Another strip drawn by the amazing Mike Lawrence.
From an official press release on whitehouse.gov, July 16 2026:
Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller made clear there must be no retreat: “One of the hallmarks of left-wing violence and terrorism is its completely pre-textual and disingenuous appeal to civil liberties in an effort to shield its own violence… When the leftist — who does not believe in freedom, who does not believe in civil rights, who does not believe in any ordinary notion of justice — protests that we are violating his rights, understand the [sic] he is lying to try to persuade people who are not closely following the political scene that some injustice has perpetrated [sic] against him. We must stay the course and be completely unflinching in the pursuit of justice against these enemies of civilization.”
The rhetoric is unambiguously fascist. A typical fascist move is to describe their own community – however they conceive it – as the authentic national identity, and to then define out-groups or political opponents as existential threats to that nation. From there, it’s a short step to seeing state suppression of those groups as necessary for the nation to survive, and even to call that self-defense.
The extreme fascist rhetoric we’ve seen this month is, I suspect, the administration testing the waters to see if they have enough support to blatantly overturn the results of the midterm elections, which most people expect to go badly for Republicans. Heather Cox Richardson commented:
[Trump ally Stephen] Bannon argued in Tuesday’s War Room podcast that the idea of “communists” threatening to take over the United States through corrupt elections is “a predicate for immediate action.” That immediate action, he said, would be for Trump to declare “a national security emergency executive order…that took all of SAVE America plus plus plus plus.” And then, we can be sure, the Republicans will win the 2026 elections and, as Trump keeps saying, all the elections for the next 100 years.
I still think (or hope) this won’t happen – not because the Trump administration is above it, but because I think they’re shackled by Trump’s unpopularity. As Jim Stewartson points out, one key difference between Hitler and Trump is that Hitler was popular.
Incidentally, this strip was written and drawn well before that Trump Administration press release. Panel three’s original dialog referred to Trump’s plans for an “Election Integrity Army” for the 2026 election. But – as so often seems to happen with this administration – if you just wait a little while they’ll say something even worse.
TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON
Panel 1
The year is 2024. A WOMAN and a MAN sit at a table in a coffee shop, looking at their phones.
WOMAN: The Supreme Court says no official act by the president can be a crime! Can we call it fascism yet?
MAN: Of course not. Don’t be hysterical.
Panel 2
The year is 2025. The WOMAN and MAN stand outside in snowy weather; the woman is pointing to something on her phone.
WOMAN: ICE invaded Minneapolis! Masked government agents are kidnapping people! Can we call it fascism now?
MAN: No! It’s bad, but let’s not exaggerate.
Panel 3
The year is 2026. The WOMAN and MAN sit on a park bench. She reads from her phone.
WOMAN: The White House says it’ll eradicate “Antifa militants” and ignore civil liberties. Can we call it fascism yet?
MAN: Enough with the doomerism!
Panel 4
The year is 2030. Armed, armored government troops stand nearby. The WOMAN begins to speak, but the frightened MAN stops her.
WOMAN: Can we—
MAN: Shhh! Do you want to get us arrested?
CHICKEN FAT WATCH
“Chicken fat” is an ancient cartooning term for fun but unimportant details in the art.
PANEL 1: The coffee shop is called “Bump & GRIND (not a strip club).” The menu offers “brewtentious latte, true brew, vessel w/ pestle, dragon flagon, palace chalice, hot tea” and in a section marked “Pies,” offers “whim pie, pup pie, gup pie, hip pie, and yup pie.” Groucho Marx’s decapitated head is in the pastry case. The extremely embarrassed-looking barista is reading a book called 5000 Shades of Gray. The coffee mugs have a logo consisting of the words “BAD LOGO” arranged around a pile of poop. A tentacle is reaching up from under the table to grab the pie.
PANEL 2: There’s a “Calvin and Hobbes” snowman in the background. The logo on his jacket says “pradagonia.” A bird in the tree is bundled up with a scarf and knit hat.
PANEL 3: Fozzie Bear peers out of a hollow in the tree. A groundhog emerges from a hole in the ground. The MAN’s boba tea appears to be filled with eyeballs. The man’s t-shirt says “REBEL ™”.
PANEL 4: Graffiti reads “Romanes Eunt Domus” and “We ♥ Leader.” There appears to be a shark swimming in the filthy water beside the sidewalk.
“Can we call it fascism yet?”
I think it depends how you define it. What do we think fascism is?
This is similar to the “genocide” conversations we had previously… Words have meaning, and it’s not good practice to reduce every bad thing to the worst label you can possibly imagine. I think that there’s an attempt here to conflate any amount of nationalism with fascism, but that doesn’t have the benefit of being correct.
I think a lot of progressive arguments right now amount to slippery slopes because we’re not there, I think you know we’re not there, but you want to pretend that the dystopian future is inevitable. I actually don’t think we’re even all that close. In reality, the administration only has power until the next election, which I think we all agree are generally well managed, and it’s more than possible for an opposition party to have electoral success. It’s not the administration’s fault the Democrat party is in such disarray right now. With a candidate as bad as Trump, it should be relatively easy to organize against him, but for some reason (I have opinions, but this isn’t the topic for them) you’re failing to translate that effort to electoral success. That’s not fascism, that’s democracy – Elections have consequences. While you may not be in favor of Trump’s policies, it’s hard, particularly when you compare the Administration to Mussolini, Hitler or modern examples like North Korea, Iran, or even China, to say that the government exerts anything even close to the amount of control we’ve historically attributed to fascism.
I think 2030 is a little optimistic. That scene is going to take place by 2028 at the latest, if the fascists get their way.
@Corso: Do you think North Korea, Iran or even China are fascist?
@Watcher:
My point was in comparison, I absolutely think there’s a stronger argument that North Korea, Iran and China are more fascistic than America is, but it really does depend on how you define it. I don’t know if anyone could devise a definition of fascism that would include America, but not North Korea…. But I guess, if someone did that exercise and they articulated that distinction, I think I’d have to be of the opinion that whatever you want to call North Korea, that thing would probably have to be worse than fascism.
Like I said… I think that progressives have a habit of calling things that they don’t like the worst things they can think of, without thinking about context, or respecting that we really do need words to differentiate the truly monstrous from the merely bad. If Trump’s America is truly fascist, then what are the words we use to describe the places that are worse? What is North Korea? Double-Plus fascist?
Wow, that murderer over there killed 2 people by throwing them into a combine harvester. That other guy just hit his victim with a rock. Isn’t it ridiculous to call them both murderers?
@Corso: What is your definition of fascist?
“Fascism” is not just any government that is oppressive. Per the dictionary definition, capitalism is an integral part of fascism, so North Korea at least is less fascist than the US. More oppressive, but less fascist. Iran’s more an oppressive theocracy, though there’s certainly overlap. China…who even knows about China any more? I’m definitely ready to call it more oppressive than the US, but more fascist? Maybe, maybe not.
“I think that progressives have a habit of calling things that they don’t like the worst things they can think of, without thinking about context, or respecting that we really do need words to differentiate the truly monstrous from the merely bad.”
Thank God only progressives do this, not members of any other political tendency!
@Dianne: One can argue that in some aspects China is *more* capitalist than the United States.
re: Fascism, it’s a huge discussion, although I guess in a sense Barry’s cartoon is explicitly starting this discussion. It’s interesting you equate fascism with capitalism. I think we can say Iran, for all its theocracy, is still capitalist – its economy is still largely based on private capital. But it’s worth noting that self-declared fascists (of whom there are few now, but still) tended to portray fascism as an explicitly anti-capitalist ideology. I don’t think we can just unproblematically take them at their word but I think it is true that what differentiates fascism from bulk-standard conservatism is partly its integration not just of Leninist tactics (vanguardism, a party state) but also even in some cases Leninist rhetoric.
To move the use case outside the USA, the academic consensus (when I went to university at least) was that the classic Latin American dictatorships of the 70s and 80s were not fascist, despite having some incidental contact with individual fascists. Would the people discussing the issue here dispute that finding? I feel like they would, but I don’t wanna put words in anyone’s mouth.
Amp:
I take your point, I really do. The problem is that it *really* does matter how you define it. You’re basically just pointing at America and North Korea and saying that they’re both doing a fascism, but you aren’t explaining what that is. Your argument lives in vagueness and dies with clarity.
Following your logic… At some point, if someone is throwing people into a wood chipper, maybe they become a serial killer, or a mass murderer, there’s at least some kind of adjective in play.
But I don’t have to follow your logic, because maybe we aren’t talking about two people that are committing murder. Maybe there’s a guy feeding people into a woodchipper, and maybe the other guy is sending nasty posts on X. What’s the punishment for mocking Dear Leader in North Korea? What’s the punishment for mocking Trump? These things are not the same.
Dianne:
You first.
Really… I think your goal here is to divert the conversation. My definition is irrelevant, I’m not the one making the assertion. I could give you my definition, you could disagree with it, and then… What?
Way to reference the dictionary definition without actually referencing the dictionary definition. I don’t think that’s actually true. Merriam Webster defines it:
“a populist political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition”
Now you might find a definition that includes “far-right” or “anti-communist”, but I think both of those would have been surprising to the original Fasci. I see these labels applied, but I think they’re more convenient than descriptive. Is it impossible for a communist to be authoritarian? What is the connective tissue between these ideas and the right wing, or capitalism?
More than anything, this hits me as kind of a power-plus type of argument, where all the base activities are identical, but you’re trying to define the term in such a way that it shields you from having to admit that. It must be very convenient to be able to take all the bad actors on your side and pretend they were on the other. Both the Fascists and the Nazis started out as populist socialist labor movements, and as they got more violent and authoritarian, people started to label them right-wing, but why would we take your garbage? The right wing obviously doesn’t have a monopoly on violence or authoritarianism, what did they actually believe that was inherently right of center? You can say that Communism has never failed because no one has ever done Communism properly, but whatever they were, they certainly weren’t capitalists. Similarly, you might choose to eject all these violent socialists from your tent, but they certainly weren’t hard core conservatives.
I’m sorry, did Corso just call the Nazis a left wing populist movement? The One People, One Empire, One Leader, the jews are our enemy, literally fought left wing organizers and communists in the streets to the death before they came to power Nazis? I lurk here, but surely that’s far past any kind of “don’t willfully lie” commenting rule, right?
What I said was “started out as populist socialist labor movements” and… yeah.
“Nazi” is the anglicized shorthand for “Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei” Which translates to “National Socialist German Workers’ Party”. That was the party Hitler ran in when he won his elections. You can make all kinds of arguments on why the Nazis weren’t socialist, or pro-labor, and I’d give you a lot of the points I know you’d make, but they certainly weren’t professed far-right capitalists.
“Is it impossible for a communist to be authoritarian? ”
Did somebody here in this conversation say it was impossible?
Ish.
Dianne said that the definition of fascist included that the regime be capitalist… I think the obvious inference is “therefore a communist can’t be fascist”. But like I said… I think that’s kind of dumb, it feels like a way to definitionally exclude convenient classes of people from a definition without actually describing a meaningful distinction. Things like “a centralized autocratic government”, “a dictatorial leader”, “severe economic and social regimentation” and “forcible suppression of opposition”, or even, yes, “authoritarianism” seem much more relevant than whether or not they believe in personal property.
What I was asking is basically: “If you found a communist regime that exalted nation above the individual, that was associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that was characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition, would that not be fascist?”
And I just want to put it out there…. communism kind of requires some degree of that that to function. It’s an ideology that values the whole over the individual. What happens if someone wants to be capitalist in a communist society? I’m not saying that every communist regime will necessarily become fascist, but I think there’s a reason that the most famous fascist governments all had roots in socialism and that there’s significantly more obvious ideological connective tissue there.
@Corso:
Also @Corso (when asked what they meant by “fascism”):
You were the one who said that words have meaning and it is bad practice to label everything you disagree with as “the worst label you can possibly imagine.”
So, which is it? Are the meanings of words important to you or not?
Not to play dueling dictionaries too much here (I say, totally playing dueling dictionaries), but the American Heritage Dictionary notes a capitalist economy as a key element of fascism.
There are other forms of oppressive government out there besides fascism. Stalinist USSR was not fascist, but it was hella oppressive. Other examples might include medieval Europe, the Aztec empire, Maoist China…there are a lot of bad ways to form governments and fascism is just one of them.
That being said, I think the US meets the definition right now, albeit in a still relatively mild way. Using Luis Britto Garcia’s definition (from the wiki page on fascism):
1. Complicity between big capital and the state. All I have to say as proof of that point is DOGE.
2 and 3. Fear mongering of the working class while pushing policies that will further damage the working class. There’s no real way to deny this one either.
4. Racism. Yeah, don’t bother trying to argue.
5. Appropriation of language of progressives. Yep. Consider the “f” in TERF, vaccine “choice”, etc. Also, quite a bit of MAHA uses traditionally progressive concepts in the service of oppression.
6. Blessed by religious groups. This one’s a bit mixed. The Pope isn’t pro-US fascism. Fundamentalist religions largely are. Also, incomprehensibly, some Jewish sects.
7. Misogynistic. See point 4.
8. Anti-intellectualism. Yep. Also hard to argue.
In terms of traditional actions of fascist countries, we’ve already got concentration camps, “police” who are not answerable to the public and who shoot people in the streets without consequence, corrupt use of power, cronyism, aggressive and unprovoked wars, use of laws and government power to punish political opponents, and blood libel. What else do you need?
Those cursed fascist antifa!
Of course they are. But my definition is irrelavant: I didn’t make any assertion which requires a definition of fascism. I’m trying to understand what you (and that’s a royal “you”, I was really responding to Barry) mean when you use the word, because I have an inkling that we probably aren’t using the same definition.
For the record: I did define fascism by linking to Mirriam Webster, and if it matters to you, for the record, I don’t find anything objectionable about that definition.
Now that I’ve said that… What’s your point?
In that case, what did you mean by “Words have meaning, and it’s not good practice to reduce every bad thing to the worst label you can possibly imagine.”?
But why do you think that? What boxes of fascism aren’t checked by the USSR? Literally the only thing from the AH definition (and that link doesn’t work for me for some reason) that the USSR didn’t exhibit in spades was the capitalism… So was the USSR? Fascism except communist? Why do you think capitalism is required?
If you’re going to cite something like that, you really should link it… What you described is not on the wikipedia page for fascism. But that’s a little petty. Is that the definition you want to use? Are those eight markers the hallmarks of fascism that you want to use?
Um…wiki is literally where I got the Garcia definition. Admittedly, not on the same page on fascism that you seem to have gone to. You’ve got a point that I should have provided a link. Try this page.
But I note you didn’t address the question of what you meant when you said words have meaning. Do you think they do or don’t you? And, if so, where do you think the US fails in the definition of fascism? Go ahead and use the part of the MWD definition that you quoted if it suits you.
Frankly? I’m not sure that you actually have a working definition of “fascism”.
I think you (again, “you” being a stand-in for anyone calling Trump’s administration fascist) might have a shallow idea of what fascism is, and the impression that it’s very bad, and because Trump is also very bad, and fits a couple of the criteria you think describes it, you feel justified in calling his administration fascist.
And I feel vindicated in that thought… You’ve given two very different definitions of fascism, said that the USSR wasn’t fascist because it didn’t fit one of the requirements of one of your definitions, but also said that Trump’s admin was fascist even though it doesn’t exhibit all the requirements of your other definition. It really does feel as simple as “I know it when I see it, and it’s definitely my political opponent”.
Edited to add:
It crystallized! I was looking over the list of Definitions of Fascism from Wikipedia and a word stood out to me: “derogatory”.
My point is that progressive use of “fascism” is derogatory as opposed to descriptive. It’s the exact same thing as when you call someone MAGA or a Nazi. I don’t think you’re communicating much past “I don’t like him”.
Wow. That’s a projection worthy of the Trump administration. And an attempted avoidance of a direct question: How does the Trump administration fail to meet the definition of “fascist”? You were clinging very hard to the first part of the MWD definition earlier. Use it. Tell me what part of the definition does not describe the Trump administration. If you can. I really don’t think you can. Not using actual facts, anyway.
ETA: I have to say, from a debate point of view, your attempt to move the discussion away from a fact that doesn’t fit the view you’ve chosen to defend is sound. You clearly recognize that you can’t defend the statement that the Trump administration is not fascist and are therefore throwing out all sorts of red herrings in an attempt to avoid that core truth. Nice debating technique, but you’re severely hampered by being wrong on the central point. Sorry.
Do I think words have meaning? Obviously. But I was asking what you (again, not you specifically) meant because I understand that the same words can carry very different meanings to different people. This doesn’t even have to be politically loaded – “port” means about a half dozen things in English (a type of wine, a type of door, the left side of a boat, the place the boat docks, where the UBS goes), and a completely different half dozen things in French (the verb “to wear”, postage, poise). Having different meanings doesn’t make the word meaningless unless the person using it refuses to clarify what they mean.
And why do I think that the US fails in the definition of fascism? It mainly centers around the word “autocratic”. Trump is not as powerful as you seem to think he is. In a lot of ways, the Canadian Prime minister has more unilateral power to institute and enforce policy than the American President has. That was on purpose, your system actually has a whole lot of checks and balances built into it that aren’t found in other democracies, specifically to control against tyrants. Which isn’t to say he’s powerless… But a lot of the power he’s been able to exercise is because he was elected beside a whole lot of other people who enable him. That’s not fascist… That’s democracy in action. And after the midterms, maybe he won’t have the same enablers around him, and we’ll all see in real time how tenuous that power was.
I’m sorry, but no. You still haven’t committed to a definition. What you have provided isn’t consistent, and hasn’t been consistently applied. Don’t tell me that I’m wrong, demonstrate how I’m wrong. What is your working definition? What do you mean?
For the record, I obviously didn’t write my last reply in less than a minute. There is a lag inherent in boards like this. But more than that, I think you’re being incredibly unreasonable. You seem very upset that I hadn’t addressed every single sentence you’ve ended with a question mark, even before I’d seen it…. But I don’t think you’ve directly addressed a single question I’ve given you yet. You are a cast iron pot calling a stainless steel kettle black.
This is getting unsubstantive. I’m out for the night.
@Dianne: This is how it always is with Corso. He moves goalposts, twists words, makes leaps of inference and then changes the subject when challenged on them, while also endlessly fulminating about how every minor sub point he made wasn’t conclusively refuted. And then he ends by concluding that it’s a shame we dumb lefties aren’t engaging with the issues as thoughtfully as he is.
Guys…. It wasn’t a sub point. It was the first thing I said, and my entire thesis: How you define this matters.
I didn’t change a single goalpost, I didn’t twist a single word, I pointed out that if you want to label your opponents as evil, vile people using very semantically loaded language, you should probably have some idea of what what you’re saying actually means, and be able to articulate that. It’s not my fault that you can’t, although I get why being called out on it might be frustrating.
This isn’t a me-problem.
@Corso: I am perfectly able to define fascism, thanks. I just don’t particularly feel the need to explain my definition to you.
If it’s not fascism, it’s certainly sparkling authoritarianism made to taste like fascism.
But some people seem determined to be the dude in this comic.
I’d say Barry hit the nail on the head with this one based on the comments here.
“But some people seem determined to be the dude in this comic.”
Just wanted to repeat that for truth.
This reminds me of how MAGA thinks it’s a gotcha to say, “You people can’t even define ‘woman,’ lol.”
I certainly don’t think it’s inevitable.
One problem with the taxonomy argument you’re putting forward is that I don’t think it’s realistic to imagine there’s a single bright line, and on one side it’s fascism, and on the other, definitely not fascism. Rather, I think fascism is a process or a spectrum. There’s no bright line, but there are things that are more or less fascist, and we can talk about which way we’re moving.
I think Trumpism is a fascist movement, and that it’s moving the country as a whole in that direction. But I don’t think it’s inevitable that they’ll succeed. Part of resisting where Trumpism is taking us, though, is being willing to name it, which is what the cartoon is about, for me.
If what you’re saying here is “some progressives get hyperbolic,” then yes, that’s true, but also totally uninteresting. Some people in every group get hyperbolic, including right-wingers.
If you’re saying that progressives are always like this — whatever we don’t like, we always call the worst thing we can think of — then that’s a stronger statement, but one that doesn’t comport with reality. Do you think the word “fascism” was used nearly as frequently before Trump’s election? Did progressives talk as much about “genocide” before Israel’s response to October 7th?
If you DO think there’s been no change in the frequency of those words, then we can probably find some evidence to confirm or deny that.
If you agree with me that there HAS been a change, then I think that logically leads to the conclusion that progressives are using words like “fascism” in response to changing events, rather than simply saying the worst word we can think of.
Nope, they’re not. But this makes me wonder about your definition of fascism. Are fascists only fascists, in your view, after they achieve total dictatorial power comparable to Kim Jong Un?
I don’t think that’s true. I think a person or a movement can be fascist before achieving that level of power — and hopefully while never achieving it.
Robert Paxton, in his book The Anatomy of Fascism, defines fascism like this:
This is a reasonable definition, and all the elements of it Trumpism either meets, or is striving to meet.
But I still think it’s better to think of fascism as a process — or, as these scholars put it, Trumpism has set the U.S. on a “protofascist trajectory.”
Anyone interested in this, I encourage you to scroll or text-search down to “Table 1. Analytical framework for protofascist trajectories” and spend a few minutes reading the table. Basically, they have a framework for thinking about the development of fascism with four “dimensions”: Nationalism; Enemy Construction and Othering; Violence and Coercion; and Loyalty Dynamics. And they describe what each of those dimensions looks like at three different stages: Stage 1, Authoritarian Populism; Stage 2, Protofascist Emergence; and Stage 3, Fascist Consolidation.
Importantly, they don’t say that a country has to be at the same stage in every dimension. Their whole point is that fascism isn’t a binary state: a political movement can be moving further along some dimensions than others.
So, as I interpret this, the U.S. is obviously nowhere near North Korea’s degree of total dictatorial control. But that’s not really the relevant test. The relevant question is whether Trumpism is moving us along these dimensions in the direction of fascist consolidation. I think it clearly is.
So from my point of view, the question becomes: how do we prevent the U.S. from getting worse, as it does in my cartoon? How do we prevent movement toward fascist consolidation? The answer to that is obviously huge and complicated — but part of it, in my opinion, is being willing to use words like “fascism” and “authoritarian” to describe what Trumpism is and where, if they succeed completely, they will take the country.
Theoretically, sure… But I still think you have a little bit of work to do there, because even if you want to make the argument that fascist is an adjective describing a spectrum instead of a noun describing a thing, I think you still need to be able to describe what the spectrum is and differentiate it from other spectrums. I made the point earlier that this seems like a more derogatory use than a descriptive one, and I think I’m justified in that – I’m not sure how you would differentiate “fascist” from “authoritarian”, as an example, and absent a reason to use “fascist” instead of “authoritarian”, my suspicion would be that it’s because “fascist” is more rhetorically loaded.
But you have articulated a way in which we differently use language, and that’s fair. I tend to describe what someone is doing, as opposed to letting a label describe what someone is doing by inference. I have reasons for that, some of which I think I’m going to touch on later, but your usage isn’t wrong.
Not really, no. Up until Trump’s second term, I think progressive use of derogatory labels had more to do with the perceived political benefit of using them than any material change in situation. As the slurs in use became less politically effective, new slurs were used. I mean, really… some of the things Romney and McCain were called were completely untethered to reality. While I could agree that Trump’s second term in particular has been bad in a lot of new ways, and that might have accelerated the rhetorical cycle, I think the current slate of slurs are more indicative that this pattern has reached a natural conclusion than indicative that the current situation is as bad as it can get – I don’t know what worse thing you could devise to call Trump, but I can certainly think of ways the situation could get worse. Frankly, I think “fascist” might even be a step back from “Nazi”, but what Trump was doing when ya’ll were calling him a Nazi seems almost quaint by current standards.
Not necessarily to that extent, but I do think the complete control of government is a necessary feature, otherwise all it takes for fascism to fail is a scheduled election. Kim Jong Un is probably the best modern example, but there are others… Iran, China, I can’t believe I forgot Putin’s Russia. Going back to the murder example: A person isn’t a murderer unless they’ve actually killed someone, regardless of how much they idealize the act. Doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous, just not a murderer.
I’m not going to tell people how to interact with their political process, if you think that’s the best plan: Go hard. But I don’t think this is going to be effective. We’ve been watching the politics of meaningless name calling devolve to a point where I just don’t think it’s going to be effective to call people names, even if the names are apt. They’ve all been used before. I think more important than labelling your opponents some flavor of evil is going to be presenting a believable vision of a positive path forward: Mamdami did this like a pro.
So according to Corso it’s impossible for people to advocate for, plan for, enact plans for, and work toward fascism while being fascists. Could have saved a lot of digital ink if you had just said that to you, fascism can only ever be a description of something that has already happened and not a label that can be applied to ideology in any way shape or form. Pretty weird, unserious, and postmodern take, but you do you.
Ish. There’s a noun-adjective distinction you’re either missing or avoiding. The comic referred to “fascism”, the noun. You are talking about people who believe in fascism doing “fascist” (which should really be “fascistic”), the adjective, things.
If you look at Barry’s citation, they also don’t refer to the nouns as fascism until the consolidation happens:
They didn’t say “fascism”, “fascism” and “fascism”. These words are different, they mean different things, and those distinctions were meaningful.
I made the point that I tend to like to describe what people are doing, as opposed to using labels like that, because I think there’s an inherent lack of clarity when you do… You aren’t saying what the subject is doing, you’re allowing your audience to infer what the subject is doing based on what they think is associated with the label. And that inference subjectively changes person by person. I think it’s either lazy or dishonest.
@Corso: Was the Nazi party only fascist after the Reichtstagbrand and their subsequent consolidation of power? And, if so, what were they before then? And the green shirts in France, were they never fascist at all since they never achieved power?
I could agree with that, it’s probably one of the better points in time to point to.
In a very technical sense? Authoritarian populists, probably. I’d have to look at definitions and have a think on it. But I think this question misses the forest for the trees – The Nazis were The Nazis. Their name carries enough meaning that I don’t know why you’d refer to them as much else. I don’t think people many people refer to the Nazis as “The German Fascists”
I am genuinely amused… How familiar with that movement are you? Because I don’t think you’re making the point you thought you were.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!
“The Nazis were The Nazis. Their name carries enough meaning that I don’t know why you’d refer to them as much else. I don’t think people many people refer to the Nazis as “The German Fascists””
Ladies and gentleman, the Nazis were not fascists. You heard it here first.
Was Mussolini’s National Fascist Party fascist prior to gaining control of the government of Italy?
@beth: Well according to Corso, the official name of the party is decisive in the case of the Nazis (they called themselves National Socialist, therefore they are left wing) but not in the case of the Italian Fascists (you’re not a fascist until you are in power, regardless of what you call yourselves or your sincere, credible intent to gain power and be fascist once in power).
I can’t believe I didn’t understand the above until Corso explained it to me. It was probably because I was stuck in a leftwing information bubble and with too much woke confirmation bias. That’s why I believed ridiculous self-serving left wing myths like “Hitler was a fascist”. Mea culpa.
I’m sorry, but I can’t take anyone who thinks the Nazis only became fascist after they got into power seriously.
That’s not what I said about the Nazi’s name, I said the Nazi party had roots in socialism, and that there was still a lot of ideological connective tissue there.
Regardless. This is so close to understanding…. The fascists were always the fascist party, but before the fascists displayed what we now refer to as fascism, what would people have called it? Let’s say you were watching Mussolini’s rise in the late 10’s, early 20’s, could you have pointed to a fascist, said, “that’s a fascist” to someone, and have them understand the full depth of meaning that we currently attribute to the word? What would you have had to say?
I mean, the feeling is exceptionally mutual. I have a hard time taking seriously people so desperate to avoid what I’m saying that they strawman what I say like that.
It really is interesting the kind of community that’s been cultivated here: “He’s said something that I can choose to interpret in the least charitable way, even though it makes no sense to do that in context, and assume he’s being foolish. Dunk time! I’ve done my interneting for the day!”
What I’m saying isn’t indecipherable, or even hard to understand if you approach it with even an iota of intellectual curiosity. Barry got what I was saying, he interacted with it.
@Corso: So if I misinterpreted you, then that means that you do think the Nazis were fascist prior to taking power and therefore that ideology, as well as power, matters when discussing whether a person or movement is fascist or not. It has to be one or the other.
Also, electricity as a light source has been standard for more than 100 years. You can turn off the gaslights now.
Wow! This cartoon is so incredibly accurate.
More in “advancing fascism watch”: Haitians in Springfield Ohio are being made to turn in their passports to ICE and wear ankle monitors.
As far as I can tell, until June all of them were in the US legally. Some of them lost their temporary protected status in June, when a court ruled Trump could do that. Others are here with some other legal status, including citizenship. (ETA: The citizens are not being made to wear ankle monitors, as far as I can tell). There are over 1000 children in Springfield who are American citizens with Haitian parents.
ICE’s likely goals are to try and pressure Haitians to self-deport (some with their American children), and to be able to sweep them up quickly if ICE decides to deport them. Haiti currently has a level four “do not travel” advisory from the US State department, indicating someplace the US government believes is very dangerous to travel to (level 4 is the highest level).
This is yet another example of how right-wingers are lying when they say “we have nothing against immigrants who came here legally.”
@ampersand: I was just thinking “where have we heard this before?” about that one. I’m afraid I still think 2030 is an optimistic timeframe for the last panel.
I wrote a whole post answering Corso’s question “what would somebody in the 10s and 20s think when someone identifies someone else as a fascist”, but, what’s the point?
“What I’m saying isn’t indecipherable, or even hard to understand if you approach it with even an iota of intellectual curiosity.”
I have plenty of intellectual curiosity. It’s just I save it for a better class of conversation than the one you’re so determined to have.
Thank you, Amp, for highlighting the catch-22 of being Haitian American in Trumpist 2.0 USA. Resident Curious Intellectuals can avail themselves of a rudimentary review of the birth and political trajectory of racial science under Sparkling Fascism and its 20th century internal and external colonial projects should they wish; for the rest of us dunderheads, what else can you call the systematic hounding and persecution of the parents, extended families, sponsors, and communities of minor US citizens? The aim is to clearly deny these children their citizenship and right to grow up in their own country by targeting for imprisonment and elimination those who raise them and are related to them. This is not the only injustice facing Haitians in this country, but it is overt and inconvertible. Pussyfooting around this is not an act of intelligence or courage, but of cowardice and a moral and rational void, which is always proud to make up for its trite and shallow nature in a lot of bluster around tone and marginal rhetorical and lexical disputes. Dwelling on the surface circumvents exploring what we all know are the actual stakes: real people and what happens to them. What they are forced to do as others watch and gloat and sneer from the sidelines.
I do not personally believe the incantation that Someday, Everyone Will Have Been Against This, but these violent cleansing policies will bear an abundance strange fruit here and elsewhere for generations to come. Don’t say we didn’t warn the boosters.
To allude to another historical parallel, the people responsible for and the institutions they recruited to wage this brutality will be as lucky as 30s-era plutocrats were if all we collectively get out of this is a FDR-like figure saving capitalism from its villainous practitioners, or saving democracy from this American streak of the paranoid style and its demagoguery and the nihilism it enables and continues to try to excuse as pain for gain. Good and hard, as the man said.
It’s already quite interesting to see MAGA country in the hills and boardrooms both bemoan the economic results but adore paying hand over fist for the tinsel, pain, and performative lib-owning. When is the nation’s ruin half-empty versus half-full to the point where the party’s over? The GOP would like to take that decision out of our hands. But, sure, a country currently under the thumb of a political party proudly hostile to free elections such that it spends millions of dollars on ad campaigns saying as much ain’t exactly fascist. Okay, buddy.