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From NBC News
When I ask Jason Stanley if the current American government is fascist, he becomes very quiet.
If he thought the American government was fascist, Stanley responds, "I would never say it in an interview," he says. "It would be too dangerous." In other words, by the time the people in power have instituted fascism, it's too late to call it that.
Stanley adds that he does not think the current American government is fascist. But his new book, “How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them,” identifies a range of worrying signs that we are headed in that direction.
A philosophy professor at Yale, and the child of Holocaust survivors, Stanley has been concerned about the rise of conspiratorial fascist politics in the U.S. since at least 2011, when he wrote a New York Times op-ed about how propaganda erodes trust and truth. Bizarre claims that President Barack Obama was a Kenyan Muslim spy weren't meant to be taken at face value, Stanley argued. Rather, they were designed to undermine trust in anything Obama said, and in democratic politics in general.
COMMENT:-
Drawing the distinction between "Fascism" and "Fascist tactics" is a VERY good thing to do.
Most people [A] don't bother, and wouldn't know what either of the terms mean - at least not accurately.
PS - There is not one heck of a lot of difference between "Fascist tactics" and the tactics used by any demagogic leader and that demagogic leader can fall anywhere on the world political spectrum between "Wacko Extreme Far Left" and "Wacko Extreme Far Right" so maybe simply dropping the "Fascist" and dealing with "Demagogic Tactics" would be productive. [Do I expect to see that happen? Don't be silly, of course I don't.]
Is Trump a fascist?
Learning about how fascism works can help prevent its spread in America
Learning about how fascism works can help prevent its spread in America
When I ask Jason Stanley if the current American government is fascist, he becomes very quiet.
If he thought the American government was fascist, Stanley responds, "I would never say it in an interview," he says. "It would be too dangerous." In other words, by the time the people in power have instituted fascism, it's too late to call it that.
Stanley adds that he does not think the current American government is fascist. But his new book, “How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them,” identifies a range of worrying signs that we are headed in that direction.
A philosophy professor at Yale, and the child of Holocaust survivors, Stanley has been concerned about the rise of conspiratorial fascist politics in the U.S. since at least 2011, when he wrote a New York Times op-ed about how propaganda erodes trust and truth. Bizarre claims that President Barack Obama was a Kenyan Muslim spy weren't meant to be taken at face value, Stanley argued. Rather, they were designed to undermine trust in anything Obama said, and in democratic politics in general.
COMMENT:-
Drawing the distinction between "Fascism" and "Fascist tactics" is a VERY good thing to do.
Most people [A] don't bother, and wouldn't know what either of the terms mean - at least not accurately.
PS - There is not one heck of a lot of difference between "Fascist tactics" and the tactics used by any demagogic leader and that demagogic leader can fall anywhere on the world political spectrum between "Wacko Extreme Far Left" and "Wacko Extreme Far Right" so maybe simply dropping the "Fascist" and dealing with "Demagogic Tactics" would be productive. [Do I expect to see that happen? Don't be silly, of course I don't.]
