Right Wing fascism in the US

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Unironically, yes, as they're busy body authoritarians who want to control every aspect of our lives, as they are convinced they know our own interests better than we do, and want to use a combination of state and private power to accomplish it.



Do you also remember the months of "not my president", the conspiracies around Russian interference and every other crazy theory to throw at the wall to explain how they hadn't lost legitimately, the scheming with "faithless electors" to deny Trump the certification? How about setting half the country on fire for the better par of a summer while the media actively denied it was happening? Trying to assassinate the entire GOP congressional soccer team? Trying to assassinate the conservative Supreme Court Justices? I can go on if your memory isn't properly jogged.



Do you remember how Covid restrictions were weaponized against disfavored industries? How about the Obama era siccing of the IRS on his political opposition? Even dumb pissant stuff, like cities trying to shut out Chic-fil-A over the owner's religious views? I'm not a fan of what DeSantis has done, but I can't say I don't understand the impulse, and I'm not shedding any tears for Disney over it.



The same Democrats who are obsessed with inserting their personal views into official policy whenever they're able to, the ones who are attempting to destroy most of the bill of rights either to punish the cons or prevent them from being able to voice their opinions? The ones who don't need to resort to crude electoral ploys because they already control the media and have taken advantage of the density of their supporters to build political machines around ballot harvesting and other legal but dodgy tactics? Those guys?



Yes, the Democrats, and it's not even close.

Absolutely untrue, it's just reported differently, it it's reported all all. Let's not get into the whole spate of fake hate crimes either, that's just a rabbit how.

Let’s accept your characterisation of the Democrats as true (although I struggle to). That’s not what fascism is.


Not liking a President is totally legitimate in a democratic society.

Exaggerating the extent of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election is bad, but it is about as bad as exaggerating the extent of voter fraud, which among Republican sins was sufficiently trivial that I didn’t think it worth mentioning.

The “scheming” with faithless electors… from memory that was a few noisy people but ultimately more electors abandoned Clinton/Kaine for Colin Powell (to say nothing of those who went for Bernie or Spotted Eagle) than abandoned Trump/Pence. There was no involvement from Clinton or Kaine or Pelosi or Schumer that I can remember. Contrastingly, in 2020 the Trump team tried to have electors changed after the results of the election.

Setting half the country on fire, as you put it (in events that were very well covered by the media!), was not “the Democrats”. Elizabeth Warren didn’t stand up before a BLM crowd and say “now we’re going to go and show the local Trader Joe’s what we think of racism”. I’m not blaming Trump for the attempt to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer or anything like that (if I remember to address your second post, I may come onto this when discussing the differences between the far left and the far right).

Shooting seems to have been at the GOP baseball team rather than soccer. I was only vaguely aware of this and had got it a bit conflated with the Giffords assassination attempt. I think it is undeniable that the shooting was politically motivated, but again, I am not particularly interested in tallying up “lone wolves” (violent or non-violent) - I’m interested in the actions of elected officials and party employees, particularly at the top.

Same deal with the guy who tried to kill Kavanaugh. I view him the way I view the guy who tried to kill Pelosi, or the man who tried to kill Sotomayor in 2021. These are bad people, but when you have two large and dominant parties it is inevitable that you will get murderers in them. It doesn’t tell you much about which of the parties is closer to fascism.


1) no, 2) the Treasury Inspector General found that didn’t happen, and 3) yeah that’s a fair comparison if it was elected officials doing it and not just public pressure.


All politicians insert their personal views into policy whenever they get the chance, that’s the whole point of electoral politics. The US in particular is infamous for its “riders” that make bills long and unwieldy and full of pork-barrel politics, and that’s an issue that crosses the political divide. Unless you meant something beyond what one would naturally expect?

Destroy most of the Bill of Rights… again, not sure anyone can claim totally clean hands there. Republicans haven’t exactly seemed keen on the Eighth and Ninth Amendments at times. Both would quite like to water down the First Amendment - neither side is actually good at encouraging dissent, but the Democrats and their associated media at least make a show of it. Who is the equivalent of Bret Stephens, Ross Douthat, or George Will? (The flip side of this is that despite that, Republicans tend to be better than Democrats at understanding opposing views… but you’ll have a better chance of reading a conservative take in NYT or WaPo than a liberal take in NYP or the WaT).

Second Amendment, granted, is safer in Republican hands, and probably(?) also the Tenth Amendment (but wasn’t it Eisenhower, who I am generally a fan of, who came up with that Highways BS that basically destroys the Tenth Amendment?).

Nah mate. The Republicans are the ones publicly allying themselves with neofascists around the world. If Renzi was American he would be a Democrat. If Meloni was American then she’d be a Republican.


Hate crimes, sure, we generally can’t tell whether a racist is right-wing or left-wing.

Political violence with an identified motive is another thing: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2122593119

If Hitler hadn't been abused throughout his life, maybe he wouldn't have turned into an evil person. But my mom thinks he was mentally ill anyway and his dad "abused" him because he was a horrible kid. After all most people are against child abuse unless the kid is acting like a psychopath. Then they are no longer an innocent kid.

I think ultimately in the end he alone was responsible for his own actions. And people tend to blame everything on the parents instead of holding the individual responsible.