And it starts with the word "being a fascist." The Soviets, calling their enemies "fascists," turned the word into a meaningless insult," Snyder writes. Putina Russia continues this practice: anyone who opposes the will of a Russian dictator is simply a ‘fascist’, so Ukrainians defending the country against the Russian invaders are ‘fascist’. Trump picked up this abuse and also, like Putin, calls enemies “fascists” without any justification. He just uses that word to slander them. In fact, both Putin and Trump are fascists, and the usage of this word to others is intended simply to sow confusion, especially since the fascist does not care about the relation between the word and its meaning; he does not service the language, but the language serves him. Being a fascist and calling individual else a fascist requires cunning, which always came easy to Trump.
Faced with the complexity of the human world, the liberal struggles with an overwhelming number of questions. Fascism, as well as communism, seduces with 1 answer. The Communist, reasoning of a better future, believes in the Parascience sense of all events, and the fascist is satisfied with religion in the leader's story, and since the meaning is not attributed to words, then this communicative does not request to be either coherent or reality-compatible; it only requires a persistent repetition of repetitions, as in Hitler's case, or methods of trial and error, as in Trump's case. And here we see another component of Fascism – leadership. The chief (duce, führer) starts by choosing the enemy. The choice is arbitrary, claimed Nazi lawyer and philosopher Carl Schmitt; it has small or no connection to reality, draws its power from the will and decision of the chief.
Fascism combines conspiracy explanation with necessity. The complexity of the planet itself is simply a conspiracy, and the fear associated with it turns into hatred: the conspirators will deprive you of power, organize others to take your place. It works in almost all combination of enemies. This could be a conspiracy of politicians, immigrants, Jews, neighbours, due to the fact that politics comes down to dividing “we versus them”. Trump strengthens the net in which he feels like a fish in water with his quirks. Algorithms facilitate susceptibility to its variety of kitsch and fascism. Complex discourses give way to violent stereotypes. The net not only spreads conspiracy theories, but prepares minds to receive them. Today, fascism nests in digital and hydrocarbon oligarchs. The first dig wells in our minds, the second in our planet; they form the social and digital foundations of “we and them” politics. The government can't control them, but it can sale out, just like Trump did.
Fascism lies in algorithms, neural pathways, social interactions. How could we not see this? – Timothy Snyder asks. partially due to the fact that we believed that the rivals of liberalism were dying out, and due to American uniqueness, that “this cannot happen here”. We were besides self-centered, we wanted to see Trump in terms of the spectacle, not wanting to see his fascist presence; worse – we got utilized to the thrill of doing something more scandalous than we expected.
Snyder besides cites the opinion of another American prof. on Trump, Robert Paxton, a political scientist and historian from Columbia University, who specializes in fascism, the author of “Anatomics of Fascism” and “France of Vichy”. Paxton goes further: he claims that Trump's fascist phenomenon has a stronger social basis than Hitler and Mussolini, who needed more luck to come to power, and in Trump's case it became more natural.
Well, fascism is simply a phenomenon, not an individual – concludes Snyder. Trump has always been present among us and this does not apply only to his friendly references to Hitler ("Hitler did any good things") or to the usage of Nazi language ("worms", "internal enemy"). Trump is liable for what will happen, as are his allies and supporters. But any of the blame lies on the side of our actions and analyses; our institutions, from the press to the judiciary, have repeatedly strengthened Trump. Fascism can be overcome, but not passively, due to the fact that then you stand by him.
I'm putting Snyder distant and Philosophie Magazine. But it can besides be added that, in the opinion of General John Kelly, erstwhile advisor to Donald Trump, the American president “is in the dictionary definition of a fascist;” he was to confess that he wanted specified generals as Adolf Hitler had, loyal to himself, alternatively than the Constitution. The fascist besides called Trump erstwhile Pentagon chief general James Mattis. Oh, yeah. by the way, The Nobel Prize for Trump was besides nothing new: the legend of the Parisian bohemian Gertrude Stein besides took action to get Hitler to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
Today, the word “fascism” is frequently abused, but after the genocide of Herrenvolk, there is inactive small to stand to admit fascism; it is more likely to be attributed to its opponents, camouflaged in a populist cocktail. For a fascist, everything is simple – in order to gain and keep power, you gotta invent enemies, in an atmosphere of political excitement attributing to them the qualities of fear, hostility, disgust.
Bloody Mary has already evaporated from her head, but the brown emotion has remained, and not only in Harry’s fresh York Bar.
