The Wow I Can't Believe That News Story Thread

[MicShazam]

Originally Posted by Dharma & Greg

I'd like to think the Western world is at least somewhat cognizant of what fascism is and what it means that no matter how bad it gets there is still a fascist glass ceiling where the public will eventually go, "Whoa whoa whoa this is actually starting to sound like some Hitler **** let's take a step back", so there's only so far this can go. At least I'd like to think so. But then I thought Trump could never get elected.

I guess I don't have that same positive attitude. I think well meaning people are easily led astray by scare mongering and easy answers to complex problems.

It's not like I've got some numbers to back up my pessimism. But it seems to me that Nationalism and fascism is seductive as hell and that "common folk" don't know better than to follow their whims. It's like there's all these progressive advances happening, but also a feeling that a lot of people aren't really on board and want to put the foot down and stop things from "going too far".

I don't know... The weirdos on the internet probably make things seem worse than they are, but I also don't think we should forget how easily Trump seduces people with basically a bunch of loud mouth nonsense.

[MicShazam]

Originally Posted by Frownland

Conservatives: Democracy is so fragile, guys, we really have to be careful that we're not doing things that can set us down the wrong path before it escalates to something uncontrollable.

Also conservatives: Come on guys, Trump doesn't really mean what he says and even if he did, our institutions are designed to keep him from turning our country into a fascist nightmare.

EDIT: Just for the sake of balance, the left contributed to Trump's power by letting Obama unreasonably expand the executive branch. Let's compromise and slaughter every single one of our politicians.

1933... chilling.

EDIT: I missed your edit! Obama did many things wrong. I'm all for sharpening the guillotine and do it like the French did it.

[Frownland]

Gotta give props to OH for informing me on that Der Israelit editorial.

[The Batlord]

I guess the history of democracy makes for a wider and deeper Rubicon for authoritarianism to have to cross before it can do what it wants? Like America has centuries of democracy, and even if that democracy is being eroded we still have an ingrained emotional attachment to it that would make overt authoritarianism a much harder sell than it was to Germany with its not even two decades of uneasy democracy. How much that would mean when it came time for the populace to actually do something about it that required more than getting off their fatasses once every four years to vote I don't know.

[The Batlord]

Originally Posted by Frownland

EDIT: Just for the sake of balance, the left contributed to Trump's power by letting Obama unreasonably expand the executive branch. Let's compromise and slaughter every single one of our politicians.

Yeah Liberalism with the big "L" supports capitalism and "freedom" via the marketplace which supports the elites who support consolidation of power and wealth so never ****ing trust Democrats because at the end of the day they give the actual left the side eye just like Republicans do.

[Frownland]

I think that to counter the emotional attachment to democracy, fascism would be rebranded as a true or effective form of democracy to rope in the buzzwordly.

Actually, this convo ends here. Gonna sell my propaganda talents to the White House.

[MicShazam]

Originally Posted by Frownland

I think that to counter the emotional attachment to democracy, fascism would be rebranded as a true or effective form of democracy to rope in the buzzwordly.

Actually, this convo ends here. Gonna sell my propaganda talents to the White House.

Could work, given how a lot of alt-right and alt-lite personalities on the internet always get a lot of cheering for being "pro free speech", unlike those evil lefties with their weird pronouns and ****. It's pretty easy to re-brand leftism as fascism if you don't care about nuance.

Tired of those anti-democratic, authoritarian lefties? Come join the far right! Where no one will tell you that maybe you should let people be "***gots" in peace? You can say whatever you want! Provided you're not trying to suggest that people should be nicer and show understanding, of course. That's anti freeze peach.

[The Batlord]

Originally Posted by Frownland

I think that to counter the emotional attachment to democracy, fascism would be rebranded as a true or effective form of democracy to rope in the buzzwordly.

Actually, this convo ends here. Gonna sell my propaganda talents to the White House.

I mean American fascism would probably deify democracy as it's a traditional cultural touchstone to manipulate the people with just like Blue Angels flyovers at the Super Bowl but where would be the wiggle room in that for authoritarianism? At some point you'd either have to abolish voting to maintain the regime or risk losing power in the next four years, and how do you sell abolishing voting in America? It's kind of a mindless truism that it's the bestest.

[MicShazam]

Originally Posted by Dharma & Greg

I mean American fascism would probably deify democracy as it's a traditional cultural touchstone to manipulate the people with just like Blue Angels flyovers at the Super Bowl but where would be the wiggle room in that for authoritarianism? At some point you'd either have to abolish voting to maintain the regime or risk losing power in the next four years, and how do you sell abolishing voting in America? It's kind of a mindless truism that it's the bestest.

You could start with banning all sorts of groups of people from voting. Like gays, colored people and "communists" (known lefties). I could see that working very easily if fascism had gotten a strong enough foothold.

[The Batlord]

I know America is painted as right wing religious and homophobia, racism, and Cold War propaganda still rear their ugly heads but we've at least reached a point where overt hatred towards gays and minorities are political bombshells you have to tiptoe around at least on a national level. We're willing to be dickwads but we have evolved standards that would be very hard to rollback after a certain point. Genocide against gays, minorities, and communists would still be unthinkable to the vast majority of the country.