#this is how liberal democracies turn fascist!

[werthersbignaturals]

oh my god please read political theory and please understand that there will never be a world where America is the good guys "outside influences on our democracy" do you realize you sound like a fox news guzzling nutjob?? when democrats win republicans say that it's because immigrants are stealing votes and when republicans win democrats say it's because of russia can you grow up and look at reality with your eyeballs??

[anamericangirl]

What's telling to me about how sick people can be is that Trump was nearly killed, someone in the crowd WAS killed, multiple other shots went out, the whole thing was a terrifying event that everyone in the world should be able to agree was scary And yet I see the media on the left trying to spin this "Well this is to be expected, he's so radical and so fascist that of course someone tried to kill him" and "#YOUMISSED" is trending on Twitter Mask is fucking off and I'm done hitting Anon when I send asks to you, these people have truly shown they have no empathy, no sympathy, and are bloodthirsty. People get shot up in a school and their first thought is "This is why we need to ban guns" and "This is because of ultra-MAGA"

Some unhinged motherfucker actually attempts to kill the former president and kills someone in the crowd and the left turns it into a fucking hashtag and an opportunity to try to blame it on Trump even though he's the one that got shot at.

The left are fucking deranged, and I know better than most because I used to be ON the left. I shaved half my head, I had blue hair, I lived with liberal pedophiles (literally) in Ohio for 2 years who wore diapers around the house and bitched about Elon Musk and Trump every fucking day. I know these people are psychopaths and now they have finally just outright announced to the world how sick they are.

Even fucking Biden tried to call the hospital Trump was at to ask if he was okay, EVEN DARTH FUCKING BRANDON CARED ABOUT TRUMP and yet these Twitterlibs and liberal media fuckwads are just jumping on the opportunity to go "Aww man #YouMissed, you fired 5 shots how come you couldn't get him, you fucked up, omg"

For fuck sake hate the man all you want but SOMEONE TRIED TO KILL HIM AND AN INNOCENT PERSON'S BRAIN GOT REMOVED FROM THEIR HEAD, FOR FUCK SAKE HAVE AT LEAST A MODICUM OF SYMPATHY FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE YOU FUCKING SAVAGES.

If this doesn't turn people away from the democrat party then nothing will. Trump was not the only victim of this shooting. A couple of people were injured, an innocent person was killed and still the only thing we hear from leftists is annoyance that the shooter missed.

And while we are rightly angry at the spins the msm is putting on this assassination attempt, they have to put that spin on it or eat their words for the last 8 years. They've been characterizing Trump as a fascist tyrannical dictator since 2016. They've spun him to be Hitler 2.0 telling everyone he's a threat to democracy and leading people to believe he's a threat to their very lives. The "trans genocide" and "kids in cages" the "don't say gay" bill all that nonsense is always, always linked back to Trump and if they turn around now and condemn this attempt on his life what would that say about them? Either they will have to expose themselves as the liars and propagandists they are or they will have to be seen as being sympathetic towards literally Hitler. And narrative is more important to them than anything.

Which explains why they were trying to avoid reporting what happened like the plague. The headlines I saw in the aftermath, after we already knew Trump had actually been hit by the bullet were things like "Trump escorted offstage after gun shots were heard." "Loud popping noise heard at Trump rally." And other variations of that headline. And still leftists don't question why after Trump was shot every single mainstream media outlet had the same headline and they all avoided saying Trump had been shot or an assassination attempt had been made.

They can’t come out and say this was wrong because it will mean they will have to admit to something even worse: that they were wrong.

But of course the people currently in office can't come out and condone the shooting. That would look very bad. So yeah, it's good that Biden stood up there and said the right words and made an effort to contact Trump but how convenient that this happened a mere couple of weeks after the democratic party has abandoned and turned on Biden so his words and condemnation will be buried and ignored and mean nothing.

For the last 8 years, though, Joe Biden and every other democrat in office, paired with the media, have been villainizing Trump for his rhetoric. Everything bad thing that happened was directly the fault of Trump because of his "dangerous rhetoric." But the rhetoric they've employed against Trump and all conservatives since that time has been the worst fearmongering and slander I've ever seen so they are directly to blame for this shooting because of their rhetoric. No more "rules for thee but not for me." They have to live in the world they made.

Leftism, as I'm sure you've seen first hand what with your experience of being one and living in that environment, is no longer about what you support, it's just about who you hate. And every sane person still aligned with them is waking up. The mask has been slipping for years and most of us were able to see who they really were way before it fully fell off but there is no mask now. They're not even trying to hide it.

They have the ideas they pretend to support when told to, but all leftists are only united by one thing: hate.

Their heroes are criminals like Michael Brown, George Floyd and Trayvon Martin. And they hate police until they shoot and kill Ashli Babbitt who's only crime was being a Trump supporter at the capitol on January 6.

They still bemoan the killing of a pedophile, wife beater and injury of a career criminal who were shot because they tried to murder a child while villainizing the child they tried to kill because he successfully defended himself against their attack.

To this day they spin their violent riots as "mostly peaceful protests" while the January 6 protest was a "violent insurrection."

The rapes and murder on October 7 were a justified response to "occupation" but anything Israel does is "genocide."

During covid they freaked out about "public health" and wanted everyone vaxxed and masked to "save lives" but when Trump got covid they all immediately wanted it to kill him.

When a white boy shoots up a school it’s an example of how evil white people and right wing gun nuts are but when a trans person shot children at a Christian elementary school the main focus of leftists, all the way up to the White House, was the danger the trans community would allegedly be in from right wing retaliatory violence and how “hateful Christian rhetoric” was responsible for the shooting.

And none of this has anything to do with the values they claim to adhere to. All of their positions on every single issue come down to who it is they hate the most of the people involved. So their "values” change by the second.

So the violence, depravity and dangerous rhetoric is pretty much 100% on their side but watch them try and spin this assassination on Trump as Trump's own fault. And watch leftists just unquestioningly go with it or just try to distract people with more fear mongering about Project 2025 or something else stupid like that.

The only thing that bothers them about this shooting, other than the fact that the shooter "missed', is that this has pretty much guaranteed Trump is going to win the election. And of course they can't stand that after all they've done to try and make sure that doesn't happen.

[mesetacadre]

apologies if this isn't really your area of interest, but how would you describe the relationship between fascism and (anti-) imperialism? (asking because my far-right father just watched a video about Kamala Harris right next to me which had very similar points to what I've seen on Tumblr; specifically how liberals/democrats will even ally with their "enemies" if it means they can keep the war machine going)

One way to understand fascism that's very common in the imperial periphery has been to conceptualize it as colonialism/imperialism turned inwards, it ramps up exploitation by any means necessary. This does two things, it curbs worker organization by exerting more violence, and it increases capitalist profits. This last thing is also related to the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, since fascists in power tend to be destructive towards capital, especially to human capital, and the rate of profit can only be increased considerably through the destruction of capital. As for the more specific aspects of fascism in power; forced labor, concentration camps, the trampling of any kind of liberties, mass political repression, etc. were already established in the colonized world well before any fascist you can think of was even born.

Take a look at this map:

This is a propaganda piece [the title says "Portugal is not a small country"] from 1934 during Portugal's Salazar dictatorship, one of the forgotten fascist states of Europe during this time, along with Austria and Spain. When fascists do have colonies and would be considered an empire, they do not really differ from non-fascist imperialism. This integralist notion shown by the poster really isn't that far from the integration attempted by France on Algeria, and Italy had similar rhetoric when it came to Libya and East Africa. What I mean to say is that fascists do not have that special a relationship when it comes to "normal" imperialism (apart from that internal imperialism I mentioned), and it therefore does not have that special a relationship with anti-imperialism. Nazi-fascists did not inherit any colonies from the Weimar Republic, but their ambitions in the east (look up generalplan-ost) and for the Balkans were also extremely similar to most colonial projects you can find for Africa and Asia in the 19th and early 20th century.

Fascism is an imperialist ideology, not because of any inherent quality, but because it is the most destructive and exploitative elements of liberal democracy emphasized and expanded. It was, after all, birthed by the moribund corpse of European imperialism, as it entered a general crisis that spelled its end (in the form imperialism took at this time, of course imperialism mutated and transformed to a system that doesn't require a direct administrative control of colonies), and this crisis was only delayed by WW2.

Fascists nowadays protect imperialism insofar as they protect capitalism. Fascists are only really enemies with liberalism when it comes to parliamentarism and its socially progressive elements, but we can't forget that any liberal party, whether it's republican or democrat or third party, ultimately only serves to manage capitalism in the country they administer. I'm not really sure what's the point that that video was making, but I don't think it's this. Fascists are not the enemies of a capitalist state, imperialist or otherwise, they're the most extreme, violent and repressive expression of what's already present in liberal democracy. If usamerican fascists take the position of a "great america" and support the continuation of its interference worldwide, and the democrats or republicans also do, this is a case of fascism reflecting liberalism, not the other way around. Fascism is not an evil entity one candidate chooses to ally with or not. It always represent the most extreme needs of capital, and in every case that it has taken power, it has happened once those necessities were widespread enough and they recieved ample support from those capitalists.

[tamamita]

i don't understand why people think decolonization means that we're supporting hamas, this people will assume everything about how decolonization works

Hamas isn't a group that grew out of a vacuum, they're a group that was enabled and fostered under the grim conditions that Israel put on the people of Palestine. You can't simply lock away millions of Palestinians in an open air prison while expecting them to be silent about their reality! Decolonization involves the violent dismantling of the system that oppressed them to begin with. Peace was NEVER an option and history has taught us this repeatedly.

Israel built and fostered the socio-political conditions for these people, robbing them out of everything! Controlling everything! Hell! They were the ones who enabled them to become radicalized, they were the ones that initially supported them against Fatah and PLO! Hamas was the culmination of anger and rage directed towards the Israelis for what they had caused them to endure. When you have a monopoly on basic humanitarian needs, and when you render hundreds of thousands of orphans without a place to live, do you think these people wouldn't retaliate at the end? What did you expect after isolating them? When the Palestinians in Gaza were peacefully protesting against Trump's decision, how many Palestinians died that day? Do you think 75 years of oppression and the amount of massacres, kidnapping, bombing, r*ping, torturing would silent these people? Innocent people from both sides are dead in the crossfire because of Israel. They decided peace wasn't an option and so, you turned an entire group of people against you, and they won't cease until liberation is assured and the settler state is abolished.

Israel will never be at peace, it allowed for the socio-political conditions to happen. Hamas isn't good, but they fostered them and every single day in Israel will be hell when you trifle with the lives of millions who call out for their dead mothers. Israel is run by hardline fascists, your PM is a fascist dictator and the government will never unite. This "state" is not a democracy and never will be. You will never have peace.

[antifainternational]

Since youre antifascist, how about you give us a definition of fascism? What exactly makes someone a fascist? (and in case you use terms such as left-wing or right-wing be sure to define them too)

Guess it's been a while since a clever Anon challenged us to define fascism, huh? Right, let's get into it: Via the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum:

Yale professor Jason Stanley:

“Fascism is a creation of race hatred and its politically organized expression.” - Willhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933).

“Fascism is capitalism plus murder.” - Upton Sinclair

“Repression by brute force is always a confession of the inability to make use of the better weapons of the intellect — better because they alone give promise of final success. This is the fundamental error from which Fascism suffers and which will ultimately cause its downfall…that its foreign policy, based as it is on the avowed principle of force in international relations, cannot fail to give rise to an endless series of wars that must destroy all of modern civilization requires no further discussion. To maintain and further raise our present level of economic development, peace among nations must be assured. But they cannot live together in peace if the basic tenet of the ideology by which they are governed is the belief that one’s own nation can secure its place in the community of nations by force alone. ” - Ludwig von Mises,  Liberalism: A Socio-Economic Exposition (1927).

“Spent most of the day reading fascisti leaflets. They certainly have turned the whole country into an army. From cradle to grave one is cast in the mould of fascismo and there can be no escape … It is certainly a socialist experiment in that it destroys individuality. It destroys liberty.” -  Harold Nicolson, The Harold Nicolson Diaries : 1919-1964 (2004).

“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.” - Franklin D. Roosevelt

“A fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends….If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States.” - Henry A. Wallace

“Fascism is the cult of organised murder, invented by the arch-enemies of society. It tends to destroy civilization and revert man to his most barbarous state. Mussolini and Hitler might well be called the devils of an age, for they are playing hell with civilization.” - Marcus Garvey,  Authors take Sides on the Spanish War, 1937 Philosophy Tube's breakdown of the elements of fascism is very thorough and recommended if you're not the reading type. But do you read books? We hope so if you're looking to engage in political discussion about anything. Here are some books that tackle the definition of fascism, in whole or in part, that we would recommend to you (check/order from your local library!) Mark Bray's highly-accessible Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook is a great starting point for this topic.

Columbia history professor Robert O. Paxton's excellent book The Anatomy of Fascism goes into this in great detail.

There's also Umberto Eco's The Eternal Fascist

or his "practical list for identifying fascists" as well as Hannah Arendt's seminal The Origins of Totalitarianism

We hope you weren't looking for a simple answer to the complex question of "what is fascism?" Anon, just as we hope you're up to taking our challenge of checking out all of the above so you're curiosity is satisfied and you're well-versed on the topic.

[tanadrin]

RE "revolutionary leftists are revolutionary because they know they can't win electorally."

It astounds me a little that there are leftists who think that a communist revolution is more likely to work than, like, fifty years of community-building and electoral politics. Sewer socialism, union activism, and other boring activities have brought much more success in the U.S. than agitation for a revolution.

What I mean is, setting aside the moral concerns (violence is bad, even when it's necessary, and if there are practical alternatives then we should pursue them), I am not a revolutionary leftist because I think we would lose a revolution. For one thing, there is a considerable right-wing element in the country that is much better prepared for this kind of thing, and I think that the majority of the institutions in the U.S. would pick fascism over communism if they had to choose, but also, prolonged violent action is ripe for breeding authoritarianism.

Goatse is concerned that "the party" might "abandon or neglect its primary ends," but what is leftism if it is not, at bottom, an attempt to improve the living conditions of all people, et cetera et cetera? To the extent that social democratic parties successfully pursue this end to some degree, they're better than than an ostensible communist party that talks the talk but commits human rights abuses. And, more than the fact that U.S. leftism has some pretty fierce opposition that would probably fare better if The Revolution happened tomorrow, I think that, even in winning, we would lose, because what came out the other end would look a lot more like Stalinism.

I think one thing the hardcore revolutionaries in OECD countries don't realize is that the reason they can't marshal support for their revolutions is that the socialists won most of the issues that were salient in the early 20th century--workers got more rights, better pay, unions were legalized, etc., etc. But it didn't take restructuring the whole political economy to do it, which is immensely frustrating if you believe that any society without your ideal political economy is inherently immoral and impure, so in order to justify an explicitly communist platform you have to rhetorically isolate it from the filthy libs and feckless demsocs who it turns out have been pretty effective within the arena of electoral politics in which supposedly nothing can ever get done, and treat them as of a piece with the out-and-out fascists and royalist autocrats of the 1920s and 30s.

Which, you know. Is not persuasive to most people! Most people understand intuitively the vast gulf between the SPD and the Nazis; they see that, milquetoast and compromising though they may be, the center-left can deliver substantive policy improvements without the upheaval of a civil war or political purges, and this is attractive to people who are not of a millenarian or left-authoritarian personality.

Which isn't to say that communists don't often make important points! It sucks having to fight a constant rearguard action against the interests of capital rolling back the social improvements of the 20th century, and it sucks that liberal governments in Europe and North America have historically been quite happy to bankroll and logistically support fascists and tyrants in the third world against communist movements (which invariably only exist as communist movements because these same fascists and tyrants have crushed more compromising movements and only the most militant organizations have managed to survive).

But I agree with you: communists also talk a big game about how liberalism is the real fascism (what's that line from Disco Elysium I see quoted everywhere about how everybody is secretly a fascist except the other communists, who are liberals?), while also being awful at democracy. Suppressing dissent because your small clique of political elites is the only legitimate expression of the people's will (which you know, because you have declared it to be so) really is some rank bullshit. A system with competitive elections is still, well, a system with competitive elections, even if those elections are structurally biased in certain ways; all the bloviating that attempts to justify communist authoritarianism cannot really obscure the fact that authoritarian systems are cruel and brittle, regardless of the ideology being served.

[psychotrenny]

The way Western Liberals talk about WW2 drives me insane. Like USamericans are constantly boasting "We Defeated the Nazis!" as though they also didn't inspire the Nazis, rehabilitated the Nazis or engage in comparably brutal forms of genocidal exploitation over the time span of centuries. None of the other "Western Powers" are any better in this regard either

Like the idea that Liberalism and Fascism are absolute opposites is completely nonsense. Both ideologies are nothing more than different manifestations of Bourgeoisie rule; two heads of the same beasts. They aren't even inherently hostile to each other; Liberal and Fascist regimes are able to co-exist and even collaborate with each other just fine. The pattern of "Liberalism in the Core and Fascism in the Peripheries" is one that effectively predates the emergence of Fascism itself as a defined ideology; it's why you'll hear people refer to Imperial Core fascist movements as "Colonialism turned Inwards". It's also why you see people who intensely fear-monger over the idea of Donald Trump's electoral victory in the US as the "end of democracy", while giving nothing but praise and support to Nazis in Ukraine.

Basically WW2 was the ONE (1) time that the Liberal Democracies of the Imperial core had any real problem with Fascism and yet liberals use it to pretend that Fascists are their worst enemies (so therefore all their Nazi buddies are aktually just misunderstood freedom fighters). It's exhausting to put up with once you realise how hollow it all is; this Liberal "anti-Fascism" that disagrees with the means but not the ends

[benjaminallhope-fulltimemind]

Look at Elon musk spreading misinformation on the social media platform he turned into 4Chan lite! He'll do anything to earn praise and validation from other people including the fascist Republican who want to destroy democracy through Project 2025, why do you think he unbanned Republican accounts who spouted hate speech before banning liberal journalists? Everyone should expect Elon musk to continue spreading misinformation/disinformation throughout the election like he did with Trump and Biden, I mean how many times has he agreed with rascist and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories on Twitter and in fact that's why he's made liked posts private?! Honestly it's kinda funny cause it won't be long before he does this again I swear it, then he'll deny ever doing then offer a limp apology when he gets called out then his sycophants will crawl out of the woodwork to defend him.

[mariacallous]

As 400 million Europeans get set to elect 720 EU parliamentarians in June, polls are predicting big gains for right-wing populists. As a result, for the first time since the European Parliament was directly elected in 1979, it is expected to have a solid majority on the right. This will mark a “sharp right turn” for Europe, the European Council of Foreign Affairs (ECFR) recently noted. The consequences for European politics and policy are already coming into view.

The center-right European People’s Party (EPP) and the left-leaning Socialists and Democrats party (S&D) are again expected to finish in first and second place, although both may lose a handful of seats. The EU’s far-right groups, Identity and Democracy (ID) and the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), will improve their tally mainly at the expense of liberals and Greens. According to ECFR, populists are likely to be the top vote-getter in nine countries, including Austria, the Netherlands, France, Hungary, Poland, and Italy. In nine others, including Spain and Germany, they could emerge as strong second or third-place contenders.

ID—which includes the main anti-immigrant and Eurosceptic parties in Germany (Alternative for Deutschland or AfD), France (National Rally), and Italy (the League or Lega)—is likely to become the EU parliament’s third-largest group after elections are held between June 6 and 9. The ECR is led by Georgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister and leader of the post-fascist Brothers of Italy party, and is home to Sweden’s Sweden Democrats and Poland’s Law and Justice party (PiS). If authoritarian Hungarian leader Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party, a member of the EPP until a few years ago, joins the ECR as expected, the far-right could claim a quarter of the total seats.

Political machinations already seem to be underway among some establishment parties to create cooperation with this newly powerful bloc. Experts say if the EPP, the strongest conservative party in the EU, welcomes far-right politicians in its fold or co-opts their policies, as it has lately been accused of, the balance of power in Europe will decisively shift to the right and have major implications for not just the EU’s common agenda but may also influence how member states decide critical policies.

“I think in our campaign we will ask the EPP to be pragmatic, to pick the alternative to a center-left majority,” Marco Campomenosi, a Lega politician and the head of the Italian delegation in ID, told Foreign Policy.

Experts say any such shift will have major implications for the EU as a whole, tainting its recent promises to pursue a humane migration policy and to establish rule of law at home that encourages democratic checks and balances. An empowered far-right may also keep coordination on a common defense policy to the bare minimum in the face of a looming threat from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The EU’s flagship Green Deal climate framework, which has set a goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, is also at stake, as the populists try to push the EU to erode its commitment to renewable energy development and other climate policies.

Charlie Weimers, a member of the far-right Sweden Democrats that supports Sweden’s minority center-right government, said, his party’s priority is to push for a “Migration Pact 2.0,” with more stringent measures to stop the influx of immigrants than already listed in the new migration pact. “We need to stop asylum,” he told FP over the phone. “We need breathing space to deal with the immigrants already here otherwise we can never catch up.”

Lega’s Campomenosi said, “it’s not about the money” but about the “trouble” immigrants make. (Under the new migration pact an EU member state which refuses to accept an asylum seeker should pay a sum of 20,000 euros to an EU fund.) “If there are too many immigrants they can’t be integrated,” he added.

Three far-right parliamentarians told FP that with bigger numbers in Parliament they will be able to apply more pressure on the EU commissioner to throw out or dilute the green deal.

It “needs to go away,” Joachim Kuhs, the acting head of the AfD delegation in EU which is polling as the second strongest party in Germany, told FP in his office in the parliament. “It should be repealed and replaced,” Weimers added.

The liberal groups say the center-right has strengthened the far-right by co-opting its policies and forming alliances in individual member states.

Pedro Marques, a vice president of the S&D group, said the EPP parties have been “eroding the Cordon Sanitaire,” erected to keep the far-right out of governments and important positions. “The EPP is dancing with the far right,” he added, with grave consequences for the future of the union.

The cordon sanitaire is crumbling in many European nations. In Italy, the far-right is in power, in Sweden the center-right government is backed by the far-right. In Austria, center-right and far-right have been in a coalition, and the latter is polling ahead of all others in the run up to national elections. In France, Marine Le Pen is leading the polls, and in Germany, the conservatives have hinted at future cooperation at a regional level with the far-right AfD.

The legitimization of the far-right isn’t limited to member states. Ursula Von Der Leyen, a member of the EPP and EU commissioner, has alluded to Meloni’s inclusion in her grouping. She said it wasn’t clear which parties will remain in the ECR after the elections and which will leave, and “join EPP.”

Hans Kundnani, writer of a book called Eurowhiteness, said the boundaries between the ID, ECR and the EPP have always been “very fluid.”

“As soon as Meloni indicated she won’t be disruptive in the Eurozone, that she won’t be pro-Russian, centrist pro-European EPP said that’s great, we don’t mind,” Kundnani said. “The center right has no problem with far-right at all, they just have a problem with those who are Eurosceptic.”

Experts say Von Der Leyen has often backed off on key policies to appease the far-right. Just over the last few months as the farmers protested against the provisions of the green deal, the far-right found another issue to mobilize against mainstream parties. During election season, Von Der Leyen quickly conceded and granted several concessions to the agriculture sector that will affect the 2050 net zero target.

The best example of how the EU commissioner validated the far-right’s worldview, Kundnani argued, was when she created a post for an EU commissioner to promote a European way of life.

“The big theme of the European far-right is that the immigrants threaten European civilization,” he said. When Von Der Leyen created the position, she framed “immigration as a threat to the European way of life,” and in doing so legitimized the far-right.

It is unclear if co-opting the far-right’s talking points benefits the center right in keeping their traditional voters from moving towards populists, but there is an emerging consensus that it strengthens the radical right in the longer run. For its part, the far-right has moderated its own positions on many issues to appeal to the voters more to the center. The far-right parties say they are no longer calling for an exit from the EU, but merely to reform it from within. They say they back Ukraine and not Putin.

Many parties on the far-right advocate return of border controls in violation of the EU’s founding principle of free movement of people and goods. Last year, the AfD described the EU as a “failed project,’’ while Sweden Democrats said they had “good reasons to seriously reevaluate our membership in the union.” There is still a lingering suspicion that the rank-and-file members of the far-right parties harbor sympathy for Putin. Last month, Lega’s leader Matteo Salvini deflected when asked if he blamed Putin for Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s sudden death.

The parliamentarians of the ID and ECR with whom FP spoke expressly rejected Von Der Leyen’s proposal to appoint a dedicated defense commissioner to improve coordination among member states on matters of defense.

“We say that we want to manage immigration in a humane way, we can do better to manage the borders,” added Marques of the S&D. In response to the far-right’s demand to externalize the screening of asylum seekers, he said it was difficult to find credible partners. “We did this agreement with the Tunisian authorities, but when we tried to go there to check the conditions, to see how European money will be spent, they said we don’t want your agreement anymore. These have to be credible partnerships.”

The center-left S&D party simply dismisses the moderated stances of far-right parties as a charade. They believe the far-right simply wants the benefits of being in the union, not the costs that sometimes come with upholding its values. “They want an EU without the rule of law, without humanity,” Marques said. “That’s not what we built after the Second World War. They want to change the EU into something that it isn’t. Their values are not European.”

[hareofhrair]

https://www.tumblr.com/hareofhrair/749247301532499968/gonna-need-yall-to-stop-putting-biden-is-just-as

People who keep on screeching about the revolution that will occur if Biden loses and things get worse and how punishing America for "Genocide Joe" need to learn about Ernst Thalmann.

He was a communist leader who believed that the liberals of his time were an obstacle to a Communist society in Germany, and worked to allow Hitler enough votes to gain power, in the belief that Hitler would make things so bad that the people would turn to communism.

It backfired HARD, and Germany became a fascistic dictatorship, Thalmann himself was imprisoned and eventually executed, and communism DIDN'T come to Germany.

Because frankly that's exactly what these numbskulls are braying for; to commit the exact same mistake Thalmann made nearly a century ago, because they care more about punishing a society that they believe is an obstacle to their moral superiority than actually stopping a monster who will actively bring about the end of Democracy as we know it.

Yeah, accelerationism is an idiot child’s idea of politics.

But most of the nasty messages I’ve received about this post so far don’t seem to think Trump winning is a good thing— They seem to be under the bewilderingly incorrect impression that there’s some kind of third option.

That if enough people don’t vote for trump *or* biden neither will become president and the government will be forced to present better candidates? Or something?

Genuinely I can’t decide if the lack of coherent thought is evidence of the nightmarish state of education in this country, or evidence that these people are or are uncritically repeating the propaganda of actual literal Russian agents. We know, like for an actual fact with solid evidence, that they have done this before, on tumblr specifically! Have yall forgotten about the actual russian psyop in 2016 trying to convince everyone it was pointless to vote?

Either Biden or Trump *will* become president. You have exactly ONE action which can influence this decision. Neither of them are going to immediately turn around and denounce Israel. Biden will continue loudly supporting them publicly while taking only the most non confrontational action behind the scenes to try and stop the genocide, because Israel is vital to US imperialism in that part of the world and literally no action he attempted to take against them would ever amount to anything but his immediate impeachment. And Trump will not just loudly support Israel, but has already repeatedly encouraged them to “get it over with,” urging more aggressive measures to end the genocide as quickly as possible because he thinks it’s “a bad look.”

He’s also made public his plans to eliminate the entire Department of Education, erase not just protections for transgender people but federal acknowledgement of trans people at all, codifying binary gender into federal law, and his environmental and energy policies amount to, and I quote, “DRILL BABY, DRILL.” Among a host of other heinous fucking crimes against humanity. This is not conspiracy! These are his publicly stated positions!

Meanwhile, Biden has reinstated environmental policies Trump stripped and pushed for aggressive climate action, signed legislation to protect lgbt and interracial marriage, reversed the trans military ban and ensured trans people would have access to government services, passed the first meaningful gun control legislation in 30 years, signed executive orders to protect reproductive rights, pardoned all prior offenses for marijuana possession, signed an executive order to curb police violence by banning chokeholds, increasing accountability, and restricting the transfer of military gear to police.

Is it enough? Does that make him a good person? Fuck no! I’d still spit in his face if I ever met him. But to pretend there is no difference between him and Trump is blisteringly ignorant.

People in the my messages and the notes of that post have repeatedly declared I just don’t care about anyone outside my privileged class, and I gotta say evidence suggests they’re projecting hard. I’m a deeply impoverished queer disabled person living in the deep south. I know EXACTLY how much worse a Trump presidency would be. The only way someone could pretend it makes no difference is if they believe they’re secure enough that none of it would affect them, and they’re too self centered to realize not everyone is lucky enough to be in that situation.

My heart breaks for the Palestinian people every day. That sounds trite but I don’t know how else to say it. I read their posts, I share their calls for donations, a day doesn’t pass where I’m not reminded of their suffering and how utterly helpless I am to do anything about it. I wish to god there was something I could personally do that would make any kind of difference for them, but I can’t.

I am in an airplane that is falling out of the sky. I can’t stop it. I can’t save the people around me. I’m trying to put on my oxygen mask and my seatbelt, and someone is trying to slap them out of my hands and telling me I’m a selfish monster for wanting to live when other people are going to die.

I’m just tired of people telling me I should give up and die. I want to live.

[fullmetal-scar-simping]

Not only does the military governance of Amestris remain in tact post-Promised Day;

Not only do the war criminals of the Ishvalan genocide remain free from legal penalty (though of course a punitive legal system is an oppressive system in and of itself);

Not only do those same genociders get to enjoy further rank and class mobility, with one of the top genociders getting to enjoy being next in line for fuhrer;

But Amestris also doesn't become a democracy. At all. Lieutenant General Grumman snatches the seat of fuhrer in the vacuum of the coup against Bradley and now rules the nation, the political structures of the land otherwise left intact.

Don't get me wrong, becoming a democracy 1) doesn't stop a nation from being an imperialist and genocidal force (please refer to the numerous ongoing and past atrocities done by the West irl), and 2) doesn't liberate those who are under occupation (Ishval may have been *conditionally freed, but Amestris' borders have been expanding outwards from all directions to form an alchemic circle). But it's incredible how every single claim our idealistic war criminal protags hinged their redemption from being fascist boots onto absolutely did not come to fruition, yet the narrative fools the audience into accepting as having happened all the same in the epilogue.

Truly the coup of the Promised Day only really accomplished flushing out one regime in exchange for another. One that pinky-promises it won't do what its predecessors have been doing for centuries without relinquishing the borders, land, people, wealth, and resources gained in the 400 years of imperial expansionism. Sure, there won't be a nation-wide purge to create unending philosopher stones via a central homunculus, but that doesn't negate the far more mundane realities of a powerful war mongering nation state.

But please, turn your brain off and unquestioningly defend this ending as a wholly happy, progressive one. Liberation looks like a marginal shift in the status quo! Woo! 🎉

*Conditional because Miles and a military-leashed Scar are the arms of the Amestrian Military that directly oversees reconstruction of Ishval, with Mustang at the head. This is characterized as part of Amestris' reparations towards Ishval and the Ishvalan refugees, and on paper they are no longer occupying the land of Ishval, but this reeks of imperialism via soft power as opposed to direct ownership/violence.

[transmutationisms]

could you outline in more detail just how each of the siblings are attracted to fascism? i kind of get it for roman and connor but not quite for shiv & kendall

ok so, for roman and connor the connection is pretty clear because they both openly buy into the sort of hierarchical thinking that matsson and mencken bring to the table. connor has his nofap semen retention masculinity thing, and roman basically agrees with logan's dichotomy of masculine strength vs feminine weakness, but identifies himself as being in the weak category and has a sexual fixation on those he perceives as strong and dominant. also both connor and roman have tossed out some haha antisemitism moments, which goes back to their general buy-in to racial thinking and hierarchies. obviously antisemitic violence is a major strategy, tool, and goal for fascist movements. roman and connor both fixate sexually on masculinity, and although connor identifies with it in a way roman does not, they both use this strong / weak, insider / outsider thinking that makes fascism appealing to them.

with shiv i think you have to keep in mind that liberalism is not in any way opposed to fascism. fascism historically is basically an attempted solution to the internal contradictions of liberal democracies; in particular, liberalism is rhetorically egalitarian but in practice hierarchical, exclusionary, and class-divided, because it is capitalist. fascism basically says "that's fine, actually; the hierarchies are natural and biological, so they don't need to be eliminated." this is why shiv is the one to do business with matsson, who shows off his strong masculine body all episode and has a team of strapping young olympians and fulbright scholars. this type of biological-meritocratic appeal is a specific way of naturalising and justifying the class / race / gender hierarchies that liberal capitalism produces and depends on, meaning it's not discontinuous with shiv's liberal ideology at all. (note that her wealth and whiteness allow her to operate within the gender hierarchy, even as the episode shows us the ways in which she's kept from the very innermost masculine socialisation that her brothers have access to). also, her persistently thinking that poor people are dirty is, like, very classic fascist thinking lol.

kendall doesn't really have a cohesive political ideology, but he sure does think capitalism is Cool, Dude. he wants to be, like, a visionary angel investor (wearing lanvins), and he responds to matsson's stupid techno-futurist bullshit. for him fascism has a similar appeal as it does for shiv, because of the capitalism of it all, except kendall doesn't even have to detour through liberalism because he literally doesn't care. in fact, the thing that turns him off matsson's deal is that he wants to run logan's empire himself—so, he's still buying into the hierarchy and logan's concept of dominance, only he's placing himself at the top of it. kendall's not really crusading for any particular political goal because he like.... doesn't think about people besides himself. but what he wants for himself is to be the patriarch-ceo that logan was, thus replicating logan's fascism (but deluding himself into thinking his underlings just Really Like Him, Actually). his ideological vacuousness, combined with his power drive and desire for (retroactive) logan approval, mean he's drawn to fascism as a mode of capitalist governance / corporate management.

i would add that although logan's fascism comes through most directly in roman and kendall (because they don't have their own ideologies), all four sibs are operating within a capitalist political epistemology that logan('s ghost) defines. also, they all have various loganish interpersonal qualities; for example, shiv and connor share that tendency to want to Exert Their Will and Be Right, hence both of them going into politics lol.

i would also add (i'm paraphrasing césaire) that fascism was not 'new' when it arrived in europe in the early 20th century; it was already the modus operandi of colonial governance around the world. what was new was that white europeans started to experience it as directly curbing THEIR freedom. waystar is obviously a different type of empire than the nation-states of the 20th century; namely, it is a corporate entity. however, i think there's still something to be said here about the fact that waystar operates multinationally and engages in certain forms of economic imperialism and foreign political meddling. i would argue that anyone involved in upper managerial positions in the company is at the very least acceding to logics of authoritarianism and fascism in the far reaches of the empire, and more realistically is also okaying it 'domestically' (note that this reverberates all the way down to the level of the roy family unit, as it is an articulation of logan's empire).

[catsinacottage]

It’s honestly astounding to me, the level of lying and manipulating. I am seeing in the aftermath of the atrocious debate last night.

For as terrible and awful as Donald Trump is, and I’m not really gonna argue with anybody on that point like Joe Paden is asleep at the wheel. He was barely able to articulate any of his points. Obviously, the Biden ministration has accomplished some positive things, but it’s a shame that he literally can’t speak well enough to communicate those points with us.

The issue of abortion should be a slam dunk for him. That is what the Democratic Party can rely on election after election after election. He was handed a softball question and turned it into an issue of immigrants raping and killing women. Funny, I remembered in the 2016 election liberals crying about Donald Trump calling immigrants rapists and murderers but when Joe Biden does it I’m told that I’m a fascist for not wanting to vote for him.

I actually watched the real debate with RFK Junior, answering similar questions in the same time restrictions as the other two candidates, and while I have plenty of criticisms of RFK Junior as a candidate, and as a person, if he were to change his stance on the Israel Gaza genocide he would probably have my vote.

It’s actually so funny to me how people are saying that this is the election that decides whether we get to continue having a democracy or not when the primaries were all that rigged and all candidates running or not even present on my state pallet right now, the only candidates that are guaranteed at the moment are Joe Biden, and Donald Trump and the libertarian candidate, Chase Oliver. so I just think it’s really funny that in their effort to “save democracy” they haven’t truly let the peoples voice be heard and it is unknown as to what candidates are going to even be represented on the ballot three months from now for some people in this country 

[tiodolma]

Gaius and Merlin were the most powerful class traitors of magic who were complicit in the actions of their genocidal bigot bosses just because they believe in one big dumb prophecy.

Gaius taught Merlin to distrust other magic users, to not help them, to hide himself and just devote himself to the crown.

Tbf to merlin he was just 16-18 when all these just started. He was too young. He wasn’t ready. He was sent to the most dangerous place for people like him. He was impressionable. His heart was too good. He was too moldable.

He took “I will not fall into anger and rage like Morgana” too far to the point where he couldn’t even find his voice against Arthur who was still relentlessly chasing down and killing his people anymore. He put all his eggs into the biggest bigot in their universe because the magic world told him that the guy was the hottest sht. Merlin was so broken down, so brainwashed, so indoctrinated that he still continued to forgive even after years of getting dismissed, insulted, derided and abused and only shown rare bouts of kindness by his supposed best friend in the universe.

Arthur didn’t deserve any of that devotion. As king he still persecuted and treated magic folk like shit. He blamed them for their own oppression, never accepted his father’s actions as wrong, showed no remorse in arresting and killing their women and children (shut up he only made promises to a frkn ghost), refused to learn more about their ways despite having the biggest knowledge base in albion, continued to imprisoned them for existing, calling them the most disgusting slurs, using their magic techniques recklessly for himself and still called magic “evil” when they don’t work.....and then played victim when he got called out by the oppressed magic folk.

It’s such a shame that Merlin hoped and believed in his potential after everything. Merlin could never truly relate to magic folk after all. The only people left alive who truly loved him made sure of that. His mother raised him to fear and hide himself. His mentor taught him how to be the judge and be the arbiter of life and death not only over the kingdom but also the magic folk. He was overworked and pressured to the point that he had no free time for himself. He was supposed to be the strongest warlock but he only had enough time to receive education from the dude who hasnt practiced sorcery for 20 years when he should have beenseeking out other magic users and learning from them. His life was constantly dictated by the big magic institutions who never give him the tools to actually start their liberation, only empty promises.

Merlin’s sense of self died gradually throughout the span of the whole series every time he lost a loved one and every time Gaius/Kilgharrah/Hunith asked him to forget himself and serve the crown. The kid who wanted to be seen and recognized for his talent, kindness and potential turned into a biggest self-sacrificing royalist who truly believed that his life was valued lesser than a king.

It’s a monarchist story. It’s a divine right of kings story. It’s a fascist story. It’s an anti-radicalism story, it’s a defender-of-the-status-quo story.

It is NOT a story of acceptance, of positive change, of equality, of democracy.

I thought we learned from Diogenes for fuck’s sake.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Rachel Leingang at The Guardian:

The posts are ominous. “Pick a side, or YOU are next,” wrote conservative talkshow host Dan Bongino on the Truth Social media platform in the aftermath of former president Donald Trump’s 34 felony convictions. The replies were even more so. “Dan, seriously now,” one user wrote in response to Bongino. “I see no way out of all this mess without bloodshed. When you can rig an election, then weaponize the government and the courts against a former President, what other alternative is there? I’m almost 70 and would rather die than live in tyranny.”

That’s a common version of how many people on the US right reacted to the Trump verdict, drawing on a “mirror world” where Trump is seen as the selfless martyr to powerful state forces and Joe Biden is the dangerous autocrat wielding the justice system as his own personal plaything and a threat to American democracy. Calls for revenge, retribution and violence littered the rightwing internet as soon as Trump’s guilty verdict came down, all predicated on the idea that the trial had been a sham designed to interfere with the 2024 election. Some posted online explicitly saying it was time for hangings, executions and civil wars. In this case, Trump was charged with falsifying documents related to a hush-money payment made to an adult film actor to keep an alleged affair out of the spotlight during the 2016 election – a form of election interference from a man whose platform lately consists largely of blaming others for election interference. The verdict has been followed by a backlash from his followers, those who for years chanted to lock up Trump’s political opponents, like Hillary Clinton.

On the left, the mood was downright celebratory, a brief interlude of joy that Trump might finally be held accountable for his actions. But there was an undercurrent of worry among some liberals, who saw the way these felonies could galvanize support for the former president. On the right, in the alternate reality created by and for Trump and his supporters, the convictions are a sign of both doom and dogma – evidence that a corrupt faction runs the Joe Biden government, but that it can be driven out by the Trump faithful like themselves. Trump’s allies in Congress want to use the federal government’s coffers to send a message to Biden that the verdict crosses a line, saying the jury’s decision “turned our judicial system into a political cudgel”. Some Senate Republicans vowed not to cooperate with Democratic priorities or nominees – effectively politicizing the government as recompense for what they claim is a politicization of the courts.

They echoed a claim Trump himself has repeatedly driven home to his followers: that his political opponents, namely Biden, are a threat to democracy, a rebrand of how Biden and Democrats often cast Trump. For his most ardent followers, the stakes of the 2024 election are existential, the idea that he might lose a cause for intense rhetoric and threats. And, for some, the convictions provide another reason to take matters into their own hands during a time when support for using violence to achieve political goals is on the rise. Indictments against Trump fueled this support, surveys have shown. Some rightwing media and commentators, like Bongino and the Gateway Pundit, displayed upside-down flags on social media, a sign of distress and a symbol among Trump supporters that recently made the news because one flew at US supreme court justice Samuel Alito’s home after the insurrection.

The terms “banana republic” and “kangaroo court” flew around, as did memes comparing Biden to Nazi or fascist leaders. Telegram channels lit up with posts about how the end of America was solidified – unless Trump wins again in November.

“If we jail Trump, get rid of Maga, end the electoral college, ban voter ID, censor free speech, we’ll save democracy,” says one meme in a QAnon channel on Telegram that depicts Biden in a Nazi uniform with a Hitler mustache. Tucker Carlson, the rightwing media heavyweight, waxed apocalyptic: “Import the third world, become the third world. That’s what we just saw. This won’t stop Trump. He’ll win the election if he’s not killed first. But it does mark the end of the fairest justice system in the world. Anyone who defends this verdict is a danger to you and your family.” The former president’s supporters also opened their wallets, sending a “record-shattering” $34.8m in small-dollar donations to Trump’s campaign on Thursday, the Trump campaign claimed. The massive haul came after Trump declared himself a “political prisoner” (he is not in prison) and declared justice “dead” in the US in a dire fundraising pitch. “Their sick & twisted goal is simple: Pervert the justice system against me so much, that proud supporters like YOU will SPIT when you hear my name,” Trump’s campaign wrote. “BUT THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN! NOW IT’S TIME FOR ME & YOU TO SHOVE IT BACK IN THEIR CORRUPT FACES!”

Right-wing MAGA nuts reacting as you expect to Donald Trump’s conviction: anger and fear that he is finally being held accountable.

[arcticdementor]

There are lots of ways of defining the liberal elite — assistant deans, network anchors, public health officials and, yes, legacy newspaper journalists — but there can be no question that Tuesday night saw a wholesale rejection of their dominant value system. America didn’t just elect a craven candidate whom the highly educated had deemed unacceptably dictatorial, fascistic even, but the nation did so in such a way that President-elect Donald J. Trump’s agenda now will largely be unfettered, thanks to Republican majorities in the Senate and, quite possibly as we write, the House. And, adding insult to injury for Democrats, it’s likely that the result of the election also will deliver Trump from his myriad legal challenges. The party that had been saying democracy was on the ballot found that democracy had risen like an orange tiger to bite it in the neck.

…

As a bleary America awoke Wednesday to a new political reality, armchair quarterbacking as to why Harris and Tim Walz lost was already underway. We have our theories too. Harris, as we noted here many times, failed to answer, in a clear and direct way, questions about what she would do as president, an essential thing to do if you want voters to be able see you in the job. The problem to our minds was not just that her handlers kept her removed from tough questions, but also that her answers were inadequately coherent when she finally emerged from the shadows. Trump, palpable flaws and all, was known; Harris remained unknown. The gauzy biographical movies from the Democratic National Convention were not enough.

…

Then there’s the matter of whether Democrats should have treated Trump as if he were a Nazi dictator. Harris explicitly told CNN host Anderson Cooper she was running against a fascist, thus inevitably implying that his supporters either were sheep-like fools or fascists themselves. That meant left-leaning commentators had to turn themselves into pretzels Wednesday trying to explain the logic of how Harris should now quietly concede to a man she had called, and presumably believed, was a fascist. Whenever Democrats used terms such as “normalizing” and “sane-washing,” evidence suggests they mostly served to embolden the opposition because Trump supporters saw the terms as being applied to themselves. And they hardly were wrong. Half of America sees the other half as fools.

…

The Republican Party has become a party not of business and nonprofit leaders, now mostly Democratic Party members, but of the working class and the lower middle class. Elites throughout history have found to their cost that there are very many of those folks, even if we don’t hear from them all that much. By effectively abandoning the working class, especially men, by deeming so much of what they felt unacceptable, Democrats got themselves on the wrong side of the numbers game. A plethora of Americans saw Trump, who survived two assassination attempts during the campaign, as their protector and not as the disruptor the elites saw. And regular folks tend to vote what they perceive to be in their economic or cultural interest, regardless of race. This is a tough lesson for Democrats to learn because they tend to have been taught otherwise, but it explains, especially, the pivotal defection of some Black men to Trump just as it makes the point that many U.S. citizens of Latino origin or descent don’t necessarily approve of a border that is easy to cross without authorization. And they voted accordingly. Take, for example, the decision by many voters of Puerto Rican descent to ignore the insults hurled their way by the appalling comedian at Trump’s New York rally. Democrats had pushed the narrative that those aggrieved voters would move the needle, especially in crucial Allentown, Pennsylvania, because they thought racial identity would trump all. But they failed to see the condescension inherent in the belief that those voters would care more about a comic than their own economic worries when it came to paying their bills and helping their children find jobs. Now, thanks to the toughest of nights, Democrats better understand.