Pretty clear when the federal govt is demading your voting info among other things in order to stop them from terrorizing you
Simple-Ring2073 on
The reddit bots have been struggling to come up with a defense the last 24 hours.
LuvKrahft on
It’s crazy, two years ago when maga was outside Disneyworld waving Nazi and confederate flags right next to Trump campaign flags, people and the media were saying you can’t call them fascists.
The “good people on both sides” was also one of those Nazi red flags that got ignored.
No shit they’re fucking fascists.
ElysiumSprouts on
We don’t need other labels: they’re Republicans.
Odd_Ant5 on
“When the facts change, I change my mind. Recent events have brought Trump’s governing style into sharper focus.”
Nothing fucking changed it’s just further along. The direction was always perfectly clear to those of us not actively closing our eyes and ears.
The second sentence belies this: “brought…into sharper focus”. The reporter is using this turn of phrase to literally admit it was always there but pathologically both-sidesing journos can’t see it coming or won’t clearly call a thing what it is.
God I hate the media
HurinGaldorson on
Ya think?
Cymbalsandthimbles on
The Atlantic is just now saying this? They are collaborators with the regime for waiting this long. Fence sitting centrists disgust me.
AINonsense on
Is this headline from 2017?
Tasty-Performer6669 on
Republicans endorsed all of this. Republicans are fascist traitors to the US Constitution full stop
lumberjack_jeff on
Finally. Welcome to the party, pal.
Godwins law has been dead for a long time now.
ButterscotchTop194 on
Keep up, Atlantic. It’s been blatantly obvious for many years that MAGA is a fascist movement.
Glad you finally caught up. *slow clap*
Indyrage on
Calling a horse a horse and a fascist a fascists doesn’t sell papers, or look like punditry. It looks like common sense.
The Atlantic is mostly allergic to common sense with amazing takes this past year like “no genocide or famine in Gaza” and “military parade wasn’t fascism”
But are as always late to the party of fact.
TFunke365 on
So disingenuous. Trump has ticked the boxes of fascism for over a decade now.
MalevolentTapir on
The idea we shouldn’t call one of the most stereotypical examples of a Fascist movement what it is, was always stupid. It’s hard to see how it was anything but self-interested bad faith, or just deep and unashamed ignorance, from the professional opinion havers in the media and some of our “moderate” politicians.
Unless you believe you just can’t use the term except to refer to the Italian Fascist party of the early 20th century, there is no argument.
CrimsonHeretic on
Not just any fascism, it’s literally Nazism.
Eusocial_sloth3 on
Before we call it fascism, let’s get Jon Stewart’s opinion while he interviews Bill O’Reilly about “cooling the temperatures.” /s
Content-Car-1708 on
“When facism comes to America it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross”
Rings true today for sure. Often attributed to Sinclair Lewis but the true origin may be unknown.
CzarWest on
Woah, welcome to reality mainstream news!!
pejofar on
Who didn’t know this 10 years ago? Morons.
CoachDT on
If at any point you were a political pundit, journalist, or influencer who tried to say that it wouldn’t be “that bad” or even “you survived Trump 1, you can make it through this too”…..
I’ma need you to hand in your keyboard, microphone, or camera and go do something else. Be a garbage man or some shit. You couldn’t read the room and in many cases tried to tell people who knew what was coming that they were wrong for calling a spade a spade.
You failed the American people. Whether it be for the sake of potential access to the White House, or due to you simply believing everyone else outside of your bubble with your belief system were hysterical little idiots that couldn’t possibly match your level of intellect and discernment.
montybeta on
If we acknowledge this is fascism, what are we even doing about it? Protesting doesn’t work in a non-democracy. To me, it’s the age old question back in action: what would you do if you could travel back in time and had a chance to stop Hitler before he came to power? We’re here now and I hope to never ask this question of the Trump administration in 5-10 years.
Puzzled-Dress-4904 on
Gee, ya think?
I’m sure if I buy that issue of the Atlantic I will also see articles about how shots were fired at Fort Sumter, and the passenger ship Titanic has hit an iceberg and sank with massive loss of life.
that_70_show_fan on
Dude still doesn’t get it.
> especially by left-leaning types who call you a fascist if you oppose abortion or affirmative action
Erase the rights of 50% of the population and then prevent the only viable way towards upward social mobility for the rest rest 20% or so.. and my dude gets offended that we call them what they are.
LetMePushTheButton on
Dont be afraid to call it what it is.
I went to a 50501 protest and heard nobody chanting against fascism. I started my own. “No ICE, No KKK, No FASCIST USA”
An organizer tried to hijack my chant and remove the the mention of fascism. “ICE OUT NOW” she yelled over our existing chant.
I just don’t understand how we were pussyfooting for so long about the rise of fascism. I dont give a shit about an unconstitutional memo like NSPM-7. Anti-fascism is patriotic, not of domestic terror.
Will-E-Style on
> Fascism is not a territory with clearly marked boundaries but a constellation of characteristics. When you view the stars together, the constellation plainly appears.
This is such a powerful way to describe what we’re all seeing.
Cubsof2016 on
They were fascists in 2016, yet you’d be scolded by the Atlantic for saying so then. They’d have on some useless academic who would either define it so narrowly that actual fascist regimes from Europe in the 30’s and 40’s barely qualified, or they would give us a list of criteria that were obviously in Trump’s mind, but he hadn’t actually discussed yet like an expansionist foreign policy or employing secret police. I’m furious at the media and blame them.
SiltStrider_Mechanic on
This is a civil war but only one side is fighting.
Un1CornTowel on
I can’t take seriously people who are like “fascism was not appropriate, he didn’t do fascist things” and then essentially nothing changes and they’re all-of-a-sudden like “*Fascist* best describes it, and reluctance to use the term has now become perverse. ”
The fact that the main difference is extrajudicially killing white people in public rather than brown people in private is pretty telling.
He was fascist 10 years ago. He’s fascist now. Having people tell me I was delusional for a decade is infuriating, and, while, I will never give up on wanting all people to prosper, I hope these fence-sitters get theirs before the rest of us that actually believed our senses and convictions.
lkg721k on
The only good fascist……
N8CCRG on
Off-topic a little bit, but this was always such a bad argument:
>For yet another, the term is hazily defined, even by its adherents. From the beginning, fascism has been an incoherent doctrine, and even today scholars can’t agree on its definition. Italy’s original version differed from Germany’s, which differed from Spain’s, which differed from Japan’s.
Yeah guess what, the United States’ Democracy differed from the UK’s, which differed from France’s, which differed from India’s, etc. but I bet you still called them Democracies for many years without a second thought.
I’m glad this author has finally been willing to come to terms with reality, and I hope anyone still clinging to those bad arguments (none of us *wants* to be living through a fascist/authoritarian takeover) can be shaken out of them too.
IkujaKatsumaji on
As a historian of politics and war in 1930s Europe, this is unbelievably frustrating to read. For over ten years, I’ve been saying Trump’s a fascist – ever since his Riefenstahlesque descent down the elevator in 2015. This guy’s been dragging his feet, ignoring the signs, dithering and dancing around the truth that should have been obvious to anyone who knows what they’re talking about.
Even here, he’s timid about it, acting like his reticence was wise and responsible. No; it was foolish cowardice. He says the signs weren’t all there? Nonsense. Trump has satisfied almost the entire Umberto Eco list since the very beginning. By careful avoidance of the truth, people who /should/ have been standing up to the fascists have lent them legitimacy.
People are dead because of it. Not just Renee Good and Alex Pretti; tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of people around the world are dead because of the destruction of institutions made to help them. That’s not to mention the people killed in illegal military strikes, or those killed by emergency mismanagement here at home, or the people who will die now that they’re losing their health insurance. The harm doesn’t stop with deaths, either; families torn apart, homes lost, children gone hungry. Have we forgotten the million Americans who died from COVID related issues?
I don’t know if all this would’ve been avoided had these cowardly liberals used “the F-word” 🙄 to describe Trump from the beginning. By not using it, though, and by attacking those of us who were not afraid to call him what he is, they didn’t slow his advance by an inch.
Perfect_Base_3989 on
It was fascism when he descended the golden escalator in 2015. These fucks just didn’t want to inconvenience themselves.
* Fuck the Atlantic
* Fuck the New York Times
* Fuck nepo baby David Frum
* Fuck nepo baby Ezra Klein
* Fuck…
uobytx on
“My literal profession is a political journalist and I’m only now realizing this is fascism. It’s okay to call it that now that I’ve finally caught up, but you left-types were overreacting when the fascists told us the plan to do exactly this 10 years ago”. Get a new job.
mobster25 on
I’m banking Trump got tips from Kim Jong Il and other dictators a few years ago.
ChinookKing on
Yeah. We’ve known this.
Little_Flamingo_8632 on
He needs to be removed, arrested and ordered to pay back every dime he has stolen from Americans. He and his administration should face consequences and be ordered to pay fines to every American they have assaulted, assault is what this is.
_Flight_of_icarus_ on
Yes, it is.
Now let’s stop fucking calling it anything else and take it seriously.
tamebobhickock on
Donald Trump and Republicans killed another innocent civilian through an occupying federal force
Dreams-Visions on
Thanks for being late, Atlantic.
kos-or-kosm on
I’m worried a lot of people think “fascism” means “authoritarianism”. It doesn’t. Fascism is authoritarian, but it’s a far more specific political phenomenon. People have been calling Trump and MAGA fascist for over a decade and that’s because they match that phenomenon to a “t”.
SikatSikat on
The facts didn’t change. They went entirely in the direction they were always headed and were the basis of calling him fascist. It’s acceleration of the same. Always was fascist. Always will be fascist.
But hey even the Atlantic can’t resist taking shots at the Left for calling this accurately from the start.
OmgitsJafo on
It’s been fascism for a long ass time. People haven’t seemed to care all that much. This isn’t the rise of fascism, but late stage fascism, where pretenses fall and the fascists start eating the host country.
Hektorlisk on
nuh uh, Jon Stewart told me that I shouldn’t call it fascism because that’s too extreme or something.
jumpy_monkey on
Every single thing the author recognizes as being fascistic was occurring when he was saying “don’t call them fascists”.
Oh, and the “the label fascist was so overused by liberals it had no meaning” is ridiculous given the extremely common response in light of people being accused of being fascists saying “well if you call me a fascist I will just go ahead and do fascist things”.
KhyraBell on
“For another, the term has been overused to the point of meaninglessness, especially by left-leaning types who call you a fascist if you oppose abortion or affirmative action.”
It sounds like Jonathan Rauch didn’t think it could be fascism until it affected people like him.
SheriffWyattDerp on
Johnathan Rauch strikes me as a bit of an idiot who just didn’t see what was so obvious to so many of us.
Now that it’s impossible to deny anymore, they don’t want to admit that the anti-abortion stances, or the SC takeovers, or any of the actions of the last 20+ years were the probes to find the weak spots to get us to this point. No, now it’s just fascism, *out of nowhere.*
47 Comments
22,000 ICE agents currently with a $74 Billion dollar budget.
This is what 22,000 abusive/murdering goons looks like:
[https://blog.lime.link/visualizing-crowd-sizes/](https://blog.lime.link/visualizing-crowd-sizes/)
Pretty clear when the federal govt is demading your voting info among other things in order to stop them from terrorizing you
The reddit bots have been struggling to come up with a defense the last 24 hours.
It’s crazy, two years ago when maga was outside Disneyworld waving Nazi and confederate flags right next to Trump campaign flags, people and the media were saying you can’t call them fascists.
The “good people on both sides” was also one of those Nazi red flags that got ignored.
No shit they’re fucking fascists.
We don’t need other labels: they’re Republicans.
“When the facts change, I change my mind. Recent events have brought Trump’s governing style into sharper focus.”
Nothing fucking changed it’s just further along. The direction was always perfectly clear to those of us not actively closing our eyes and ears.
The second sentence belies this: “brought…into sharper focus”. The reporter is using this turn of phrase to literally admit it was always there but pathologically both-sidesing journos can’t see it coming or won’t clearly call a thing what it is.
God I hate the media
Ya think?
The Atlantic is just now saying this? They are collaborators with the regime for waiting this long. Fence sitting centrists disgust me.
Is this headline from 2017?
Republicans endorsed all of this. Republicans are fascist traitors to the US Constitution full stop
Finally. Welcome to the party, pal.
Godwins law has been dead for a long time now.
Keep up, Atlantic. It’s been blatantly obvious for many years that MAGA is a fascist movement.
Glad you finally caught up. *slow clap*
Calling a horse a horse and a fascist a fascists doesn’t sell papers, or look like punditry. It looks like common sense.
The Atlantic is mostly allergic to common sense with amazing takes this past year like “no genocide or famine in Gaza” and “military parade wasn’t fascism”
But are as always late to the party of fact.
So disingenuous. Trump has ticked the boxes of fascism for over a decade now.
The idea we shouldn’t call one of the most stereotypical examples of a Fascist movement what it is, was always stupid. It’s hard to see how it was anything but self-interested bad faith, or just deep and unashamed ignorance, from the professional opinion havers in the media and some of our “moderate” politicians.
Unless you believe you just can’t use the term except to refer to the Italian Fascist party of the early 20th century, there is no argument.
Not just any fascism, it’s literally Nazism.
Before we call it fascism, let’s get Jon Stewart’s opinion while he interviews Bill O’Reilly about “cooling the temperatures.” /s
“When facism comes to America it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross”
Rings true today for sure. Often attributed to Sinclair Lewis but the true origin may be unknown.
Woah, welcome to reality mainstream news!!
Who didn’t know this 10 years ago? Morons.
If at any point you were a political pundit, journalist, or influencer who tried to say that it wouldn’t be “that bad” or even “you survived Trump 1, you can make it through this too”…..
I’ma need you to hand in your keyboard, microphone, or camera and go do something else. Be a garbage man or some shit. You couldn’t read the room and in many cases tried to tell people who knew what was coming that they were wrong for calling a spade a spade.
You failed the American people. Whether it be for the sake of potential access to the White House, or due to you simply believing everyone else outside of your bubble with your belief system were hysterical little idiots that couldn’t possibly match your level of intellect and discernment.
If we acknowledge this is fascism, what are we even doing about it? Protesting doesn’t work in a non-democracy. To me, it’s the age old question back in action: what would you do if you could travel back in time and had a chance to stop Hitler before he came to power? We’re here now and I hope to never ask this question of the Trump administration in 5-10 years.
Gee, ya think?
I’m sure if I buy that issue of the Atlantic I will also see articles about how shots were fired at Fort Sumter, and the passenger ship Titanic has hit an iceberg and sank with massive loss of life.
Dude still doesn’t get it.
> especially by left-leaning types who call you a fascist if you oppose abortion or affirmative action
Erase the rights of 50% of the population and then prevent the only viable way towards upward social mobility for the rest rest 20% or so.. and my dude gets offended that we call them what they are.
Dont be afraid to call it what it is.
I went to a 50501 protest and heard nobody chanting against fascism. I started my own. “No ICE, No KKK, No FASCIST USA”
An organizer tried to hijack my chant and remove the the mention of fascism. “ICE OUT NOW” she yelled over our existing chant.
I just don’t understand how we were pussyfooting for so long about the rise of fascism. I dont give a shit about an unconstitutional memo like NSPM-7. Anti-fascism is patriotic, not of domestic terror.
> Fascism is not a territory with clearly marked boundaries but a constellation of characteristics. When you view the stars together, the constellation plainly appears.
This is such a powerful way to describe what we’re all seeing.
They were fascists in 2016, yet you’d be scolded by the Atlantic for saying so then. They’d have on some useless academic who would either define it so narrowly that actual fascist regimes from Europe in the 30’s and 40’s barely qualified, or they would give us a list of criteria that were obviously in Trump’s mind, but he hadn’t actually discussed yet like an expansionist foreign policy or employing secret police. I’m furious at the media and blame them.
This is a civil war but only one side is fighting.
I can’t take seriously people who are like “fascism was not appropriate, he didn’t do fascist things” and then essentially nothing changes and they’re all-of-a-sudden like “*Fascist* best describes it, and reluctance to use the term has now become perverse. ”
The fact that the main difference is extrajudicially killing white people in public rather than brown people in private is pretty telling.
He was fascist 10 years ago. He’s fascist now. Having people tell me I was delusional for a decade is infuriating, and, while, I will never give up on wanting all people to prosper, I hope these fence-sitters get theirs before the rest of us that actually believed our senses and convictions.
The only good fascist……
Off-topic a little bit, but this was always such a bad argument:
>For yet another, the term is hazily defined, even by its adherents. From the beginning, fascism has been an incoherent doctrine, and even today scholars can’t agree on its definition. Italy’s original version differed from Germany’s, which differed from Spain’s, which differed from Japan’s.
Yeah guess what, the United States’ Democracy differed from the UK’s, which differed from France’s, which differed from India’s, etc. but I bet you still called them Democracies for many years without a second thought.
I’m glad this author has finally been willing to come to terms with reality, and I hope anyone still clinging to those bad arguments (none of us *wants* to be living through a fascist/authoritarian takeover) can be shaken out of them too.
As a historian of politics and war in 1930s Europe, this is unbelievably frustrating to read. For over ten years, I’ve been saying Trump’s a fascist – ever since his Riefenstahlesque descent down the elevator in 2015. This guy’s been dragging his feet, ignoring the signs, dithering and dancing around the truth that should have been obvious to anyone who knows what they’re talking about.
Even here, he’s timid about it, acting like his reticence was wise and responsible. No; it was foolish cowardice. He says the signs weren’t all there? Nonsense. Trump has satisfied almost the entire Umberto Eco list since the very beginning. By careful avoidance of the truth, people who /should/ have been standing up to the fascists have lent them legitimacy.
People are dead because of it. Not just Renee Good and Alex Pretti; tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of people around the world are dead because of the destruction of institutions made to help them. That’s not to mention the people killed in illegal military strikes, or those killed by emergency mismanagement here at home, or the people who will die now that they’re losing their health insurance. The harm doesn’t stop with deaths, either; families torn apart, homes lost, children gone hungry. Have we forgotten the million Americans who died from COVID related issues?
I don’t know if all this would’ve been avoided had these cowardly liberals used “the F-word” 🙄 to describe Trump from the beginning. By not using it, though, and by attacking those of us who were not afraid to call him what he is, they didn’t slow his advance by an inch.
It was fascism when he descended the golden escalator in 2015. These fucks just didn’t want to inconvenience themselves.
* Fuck the Atlantic
* Fuck the New York Times
* Fuck nepo baby David Frum
* Fuck nepo baby Ezra Klein
* Fuck…
“My literal profession is a political journalist and I’m only now realizing this is fascism. It’s okay to call it that now that I’ve finally caught up, but you left-types were overreacting when the fascists told us the plan to do exactly this 10 years ago”. Get a new job.
I’m banking Trump got tips from Kim Jong Il and other dictators a few years ago.
Yeah. We’ve known this.
He needs to be removed, arrested and ordered to pay back every dime he has stolen from Americans. He and his administration should face consequences and be ordered to pay fines to every American they have assaulted, assault is what this is.
Yes, it is.
Now let’s stop fucking calling it anything else and take it seriously.
Donald Trump and Republicans killed another innocent civilian through an occupying federal force
Thanks for being late, Atlantic.
I’m worried a lot of people think “fascism” means “authoritarianism”. It doesn’t. Fascism is authoritarian, but it’s a far more specific political phenomenon. People have been calling Trump and MAGA fascist for over a decade and that’s because they match that phenomenon to a “t”.
The facts didn’t change. They went entirely in the direction they were always headed and were the basis of calling him fascist. It’s acceleration of the same. Always was fascist. Always will be fascist.
But hey even the Atlantic can’t resist taking shots at the Left for calling this accurately from the start.
It’s been fascism for a long ass time. People haven’t seemed to care all that much. This isn’t the rise of fascism, but late stage fascism, where pretenses fall and the fascists start eating the host country.
nuh uh, Jon Stewart told me that I shouldn’t call it fascism because that’s too extreme or something.
Every single thing the author recognizes as being fascistic was occurring when he was saying “don’t call them fascists”.
Oh, and the “the label fascist was so overused by liberals it had no meaning” is ridiculous given the extremely common response in light of people being accused of being fascists saying “well if you call me a fascist I will just go ahead and do fascist things”.
“For another, the term has been overused to the point of meaninglessness, especially by left-leaning types who call you a fascist if you oppose abortion or affirmative action.”
It sounds like Jonathan Rauch didn’t think it could be fascism until it affected people like him.
Johnathan Rauch strikes me as a bit of an idiot who just didn’t see what was so obvious to so many of us.
Now that it’s impossible to deny anymore, they don’t want to admit that the anti-abortion stances, or the SC takeovers, or any of the actions of the last 20+ years were the probes to find the weak spots to get us to this point. No, now it’s just fascism, *out of nowhere.*
Fucking people think Nazis just appear.