Why is fascism happening?

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I just, it's not what I learned how this country was supposed to work. I know we had bad presidents, and bad policies but even George W. Bush still at least acted like a president. I mean Al Gore should have been elected and maybe the environment wouldn't be so bad off....but even though George Bush beat him, George Bush was still a president and didn't try to turn the military on the citizens.

He was an awful president, but idk at least he didn't try to instate fascism, at worst he was probably just a pawn...but idk I don't recall him actively egging on facism the way trump is doing. Idk some people have pointed out probably even Nixon would be very disappointed in Trump.

Also appraently it was Ronald Reagan who approved emergency Medicaid for undocumented immigrants. By the way that emergency medicaid ends up being like .5 of the budget...and it's literally just so an undocumented person in a medical emergency can receive care...without it being too costly for the hospital. Like what is the other option? refuse them medical care and let a person just die on the street?

So sick of 'illegal alien this, illegal alien that'....they are still a human being, even if they catch an awful gang member...that awful gang member is still supposed to have the right to a fair trial. But this isn't even about awful gang members it's about fathers, mothers, grandmas getting arrested and indefinately detained, toddlers getting zip tied in their diapers and mistreatment of these people. Like yes if someone is here illegally they can be subject to deportation...but then why not do a normal arrest, why the coming in the middle of the night and even detaining citizens or immigrants coming out of their immigration hearings and like disappearing them indefinitely and deporting them before they can even contact their family or any legal representation.

Even if I was more upset about illegal immigrants, I'd still disagree with the way it's being done. But to be honest I don't care...like us europeans came in and took this land from the native americans, so what right do we have to be so hardcore on immigration. Like we are on stolen land anyways... We even stole land from Mexico, Texas should honestly be part of Mexico.

Also a bit ago my mom said she was questioning Trump and all that, but she didn't like people using the term Nazi. Idk I kind of want to talk to her now and be like 'you know how you said that before, well now what do you think.' Idk I am just dissapointed because she got on me when I was getting sucked into nazi/right wing spaces on the internet. Like she was livid when she found out, but then now Nazis are actually taking power and she's all...well not sure if I like all what they're doing, but people shouldn't call them nazis. It's just like 'MOM! these are the same people that you were livid with me for interacting with when I was a mixed up teenager, like even I am pissed I fell for it for a minute...I was just feeling so isolated and the neo-nazis seemed nice, and so I was starting to think well maybe morals can be adjusted if these are the only people who will accept a weird outcast. Thing is I should have known better...I knew nazis were bad but somehow I still almost became a neo-nazi.

Idk sometimes it's hard to speak out against how neo nazi MAGA's are going after kids to brainwash them, because to really delve into it I have to admit they almost even got me even though I knew better. And I feel so disgusted and ashamed with myself I was ever falling into that. Idk if my mom hadn't confronted me about it when she did, I am not sure I would have snapped out of it...but now she doesn't even recognize the facism going on right now. But that is why I think a lot of MAGA's are brainwashed, cause I like hardcore knew nazis were bad, but for a minute I even took the bait as a teen.

Uhh sorry that's long, and maybe not a very solid point....Idk I just know this fascism stuff started a long time ago, I was participating in nazi spaces when I was 17...it was getting organized. I watched youtube videos of neo nazi activists giving speeches protected by police...because as long as the nazis don't directly threaten violence their hate speech is still considered free speech. The Charlie Kirks back then needed lots of police to shield them from angry protestors in cities they went to, universities sure as hell weren't bending over backwards to let them speak on campus. But if any of that crap is still on youtube, if you look it up you will notice the neo nazis back from 2007 say a lot of the same things Trump and MAGA say.

Last edited by Sweetleaf on 11 Oct 2025, 4:59 am, edited 2 times in total.

It's happening because the people in power are disgusting greedy corrupt puss-oozing liars.
I think some autistic people (inc. myself) are quite impressionable, especially when young, or going through a rough patch, and quite vulnerable to propaganda.
Fascism has been creeping up undetected by many,until ready to go overt. People's fears about it get dismissed as over-reaction etc. They lie through their teeth with every utterance.

Idk I just wish I had spoken out more about fascism, after I had almost gotten brainwashed...but I was all messed up because of PTSD and it was everyone and the world against me, so I just wasn't really in the mood to try and set up a public service anouncement....to say 'hey world I almost got brainwashed by nazis even though I watched Shindler's List, and criticized fascism and nazis prior. try not to do that, even if the fascists seem 'nice'...say no to fascism. But even if I had would anyone really have listened?

A classic nazi strategy is for sure 'I'm not a nazi, you're a fascist.' deny and misdirect or something like that. it can also be used like 'what I'm not a racist, you're a racist' or 'well it's just my beliefs guess you're not so tolerant after all' and really the whole strategy of bad faith arguments till a well meaning person just gives up. Like its strategized bullying, specifically meant to get under your skin if you argue with them.

I agree with you. Immigrants don't bother me. I feel as if I must be immune to the anti-immigrant propaganda because I just can't feel concerned at all about it. I am concerned about the treatment of immigrants and how hard it is for them to get citizenship, but it stops there. I'm not afraid of immigrants being criminals and sex predators. Even if I were, the thought of voting for a criminal and sex predator to be president to "fix" the issue is completely baffling to me. Donald Trump and men like him are the biggest threat to our safety. They are the ones who get to do whatever they want and will face no consequences.

It's just baffling to me that there are people out there who fell for the propaganda and for which voted over immigration. I can't understand. I also can't understand more than anything how there are always people to fall for this kind of propaganda time and time again. Like... how have they not noticed from history that they are the baddies?

The Religious Right has a lot to do with why we are where we are today. The movement coalesced decades ago around defending segregation and being against interracial marriage and relationships. They'll try to tell you that they coalesced around abortion, but that's a lie. They coalesced around abortion only after they were losing in their racist goals.

This same group have been moving onto and demonizing new minorities over the decades. Back then it was people of color, now it's immigrants and LGBT people. They used the very same arguments to defend segregation and fight against interracial marriage/relationships that they do against LGBT people today. I think it was Bob Jones University who argued that removing segregation was against their "sincerely-held religious beliefs".

Again, what shocks me is how there are always people to fall for the same old demonization tactics. Always. I just don't get how people can fall for this same nonsense time and time again. Does humanity just suck? Are we hopeless?

As for opening the doors to fascism in the government, the right is guilty of leading up to this for a very long time. In the Reconstruction era, the right went hard into anti-democracy tactics to suppress the vote of people of color and also suppress them from taking power. I believe it was North Carolina (look this up, it's been a while since I researched it) where people of color were seeing success getting into positions of power and that made the right furious and started them going very anti-democratic. They used extreme tactics which would be considered fascism to us today, such as direct, violent voter intimidation against people of color. Gerrymandering really became a thing as well, and gerrymandering is something that continues to today, and along the same lines.

I suggest you read the excellent pair of books by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt "How Democracies Die" and "Tyranny of the Minority". They go into detail about what I talked about above and go into great detail as to how we ended up where we are today. I also recommend Kristin Kobes du Mez's "Jesus and John Wayne" for more of a view on the Religious Right angle.

It didn't happen overnight, and presidents like Reagan and George W. Bush are not innocent. In fact, Reagan was a major dark turning point in our nation. Reagan was perhaps the Religious Right's first "Trump".

Read about what fascism actually is. Fascism is absolutely not happening in this country, except, ironically by groups like Antifa who use fascist tactics.

And yet the right is not afraid to use fascism to crush antifa. Hypocrites. They accuse the left of what they themselves are actually doing.

Antifa is using political violence and threats of terror to impose their views. That is pretty much fascism. The right is trying to stop that as they should.

And we have right wing terror groups threatening violence against Liberals in the name of Trump and they go ignored. It's all the focus on antifa, you know why? Because the status quo doesn't like what challenges them. Rightwing groups are too blinded by their hatred against Liberals that it works in the status quo's favor.

Antifa is not even a real organization. The Trump admin's targeting of it is merely putting on a show, because there's nothing really to target. To fall for that show is so silly. Come on, now.

Now, lets look at the characteristics of fascism, shall we?:

1. Powerful, often exclusionary, populist nationalism centered on cult of a redemptive, “infallible”
leader who never admits mistakes.
2. Political power derived from questioning reality, endorsing myth and rage, and promoting lies.
3. Fixation with perceived national decline, humiliation, or victimhood.
4. White Replacement “Theory” used to show that democratic ideals of freedom and equality are a threat.
Oppose any initiatives or institutions that are racially, ethnically, or religiously harmonious.
5. Disdain for human rights while seeking purity and cleansing for those they define as part of the nation.
6. Identification of “enemies”/scapegoats as a unifying cause. Imprison and/or murder opposition and minority
group leaders.
7. Supremacy of the military and embrace of paramilitarism in an uneasy, but effective
collaboration with traditional elites. Fascists arm people and justify and glorify violence as “redemptive”.
8. Rampant sexism.
9. Control of mass media and undermining “truth”.
10. Obsession with national security, crime and punishment, and fostering a sense of the nation under attack.
11. Religion and government are intertwined.
12. Corporate power is protected and labor power is suppressed.
13. Disdain for intellectuals and the arts not aligned with the fascist narrative.
14. Rampant cronyism and corruption. Loyalty to the leader is paramount and often more important than competence.
15. Fraudulent elections and creation of a one-party state.
16. Often seeking to expand territory through armed conflict

I could make a very strong argument for MAGA/the Trump admin fitting MANY of these criteria, and it's not even hard. It's surface level stuff. It's right out there in the open. To deny that they fit the bill is just being willfully obtuse.

I'm worried it can't be stopped electorally. We may need a honest-to-god coup d'etat to stop it.

You’re right — what’s happening isn’t just an American problem, and that’s part of why politics feels so deeply wrong across so much of the world right now. The same forces driving fascism, division, and cruelty in the U.S. are rising in other countries too. It’s not a coincidence. We’re living through a time of massive change — economic inequality, environmental collapse, the speed of the internet, and the erosion of trust in institutions. People feel powerless and uncertain, and in that chaos, extremists and populists have learned to weaponize fear and belonging. It’s happening in Europe, in South America, in parts of Asia — everywhere that people feel abandoned by systems that no longer seem to care about them.

In the past, political differences still operated within a shared sense of truth and decency. You could argue about taxes or policy, but there was a general understanding that facts existed and that democracy required compromise. That shared understanding has broken down. Now politics feels like a psychological battlefield — built on emotion, outrage, and manipulation rather than problem-solving. The internet supercharged this change. Algorithms reward outrage and fear because those emotions keep people engaged, and that engagement makes money. So the systems that connect us also radicalize us, slowly pushing people toward extremes and away from empathy.

That’s part of why what you said about almost being pulled into neo-Nazi spaces as a teen is so important — you experienced firsthand how that machine works. It’s not just ideology anymore; it’s an ecosystem of anger and belonging that feeds on loneliness and confusion. When you think about it, it’s horrifyingly efficient. That same machinery that once existed on message boards is now mainstreamed into political parties, news networks, and social media influencers. They use the same recruitment tactics — create fear, then offer certainty — and millions fall for it.

And that’s why politics feels broken now. Because in a sense, it is. The systems that were meant to represent the people have been hijacked by those who profit from division. Politicians who should be solving problems are instead exploiting them. Corporations and billionaires funnel money into campaigns to keep people fighting over cultural issues while wealth and power concentrate at the top. The right stokes fear; the left gets tangled in internal fights or moral exhaustion. Ordinary people end up disillusioned, angry, or numb.

You can feel that emptiness in the air — that sense that politics isn’t about leadership anymore, but theater. It’s like everyone knows something fundamental has been lost, even if they can’t name what it is. The compassion and responsibility that once guided governance have been replaced by cruelty as entertainment and ideology as identity. And that’s not just an American sickness; it’s global. Democracies everywhere are being tested by the same disease — disinformation, apathy, greed, and fear.

That’s why what you said matters so much. Because seeing it, naming it, and refusing to give in to the numbness is resistance in itself. You haven’t lost your humanity in all this chaos — you still care about fairness, truth, and decency. That’s what fascism hates most. It thrives when people give up or turn away, but the moment people start questioning and remembering what compassion actually looks like, the spell starts to break.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why I’ve been so hesitant to share Syncretoctracy with the world. The truth is, it’s not because I doubt its ideas — it’s because I know how powerful they could become in the wrong hands, especially with how unstable and divided the world feels right now.

Syncretoctracy is based on the future concept of syncretism — the blending of ideas, philosophies, and beliefs into something new that unites instead of divides. It’s about synthesis rather than opposition. In essence, it’s the belief that truth doesn’t belong to one side, one god, or one ideology, but emerges through the connections between them. It’s the idea that humanity could someday govern itself through understanding instead of fear, through shared values instead of endless conflict.

But that’s also why it’s dangerous. Any philosophy that can unite people can also be weaponized to control them. Syncretism in the hands of a compassionate thinker can build bridges and heal divisions; in the hands of an authoritarian, it can become a tool for manipulation — a system that erases difference instead of embracing it. The same flexibility that allows Syncretoctracy to adapt could be twisted to justify anything, to merge truth and lies into one seamless narrative that serves power.

That’s what worries me about releasing it too soon. The world right now is desperate for belonging, desperate for meaning — and that desperation makes people vulnerable. I’ve watched how movements promising unity or “greatness” end up dividing people even more. I’ve seen how good ideas are hollowed out and turned into weapons. I don’t want Syncretoctracy to become another ideology pretending to fix humanity while secretly feeding on it.

To me, Syncretoctracy isn’t just a political idea — it’s a framework for evolution. It imagines a civilization that has learned from its mistakes, that no longer needs to choose between compassion and strength, reason and faith. But for it to work, the world has to grow into it. People need to be able to hold nuance again, to think beyond “us and them,” to see power as stewardship instead of domination.

That’s why I’ve kept it close, refining it, shaping it quietly. Maybe someday humanity will be ready for it — when empathy outweighs fear, when understanding becomes more valuable than being right. Until then, I’d rather guard it carefully than see it become another instrument of control in a world already drowning in them.

I remember my own childhood experiences. I saw about five minutes of an angry political talk show on TV. This just looked like a bunch of shouting and bullying to me. I remember switching the TV channel to something else. Then fast forward a decade or so and social media came along.

As for me, I side with full rights for everyone, including for immigrants (not just the rich ones), LGBTQ+ people, and everyone else. I think that most of us, regardless of our identities, are basically decent people. We just go about our lives, go back and forth to work or school or whatever, and are not hurting anyone. None of us deserve to be scapegoated or targeted. I think we owe it to ourselves and to each other to be mindful about where we get our information from though, as there are those who profit by dividing us.

I am still somewhat new here. I am not here to insult or demean anyone. And even if I might not be the biggest fan of a certain celebrity, I won't say anything that is just plain nasty or mean-spirited. The only thing that would really draw my ire is if a politician or famous person uses their platform to promote hatred and division.

I wasn't familiar with the word "syncretoctracy" until I saw this comment thread. Yes, people can fall into a trap of rigid us/them thinking, see everything as being a competition and a zero sum game where someone has to lose, and so on. But also, I can understand the potential dangers of syncretoctracy in the hands of a "Dear Leader" type of authoritarian.

To close, I will quote an Ozzy Osbourne song: Maybe it's not too late to learn how to love and forget how to hate.

Not possible. The only people who would be capable of a coup d'etat tend to be right wingers, who are much more likely than left-wingers to join the military, for example.

What the left needs, and has always needed, is to become better at building a mass movement.

That's true, but then you have the tankies on the left and some lefties who don't vote or only vote for socialist canidates...even though the 3rd party strategy hasn't been working. Also, there's a bunch of right wing MAGA influencers who are the ones talking to teenage boys and young men on social platforms...where are the progressive male influencers to provide some more positive role models? For sure I think there should be better efforts to like reach people...and as much as the MAGA cause is awful, sticking our noses up at anyone who fell for it may not actually be helping. People should be held accountable, but if some of the people who fell for the MAGA stuff are coming around and rethinking it we should encourage and support that...not just call them an idiot and tell them to go away. Rural communities have limited programing and stuff on T.V, so like in a Red state in a rural area Fox news might be all they have...they don't necessarily have access to less biased news sources, some of them still have dial up internet. Democrats, Progressives and Democratic socialists will not win them over by, berating them for being ignorant and having been fooled.

Because so many of our citizens, male and female, are willfully buying into the rhetoric of a President who tells them what they want to hear in order to manipulate them to his own advantage. People who Trump actually despises even as they give him everything he wants from them.

There is nothing Conservative about Trump. There never has been anything Conservative about Trump.

Syncretism exists — it’s ancient, and it’s real. It’s the blending of different beliefs, philosophies, and systems into something new, something that transcends their boundaries without erasing them. It’s harmony born out of difference, understanding drawn from diversity.

But Syncretoctracy doesn’t exist. Not yet.

I discovered it almost by accident, searching for a better way — a system where ideas could be free, where belief and reason could coexist without the endless need to destroy one another. What began as a simple question — why must one truth cancel another? — turned into something much larger. Syncretoctracy became my way of imagining a future where governance isn’t built on control or division, but on the freedom of ideas themselves.

At its heart, Syncretoctracy could be called the Freedom of Ideas Act — not a law, but a philosophy. It’s about allowing thought to evolve without fear, about creating space for contradiction and synthesis. It’s not about erasing differences; it’s about finding the rhythm between them. The same way syncretism in religion seeks connection between faiths, Syncretoctracy would seek it between people, systems, and even civilizations.

But the reason I haven’t shared it widely — the reason I’ve kept it close — is because the world right now is in turmoil. We’re living through an age of extremes. Compassion is drowned out by noise; truth is buried under propaganda; belonging is bought and sold like a commodity. In such a climate, even good ideas can become dangerous. Anything built to unite can be twisted into a tool to control.

I’ve seen it happen before. Words that were meant to heal turned into slogans for power. Ideals meant to liberate turned into systems of obedience. The wrong hands can take something beautiful and strip it of its meaning, using it to manipulate rather than inspire. That’s why I hesitate. Syncretoctracy is built on trust — trust that people can think freely, question deeply, and still act with empathy. But right now, the world seems to reward the opposite.

Still, I believe it has a place — maybe not in this era, but in the next one. When humanity grows tired of tearing itself apart, it will look again toward synthesis, toward understanding. And maybe then, Syncretoctracy will find its time.

Until then, I hold it as an idea in progress — something alive, not finished. Not a system of control, but a seed of freedom waiting for soil that’s ready to nurture it.