It's a long read, but nevertheless, a good one.
It's a long read, but nevertheless, a good one. Trump's rise in popularity while creating an environment of hostility towards -well, everything - as a case study of the rise of fascism seems an apt metaphor. And it may tear the GOP apart.
Originally shared by David Brin
This article by historian Fedja Buric appraises just which aspects of Mussolini’s original version of “fascism” can be compared to today’s rising mania in the US, and which are more of a reach. He avows that America is in vastly better shape than 1920s Italy, with stronger institutions and traditions and civil service.
http://www.salon.com/2016/03/11/trumps_not_hitler_hes_mussolini_how_gop_anti_intellectualism_created_a_modern_fascist_movement_in_america/
Where parallels get stronger are in the fervent anti-intellectualism of today’s right - with the War on Science now biliously expanded to include every center of knowledge in American life, from journalism and medicine to economics and law.
And politics… the art of negotiation and consensus building that allows a pragmatic-sensible people to incrementally fine-tune their shared processes and get things done. The Fox-Limbaugh campaign of 30 years has whipped up a froth of hatred of government and politics in principle, that our parents in the Greatest Generation would have instantly recognized as fascistic.
“Fascism promised people deliverance from politics. Fascism was not just different type of politics, but anti-politics. On the post-WWI ruins of the Enlightenment beliefs in progress and essential human goodness, Fascism embraced emotion over reason, action over politics. Violence was not just a means to an end, but the end in itself because it brought man closer to his true inner nature.”
“Trump did not invent this anti-politics mood, but he tamed it in accordance with his own needs. Ever since the election of Barack Obama the Republicans have refused to co-govern. Senator Mitch McConnell’s vow that his main purpose would be to deny the president a second term was only the first of many actions by which the Republicans have retreated from politics.”
Where Buric fails is in relating his narrow historical view of fascism to other, older romantic movements, such as the recurring American fever called the Confederacy. What this reveals is that a corner of the populace does not need hard economic times, to be whipped into hydrophobic fury. There is a thread in the American psyche that does not need desperation, in order to rush eagerly into desperate madness.
http://www.salon.com/2016/03/11/trumps_not_hitler_hes_mussolini_how_gop_anti_intellectualism_created_a_modern_fascist_movement_in_america
Originally shared by David Brin
This article by historian Fedja Buric appraises just which aspects of Mussolini’s original version of “fascism” can be compared to today’s rising mania in the US, and which are more of a reach. He avows that America is in vastly better shape than 1920s Italy, with stronger institutions and traditions and civil service.
http://www.salon.com/2016/03/11/trumps_not_hitler_hes_mussolini_how_gop_anti_intellectualism_created_a_modern_fascist_movement_in_america/
Where parallels get stronger are in the fervent anti-intellectualism of today’s right - with the War on Science now biliously expanded to include every center of knowledge in American life, from journalism and medicine to economics and law.
And politics… the art of negotiation and consensus building that allows a pragmatic-sensible people to incrementally fine-tune their shared processes and get things done. The Fox-Limbaugh campaign of 30 years has whipped up a froth of hatred of government and politics in principle, that our parents in the Greatest Generation would have instantly recognized as fascistic.
“Fascism promised people deliverance from politics. Fascism was not just different type of politics, but anti-politics. On the post-WWI ruins of the Enlightenment beliefs in progress and essential human goodness, Fascism embraced emotion over reason, action over politics. Violence was not just a means to an end, but the end in itself because it brought man closer to his true inner nature.”
“Trump did not invent this anti-politics mood, but he tamed it in accordance with his own needs. Ever since the election of Barack Obama the Republicans have refused to co-govern. Senator Mitch McConnell’s vow that his main purpose would be to deny the president a second term was only the first of many actions by which the Republicans have retreated from politics.”
Where Buric fails is in relating his narrow historical view of fascism to other, older romantic movements, such as the recurring American fever called the Confederacy. What this reveals is that a corner of the populace does not need hard economic times, to be whipped into hydrophobic fury. There is a thread in the American psyche that does not need desperation, in order to rush eagerly into desperate madness.
http://www.salon.com/2016/03/11/trumps_not_hitler_hes_mussolini_how_gop_anti_intellectualism_created_a_modern_fascist_movement_in_america
Comments