Yeah the idea that mass incarceration is anything like, say, Japanese internment camps in America during World War II or the gulags in Russia or Nazi concentration camps seems like gross hyperbole. There's a difference between those things and a horribly deficient and racist justice system that punishes African-Americans at numbers greater than the rest of the population and has a tendency to hand them more severe sentences than other racial groups. It's a far, far cry from abandoning the principle of rule of law altogether and consolidating minorities of the population into camps for no other reason than because they are members of that group.

Maybe because understanding how a regime comes to power is really, really important to stopping it from coming again? And can tell you how that regime is likely to act and operate? And how comparing 1920's-1930's Germany to America is more accurate than comparing 1920's Russia to America?

You're missing the point. It doesn't have to be on the same scale or violate some words to be fascistic, what matters is that there's a majority group of people obsessed with punishing a minority group for just existing, and is willing to spend lots of money building places to contain them and enslave them. It's the qualitative, not the quantitative comparison that matters.

Right. So this is the criticism I've had of you guys before: your comparison of the US to Nazi Germany depends on the assumption that the US will follow a trajectory that resembles the trajectory of Nazi Germany. How do you know that the United States will turn into 1939 Nazi Germany, and not 2017 Russia? Answer: you don't. You're assuming a lot.

I don't think anyone who has actually spent any time thinking about historiography for even a second thinks that learning history helps you predict the future.

It's like you're gatekeeping fascism, "until you murder 5,000,000 you can't be a real fascist"!

Right. Coincidentally, you missed the point. I said that the qualitative difference that makes something "fascistic" (or, really, authoritarian) rather than merely unjust is that there has to be a complete disregard for the rule of law (and I'll add due process, which is probably more relevant here).

I haven't made any arguments that rely on a quantitative distinction. Certified ****post.

I don't know that it will become 1939 Nazi Germany or 2017 Russia, but I do know that 1939 Germany is way more likely than 2017 Russia because the circumstances more closely match. People can do a study about civil wars, and find there are trends common in societies that later break out into civil war. That doesn't mean each and every single time the trends line up that you're guaranteed a civil war, but it means you should exchange your dollars to another currency and buy a gun.

Putin got rich by taking power, rallying the military behind him, then murdering a billionaire and using that to pressure the others into giving him wealth. I really doubt such a thing could be pulled off in America today.

So you've probably changed what is essential to fascism like 10 times already, but I'm not sure what you even mean by a complete disregard for the rule of law, given fascist regimes are some of the strictest police states around, they obsess about rule of law.

Moving to the point though, if you're saying here that we're right about all of the similarities between Weimar Germany and America today except respect for due process, then I think that pretty much confirms we are sliding towards fascism. Don't forget that due process was active in Germany and in less than a year Hitler was dictator, the shift can happen suddenly.

It's ok, I know you don't like to read. If you want to know what I think about this, you can scroll up and read what I wrote a few posts ago. But I'm not going to type it out again.



No, dummy. That you don't know what "rule of law" means is your problem, not mine. The Nazis came to power by calling a state of emergency which suspending all of the rights granted to individuals by the constitution of the Weimar Republic. Heavy policing has little to do with the rule of law, and if you wanted to make a connection between racist American cops incarcerating blacks at disproportionate numbers and Nazis, it would be because racist American cops often aren't punished they break the law.



I wasn't saying that.

Getting "rich by taking power" is exactly what I think Trump is trying to do. I heard an interesting description about how he's conducting foreign policy in the NYT's podcast the other day. Apparently the reason why the State Department is so understaffed is because he's essentially made it and typical diplomacy obsolete. Instead, he expects countries to try to win the USG's favor by employing lobbyists and trying to influence the USG by buying favor using their pocketbooks.

The goal of this is to leverage the usual operations of the government for the sake of personal gain. That's American burgeoning kleptocracy. And, yes, it looks a lot like Russia.

Interesting how everybody seems to have an okay time reading each other's thoughts, but with you, everybody seems to misread them.



Maybe you shouldn't say "complete disregard" then when you just mean "disregard", because Hitler made a show of "reforming" the courts and even followed their rulings at times. There was never really an instance in which laws were not enforced to some degree in the courts. Of course there was no due process for the millions of people put into camps, which is the real issue.

You may say, "well the courts still work against Trump", but when he has a fairly rabid fanbase and questions the legitimacy of judges he disagrees with openly, you gotta see some similarities.

No, only you.

Let's not forget that the Hawaiian judge who ruled against the travel ban received death threats and needed a U.S. Marshal security escort. But surely that's no problem.

I don't think much anyone else reads your posts.

That's ok if I wanted an audience I wouldn't come to this website which has about 15 active users.

Let's also not forget how Trump suggested people could shoot Hillary Clinton if she was elected so she couldn't nominate a left-wing judge, surely a person who would say that would respect the rule of law.

I've noticed there's a split in perspective about Trump, some think everything he does is actually some crafty manipulation that he does to lead to personal gain, and some think that he's a moron bully. I think he's a moron bully, which means his state department is understaffed because he's an incompetent idiot who can't retain people, and as a side consequence of nobody being able to approach a diplomat will lead to him accepting bribes. If he's like Putin is a very stupid, incompetent version of Putin who destroys most everything instead of planning successfully.

Either he can't retain people or thinks the amount of staffing he has is enough, both of which seem to communicate a mental deficiency.

I definitely agree that that double-sidedness exists. At times, what happens in the USG seems as if it must have been deliberated arranged as an act of political theatre. But at other times, it seems that the only explanation for what's happened is that Trump's a complete incompetent. But isn't one of the upshots of comparing Trump to the Hitler supposed to be the idea that a strongman can be malicious and incompetent at the same time?

All inclusive populism means everything is subject to populism. It means state control of the economy where the private sector is unpopular, it means state control of the media where state control can improve public perception of the regime, it means selective enforcement of laws for people who are disliked by the majority in-group, it means a powerful government that asserts top-down authority over parts of society that are disliked and exerts zero influence over the parts that the in-group enjoys. It means exterminating a race because some members of that race made some people in the in-group mad. It is tyranny of the majority on bath salts.

Every government makes choices about what they do and do not control. The difference between fascism and other systems is how and why they make that decision. Most governments pursue some degree of populist policies, but their choices are usually dominated by some form of grand strategy (usually involving compromise between stakeholders in order to achieve long term goals). Fascists do not have a grand strategy; they are by definition mercurial and taken to whim, which is why scholars have such a hard time pinning down exactly what they are. The closest they come to grand strategy is supremacy and dominance, but those aren’t

My mistake. You were barely taught economics and political science at all, then.

Americans have a lot of frustrated expectations, an unfortunate history, and politicians and media that have radicalized the US public for their own profit. The current president won using Nazi campaign strategies and Nazi talking points, and has successfully established a precedent that the executive can nullify the judiciary when your rights are violated by public officials. I do not think the US is presently a fascist regime, but it is clear that many influential people want it to become more like one, and if it is not an active work in progress it is only because of lack of will, not lack of ability.

Fascism is not about specific policies.



If Trump were a Stalinist I would complain about him being a Stalinist, and I would provide evidence that he is a Stalinist. But I’m not doing that, because Trump isn’t a Stalinist. He is a fascist. There is a difference regardless of this horseshoe theory 2017 meme of the year sophistry you’re hinting at here.

No, I’m extrapolating that a politician who studied Adolf Hitler, modeled his campaign after Adolf Hitler, appeals to people who like Adolf Hitler, and hired advisors to help him govern more like Adolf Hitler, possibly somewhat wants to be like Adolf Hitler.

So, I'm not ashamed to admit that I watched this episode of John Oliver's show:



and learned something new. It seems like we are crash coursing for the monopoly geohell even libertarians can't defend.

John Oliver is an obnoxious bleeding heart liberal. I ****ing hate the racoon gags.

The gags are awful and the show isn't funny, but it is well-researched on important topics so I find it's worth watching.

Also bleeding heart liberal?

Just FYI, the origin of the phrase "bleeding heart" was from Westbrook Pegler criticizing a bill in congress that wanted to curb the amount of lynchings. So yeah.

I'm a bleeding heart liberal too, but I still think John Oliver is one of the most cringy faux comedians on the late night talk circuit.

I used to watch the show a bunch and agree that there's a ton of useful well researched stuff in there.

Yes, so much this. He's definitely done more than a few informative, thorough stories on undercovered topics. But his faux sincere, smug, happy-go-lucky-and-outraged-at-the-same-time Rachel Maddox-like act Is very grating.

Gotta admit, I'd be infinitely amused if Rachel Maddow turned straight and got hitched to George Ouzounian.

Oliver's writers' Drumpf monologue was really good but other than that they're complete morons.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-fascist-retweet-twitter-mike-holden-president-nazi-white-supremacist-latest-a7894131.html

Confirmed!!

Adam Ruins Everything is better, but Last Week Tonight covering an issue is better than nothing.

Just checked out Adam Ruins Everything, this show is great! Thanks for the tip.

Although the video that tries to denigrate Christopher Columbus doesn't really work as well as he thinks it does when he claims that Columbus wasn't well known until Washington Irving popularized him in the 19th century, since the name Columbia had long since been a name for America (even if it started as an English joke that accidentally got taken seriously by Americans), with things like Columbia University being founded almost a century before.

lol, oops.

America today really isn't directly comparable to other modern era governments. You can draw some parallels with a lot of different governments and cultures, but none of them are particularly strong.

Trump, for example, probably would be a fascist if he weren't so senile, and were in another time and place, but in practice, he's just an ineffective tool of one side of an increasingly angry and desperate ideological war.

The US has a fairly even divide between two perspectives that are increasingly unable or unwilling to compromise or even consider other points of view. This is isn't fertile ground for charismatic or authoritarian national leaders. This is more likely to produce extended dysfunction, and extreme distrust of the government as political parties stoop to lower measures to grab as much power as possible.

here you go

this is what we sound like you morons

https://soundcloud.com/dixon-nahrwold/massassi-1-1

is that the entire soundtrack to The Producers with the dialogue replaced with acoustic guitar solos

?


?

Just saying "the comparison can't be done" is hardly convincing.



Why do you think America is immune to fascism?



What are these two perspectives? This sounds oversimplified.



Uhh.. what? I feel like what you've said is exactly how you can get an authoritarian leader.

Weimar Germany was extremely divided with strong pro-left and pro-right factions, massive distrust and the Nazis gained power because the right-wing industrials stooped to base Nazism to gain power, so..