Originally Posted by Adder (Post 506041)

tl;dr. He's got narcissism of a dictator, but is too stupid and lazy to be a fascist.

Originally Posted by Adder (Post 506043)

I'll ask here: what is it that our military will be able to do that it can't currently do once Trump ups the funding by 10%? Aside from continually saying we need to spend more, the GOP (and Trump) hasn't really made a case for why.

Originally Posted by Adder (Post 506043)

I'll ask here: what is it that our military will be able to do that it can't currently do once Trump ups the funding by 10%? Aside from continually saying we need to spend more, the GOP (and Trump) hasn't really made a case for why.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 506042)

He's too narcissistic to be a fascist. Fascists stood for something.

Originally Posted by Adder (Post 506043)

I'll ask here: what is it that our military will be able to do that it can't currently do once Trump ups the funding by 10%? Aside from continually saying we need to spend more, the GOP (and Trump) hasn't really made a case for why.

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy (Post 506046)

Meh. I'm not seeing a lot of meaningful differences here.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 506048)

My objection to the use of the term is less that it's not accurate -- while I don't think he's a fascism, I think his narcissism leads him to very similar places -- and more that it is not effective, since it's preaching to the converted. Better to call him a Republican, to tie them to him.

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy (Post 506058)

Understood, but I wanted to be sure others did as well.

The strains that make up fascism (e.g., police state, militarism, nationalism, xenophobia, melding of state and corporate structures, aggrandizement of a central leader and their personality) are all there with Trump; he's a direct descendant of and even uses the slogans of past American fascists. He doesn't exit in a vacuum, and these strains of fascism have long roots on the fringe of the Republican party that have now moved to its core.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 506040)

"Say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos." I don't think Trump has many beliefs, or an ideology. I think he has impulses, but hasn't done the intellectual work to turn them into a system of beliefs. Also, he is essentially a narcissist, and that his narcissism, when put in the top government job, drives him and others around him to a sort of crude authoritarianism, but it doesn't have the ambition to be totalitarianism. One of Trump's problems is that there are very few people he can or will trust, and he has a whole government to staff, which obviously isn't working well. Other Republicans (and especially those who were previously part of government) are mostly not into his cult of personality, which is why he doesn't trust them and also why it's important to tie them to him. If Trump believed in something larger than himself, he could leverage those beliefs to win the support and loyalty of those around him, but he doesn't and so struggles with that.

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy (Post 506058)

He doesn't exit in a vacuum,

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 506061)

Since I'm now adder's biggest supporter I'll say this: adder owns the make grammar and spelling mistakes franchise here. Off his corner, ho!

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 506061)

Since I'm now adder's biggest supporter I'll say this: adder owns the make grammar and spelling mistakes franchise here. Off his corner, ho!

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 506059)

Is there a reason why you prefer "fascism" to "authoritarianism"?

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy (Post 506064)

It's more exact. Do you think Trump shows more of Franco or Mao?