US Authoritarianism

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Hello, I am researching American crimes against humanity. . This space so far has been most strongly for memes, and that's fine.

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Conservatism is Brain Damage (lemmy.world)

submitted 5 months ago by alphanerd4 to c/usauthoritarianism

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[–] exanime 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I didn't mean to say Facists are dumb... I mean some are, case in point Trump... but very definitely not all of them

However, being smart does not make any one an "intellectual" nor the source of any sound ideology

[–] nifty 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

An intellectual is anyone who can utilize logic, reasoning, and critical analysis to probe ideas or help understand them. Moreover, a member of the intelligentsia is anyone who the ruling class in a society decides is worthy of membership. It’s not so simple as “that dude is only wearing a ninja costume” when someone can just say “yeah he’s a ninja, fuck you”.

[–] exanime -2 points 5 months ago

Hmmm to me that is just anyone with common sense...

I was leaning more into a definition like this one (from wikipedia)

An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and reflection about the reality of society, and who proposes solutions for its normative problems.[2][3] Coming from the world of culture, either as a creator or as a mediator, the intellectual participates in politics, either to defend a concrete proposition or to denounce an injustice, usually by either rejecting, producing or extending an ideology, and by defending a system of values.[4]

I mean, I use logic and reasoning and critical analysis to probe ideas.. but I am certainly no intellectual... the ideas I probe are more in the tune of "how sweet can I make bacon candy before my mother will come back from the grave and smack me for having dessert for breakfast?"

The ninja comment was in reply to the "many fascist disguise as intellectuals" which I took to be there to argue that in fact fascists can be intellectuals which I reject... I mean Trump pretends to be a religious person and he could not be further from that as well. However, I did not mean to turn this into a heavy argument as this is definitely not my area of expertise... I would however claim that, in my limited knowledge, most fascists came to power on populist grounds and populism is almost the opposite of intellectualism

[–] Crashumbc 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It's easy to say Trump is dumb, and in a lot of ways he is.

But make no mistake, he knows his audience (poor desperate conservatives) well and is highly skilled at manipulating them.

[–] exanime 1 points 5 months ago

I don't buy much of it... I get your point but if Trump were actually "highly skilled" we would all be doomed. He has put his foot in his mouth so many times I am certain he has athlete's foot in the throat by now.

The issue that his popularity is persistent has 2 main root causes:

A lot of his followers are really angry (justified or not) and they feel they finally can let it out
A lot of his followers are deeply deeply ignorant... functional illiterate people who feel identified in Trump (case in point) and who cannot understand an iota of nuance in most topics because they simply know so little about most stuff