Let's Call Trumpism what it is - American Fascism.

But you're going around in circles. The success of Trump reflects the extreme centrists. If it wasn't for the likes of Clinton, Trump would never have gained power.

It annoys me that the Dems can't take responsibility for their failure. By setting up the party to only pretend progressive politics, as illustrated by its cosy part in further enabling wealth inequalities, it guarantees populism. It then tries to use that to suggest an automatic need to be right wing for electoral reasons. Their dance of the illogical bourgeoisie out-prances any right wing twerk. At least the right wingers are honest.

Here the same guff in the UK. I don't buy it. We aren't actually talking about anything left wing here. We are talking about rejection of right wing economics. And we have seen collapse in centrist vote across Europe too. People turn to populism as they've had enough of the careerists peddling snakeoil

 

I think you nailed it.

 

It's not clear to me who you think the "extreme centrists" are. There are many (educated) Democrats who are committed Neoliberals, but few of them voted for Trump in '16, and those that did, did so for a very non-centrist reason - they wanted to rattle the staus quo and try a radically different kind of leadership. I think it's fair to say that Trump's support from this group was negligible, in this election.

I don't you think you understand the American electorate. The rich and educated vote in their economic self-interest, whether times are good or bad. Everyone else votes on the basis of culture and identity and other intangibles.

If Clinton had not run as a centrist, H.W. Bush would have won. In that case, the Dems would have been driven even further to the right. In that case it's probably true that Trump never would have become president, because his arrival at the WH was a highly contingent, path-dependent sort of historical event. But that's not to say that America would be better off, today. Given Trump's success, America would have been all the more vulnerable to a truly talented Demagogue...

This reminds me of the Republicans who claim that they "had" to vote for Trump "because Hillary was so bad." It's nonsense. Those people would never in a million years have voted for Bernie Sanders. Left-populism never had a better opportunity than it had with Sanders in '16, but it wasn't enough. Sanders probably got as much traction as he did, because of Trump.

Left-populism in the United States would require the preternatural political talent needed to shift the Overton window in America on taxation and big government. Obama had the charisma, but he crucially lacked the killer instinct necessary to run against that good half + of the electorate that feared they had too much to lose with any big changes. The default center-right character of the American electorate (combined with the structural advantages the system affords the GOP) enables the Republicans to act with impunity, in ways the Democrats simply can't. Again, absent a Depression-level crisis, the only thing that could change this dynamic would be a quality of Dem leadership that would stand a couple of rightward standard deviations from the mean.

The whole "snake oil" conceit is and always has been a substitute for critical thinking about politics. It's a lazy way for uninformed voters to adopt an "above politics" posture. It's these voters who are the most susceptible to demagogues like Trump. It's a sad fact, and a crying irony: Conservatives are able to sell low-info voters on cultural grievances, and get them to vote repeatedly against their own interests. Then Conservatives administer gov't with a mixture of self-dealing and incompetence, but since they are the party that is "against government," they reap the benefit of electoral anger! The whole Trump phenomenon was this whole play all over again, taking it from 1.0 to 3.0. And the fact that he got as close as he did this last election, demonstrates how stupid the electorate in general is. Trump even made blithe progressive-populist noises in the '16 campaign ("We're gonna take care of everybody"), did the exact reverse in his four years in power, and ended up getting more votes this year than he did four years ago! It's time to wake up and realize that just because Left-populist policies survey well, that doesn't mean that people are about to actually vote for the politicians that will pursue such an agenda in the concrete. It will probably take the crisis getting more acute before it comes to that... and things getting worse are much more liable to help the next Conservative populist demagogue.

 

Strange, given I've been quite clear. What you class as centrists are in fact supporters of right wing economics. They have zero common ground with progressives. The idea that the Dems are a broad church, which encompasses a centre ground, is a myth. There are some progressives (naïve ones if you ask me) within their ranks. However, it is run by neoliberals and therefore it is right wing. When you have zero real choice, mind you, populism increases in its attraction.

You seem to think there is something special about the US electorate. There isn't. They have the exact same problems as any other developed country. Indeed, the lost votes for the centrist parties across Europe merely confirms the same reaction to neoliberalism.

Sounds like you have your head in the sand. The idea that there must be consensus politics is a corruption of the median voter model. It of course makes no sense with the Dem-Repub sham, as both parties are in the pockets of the corporations. Its therefore actually more consistent with influence costs within the context of rentier capitalism.

Same ole, same ole. You're merely trying to justify Dem uselessness. We already know that gave us Trump. And I'm sure that Biden- when he fails to do anything but continue rentier capitalism- will merely further embolden the fascists.

This builds from an error. Left populism is actually, relatively speaking, rare. Populism uses fear to engineer a 'us-them' narrative to generate a morality platform immune to evidence. Right wing populism is a threat because of psychological concepts such as the authoritarian personality (which naturally deals in binary polemics). The Dems just have to take responsibilility for allowing it to go into hyperdrive. By offering no genuine choice, and treating working people as they are nothing but vote slaves, they have been guilty of giving populists centre stage. After continuing fibbing about their intentions, are you surprised folk become desensitised and willing to embrace post-truth society?

I've seen no evidence of critical thinking in your response. For example, I referred to how the Dems have further enabled wealth inequalities. Perhaps you'd like to critique that? Good luck!

There is nothing more uninformed than the 'extreme centrists' in the Dems and Labour Parties. Crikey, they don't even know that they're really right wingers. Ignorant of economic reality, they push a morality platform built only on belittling the common man. Only feeding the pockets of corporations, they're either disingenuous or determined to make Trump look cunning!

 

Neoliberalism is not necessarily right-wing. It seeks the gains of economic efficiency, the increased convenience & choice of such gains; but questions of what are to be done with the wealth reaped from greater productivity is where liberals and conservatives divide. Educated (and so wealthier) liberals are in general open to higher taxation and distribution. Maybe you think that still qualifies them as supporters of right-wing economics. But that is not an objective assessment, but a matter of a difference in cultural attitudes.

In the end we're talking democracy here, and I refuse to blame the Democrats for the fickleness and ignorance of the electorate. Democrats put up a quite left-wing agenda in 1972 and 1984, and both times it was absolutely crushed by voters. Populism is always more about heat than light, always more about what it is against than what it is for. That's the only thing that could explain the utter incoherence of a populist-driven candidacy like Trump's resulting in ever-greater wins for the careerists.

Actually, that the US is not exceptional in this regard only gives my point more relevance and general applicability. Populism is a congenitally conservative force, not Progressive at all.

I don't understand this mumbo-jumbo. It sounds like you're arguing against the free market as such. The only alternative to that is Authoritarian socialism; which, needless to say, has been tried. The United States does not want to got the way of Venezuela.

Democrats have been useless, but yes for justifiable reasons. And unless the Democrats show some uncommonly high degree of political acumen in the next 4 years, Fascism in America will again be on the march.

- ?? You are right about the nature of populism, but I have laid out in detail already why in most possible worlds, your average Dem leadership could not have done better.

People are willing to embrace a post-truth society, because they have never bothered to truly punish Republicans for their lies & incompetence. The Democrats, again, were rejected by their blue-collar voters first and then they shifted gears towards greater support for Neoliberalism. I reject the tired populist trope of the "uniparty" that is in the pocket of big business. In the end the voters are responsible for this. It's a democracy.

The Republicans since the Gingrich have made legislative Blockade their entire governing policy. When a Democrat is in the WH, if the GOP has just one House of Congress they can block everything the Dems want to do. The Democrats have a long list of items that they would act on if they could, but the Blockade prevents action from being taken on anything. They need united gov't to act at all, and even then they have to overcome the filibuster; GOP abuse of the filibuster has led to a situation where the Dems need a supermajority in the Senate to pass anything. The GOP has enjoyed united gov't 3X as long this century as the Dems have; when the Dems did have it, they had to use up half their political capital dealing with the economic crisis, and the rest of it getting a national health insurance plan passed. For their trouble the Dems were then kicked out of Congress! The Dems have for a long time had a quite liberal agenda of items to act on, they just haven't had united gov't to implement it. It would be much better in this regard if the US had a parliamentary system, but we don't.

This comment just demonstrates - in spades - how conservatives have mastered the terms of political debate. Conservatives are almost exclusively to blame for our current crisis, but they are quite able to shift blame for it to the Dems, and all the sheep in the electorate just bleet in unison and vote again for the Wolf.

 

This may be your opinion. - very bigoted opinion. - but it is an opinion you cannot in any way soundlty support.

 

This is not credible. Neoliberalism is a market fundamentalist approach which fed off right wing thought (derived from two sources: the Chicago School and Austrian Economics). It is, by definition, right wing. For example, it is the key reason why there have been concerted efforts to reduce union power. It comes down to very simple concepts, such as supply side economics (trickle down) and the belief that labour market flexibility will increase economic activity by allowing deterioration in economic inequalities.

You could refer to classical liberalism and how, for example, Adam Smith was egalitarian. However, that's naff all to do with neoliberalism. While Smith mentioned the invisible hand once, the neoliberals peddle that guff constantly. They do that just to push a "no choice" viewpoint over economic relations.

Anyone who didn't vote for the Dem's rentier capitalism can justify their stance. Can we say that about the 'extreme centrists' ? We know that they are peddling economic inefficiency (e.g. structural flaws, generated by deindustrialisation, that ensures too much focus on the finance sector). We also know that they have made things worse, as shown by the increase in economic inequity. We also know that voters are turned off by their morality-based fibbing. None of that reality is high up in the critical thinking charts!

Conservatism is a nothing concept in economics. It just means higher weighting for losses over gains. We do know that populism, despite what you previously stated, is peddled by the right wing. But we also know that countries which offer no genuine choice are often at the forefront. You seriously think the Dems, feeding at the corporate trough, give two hoots about the working man?

Tut tut! You cheer critical thinking; then, when I refer to well known concepts in public choice theory, you call it mumbo-jumbo. Further, you give cliché about Venezuela and show innocence of socialism on a par with the worst victim of McCarthyism. Sounds like you don't actually have much experience of progressive politics.

More circles! Its the Dems that enabled fascism. Its also the Dems, when Biden's corporatism fails, which will make it unstoppable.

Why didn't they, say, reduce wealth inequality? Why didn't they, say, increase social mobility? Why didn't they, say, ensure growth in self employment?

They sat on their hands and just took the corporate bungs. And we wonder why people have had enough?

There's no real democracy with two parties playing pretend. You'd have thought the Dems, following their part in creating Trump, would wake up. If anything, they're even more arrogant in their attitudes.

So you're blaming the Republicans for every recent Dem failure to reduce income inequality? Crikey, its as if you think your vote doesn't matter

Tosh! Its just a statement of the bleedin obvious. The Dems, by merely embracing rentier capitalism, have no common ground with real progressive politics. And, as they continue to sit on their hands, I will certainly blame them for the next American fascist.

 

As a liberal who voted for Obama, your post makes no sense.

 

Though it is free market in its conception, Neoliberalism is not monolithic in its implementation. There are two basic sides, here: increasing productivity, and then deciding what to do with the increased aggregate wealth that results. A liberal Neoliberalism would make accommodation for increased productivity (e.g. pushing against protectionism and unions), while attempting to tailor regulation intelligently (e.g. strict rules on who can serve as a lobbyist and particularly who can can serve in government, to prevent industry-capture, negotiating international climate regs, etc), and finally implementing investment-driven redistribution programs (particularly when it comes to public health), up to and possibly including a guaranteed minimum income (that's the kind of "rentier capitalism" that liberals support).

A liberal Neoliberalism would also involve much more robust regulation of the finance sector.

I think that they do, in spite of the fact that the working man has abandoned the party for the ideological confections of conservative populism. The problem is that they have had very limited success against conservative policymaking (and particularly conservative rhetoric) during the last two generations.

The problem with progressive politics, at least in my lifetime, is that it is predicated on the antisolidarity ideological confections of identity politics. These people are too busy correcting one another's ideological grammar to get organized. Occupy Wall Street is the archetype of the problem.

Fascism, as I have stated in the OP, is a very popular form of electoral politics. Every liberal democracy has to contend with its own 5th Column Authoritarians. Though America's multiethnic democracy and traditions of civic nationalism might present a kind of bulwark against invidious nationalism and Fascism that European countries don't have, populist energies nonetheless have concentrated on the right in the last half-century or so, and become a potent political force. Liberals and Democrats have always been on the back-foot against them - not least because Democrats do not vote in the reliable way that Conservatives do. Once again, the problem is with the electorate, not the Democratic party.

Because we do not have a parliamentary system - we need to win three separate rounds of elections, not just one, in order to effect such changes. Don't forget also that conservatives have permanent structural advantages, regards this - both our electoral college, the composition of the Senate, voter suppression in the last two decades, and gerrymandering (particularly in the last decade).

"The people" are as clueless about the cynical and comprehensive nature of Republican obstruction, as you evidently are. But they don't have the excuse of not living in the US.

What can I say - your attitude is probably, by far, the single broadest and most common sentiment amongst the American public, when it comes to our politics. It's strange, everyone conforms to this belief, somehow imagining that they're the only ones that "get it." And yet like clockwork they keep voting in conservatives, who are by far the worst offenders. The electorate's to blame for the government they choose, but they are doggedly resistant to taking responsibility - as you also reflect in your attitudes.

That's right, I blame the Republicans. I have my wits about me (and awareness of what has actually gone on) enough not to indulge a cheap moral equivalence, when it comes to the parties. No, the Democrats are not angels. But if even half of the 21st agenda of the Democrats had been implemented, Trump could never have gotten a foothold. But the structural advantages conservatives have in our system of elections - together with the fact that the average voter defaults to the conservatives - has produced our crisis. It really is that simple.

Democrats are interested in Welfare-State Capitalism. Maybe that's too far to the right, for you; if so, it's true it's not especially compatible with 'progressive politics.' But what I have outlined above is what the Democrats could do if they had the mandate of united gov't that voters seem to routinely give Republicans. And that is plenty progressive, by my lights.

 

Sorry, but this just won't fly. Neoliberalism is engineered by right wing economic schools of thought. It was originally implemented by right wing parties. It led to both destruction of worker rights and Dickensian inequality.

Liberals should not support rentier capitalism. It is, by definition, to the detriment of the working man. It is necessarily supportive of big business. The clue is in the title. Rent is, after all, inefficient profit. It is a reference to profiteering.

How did that go then? Perhaps refer me to the myriad of regulations proposed, and introduced, by Dems? Why do they play weasel words? (e.g. Clinton failing to embrace the Tobin Tax, preferring instead some vague bobbins about risk fees).

So they care, despite failing miserably to do anything about the lack of social mobility? Sounds like you just think they're unfit for purpose.

The problem with 'extreme centrists' is that they have no principles. That ensures solidarity is beyond their comprehension.

You're not saying anything more here. You're just avoiding the Dems part in enabling right wing populism.

Red herring! The Labour Party, of the exact same ilk as the Dems, also failed to secure positive change. Indeed, Tony Blair ensured greater deindustrialisation than Thatcher. Its really not difficult: the Dems aren't pursuing the policies required. Imagine how the corporations would react? Golly gosh...

Its always some other mugs fault isn't it? As I said, there is nothing worse than Dem arrogance. They will blame all and sundry, rather than acknowledge that they are as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike.

I just have that horrid business of evidence on my side. Has neoliberalism infected centrist parties? Indeed. Has it led to massive reduction in votes right across the developed world? Certainly. Have the worst offenders also suffered a right wing populist backlash? Yep.

Then please don't moan about fascism. Folk who just blame the republicans, ignoring the huge part of the rent-loving Dems, are ultimately also fascism enablers.

All capitalist countries rely on welfare states. Crikey, even the Marxists acknowledge that through the internal contradiction analysis. You're essentially saying nothing. You have outlined to me only one thing: don't expect the Dems to change; they'll continue to deliver naff all.

 

1) No, science. Gender dysphoria is a SYMPTOM of untreated mental illness.

2) You mean I hit one. You folk hate to have that nasty little obsession pointed out.

3) Find another hobby. There are no racist 'structures', there are only racist individuals. Want to make the world better? Don't be one of those individuals. Stop 'caring' about race. Stop thinking about it. If you're fatally obsessed with rescuing brown people, the best thing you can do is learn enough respect to accept that they don't need rescuing.

 

Are you a mental health professional? You are in no position to make that kind of judgment; the fact that you are spouting it does, however, telegraph your prejudices. It gives me more information about you than it does anything else.

Nah. You're unnerved that your prejudices are being reflected back at you so clearly, so your response is "I'm rubber you're glue." It's the playground, something you have never got past, apparently. You're not alone, it is a typical response of people with your worldview.

Yeah well, that is a matter of vigorous debate at the moment. That you are so defensive about the matter, so keen to short-circuit the debate, again gives me more information about how you wish things were, than how they actually are. In general, the conservative psyche doesn't have much capacity for dealing with complexity in the social world.

"See no evil, hear no evil." Good way to live your life, if you want to remain blissfully ignorant.

 

1) Yes

2) What prejudices are they? Spell it out, don't be shy.

3) What do conservatives have to do with this? Meantime, yes please .. I love to short-circuit white knights. Wouldn't mind short-circuiting the 'complexity' as an argument against effort BS, while I'm at it.

4) I'm asking you to stop infantalising brown people. Your power to change anything starts and ends with you. Racism is now strictly an individual problem, and you have one individual to worry about - yourself. If you're not doing anything racist (like infantalising brown people, and thinking you need to save them), then your job is done. White superiority is revealed in the overreach.

 

Hooboy. You're one of those, just great. I think I have your number. I don't have anything to add...

 

What, someone who doesn't care for racism? Well, you got me. The gig is up!

 

As the transition finally goes forward, & Trump's attempts to stall the certification of, if not even overturn, state election results, collapses into smoldering ash, it is a good time to acknowledge the beneficial effect the news media has had in keeping a light on these machinations. Without a free press, I'm sure this would have taken a different course. As our nation's founders believed: a free press is essential for democracy. So hip-hip, hoo-- wait! No time to celebrate. Lots more evil, underway. So I hope,
both we and they
stay tuned.

 

Yeah, nothing spells authoritarian tendencies than inspiring a mob to attack the capital.

Yeah, nothing spells authoritarian tendencies like 'the press is the enemy of the people'.

Yeah, nothing spells authoritarian tendencies like a presidential candidate, during a debate, telling his opponent 'if I am in charge, you will be in jail'.

Nothing spells authoritarian than Trump declaring 'when you go after these guys, you have to take out their families'.

Nothing spells authoritarianism than "I would bring back waterboarding. I would bring back a hellavu lot worse than waterboarding".

Yeah, nothing is more authoritarian than this guy:



A more scholarly, but understandable, treatise.

 

Yeah nothing spells authoritarianism quite like how many executive orders on his first day in office?

And remind us again who it was that said executive orders or the actions of a dictator.

 

that is ridiculous. the only people obsessed with obama are the birthers and trumpists (who are often the same people.)

 

since democracy was an athenian institution, to blame democracy for the fall of "greece" might be an over reach. phillip of macedon (a conservative autocrat) may have had as much to do with the fall of democracy in greece as any failings internal to the athenian polis. ironically, the reign and conquests of the macedonians spread greek ideals throughout the known (the "hellenistic") world that persist to this day,

 

wasn't it trump who railed against executive orders? he also blamed obama for appointing too many "czars," until, of course, he appointed his son in law czar of nearly everything.

 

LOL, this is hilarious. Previous to Trump and current presidents ignored the constitution and laws congress passed and Trump implementing those laws is called fascism. You can’t get more irrationally upside down than the OP.

 

The OP is hysterically full of irrational hyperbole so basically content free.

 

How many?

Who?

 

Nothing spells out authoritarianism and fascism more than POTUS demanding citizens take a dangerous shot for a virus with a 99% survival rate, and the corporations ordering their employees to take it or lose their job.

Yes, fascism has best described the American system for several decades now.

For the sake of argument, POTUS has no lawful authority to do that.