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Posted by mickle00 1 day ago

Yes, It's Fascism(www.theatlantic.com)
614 points | 365 commentspage 3
EchoReflection 8 hours ago|
The loose application of "fascism" to disliked ideas reflects a culture of perpetual outrage and victimhood, diluting the term's historical weight.
EchoReflection 8 hours ago|
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-atlantic/ The Atlantic – Bias and Credibility

LEFT-CENTER BIAS These media sources have a slight to moderate liberal bias. They often publish factual information that utilizes loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by appeals to emotion or stereotypes) to favor liberal causes. These sources are generally trustworthy for information but may require further investigation

https://profrjstarr.com/the-psychology-of-us/the-need-to-be-...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outrage_porn

https://www.npr.org/2019/10/09/768489375/how-outrage-is-hija...

https://theconversation.com/outrage-culture-is-a-big-toxic-p...

csense 1 day ago||
Everyone's paying a lot of attention to how bad Trump is, or the midterms. My question is, what happens in 2028? How much of current policy is something the majority of Republican voters (let alone the American people) or the political class actually want and would do without Trump to lead them? How much is only being implemented due to Trump's choices, political style and cult of personality? (Assuming Constitutional safeguards remain strong enough that Trump can't find a way to remain in power past his current term; if Trump is still President in 2029, the system's seriously broken down and all bets are off.)

Will the US say "Wait a minute, things went too far, now that he's gone we need more checks and balances before another President tries to repeat what just happened" like when they added term limits to the Constitution after FDR, or some of the post-Watergate limits imposed on the Presidency?

Or will Trump's redefinition of government power become normalized, like the redefinition of government power that happened with the Patriot Act, TSA security theater, NSA spying on US citizens, etc. after 9/11 that was justified as anti-terrorism? Those policies were never unwound even though the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are over, Osama bin Laden is dead, and there have been no more attacks on that scale.

doom2 1 day ago||
> now that he's gone we need more checks and balances

I'm sure if a Democrat is elected in 2028, all of a sudden a lot of people are going to remember that they don't want a unitary executive. A lot of people who are currently cheering on the administration.

tartoran 1 day ago|||
I don't think things are going back to how they were before Trump and will only continue in the same direction unless midterm elections don't get canceled/abused, and in that case Trump would get impeached. But that doesn't mean too much. There are fundamental problems that Democrats were unwilling to tackle and are likely to do nothing about.
cogman10 1 day ago||
I'm, frankly, terrified for 2 reasons.

First up, I don't think the republican party moderates in 2029. The Trump mentality is the new normal and I believe republicans are just going to keep trying to be as fascist as possible as long as possible. We've learned that there are basically no limits on a corrupt presidency and I really fear what that will mean for any future republican president.

But secondly, I'm afraid that Democrats aren't rising to the occasion. They aren't putting forward meaningful reforms or changes to address the fascism. In terms of ICE, a lot of them are trying to put forward meaningless reforms like "let's give them more training" or "let's put their names in a QR code". The entire agency needs nuremberg style trials at this point and some Dems want to give them a weekend meeting with HR.

These two facts scare the shit out of me. Because, my fear is we will see a repeat of 2024 in 2032. Assuming we have free and fair elections, I can see a Democrat becoming president in 2028, doing nothing to address the systemic problems exposed by trump, and ultimately a new republican will be voted in in 2032 because people are sick of nothing getting better under democrats. And that 2032 republican president will ultimately know they can do everything Trump did and they'll be cheered on by the base.

Democrats need to be messaging about real positive changes they'll make.

testing22321 1 day ago||
The parallels it dark times in history are too strong to ignore.

The only question now is will the people be able to stop the takeover before it’s too late.

quercus 1 day ago||
“weak men create hard times” never fails
gizmov21 1 day ago|||
Who are the “weak men” in your interpretation of today’s scenario? I have my own ideas but I wonder about others.
littlexsparkee 9 hours ago|||
the cynical people that thought they could lives as islands outside of politics and did not care to engage with anything outside of their interests. this should acknowledge the people that constructed this environment by undermining education, pushing falsehoods, corporatists blocking real change, etc. i suppose you could consider lack of any issue unifying the nation as before with WWII, the Cold War - if it's the end of history and peace/globalization is assured then you can tune out. i.e. it's about the dull invisible work of maintaining standards that keep the system from collapsing and a shared narrative, one people don't feel like exists with all the corruption, nepotism, transgresses from people in power and lack of action on global issues.
Jensson 1 hour ago||||
The presidential candidates the democrats presented. Trump didn't win this election, democrats lost it by not offering a candidate people wanted to vote for.
quercus 1 day ago|||
ICE and the protests are an early symptom of hard times. The weak men are the ones who allowed immigration and the welfare state to get out of control in the first place.
seec 10 hours ago|||
Yeah, I don't understand how people can be so surprised by all of it. If it wasn't Trump and it wasn't happening in this manner, something like that was bound to happen at some point.

I think it's actually going to be even more violent in Europe once the fake money becomes harder to make and many find out they are not holding any valuable card.

At some point, real work has to be done, and if you keep bringing on more people to devalue this work and even make them pay for the people brought over, they are going to wise up and get mad.

gizmov21 1 day ago|||
Agreed there. I would call Trump et all pathetic pieces of shit, and Democrats (Biden and Obama admins) weak ones for not doing something while they had the chance.
WickyNilliams 1 day ago||||
I hate this quote with such a passion. It's treated as some enduring wisdom passed down through generations. When it's from a 2016 book you have probably never heard of.
deeg 1 day ago|||
And there is no weaker, frailer man than trump.
Hikikomori 18 hours ago||
Stephen Miller.
tartoran 1 day ago|||
It seems like it's already too late, I see Americans who I thought were down to earth unbothered by ICE killings, blaming victims and calling criticism as TDS aka Trump Derangement Syndrome. I was totally shocked the other day when this came from an open minded and seemingly 'cool' guy at work.
jay_kyburz 1 day ago||
After reading this piece I was wondering if there were any examples of a fascist state that were deposed by peace, or whether armed conflict is now inevitable.
freitasm 1 day ago|||
There are few, Spain's King Juan Carlos I being crowned king after Francisco Franco's death, and Chile's Pinochet leaving power after the 1988 referendum for example.
ks2048 1 day ago||
If 15 years of dictatorship is one of the few positive examples, that is not a good sign.
card_zero 1 day ago||
Well how many examples have there been anyway? Maybe six, under a range of definitions? Besides, historicism (inevitabilism) is wrong.
jay_kyburz 1 day ago||
I agree, and I wish I was able to delete the post. I thought afterwards the question itself is a little poor taste.
kh_hk 1 day ago||||
Portugal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnation_Revolution
karmakurtisaani 1 day ago|||
I think Spain transitioned from fascist dictatorship to democracy relatively peacefully.
mistermaster1 4 hours ago||
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113 1 day ago||
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njhnjhnjhnjh 1 day ago|
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array_key_first 1 day ago|||
Everything even vaguely critical of trump is immediately flagged, tech or not. Christ, we've seen outright propaganda generated by this administration using AI, which is obviously something hackers care about, be flagged relentlessly.

It's very obvious this administration and it's supporters are trying to control the narrative of their crimes against the American people. It's evident with their doctoring of evidence, their outright deceit, and the suspicious censorship we see across the entire web. Including HN.

fugalfervor 1 day ago||||
Is it against the rules to call fascism fascism? That's pretty disturbing.
njhnjhnjhnjh 1 day ago||
Why is the post flagged? Obviously it's against the rules.

edit:

I challenge you to post a comment labelling the United States government "fascists" in this front-page thread about ICE: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46756117

It won't stay up for long.

fugalfervor 1 day ago|||
Why is a brand new account (yours) rushing to flagged threads with the party line? It looks like you registered just to post in this thread.
RealityVoid 1 day ago||
I _think_ it's satire?
fugalfervor 1 day ago||
What makes you think that? They have posted multiple times in this thread with basically the same post.
RealityVoid 1 day ago||
I think his edit? I read the edit as him pointing out that political posts get flagged on the front page. But it's obviously not flagged because of the rules, it's flagged because _someone_ is flagging this stuff. I say this because the first minutes of the post existence, it oscillated between flagged and un-flagged. Surely, we also triggered the comment activity trigger that auto-flags the post, some anti-flamewar measure.

Also, this phrase from him:

> This is an inconvenient perspective that some of the more well-funded and well-connected Hacker News readers would prefer to ignore.

Schmerika 17 hours ago|||
> it's obviously not flagged because of the rules, it's flagged because _someone_ is flagging this stuff

Dang was commenting in this thread 8 hours ago - and the post is still flagged.

There's simply no good excuse for that to be the case. And this is far from the first time. Conclusions must be drawn.

fugalfervor 1 day ago|||
It's kind of subtle, but I think you're right.
messe 1 day ago|||
> It is against the rules to call anything fascism

If that's true then this site and pg can go ahead and fuck themselves with a rusty knife.

mistermaster1 1 day ago||
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shitter 1 day ago||
This comment betrays a misunderstanding of history and of what fascism is and doesn't even engage with the article's points. A totalitarian fascist state does not come into being all at once; it emerges in steps that tend towards that outcome, steps which the article discusses in detail. Furthermore, that nascent fascism can be defeated through electoral means does not preclude it from being fascism.
usernomdeguerre 1 day ago|||
So the only point someone could conceivably write this article, in your mind, would be the moment after its writers and platforms would be subjected to state-sanctioned punishment for uttering it?

I'll accept a little front-running then, if you don't mind.

mistermaster1 1 day ago||
No they could write it in another state, anonymously, or on more underground/less mainstream established platforms than one of the oldest publications in the history of the republic. More like what’s happening with regards to Iran. Also, front-running also implies that there’s an order for fascism coming up. So the intent of establishing fascism is preceded by a bungled and visibly brutal and horribly implemented performative “operation” that this massacre by ICE is? That makes no sense. This is not an order for fascism that an article is sort of front-running protectively. The better analogy is a media entity predictably calling one extremely messed up thing another extremely messed up thing, and leaving a massive vulnerability for their side. Messed-up-thing-promoting folks will use articles like this a year from now after ICE ceases operations, effectively issuing a silent “apology” of sorts and curtailing the violence, to promote the next messed up thing they want to do (which may be less messed up than the ICE massacres but still would be quite messed up and avoidable).

Every pessimistic approximation isnt always good. We lose credibility when we keep doing it.

RealityVoid 1 day ago|||
> True fascism would not allow the massive criticism and outrage (including by active lawmakers and heads of state & local governments) that recent events have reasonably led to.

It hasn't yet captured the whole country. The parts of criticism they have had the power to silence, they have already silenced. Who's in the White House press corps again?

When they will capture all the power they need, the criticism will be silenced.

I fear that we might not see a definitive Democratic win though at the midterms. I think your country is already past the point of no return and your population is just not getting it yet.

mistermaster1 1 day ago||
Thank you for your personal, individual wisdom that exceeds that of 230+ million eligible US voters in the 2026. That about settles it, we are past the point of no return so we should do absolutely nothing. In fact any action would be irrational, a waste of effort and a misallocation of time and energy vs spending it with our families and/or on ourselves. And somehow, I am the person who is defending the so-called fascists and ensuring a place “shining their jackboots” (your peer here used this expression to try to denigrate/attack me)? It must really hurt to be so smart and to be able to see all of the future perfectly.
RealityVoid 1 day ago||
I'm honestly sorry, you're right to be angry. I'm not trying to demobilize you. I'm despairing myself as well, I hope for the US to keep its shit together. But I just don't think it's looking great. Sorry, really, I don't want to make fun of the shit the US is in.

I think I _am_ guilty of using a poor intellectual facade trying to make sense of this what the fuck historical moment we're in. Because trust me, my country is in a dangerous place as well.

mistermaster1 1 day ago||
Thank you for taking ownership. Unfortunately when the online “gang” effectively amplifies itself (either through correlation of their voices as they see something that isn’t there; or in actual coordination/racing to echo one another) the emergent effect is one of ostracization and it becomes easier to see how some people become radicalized and even get cornered into dishonestly defending worse and worse actions & positions which they never would have otherwise defended. I chose not to do that, but only because this isn’t the first time that I’ve been mobbed by groupthinkers who want to defend whatever article or tagline they are promoting to the point of attacking me for making any point that seems critical of any part of their current bible of choice.
donkey_brains 1 day ago||
Ah yes, the “no true fascism” fallacy. Thanks for posting your half-thought out defense of the party that is murdering citizens in the street! I’m sure they appreciate your attempts to keep their jackboots shiny.
mistermaster1 1 day ago||
Can you point out how I was defending a party? I’m simply saying that the US isn’t a fascist state yet. We can engage, debate and discuss. People are actively out in the streets of MSP and watching and confronting these agents and the incidents are being documented, spread widely and analyzed. Calling it fascism isn’t productive nor is it even front running. I am willing to bet against any of you that this insanity perpetrated by poorly trained or untrained agents running amok in the midwest will be old news by the end of the year and no not because it has been subsumed by some worse class of atrocities. It will have ended, ICE will have ceased these sort of unchecked “operarions” and largely due to public outrage and scrutiny. Actual outrage, scrutiny and genuine activism, not writing articles from an armchair that mischaracterize this as fascism or racism. That sort of thing only perpetuates and makes the rabid crazies who actually support these actions in light of the tragedies sink their jackboots in even harder and empowers them more despite them being in the minority.
ClownsAbound 1 day ago||
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dev_256 22 hours ago||
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renewiltord 1 day ago|
It's true. This kind of authoritarian state violence is pretty reminiscent of fascism. Especially what looks like a gangland execution of a man who could only ever be described as exercising his 2A rights by carrying a firearm undrawn legally under his CCW. However, the list of things that have been called fascism are so long that I have to admit that my eyes initially glazed over the headline because many things have been described as fascism.

The US was supposedly ruled by a fascist in 2018: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/11/books/review/jason-stanle...

There was also supposedly fascism coming in 2016: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/this-is-how-fascism-comes...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09626...

And yet we had elections in 2020. So whatever, it was clearly not authoritarian fascism because we had free elections that the authoritarian fascist was ousted in. So what I think I experienced there was semantic satiation with the word fascism.

EDIT: To clarify position vis a vis reply, I am simply saying that I have heard the word 'fascism' so much I don't really react with any sense when someone says it. It's like hearing 'rape' or 'spying' on Hacker News. I assume it means "I was shown a banner ad for toothpaste after searching for toothpaste". In other contexts those words have negative valence of great significance. In this context, I just glaze over.

Likewise, the word 'fascism' from a left-leaning outlet could be anything from the end of medicare subsidies to a drone strike on an Islamic fundamentalist general to charging fares on a train.

Just sharing how I feel about it. It does not have that emotional strength that it originally felt.

Jordan-117 1 day ago||
A careful reader will notice that both of those warnings are about the same person. The same person who tried to illegally and violently overturn that 2020 election result. Maybe they weren't crying wolf after all?
tstrimple 1 day ago|||
Found another one of them...

2015: You're overreacting!

2016: You're overreacting!

2017: You're overreacting!

2018: You're overreacting!

2019: You're overreacting!

2020: You're overreacting!

2021: You're overreacting!

2022: You're overreacting!

2023: You're overreacting!

2024: You're overreacting!

2025: How could we possibly have known things would have gone this way?!

culi 1 day ago||
HN in a nutshell. Everyone wants to look measured and above it all. I feel like I've seen more posts about Dan Kahan's cultural cognition than about the actual killings themselves
convolvatron 1 day ago||
you're saying that because as recently as 10 years ago, some people were warning about fascism taking hold in the United States, and even though they turned out to be right, they should have held off using that word until we reached this moment, where no sensible person would argue.
salynchnew 22 hours ago|||
It's amazing that so many "leaders" (esp. in tech) seemed to not worry about or even tacitly/openly supported the Trump admin, when so many other folks could clearly see the disaster looming on the horizon.
UncleMeat 1 day ago|||
And it isn't even like it was different people. Donald Trump has been the protagonist of the GOP for ten years. The people who were saying "this is creeping fascism" were saying it about the same guy who is doing it now.
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