https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
Photo: Benito Mussolini, dictator of Fascist Italy (left), and Adolf Hitler, dictator of Nazi Germany (right), were fascist leaders
this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2025
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"Fascist" is more than a mean name that people call Trumpists and billionaire oligarchs. It has an actual meaning despite their (the Trumpists) efforts to cheapen it by calling everyone they don't like a fascist and suggesting that those who correctly label them fascists (the left) are doing the same.
EDIT: calm down, you misread what I wrote.
Trump and his technofascist billionaires are indeed fucking fascist. It’s not diluting the word to call it what it is.
Relax. They are obviously fascists. It is them that had been calling everyone and everything they don't like fascists and claiming that the left is doing it to try to dilute the meaning of the word.
Your comment can be read in the reverse, thanks for clarifying.
NP
I went back and cleared it up because two people took it the opposite way to how I meant it.
This is exactly why I've been posting. Words have been losing meaning and we need reminders that they have clear definitions.
Good project.
While I get the last decade or so has seen a lot of words used in hyperbolic ways that cheapens their meaning; but are you suggesting that Trump and Musk are not Fascist or at the very least desire to be?
No. They are clearly fascists. Trump and the Trumpers have been calling everyone and everything they don't like fascists to dilute the meaning of the word.
Phew! We can all relax! What you omit to mention is that it's mainly the left and progressives who have cheapened the definition of this word. For almost a century now, as indicated by the famous Orwell quote from the ~~1930s~~1940s.
And now that that's done, they've set about cheapening the word "Nazi" so that soon it will be almost meaningless too.
PS: the Orwell quote: "The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies 'something not desirable'". Written in 1946.
Bigots consolidating power by using national pride to make minorities, immigrants, and the educated into enemies to be rallied against, allying with corporate interests who realize the consolidated powers can be used to maximally exploit the working class. A machine that needs to be constantly fed by fear of "the other" until it inevitably eats itself. Very much tied to a false notion of simple answers to complex problems, unhealthy national pride, an obsession with displays of strength, and an unwavering victim complex.
You know, us Americans.