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US election 2020 thread

ska invita said:
What did you find overblown?

Oh and it's not just "liberals" who saw a fascistic creep
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Largely the writing style. I also think it overstated the chance of a successful coup, but did agree with the final paragraph.

In terms of who has invoked the term fascist, that was my point. I find it interesting that the language used by the liberal left * on here is now being used more widely to describe trump. I'm sort of saying that this might be a moment where those posters feel entitled to say 'I told you so'. Kind of 'fill yer boots' time. :)
Fwiw, I'm not sure whether trump and his followers are fash is the point. They certainly are in a generic sense/usage. I'm starting to think about it in terms of this weekend being the point where American populism stretches the institutions of liberal democracy to the limit. Trump has been pushing it right from the moment he claimed the election result was a fraud. I'm not sure what emerges out of that stretch, probably nothing distinctive, just a failed system creaking on.

* however much that term may be disliked. ;)
 
On reflection, I think that I am coming round to the view that Trump himself is not a fascist because:

1. Trump isn't idealistic enough to be a fascist in that he is more a personality cult. Whilst such cultism often accompanies fascism, it is more a by-product than a defining feature.
2. He spends almost as much time undermining the traditional tools of fascism (the military, recently the right-wing traditional media) as doing the other stuff like clamping down on opposition.
3. Ultimately, the Americans' love of "Freedom" is so broadly accepted in all its forms that it doesn't give enough room for true fascism to truly take hold. The American right wing interpretation of freedom is about carrying your own military grade weapons, not being part of a larger corps acting under orders.

This third point is what will probably and ironically protect the US from true fascism, but it is also the factor that impedes progress in a more socialist direction.
 
Wilf said:
Largely the writing style. I also think it overstated the chance of a successful coup, but did agree with the final paragraph.

In terms of who has invoked the term fascist, that was my point. I find it interesting that the language used by the liberal left * on here is now being used more widely to describe trump. I'm sort of saying that this might be a moment where those posters feel entitled to say 'I told you so'. Kind of 'fill yer boots' time. :)
Fwiw, I'm not sure whether trump and his followers are fash is the point. They certainly are in a generic sense/usage. I'm starting to think about it in terms of this weekend being the point where American populism stretches the institutions of liberal democracy to the limit. Trump has been pushing it right from the moment he claimed the election result was a fraud. I'm not sure what emerges out of that stretch, probably nothing distinctive, just a failed system creaking on.

* however much that term may be disliked. ;)
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His writing style can be overly...'Intellectual'...but I didnt get from his piece that he thought the coup ever stood a chance - the exact opposite in fact - key parts of the Trumpist grassroots believed in it blindly, and crucially believed a real coup was really on, but it was a massively unrealistic vision <seems to me a big part of the picture he painted.

My impression is over the last few years there were lots of books/articles/voices linking trump to fascism from across the political left (anarcho to leninist), though there was never agreement in any tradition about that.

Failed system creaking on....hard to disagree...it would've been really interesting to see how the US establishment reacted to a Sanders presidency, had he not been shot down by the Democratic elite. Overall I expect Biden will try a very "let the dust settle" approach to the next four years, but I wonder if Events will force his hand. The door is very open for some political retribution too...will be interesting to see if he pushes for that.
 
killer b said:
the bellingcat article about Ashli Babbit has some details about her radicalisation - would be interested to see some more in depth stuff about this tbh.

www.bellingcat.com

The Journey of Ashli Babbitt - bellingcat

Retracing the final steps of the woman killed by police during the storm of the US Capitol.
www.bellingcat.com www.bellingcat.com
Click to expand...
As Babbitt lay dying on the floor, her fellow members of the crowd pulled out their phones and began to film, illuminating her body with the lights of their devices.
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Something almost religious about that. I've just been re-reading American Gods and there's certainly something of the 'new gods' about that image.
 
2JuOAD_rrAeYs9soM3ejnOpQ0o6fXfZV5OEinflPODE.jpg


get coat
 
ska invita said:
His writing style can be overly...'Intellectual'...but I didnt get from his piece that he thought the coup ever stood a chance - the exact opposite in fact - key parts of the Trumpist grassroots believed in it blindly, and crucially believed a real coup was really on, but it was a massively unrealistic vision <seems to me a big part of the picture he painted.

My impression is over the last few years there were lots of books/articles/voices linking trump to fascism from across the political left (anarcho to leninist), though there was never agreement in any tradition about that.

Failed system creaking on....hard to disagree...it would've been really interesting to see how the US establishment reacted to a Sanders presidency, had he not been shot down by the Democratic elite. Overall I expect Biden will try a very "let the dust settle" approach to the next four years, but I wonder if Events will force his hand. The door is very open for some political retribution too...will be interesting to see if he pushes for that.
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My guess is Biden would like to see a good number of the invaders doing serious time. He'll also want to use this to shove the wider alt-right and qanon scum beyond the pale of American politics, but will be very cautious about specific steps. In terms of trump, I think he'll leave well alone and hopes he fucks off to Saudi. But as you say, events could make all of that redundant. I'm not predicting bombs or sieges from the wildest fringes, but it's a possibility.
 
Struwwelpeter said:
3. Ultimately, the Americans' love of "Freedom" is so broadly accepted in all its forms that it doesn't give enough room for true fascism to truly take hold. The American right wing interpretation of freedom is about carrying your own military grade weapons, not being part of a larger corps acting under orders.
Click to expand...
Hmmm, lets see how that holds up when a genuine socialist force comes close to winning/ wins power in the States. (one day eh ;))
ETA: I can imagine climate change being another stress that might open the door more fully
 
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bimble said:
I’d appreciate if someone could spell out why they think the word fascist is not appropriate for trump.
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I think it's possible to get a bit too tied up in this, as if there were some Platonic ideal of 'fascism' out there to which everything ought to be compared, and against which Trump somehow falls short.

There are very certainly fascistic tendencies to Trump. Just the fact he attempted a coup, however feeble the attempt may have been. The way he has attacked his opponents and spread lies about them. The way he has attempted to subvert elections, intimidate and bully opponents, use the power of his office for his own purposes, promote those who profess loyalty to him. Relentless attacks on anyone in the media who opposes him, sticking rigidly to his propaganda machine pushing false narratives. Build a corporatist movement in which identity is important, not economic class, ranged against enemies abroad and within. Define that movement through a personal loyalty to him as the personal embodiment of 'MAGA'. Pretty nakedly being racist in order to build that movement and contrast it against an 'other', a lot of it in code ('legitimate votes'), some of it just plainly spoken (as when speaking of black Democrat congresswomen). Promoting white nationalist groups, including paramilitary groups. Appealing to some mythical past in which the country was great, before those enemies within came and spoiled it. Demonising immigrants, foreigners, people of other religions, black people, brown people, gay people, trans people. All with that peculiarly American twist of doing so while clutching a bible (albeit upside-down).

He's a wannabe fascist dictator who never quite had the power of a dictator and ultimately failed to subvert or transcend the system within which he rose to power.
 
The incels president - socially awkward, dried cum encrusted social misfits, raging for years at feminists because they can't and won't ever get a BJ. Well adjusted liberals with plenty of female attention the ultimate enemy. Sit in posinious online circles and have hatred confirmed and amplified every time you log on. Big obnxious rancid orange man that everyone you hate, hates, so they project on him every fantasy they've ever had about being a powerful man with money and women, between their 12th porn hub session of the day in their mums basement.

this is a big part of his fan base

a losers president.
 
MickiQ said:
He would probably feel bad about that, wouldn't stop him from doing it but he would feel bad.
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I think that's one of nicest things I've heard said about him.

In the interests of balance, I tried looking up good things he has done as President a little while back.
While this is clearly coloured by my political outlook, they were thin on the ground to say the least (it made Dubya's record comparatively glowing).
 
Trump is best understood first and foremost as an ego. A really overblown, unrestrained and richly (literally) fed ego. It has always been about him, and I'm going back way before he got into politics.

So, personality cult. What follows, once in power, certainly adheres to some rules of 'yep, fascist'. Liberal-democracy obsolete. Check. Racism. Check. Hatred of the left. Check. Etc etc.

But in a way, I find it hard to dignify the orange half-wit with an explanation like 'fascist'. Because that gives him reason, ideology. And he's not exactly Hitler plotting his way to power. He doesn't have ideology as such, he's too all over the place, changeable, dependent on what he thinks suits him at any given moment. That is the centre of Trump. His ego. There's a reason he was/is on Twitter all the time. Seeing that message get out and get liked. Ego. I think all that comes before 'fascism'.

But. Yep, fascist.
 
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littlebabyjesus said:
For all that talk about fascism, the most important thing to remember about Trump is that he is, and will forever remain, a massive LOSER.
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until the last few day he was a kleptocrat, who was using the right to progress his aims
well until the last few days were he was attempting to go full blow fascist

thankfully he left it to late

and he is a Massive loser who ruined his future chances of being the deal maker for the next GOP Presidential nominee
his name might be that toxic that even ivanca cannot run

but this is the states who knows
 
averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com

Ten Points on Trump's Attempted Coup

1. A number of people have compared the the storming of Congress to the shambles of the Munich Beer Hall putsch led by Adolf Hitler. Thi...
averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com

1. A number of people have compared the the storming of Congress to the shambles of the Munich Beer Hall putsch led by Adolf Hitler. This, sadly, is a valid comparison, with the exception that the Trumpist movement, in all its incoherence, is better funded, better organised, and enjoys significant legitimacy despite what happened on Wednesday.

2. As this piece notes, the Republican party's turn to barely-disguised ethno-nationalism is the result of and has further assisted the radicalisation of millions of white Americans. 51% of Republicans questioned agreed with the statement, "The traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it" and 41% with "A time will come when patriotic Americans have to take the law into their own hands." This data was from a year ago, but attitudes have barely shifted. A snap poll by YouGov found 45% of Republicans supported the invasion of the Capitol. There is a mass basis for this politics, and it has been cultivated for a long time.

3. The Congress debacle was not a coup, but it was an episode in and the culmination of an attempted coup by Trump and his allies. From the moment it became clear Trump had lost he, as is well known, refused to accept the election result, made unfounded and completely false allegations of election fraud, attempted to prevent the counting of votes, filed over 60 suits to overturn counts, and repeatedly tried strongarming state officials - most recently in Georgia - to declare for him. For their own venal reasons, a clutch of Republican congressman have gone along with this confidence trick by challenging the electoral college votes and, last of all, Trump publicly pressured Mike Pence to veto the result. Even though he had no power to do so. These constitute deliberate attempts to subvert the democratic functioning of the state.

4. Trump and his fash-adjacent running dogs now know they're in deep trouble. To have Ilhan Omar drawing up the articles of impeachment is one thing, but to have the Democrat leader of the Senate Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi demanding Article 25 be invoked is something else. This probably explains Trump's about turn, his comdemnation of the violence, and calls for a peaceful transition of power, a transition hitherto he's done everything to disrupt and prevent. Likewise, as news came through about a Capitol Hill copper who succumbed to injuries sustained on Wednesday, Ted Cruz has done his bit to bodyswerve what should be coming for him.

5. As a longtime congressman, Joe Biden has a reputation as a centrist who works across the House. And, before Wednesday, it looked like all the calls to pursue Trump, his family, and his associates for criminal activities in office were going to fall by the wayside in the name of conciliation and bringing America together. Even his speech condemning the Trumpists was soggy and couched in the same tones. The temptation for magnamnity, to "make nice" with the mob and their supporters must be resisted. Yes, going hard on Trump, the senators, and the representatives who backed his long and incompetent coup is going to harden some of his supporters, but better when they're on the backfoot and their people in the institutions are on the retreat than in the moment of their insurgence.

6. In fact, prosecuting the Trump clique and its backers in the GOP offers the Democrats a historic opportunity. In her unhinged commentary on the riot, which apparently was the result of Antifa infiltrators, on Fox News Sarah Palin argued for a new conservative party returning to core Republican values. By pursuing action against congressman who've gone along with Trump's attempted coup, a wedge can be driven between the Trumpists and "moderate" Republicans which could affect a split in the party which, in the context of the two-party system, would severely disadvantage the right for decades to come.

7. There are also divisions within Trumpism itself, which can be seen in the incoherent response to their mob violence. We have fools like Palin claiming it was a false flag operation, which is contradicted by Trump telling his supporters to march on the Capitol and several leading fash, alt-right, and QAnon activists spearheading the storming of the building, and hundreds of Trumpists recording their activities and boasting about them on social media. And there are the disappointments some will feel about Trump going on the record and disowning the action they undertook at his behest, and confusion over how, according to Trump, the election is a put up job and a fraud but is still acquiescing to the transfer of power. Striking while the Trumpists are in disarray and likely to split further is the wisest cause of action.

8. With Trumpism shaking to pieces, unfortunately there are going to be more outrages and terror attacks, like the suicide bombing of downtown Nashville by a conspiracy theorist. A movement without anywhere to go (for the moment) will drive some of its despairing adherents to extremes.

9. And the conditions for Trumpism have not gone away. Polarisation exists. Cultural anxieties exist. And the material base for fascism and the further evolution of rightwing populism persist. If only something could be done about it. Well, it can. Following the run-offs in Georgia, the Democrats now control the White House, the House of Representatives and, thanks to Kamala Harris's casting vote, the Senate. There are no excuses for not implementing the promises Biden made on the campaign trail, nor for the absence of a levelling up agenda and action on health care. Going on the offensive against Trumpism and its afters means rebuilding infrastructure, fuelling job growth through state-led investment in green industry, and offering the possibility of security versus precarity. This more than anything can begin the process of dissolving the mass basis for the American far right.

10. The American far right overreached on Wednesday, and the conditions are present to inflict a further strategic defeat. It is worth remembering there is nothing inevitable about the rise of the right. The authoritarians and would-be dictators don't have to win, and the forces of the left, even the forces of liberalism, are stronger on paper than what Trumpism and the alt-right can muster. There is the means and the opportunity to roll them over. Make it so.
Click to expand...
 
Ax^ said:
until the last few day he was a kleptocrat, who was using the right to progress his aims
well until the last few days were he was attempting to go full blow fascist

thankfully he left it to late

and he is a Massive loser who ruined he future chances of being the deal maker for the next GOP presidencal candidate
Click to expand...
I suspect he will spend the rest of what remains of his miserable life desperately trying to avoid going to jail. Not sure he'll have much time for anything else. And will probably be dead sooner rather than later.
 
Hard Crackers have just put out a decent piece, looking at what this might mean beyond Trump - worth a read along with some other decent pieces i suspect have been posted already (three way fight etc, but not been following thread):

The Big Takeover


...
More broadly, such conspiracy narratives are preferable to confronting the fact that an explicitly revolutionary rightist tendency is very likely enjoying an auspicious moment of recomposition, unafraid of meting out violence or meeting it, even to the point of death, and should therefore be respected as formidable foes, equally capable as leftists of opposing the US state, or worse yet, appearing as the only visible alternative to neoliberalism, as Trump did in the 2016 election. Now, with Donald Trump quickly fading to irrelevance, what we are seeing is almost certainly the birth of something new coming into existence that we’ll be contending with for years to come, defined by the experience of the Capitol siege, and the ideological and practical lines it will both expose and draw. Moreover, the conspiracy narrative allows people to sidestep facing the challenge that a comparatively small, focused, and courageous group of people can do a whole lot once it lets go of its fear and preoccupations with appeasing polite society or stepping on the toes of anyone who claims to represent large groups of people.

In a country where the majority of eligible citizens do not vote, rampant interpersonal violence, addiction, routines mass shootings, and suicide epidemics testify to a profound hopelessness that anything can be done to improve daily life. The nonsensical, logic-proof theories of QAnon don’t demonstrate the stupidity of their adherents as much as the desperation people feel for communal belonging, to find a theory that makes sense of the desperation and misery of their lives, and to take actions into their own hands, acting in concert. Collective actions like the siege of the Capitol, no matter how ephemeral, register in the minds of millions of people the idea that drastic measures can be taken by ordinary people. Forget how risible or horrific it may seem to professional pundits or social media celebrities who shed tears for the sanctity of the “hallowed halls” where imperialist wars and austerity programs are hatched. The sight of gatecrashers angrily storming the Senate demanding Mike Pence reveal himself, a man in proletarian dress with his feet up on a desk in the office of the multi-millionaire powerbroker Nancy Pelosi, and the perverse fun most of them seemed to be having doing it, furnish powerful political images that speak to the widespread disgust with US life that’s just about the only thing everyone agrees on.

What is our alternative?
 
planetgeli said:
Trump is best understood first and foremost as an ego. A really overblown, unrestrained and richly (literally) fed ego. It has always been about him, and I'm going back way before he got into politics.

So, personality cult. What follows, once in power, certainly adheres to some rules of 'yep, fascist'. Liberal-democracy obsolete. Check. Racism. Check. Hatred of the left. Check. Etc etc.

But in a way, I find it hard to dignify the orange half-wit with an explanation like 'fascist'. Because that gives him reason, ideology. And he's not exactly Hitler plotting his way to power. He doesn't have ideology as such, he's too all over the place, changeable, dependable on what he thinks suits him at any given moment. That is the centre of Trump. His ego. There's a reason he was/is on Twitter all the time. Seeing that message get out and get liked. Ego. I think all that comes before 'fascism'.

But. Yep, fascist.
Click to expand...

There are elements you can point at, but I don't think there is enough for the 'fascism' label to apply.
He's happy to use the support from people a lot closer to it, though.

If it suited his needs I think he'd happily play the internationalist technocrat card - his stance was always led by where his support was coming from, and became more so during his tenure.
 
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