All Hat and No Cattle, Prof

Maybe substance is overrated. In an article titled "How fascist is Donald Trump? There's actually a formula for that", Prof. John McNeill at Georgetown U. measures Trump's level of fascism on "the 11 attributes of fascism". Those are:

Ideological Attributes
  1. Hyper-nationalism
  2. Militarism
  3. Glorification of violence and willingness to use it in politics
  4. Fetishization of youth
  5. Fetishization of masculinity
  6. Leader cult
  7. Lost-golden-age syndrome
  8. Self-definition by opposition
Attributes as a Political Movement
  1. Mass mobilization and mass party
  2. Hierarchical party structures and tendency to purge the disloyal
  3. Theatricality
Isn't something missing? Maybe, totalitarianism? Corporatism? You know, fundamental stuff that's a lot more central to defining fascism than fetishization of youth or theatricality? Maybe?

Of course, the WaPo also recently published Donald Trump is actually a fascist and Don't compare Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler. It belittles Hitler, so there you are.

Update: To be fair to McNeill, he does give Trump only 26 of a possible 44 Benitos (the standard unit of fascism?) on those 11 attributes, each rated from 0-4.

Also, has the WaPo just gone nuts? I've exceeded my free article limit, but if Stephen Green is right, here's another: New York should seize Trump Tower.

on

6 comments:

  1. Assistant Village Idiot12:06 AM

    They don't actually provide a formula or say where this comes from. They wave their hands at "dozens of top historians and political scientists." Who remain unnamed. Maybe they got together at some "Let's Define Fascism" conference in the 1970's or something and hammered this out.

    What it looks a lot like is the signs of fascism outlined by "Dr." Laurence Britt, who wasn't a doctor or a political scientist. http://rense.com/general37/char.htm

    Debunked here:http://therightstuff.biz/2014/01/22/fascism-no-one-a-response-to-dr-laurence-britt/

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  2. Anonymous10:56 AM

    The WaPo continues to throw a fit because it was unable to spike all the stories contained in the many leaks and court-ordered document releases during this election.

    Yes, they lost their collective mind over this election. They had reporters attending private parties thrown by John Podesta, in contravention of their own acknowledged ethical obligations. They have always favored the Democrats in elections, and confessed it afterwards for the Presidential elections several times. This time, they have yet to regain their perspective, perhaps because the Podesta and DNC leaks in particular destroy their credibility as a news organization.

    The WaPo is terrified of losing its remaining influence (revenue), and so it is busy attacking its opposition, using Fake News.

    That way lies bankruptcy.

    Valerie

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  3. Grim11:33 AM

    Using Eminent Domain to seize Trump Tower makes some sense, given the costs of securing it. I think the author luxuriates a bit much in the pleasure of taking it from him as a political symbol, but I can see the practical argument. There's a genuine public good to be had in limiting what has become a severe expenditure of public resources to secure a private family.

    Eminent Domain also tends to make more sense in densely populated places like Manhattan, where there isn't lots of land available for public purposes.

    Besides, once they secede it'll be in another country anyway -- one more foreign entanglement for the President of the United States.

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  4. E Hines12:09 PM

    Officers wielding gigantic guns guard Trump Tower....

    This woman just displayed her utter lack of credibility (I mean, besides being a "journalist"). Flip through the 61 images the NYT provides with this screed. #3 shows the gigantic guns the police wield. So does #5. The cop in #29 is wielding a cup of coffee.... She needs to duck back into her safe space.

    As to taking Trump Tower by eminent domain, it would be interesting to see President Trump's handling of the spending bill containing money for the "purchase" of the establishment.

    The money spent on guarding the place? If Trump stays with his plan, that'll get drastically reduced in a very few months. Trump intends to reside in the White House, his son will stay at their private residence until he finishes the school year and then move into the White House, and Melania will commute between the two until the end of the school year.

    Rampell just panicked at the sight of a few small arms--or at the sight of armed cops and the police state they represent--and went even more irrational than is her normal state.

    Eric Hines

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  5. Ymar Sakar4:55 AM

    A King has to be kept apart from the peasants in case the peasants decide a King killer title was warranted. Then again, Caesar was not yet a King and he got killed by his Senate buddies, who he trusted when he told his German bodyguard to stay away. Best decision in a century there. The Senate killed one of the most virtuous believers in the Roman Republic. Then the Roman Republic died, and it wasn't at the hands of Octavian but of Brutus. Good old Brutus buried not only Caesar, but his own Republic in the process.

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  6. Anonymous12:16 PM

    Well, according to the first numbers on the list, those shown here, Stalin was a fascist. I bet he'd be a touch surprised. Or perhaps not.

    LittleRed1

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