Rachel Maddow brings an important message about an alarming world trend...

Yearning for those halcyon days when El Duce ruled with an iron fist is part of their appeal.

 

I am sure she could have come up with a similar slogan without copying Mussolini. I am sure, though, the dog whistle is intentional, to attract the neo-Mussolini fans.

Note: I have no problem with God, homeland and family. I do have a problem when these terms are politically weaponized to promote an ulterior, far right-wing nationalist agenda, in which the hate of the "others" is the ultimate driving force. .

 

No you don’t. The democrat platform is predicated upon identity politics and the idea of minority against the majority. Their entire platform is predicated upon a victim state where the minority groups feel victimized by the majority group (whites) and need to band together to make sure they’re protected from the evil, racist majority which does NOTHING but drive hate.

And you got no problem with that.

 

Not to get too abstract, but one wonders how much of the Right's rise has to do with the wave of displaced immigrants that came out of the ME as a consequence of Bush's Iraq debacle and the chaotic events that followed.

 

This is the perfect example of accusing someone else of what you are guilty of. Liberals are the ones that riot when things don't go their way. Liberals are the ones that riot when they don't like someone else's speech. Liberals are the ones that 'cancel' people when they dare to disagree with them.

People are tired of being invaded by Third World criminals and savages.

People are tired of being forced to support people because liberals want them to.

Basically, this fascism claim is a crock of ****.

 

So, in my view, the march to worldwide LW populism is just getting started. With a powerful propaganda machine behind them, that knows how to exploit the most basic emotions of their followers, there is easy pickings even among the young.

See, the pendulum swings both ways. The left is just as guilty as the right and I think that the disinformation is spread from both sides equally to achieve whatever objectives they invent to stop their opponents.

Anyone who defends one side is guilty of being a sheep to mass media including myself at times. Both sides sole goal is to create animosity between their followers and their opponents. The left is equally as guilty as the right and both are complicit.

 

WARNING - Italy got smart!
The left is trembling in their boots that America doesn't also GET SMART
Look at how they are crapping all over another country's ELECTED PM
Haters!

 

Ultra-lame parroting.

In any case, if you haven't noticed, it's not far leftists, communists and socialists that are taking over governments in Europe and the US, it is RW nationalist extremists. Name one "LW populist" who won an important election lately, if you can. I bet you can't. Just in case: Biden is not a LW populist, neither is Scholz. Both are moderates. So, while both sides use rhetoric to cater to their base, it appears that the RW extremists are winning.

 

Hmmmm, sounds like an endorsement of fascism.........and therefore Trumpery.

How America’s Democracy Is “Ripe to Be Exploited”

Voters in Sweden this month gave a leading role to a far-right party with neo-Nazi roots. Italy is also on the cusp of putting a party in power that has fascist origins. And of course, in the United States, one party has increasingly embraced election denialism and attempted to undermine the legitimacy of the electoral process.

To try to understand what, exactly, is happening, I talked with Barbara Walter, a political scientist at the University of California San Diego who studies democracies across the world. Her book “How Civil Wars Start” has become a bestseller. Rather than talk about the prospects for political violence, we discussed why many democracies are retrenching and how the U.S. stands alone — and not in a good way.
https://www.propublica.org/article/democracy-demagogues-fascism-elections-barbara-walter

 

You can't cry Fascism and Trump over EVERYTHING. GET A GRIP MAN. its truly sad

 

We shall soon know. Lula had his own problems, but he did a lot of good for Brazil, overall. His successor (before Bolsonaro) Dilma Rousseff, she was impeached and she was his protogé. the rightward swing to Bolsonaro was a reaction to her presidency of corruption, but it was all BS, she was the victim of a rich elite who lied about her in the media, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/21/dilma-rousseff-enemies-impeached-brazil

 

I was struck by the bolded section above. Are you saying that the masses' failure to thrive is their own fault? If a factory gets shipped to China it is the fault of the factory workers? If immigrants compete for jobs and undercut them in wages it is the fault of the native born?

The march to worldwide populism has been going on for a while. Globalization has it's discontents although it appeals to the elite. Your attitude about the common man, that they are stupid, low information and easily manipulated, reeks of an elitism that will not serve your party well in a democracy. And it belies claims of being the empathetic party.

 

Well, did not Stephen Miller, Trump's senior advisor, on TV, once declare that " that the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned." ? I mean, it was so Gestapo-esque, wouldn't you agree? Yes, he did say that, not to mention quite a number of folks have written about Trump's fascistic tendencies. I find it interesting that that fact is a fact, that no other president was so singled out regarding that particular characteristic.

To wit:


Madeleine Albright. "Will we stop Trump before it's too late." The New York Times. April 6, 2018.

Daniel Altman. "This is how every genocide begins." Foreign Policy. November 30, 2017.

Samir Amin. "The return of fascism in contemporary capitalism." Monthly Review. September 2014.

Associated Press. "Obama: Protect democracy or risk taking path of Nazi Germany." CBS News online. December 9, 2017.

Peter Beinart. "Why Trump supporters believe he is not corrupt." The Atlantic. August 22, 2018.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat. “An American authoritarian: The Republican presidential candidate is not a fascist, but his campaign bears notable similarities to the reign of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.” The Atlantic. August 10, 2016.

Roger Berkowitz. "Why Arendt matters: Revisiting 'The Origins of Totalitarianism'." Los Angeles Review of Books. March 18, 2017

Noah Berlatsky. "The Trump effect: New study connects white American intolerance and support for authoritarianism." NBCnews.com. May 27, 2018.

Mark Bickhard. " The scary parallels between Trump and Musollini." Rawstory. March 21, 2017

Joan Biskupic. "Trump's sustained attacks on American rights.' CNN.com. May 27, 2018.

Aaron Blake. “Stephen Miller’s authoritarian declaration: Trump’s national security actions ‘will not be questioned.” Washington Post. February 13, 201

Paul Blumenthal. "This stunningly racist French novel is how Steve Bannon explains the world. Huffington Post. March 4, 2017.

William Boardman. “Constitutional crisis deepens as Trump fights checks and balances.” Reader Supported News Online. February 11, 2017.

Tom Boggiani. "Trump sucks his followers in by using the language of fascists: Yale linguistics expert." Rawstory. May 25, 2019.

Christopher Browning. "Lessons from Hitler's Rise." New York Review of Books. April 20, 2017.

Christopher Browning. "The Suffocation of Democracy." New York Review of Books. October 25, 2018.

Jonathan Chait. "The Republican Party's gearing up for war on the rule of law." New York Magazine. October 30, 2017.

Isaac Chotiner. “How much do the early days of the Trump administration look like the Third Reich?” Interview with historian Richard Evans. Slate. February 10, 2017.

Issac Chotiner. “Is Donald Trump a fascist? Yes and no.” An Interview with Robert Paxton. Slate. February 10, 2016.

Isaac Chotiner. “Too Close for comfort: how much do the early days of the Trump administration look like the Third Reich?" Interview with historian Richard Evans." Slate. February 10, 2017.

Sarah Churchwell. "American fascism: It has happened here." The New York Review of Books. June 22, 2020.

Chauncey DeVega. "Are white people ready to bail on democracy? These researchers say the danger is real." Salon. August 2, 2018.

Chauncey DeVega. "Soldiers of the boogaloo: David Neiwert on the far right's plans for a new civil war." Salon. May 18, 2020.

Lee Drutman, Larry Diamond and Joe Goldman. "Follow the leader: Exploring American support for democracy and authoritarianism." Voter Study Group. February 2018.

Lee Drutman, Larry Diamond and Joe Goldman. "Testing the limits: Examining public support for checks on presidential power." Voter Study Group. June 2018

The Economist. “America’s system of checks and balances might struggle to contain a despot.” February 4, 2017.

Geoff Eley. "Is Trump a fascist?" Historians for Peace and Democracy. Summer 2017.

Ellen Grey Ellis. "The internet protocols of the elders of Zion." Wired. March 12, 2017.

John Feffer. "The Trump dystopian nightmare: Nuclear war, climate change and a clash of civilizations are all on the horizon." Alternet. March 12, 2017

Reza Fiyouzat. "Trump in perspective: Fascism or just more barbarism?" Counterpunch. March 12, 2017.

Mark Follman. "Trumpocracy: Tracking the creeping authoritarianism of the 45th president." Mother Jones. December 4, 2017.

John Bellamy Foster. "Neofascism in the White House." Monthly Review. April, 2017.

John Bellamy Foster. "This is not populism." Monthly Review. June 2017.

Richard E. Frankel. "Here is how Donald Trump becomes a dictator." Raw Story. October 5, 2018.

Richard E. Frankel. "A professor of German history explains the true horror of Trump’s response to Charlottesville." Raw Story. August 16, 2017.

David Frum. “How to build an autocracy.” The Atlantic. January 30, 2017.

Megan Garber. “‘First they came’: The poem of the protests, Martin Niemöller’s lines, written just after the Holocaust, argued against apathy—and for the moral connectedness of all people.” The Atlantic. January 29, 2017.

Masha Gessen, “Autocracy: Rules for survival.” New York Review of Books. November 10, 2016.

Henry Giroux. "Donald Trump's fascist politics and the language of fascism." Raw Story. November 18, 2018.

Henry Giroux. "Facism starts with words - and Trump has a startling romance with the rhetoric of dictators." Raw Story. January 11, 2018.

Henry Giroux. " The Hardening of Society and the Rise of Cultures of Cruelty in Neo-Fascist America." Counterpunch. March 17, 2017.

Henry Giroux. "Neoliberal fascism and the echoes of echoes of history." Truthdig. August 2, 2018.

Henry Giroux. "Rethinking the normalization of fascism in the post-truth era." Tikkun. April 1, 2019.

Amy Goodman. “Noam Chomsky: Trump's victory recalls memories of Hitler & fascism's spread across Europe.” Democracy Now. Interview with Noam Chomsky. December 6, 2016.

Van Gosse. "An 'illiberal democracy' if Trump wins again." Organizing Upgrade. May 14, 2020.

Rosie Gray. “The nationalist right is coming for Reince Priebus.” The Atlantic. February 14, 2017.

Zoltan Grossman. "Fascism denial ignores some inconvenient truths." ZNet. October 29, 2018.

Andrew Gumbel. "Is This Fascism?" Los Angeles Review of Books. July 24, 2017.

Alexandra Hall. "Controversial Proud Boys embrace 'Western values,' reject feminism and political correctness." WisconsinWatch.org. November 26, 2017.

John Haltiwanger. "'There need to be mass protests': Authoritarianism experts say time is running out for Americans to stop Trump." Business Insider. February 12, 2020.

Bernard E. Harcourt. "How Trump fuels the fascist right." The New York Review of Books. November 29, 2018.

Josh Harkinson. “The dark history of the White House aides who crafted Trump's ‘Muslim ban’: Here's how Stephen Bannon and Stephen Miller have been boosters of Islamophobes and white nationalists." Mother Jones. January 30, 2017.

Josh Harkinson. “Meet the white nationalist trying to ride the Trump train to lasting power: Alt-right architect aims to make racism cool again.” Mother Jones. October 27, 2016.

Thom Hartmann. “It can still happen here: Donald Trump, Ben Carson and the “American fascists” among us. Sinclair Lewis feared demagoguery and a corporate ruling class. The right is bringing his dystopia to fruition.” Salon. November 4, 2015.

Head Space Blog. “History repeats itself: National Socialism – past and present: The psychology of Nazism.” February 15, 2016.

Chris Hedges. “Donald Trump: The dress rehearsal for fascism.” Truthdig.com. October 16, 2016.

Chris Hedges. "A Last Chance for Resistance." Truthdig.com. March 19, 2017.

Chris Hedges. “Make America ungovernable.” Truthdig.com. February 5, 2017.

Aleksander Hemon. "Trump’s nationalism advances on a predictable trajectory to violence. His supporters will kill when they’re told to." The Intercept. May 2, 2020.

Clive Irving. "It is happening here, Trump is already early-stage Mussolini." The Daily Beast. June 30, 2018


So, excuse me because, apparently, your failure to see what so many plainly see suggests that it is you, far more than I, who should attempt a slightly better grip on reality than you currently are maintaining.

 

You an quote uninformed idiots all day long if you want. FASCISM is stuffing your opinions down the throats of others and forcing them into your way of thinking. I prove this in here on a DAILY basis. No SPIN will change that and no quotes from fringe leftists will either!

 

This is just another day of "everyone I don't like is Hitler" in another brand.

Cute, not to be taken seriously.

 

Facts don't matter to the poster of the OP, just histrionics and the production of thrash and churn... The fact that Madcow commented, well, it's what she gets paid to do. Facts never actually mattered to her much... so hyperbole and hate flow out whenever the people get out of line and kick out the globalist slugs. And then comes the name calling, and it devolves from there.

 

This is not really my opinion at all. The losers of globalization have a reason to be discontent. After all, their wages have barely kept up with inflation, not just today, but over the last decades, while productivity has skyrocketed. However, the discontent should be targeted at the actual culprits, which are multinational corporations and the ones who do their bidding through unlimited donations (thanks, GOP SC Citizens United) in the US political system. That's why income and wealth inequality keeps rising.

However, the Trump party has convinced them that it is nothing some more deregulation and tax cuts can't fix, while at the same time targeting their anger at the "others", in other words, undesirables, like LGBQT, foreigners, immigrants, people of color etc.

It's typical scapegoating, which has been the hallmark of populist nationalism, not just in the US, but in Europe too. Make the plebes angry at the ones below them, rather than targeting the anger at the REAL culprits.

 

It's not populism. Right Wing populism is an oxymoron. It's racist nationalism which is the essence of fascism plus dictatorial rule. Bernie Sanders is a populist. Traditionally, populism was always thought of as being on the left.

 

I believe that what you are describing is the fear-mongering spin that globalists put on the anti-globalist/populist agenda. While you can kind of sort of imply that putting one's country before all others somehow is akin to blaming their problems on various groups as you assert, but that is not the true motivation behind the anti-globalist agenda. Rather, the anti-globalist agenda seeks to end the movement that sees the major powers starting to plan foreign policy and economic agendas in an international way as opposed to each country doing what is in their best interests. This also overlaps heavily with the concept of populism.

Anti-globalism/populism does NOT equate to fascism, but the globalists keep repeating it so much that they have convinced their adherents that they are one and the same. As proof of this assertion, I would point to when the allied powers repelled the fascists in WW2, none of the allied powers were globalists. In fact, all actors involved in WW2 were anti-globalists. The significance of this reality is that globalism is NOT the opposite of fascism as is being implied by modern-day globalists. One can oppose globalism and not be fascist in any manner.

Just because one wants their politicians to make decisions based on what is best for their country does NOT mean that they believe economic woes are..."not really their fault that they are not doing well economically, but it is really the fault of the Jews, communists, socialists, people of color, foreigners, immigrants, gay people, transgenders... Insert any other boogeyman that is from a group that is not the "norm". The idea is that ridding society from those people who are not the "norm" will make everyone's lives better."...as you have asserted. In fact, it does not mean that the anti-globalist has economic woes at all. It only means that they want their government to focus upon their own country rather than elsewhere.

 

What you describe is part of the populist agenda, which is anti-globalism. However, then color me shocked that the same people voted with high enthusiasm, and twice, for the guy who gave the multinational globalists a huge corporate tax cut, for what? As reward for the offshoring of jobs? Maybe, just maybe they would offshore less if they got more tax carrots at home? How did THAT work out.

While this anti-globalist agenda might still be part of the misguided enthusiasm for Trump, the much bigger part, in my view, is that Trump dislikes the same people his voters also dislike, i.e. minorities, LGBQT, foreigners. etc. And, unlike other politicians, he doesn't hide this fact, but uses the lack of political correctness as a tool to gain more support.

If you think this is not true, just look at the recent threads here on the RW response to the DeSantis stunt of sending asylum seekers to MV. The dehumanization of these immigrants in those threads is palpable.

 

@Patricio Da Silva

I, Meloni, and all of ITALIA will be awaiting your apology for parroting fake news.

The former PM of Italy (a liberal) just SHREDDED all of the fascist claims of Meloni

Are you gonna now try to fake that you and MSNBC, in all your infinite wisdom know more about Italy than the former PM of Italy?

Man up and APOLOGIZE now!


https://www.breitbart.com/politics/...pm-dismisses-fascism-brewing-in-italy-claims/

watch the video. I DARE YOU!!!!!!!

 

It's obvious you haven't paid much attention to her, and given that fact, your comment is dismissed. Pundit media is all about opinion, so your admonishing opinion for it's own sake isn't a valid point. Moreover, that pundits give opinions that can't be held to a factual standard is the reason she won the suit, but that applies to everyone. Nor does that necessarily claim that nothing she says isn't factual, so your implication is false. She makes many factual, and well documented, claims all of which, at times, include conclusions drawn, WHICH ARE OPINIONS.

Your failure to recognize such a thing clearly demonstrates the failure of your argument.

I've paid a lot of attention to many right wing pundits, including Meier, and they can touch her when it comes to class and brilliance.

I find it interesting that you would mention Barry Meier, who said this:

"Donald Trump’s election would mark the start of an unparalleled era of governmental corruption, political cowardice, and social upheaval. Russia’s efforts to meddle in U.S. politics were a real threat to America, one that Trump seemed to care little about. But there were other serious threats emanating directly from the Trump administration: attacks on science, contempt for the rule of law, campaigns to silence critics and intimidate career public servants."

Meier isn't just down on Maddow, he's down on a lot of folks in media, it's just who he is, but he rarely digs deep like Maddow does, so he's definitely no match for her and therefore I'll take his criticism of Maddow with a grain of salt. However, I will give Meier Kudos for asserting that the election wasn't rigged, like so many on the right claim. Most of the stuff in 'Spooked' is just stuff that we already know, it's not very probing, lot's a 'well, duh' moments in the book, i.e., no where near what Maddow would have done if she were to tackle the subject.

 

It's obvious YOU did not either. But you only paid attention to Rachel. SAD. Here's your argument TORN TO SHREDS by someone who knows whats going on in italy.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/...pm-dismisses-fascism-brewing-in-italy-claims/

BOOM!

Hows that fact sandwich taste? It probably will taste bland since it isn't topped with race and gender.

 

Cites an opinion pundit who spent 4 years of the prior administration claiming the president wasn't legitimate. Doesn't see the irony.

 

Okay, you've pinned me down. Substitute 'often' to replace 'always'. Better?

Good. Moving on.

You wrote:

If history is any guide, one constant in recent political elections is that Italians vote for change, with a desire for something new seemingly overtaking traditional political ideology in big pendulum shifts, said Nathalie Tocci, director of the Rome-based Institute of International Affairs.

So, I will qualify my 'always' statement thus: Fascism doesn't always advertise what it is, and often comes cloaked as something better than it is. Given that fact, it's not a conflict with my statement.

Now, that is a fairly accurate statement which your 'point' fails to grasp, so I'll toss out the remainder of what you wrote, since it's predicated therefrom.

Moreover 'notorious' doesn't always have a negative connotation. It can certainly be used as a playful positive, given that Ruth Bader Ginsberg as often been called the 'Notorious RGB' (there is a book with that title) meaning 'no one to be reckoned with'.

As for 'trend', there is a growing trend, it is real, but that claim doesn't state that it is going to be successful, so any such interpretation of my meaning in that regard would be false.

As for 'circuitous'. Clearly, you don't like her style. But that's just an indication of your preference, not a valid comment to brilliance or lack thereof.

As for items I didn't include, the OP was never meant as a thorough analysis.

As for the caliber of your own comment, I find it amusing that you'd chastise her for being 'tortuously circuitous' when your own verbiage is way into the tortuous verbiage zone, with your incessant usage of silver tongued words.

Physician, heal thyself.