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Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse
- Thread starter CdnGuy
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In recent months, the word "fascist" has been thrown at everything from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal and statements made by Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Disney's remake of https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/07/10/lion-king-is-fascistic-story-no-remake-can-change-that/ (The Lion King).
But's there's one target of the F-word that stands out above all others — President Donald Trump. At no time in America's history has the word been so openly and repeatedly applied to the person sitting in the Oval Office. There is much this president has done that generates legitimate concern: His cruel, dehumanizing treatment of refugees seeking asylum. The crass and vulgar attitudes toward women. Attempts to limit minority communities' access to the polls. Efforts to erode LGBTQ protections.
All of this and more is reprehensible in the eyes of many people.
Even so, does that justify calling the president a fascist, or are his critics guilty of carelessly setting off rhetorical dynamite, further inflaming passions on either side of the already volatile Trump divide?
Answering that timely question requires a close look at both the word and the man.
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The problem with labeling anyone a fascist these days is that, as George Orwell alluded to more than 70 years ago, it is seemingly impossible to arrive at a definition of the word that is universally agreed to.
As deeply troubling as he is, Donald Trump is not Adolf Hitler.
On the other hand, just as a person can be judged by the company they keep, it is fair to evaluate a politician by looking at who supports them. And in the case of Trump, self-declared neo-Nazis and white supremacists have clearly embraced him as their champion. In 2016, Trump received ringing endorsements from The Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi blog, and former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke.
Irish journalist Fintan O'Toole summed up the current situation regarding Trump and a growing number of authoritarian rulers around the world this way:
"To grasp what is going on in the world right now, we need to reflect on two things," wrote O'Toole. "One is that we are in a phase of trial runs. The other is that what is being trialed is fascism — a word that should be used carefully but not shirked when it is so clearly on the horizon. .... Fascism doesn't arise suddenly in an existing democracy. It is not easy to get people to give up their ideas of freedom and civility. You have to do trial runs that, if they are done well, serve two purposes. They get people used to something they may initially recoil from, and they allow you to refine and calibrate. This is what is happening now, and we would be fools not to see it."
In May, after interviewing Yale philosophy professor Jason Stanley for his "Deconstructed" podcast, journalist Mehdi Hasan came to a trenchant conclusion of his own regarding Trump and fascism:
"You don't have to believe he's a literal reincarnation of fascist dictators to recognize that he is taking us down a very dark, ultra-authoritarian and violent path," he said. "Some of you may not want to call it fascism, but whatever you call it, make sure you stand up against it. As 2020 approaches, it's only going to get worse."
