[dns_snek]

> The best I think is to refer to the historical italian fascist government, to understand it.

Sure, why don't we:

- leader with a cult of personality

- an idealized story of the prosperous past (make america great again)

- pinning blame for the nation's downfall on marginalized minorities and persecuting them (immigrants, socialists)

- aggressively anti-socialist/leftist, protection of capital and suppression of labor rights

- glorification of violence (ICE, hate crimes, "department of war")

- ramping up existing and starting new imperialistic conflicts (Venezuela, Cuba, now Iran)

- rolling back personal liberties (freedom of speech, right to due process, women's rights)

- suppression of the free press given unfavorable reporting (revocation of TV licenses, revocation of access to white house)

- clear desire with ongoing attempts to dismantle democracy (capitol attack, violating separation of powers by illegally withholding funding for programs and violating court orders)

- demands complete subservience rather than competence in all appointed roles

- all of this with full support of the elites (clear shift in the 2nd term)

If you want to argue that the US isn't fascist because Trump hasn't completely dismantled the judicial branch yet, be my guest.

But fascism isn't just a concrete political system where a dictator has absolute power, it's an ideology, and Trump and the Republican party are clearly fascist in that sense - that is their goal. It's just a question of whether they'll succeed in dismantling the judicial branch before his term is over.

The only people who benefit from this sort of language policing are the fascists themselves.

P.S. I probably shouldn't be saying this but the fact that you refer to people sounding the alarm as "the far left" really gives the game away.

[Saline9515]

Each point, aside from the cult of personality regarding Trump, is shallow.

For instance, the US didn't start a war against Venezuela or Cuba under Trump. America was much more aggressive in the 80´s, if you want to compare.

Immigration can totally be a problem, and voters in the western world increasingly ask their leaders to address it. It's not "democracy" when it suits your ideas and "fascism" when it doesn't.

Opposing socialism isn't "fascist" and afaik the Trump admin has done nothing significant about it: social expenses and the deficit are still growing faster than ever. What is mainly happening is that ressources are being redirected toward the retired, who are influencial voters and a growing demographic. It's the same everywhere in the western world.

Again, all of those measures are very superficial and nothing like what real fascism did in Italy or what Nazis did when they came to power. You can't reason just with outrage and headlines.

By the way, most of those points have their Democrat counterpart with a different style, it's mainly linked to the evolution of the governance style in the US. Democrats also had their DEI unsuited hires, censorships (Meta was censoring on the order of the White House), and so on.

[dns_snek]

> Immigration can totally be a problem, and voters in the western world increasingly ask their leaders to address it.

Stop equivocating. I didn't say that opposing immigration = fascism, I said that identifying marginalized groups, pinning all of the nation's problems on those groups and then persecuting, victimizing, terrorizing anyone who looks like they belong to one of those groups - that is fascist.

> Opposing socialism isn't "fascist"

Again, stop equivocating. I didn't say that opposing socialism is fascist, I said "aggressively anti-socialist", as in, violent anti-socialist rhetoric. Similar to the previous point.

> afaik the Trump admin has done nothing significant about it

That's wholly detached from reality. The only reason he hasn't dismantled all of the social programs yet is because the courts have stepped in and intervened when he tried. See: USAID, withholding SNAP funding, Medicaid, the whole DOGE disaster.

> Again, all of those measures are very superficial and nothing like what real fascism did in Italy or what Nazis did when they came to power. You can't reason just with outrage and headlines.

Those are the core qualities of fascism. I get it, you don't like being called a fascist so you sea-lion about the differences to distract from the overwhelming similarities.

Even when Trump dismantles the judicial branch, people like you will maintain that the US isn't fascist because people aren't speaking Italian like they did in fascist Italy, or German like they did in nazi Germany.

I feel comfortable saying this because we're not just disagreeing on whether the US is fascist right now and there's still room to have argue there, but we're disagreeing on whether Trump has a fascist agenda and whether he's actively working to transform the US into a totalitarian regime following the fascist playbook, which he absolutely is.