For decades, leftists and progressives have used terms like “dictator,” “fascist,” and “Nazi” to deride, smear, and cow their political opponents into submission — and, for decades, it worked.
It is, perhaps, little surprise that President Donald Trump has been called a “dictator” after announcing his federal takeover of Washington, D.C. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) glibly referred to Trump as “an aspiring dictator,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) claimed that the president “is grabbing power like a dictator,” and D.C. Young Democrats chief Jamal Holtz called the effort to rid the city of crime “a racist power grab” and “dictator control.”
Suffice it to say that the words have all but lost their meaning. After all, what is a dictator? What is a fascist? What is a Nazi? If Americans are shown a Washington, D.C. free of crime, safe to wander, perhaps even restored and beautified, and told, “That’s a dictatorship,” then they may just decide that dictatorship is agreeable. They may just decide that the world could do with a few more dictators.
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For decades, leftists and progressives have used terms like “dictator,” “fascist,” and “Nazi” to deride, smear, and cow their political opponents into submission
Only the online fringe throw those terms around and the right wing is just as bad with Marxist, communist, socialist and even worse.
If Americans are shown a Washington, D.C. free of crime, safe to wander, perhaps even restored and beautified, and told, “That’s a dictatorship,” then they may just decide that dictatorship is agreeable.
Dictators don’t make places safe, they just lie about how dangerous they are. Often petty street crime has been replaced with police corruption and secret police. What crime there is doesn’t get reported though because the press only reports on what the government wants.
Thing is, Fascists & dictators in general don’t actually make things “better”. The very point of fascism is projecting POWER and FEAR. Fascists care more about things looking better than actually improving them. And whenever something doesn’t look perfect enough, they’ll just put all the blame on “the other” to redirect the populace’s frustrations and fear on whoever’s the weakest minority at the time.
To quote Linkara of all people: “Fascists cared more about propaganda and pushing out an image of fortitude than actually doing anything that would truly help themselves. They used scapegoats, bigotry, anything they could to try to get people on board with the programs, even while they suffered under them.”
Suffice it to say that the words have all but lost their meaning. After all, what is a dictator? What is a fascist? What is a Nazi? If Americans are shown a Washington, D.C. free of crime, safe to wander, perhaps even restored and beautified, and told, “That’s a dictatorship,” then they may just decide that dictatorship is agreeable. They may just decide that the world could do with a few more dictators
Until said dictator get them sent to camps or executed because said dictator want their properties or simply because they needed a scapegoat.
@JM1234 #232813
Dictators don’t make places safe, they just lie about how dangerous they are. Often petty street crime has been replaced with police corruption and secret police. What crime there is doesn’t get reported though because the press only reports on what the government wants
And sometimes, these dictators work with these gangsters to get a cut of their profits and an assistance to repress political dissent. There’s a reason why KArl Marx decried Lumpenproletariat …
“After all, what is a dictator?”
A ruler who uses power to shut down dissent. (For whatever reason, monarchs aren’t included in that.) Yes Trump is heading this way. Putting troops on the streets of D.C. may be a precursor to using a part of the state that is subservient to him (such as ICE) to blockade voting booths.
“What is a fascist?”
One who follows the principles of fascism, which is a movement AGAINST the masses, unlike, say socialism which professes to be FOR the masses. An interesting point about fascism is that it can only get in power when most of its subjects do NOT consider themselves ‘the masses’. Whether Trump represents fascism is merely debateable, which is actually a harsh criticism of him. Only an idiot would consider Biden, Obama, the Bushes, Clinton, Reagan or Carter to represent fascism.
“What is a Nazi?”
One who follows the principles of Nazism. The biological superiority of white people, most notably Nordic types, plus conspiracy theories about Jews. Trump does not represent Nazism, but deserves more harsh criticism for failing to disavow its followers as his supporters.
If Americans are shown a Washington, D.C. free of crime, safe to wander, perhaps even restored and beautified,
First of all, there is no city that can be made completely free of crime. It might be possible if every resident is accompanied by a police officer 24/7, but that seems unlikely. The mayor of DC has said crime in the city is at its lowest in years, but the dictator-in-training says that the numbers are rigged. Who are we to believe? A mayor with no reason to lie, or someone with 35,000+ lies in his history, and claims he’s 6 foot 3 inches tall and weighs 215 pounds?
If it, walks, quacks, and acts like a wannabee dictator then it is a wannabee dictator, and no amount of you fuckers denying that reality is going to change that fact.
>Family Research Council
…supporting Don Old Fart.
Frankly, you’re in no position to dictate when you supported Josh Buggar.
Doubling down with your Paedo-in-Chief much…?!
When supporting that previous… thing that thought it had the right to dictate morals against those not exactly like you, you want an actual dictator?
That orange… thing has less right to have opinions about anyone.
But at least there’s the midterms next year: tick-tock, tick-tock. Enjoy your Cheeto Mussolini while you can. Republicans who are ‘Never Trumpers’ (PROTIP: Republicans Against Trump). Those who are suffering before Epsteingate blew up. Those feeling disenchanted, nay, deceived by that which made ‘Release the Epstein Files’ a campaign policy last year. Revenge Voting.
Dictatorship of the proletariat, bitches.
Another defining aspect is straw men of the type you are promoting. Turning the US into a police state is also just one of many actions as part of a long trail of evidence.
This is minimization and false equivalence propaganda.
@ChurchyLaFemme #232843
And history knows that oppression does not help against crime, versus education, access to a life, proper reinsertion programs, etc... And no police state is crimeless, especially when crime is rampant in its own corrupt system. It's not because an abusive elite is in power that this whitewashes their own organized crime forever...
Trump ain’t doing this to “lower crime”, that’s just his excuse. The purpose at the moment is to force the homeless out of the city, hassle “immigrants” (read: racial minorities) so they stop showing up in public as much as he can, and otherwise “clean things up” by trying to make Washington look like the 1950’s. And when it doesn’t work, he’ll demand more and bigger groups, until he sends in the military.
A president who refused to walk, when he had been voted out in a fair election… certainly has the makings of an incipient dictator. Let alone if he persuaded his followers to stage an insurrection.
“The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.”
"Family Research Council" - Nothing to do with families, except to enforce an abusive patriarchy, Taliban style, for men who need to feel like little dictators at home, otherwise living in misery. Where women belong in the kitchen, cannot vote and get arrested when they suffer miscarriage, as if it wasn't enough. Where children have no future, except for a few enslaving the others. Where only an elite has access to medicine, when it's still available, because that's being attacked as well. Where education is restricted and flawed, for ideological reasons and to protect the rogue elite. Where real thinking and knowledge is actually cancelled and stigmatized, where it's not only an argument for persecution complex. And evidence in the OP shows that it's also about racism.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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