This is how fascism comes to America

[PearliePoo2]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/this-is-how-fascism-comes-to-america/2016/05/17/c4e32c58-1c47-11e6-8c7b-6931e66333e7_story.html?tid=pm_pop_b

By Robert Kagan
The Republican Party’s attempt to treat Donald Trump as a normal political candidate would be laughable were it not so perilous to the republic. If only he would mouth the party’s “conservative” principles, all would be well.

But of course the entire Trump phenomenon has nothing to do with policy or ideology. It has nothing to do with the Republican Party, either, except in its historic role as incubator of this singular threat to our democracy. Trump has transcended the party that produced him. His growing army of supporters no longer cares about the party. Because it did not immediately and fully embrace Trump, because a dwindling number of its political and intellectual leaders still resist him, the party is regarded with suspicion and even hostility by his followers. Their allegiance is to him and him alone.

And the source of allegiance? We’re supposed to believe that Trump’s support stems from economic stagnation or dislocation. Maybe some of it does. But what Trump offers his followers are not economic remedies — his proposals change daily. What he offers is an attitude, an aura of crude strength and machismo, a boasting disrespect for the niceties of the democratic culture that he claims, and his followers believe, has produced national weakness and incompetence. His incoherent and contradictory utterances have one thing in common: They provoke and play on feelings of resentment and disdain, intermingled with bits of fear, hatred and anger. His public discourse consists of attacking or ridiculing a wide range of “others” — Muslims, Hispanics, women, Chinese, Mexicans, Europeans, Arabs, immigrants, refugees — whom he depicts either as threats or as objects of derision. His program, such as it is, consists chiefly of promises to get tough with foreigners and people of nonwhite complexion. He will deport them, bar them, get them to knuckle under, make them pay up or make them shut up.

[Nyan]

1. Does Washington Post realize that it was Germany's inept liberal class

That played a good part in the rise of fascism in the 1930s? I guess not.
WP represents America's failing liberal class pushing for the worst democratic candidate in modern history, and they don't see it even as they're HELPING to bring fascism. Their ignorance is astounding.

[Katashi_itto]

2. Agree, we either get a toupee wearing fascist or designer pantsuit corporate fascist

[ananda]

6. This has been a trend since Reagan and Thatcher.

With so much corporate control and money behind the fascist establishment,
there will never be a solution until the people themselves take back the
country and the world.

[gordianot]

3. The liberal actual office holder class in the Democratic Party has been bought off.

That is not to say there are holder on's who think they are still liberal progressives. The Clinton's have always been good actors no surprise there. I cannot say I blame the once Democratic Party for selling out. When you think about it the best Democratic leaders of the last century were born wealthy and independent. The money is just too tempting so a trade deal here, defense contract there, a big expansion for the insurance industry and tax cuts for the wealthy no matter who is in office. A funny sideline is that the Republican party found whale shit washed up on the beach disgusting so they decided to make perfume. I like the radical independent running opposition but he is going to be chewed up. At least use of character assassination this time and not the real physical thing.

[pampango]

8. Indeed. Fascists were fascists but they took advantage of conditions that were not

their doing.

Hitler wasn’t Hitler—until he was. At each step of the way, the shock was tempered by acceptance. It depended on conservatives pretending he wasn’t so bad, compared with the Communists, while at the same time the militant left decided that their real enemies were the moderate leftists, who were really indistinguishable from the Nazis. The radical progressives decided that there was no difference between the democratic left and the totalitarian right and that an explosion of institutions was exactly the most thrilling thing imaginable.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-dangerous-acceptance-of-donald-trump

[AntiBank]

4. Trump is not a fascist at all, he is a right wing populist, a bigot, a xenophobe, a sexist, but

not a fascist. You have to be care when attacking him with incorrect labels, as you open yourself up to a slap down from his side.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016157513

It's becoming a common question, and prominent neoconservative columnist Robert Kagan is the latest to lob the accusation, declaring, "This is how fascism comes to America, not with jackboots and salutes (although there have been salutes, and a whiff of violence) but with a television huckster, a phony billionaire, a textbook egomaniac 'tapping into' popular resentments and insecurities, and with an entire national political party — out of ambition or blind party loyalty, or simply out of fear — falling into line behind him."

Kagan is wrong. Donald Trump is not a fascist. "Fascism" has been an all-purpose insult for many years now, but it has a real definition, and according to scholars of historical fascism, Trump doesn't qualify. Rather, he's a right-wing populist, or perhaps an "apartheid liberal" in the words of Roger Griffin, author of The Nature of Fascism. He doesn't want to overthrow the existing democratic system. He doesn't want to scrap the Constitution. He doesn't romanticize violence itself as a vital cleansing agent of society. He's simply a racist who wants to keep the current system but deny its benefits to groups he's interested in oppressing.

[JustAnotherGen]

5. Agreed - the Hutus weren't Fascists

He's like A Hutu.

[dembotoz]

7. would suggest Look whos back on netflix....hitler wakes up in modern germany

its funny yet its not

worth the time