mtswIt's pretty remarkable how much Elon's Twitter takeover is a textbook fascist takeover: leftists immediately purged, censorship regime imposed behind the scenes, secret police rooting out enemies, right wing terrorism supported by the state, etc and how uncannily similar the mainstream liberal response of pretending nothing is wrong is, even with *very low* costs of walking out the door and refusing to collaborate.
Not really my problem I guess but def feels like one of those "if you don't know how'd you'd react when the fascist take over, now you know" situation
Probably goes without saying but the often clownish administrative incompetence (along with that fact reassuring the liberals that the regime will therefore collapse on its own without requiring anything of them) is a pretty obvious parallel to actual fascist regimes as well
Gregory Hays@mtsw A constant drumbeat in Victor Klemperer's diary of the early Nazi years is running into people whose cousin works in the Foreign Ministry and assures them the regime can't possibly last more than another three weeks, maybe a month at the outside.
Bea Furniss@aristofontes @mtsw I assume they always thought the regime would be deposed …by someone else? It’s that classic tale of Somebody, Everybody, Anybody and Nobody.
@BeaFurniss They thought it was a conventional government that was subject to the same laws of political gravity as the governments that had preceded it. This turned out not to be the case.
@aristofontes I guess that we can fall into the trap of judging the German people through the lens of hindsight, and expecting them to be more vigilant and aware of their plight than one would be, in the moment.
@BeaFurniss Well, "the German people" was not a monolith. Plenty of Germans knew exactly who the Nazis were; others chose not to see it.
gzuckier@BeaFurniss @aristofontes
Just finished Kingdom Come by J. G. Ballard, 2006, where he depicts a nativist fascist violent groundswell in the hinterlands (of England), underestimated and disregarded by the powers that be, the authorities, the Londoners, etc.
A mediocre afternoon TV host of no particular principles is the perfect leader for such a movement, as it turns out. .
Just finished Kingdom Come by J. G. Ballard, 2006, where he depicts a nativist fascist violent groundswell in the hinterlands (of England), underestimated and disregarded by the powers that be, the authorities, the Londoners, etc.
A mediocre afternoon TV host of no particular principles is the perfect leader for such a movement, as it turns out. .
@gzuckier There are times when I think he's the greatest writer of the 20th century, and others when I think he's the greatest writer of the 22nd.
@gzuckier @aristofontes The English flirted with fascism in the 30s, and some would say have succumbed to its temptation in the last few years. I read the premise to the book. I’m not sure Surrey counts as a hinterland.