Wow that is scary. OK, I am sorta sorry about some of my aggressive comments towards others. I will try to focus on attacking the ideology. I wrote this while the thread was closed.
I would like to address my claim that MAGA, Trump, and the conservative movement in general in America are fascist or rapidly becoming fascist.
First I would like to address the conservatives and MAGAs who roll their eyes when they hear this. In a similar fashion to how they do when they hear that their movement is racist or sexist. "Yeah yeah, everything is racist and sexist" they will say in a dismissive way. Sometimes something they do will be called racist, sexist, etc when it actually isn't, I don't deny that this happens. Like many other fringe examples, conservatives will latch onto and signal amplify such examples, acting like they are representative of the whole. Conservatives do this with many things, like instances of violent crime committed by illegal immigrants. This is done to reinforce their constructed mythology. By blowing up examples of false accusations of racism etc they can then claim that any and all accusations of racism are invalid.
When I call the MAGA movement fascist, most of them will likely see me as being like a spoiled kid, angry about having a bedtime and having to do chores and so calling his parents nazis. However, I have fairly extensively studied fascist ideology, in particular the nazis. So I would be remiss not to share the overlap and why I feel justified in calling MAGA fascist. I understand the risk, that I will just make MAGAs do a dismissive "pffft" sound write me off as a hyperbolic alarmist. Staying quiet and not calling it fascist however, plays into the hands of the fascists and at this late date, I think we do more harm by not calling it what it is.
First we should cover what fascism is.
I think this video does a pretty good job:
Having covered that, let's go over some indicators that the aforementioned things are fascist. None of these by themselves would conclusively prove that they are fascist. Taken together though, we have a looks like a duck, quacks like a duck type of situation.
Fascist iconography and rhetoric:
Ron Desantis had an ad which used a symbol also used by the nazis, the sonnenrad.
en.m.wikipedia.org
I understand the staffer was later fired. Conservatives may point to this firing as proof that Ron Desantis does not support fascism, and in a vacuum with none of his other policies and rhetoric accounted for, I might agree with them. Of course, it could be pragmatism as well. Obviously fascism is not popular. Desantis would know this and want to make effort to not blatantly appear to be one. Maybe he doesn't believe himself to be one, but this is immaterial. His actions and policies and rhetoric and other beliefs are what make him one, not his belief that he is or is not one. Fascists will rarely tell you that they are fascists, just as racists, sexists, and other bigots will rarely tell you that they are or admit they are or even think that they are.
The question we should be asking is what is it about Ron Desantis that attracts fascists to his staff? Keep this question in mind.
Similar to desantis, Trump had an ad made by a staffer and just like with desantis, part of it contained the phrase "creation of a unified Reich" under a headline "what is next for America".
![1000010029.webp 1000010029.webp](https://laserpointerforums.com/data/attachments/61/61666-339eef9ff7e48ea0afd78e81c47ae7c7.jpg?hash=i8Grw3eFea)
Later, it was taken down and I think that staffer also fired, but all the points and questions I made before apply here as well.
A whole book could be written about the parallels between the rhetoric trump employs and that employed by various fascists. I have seen videos where people are asked to see if they can tell if a quote came from trump or Hitler. Results weren't reassuring. I'll just mention a few here that I think illustrate my point and contention.
Trump has repeatedly fearmongered about immigrants in many ways, but one of the first was focusing in on rape. Insinuating or stating directly the threat posed by immigrant rapists raping our women. Fascists have done this many times. The fear of foreigners, often of a different race or ethnicity invading to sexually violate the women of the homeland. As I have mentioned before, studies show that immigrants, both legal and illegal, commit crime at a lower rate than native born citizens, but again, the outlier is used to represent the norm to reinforce the fascist mythology.
Trump has also said that immigrants are "poisoning the blood of our nation". Similar to the previous example. This really evokes the idea that these are lesser human beings, indeed, does trump not always say that they are not sending their best? The reality is many are fleeing cartel violence that our war on drugs contributes to, or fleeing poverty that our imperialist policies and actions contribute to. Fox News will never tell you theses things. It's a whole other subject I could write extensively about. I encourage anyone to research the actions of the US government across central and south America, it is pure evil in too many instances.
Back to his statement, poisoning the blood of our nation. This could be interpreted in so many ways. I don't care to speculate too much on exactly what way trump meant it, and the ambiguity in interpretation is another tactic fascists use so that their adherants know what they mean and respond to it, but when someone like me calls it out, they can say I am misrepresenting the intent of his words and try to make me out to be a raving lunatic. Point is, there's like a 1:1 with that statement and rhetoric that so many fascists in history have used. Of note, Trump also commonly praises people he likes as having "good genes". Taken by itself, fairly innocuous, but he sure says it a lot
Fascist actions.
Fascism is characterized largely by ultranationalism. Trump himself has called himself a nationalist. MTG proudly calls herself a Christian nationalist, and my former representative Lauren boebert has said that the church should run the state and that maybe we should have a biblical literacy test for citizenship. While nationalism is common among conservatives, I would argue that with the current movement it has become ultra nationalism. Trump wants to build a wall along the entire southern border. He wants to keep an entire religion from entering the country and has expressed support for other types of ideological screening as well, as though thought crime from Orwell's 1984 has become enforceable. Socialists etc, he wants to keep them out. I hope I don't need to explain why this flies in the face of the 1st amendment and freedom of thought and belief.
During the George Floyd protests and riots, federal agents were deployed in unmarked vehicles and snagged people off of the streets. I'm hoping they all received due process but the tactic is evocative of fascism. Indeed, many of the actions of the marked and identified police were as well, but I won't focus on this too much as it isn't unique to trump or even Republicans. I will mention that Trump had peaceful protestors tear gassed so that he could have a photo op holding up a bible. Fascists love such iconography and shows of force. Trump has also expressed a longing for a time when police "acted faster" and has said that they should not be too gentle when arresting suspects. Pretty indistinguishable from many other fascists.
Trump wants to make America great again, but never really says exactly when that was. Ask 10 different Trump supporters and you'll get around 8 different answers. This plays into the myth and lets his supporters project onto his movement whatever they think greatness means or refers to. It also means there isn't really a way to tell whether he ever succeeds or fails in restoring greatness. Fascists often or basically always appeal to an idealized past. While some aspects of American life has been better in the past, there were also great problems during those times that undercut the greatness. The point is the idealized past for the mythology.
Hatred or dislike of gays and other sexual minorities. Virtually every fascist movement dislikes or hates gay people. I won't spend much time here as it has been discussed at length but keep in mind that not all nazis had to be death camp guards doing the executions of the gay people. Many simply looked the other way or were content to let the more hard-core nazis get their hands dirty with the particulars of extermination. Of note, the nazis tried to hide their worst actions even from their own populace.
Michael Knowles has said (at CPAC if memory serves) that we should "eradicate transgender ideology". Now, his supporters will say that this is a call to eradicate the ideology not the people, but how exactly do you do that, especially considering that it isn't even an ideology really? Trans people know they are trans, they didn't need to learn it. Just as with homosexuality, fascists need to portray it as a social contagion. One to be quarantined and eliminated. As fascists are obsessed with strong males, they characterize "gay and trans ideology" and feminism as and attack on masculinity.
Fascism pretty much always has a strong central leader figure who is idolized by his followers and not questioned. They will install loyal followers in other positions of power. Project 2025 lays out how they want to do this quite nicely. Loyalty to trump, not competence in their field will be the determining criteria, and lists of those likely to be unloyal to trump are already being made. I could also write extensively about all the ways in which the MAGA movement is like trump's personal cult, and have cited examples previously. Polls showing that like 71% of his supporters trust his word over the word of their church leaders, the media, and even close family, speak volumes. He continually sows distrust in the media so that he can dismiss any negative story about him as fake news, and seeks to sever his supporters from any contrary viewpoints and evidence. A tactic employed by many fascists and authoritarians.
Control and subjugation of women is another similarity to fascist regimes. Many Republicans now want to end no-fault divorce. Conservatives like Matt Walsh encourage women to marry young and have kids and not seek careers and become dependant on their husbands. If a woman wants to choose this, that's fine but fascists need it to pump out more babies of their preferred ethnicity to combat the "great replacement" I could go on about this subject for a long time as well
Trump commonly praises other authoritarian world leaders. I'm not just talking about saying that Putin is smart. I would agree that Putin is intelligent, cunning even. There are too many examples to cite. Trump has also said that the "tougher and meaner" a leader is, the more he tends to get along with them.
Why this doesn't ring alarm bells in his followers is itself alarming. Just the other day he again said that flag burners should be imprisoned for a year, even though the Supreme Court has ruled that this is protected speech, and a conservative justice is the one who wrote the opinion on that case. Trump also lamented that we aren't more like countries like North Korea and Russia where such dissent and flag burning would not be tolerated. Complete deference and obedience to the state, do I really need to spell out how this parallels fascist regimes? Are you not alarmed when your leader is wishing we could be more like north Korea?
Anyway, I hope this goes a long ways toward showing that I'm not a whiney brat complaining about my bedtime and hyperbolically calling my parents nazis. Hopefully I have given a few trumpers something to consider and planted a seed of doubt. Maybe it will not sprout right now, but will in time. I know when I have been resistant to changing my mind in the past, sometimes that has been the case with me where in the moment I did not change my mind, but could not dismiss the notion that did eventually give rise to me changing my mind and beliefs. Or maybe you read this and think, "Hell yeah, I do hate them gays and trannys and Muslims and commies, if that makes me a fascist then so be it"
Often when arguing with conservatives, they will accuse me of being gay, trans, or a woman. In fact, I am a straight white man. This serves as further evidence for me that conservatives are far less likely to care about the rights of others and only are concerned with their own. They can not fathom why I would so vehemently defend groups that I am not a part of. So with that in mind, I will leave you with a quote from Martin Niemoller, who lived through nazi Germany:
"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."
And one more often attributed to Sinclair Lewis:
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a bible"