The Partisan Divide on Issues

[Eric the Green]

(09-01-2021, 05:18 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Fascism does not need the personality of Donald Trump. It does need deviousness and demagoguery. It needs the Big Lie, the effort to harmonize logical contradictions between class interests, between tradition and progress, between superstition and science, and the pompous self-image of the demagogue against his moral emptiness. There will be another after Trump is gone. Maybe someone more sophisticated. On the other hand, if we get genuine human solidarity, fascism will become a sick joke much like BUF figures from the 1930's in Monty Python sketches.

I would estimate that you are correct. Many fascist dictatorships around the world past and present are not led by a talented story-teller and bullshit artist like Trump. Originally, it depended on demagogues with real talent: Mussolini and Hitler. And Trump is a talented one too. But Pinochet was not, or Franco or Salazar, or countless other thugs the USA has supported or opposed, like Putin, Assad, Lukashenko, Orban, etc. George W Bush had a certain charismatic talent, hardly visible to those of us on the blue side, but almost magically-appealing to those on the red side. He was also leading us down the road to fascism, although we tend to forget about this in the shadow of their Party's next even-more overt attempt to lead us there.

Girls like Guilfoyle or Taylor Greene could work some magic too, or guys like Tom Cotton. Not to mention Ivanka Trump. Not nearly on the level of the founders of fascism that launched history's greatest war, but good enough for Mother America. I suspect another right-wing demagogue, someone more sophisticated, would have to have a high horoscope score. Cotton fills that bill, as do MTG and some others available today. You can always survey the list: https://philosopherswheel.com/presidenti...ScoredWhat