entertainment

Well-known member
It's a bit funny to imagine him as a fascist leader like Hitler or Moussulini. He doesn't really fit the template does he? A soulless individual but also completely artless.

You can tell from how he's being depicted by his followers that they do see him in that mold, though, as this staunch, judicious silhouette.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Super obvious point but when ever I see this kind of claim re. America, I always think of the native people's, and their elision from any narrative
two things - first, palingenetic rebirth isn't about a return to the literal past, but an idealized past

that idealized past can be and is fitted to suit the specific needs of country or volk, whatever they may be, i.e. a fascist past "authentic to itself"

so the Nazis idealized Germanic paganism and the Holy Roman Empire, Mussolini evoked an idealized Classical Rome, the Franco et al evoked the Spanish Golden Age. in every case, it's whatever works.

the other things is the obvious, that Native Americans are unfortunately elided from historical narratives in general, not just by MAGA types
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
He doesn't really fit the template does he?
there's no template for a fascist leader. there's no specific template for fascism - it's a collection of characteristics.

one of the most important of which is opportunism. whatever works.

as noted in that link the fascist leader in It Can Happen Here is "vulgar, almost illiterate, a public liar easily detected, and in his ‘ideas’ almost idiotic"

Trump has no Mein Kampf-style master plan. he's a figurehead, especially as a very powerful emotional-political focal point.

Bannon certainly had plans and they live on - tho idk to what extent exactly - through Miller et al

I do have to question their competence at actually achieving their agenda. even pre-COVID the last 4 years have been an absolute mess.

I don't think the U.S. is on the verge of fascism. sliding in that direction, yes. tho with a great deal of pushback.

if Trump gets another term (however that happens) and his people are able to start really dismantling democratic structures, then yes, watch out.

especially if we're in the midst of a depression
 

craner

Beast of Burden
One of the really scary things at the moment is the way he is laying the groundwork for the narrative of the stolen election...so even if he loses, he wins.

 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
a lot of people have called it out

he's not making any attempt to hide or be ambiguous about what he's doing. like everything, he's boasting.
 

entertainment

Well-known member
And to muddy the waters so when his camp inevitably gets caught cheating, the accusations are as good as meaningless to his own followers.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
one serious disadvantage his opponents have is that they still care about playing by, or at least being seen to play by, the rules

while he could not possibly give less of a fuck
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
two things - first, palingenetic rebirth isn't about a return to the literal past, but an idealized past

that idealized past can be and is fitted to suit the specific needs of country or volk, whatever they may be, i.e. a fascist past "authentic to itself"

so the Nazis idealized Germanic paganism and the Holy Roman Empire, Mussolini evoked an idealized Classical Rome, the Franco et al evoked the Spanish Golden Age. in every case, it's whatever works.

the other things is the obvious, that Native Americans are unfortunately elided from historical narratives in general, not just by MAGA types

For sure on both points. I was though struck by something I heard recently re. America being a settler state (as is Australia). i think it means the racism is constructed in a different way, and there's a foundational historical violence. There's parallel events in European history and a monstrous legacy of colonial violence but in country there's a different dynamic. I think perhaps racism takes the form as against immigrant-as-other. Anti-black racism in the US must be constructed differently (I guess the US does do this against Mexicans though). Not 1005 sure what my point is, just trying to tease out differences in constructions of the national self/selves I guess.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Not trying to downplay English violence against the Scots and Irish of course, in the construction of the UK.
 

entertainment

Well-known member
one serious disadvantage his opponents have is that they still care about playing by, or at least being seen to play by, the rules

while he could not possibly give less of a fuck

There's a good change he actually wants to break the rules and that his supporters want him to. They savour this frustration among democrats trying to criticize by appealing to rules that they have abandoned. It's one of the exhilerating points of no return towards the break down.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Not trying to downplay English violence against the Scots and Irish of course, in the construction of the UK.

Scots took a leading role in Empire. The best thing I've ever read on the Scottish and English in the construction of Britain is in the chapter 'Peripheries' in Linda Colley's Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
extremely solid intro to fascism in America, well grounded in both theory (Roger Griffin, Robert O. Paxton, Stanley Payne, Umberto Eco, etc) and history

American Fascism: It Has Happened Here

Just started this - looks really good, thanks.

Speaking of American fascism, did you (or anyone else in this thread) watch The Man in the High Castle? I started it and got moderately into it but sort of lost interest about halfway through the second series, and one of the things about it that didn't quite work for me was that I think they got the American Nazis very wrong. I mean, it's not that there aren't bona-fide American Nazis who like to march around with swastika armbands and runic tattoos and whatnot, but they're a small minority even within the far right, aren't they? The Nazis in the story - real Nazis who've conquered the USA, or much of it - have banned Christianity, whereas I think if the Nazis ever had taken over America they'd have been far more likely to co-opt Christianity than to attempt to suppress it and supplant it with their Theosophist horoscopes and biodynamic Odinism. In the case of many white Christians, especially in the deep South (but probably also more New Englanders than many New Englanders would like to admit), I think they wouldn't haven taken much co-opting. (Apparently this is more or less what happens in the original novel by PKD; only the NW states are under direct Nazi control, while the South is a white-supremacist puppet regime, controlled by the Klan with the Nazis' blessing.)

In fact it shows the Nazis to be these spiritually dead hardline cold-rationalists, contemptuous of the superstitious Japanese (their notional allies/de-facto rivals), whereas the real Nazis were intensely spiritual and hopelessly addicted to every conceivable form of New Age hocus-pocus.
 
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DannyL

Wild Horses
Scots took a leading role in Empire. The best thing I've ever read on the Scottish and English in the construction of Britain is in the chapter 'Peripheries' in Linda Colley's Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837.
Thanks for the ref (I am missing access to libraries rn). I had in mind the English violence against the Highland Scots, Culloden, the Highland Clearances etc
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
it means the racism is constructed in a different way
one of my consistent tropes is nothing in Europe can match the toxicity of American racial issues. that's totally grounded in history.

that the defining issue in Europe isn't race but nationality and culture. historically religion ("Christendom") but now that's sublimated into culture.

as far as in-country vs foreign colonial violence, definitely. the latter is easy to forget, the former impossible.

it's also about conceptions of identity, which change with time. several centuries ago, there was hatred of Celtic peoples as an alien other - different culture, language, way of life. at the same time there was nothing like the modern conception of race, which begins to form around the turn of the 15th C. as Iberian explorers begin the Transatlantic slave trade with Western Africa. whereas now the Welsh, Scots, and English are all (besides native-born and immigrant POC, obv) white. the Celt as alien other ended for good after Culloden etc, having been in decline for a long time before that. whereas the conception of race that existed during chattel slavery exists in more or less the same form, despite academic attempts to frame race as social construct, so the points of tension remain the same. tho I'm also not totally clear on this, and thinking out loud.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Speaking of American fascism, did you (or anyone else in this thread) watch The Man in the High Castle?
I haven't, but that sounds very different from the book

Nazi-occupied America is only mentioned in passing, never directly shown, but it's clearly an American, baseball and mom's apple pie fascism. iirc there's a direct reference to a concentration camp director being captain of his high school football, prom king, All-American etc. very It Can't Happen Here, which I'd imagine PKD was familiar with.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Nazi-occupied America is only mentioned in passing, never directly shown, but it's clearly an American, baseball and mom's apple pie fascism. iirc there's a direct reference to a concentration camp director being captain of his high school football, prom king, All-American etc. very It Can't Happen Here, which I'd imagine PKD was familiar with.
Well that aspect is present and correct in the series, but there's a very notable God-shaped hole in the picture.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Thanks for the ref (I am missing access to libraries rn). I had in mind the English violence against the Highland Scots, Culloden, the Highland Clearances etc

Sure, I realise, but part of the reason that happened is because the Highlanders were repeatedly the shock troops for the Jacobite risings, which Colley writes about brilliantly.
 
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