People's failure to understand that fascism is a fairly banal worldview reflects a refusal to understand how common and ordinary looking it is and how well it hides behind our modern high tech lifestyles.
Fascism doesn't have to have 1930s pomposity and daily military parades.
It can look like America, right now, today, depending on who and where you are. America already has military jingoism, mass incarceration, mass surveillance, unchecked paramilitaries, and theocrats denying our rights.
Honestly, I don't trust anyone who doesn't find stuff like the Pledge of Allegiance or the bombastic jingoism of the Fourth of July at least a little creepy.
But a lot of people -- cis-het white people specifically -- have internalized so much of this stuff as "normal" that political discussions are derailed by having to convince them that things are already bad for other people and that it's been happening for years.
"We have to fight fascism!"
Yes, but you don't even know what fascism looks like.
It's been here for a while. It just wasn't threatening you.
This is fundamentally the problem of arguing politics with white liberals: they prefer to believe fascism is a dramatic new thing that COULD happen, not an extension of existing systems with built-in inequity at every level.
Few are so tone deaf as to vocally support, e.g., sweeping up homeless people and throwing them in jail, but many accept it, and few seem to contemplate why homelessness even exists or why our only solutions are to criminalize and imprison people.
It just doesn't register.
@gwynnion
There's a certain gaslighting quality to liberals constantly browbeating everyone critical of Biden or Democrats in general by saying that it's either them or a fascist takeover.
Superficially, it's not *wrong.* In the ballot box, there are only two choices for all intents and purposes: dictatorship and not-dictatorship.
However, this conveniently ignores that the failure of Democrats to actually combat fascism is how we got to this point in the first place.
@jargoggles There's this very weird, smug mindset of people who chortle at Republican stupidity as if that will defeat them all by itself when Republicans are objectively winning.
And if it's a problem, they put the onus squarely on (other) voters and never on Democratic officials, whose job consists entirely of giving earnest speeches, apparently.
They have no theory of power or change whatsoever. And I don't think they actually want one.
@gwynnion
If I were a Democratic politician who was solely concerned on keeping my job while having to deliver as little as possible, I would be *thrilled* with the current status quo.
Any criticism of Biden is immediately compared to the fact that Trump will be worse. Can you imagine if your performance at work was held to the standard of the absolute least competent person for the job? And people think that's a good way to evaluate how well the fucking *president* is doing?
@jargoggles When you point out that GOP presidents seem to wield enormous power, they sniff and act like it would be illegal for a Democrat to do the same but for good things.
These Democrats would have impeached Eisenhower for sending federal troops to enforce desegregation.
@gwynnion
And FDR? Ew.
No way he'll get elected (four times). He's not doing enough to appease moderate Democrats (who vote for Democrats regardless) and Republicans (who are never going to vote for a Democrat).
@gwynnion
So saying that the Democratic Party as a whole needs to do better and demanding change is a much, much stronger rejection of fascism than what liberals are doing.
Telling us to hold our nose and bite our tongue is tantamount to saying that you are perfectly okay with voting for exactly the same circumstances that brought us to this point to begin with. Neoliberalism brought fascism to our doorstep. Simply not inviting it in isn't sufficient. We need to push it back.
@jargoggles Yeah, and I think many people, because they benefit from the status quo, see change as bad no matter what form it takes.
Trump is bad because he wants to change things (in ways that might affect them). Progressives are bad because they want to change things (in ways that might affect them).
It's all about their bottom line.
Enshittification is fine as long as it affects other people.
as long as you #vote
nothing bothers me about the rejection of milquetoast spineless democrats except those who go "and so i won't vote"
MAGA consistently votes, and so they successfully turned the party of john mccain into the party of licking putin's boots. that's remarkable
imagine if the left made over the democrats like that
rather than grow disenchanted with how bernie was treated, just show up to vote even more. it's so easy
then send 100 bernies to the top
@gwynnion I know you know they just don’t want to be out front on sweeping up the homeless & jailing them, but they are totally down with somebody doing it.
The societal failure they see isn’t the homeless, it’s that they have to be aware there are homeless.
@punishmenthurts @gwynnion Soap in mouth too.
It's not like I'm going to get drug tested in 6th grade when I say the teach put some nasty liquid in my mouth for not speaking "appropriately"
Tasted like the nasty versions of envelope adhesive. Some part of me never stopped wondering if that liquid put in my mouth was actual liquid envelope adhesive.
@punishmenthurts Thank you Lama.
I think I finally get it. Took me ?? many years to get to this point to really truly understand why some autistics say, I'm like a canary in a coal mine, but instead of canary, I'm autistic. Instead of coal mine, the Earth.
Born with an innate sense to be against fascism. We have our nature beat out of us, brainwashed out of us, denied so hard we kill ourselves, or become a super fascist (EG Elon Musk).
PDA Bad? I dont think so. PDA pathologizes antifacism imo
@punishmenthurts Einstein knew when to get the hell out of Germany.
Every century huh, timing seems pretty accurate.
@gwynnion I've always felt the pledge was awful. I was expected to stand at attention with my hand on the correct side, not always remembering my right from my left, and state that damn thing every morning until my mind was numb and the whole thing was like a thoughtless recital.
Anytime I refused, I was dealt punishments. From spanking to extra homework to denied access to fun things, so I had no better choice than to put up with that damned thing I never liked.
@gwynnion if you read the Supreme Court decisions, from around 2000 onwards, it is so easy to spot.
Institutionalized conservative fascism, deviously advanced from up high, with a racist and Cristian agenda. They seem to care more about the form than about the substance of the law.
There are so many examples: this is just one institution.
@wtrmt Oh, yeah, it's everywhere.
People bemoan the litigiousness of our society, for example, without recognizing how that system benefits wealthy people and corporations, or that it's the inadequacy of our laws and regulations that force people to seek redress from the courts in the first place.
And now with a captured SCOTUS, they can essentially dictate law directly.
That’s an excellent definition of modern Baptist Christianity.
Spotting propoganda, requires either an advance skill set or an open mind I think? How would you otherwise explain implicit biases of our minds?
How do you spot Propoganda ?
It seems to me propoganda it’s both a strong and weak form of mind control.
Effectively dumping your brain into the spin cycle so when it comes out it’s nicely mind controlled by a black and white thinking style.
🤷♀️:)
POV..
Great #Thread 💐🎯
I've come to understand that #Fascism is what I've been taught to call #Capitalism when it starts treating ytpipo like it's been treating black & brown people the whole time
Capitalism/profit demands #slaves
Left to itself it will eventually have them
Solidarity from Tacoma 
Nowhere Girl
Jargoggles
ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES
PedestrianError 
Woozle Hypertwin
Barry C
Ed Sanders
the Amygdalai Lama
Green Roc Thoughts
✨buff dog himbo✨
𒀭Wiiお姉さん 💜 🏳️⚧️
CrypticCatfist
eagerpebble
Jess Nickelsen
Gabriel N
sadmac356
Ed
Kyle Memoir 🍉🐧
Everyday.Human Derek
Earthling
Paul Quirk
PeachMcD