Trump

[merman]

Let's see Hitler VS Trump top trumps:

Hitler - Trump

Funny hair or facial hair 2 - 8
Hates a minority (or two) 8 - 8
Populist among the poor 9 - 6
Inflamed rhetoric 9 - 8
Name as a brand 9 - 7
Substance over show 9 - 2
Shiny boots 9 - 0 (not yet)
Private army (SA/SS) 9 - 0 (also not yet)

We have had a few of these idiots in Europe over the last few decades (Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Lenin, Franco and various minor ones), they seem to get popular in times of real financial hardship / lack of future prospects. Maybe it is America's turn now. Good luck.

But here's the point - America is not in the recession or hyper-inflation that inspired Fascism.
Trump (or as John Oliver renamed him, Donald Drumpf) is worse than a fascist because he's a fantasist. He believes his own hype and his own lies.

The fact he took hours to turn down an endorsement from a former leader of the Klu Klux Klan speaks volumes.

[gumboot]

Why would Oliver want to change his name away from something that means fart?

Some of the stuff I'm seeing out of the U.S. media suggests they are aware of this. Otherwise it's a series of wonderful coincidences.

[pogo]

But here's the point - America is not in the recession or hyper-inflation that inspired Fascism.
Trump (or as John Oliver renamed him, Donald Drumpf) is worse than a fascist because he's a fantasist. He believes his own hype and his own lies.

Vox has a long piece today on how the rise of Trump is due to American authoritarianism.

The rise of American authoritarianism

Authoritarianism is not fascism exactly. I think the former is more the attitude, the latter the political movement. But they are closely related. America is not in recession but the incomes of middle class and working class whites have stagnated for decades. It feels like a permanent recession to them.

The other thing that inspires fascism/authoritarianism is fear of others, whether real or imagined. For Hitler is was Jews, Gypsies, intellectuals, gays. For authoritarian Americans it is Blacks, Hispanics, ISIS/terrorists, gays. This is true also of many non-authoritarian Republicans; the thing that distinguishes authoritarians is they are willing to go much further, to advocate and use force.

[(o)(o)]

But here's the point - America is not in the recession or hyper-inflation that inspired Fascism.
Trump (or as John Oliver renamed him, Donald Drumpf) is worse than a fascist because he's a fantasist. He believes his own hype and his own lies.

Vox has a long piece today on how the rise of Trump is due to American authoritarianism.

The rise of American authoritarianism

Authoritarianism is not fascism exactly. I think the former is more the attitude, the latter the political movement. But they are closely related. America is not in recession but the incomes of middle class and working class whites have stagnated for decades. It feels like a permanent recession to them.

The other thing that inspires fascism/authoritarianism is fear of others, whether real or imagined. For Hitler is was Jews, Gypsies, intellectuals, gays. For authoritarian Americans it is Blacks, Hispanics, ISIS/terrorists, gays.

For authoritarian British Tories / press barons it's disabled, unemployed, ordinary working people etc.

Agreed.

[pogo]

No, it’s not just one end of the left-right axis. I know some on the left like to call all on the right fascists, but it’s not accurate or useful. Many if not most democracies organise are split between left and right, but fascism is relatively rare and can arise on the left and right. E.g. Peronism and Chavism, in Argentina and Venezuela.

We don’t have economic stagnation for working and middle class people, as there is in the US. There they have large scale underemployment, with many people dropping out of the workforce, but here we have more people in work than ever before. Nor do we have the large scale racial problems they have in the US. We are closer to and more exposed to the crisis in Syria but Americans are if anything even more scared of ISIS/terrorism, even though they have far more to fear from car accidents or gun violence.

[tufty]

http://www.americabutbetter.com/

[(o)(o)]

No, it’s not just one end of the left-right axis. I know some on the left like to call all on the right fascists, but it’s not accurate or useful. Many if not most democracies organise are split between left and right, but fascism is relatively rare and can arise on the left and right. E.g. Peronism and Chavism, in Argentina and Venezuela.

Yeah I know. I don't even believe in left <> right as meaningful political paradigms but I don't want to get too sophisticated for you.

It's contemptible fascistic facets such neoliberal free marketeering and corporate psychopathy that equally undermine our political systems.

That said New Labour were moderates. Tories are extremists.

Give them few more years to chop and hack at our society with a butchers cleaver as they are doing we're well on track to mirroring some of the worst aspects of the US.

[pogo]

The Tories are hardly extreme, with policies such as the Living Wage, the £10,000 personal allowance, clamping down on tax evasion and the banking system they have adopted decidedly centrist or even left wing policies. Some of this may be down to the Lib Dems, some may be political opportunism. But they have happily occupied areas of the centre that were previously occupied by Labour but which Labour has vacated. They are so centrist that they left lots of room for an extremist right-wing party, UKIP, to arise and become competitive. No such danger of a party arising to the left of Labour.

[(o)(o)]

The Tories are hardly extreme, with policies such as the Living Wage..

It's not a "living wage" though is it. You're regurgitating PR so hardly an impartial commentator.

How many benefit claimants need to commit suicide before you'll open your eyes?

[F-ZeroOne]

The YouTube video is restricted and can't be viewed in the UK.

"The uploader has not made this video available in your country."

But don't worry, It's also been uploaded to Facebook video too, where it hasn't been restricted, if you want to see it:

https://www.facebook.com/LastWeekTonigh ... 811693596/

If you have "Now TV", you can watch "Last Week: Tonight" on the Sky Atlantic Channel.

[KlaxonCow]

If you have "Now TV", you can watch "Last Week: Tonight" on the Sky Atlantic Channel.

That explains why the YouTube video's been restricted in the UK, then. Protecting Sky's licensing deal to be the UK broadcaster of the show.

[Cloudane]

I know the Tories are twats, but don't know if I'd consider them extremists and certainly no comparison to the man who now seems likely to become president of the US with his outward racism and other assorted -isms and -phobias. At least Cameron doesn't go to the level of planning to build a wall across the border of Mexico, blanket ban members of an entire religion etc. Trump's a whole other level of batshit. And even he, as much as he'd set back American progress a good number of years, I'm not sure I'd so so far as to say he wants to commit genocide a la Hitler.

That said, the whole world situation bothers me at the moment - the terrorists are winning. They're getting exactly what they wanted - Western society is petrified of them and will erode every liberty and every bit of social progress in fear of them, we're full of distrust, anger and hate towards whole groups of people whether they're involved with extremism or not, the EU seems like it's on the brink of collapse, a complete nutter is about to get a landslide victory in America, and WW3 while not exactly on the doorstep seems like more and more of a possibility every day. "Divide and conquer" is doing its job.

[Absolute_Zero]

a complete nutter is about to get a landslide victory in America

Trump acquiring the Republican nomination would all but guarantee Hillary as POTUS. Extraordinary events notwithstanding... e.g. Sanders becoming the Democrat nominee.

Significant numbers of typically Republican voters just won't vote for Trump on November 8, 2016.

[phattslagg]

I had a very depressing conversation in the pub the other day, with an intelligent and articulate friend, who suddenly started spouting crazy shit about how the big problem with immigration is how it is basically a soft invasion of Europe by Islam, which is "completely intolerant" at its core, and how within 20 years, we would have a new crusade war with Christianity vs Islam. He seems convinced that once there is a "call to arms" the majority of the world's Muslims will join forces against "us".

I remember, as I'm sure many here do, how 9/11 affected me. Until that point, I don't recall ever having worried about Islamic extremism. I remember (knowing absolutely nothing about middle eastern culture or history) adopting all the paranoid rhetoric that was being spewed left right and centre, and imagining similarly themed doomsday scenarios. For about 5 fucking minutes. Then I began the harder process of actually listening to more sources of information and thinking stuff through a bit.

The bottom line is, it is extremely easy, to many people at least, to just think "fuck it - I can't be arsed to actually think beyond my gut instincts anymore. I'll leave all that to the naivety of youth and the loony left PC brigade." And a lot of people don't even try in the first place. What they see in idiots like Trump is someone who has apparently been very successful in life by being just as lazy in thought as themselves. He's a fucking mirror to the idiocracy.

[Cloudane]

a complete nutter is about to get a landslide victory in America

Trump acquiring the Republican nomination would all but guarantee Hillary as POTUS. Extraordinary events notwithstanding... e.g. Sanders becoming the Democrat nominee.

Significant numbers of typically Republican voters just won't vote for Trump on November 8, 2016.

Hmm, hopefully so. I'm not great with how their politics works (mind, same goes for our own country, and I don't seem to be alone given how predictions vs. reality went in last year's GE!)

Some elsewhere have said "it's their problem, they'll get who they vote for and thus who they deserve" but given how influential the US is it's all of our problems I think... especially now when so many of us have friends over there.