Whither Fascism?

I was vigorously, incessantly told that Trump was New Orange-Flavored Hitler and that he was a fascist who would end democracy.

At least I heard that all through the election.

Since then, I've seen Biden smiling at the once-Hitlerian Trump and his whore wife making Do-Me eyes at him.

So what gives?

Please don't tell me they were lying this whole time!

My heart just couldn't take it!

Where did all the fascism talk go?

By Byron York

WHERE DID ALL THE FASCISM TALK GO? On Monday, the journalist Glenn Greenwald asked on X, "Is there a single person in DC or media acting as if Literal Adolf Hitler is about to assume power in 2 weeks in order to end American democracy, install fascism, and create a white supremacist dictatorship? Is it possible those who said this for years never believed it?"

You can answer that for yourself. But the fact is, the Donald Trump transition is turning out to be quite ... normal. The president-elect is busy hammering out policy proposals and staffing his administration. Democrats are, of course, criticizing Trump and promising to give some of his nominees a hard time in confirmation hearings. But that is the sort of thing one always sees in transitions from one party to the other. What is absent is the kind of ugly, fevered, frenzied, over-the-top rhetoric about Trump that characterized the campaign.

Remember? Vice President Kamala Harris called Trump a fascist. The former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff called Trump a fascist. Media talkers such as Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski called Trump a fascist. Journalists and academics called Trump a fascist. (Sample headlines from the New Yorker: "What Does It Mean that Donald Trump Is a Fascist?" and the Atlantic: "Trump Is Speaking Like Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini.") For a while, it seemed like everyone on the Left with a podcast, TV show, or X account called Trump a fascist.

Trump's rally at Madison Square Garden became the focus of nearly nonstop discussion about fascism and Nazism. In the run-up to the event, it was entirely commonplace for media commentators to compare the rally to the infamous Nazi rally held at the Garden in 1939. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Democratic candidate Trump defeated in 2016, told CNN that Trump would be "actually reenacting the Madison Square Garden rally in 1939."

...

Maybe that is why the talk seemed to disappear so quickly after the election. When Trump won not only the electoral vote but the popular vote as well, many looked back on the fascist moment of just a week earlier and asked, "What was that all about?"

It was about defeating Trump, of course, and when it didn't work, it became an embarrassment, certainly for the most fervent fascism talkers....

Such turnabouts were why Greenwald could look around and note that nobody in Washington is acting as if all those dire predictions have come true. Instead, it's mostly business as usual. Politicians and media figures are debating whether there should be one big bill or two. Whether tariffs should apply to this or that product. What border security measure would be most effective. No one is acting as if "Literal Adolf Hitler is about to assume power in 2 weeks in order to end American democracy, install fascism, and create a white supremacist dictatorship."

This thread by Drew Holden shows the real fascist threat: constant lying and censoring by a Regime media only interested in advancing the interests of the Regime.

posted by Ace at 06:30 PM

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