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Stephen Robinson's avatar

What’s even worse is that most of these fascist naysayers won’t admit that America was a fascist state in the Jim Crow South and even longer for women who couldn’t open their own bank accounts.

America has functioned very much like an apartheid state where the marginalized are oppressed within the a superficial veneer of a democracy. If a German leader announced that they were going to restore the nation to its 1930 glories, it would rightly register as a “holy shit” moment. But here, appeals to 1950s “nostalgia" are brushed off as harmless.

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Noah Berlatsky's avatar

Yes; Dan Bessner and friends specifically argue that fascism isn't applicable in the US because it's a European phenomenon, completely ignoring Jim Crow and the long Black discussion (dating back to WWII at least!) of the way that Jim Crow is itself fascist. It's very frustrating, and seems willfully blind.

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Joanne's avatar

Yes!!

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Steward Beckham's avatar

It could be a mix of not wanting to be wrong while people one perceives as intellectually inferior are right. I also believe it could be part of a denial of the country's true face after a lifetime of thinking it is one thing or has made more progress than steps backward. The American story's dark side is causing many people to recoil in disbelief or denial because their public arguments and intrinsic sense of self were connected to a Disneyfied version of America, even as an intellectual...

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The_Shadout_Mapes's avatar

He’s not fascist because you can say he’s fascist is like an ouroboros - people swallowing their own tails in circular arguments. Meanwhile, snakes are swallowing them whole while they are distracted.

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Robert Spottswood, M.A.'s avatar

An excellent primer in sound logic applied to current political discourse.

Maybe Robin is projecting some logic he grew up with, or something.

Thanks for this!

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