this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2023
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politics

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[–] [email protected] 88 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Turns out, it's not so easy to start a fascist theocracy with democracy still in place.

[–] foggy 63 points 1 year ago (2 children)

All through Trump's presidency I kept telling myself, this is the stress test. The goal is clear, but the system was designed to withstand the blow.

Government is a mess. They're slow as molasses. This is a feature, not a bug. Our government is such a tangled mess, taking it over is way more difficult than just keeping it going.

We do have a few cancers growing within the system. Here's hoping the system works, and eradicates them.

[–] [email protected] 69 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The goal is clear, but the system was designed to withstand the blow.

The system was largely designed over two hundred years ago, and fascism was designed to take advantage of its inadequacies.

The Weimar Republic was modeled after the American government, and fell to the same gridlock and political schisms we are seeing happen today.

The system does not have a way to hamper fascism because fascism is a revolutionary force. The goal isn't to command the current government, but to destroy it and replace it with another.

As I see it, their only real goal is to make the government so dysfunctional that the people will demand a strong man to come and fix it all. And I think most people will say they've been doing a fine job at that.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah, we're seeing it a lot right now. Our government was designed to work when everyone is operating in good faith. It has nothing to defend against that not being the case

[–] Wrench 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It's designed to block a few bad faith attackers. The problem is the GOP decided to embrace bad actors from the core, and that rot has taken over the entire party.

Now it's not a few bad faith actors, it's half the electorate, who have also been systematically appointing their bad faith cronies in unelected positions.

Edit - And by a few, I mean less than 1/3rd. The constitution is designed for all political parties to band together and oust the bad actors in a 2/3rd majority.

But GOP allowed themselves to be fully taken over by fascists, and those that aren't full fascists in ideology won't even make a stand. Those that did are already out, and never tried to organize to stand together with the Dems to remove the zealots.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Trump's presidency highlighted just how much "spit and a handshake" the US government really is.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This is why Trump is threatening to fire all the federal nonpartisan employees. They are the ones doing all the day to day work to keep things going. If he guts that entire structure it'll be total chaos but then he can issue decrees to his loyalists and there won't be a structure to push back against anything illegal, unconstitutional or unethical.

If that comes to pass it'll be a real mess for sure.

[–] shalafi 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Serious question on that. Why are they not talking about firing the top military brass? That seems the logical first step, and the first thing autocrats have done through history.

People often comment on the politics of individual soldiers. IDGAF. The leadership is not going to kowtow to Trumps whims.

Too unpalatable to be said out loud? If so, why not just paint them as enemies and vermin? If I was managing the propaganda for Trump, I could easily make several top generals out to be bad guys who won't work with me.

[–] ysjet 11 points 1 year ago

Because Tommy Tuberville is holding up top military brass appointees so trump can change them and instate a whole swath of the at once. No need to fire anyone if you hold the spots open until your guy wins.

Same way they stacked the supreme Court.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Gish galloping to fascism is the plan.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

Never stop reminding people that this exists.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

That's why they're dismantling democracy.