If it steps like a goose....

[steepholm]

Anyone doubting whether Trump's instincts were fascistic will I hope have had those doubts satisfied by his first week in office. Terrible as the events at the airports have been, in Pollyanna mode I'm hoping that they will have given serious second thoughts to people thinking of voting for Le Pen in France. This (and worse) is what you'd be voting for: don't say there's no way you could have known.

If Le Pen is defeated - better, humiliated - it may stop the populist right in its tracks in mainland Europe. If not - well, après elle, le déluge.

Comments

[sovay]

If Le Pen is defeated - better, humiliated - it may stop the populist right in its tracks in mainland Europe. If not - well, après elle, le déluge.

Strength to your arm.

[puddleshark.livejournal.com]

Hear, hear.

And think how nice it would be for the French to be in a moral position to ask for the Statue of Liberty back...

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

Uh... you do recall Fascism is a form of Socialism, right?

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

That's selective enough to be highly misleading. Fascists will use whatever tools are to hand to advance their aims. For a while Mussolini used the language of revolutionary socialism (against the actual Socialist party in Italy), then threw it over in favour of nationalism - though he kept the feature of a one-party state. Trump, similarly, has harnessed popular resentment against political and business elites to gain power. Both men were thin-skinned narcissists who were quite happy to encourage and/or use violence to achieve their ends and to scapegoat the vulnerable.

Actually, Mussolini parasitized socialist politics in much the way that Trump did the Republican party - using its machinery and resources for his personal ends. Much will depend now on whether the GOP (in concert with the checks and balances inherent in the constitution and courts) will have the wit and will to heave this bloated cuckoo from its nest.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

So, no, you don't.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

She doesn't recall it because it isn't true.

Mussolini started out his political career as a socialist, but he never fit it well, and soon changed his tune. Claiming that he was really a form of socialist is like today's Republicans claiming that they're really the pro-black party because their distant ancestors freed the slaves in the 1860s. Yes they did, but things have changed a bit since then, in case one hadn't noticed.

"Nazi" is actually short for "National Socialist", and, in one of his rare interviews, Hitler was asked, why "Socialist", since he was so totally opposed to Socialists tout court? His rambling answer was that "Socialists" weren't real socialists. So Nazis, or for that matter other fascists, are only socialists by Nazi redefinition of the word to mean something other than what everybody else uses it to mean.

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

I'm impressed. The last time it was piled this high, Herakles had to divert a river.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Yes. Mussolini and Hitler really piled it high.

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

Just as one would expect from Socialists.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Socialists, like anyone else, can be idiots. But being an idiot doesn't make one a socialist. If it did, look to yourself.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I can only hope so. Still, the same thing was said of Trump: that he had to be not only defeated, but humiliated. And there remain not only the people who don't see the connection between what Trump does and what Le Pen would do (she is less bumptious than he, admittedly it would be difficult to be otherwise), but those who like it that way. I read an article describing the harsh effects of the immigration ban on individual innocents, and thought of those who would show zero sympathy to this when they noted that all those individuals are Muslims with those weird Islamic names.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm expressing a hope, not making a prediction; I've really no idea what will happen.

[topum.livejournal.com]

I think that the election in France will be where this swing to the right stops.
But I was wrong on everything last year (Brexit, Trump, etc).

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Fingers crossed...

[topum.livejournal.com]

I saw how Brexit affected some people in Denmark who supposedly were very EU sceptical (Denmark has always been probably the most sceptical member, even more so that the UK). When they saw that exit could actually happen their anti-EU enthusiasm went down quite a bit. Bitching about the EU? Sure. Hating it? Yes, please! A double portion of that. Giving the two fingers to the EU and voting against it? Hell yeah! Actually having to leave? Wow wow, hang on, this is not what it was about! Now they saw that this can happen.

[nightspore.livejournal.com]

I am full of fear.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Fear is the rational response in this case.