What Fascism Looks Like

It's an amazing article written in 1944 by FDR's vp. It was easily accessible a couple of years ago, now it seems it is only in pdf that can't be copied.

I would love to hear your opinion.

K, I don't think he is defining fascism. I think this is an early example of leveraging the word to (at best) expose destructive practices "at home" and (at worst) demonize those with whom he disagrees. Easy to do, since at the end of WW2, "fascist" was an obvious "othering" term. In fact, you could argue he is actually doing what he is warning against: making those he disagrees with "the other" and demonizing them with a catch-all term.

How could I make such and audacious claim? Because he is conflating the actual definition of the term with all the behaviours he doesn't like (and hey, I'm on his side about those behaviours). But Henry Wallace may have actually started the problem with using "fascist" as a generalizing, demonizing, "othering" insult, and actually degrading the actual definition in common parlance.

Here is how fascism is defined on wikipedia (and I'm surprised that up to this point, nobody has actually offered a straight-up definition—but maybe it's because we're more enamoured with demonizing opponents than we are with clarity and precision in speech):

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism

See, with the degradation of the term to become an increasingly meaningless catch-all, we lose the following characteristics:

1. Far-right. The "far-right" does exist in the United States, but it's hardly the central obvious threat that some people paint it to be. Although...it might be coming (there's a tendency to move farther right when facing threat—e.g., moral threats (a typical tactic of the right...well, right and left—they just pick different moral values), war (nothing like an external threat to build internal unity and identity), and disease (after the Spanish Influenza pandemic, German cities with the highest flu death rates exhibited the highest support for Hitler 10 years later)).

2. A dictatorial leader. No, even Trump doesn't qualify. If he did, he wouldn't have needed to constantly spout who "his good friends" were ("I know about teachers; nobody knows more about teachers than me; I have good friends that are teachers," ad nauseam).

3. Forcible suppression of opposition. Wallace shifts this to deceptive suppression of opposition. Right. Well that doesn't qualify as "fascism."

So there is overlap between what Wallace is warning against and "fascism." But it's not fascism.

bump

Not sure about #14. It might be characteristic (I don't know). Not sure it is definitive. The rest of them seem like a legit description.

Under Donald? Or by Donald? He certainly didn't control the mass media...

I would argue that a few of those characteristics are typically "American," not "Trump."

A few, certainly, like a giant military, but yes, BY Donald, as well as endorsed by him.

If you can truly look at that list, and not see Donald and his follower's activity, then I see that as a choice to deny reality.

When I see that list, I see Donald's entire presidency. It's almost a perfect fit.

Freon

Not my point.

Similarities and dissimilarities.

So:

1) In what ways was Trump's term "like fascism" or "fascist"? In what ways was it not "like fascism" or "fascist"?
2) In what ways was Trump's term distinct from the terms of other presidents when it comes to similarity/dissimilarity to fascism?

Anything less than seriously answering all of those questions isn't really critically examining the issue.

Those "rules" are critical thinking.

If A=B, and B=C, then A=C. But what if A is a little like B in some ways, but not like in other ways? What if B is a little like C in some ways, but not in other ways?

I agree with (most of) what you presented about fascism. I'm just not convinced that "A=C" in this case, vis à vis Donald Trump.

Why ask for a definition of "fascism"? So we can at least agree to terms of what we're talking about. But the point of this forum isn't just "to gather information." It's to have discussion. Agreement of the meaning of terms is the beginning of effective discussion. Doesn't mean we should just "agree to terms" and then stop talking. It's a starting point.

But without agreeing to terms, we can't even really have a profitable discussion. I asked for a definition of fascism...you followed that with a statement about Donald Trump. That's good. That's fine. That's where we could have a better discussion than if we just completely disagreed on what fascism even is.

Okay. It would be interesting to know what you mean when you say "critical thinking" or "scientific approach." Because that "similarity and dissimilarity" seems to be intrinsic to critical thinking. Otherwise people tend to slide towards confirmation bias, etc.