The whole thing is best thought about in terms of family resemblance imo. There are differing concepts of "fascism", but the Eco piece, for one, establishes that they share a family resemblance. So it doesn't much matter, or it shouldn't, that someone defining "fascism" in such-and-such a way doesn't consider Trump a fascist. They surely have to concede that whatever he is, he bears the strongest family resemblance to a "fascist" of any POTUS candidate since Wallace. Maybe the strongest ever, discounting fringey third-party types.

It's a semantics debate sure, but hardly pointless. Political propaganda is a subset of advertising. With advertising that consists solely of words, like the OP, semantics is all there is. Period. Your 'Madman' types spend all day long worrying about semantics like this. Their bosses don't consider this debate 'pointless'... they consider it getting the job done right.

Like I said, as advertising, the Communism==fascism sidebar is a poor choice. It's like if you wanted to propagate going back to the moon. A slogan of "The Moon is made of green cheese; Let's go back to the moon !!!1!" is a poor choice. It's a poor choice even if you fervently believe that the moon is indeed made of green cheese.

It would be an especially poor choice to assert the "green cheese" equivalency under a lengthy quote which explicitly states the moon is not made of green cheese.

Second, if you're a member of team #Anti-Trump, "Right-Washing" D.Trump is a terrible strategy. You wanna paint that fool with the conservative brush all-day everyday. Likewise, if you're a member of general team #Librulz, you wanna paint the historical fascist regimes with the conservative brush too. That last thing you'd want to do is "Right-Wash" the regimes of B.Mussolini, F.Franco, etc.

FYP

The only problem with the post is:

1. Trump is not a facist
2. Trump is not anti-Semitic
3. Trump is not a war monger.
4. Nationalist

For a little evidence.

1. He wants to balance the budget and cut government spending. A facist government wants to take control of society increase government spending and do things like have your wear school uniforms, free school, and forgive student debt. He wants to eliminate laws to give the little guy a chance to get stuff done.

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHmINZRwiZU
Watch that speech at AIPAC, he is pro Israel and his grandson will be 1/2 jew, not too shabby.

3. This is the biggest joke of all. He goes around wanting to make friends with Russia and Putin. He has no interest in war be it Vietnam or Iraq. He probably wishes we were completely out of the middle east. However he is not dumb enough to say he would never use nuclear weapons if someone used one on us. He said he believes he is the least likely to use a nuclear weapon out of all the republican candidates.

4. He goes all around the world and has golf courses and Hotels worldwide. He knows people world wide ad many of his clients are foreigners.

=====

This post reminds me of some of those books you read where the entire book is complete B.S.. Like UFOs. Then the guy goes on talk shows and debates. Then five years later writes another book on UFOs. But in the end UFOs are b.s. and the guy just wasted his life.

Why. Facts are facts and there are none in his post.

What is facism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUcYU95kCAI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce7-zRjXrD0

In the 2nd example you see social democrat is the closest to a facist. If you consider our elections flawed the democratic party is more of a facist party.

Trump is so great the facists can't handle it. The ivy league professor is the new dictator of the USA.

I mean sure, this would be fine...except for the mountains and mountains of evidence that you are wrong:
https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughTrump...hy_trump_is_a/

This. Thread is kind of pointless, seeking to establish whether Trump is in a category that doesn't have a firm definition. The correct question is whether Trump is the most fascist presidential candidate of the last 50 years, in that regard the collection of links off reddit speaks for itself.

Coincidentally, Trump supporters are now referring to him as "God Emperor"

But don't worry, it's semi tongue-in-cheek. Right?

I wonder if it's just a tongue in cheek election title given to him, or would Trump supporters keep calling him that in their daily lives after he won (and not because Trump made it law)? Conservatives want their own Ayatollah Khomeini?

Trump will give anyone that gives effort an interview. Rachel Maddow, Stephanopolis, Colbert, Maher, and other collectivists ... He even gives people making a documentary against him an interview. He is not a coward. A nazi would do none of that and hang with celebrities. You can twist anything to make the democratic party look like Nazis and Trump to look like an Ayn Rand libertarian. Which is actually closer to the truth than the later. The more I think of it, the Kahn response fits in perfectly with Rand. It is un-american to sacrifice yourself to the state!

The democratic party is a political machine with all the major networks controlled by the party. They don't have to send you to concentration camps as long as they give you 1 months vacation, and control your boss, and the jobs, you may have the illusion you are free, but you are not. Drink up that's all you got to look forward to in the democratic party. The geeks Maher, Colbert, Meyers, Oliver, Noah .. should just have a sausage fest and leave the rest of us alone.

There is a billion people that would like to move to USA. Somehow Trump saying no makes him a racist. That is basically his position to enforce the existing laws on the books and that makes him a racist. Keep out the terrorists.

Trump wants to be a capitalist hero not a nazi.

Unlike Clinton who had to tell you he had to suck someone and have 3 deferments to get out of Vietnam or Bush saying he was in school, Trump just tells you the truth he did not agree with the war and he found a way to get out of it written by laws of others so he did not go. Who is the more moral man the liar or the truth teller. If anyone is going to close those loopholes it will be Trump and he may even end education as an excuse as he knows it is not fair to the poor.

Steelhouse,

What Ayn Rand do you recommend?

His aim of deporting 11 million people of Mexican descent would make the USA guilty of the biggest act of ethnic cleansing in human history. That's why Trump is a racist.

His "policy" of refusing entry on grounds of religion and holding details of all Muslims in a database are what makes him a totalitarian.

Seems like your libertarian "ideals" only apply to white people.

14 million Germans expelled from Eastern Europe after WWII

In 1971 Pakistan killed 3 million Bangali, expelled 10 million and internally displaced 30 million.

They are not suppose to be here. They hopped the wall and like Obama has done he is moving them back. He has already gone light on this. But, it is not ethnic cleansing as when they return to Mexico they can work there. Ethnic cleansing means you kill them. He is telling the law breakers to go back to to beautiful Mexico or wherever. Obama is unfit to do the job he was paid to do and should have been impeached long ago.

As for Muslims he said he wants to have a safe zone in Syria. The United States does not need to accept 100 million people because they overpopulated their country and want to move here.

In the end, the United States will run out of food. Then the civil wars begin within this country. The natural state of man is 1/2 person per square mile. We now are pressing the land for more and more people. Before the wars start it will be whomever has the most kids wins. Seems to be Muslims and mormons. I does not really matter to me as I will be long gone.

Maybe it is time for the whole world to have open borders. But, they should only do that if they make 25% of all land ecosystems parks.

The whole idea of war is that one group of people go to war to move on the land of another people. Today people move into the country and it is the current residents that are evil for not giving them the land and food and clothes to live here. I would much rather if they come they don't work as it will put a burden on government paychecks, when Obama does not get to play golf action will be taken. Politicians don't care they probably make more money with immigration as it is just more people funding their vacation and pension checks. But for the little guy, we feel the pressure. Despite all the solar installed in the last 10 years, it is not enough energy to make up for the increased population.

"Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic or religious groups from a given territory" (wiki). Nothing about killing there. Maybe you're confusing it with genocide.


"The natural state of man is 1/2 person per square mile"

It always puzzles me when people talk about what's "natural" for humans (whether it's food or living conditions), considering how quickly we've evolved from primates to city dwellers.

There's no "natural state of man" to have 1/2 a square mile: people have lived and thrived for thousands of years in a wide variety of conditions from high to low population density. It's like saying there's a natural climate for humans that's from 15C to 25C 24/7 all year round. How many of the earth's square miles meet that condition?

Steel, how many wars have met the bolded criteria? For hundreds of years countries have been waging wars for religious/political/economic reasons with little or no intention to settle an attacked land.

jalfrezi,

Eastern Europe isn't a country, so USA under POTUS Trump will be only the second largest national instance of ethnic cleansing ever, if that makes you feel better. I doubt the displaced Mexicans and monitored or excluded Muslims will care about that.

How can it be ethnic cleansing when the population of the ethnic group is rising in population. In California the majority is now Hispanic. It is not systematically removing ethnic groups it is removing immigrants or lawbreakers.

If what you are saying is true then it should be perfectly fine to go into Syria and take 75% of the land mass and use it to help refugees. Say a state has 1 million people in it, should it be ok for 20 million immigrants to move level all the land where endangered species live and build farms and houses?

Suppose you have a country where you have an average of 1 person per acre. Then you increase that to 2 persons per acre, will it not have effect on water quality, air quality, and wildlife.

You are creating a system whomever has the most kids wins. Sooner or later one group must say I don't want to be taken over and then the fight begins.

In summary, is it just an invasion? What if aliens from another planet decided to come here, and take the land and send you to live in Los Angeles.

Why can't the United States go into the middle east and tell everyone in each country to move to a small 1 square mile area and then use the remaining 99% of the land for new U.S. states?

Trump is the only one in the race with enough intelligence to understand the problem. Someone like McCain used the taxpayers money to enrich himself, the more immigrants the richer he gets. Where would Obama be without the taxpayers dime?

no.

Their population won't have risen once your man Trump has forcibly deported 11 million of them (not that it's logistically possible anyway, but still).

Less than 40% are Hispanic. Why does it matter anyway? Population demographics change over time everywhere. Migration is good for the human race because it promotes genetic resistance to diseases etc, apart from enriching countries culturally. Look at what happened when Cortes went to (ironically) Mexico and unknowingly took the smallpox virus with him.

It is removing only those immigrants or law breakers who are of Mexican origin, so he clearly is targetting an ethnic group.

Bump because all the links in the OP are broken.

https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughTrump...hy_trump_is_a/

Hitler's Persuasive Method
https://owlcation.com/humanities/Ado...uasive-Ability

The GOP Created the “Rigged Vote” Myth
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...vote_myth.html