- Joined
- Sep 9, 2007
- Messages
- 15,254
- Reaction score
- 3,208
- Location
- Beirut
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Communist
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/americans-have-lost-sight-what-fascism-means/616846/
Great piece by Shadi Hamid for The Atlantic.
“Many Americans who brand Trump and his allies as fascists are paying too little attention to abuses in Hong Kong and cultural genocide in Xinjiang.
A world where a Republican senator in a democracy—even a flawed democracy—is deemed fascist and therefore beyond the bounds of respectable discussion, while actual authoritarians, or worse, are free to propagate their views with little public censure is a world that is upside down.
Words should mean something, and if Americans insist on instrumentalizing them for political objectives, however just, then journalists and analysts will no longer have the language to describe the worst threats from the worst actors.
What the Chinese Communist Party is doing is not unspeakable. It can and should be spoken about, however difficult that may be. Moral clarity requires us to seek both accuracy and proportion. Anything less does a disservice to those who have actually struggled, fought, and died against fascism.
If Americans, even for just a moment, could look beyond Trump, they might realize that another world—one where fascism is a living, breathing thing—awaits them.”
Great piece by Shadi Hamid for The Atlantic.
“Many Americans who brand Trump and his allies as fascists are paying too little attention to abuses in Hong Kong and cultural genocide in Xinjiang.
A world where a Republican senator in a democracy—even a flawed democracy—is deemed fascist and therefore beyond the bounds of respectable discussion, while actual authoritarians, or worse, are free to propagate their views with little public censure is a world that is upside down.
Words should mean something, and if Americans insist on instrumentalizing them for political objectives, however just, then journalists and analysts will no longer have the language to describe the worst threats from the worst actors.
What the Chinese Communist Party is doing is not unspeakable. It can and should be spoken about, however difficult that may be. Moral clarity requires us to seek both accuracy and proportion. Anything less does a disservice to those who have actually struggled, fought, and died against fascism.
If Americans, even for just a moment, could look beyond Trump, they might realize that another world—one where fascism is a living, breathing thing—awaits them.”