From a historical lens, is it fair to brand Donald Trump as a fascist?
I don’t think fascist is the most appropriate term just yet. Though it’s entirely possible it overlaps with many other more precise terms that are even scarier but only inadvertently political…Like pathological liar, delusional, paranoid schizophrenic, unable to anticipate consequences, inauthentic, narcissist, sex addict, etc. He seems to have a short-attention span, thin skin, limited awareness of basic beliefs that have allowed the nation to survive so far, obsession with winning, and many other despicable character traits. No empathy, no compassion, or authentic Christian faith (that would be okay if he was honest about his atheism.)I am not a mental health professional so I use these terms not in their narrow technical sense, but only in the way they are understood by the general lay public. If you want a more direct answer to your question Google “qualities of facism” and see if there is overlap. You might also want to read George Orwell’s 1984, or any good biography of Stalin or some of the lesser known fascists.
Is the US really becoming totalitarian?
Your worried about the government. Obviously so do a lot of your responders. What you should be worried about are the corporations. AT+T knows where you are all the time. Google knows all your friends,your buying habits, your opinions etc. Visa knows where you shop and what you spend. God knows how much of your private information is on facebook, you tube or social sites. And they're all happy to use or sell that information to anyone that will pay. Believe me, the government is the least of your problems.
Given the characteristics of fascism, how is today's GOP not fascist?
I would agree that there are characteristics of fascism in the GOP, but I would extend that criticism to the Democrats as well. Contrasting the two is interesting:There is little distance between the GOP and Democrats on endless terror war all over the world. President Obama launched 10 x as many drone strikes as W Bush, and has sent special forces teams all over the world. HRC was a high Dean in this school of thought, and certainly did not repudiate her mistakes during the campaign. (Tepid apologies for Iraq, deafening silence on Libya and Syria.)Both parties reward their donors with goodies. They are called campaign contributions. Goldman Sachs was the number one donor to the Obama campaign, and HRC’s fellating Wall Street is legendary, should be more so.I would say the Left wing’s constant bleats of racism counts as demagoguery. I would tend to agree with them if there were more nuance and specificsBoth parties have a long history of turning to incarceration to solve social problems. If all the finger-pointing on racism were turned to productive use on this issue, we might make progress.Neither party has a very conscientious history as to solving our long standing issues of how to fairly and legally manage immigration. I agree with Dems on this more often than not, but they are all talk and no action.If sexual harassment counts as anti-feminism, where is the storm of outrage over serial harasser and possible rapist Bill Clinton?Let's face it brothers and sisters: both parties are terrible, and change is needed. (But not Trump’s brand.) and now most Americans disapprove of both. This needs to be translated into political reality.
How can leftist activists criticize fascism when communism has killed almost 50 million more than fascism and communist groups openly declare their intentions?
Well, it seems like all of those 50 million cone from (a high estimation of) China's great leap forward, which destroyed 5% of its then population. Now looking at the number of 50 million, I know that the Holodomor and associated “genocides” by the Communists took around 30 million lives at maximum. So you admit that the Holocaust took 10 million lives and Nazis took 10 million more during World War II. This means that every single casualty of the Axis (10million) was their fault, while all the casualties of the Allies ( 65 million) was the Allies’ fault, which doesn't really make sense. It's kinda doubtful that World War 2 would have occurred without Hitler and the rise of fascism. I'd add all 75 million deaths of WWII to the fascist count. So it's now roughly 85m to 80 million, fascists killing 5 million more. Now obviously, while the concepts of fascism and communism can be extended back before the 1920s, they really weren't intended for those purposes to begin with. As a result I'm excluding stuff like the Bengali Famine, World War I, and the Russian Civil War and the US-Soviet proxy wars (I'm only including it in the Soviet total). I believe those roughly even out, if not create a greater fascist head count. Now under this way of thought, how much time did fascism have to kill 80 million people? From 1923-1945, 22 years. How much time did communism have to kill 80 million people? From 1917-1991, 74 years.Using this The top 10 causes of death factsheet, you can say that Fascism is about as deadly as lower respiratory tract infections (pneumonia) and communism is about as deadly as diarrhea.Penicillin or Pepto-Bismol. You choose.
Did Hitler Actually Declare War?
Hitler demanded territory from Poland, the so-called "Polish Corridor" that separated Germany from East Prussia. Pretty much what he done to Czechoslovakia when he demanded the Sudetenland. But unlike Czechoslovakia, the Poles did not give in to his demands, so Hitler fabricated a Polish attack on German soil, the "Gleiwitz incident'', in which a small group of German soldiers dressed as Polish troops "seized" a radio station in Gleiwitz, close to the Polish border, on the night of 31 August and began broadcasting anti-German messages. Hitler responded by ordering the invasion of Poland in "retaliation to Polish aggression". He was smart in that respect as he knew Polish independence was militarily guaranteed by Britain and France, but it was only valid if Poland was attacked. If Poland attacked anyone else, Britain and France were not obliged to help them. By making Poland look like the aggressor, he was likely hoping that the Brits and French would've bought it and sat out. Everybody else would declare war on him and he later invaded the Soviets without a declaration of war either. @ Cecil - You are wrong. A declaration of war is an official diplomatic act, and it is usually attached to, or superceded by an ultimatum, a list of demands that may avert war. Hitler in no way attempted to, nor did he or any other German political official diplomatically inform the Polish government of Germany's intentions to attack and invade Poland. As per the Hague Convention of 1907; The Hague Convention (III) in 1907 called "CONVENTION RELATIVE TO THE OPENING OF HOSTILITIES" gives the international actions a country should perform when opening hostilities. The first two Articles say:- Article 1 - The Contracting Powers recognize that hostilities between themselves must not commence without previous and explicit warning, in the form either of a reasoned declaration of war or of an ultimatum with conditional declaration of war. Article 2 - The existence of a state of war must be notified to the neutral Powers without delay, and shall not take effect in regard to them until after the receipt of a notification, which may, however, be given by telegraph. Neutral Powers, nevertheless, cannot rely on the absence of notification if it is clearly established that they were in fact aware of the existence of a state of war.
Would George Orwell spin in his grave if he knew that right-wingers use him for their own agenda?
"The Spanish war and other events in 1936-37 turned the scale and thereafter I knew where I stood. Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it." — George Orwell, Why I Write George Orwell remained a socialist and was active within left-wing circles until his death. Despite this, his most famous works on totalitarianism, 1984 and Animal Farm, have been widely used by his opponents to demonstrate what socialism inevitably will lead to. That is very unlike George Orwell's original intention, which was to warn fellow socialists against autocratic personalities within the socialist movement. He would clearly have been enraged if he knew that his literature and name had been tainted in this manner by his ideological enemies. Just consider Animal Farm. It is unreasonable to claim that Orwell would have supported the humans (capitalists) in the book. Instead he portrayed the pigs (the communist leadership) as turning into humans, or "capitalists", themselves. Neither being slaves to the humans nor the pigs were then considered the best circumstances — neither capitalism nor totalitarian "communism". Instead it was the brief moment of freedom and egalitarianism which stands out shortly after the revolution, and before it was stamped out by Napoleon, which was Orwell's ideal. Again, it was clearly a critique against Stalin and the Soviet Union, as well as a warning to fellow socialists to not let autocratic personalities to become leaders. So why do right-wingers keep insisting on proclaiming George Orwell to be one of them? Do they even know that he took a bullet in the throat fighting for the socialists against the fascists in the Spanish Revolution?