[International] How right-wing populism is returning to its fascist roots

[robkelk]

CBC: How right-wing populism is returning to its fascist roots

This article is an in-depth discussion, not a simple declaration that it's happening. A few representative quotes:

Bolsonaro, who won Brazil's presidential election on Oct. 28, has made virulently racist, misogynist and homophobic statements. He has threatened to have political opponents jailed, exiled or killed, and staunchly defended the military junta that ruled Brazil before its transition to democracy in 1985.

On Nov. 2, President Trump's national security advisor John Bolton praised Bolsonaro as "like-minded" and said his election was a "positive sign" for Latin America.

(Important note: Bolton, not Trump himself.)

While the labels fascist and populist are sometimes used interchangeably, Finchelstein explained they have distinct meanings.

A key difference is that while populist leaders often curtail democracy, they do not try to abandon it. While they often use violent rhetoric, especially towards those who disagree with them, that violent speech does not lead to the arrest or murder of political opponents.

While Finchelstein believes Donald Trump cannot accurately be described as a fascist today, he argued he bears a moral responsibility for both the string of pipe bombs sent to leading Democrats, and the mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue.

It's no surprise to him that anti-Semitism has resurfaced in modern far-right populist and fascist movements.

"Anti-Semitism was key to every fascist movement that existed," he said.

[DHBirr]

"It seems almost as if many people have not learned from the past." — Federico Finchelstein

"Seems... Nay, it is; I know not seems." — Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

[classicdrogn]

Learn? From something that didn't involve yourself, or anyone you know, or even in living memory of anyone you know? What a preposterous notion.

[Black Aeronaut]

Sudden horrifying thought.

What if they're doing this with full knowledge that it's all been done before... except they think that this time they have some magic bullet that's gonna make it work this time?

[robkelk]

An even more horrifying thought.

What if they're doing this with full knowledge that it's all been done before... and the usual result is the result they want?

[hazard]

A thought you might not like.

What if they don't care about the result except for them having power?

[robkelk]

I suspect that's the accurate thought.

[classicdrogn]

Goddamnit, we are supposed to be better than crabs in a bucket.

[robkelk]

I never said anything about approving of this state of affairs - in fact, it's IMHO the worst thing that could be happening at the moment short of another full-blown shooting war.

But I see no way to fix it in any timeframe short of years... which is how long it would take to educate people about fascism.

[LynnInDenver]

I never said anything about approving of this state of affairs - in fact, it's IMHO the worst thing that could be happening at the moment short of another full-blown shooting war.

But I see no way to fix it in any timeframe short of years... which is how long it would take to educate people about fascism.

And the problem is most of that education occurs when the people needing that education discover how screwed they've become after they voted those sorts of people in, and the first stage is having to vote those asses back out, assuming that the voting system hasn't been deliberately broken by that point trying to prevent that outcome.

[Epsilon]

A thought you might not like.

What if they don't care about the result except for them having power?

“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.” 

― George Orwell, 1984