First Time in Modern History, the United States Is No Longer Measured as a Liberal Democracy
- Thread starter THE_DEVIL
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Does 35% of the electorate even care if the USA continues as a true democracy?
Not sure. They still seem to support the man responsible for this damage.
Not sure. They still seem to support the man responsible for this damage.
Far right thought leaders have been slowly, but inexorably pushing the “A Republic is not a democracy” positioning* to their base for many years. In my view it is slowly conditioning the MAGA base to the idea of a unitary CEO style president where checks and balances are illegitimate constraints on the administration.
* which is a silly and untrue semantic argument
They'll tell you the US is a republic, not a democracy.
Because they're dumb as a box of rocks.
Half the country doesn't care that we descend into fascism and another half doesn't care that we import millions of unvetted illegals from third world countries that hate us. If there were only other choices.
I wonder what the data pattern is for countries that open their borders for three years to anyone who can make it here. France is currently learning that.
When did the US have open borders? (Excluding years prior to 1914)
First I've heard that half the country wants to import millions of unvetted, ilegal immigrants. Sounds like something you pulled out of your *** to legitimize a both sides argument.
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Hey, so this is stupid
Well if we are saying we have fascism and are losing democracy, we have established the usage of very liberal definitions of these things, no? But if you want to say there's no fascism, I guess I will say we didn't have open borders for three years while Biden looked the other way swearing "there's no crisis" while 15,000 illegals a day poured into our country. Deal.
This predates Trump by over a decade.
Political scientist Dr. Lawrence Britt recently wrote an article about fascism ("Fascism Anyone?," Free Inquiry, Spring 2003, page 20). Studying the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia), and Pinochet (Chile), Dr. Britt found they all had 14 elements in common. He calls these the identifying characteristics of fascism. The excerpt is in accordance with the magazine's policy.
The 14 characteristics are:
- Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
- Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.
- Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
- Supremacy of the Military
Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
- Rampant Sexism
The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy.
- Controlled Mass Media
Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
- Obsession with National Security
Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
- Religion and Government are Intertwined
Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.
- Corporate Power is Protected
The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
- Labor Power is Suppressed
Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed .
- Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.
- Obsession with Crime and Punishment
Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.
- Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
- Fraudulent Elections
Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.
We see evidence every day of fascist-like behavior from this administration but we have no evidence that half the country approves of open borders. That assumes that all Biden voters approved of the way he managed the border, which is untrue. For eight years, he was the VP for the president known as the deporter in chief, so his border management was unexpected. Though the border technically wasn't open
All this means is you guys love being loose with language until it's aimed at the left. I saw plenty of fascist behavior from the left in 2020 when pissing our economy away during COVID but man they hated hearing that. Same thing with no primaries and "no democracy". And let's not get started on the "my body my choice" stuff. Nazis, insurrections, mostly peaceful, etc. All kinds of loose language everyone is supposed to just accept as truth when pointed at by the left. But someone says "Open borders" and you all get the vapors.
Who was president in 2020 when 3.6 trillion was spent on covid relief? Very loose language you're using there.
Everybody understood there was no time for a primary with 3 months left before the election and since Kamala was the only one who could access Biden's campaign till, it had to be her or nobody. Very loose language to express something you probably understood.
Vague
You didn't say open borders, I got the vapors specifically because you claimed that half the country supported it.
You should tighten up your language - it's very loose.
Way to miss the point. What a shocker. I’m not against the loose language. I’m pointing to the hypocrisy by the people who use it all the time then start crying about it, when others use it towards their side. You know how the left calls everyone who disagrees with them nazis and fascists then loses it if someone says “open borders” and demands links and data to back it up.
Remember when the “fact checkers” decided to “fact check” SNL the one time they made fun of Hillary during the campaign season? Weird how they never were too concerned with anyone else getting ripped on. Like that. And I get it. Hypocrites hate being called hypocrites.
And yes, I know Trump was president at the outset of COVID. He handled it horribly. He sucks more than any president in my long lifetime. But the fascism came from those forcing needles on people (and I’m fully vaxxed) by threat of termination (no more my body/ my choice), forcing useless shots on children, shutting down businesses (while they dined at fancy restaurants mask free of course) and refused to let kids go back to school causing an entire generation to get effed over.
But don’t worry, I won’t say “open borders” anymore. It hurts your feelings. And hey, go ahead and keep calling everyone else Nazis (except the guy with the actual Nazi tattoo his entire adult life). I don’t mind.
As for the “half the country” comment…we have two major parties last I checked. So it was referring to half being one party and the other half being the other party, I’ll say 35% next time for you.
The Trumptard is 14 for 14 ...
You'll have to excuse him, he's an habitual both-sideser.
I’m eagerly waiting for this classic “ACKSHULLY…” line.
I don't think I did miss the point because I was specifically responding to this fallacious argument(below) before you decided to follow-up with a multi-issue dump. Don't get it mixed-up that Biden's lax border management meant that we endorsed it. No way in hell there are millions of Americans who approve of unvetted immigrants crossing the border unchecked. That's just silly.
However, I do think there is a higher percentage of Republicans who approve of pathological lying, corruption and yes, fascist-like policies. Much higher.
And then you followed up by saying "I saw plenty of fascist behavior from the left in 2020 when pissing our economy away during COVID" You said that, so not sure how I missed the point.
You clearly aren't trying to have a good faith argument if you blame the people who weren't even in power for the spending that happened in 2020.
I'll pass on commenting on the rest of your post.
Okay, so you can't point to a time when there was open borders after 1914, even under Biden. Got it.
If 15k illegals poured into the nation a day under Biden then over the course of his "3 years of open borders" that would be an additional 16 million illegal immigrants.
Now here is going to be the embarrassing part for you. You are actually talking about border encounters which peaked at 15k a day. Border encounters means the border agents were encountering immigrants and they were documenting the encounters. It doesn't mean they got in, but it does mean the border patrol was facing record encounters and doing their jobs.
I have read a lot of books on fascism. It is a hard to define word and the scholars don't even agree on a definition. I personally like to define it as fascism when it reaches a certain amount a check boxes. For me the biggest checkbox is the government and corporate elites working together to for the strengthening of corporate power and driving away unions. No one can argue this isn't happening in the US, and it is what happened in fascist Italy.
After that you have the othering of groups of people because you need enemies to keep people going against their beat interests. The treatment of trans are a great example of that. Nazi Germany also took an early stand against trans people. They ended up rolling back some of the protections they had under Weimar Germany. Oh course, after that they moved onto other others.
Control of the media is another key aspect which we have in spades with the corporate consolidation of media and their relationship with our fascist government.
There are some others we would check off as well. The fascist movement has woven itself into religion and bent religion to meet the needs of their fascist movement. The hyper nationalism symbology is another which they are trying to speed run for America 250. Interfering and meddling in elections is another checkbox too and we have certainly seen that recently.