! (Goes full Gilead.)"

By: latkes

latkes — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 17:03:50 -0800

The article specifically names the fact that the current fasc crop are middle aged, employed, etc as part of their argument that this is not fascism. (I think that debate is boring and has little value - like the author says, "This may simply sound like a plea to understand the trivial distinction between ... getting beaten up by a disciplined squad of stormtroopers in a dysfunctional democracy versus an emergent fascist regime." - which is true!)

By: jonp72

jonp72 — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 17:59:17 -0800

The article specifically names the fact that the current fasc crop are middle aged, employed, etc as part of their argument that this is not fascism. Maybe it's better if we view that as proof that old-style fascism is not disappearing, but rather evolving or mutating.

By: clavdivs

clavdivs — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 19:13:01 -0800

"Obstacles to a sudden pounce would likely cause friendly fascism to creep in on little cat feet. Inertia, the US Constitution, rifts among the great ones all combine to require subtlety--silent, usually piecemeal encroachments--in its relentless logic. A thrust at one level may be followed by a pause or temporary retreat at another level. Superficial reforms might flow from publicized episodes of repression (as at Kent State, Jackson State, Attica, Pine Ridge...). In manipulating information, we see a departure from classic fascism. Then it was ceaseless propaganda backed by spies and informers, to bind elite support and to mobilize masses--often using the new technology of radio. The friendly way is with monitoring (using opinion polls and focus groups) and ad hoc communications aimed at passive acquiescence. Faceless oligarchs manage the minds of elites via learned journals, the business press, and educational programs. They mystify and immobilize the masses via the hypnotic use of electronic media, mainly television." Partial review of the book, friendly fascism, 1981.

By: agentofselection

agentofselection — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 20:38:58 -0800

It's a lot easier to worry about the Freikorps than about Meal Team Six. Here's another spot American gun culture fucks us. In a largely gun-free society, a bunch of teenagers with sticks are really scary, but a bunch of out-of-shape middle-aged dudes are not. If the old guys all have ARs, then suddenly they are quite scary. Of course they aren't a match for a trained, conditioned, properly-organized military (or paramilitary) group. But they don't have to be. No matter what the Moron Lobby claims, those guns aren't for fighting against militaries--they are for terrorizing and slaughtering peaceful civilians.

By: kliuless

kliuless — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 22:10:23 -0800

> the government has a huge, taxpayer funded budget to advise the public on important issues. Fidesz uses this to place essentially unlimited political advertisements paid for from the national budget. You've got mail from Medicare Advantage, so be careful - "Medicare Advantage might work just fine for younger and healthier retirees. But the highest rates of dissatisfaction in Advantage are reported by the oldest and sickest enrollees in the program. Consumer advocates who work with Medicare enrollees often report that the highest rates of Advantage disenrollment are among the oldest and sickest patients, who encounter problems with denial of care or extra red tape in the form of requests for prior authorization. During annual enrollment, the ad blitz for Medicare Advantage is intense, and it lacks any context about what it can mean to give up your traditional Medicare coverage." Dr. Oz wants to expand private Medicare plans. Here's how he could do it. - "For his part, Oz could potentially use his role at CMS to help expand Medicare Advantage at the margins and potentially boost insurers' bottom lines. One lever he could pull would be rules around the advertising that floods seniors' mailboxes and TV screens each open enrollment period." > We are so fucked. Orban Challenger Magyar's Party Widens Lead in Hungarian Poll - "Hungary doesn't face another parliamentary election until 2026, but the polls are the clearest indication yet of growing popular discontent with Orban's 14-year rule."[1,2,3] :P

By: Just the one swan, actually

Just the one swan, actually — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 23:32:57 -0800

The example we should be looking to is not the Nazis but the Falange in Spain: A movement founded by aristocrats and poets that never had more than a few thousand partisans that nevertheless helped start a civil war that killed a million people and were ultimately co-opted by a bunch of mediocre Catholic kleptocrats who ran the country for 36 years. The current ideological leaders of the American right openly admire Franco, are deep into wacky Catholic fundamentalism, and have a small group of badly dressed suburban goons at their beck and call. This doesn't make me feel any better about the near future for the country.

By: Dysk

Dysk — Sat, 23 Nov 2024 00:47:48 -0800

If you need an easy way to distinguish fascism from communism, it's the belief in internationalism. Yes, and if you ever need to distinguish a bull elephant from a newt, it's simply that the elephant is warm blooded, whereas the newt is cold blooded. The two things never looked similar at all.

By: busted_crayons

busted_crayons — Sat, 23 Nov 2024 01:52:27 -0800

When was the last time the economy was good, and what was the metric that proved it? never except in relative terms; would probably be something like union density.

By: nickmark

nickmark — Sat, 23 Nov 2024 04:41:24 -0800

'Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) introduced a bill this week to legally erase transgender people, entitled the "Defining Male and Female Act of 2024." DMFA?

By: outgrown_hobnail

outgrown_hobnail — Sat, 23 Nov 2024 06:18:57 -0800

The upcoming regime got freaking voted into power with only the promise of harming as many of the 'undeserving' as possible, and not even a single nominal notion of making peoples lives better. That's 100% untrue. 2/3 of the people who voted for him are his horrible cultists, who absolutely ARE about hurting the undeserving, but with only the cultists, he would have been slaughtered. 1/3 of the people who voted for him are the people I never thought existed: desperate people with very low levels of media literacy, who got their news from Tik Tok where Trump was constantly going on about how he'd lower egg prices. They absolutely believed that Trump was going to make their lives less miserable, because Harris was completely absent from short-video propaganda reels, as she was going on the (mistaken) premise that average voters could see titanic levels of bullshit for what it was. This is what gives me... well, not "hope", per se, but the belief that the coming apocalypse won't be quite so all-encompassing. Trump is going to lean in to harming the undeserving, and there will be a huge amount of buyer's remorse and anger among people who voted for lower egg prices and are getting trans-bashing along with higher egg prices.

By: Brian B.

Brian B. — Sat, 23 Nov 2024 07:04:32 -0800

The fact that the would-be goons are too comfortable pretty much debunks the whole "the us economy is terrible" argument. When the price of fuel went up, it disproportionately affected those with gas guzzling vehicles with specialty off-road tires that use the most gas. So they protested by driving from town to town with large truck-mounted Trump flags, which lowered their gas mileage even more. Then they got on social media to complain about the price of gas, thanks to Biden.

By: otherchaz

otherchaz — Sat, 23 Nov 2024 08:29:45 -0800

Can we at least get warned when a link is taking us to that shithole? [Single-link to Substack], [slss], or [sl⚡️⚡️]

By: eustatic

eustatic — Sat, 23 Nov 2024 08:57:30 -0800

Reflecting on a point from earlier in the thread, DoT's "It's not transition being made illegal"--while I see the point (creating an administrative burden to crush expression is certainly a thing!)--I think we're already seeing a leap past that, an attempt to make transition literally unthinkable: 'Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) introduced a bill this week to legally erase transgender people, entitled the "Defining Male and Female Act of 2024." He claimed that the bill will stop what he called the Biden administration's attempt to "replace biological sex with dangerous radical gender ideology."' this bill was already passed in Louisiana. Intersex people don't exist here.

By: y2karl

y2karl — Sat, 23 Nov 2024 11:15:04 -0800

But... but... but....we are so well informed about how many of us are what. For instance, we think we are: • Transgender: 21 percent • Muslim: 27 percent • Jewish: 30 percent • Black: 41 percent • Live in New York City: 30 percent • Gay or lesbian: 30 percent ...when we actually are • Transgender: 1 percent • Muslim: 1 percent • Jewish: 2 percent • Black: 12 percent • Live in New York City: 2 percent • Gay or lesbian: 3 percent From the Bulwark: Americans Have One Very Strange Cognitive Bias Amurricans -- nobody's pulling the wool over our eyes!

By: Reverend John

Reverend John — Sat, 23 Nov 2024 11:26:11 -0800

Fully Automated State Controlled Institutional Sado- Masochism? (with apologies to kinky people. I'm open to other substitutions.)

By: mittens

mittens — Sat, 23 Nov 2024 11:32:33 -0800

y2karl, i spent SO MUCH TIME looking for that bulwark piece yesterday, i forgot where i'd seen it and am terrible at searching, so i am eternally grateful that you put it here!

By: y2karl

y2karl — Sat, 23 Nov 2024 11:39:08 -0800

I am here to serve... But -- JFHC! -- did that take forever to make...

By: caviar2d2

caviar2d2 — Sat, 23 Nov 2024 15:03:36 -0800

Back to the economy disconnect, the bottom fifty percent of American households have a grand total of 6% of the wealth. Most of the increase in wealth is due to the stock market (401k, IRA) and real estate values. The people in that bottom 50% don't tend to have either of those things, so they aren't really feeling the supposed boom times. Also despite what you see on the stupid and horrible HGTV, most people can't realize the wealth from their houses because they live there. House flipping is for the privileged. Also the income and wealth distribution is so fucked that you have to talk about medians because mean (average) is so misleading.

By: kliuless

kliuless — Sat, 23 Nov 2024 20:26:40 -0800

Trump and the Triumph of America's New Elite - "The US is in the midst of a 'revolutionary situation,' says the author of End Times."[1]

A future historian looking back at the social and economic trends of the past decade might be struck by how thoroughly dysfunctional the most powerful nation of Earth has become. Despite extraordinary technological change and respectable economic growth, the well-being of most Americans has been declining. Even many of the winners are deeply anxious about being able to pass success on to their children... As I wrote in my 2023 book End Times, our current predicament is not unique.[2] Complex human societies organized as states have been around for 5,000 years. For a while, they can experience periods of high internal peace and order, roughly a century long, but inevitably they enter periods of high social unrest and political disintegration—end times. Think of the French and Russian revolutions or the American Civil War. Why? An analysis of hundreds of crises over the past thousands of years by my research team identified a common precursor: a situation of "elite overproduction." Simply put, it's when too many elite aspirants (wannabe elites) are vying for a fixed number of power positions. It's like a game of musical chairs, except the number of chairs stays constant, while the number of players is allowed to increase. As the game progresses, it creates more and more angry losers. And some of those turn into "counter-elites"—those willing to challenge the established order; revolutionaries like Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks in Russia, or Fidel Castro and the Barbudos in Cuba. This is the main reason why complex societies end up in end times. Popular immiseration—declining well-being of the common people—is the second important ingredient for a crisis. Together with elite overproduction it creates an explosive mixture, because counter-elites organize and channel popular discontent in their quest to overthrow the ruling class... Large swaths of credentialed elite aspirants, frustrated in their quest for power positions, are breeding grounds for counter-elites, who dream of overthrowing the existing regime. Most wealth holders are unwilling to sacrifice any personal advantage for the sake of preserving the status quo. The technical term for this is a "revolutionary situation." For ruling classes, there are two routes out of a revolutionary situation. One leads to their overthrow. The alternative is for the ruling elites to back reforms that will rebalance the social system, reversing the trends of popular immiseration and elite overproduction. It happened once in America, about a century ago with Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal.[3,4] Writing two years ago, I asked, "Can they do it again?" In the aftermath of the 2024 elections, the answer is becoming clearer. If Trump and his coterie of counter-elites have their way, as now seems increasingly likely, then we are on a trajectory to elite replacement, rather than gradual reforms.

Trump Is Selling the Wrong Idea of Freedom, Says Author of On Tyranny - "We have handed power to those who want us more alone, more deceived and more divided."[5,6,7]

To create the conditions in which we can become free individuals, we have to work together. No child is going to grow up to become a free person thanks to an ever-smaller government or a politics of us-and-them. The welfare state, the great enemy of negative freedom, is necessary. We are more free if we have guaranteed vacations, longer retirements and access to doctors and nurses when we are ill. To raise free children, we need all of those things, as well as parental leave and help with child care (the Europeans get that). And when those children grow up, they will also need help, even to rebel against their parents. Trump had a point when he said the American Dream is dead. The problem is that he and his allies seek to replace it with the nightmare of negative freedom—in particular, freedom from functional government (combined with the capricious application of power). The American Dream meant moving to somewhere new and better. But that's impossible without the government's help. No young person growing up can conjure into existence the schools needed to gain new values and skills, or for that matter the roads that lead to schools and jobs and opportunities. In the last 50 years, we have treated government as the problem and thereby made mobility of all kinds far more difficult. The evidence is all around us: Incomes have flatlined for most Americans over the last half-century, and more of us are staying put. Since freedom involves mobility, we have to work together to create the conditions in which we can all move. The very wealthy want all the mobility for themselves. Their libertarianism, as they know very well, means global warming, and so they dream stupidly of immortality and escape to other planets. In this way, they monopolize the future, crowding out human possibility with inhuman impossibility. The wrong idea of freedom has led us away from good government and created the conditions for oligarchical fascism. In practice, though, once government has been made weak, the oligarchs will tell you it is pointless—because only government can restrain oligarchs. We have now reached the point where an unelected oligarch behaves as if he were the president and takes responsibility for an invented agency that is designed to further weaken government... One of the most striking facts about this election is that several polls showed Trump voters actually preferred Harris' policies to that of their own candidate. But they did not know whose policies were whose. Another is that people who were misinformed about the world around them tended to vote Republican. We cannot be free without facts and without belief in truth. We have different values, which is good. But if we also have different facts, we cannot live and work together. And if we deny that there is truth, we can never resist a tyrant. In a basic sense, the negativists are all alike: Vladimir Putin and Elon Musk and JD Vance mock everyone who endorses a virtue or those who want government to do good.

Sarah McBride Knows How to Handle the GOP's Anti-Trans Bullies - "The first transgender member of Congress issued a classy, dignified reply to attacks by her new Republican colleagues."

"I'm not here to fight about bathrooms. I'm here to fight for all Delawareans and to bring down the costs facing families," McBride wrote on X. "Like all members, I will follow the rules as outlined by Speaker Johnson, even if I disagree." [...] Transgender Americans represent about 0.5% of the population. The portion of that population that is also interested in and good enough at sports to upend women's and girls sports is even smaller. The data on whether transgender athletes have a clear advantage over cisgender athletes is unclear. Still, Republicans have launched a campaign of hysteria, disinformation and stereotypes, introducing and passing bills at a record rate that curb the rights of transgender Americans — 665 anti-trans bills have been considered in 2024, a record. The bills cover ever aspect of life, sports, education, employment and bathrooms... It is important to remember that the conversations around transgender identity — that it is a mental illness and a threat — echo conversations around gay and lesbian identity that happened quite frequently in the not-too-distant past. Activists and politicians fought to move the country forward, but often cultural figures played a more visible and active role. Laverne Cox on the red carpet, Elliot Page in a Gucci commercial and McBride on the House floor will all matter in this battle. At some point, as happened with former Republican Senator Rob Portman, who has a gay son, a conservative will have a transgender child and that will begin to shift the debate. It will likely be a slow process over these next many years, but it will happen. In the meantime, Democrats shouldn't cede any ground by bowing to Republicans who are committed to standing in the way of inclusivity and fairness. Democrats shouldn't abandon their commitment to transgender rights out of political expediency. To do so would be to undermine the party's commitment to a country where identity doesn't determine destiny and opportunity.

By: rebent

rebent — Sat, 23 Nov 2024 21:54:33 -0800

groupuscules

By: Dysk

Dysk — Sat, 23 Nov 2024 23:20:59 -0800

Trump is going to lean in to harming the undeserving, and there will be a huge amount of buyer's remorse and anger among people who voted for lower egg prices and are getting trans-bashing along with higher egg prices. That seems optimistic. I don't think we trans people matter that much to most people. It's not that everyone hates us, it's that we don't even cross their mind, and our problems aren't theirs. When the Tories decided that trans people were the political football that would win Sunak an election, they didn't get anywhere not because !most people didn't want to harm trans people, but because most people didn't give a shit about their trans policies either way, and they had little else to offer.

By: Brian B.

Brian B. — Sat, 23 Nov 2024 23:41:36 -0800

As a postmortem to 2024 it should be made clear for later attempts that there was a sincere and urgent fear that tyranny would prevail, yet nobody campaigned on it directly. In the 1964 campaign against Goldwater a single ad ran once that terrified many into giving Johnson a landslide. If this last election was a case of being boxed in by a habit of projecting virtue, and always being nice and never angry, then Democrats might consider their emotional state to be a handicap in communication. The unhinged hatred from the other side gave an opportunity but it was simply assumed that people would not need the danger spelled out for them. Most voters don't read social cues the same as those who empathize generally. The attitude of a measured response conveyed that nothing must be terribly wrong.

By: homerica

homerica — Mon, 25 Nov 2024 04:22:56 -0800

Seeking parallels to Germany in 1933 will get you only so far. The vast corruption were about to see is just plain Mafia, but expanded to the scale of a big country and intended to sideline the actual government ("the deep state" in MAGA parlance). I fear that the safeguards are not going to guard anything. A recent story in Politico about non-participation in transition agreements looks to me like a very bad sign. Ethics and legality replaced by dark money and actions outside scrutiny.

By: DirtyOldTown

DirtyOldTown — Mon, 25 Nov 2024 07:35:32 -0800

Apologies if you haven't even finished your panic attack about the US election, but the first round of runoffs for Romanian president saw Călin Georgescu, expected to come in fourth or fifth, come out on top. Georgescu was actually kicked out of AUR (the largest far-right Romania party) for being too pro-Putin, pro-Russia, and anti-NATO. He has referred to Ion Antonescu (Romania's PM during WWII, executed as a war criminal for his part in Romania's Holocaust) and Zelea Codreanu (the head of Romania's early 20th century religious fascist group the Iron Guard) as "national heroes." He believes Romania should submit to "Russian wisdom," end support for NATO and Ukraine, and refuse to defend any nation attacked by Russia. The next round, on December 8th, will now hinge on whether Emilia Lasconi can get enough conservative and rural voters to support a liberal, progressive woman. Even if you have no personal investment in Romania, the increasing possibility of Georgescu winning should matter to you if you are concerned about Putin's aggression. Romania is the staging ground for the West's support of Ukraine. Without them... If Putin can help install candidates who are "suddenly and mysteriously" popular on social media in adjacent countries, who support him and reject NATO, his advance in Eastern Europe could move much faster than anyone was expecting.

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Mon, 25 Nov 2024 10:47:41 -0800

I haven't finished it yet but I want to know where the fuck is magas Hugo Boss? The ascetics fucking suck ass. "I don't mind a parasite. I object to a cut-rate one." — Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) in Casablanca

By: DirtyOldTown

DirtyOldTown — Tue, 26 Nov 2024 08:06:37 -0800

This is where it's interesting and useful to have a Romanian spouse. Above, I said, "The next round, on December 8th, will now hinge on whether Emilia Lasconi can get enough conservative and rural voters to support a liberal, progressive woman." That is basically true! What my spouse clarified is that this particular liberal woman (and she noted that "progressive" might have been taking it too far, so let's dial back to just "liberal) is a former news anchor from the country's most popular station, ProTV. So she may have enough name recognition to pull through.

By: DirtyOldTown

DirtyOldTown — Tue, 26 Nov 2024 22:37:48 -0800

Fun things I have learned about Georgescu: -he says COVID-19 is fictional -he says Cesarean sections damage the baby's soul -he says "Jesus is the only science"

By: jeffburdges

jeffburdges — Wed, 27 Nov 2024 12:29:11 -0800

With almost every vote counted, every state shifted toward the Republican Party.

By: kliuless

kliuless — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 15:33:26 -0800

> Georgescu was actually kicked out of AUR (the largest far-right Romania party) for being too pro-Putin, pro-Russia, and anti-NATO. He has referred to Ion Antonescu (Romania's PM during WWII, executed as a war criminal for his part in Romania's Holocaust) and Zelea Codreanu (the head of Romania's early 20th century religious fascist group the Iron Guard) as "national heroes." The Long Now - "Eugène Ionesco's masterpiece, Rhinoceros, is about a central European town where the citizens turn, one by one, into rhinoceroses. Once changed, they do what rhinoceroses do, which is rampage through the town, destroying everything in their path. People are a little puzzled at first, what with their fellow citizens just turning into rampaging rhinos out of the blue, but even that slight puzzlement fades quickly enough. Soon it's just the New Normal. Soon it's just the way things are ... a good thing, even. Only one man resists the siren call of rhinocerosness, and that choice brings nothing but pain and existential doubt, as he is utterly ... profoundly ... alone."

Ionesco was born in Romania in 1909, spent most of childhood in France, and returned to Romania when he was 16. He got married and had a kid, pursued a career as a poet and playwright, but ended up fleeing Romania in 1942 for Marseilles. He wrote Rhinoceros in 1959 to describe the rise of the fascists in his homeland, a particularly nasty crew of Eastern Orthodox ultranationalists who went by names like the Iron Guard, the Legion of the Archangel Michael, the Greenshirts, and the National Legionary State. The Iron Guard didn't seize power in some bloody putsch, and they didn't rise to ascendancy overnight. No, it took 13 years for them to come to power, contesting parliamentary elections all the way along. They got 0.4% of the vote in 1927, 1.1% of the vote in 1931, 2.4% of the vote in 1932, got themselves banned in 1933, returned with a new name in 1936, and won 15.8% of the vote in 1937. They were banned again in 1939 following the dissolution of parliament, but struck a deal with strongman-general-turned-politician Ion Antonescu and became the only legal political party in 1940. And then the pogroms began. Like the Bucharest pogrom of 1941, where – per the US attaché report to Washington after visiting one of the many massacre sites – "sixty Jewish corpses were discovered [in the meat-packing plant] on the hooks used for carcasses. They were all skinned ... and the quantity of blood about was evidence that they had been skinned alive." Their guts were hung around their necks and they were labeled "kosher meat". Yes, some were children. A five-year-old girl is mentioned, flayed alive.

Romania's top court postpones decision on presidential election - "The uncertainty over the presidential election has caused political chaos and confusion as the country of 19 million prepares for Sunday's parliamentary election, in which the far-right is expected to make gains." Romania's top court orders presidential election recount - "TikTok's role in election under scrutiny." My father voted for Romania's ultra-nationalist. I am beginning to understand why - "TikTok's algorithm fed him a steady stream of short, stirring videos of Georgescu invoking patriotism and promising to 'put Romania first'[*] weeks before the election."

By: DirtyOldTown

DirtyOldTown — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 09:21:55 -0800

I keep starting to make a post about Romania, but honestly the wounds from the US presidential election are so fresh that seeing polls with Georgescu up 58 to Lasconi's 42 is making everything raw and painful again.

By: mittens

mittens — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 10:22:00 -0800

I've appreciated your updates DoT.