"if it were fascism, that would be very inconvenient to me. therefore it's not fascism." the anti-liberal left is a deeply, deeply unserious group of people.
thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/the-anti-l...
There’s been a strange tendency for some to claim that because they’re incompetent it means they aren’t fascist, an idea rooted way back in the capitalist mindset that authoritarians are somehow inherently competent (the Mussolini united Italy, Hitler brought Germany out of depression)
Fair. I suppose folks hold similar views with people like Mao. But I was thinking specifically about business leaders rhetoric that’s parroted by western diplomats that favors authoritarian gov because of a miss guided view that fascist leaders are more competent/get things done.
I rarely check in anymore on the western intellectual left cause it’s exhausting (and I’m always reminded why I walked away from that community). But always good on occasion to see what silly things they’re up to
But, lastly, the idea than Jan 6th wasn’t a coup just because they were bad at insurrection is absurd. I’ve talked with not only many rank and file Jan 6th participants, but know and have meet several of the leaders (now serving prison terms), and they absolutely believed they were attempting a coup
In the decades I’ve been studying neofascist movements I’ve learned to always take what they say at face value. But this is also why I think grad students in these fields need to be required to do in the field, otg immersion. Want to study it, join them under an alt and really see what’s up
Just wanted to pop in and say Yes to all of this. This is exactly what I'm talking about with some of the professors in the department about for the exact reasons you enumerated.
