Thread: this article by @RichardEvans36 is a great read! However, I find it a bit myopic in certain ways, which make the conclusions flawed, IMHO. Let me explain. I think it is not necessarily best to compare Trump’s fascism to that of Hitler and Mussolini https://www.newstatesman.com/world/2021/01/why-trump-isnt-fascist

for a number of reasons. 1) If those are the bench marks, no modern fascist movement would measure up. Equally, we cannot use the Lenin’s Bolshevik Communists as the only comparison for Communist movements. Reasonably, people can be Communists without being violent, massacring

revolutionaries. 2) Reasonably, also, the historical context cannot be part of the prerequisites for if a leader and a movement is fascist or not. We will perhaps never have similar historical contexts as in the 1920s and 1930s. 3) That includes the idea that all Fascist

regimes have to be corporatist in nature or “warmongers”. That may have been the case back then, but NEO-fascists are not necessarily cut from the same cloth. In fact, most of these are isolationists. As I see it, neo-Fascist movements are the valid comparison here.

But we actually do not even have to go that far. Let us first point out that the German/Italian cases skews the image of what Fascism was and is to a considerable degree. There were many smaller Fascists movements in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s that were no outright warmongers:

e.g. the Romanian Iron Guard, Mosley’s BUF, the Finish Lappo movement, the Irish Blue Shirts (although experts are divided on their Fascism). The point is that Fascism was never ONE thing, and to demand that Trump and MAGA should meet ALL point of Hitler/Mussolini Fascism is

to demand too much. You are setting yourself up for failure by doing that. 4) the point that MAGA has no “cult of the fallen” is also not fair, since MAGA has not had any fallen to celebrate. Until now. Let us see how the MAGA supporter shot to death in the Capitol will be used

by the movement. It is also not impossible to imagine that flags and other implements used during the riot will gain status as “sacred” icons, comparable to the “blood flag” of Hitler Nazism. 5) To conclude that what happened at the Capitol was not a coup attempt is also not

correct: many or those who took part in it certainly THOUGHT they were taking part in a coup/revolution. The phrase “this is our 1776” is testimony to that fact. Moreover, if the Beer Hall Putsch was a coup attempt, then this certainly was too.

Some argue that it was not a coup because the MAGA troops did not attempt to occupy and take over OTHER government buildings or institutions. This may seem convincing. But it overlooks the fact that the coup attempt was undertaken by a SITTING POTUS. Trump has been stuffing

the vital institutions with his own people for 4 years; this includes efforts to put loyalists inside the military hierarchy, SCOTUS, DOJ, FBI etc. one cannot analyze the Capitol events IN ISOLATION from this context. Success in a coup attempt is NOT a necessity for wether

something is a coup attempt or not. For it to be seditious and punishable it has BY DEFINITION to be unsuccessful, because otherwise there will be no legislature left to convict anyone on that charge. Sure, Trump’s record on violence is checkered.

But let us not forget that HITLER too denied his aggressive intensions in his public statements all through the 1930s, all the way up until 1 September 1939. And even then he tried to blame the victims of German aggression. Hitler always acted in self-defence, according to him.

These are cogent reasons for why we should not use Fascism of the ‘20s and ‘30s as a measuring stick when trying to decide wether a modern leader and movement i Fascist or not. Fascism comes in many shapes and forms, although the anti-democratic and ultra-nationalist trait is

always present. As is the cult of the leader (although even that to varying degree), the propensity for and celebration of violence as a political method (at least in domestic politics). Is Trump a Fascist? Only he can answer that definitely. Are there enough external indicators

for us to say that he is? YES, without a doubt! #TrumpImpeachment #FascismInAmerica #TrumpFascist #Fascism