chimera wrote on Jan 4
th, 2025 at 5:21pm:
Fascists had some honour. Mussolini went to jail as a socialist for opposing Italy's war in Libya. Adolf was done for his rough house against the shonky Weimar regime. Trump?
petty criminal.
Fascists can be different. I'd argue Mussolini was just a self-obsessed grifter. His conversion from socialism was a part of that. He saw he could get the Catholics on board if he went right wing. I don't think there was much more to Mussolini than a power grab.
Hitler was an ideological zealot. He had
dangerous beliefs. I'm not sure if you could call a project to purify the German blood principles, but sure, he was more ethically consistent than Mussolini.
Trump has less ideological interest than either. That alone makes him dangerous - he has no principles at all. I imagine some could suggest he represents a form of pragmatic American fascism, but no, he sings to the Christians just like Mussolini.
Also like Mussolini, Trump has been able to unite these disparate forces - the Bernie voters, the Bible belt, the aspirational Hispanic, Cuban and even Mexican voters. He's even helped to steer the Bible Belt's move from what was once a band of conservative evangelicals towards a new form of Christian white nationalism.
Trump himself hasn't done this, Christian TV has, just like Fox News got him the working class. By the time Rupert soured on MAGA in 2021 it was too late. Fox News were happy to pay nearly a billion in defamation payouts to keep the audience on side. This is despite what Tucker and everybody else at Fox were saying about loathing him with a passion after Jan 6.
You'd expect Rupert to make a business decision like that, but the pastors and CTV? There's no precedent for the Bible Belt's descent into full-blown fascism, not even in the 1930s. The Christians have gone from being refugee-loving Billy Graham evangelicals to full-blown haters.
Many are from Central and South America themselves. No one hates refugees like established immigrants, each migrant wave looking down on the new arrivals, in spite of their typically generous, working class Christian values.
Trump has been able to exploit this cognitive dissonance like plenty of other third world dictators, but he's an outlier in America. Urban Americans are genuinely open and welcoming people. They value immigration too, and for good pragmatic reasons. Out of all the things that have made America great, it's mass immigration. Even George Bush knew this, and was careful never offend such a valuable voting block. Trump has been able to have his cake and eat it, appealing to aspirational migrants for their vote, and dumping on illegals eating cats and dogs.
Mexicans in Mexico hate him. In the US, it's a little more complicated. Either way, Trump is the most successful American fascist since Huey Long in the 1930s.
The thing is, MAGA can only function under Trump. When he goes, MAGA goes. The Republicans don't own Trump, he owns them.
Huey Long, by the way, was a Democrat. As you pointed out about Mussolini, left and right can be permeable distinctions when it comes to fascism.
SEND THEM BACK !!!