This is why the fascism skeptics who emphasize the weakness of Trumpism have a point: the lack of persistent nationwide crises has made it difficult for the movement to co-opt widespread fear--so they have to gin it up out of whole cloth, which is an uphill battle in ~peaceful prosperous conditions.
I suppose no surprise in a fascist movement, but wild that *this guy* is their heroic ubermensch, and the crisis worthy of destroying 250 years of democracy is ... uh, some historically meager immigration and trans people drinking a beer?
i agree this is true, but we are also on track to have a wide range of persistent crises that i think will eventually make this less salient of a point. (for one, i'm thinking more and more pandemics as or more serious than covid)
The twist is that the official maga line now is that pandemics are nbd. William Scheuerman had a good article about how this complicates viewing trump as a fascist/schmittian (I still think he is, fwiw) verfassungsblog.de/schmittian-i...
i get where he’s coming from, but public views tend to flip on a dime in pandemics. it may take a few weeks to months to sink in, but my gut feeling is something like h5n1 (not certain and god forbid etc) will cut through even the thickest of propaganda eventually, at least enough to scare them
