American Fascism?

The Right likes to call anything the Democrats support "socialism", but is it correct to call Tucker a Fascist?

Whether correct or not should the Left begin calling the Trumpist wing of the GOP "fascist"? 

begin ?

Yes. Has anyone in The Democratic Party called anyone in the Republican Party a fascist?

I'm not talking about calling The Proud Boys or similar groups fascist but calling out Gaetz or Greene as such.

And if they can call expanding Medicaid or raising the minimum wage "socialist" why don't the Dems call the voting restriction laws "fascist"?

Tucker Carlson is literally recommending that the United States be more like Viktor Orban's Hungary.

This is the GOP platform, saying the quiet part out loud. 

Stephen Miller, proving that you can take the "?" off the title of this thread and just call it "American Fascism". 

on the federal level we are getting closer to being Hungary than many people want to admit. The GOP efforts to make voting more difficult, combined with gerrymandering and an inherent Republican advantage in the Senate could lock in their majority in Congress for a generation or more.  And we've already seeing the blueprint for overturning a presidential election -- create doubt or chaos at the state level as a pretext for sending competing electors to Congress.  The judicial system is already packed with far right justices.  We could be looking at elections on the federal level that look like they're free and fare, but the overall outcome is predetermined.

this is not hyperbole or fear mongering.  The Democrats seem unwilling or unable to prevent this slow motion coup.  It's up to Democratic voters to come out in force to overcome the obstacles to voting that are being erected in many states.

In today's NY Times -

Opinion | Tucker Carlson Has a New Hero - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

To critics, Orban’s Hungary is corrupt, repressive and authoritarian, a place where democracy is little more than window dressing and the state exists to plunder the public on behalf of a tiny ruling elite. To Carlson, it’s a model for the United States, a showcase for anti-immigrant policies and reactionary cultural politics.

As the column shows, Tucker is just the latest in a long line of American conservatives who love Fascist regimes.

In 1957, William F. Buckley Jr. published a “Letter from Spain” in the pages of his magazine, National Review. An admirer of the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, Buckley did not hesitate to praise him in the most effusive terms he could muster:
"General Franco is an authentic national hero. It is generally conceded that he above others had the combination of talents, the perseverance, and the sense of righteousness of his cause, that were required to wrest Spain from the hands of the visionaries, ideologues, Marxists and nihilists that were imposing on her, in the thirties, a regime so grotesque as to do violence to the Spanish soul, to deny, even Spain’s historical identity."

ml1 said:

this is not hyperbole or fear mongering.  The Democrats seem unwilling or unable to prevent this slow motion coup.  It's up to Democratic voters to come out in force to overcome the obstacles to voting that are being erected in many states.

The Texas Democrats actually left the State and are in Washington lobbying for Congress to do something about this. VP Harris is in charge of the campaign against this. Joe Biden has attacked it.

I get emails every day from Democratic Office Holders and  Organizations attacking voter suppression. Of course they are all asking for $

I proposed that Democrats start using the word "Fascist". 

What do you propose ?

STANV said:

The Texas Democrats actually left the State and are in Washington lobbying for Congress to do something about this. VP Harris is in charge of the campaign against this. Joe Biden has attacked it.

I get emails every day from Democratic Office Holders and  Organizations attacking voter suppression. Of course they are all asking for $

I proposed that Democrats start using the word "Fascist". 

What do you propose ?

 the solution isn't going to happen. Get rid of the filibuster. Then pass new voting rights legislation. 

STANV said:

The Right likes to call anything the Democrats support "socialism", but is it correct to call Tucker a Fascist?

Whether correct or not should the Left begin calling the Trumpist wing of the GOP "fascist"? 

 Would doing so help Democrats keep and win more voters who think of themselves as moderate and centrist? If yes, then they should. If not, then I don't think they should. I think that's where American elections are generally won. This is not the same as saying it's about occupying the policy center. But I think that the party that best manages to convince voters that it is the one occupying the center -- that its policies are sensible and mainstream and that the other party's policies are extreme and radical -- is generally the one that wins the most elections.

I think Democrats have a big opening here. The GOP is having a hard time getting traction against Biden, and they are increasingly in a authentically radical, extreme political space -- siding with the Jan 6 rioters, defending tax cheats, opposing vaccinations during a deadly pandemic. Democrats should highlight this, loudly and repeatedly. I'm not convinced calling the GOP fascist would help, though. My sense is that to the average American ear it sounds overwrought, and so easy to dismiss.

PVW said:

STANV said:

The Right likes to call anything the Democrats support "socialism", but is it correct to call Tucker a Fascist?

Whether correct or not should the Left begin calling the Trumpist wing of the GOP "fascist"? 

 Would doing so help Democrats keep and win more voters who think of themselves as moderate and centrist? If yes, then they should. If not, then I don't think they should. I think that's where American elections are generally won. This is not the same as saying it's about occupying the policy center. But I think that the party that best manages to convince voters that it is the one occupying the center -- that its policies are sensible and mainstream and that the other party's policies are extreme and radical -- is generally the one that wins the most elections.

I think Democrats have a big opening here. The GOP is having a hard time getting traction against Biden, and they are increasingly in a authentically radical, extreme political space -- siding with the Jan 6 rioters, defending tax cheats, opposing vaccinations during a deadly pandemic. Democrats should highlight this, loudly and repeatedly. I'm not convinced calling the GOP fascist would help, though. My sense is that to the average American ear it sounds overwrought, and so easy to dismiss.

The Dems have been historically bad with their messaging. They should be regularly running ads highlighting what R's actually stand for (like the issues you mentioned). No need to call them fascist - just tell the truth.

But they won't. Why, I don't know.

I'm glad Mary agrees with me.

I think using the "fascist" label and telling people what it means can help bring out the Black vote and help with the Latino vote. 

Republicans run ads frightening White people with images of non-white people. Completely sensational and racist. What if Dems ran holocaust footage?

STANV said:

What if Dems ran holocaust footage?

 Republicans would accuse them of exploiting the holocaust for political gain. And they'd be right.

STANV said:

The Right likes to call anything the Democrats support "socialism"

The really big, awful, terrible thing wrong with communist regimes wasn't and isn't their economic policies, it's the secret police and torture and just general shocking amount of violence meted out against the general population and anyone who the autocrats believe are even potentially a threat. I've never understood why Democrats are so wishy washy in responding to Republican charges of socialism. They ought to be aggressively turning the tables on the charge. It's Republicans who have consistently supported torture. It's the most recent Republican president who deployed security forces to bundle people off the streets into unmarked vans, and who summoned a mob to assault the Capitol as the culminating act of a campaign to overturn a free and fair election, and Republicans who even now are laying the ground to attack future elections. If there's a party in the US that calls to mind the regimes of Castro and Xi Jinping, it's not the Democrats. But when accused of socialism, somehow instead Democrats spend their time talking about Scandinavia. What?

PVW said:

The really big, awful, terrible thing wrong with communist regimes wasn't and isn't their economic policies, it's the secret police and torture and just general shocking amount of violence meted out against the general population and anyone who the autocrats believe are even potentially a threat.

I don’t think that’s giving the Stalin and Mao economic policies their due.

What would you call restricting the rights of citizens unless they take a product developed by big pharma while at the same time shielding big pharma from litigation?  

DaveSchmidt said:

PVW said:

The really big, awful, terrible thing wrong with communist regimes wasn't and isn't their economic policies, it's the secret police and torture and just general shocking amount of violence meted out against the general population and anyone who the autocrats believe are even potentially a threat.

I don’t think that’s giving the Stalin and Mao economic policies their due.

 Alas, severe coercion is needed to support these economic policies.  The gulags were public work camps, where they literally worked people to death.

terp said:

The gulags were public work camps, where they literally worked people to death.

I had more in mind the Holodomor and the Great Leap Forward.

terp said:

What would you call restricting the rights of citizens unless they take a product developed by big pharma while at the same time shielding big pharma from litigation?  

A pandemic. 

DaveSchmidt said:

terp said:

What would you call restricting the rights of citizens unless they take a product developed by big pharma while at the same time shielding big pharma from litigation?  

A pandemic. 

 to be fair, Pharma is shielded from vaccination litigation in non-pandemic times also.

Good thing too. Can you imagine if the anti-vax crowd could sue?

terp said:

 Alas, severe coercion is needed to support these economic policies.  The gulags were public work camps, where they literally worked people to death.

Yes, exactly! I mean, the USSR actually had a pretty impressive economic record, going from a relatively low base of industrialization to becoming a space power and immense influence throughout the world. When Republicans try to accuse Democrats of being like the USSR, surely it's not an accusation that they want to make sure the US remains an important, powerful country. No, it's things like the gulags that give such accusations any sting. And here I'll note that the energy for dismantling our mass incarceration system isn't coming from the right.

DaveSchmidt said:

terp said:

What would you call restricting the rights of citizens unless they take a product developed by big pharma while at the same time shielding big pharma from litigation?  

A pandemic. 

 I'd also call it a personal choice balancing risk and reward.

This personal choice idea only makes sense if the unvaccinated are not putting other people at risk.

tjohn said:

This personal choice idea only makes sense if the unvaccinated are not putting other people at risk.

 this is true.  

but my point is that the unvaccinated are making the choice not to get the shot, and they need to weigh that against whether that choice is worth not being allowed attendance in public places among the vaccinated.  A good example is the whining from the unvaxxed about not being allowed into a Jason Isbell concert is absurd.  Where is it said that anyone has a right to go to a concert? And why doesn't Isbell have the right to limit the probability of his shows becoming super spreader events?

your body, your choice.  and you've chosen not to abide by the rules of a private enterprise for entry into their event.  toughen up, unvaxxed snowflakes.

and I should also add, most of the vaccine "mandates" are not mandates at all.  Even the Jason Isbell tour I referenced above does NOT require vaccination.  The unvaxxed can provide a negative COVID-19 test in lieu of vaccination proof.  

Jason Isbell Talks Concert Vaccine Policy: ‘If You’re Dead, You Don’t Have Any Freedoms’

it starts to look more and more like the unvaxxed just don't want anyone telling them what to do at all.  They don't like the idea of a vaccine requirement OR a test requirement.  Or masks.

we're getting to the point where the "freedom" people are acting insane.  they are fighting against virtually any attempt to keep them and the people around them healthy.

PVW said:

Not sure how this relates to the thread topic, but so long as we're swerving in that direction, what would you call restricting the rights of citizens unless they accept people potentially infected with a deadly virus to cough and sneeze all over them, while at the same time shielding those refusing to stop the pandemic from any responsibility or accountability?

"Swerving in that direction" will eventually turn the conversation to "fiat money" and "taxation is theft". It always does.

nohero said:

"Swerving in that direction" will eventually turn the conversation to "fiat money" and "taxation is theft". It always does.

 Did you know that paying taxes is exactly the same as a Soviet gulag system?