Last night there was a protest in Manhattan led by New York's Mayor DeBlasio under the slogan "Stop the Trump/Pence fascist regime before it starts." There were thousands of people there who tied up traffic near Columbus Circle. I wonder how many, if any, of them know what a "fascist" regime truly is. My guess is that the number is close to zero.
In the last hundred years, there have been few real fascist regimes. The best known are Nazi Germany and Italy under Mussolini. There are differing definitions of fascism, but the one thing with which everyone agrees is that it requires an authoritarian regime. In other words, to be fascist, a regime must be led by a dictator or a group of oligarchs who rules without considering the will of the people. In American terms, that would be someone who makes laws without Congress. For example, were Donald Trump to announce that he had a pen and a phone and could take actions without Congress, that would be moving towards authoritarianism and thus towards fascism. If Trump were to tell the nation 22 times that he did not have the power under the Constitution to change the immigration law and then to go ahead and issue an executive order which purports to do just that, it would be a move toward authoritarianism and thus towards fascism. Of course, those things were done by president Obama, not by soon to be president Trump. Obama is closer to fascism that Trump, although it is pretty clear that neither is a fascist.
So why do these fools think that calling Trump a fascist makes sense? For them, it's just a name to use. How many times during the campaign did they call Trump "Hitler" or "a Nazi"? It didn't make any sense, but they did it anyway. Fascist is being used in much the same way that "racist" has been used for years. Anything that happens that the left didn't like was "racist". They debased "racist" and now they are moving on to "fascist". It's a foolish move. There truly are racists and fascists in our country. By falsely calling someone like the President Elect and thousands of other people these names, the left removes the sting of these words. We've reached the point at which a majority of people no longer even pay attention when someone is called racist. Why should they when so many get so targeted. It is the living version of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf".
In the last hundred years, there have been few real fascist regimes. The best known are Nazi Germany and Italy under Mussolini. There are differing definitions of fascism, but the one thing with which everyone agrees is that it requires an authoritarian regime. In other words, to be fascist, a regime must be led by a dictator or a group of oligarchs who rules without considering the will of the people. In American terms, that would be someone who makes laws without Congress. For example, were Donald Trump to announce that he had a pen and a phone and could take actions without Congress, that would be moving towards authoritarianism and thus towards fascism. If Trump were to tell the nation 22 times that he did not have the power under the Constitution to change the immigration law and then to go ahead and issue an executive order which purports to do just that, it would be a move toward authoritarianism and thus towards fascism. Of course, those things were done by president Obama, not by soon to be president Trump. Obama is closer to fascism that Trump, although it is pretty clear that neither is a fascist.
So why do these fools think that calling Trump a fascist makes sense? For them, it's just a name to use. How many times during the campaign did they call Trump "Hitler" or "a Nazi"? It didn't make any sense, but they did it anyway. Fascist is being used in much the same way that "racist" has been used for years. Anything that happens that the left didn't like was "racist". They debased "racist" and now they are moving on to "fascist". It's a foolish move. There truly are racists and fascists in our country. By falsely calling someone like the President Elect and thousands of other people these names, the left removes the sting of these words. We've reached the point at which a majority of people no longer even pay attention when someone is called racist. Why should they when so many get so targeted. It is the living version of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf".
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