And again I’m stuck with “just because I think this has all illegal and awful doesn’t mean I think we’re in fascism yet” but it gets old getting yelled at for trying to find nuance. Off the cliff...
And again I’m stuck with “just because I think this has all illegal and awful doesn’t mean I think we’re in fascism yet” but it gets old getting yelled at for trying to find nuance.
Off the cliff will, in my eyes, likely be determined around the midterms. If somehow the democrats just magically won every race and used those victories to enact sweeping change, it would be hard for me to say that the US fell into any meaningful definition of fascism for just 2 years before an election corrected.
That is, to be clear, not a remotely likely outcome, but also one that’s just not on the table in a fascist government. There’s lots of in between outcomes that course correct still.
There’s also outcomes where trump has the military murder anyone who doesn’t kiss the ring tomorrow and we fall faster.
There’s outcomes where the whole country rips itself apart in violent civil war and neither point matters.
There’s outcomes where trump has a heart attack and we fall even harder OR the entire house of cards he’s built falls apart due to in fighting.
And there’s what I see as the most likely outcome which is that between the “well it’s not affecting me yet” attitudes, the gerrymandering, possible legit election rigging, and the ever reliant incompetence of the Democrat machine the mid terms happen, things don’t get better but don’t get drastically worse, and we stay in this state of decay until the next election.
There’s also lots of outcomes where we wind up in corporate oligarchy or some other not great but not really meaningfully fascist government.
So in short, Trump playing at dictator while the republicans allow it and the dems send thoughts and prayers sure as shit is bad, and very real people are being wronged, harmed, and killed by it, but when your point in favor of a fascist takeover includes deployments of the local national guard mostly derping around and wasting taxpayer money and doing precious little else…it feels kinda disrespectful to the people who have or are living in the kind of fascism where posting this article would have led to the imprisonment or death of themselves and their families.
Further, frankly, it makes me question what people actually plan to do to fight what they perceive as the literal worst case scenario occurring. I’ve heard a lot of talk and read a lot of articles but seems like a lot of people are sleeping good enough at the end of the night after decrying the downfall of democracy.
It would be denying reality to say we aren’t sprinting there, but god I find these semantic arguments with lists of infringements so damn tiring. The people I know with family that lived through the kind of things you’re comparing to watched people die in droves, lived in constant fear due to the threat of imminent death, and knew people who died fighting to prevent it.
I see it as a slowly closing bear trap. Our foot is clearly already on the trap, and we can clearly see the metal teeth inching toward our leg. It's easy to think we're in the clear because the...
Our foot is clearly already on the trap, and we can clearly see the metal teeth inching toward our leg.
It's easy to think we're in the clear because the jaws haven't closed yet. There hasn't been the real pain and shock yet -- the kind you expect from getting your leg stuck in a bear trap. The sharp steel hasn't yet dug into our flesh, much less our bones. But it's headed that way.
From our perspective, there's even the possibility of some optimism. We're technically still able to pull our foot out if we want to, especially because the jaws are moving, in the context of a trap, so "slowly."
However, once the pain does hit, it's already too late. The trap is locked. The teeth are already sunk in. There are no more moves.
So the time to get ourselves out of this is now, before the trap locks itself around our leg.
Unfortunately, it's becoming increasingly clear that all of the things that could get our leg out are not working. Also, a lot of people want to keep our leg in the trap, presumably because they believe they won't feel the pain (or because they want to see that pain in others).
I feel like a lot of the indicators you identified are post-trap ones. I see us as being in the pre-trap phase right now, with some strong indicators that the post-trap ones are our future.
I really don’t enjoy seeing this take that just because it’s not as bad as in other countries it’s not fascism get. Fascism is a continuity of a country’s systems. The USA had incredibly robust...
Exemplary
I really don’t enjoy seeing this take that just because it’s not as bad as in other countries it’s not fascism get.
Fascism is a continuity of a country’s systems. The USA had incredibly robust systems which is why it’s not yet fascism - they haven’t been fully dismantled yet, it takes time.
But if you had less protections from the get go, by now you’d be 1938 Germany and that’s all.
“Bad but disrespectful” - no, it’s disrespectful to those who built the protections against fascism to ignore that those are getting dismantled to allow for more and more overreach.
No where did I advocate for this in the slightest. There's ways to say "this is dangerous and leading to dangerous outcomes" without hyperbole and faulty comparisons.
“Bad but disrespectful” - no, it’s disrespectful to those who built the protections against fascism to ignore that those are getting dismantled to allow for more and more overreach.
No where did I advocate for this in the slightest. There's ways to say "this is dangerous and leading to dangerous outcomes" without hyperbole and faulty comparisons.
God, I wish we could discuss this in an actual conversation because there's so many things to say and it's not really possible to do that in an internet comment without writing way too much or...
God, I wish we could discuss this in an actual conversation because there's so many things to say and it's not really possible to do that in an internet comment without writing way too much or sounding incoherent. Hopefully this doesn't come across as yelling.
I guess what I want to ask is what would you call our current situation? Would you consider this to be something like quasi-fascism or fascism lite? What is your "red line" that turns whatever this is to full-blown fascism? While we're at it, when does a fetus become a baby?
From what I gather, it seems like tight-fisted autocratic control and violent crackdowns on dissidents is a real sticking point.
But one thing I've been thinking about a lot lately is does that stuff matter? Or I guess to be a little more clear, is it necessary? Not just definitionally, but for Trump. Yeah, the national guard isn't doing shit right now, but no one is really trying to stop them from being there. When Trump sent the Marines to LA during the ICE protests, they didn't do anything because the protests were non-violent and they fizzled out after a week. People went back to their lives and the ICE arrests carried on. Why spill so much blood when you don't have to?
And while Trump has teased the end of mail-in voting, joked about freezing elections, and laid the groundwork to deny any election loss moving forward, he and the Republicans might not have to do any of that in order to get their way. As you rightly put it, the likelihood of Democrats reversing course in the near future is incredibly slim. Why dissolve your opposition if they're just going to lose or be ineffective? I guess we might know for sure if the Republicans lose in the next few years, but what if they just do what they did last time and wait it out for a term then pick up where they left off? A softer touch and a little more flexibility, while still getting most of the desired outcome. Or, if push comes to shove, everything is in place to do it the hard way.
I think every single one of us has thought, "Well, it's not that bad because ____ hasn't happened yet." But we tend to minimize the other warning signs when we do it. I think it comes from the same inherent hope that tells us we still have time to do something about climate change. We can hold on to the fact that we haven't hit the scary threshold yet, but every sign shows us cruising to that destination with no indication of us stopping or slowing down. At some point you gotta say we're most of the way there. That's what I appreciate about this article. It's a reminder to the “well it’s not affecting me yet” crowd that many of the bad things are already happening and it doesn't look like we're changing direction any time soon.
No worries I very much get it, and it is something interesting to discuss. Corrupt democratic republic likely. Corruption is like entropy for governments. It will, over time, naturally seep in....
Exemplary
God, I wish we could discuss this in an actual conversation because there's so many things to say and it's not really possible to do that in an internet comment without writing way too much or sounding incoherent. Hopefully this doesn't come across as yelling.
No worries I very much get it, and it is something interesting to discuss.
I guess what I want to ask is what would you call our current situation? Would you consider this to be something like quasi-fascism or fascism lite? What is your "red line" that turns whatever this is to full-blown fascism? While we're at it, when does a fetus become a baby?
Corrupt democratic republic likely. Corruption is like entropy for governments. It will, over time, naturally seep in. While it can be a catalyst for changing that government to something else, it doesn't have to to still drastically change the way things work. Even the US 100 years ago and today has gone through dramatic changes. And that's before you get into "democratic republic with slavery" for a large portion of its history.
From what I gather, it seems like tight-fisted autocratic control and violent crackdowns on dissidents is a real sticking point.
The reason I choose the midterms as a likely tipping point is because it's hard to say "This is a fully fascist/autocratic/whatever" government if a single election can change that. That's, traditionally, not really a thing in what most people would think of fascism. The entire theory behind governments with enforced turnover and a separation of powers is that the worst and most objectively evil person in the world could take power, but things could be corrected, at latest, by the next election. We literally saw Trump voted out in the first election, and he likely would not have won had the dems done anything remotely strategic to prevent it in the second. Obviously this term is different for about a thousand reasons, and yet people were absolutely calling the first term fascist too.
But one thing I've been thinking about a lot lately is does that stuff matter? Or I guess to be a little more clear, is it necessary? Not just definitionally, but for Trump. Yeah, the national guard isn't doing shit right now, but no one is really trying to stop them from being there. When Trump sent the Marines to LA during the ICE protests, they didn't do anything because the protests were non-violent and they fizzled out after a week. People went back to their lives and the ICE arrests carried on. Why spill so much blood when you don't have to?
I think it does, yeah. Simply put the majority of the country has not seen nor felt major effects of any sort of governmental shift. Yes, there is probably a path forward where we lose elections basically non violently. If the average person on the street keeps their current level of living, they're not going to risk their lives to oppose something that many see as performative anyways.
That said, Trump's incompetence/intentional probing makes it a little tricky to identify. At the end of the day if you want to change the government you NEED the military because they're the ones with the weapons and the ability to enforce your will when someone says "you and what army". The national guard deploying and rolling their eyes because blood in the streets isn't worth a corrupt senile politicians stupid orders when just standard compliance is "stand here and look pretty". If trump orders the guard to start firing on civilians that escalates things FAST. And yes, he's toying with that, and yes, the members of the military and the guard are aware of it like any other person and have all sorts of views about it, but I don't think it's wrong to say that from the pov of the military right now this is still a civil problem. Smashing the glass on the "activate the military to defend/destroy democracy" button is very very likely to lead to millions dead, and very few people want that. So for the most part right now its "Follow your orders so long as their legal" with a large helping of creative interpretation, and, because trump is trump, some level "well this would be way more dangerous if this moron knew what he was doing but fuck it i guess we'll just tromp around a bit and go back home".
And while Trump has teased the end of mail-in voting, joked about freezing elections, and laid the groundwork to deny any election loss moving forward, he and the Republicans might not have to do any of that in order to get their way. As you rightly put it, the likelihood of Democrats reversing course in the near future is incredibly slim. Why dissolve your opposition if they're just going to lose or be ineffective? I guess we might know for sure if the Republicans lose in the next few years, but what if they just do what they did last time and wait it out for a term then pick up where they left off? A softer touch and a little more flexibility, while still getting most of the desired outcome. Or, if push comes to shove, everything is in place to do it the hard way.
A big problem with dictatorships, or things approaching them, is the passing of power. For whatever reason, right now, trump holds the keys. Basically anyone who wants what he wants knows that they can't easily stand against trump, and they can't easily do what he's doing. The idea of the republicans picking up where they left off is a very very valid one, but the question of if that's even going to work is also valid. All the "pretenders" to trumps succession, should he willingly leave office, have so far been unable to replicate even an ounce of his success. A common ploy might just be "Ok republicans are running Vance next but he swears trump will fill a new cabinet position giving him unlimited power", and that is concerning, but ultimately Trump's age is a big guardrail to this whole situation. The man is clearly ancient, and only getting older. If he were in his 40's, or if somehow all of his designs and decisions passed to Vance successfully, yeah it'd be bad. I don't know if that's likely.
Further people seem to, incorrectly, think that every republican who voted for Regan or a Bush is still onboard and always has been. That's just not true. If Arnold and Romney suddenly said "you know what fuck this" and started a new party focusing on more traditional republican platforms (namely spending) it wouldn't likely win, but it'd likely split the vote enough. That's waaaaaaaaaay more complicated of course than that little blurb conveys, but again, it's a possibility (or something akin to it.).
It's important to remember that the largest voter block in the united states is the NON VOTER. Assuming they are happy, or say, willing to watch the country burn is a dangerous assumption.
I think every single one of us has thought, "Well, it's not that bad because ____ hasn't happened yet." But we tend to minimize the other warning signs when we do it. I think it comes from the same inherent hope that tells us we still have time to do something about climate change. We can hold on to the fact that we haven't hit the scary threshold yet, but every sign shows us cruising to that destination with no indication of us stopping or slowing down. At some point you gotta say we're most of the way there. That's what I appreciate about this article. It's a reminder to the “well it’s not affecting me yet” crowd that many of the bad things are already happening and it doesn't look like we're changing direction any time soon.
I have quite the opposite take on articles like this. It's crying wolf and hyperbolic and wasting time and attention that will be important should things hit critical thresholds. I 100% agree we need to do things, and that includes raising awareness, but to the average headline reader this comes off as "fuck it, it's too late, game over, we're in hell now, anyways good night see you all in the morning just like yesterday", and it's just such a terrible decision.
The most powerful force in Trump's success in my eyes is the utter incompetence in those who claim to be resisting him (and honestly are more likely just trying to benefit in a different way). I am one of the first to ignore conspiracies but dear god Trump could not wish for a more perfect opponent than one that started screaming about impeachment the moment the results were out in 2016 while trying to juggle the multitude of issues the democratic party refuses to address in any meaningful manner.
They have been sounding the alarm so much for so long most people don't even notice or care when he DOES cross a meaningful threshold. When you can easily point to "well no, what happened there wasn't what they said.." over and over and over and over you lose all credibility. To be clear we're discussing this man in the same breath as Hitler, and your solution was "uhh guess we'll run biden again because there's too much infighting to do otherwise" all while pretending that wasn't a terrible idea and directly against what he implied and what people wanted? At what point is your incompetence just as dangerous as your enemy?
I'm not who you asked but for me, we will know it is effective fascism if the trumplicans successfully neutralize backlash and win the next Congressional and presidential elections. The public is...
I'm not who you asked but for me, we will know it is effective fascism if the trumplicans successfully neutralize backlash and win the next Congressional and presidential elections.
The public is only starting to feel the pain from tariff inflation or Medicaid cuts.
It will be an effective fascism if Congress gives Trump an enabling act
They are clearly laying the groundwork for illegal attempts to keep power but they haven't succeeded yet.
If you try to murder someone and fail, what are you called? Legally, an attempted murderer. Colloquially, a murderer. You had every intent, action, and capacity to kill a person, but failed by...
just because I think this has all illegal and awful doesn’t mean I think we’re in fascism yet”
If you try to murder someone and fail, what are you called? Legally, an attempted murderer. Colloquially, a murderer. You had every intent, action, and capacity to kill a person, but failed by circumstance. I'm not a lawyer.
Now apply that example here and you see why I simply say "American has a fascist government right now". I don't think it's too late, but all the intents and actions clearly highlight a desire to be one. Maybe you can argue we aren't legally authoritarian because we have the constitution, but where exactly is the line? Russia still has elections, after all.
The people I know with family that lived through the kind of things you’re comparing to watched people die in droves, lived in constant fear due to the threat of imminent death, and knew people who died fighting to prevent it.
And you don't think people here don't have those? Families separated, sent to concentration camps, or exiled to El Salvador? People wrongfully detained at borders, and even dying in ICE confinement in a few days?
Conversely, do you think everyone suffered in other examples? That some people didn't flee, didn't just slide through life keeping their head down? Those don't get recorded in history as loudly. The only difference is that WWII did indeed devastate many countries. The US, meanwhile, hasn't had a war on its land for 150 years.
Just keep in mine some US states have more people than many EU countries. That will change the dynamics of fascism immensely
The United States, just months before its 250th birthday as the world’s leading democracy, has tipped over the edge into authoritarianism and fascism. In the end, faster than I imagined possible, it did happen here. The precise moment when and where in recent weeks America crossed that invisible line from democracy into authoritarianism can and will be debated by future historians, but it’s clear that the line itself has been crossed.
I think many Americans wrongly believe there would be one clear unambiguous moment where we go from “democracy” to “authoritarianism.” Instead, this is exactly how it happens — a blurring here, a norm destroyed there, a presidential diktat unchallenged. Then you wake up one morning and our country is different.
Today, August 25, 2025, is that morning. Something is materially different in our country this week than last.
It's this one for me: They're not just happy to let it burn, conservative capital (is that redundant) saw in 2020-2021 how much money they could make when the American people were pinched, & spent...
It's this one for me:
The beating heart of the GOP no longer cared about principles or policy. There was a nihilist wing in control that scared me; they were happy to let it all burn.
They're not just happy to let it burn, conservative capital (is that redundant) saw in 2020-2021 how much money they could make when the American people were pinched, & spent the next four years strategizing how to make it happen again—it's not Nero too disconnected from the people to care, it's your cousin who set someone's business on fire so he could buy the burned-out lot for cheap: they're not sabotaging themselves, they're sabotaging us.
There are two things that give me a certain amount of hope going forward. The first is that Trump is entering his 80s not his 40s. Nature will eventually bring the Trump experiment to a hard stop....
There are two things that give me a certain amount of hope going forward. The first is that Trump is entering his 80s not his 40s. Nature will eventually bring the Trump experiment to a hard stop.
The second thing is that when I compare Trump to Hitler, Hitler was more willing to favor his followers and shield them from the negative impact of his policies. Hitler cut government employees but protected veterans in government service. Trump doesn't care about the military or farmers or citizens married to immigrants.
I highly recommend the biography Plaintiff in Chief. Trump has always been careless and reckless about making enemies.
I'm holding out hope. Canadians are vicious in battle, with a history of punching way above our weight class. The Marvel character Wolverine was meant to embody the Canadian spirit after all. We...
I'm holding out hope. Canadians are vicious in battle, with a history of punching way above our weight class. The Marvel character Wolverine was meant to embody the Canadian spirit after all. We also feel betrayed by our closest ally who we sincerely do not want to become a part of, so that's extra motivation to defend our country.
Canadians have never before been as unified as I've seen them since the start of the 2nd Trump administration. We've been pretty damn unified in our "elbows up" message, that we will not stand for annexation.
Think back to the past, idk, ten wars the US has been in. They haven't had a win since 1945. They have a hard time dealing with people in jungles or other heavily forested areas. They have a hard time dealing with impoverished farmers in the desert, where anyone could be an insurgent. They've also never encountered a war on their own soil.
Now imagine if there are thousands upon thousands of kilometres of undefended border going through wilderness, where the insurgents speak exactly the same language, know exactly the same cultural references, and can pass as Americans perfectly. There could be a 9/11 level event every week if Canadians had motivation to do so. Look to The Troubles in the UK if you want to know how these sorts of things play out with similar cultures on a land border.
They can't nuke us since 90% of our population is within 100km of the US border. In theory we have NATO allies. I'm not looking forward to what happens if they try, but I'm also not too concerned about our sovereignty. We're a resilient people.
Besides for the revolutionary war, the war of 1812, the civil war, in some senses the Mexican-American war, the Indian/Apache war, and world war II (Alaska and hawaii), I suppose this is true!...
They've also never encountered a war on their own soil.
Besides for the revolutionary war, the war of 1812, the civil war, in some senses the Mexican-American war, the Indian/Apache war, and world war II (Alaska and hawaii), I suppose this is true!
Edit: cheekiness aside, I wouldn't worry about it overmuch. There is no world in which the US invades Canada to annex it.
Fair points. To be equally cheeky I think the last one that was a boots-on-ground land invasion was the war of 1812 where the Brits who lived in Canada came and burned down the White House....
Fair points. To be equally cheeky I think the last one that was a boots-on-ground land invasion was the war of 1812 where the Brits who lived in Canada came and burned down the White House.
Anyway, I would caution my fellow Canadians to remain vigilant and pay attention. Trump's actions are precedented. We've been down this path before. History really does repeat itself. I have absolutely no faith in the checks and balances of the US government anymore. It appears the executive branch now wields ultimate power. This is like the second chapter of any book describing fascism.
PS: "overmuch" is a great word. I'm going to try and incorporate it into my vocabulary.
I'd like to believe that we still have something in common with the young men who took back those towns in WW1 Holland and France, but I'm not convinced that we have the same gumption. That was my...
I'd like to believe that we still have something in common with the young men who took back those towns in WW1 Holland and France, but I'm not convinced that we have the same gumption.
That was my grandparents' generation and they were made of far harder stuff than I am.
I guess it depends how comfortable you'd be living under US / Trump rule. I for one, wouldn't stand for it. I'd rather go down defending my country than live under fascism. I'm not even a patriot....
I guess it depends how comfortable you'd be living under US / Trump rule. I for one, wouldn't stand for it. I'd rather go down defending my country than live under fascism. I'm not even a patriot. I'm sorta indifferent towards Canada as a nation. I just know that the alternative is far, far worse.
Of course, and I'm in the same boat. That said, I don't think that will is a perfect replacement for the hard living and lessons of a subsistence agrarian lifestyle. They were made from tougher...
Of course, and I'm in the same boat. That said, I don't think that will is a perfect replacement for the hard living and lessons of a subsistence agrarian lifestyle.
They were made from tougher stuff from the start, and while I'm eager to see my generation and younger rise to the occasion, I just don't think that we have the kind of endurance, discipline or tenacity of those the stories are written about.
I think what I'm saying is that time and time again, despite insurmountable technological advantage, the US military has been overcome by sheer willpower alone. We have a lot more determination to...
I think what I'm saying is that time and time again, despite insurmountable technological advantage, the US military has been overcome by sheer willpower alone. We have a lot more determination to defend our country than the average US soldier has to invade us.
Yeah, I see that. I was reading somewhere that if push came to shove, taking Canada would not be an easy task. Guerrilla warfare in a nasty climate would make things tough, and in addition to...
Yeah, I see that. I was reading somewhere that if push came to shove, taking Canada would not be an easy task. Guerrilla warfare in a nasty climate would make things tough, and in addition to that, were a highly educated country with a ton of our own resources. You'd probably see something akin to Ukraine's drone program ramp up if we were under attack.
They'd take the cities but would be under constant assault from small cells operating outside of them.
I'd hope not just in theory but in practice an invasion would trigger Article 5 and see it honored. Look, this is of course speculative and in my honest opinion exceedingly unlikely, but...
In theory we have NATO allies.
I'd hope not just in theory but in practice an invasion would trigger Article 5 and see it honored.
Look, this is of course speculative and in my honest opinion exceedingly unlikely, but realistically speaking an expansionist US will see more resistance than they'd probably expect. The current day rhetoric around NATO strength being mainly the US military is misguided at best. The new spending targets already see a combined military expenditure exceeding US defense spending.
We're going really far afield from the original point now - and to be clear, I don't think there's any scenario in which the US and Canada go to war - but I also categorically disagree that the US...
The current day rhetoric around NATO strength being mainly the US military is misguided at best. The new spending targets already see a combined military expenditure exceeding US defense spending.
We're going really far afield from the original point now - and to be clear, I don't think there's any scenario in which the US and Canada go to war - but I also categorically disagree that the US isn't the main force of NATO. Sure, at the new spending targets (not achieved yet) the other countries will spend more than the US does on balance, though that doesn't equate to more military power, in part because distributed spending like that is inherently inefficient. But let's take the "NATO wars with the US" scenario at face value for illustrative purposes. ......How would they get there? Naval power and air power are the two areas where military strength is even more lopsided in favor of the US. By contrast, it is virtually certain that the US could get to Europe. That asymmetry illustrates, I think, that the US still provides the bulk of NATOs power.
I think you misinterpreted that as if I said the US isn't the strongest individually. The crux is that the combined forces of NATO sans US are already more numerous than the US forces alone before...
I think you misinterpreted that as if I said the US isn't the strongest individually. The crux is that the combined forces of NATO sans US are already more numerous than the US forces alone before the spending increases. They're not a paper tiger without the US, which is often a point presented as if it's just the undeniable truth.
No worries, I can easily see how it can be interpreted in multiple ways. I didn't want to what if the rest of your post because it's A. Difficult to speculate and B. Undeniable the US has a...
No worries, I can easily see how it can be interpreted in multiple ways.
I didn't want to what if the rest of your post because it's A. Difficult to speculate and B. Undeniable the US has a shitton more aircraft and most notably the carriers to take them places. You're right that just having the troop count doesn't equal being able to get them where they need to be. But if push comes to shove we can't rule out a stalwart resistance, at least on paper.
Canada would probably also have resistance support from inside of the US, at least I'd hope so. Insane that it has come so far that we have to speculate about these scenarios.
Canada would probably also have guerilla resistance support from inside of the US, at least I'd hope so.
Insane that it has come so far that we have to speculate about these scenarios.
In all truth, the United States was effectively a plutocracy even before the Trump takeover. You could have your pick of the green(-ish)/tech-forward billionaire party or the fossil fuel and...
In all truth, the United States was effectively a plutocracy even before the Trump takeover. You could have your pick of the green(-ish)/tech-forward billionaire party or the fossil fuel and mineral extraction billionaire party.
Trump simply consolidated the billionaires, and packaged this up with a back-to-the-imagined Gilded Age revanchism. If there's a philosophy of governance that can be rolled back to 1855 - 1890, it will be. The fact that popular will would be vehemently opposed to this (moreso if anyone really grasped the implications of Project 2025) is what brings us the (tiny) iron fist.
And again I’m stuck with “just because I think this has all illegal and awful doesn’t mean I think we’re in fascism yet” but it gets old getting yelled at for trying to find nuance.
Off the cliff will, in my eyes, likely be determined around the midterms. If somehow the democrats just magically won every race and used those victories to enact sweeping change, it would be hard for me to say that the US fell into any meaningful definition of fascism for just 2 years before an election corrected.
That is, to be clear, not a remotely likely outcome, but also one that’s just not on the table in a fascist government. There’s lots of in between outcomes that course correct still.
There’s also outcomes where trump has the military murder anyone who doesn’t kiss the ring tomorrow and we fall faster.
There’s outcomes where the whole country rips itself apart in violent civil war and neither point matters.
There’s outcomes where trump has a heart attack and we fall even harder OR the entire house of cards he’s built falls apart due to in fighting.
And there’s what I see as the most likely outcome which is that between the “well it’s not affecting me yet” attitudes, the gerrymandering, possible legit election rigging, and the ever reliant incompetence of the Democrat machine the mid terms happen, things don’t get better but don’t get drastically worse, and we stay in this state of decay until the next election.
There’s also lots of outcomes where we wind up in corporate oligarchy or some other not great but not really meaningfully fascist government.
So in short, Trump playing at dictator while the republicans allow it and the dems send thoughts and prayers sure as shit is bad, and very real people are being wronged, harmed, and killed by it, but when your point in favor of a fascist takeover includes deployments of the local national guard mostly derping around and wasting taxpayer money and doing precious little else…it feels kinda disrespectful to the people who have or are living in the kind of fascism where posting this article would have led to the imprisonment or death of themselves and their families.
Further, frankly, it makes me question what people actually plan to do to fight what they perceive as the literal worst case scenario occurring. I’ve heard a lot of talk and read a lot of articles but seems like a lot of people are sleeping good enough at the end of the night after decrying the downfall of democracy.
It would be denying reality to say we aren’t sprinting there, but god I find these semantic arguments with lists of infringements so damn tiring. The people I know with family that lived through the kind of things you’re comparing to watched people die in droves, lived in constant fear due to the threat of imminent death, and knew people who died fighting to prevent it.
I see it as a slowly closing bear trap.
Our foot is clearly already on the trap, and we can clearly see the metal teeth inching toward our leg.
It's easy to think we're in the clear because the jaws haven't closed yet. There hasn't been the real pain and shock yet -- the kind you expect from getting your leg stuck in a bear trap. The sharp steel hasn't yet dug into our flesh, much less our bones. But it's headed that way.
From our perspective, there's even the possibility of some optimism. We're technically still able to pull our foot out if we want to, especially because the jaws are moving, in the context of a trap, so "slowly."
However, once the pain does hit, it's already too late. The trap is locked. The teeth are already sunk in. There are no more moves.
So the time to get ourselves out of this is now, before the trap locks itself around our leg.
Unfortunately, it's becoming increasingly clear that all of the things that could get our leg out are not working. Also, a lot of people want to keep our leg in the trap, presumably because they believe they won't feel the pain (or because they want to see that pain in others).
I feel like a lot of the indicators you identified are post-trap ones. I see us as being in the pre-trap phase right now, with some strong indicators that the post-trap ones are our future.
I really don’t enjoy seeing this take that just because it’s not as bad as in other countries it’s not fascism get.
Fascism is a continuity of a country’s systems. The USA had incredibly robust systems which is why it’s not yet fascism - they haven’t been fully dismantled yet, it takes time.
But if you had less protections from the get go, by now you’d be 1938 Germany and that’s all.
“Bad but disrespectful” - no, it’s disrespectful to those who built the protections against fascism to ignore that those are getting dismantled to allow for more and more overreach.
No where did I advocate for this in the slightest. There's ways to say "this is dangerous and leading to dangerous outcomes" without hyperbole and faulty comparisons.
God, I wish we could discuss this in an actual conversation because there's so many things to say and it's not really possible to do that in an internet comment without writing way too much or sounding incoherent. Hopefully this doesn't come across as yelling.
I guess what I want to ask is what would you call our current situation? Would you consider this to be something like quasi-fascism or fascism lite? What is your "red line" that turns whatever this is to full-blown fascism? While we're at it, when does a fetus become a baby?
From what I gather, it seems like tight-fisted autocratic control and violent crackdowns on dissidents is a real sticking point.
But one thing I've been thinking about a lot lately is does that stuff matter? Or I guess to be a little more clear, is it necessary? Not just definitionally, but for Trump. Yeah, the national guard isn't doing shit right now, but no one is really trying to stop them from being there. When Trump sent the Marines to LA during the ICE protests, they didn't do anything because the protests were non-violent and they fizzled out after a week. People went back to their lives and the ICE arrests carried on. Why spill so much blood when you don't have to?
And while Trump has teased the end of mail-in voting, joked about freezing elections, and laid the groundwork to deny any election loss moving forward, he and the Republicans might not have to do any of that in order to get their way. As you rightly put it, the likelihood of Democrats reversing course in the near future is incredibly slim. Why dissolve your opposition if they're just going to lose or be ineffective? I guess we might know for sure if the Republicans lose in the next few years, but what if they just do what they did last time and wait it out for a term then pick up where they left off? A softer touch and a little more flexibility, while still getting most of the desired outcome. Or, if push comes to shove, everything is in place to do it the hard way.
I think every single one of us has thought, "Well, it's not that bad because ____ hasn't happened yet." But we tend to minimize the other warning signs when we do it. I think it comes from the same inherent hope that tells us we still have time to do something about climate change. We can hold on to the fact that we haven't hit the scary threshold yet, but every sign shows us cruising to that destination with no indication of us stopping or slowing down. At some point you gotta say we're most of the way there. That's what I appreciate about this article. It's a reminder to the “well it’s not affecting me yet” crowd that many of the bad things are already happening and it doesn't look like we're changing direction any time soon.
No worries I very much get it, and it is something interesting to discuss.
Corrupt democratic republic likely. Corruption is like entropy for governments. It will, over time, naturally seep in. While it can be a catalyst for changing that government to something else, it doesn't have to to still drastically change the way things work. Even the US 100 years ago and today has gone through dramatic changes. And that's before you get into "democratic republic with slavery" for a large portion of its history.
The reason I choose the midterms as a likely tipping point is because it's hard to say "This is a fully fascist/autocratic/whatever" government if a single election can change that. That's, traditionally, not really a thing in what most people would think of fascism. The entire theory behind governments with enforced turnover and a separation of powers is that the worst and most objectively evil person in the world could take power, but things could be corrected, at latest, by the next election. We literally saw Trump voted out in the first election, and he likely would not have won had the dems done anything remotely strategic to prevent it in the second. Obviously this term is different for about a thousand reasons, and yet people were absolutely calling the first term fascist too.
I think it does, yeah. Simply put the majority of the country has not seen nor felt major effects of any sort of governmental shift. Yes, there is probably a path forward where we lose elections basically non violently. If the average person on the street keeps their current level of living, they're not going to risk their lives to oppose something that many see as performative anyways.
That said, Trump's incompetence/intentional probing makes it a little tricky to identify. At the end of the day if you want to change the government you NEED the military because they're the ones with the weapons and the ability to enforce your will when someone says "you and what army". The national guard deploying and rolling their eyes because blood in the streets isn't worth a corrupt senile politicians stupid orders when just standard compliance is "stand here and look pretty". If trump orders the guard to start firing on civilians that escalates things FAST. And yes, he's toying with that, and yes, the members of the military and the guard are aware of it like any other person and have all sorts of views about it, but I don't think it's wrong to say that from the pov of the military right now this is still a civil problem. Smashing the glass on the "activate the military to defend/destroy democracy" button is very very likely to lead to millions dead, and very few people want that. So for the most part right now its "Follow your orders so long as their legal" with a large helping of creative interpretation, and, because trump is trump, some level "well this would be way more dangerous if this moron knew what he was doing but fuck it i guess we'll just tromp around a bit and go back home".
A big problem with dictatorships, or things approaching them, is the passing of power. For whatever reason, right now, trump holds the keys. Basically anyone who wants what he wants knows that they can't easily stand against trump, and they can't easily do what he's doing. The idea of the republicans picking up where they left off is a very very valid one, but the question of if that's even going to work is also valid. All the "pretenders" to trumps succession, should he willingly leave office, have so far been unable to replicate even an ounce of his success. A common ploy might just be "Ok republicans are running Vance next but he swears trump will fill a new cabinet position giving him unlimited power", and that is concerning, but ultimately Trump's age is a big guardrail to this whole situation. The man is clearly ancient, and only getting older. If he were in his 40's, or if somehow all of his designs and decisions passed to Vance successfully, yeah it'd be bad. I don't know if that's likely.
Further people seem to, incorrectly, think that every republican who voted for Regan or a Bush is still onboard and always has been. That's just not true. If Arnold and Romney suddenly said "you know what fuck this" and started a new party focusing on more traditional republican platforms (namely spending) it wouldn't likely win, but it'd likely split the vote enough. That's waaaaaaaaaay more complicated of course than that little blurb conveys, but again, it's a possibility (or something akin to it.).
It's important to remember that the largest voter block in the united states is the NON VOTER. Assuming they are happy, or say, willing to watch the country burn is a dangerous assumption.
I have quite the opposite take on articles like this. It's crying wolf and hyperbolic and wasting time and attention that will be important should things hit critical thresholds. I 100% agree we need to do things, and that includes raising awareness, but to the average headline reader this comes off as "fuck it, it's too late, game over, we're in hell now, anyways good night see you all in the morning just like yesterday", and it's just such a terrible decision.
The most powerful force in Trump's success in my eyes is the utter incompetence in those who claim to be resisting him (and honestly are more likely just trying to benefit in a different way). I am one of the first to ignore conspiracies but dear god Trump could not wish for a more perfect opponent than one that started screaming about impeachment the moment the results were out in 2016 while trying to juggle the multitude of issues the democratic party refuses to address in any meaningful manner.
They have been sounding the alarm so much for so long most people don't even notice or care when he DOES cross a meaningful threshold. When you can easily point to "well no, what happened there wasn't what they said.." over and over and over and over you lose all credibility. To be clear we're discussing this man in the same breath as Hitler, and your solution was "uhh guess we'll run biden again because there's too much infighting to do otherwise" all while pretending that wasn't a terrible idea and directly against what he implied and what people wanted? At what point is your incompetence just as dangerous as your enemy?
I'm not who you asked but for me, we will know it is effective fascism if the trumplicans successfully neutralize backlash and win the next Congressional and presidential elections.
The public is only starting to feel the pain from tariff inflation or Medicaid cuts.
It will be an effective fascism if Congress gives Trump an enabling act
They are clearly laying the groundwork for illegal attempts to keep power but they haven't succeeded yet.
@kfwyre
If you try to murder someone and fail, what are you called? Legally, an attempted murderer. Colloquially, a murderer. You had every intent, action, and capacity to kill a person, but failed by circumstance. I'm not a lawyer.
Now apply that example here and you see why I simply say "American has a fascist government right now". I don't think it's too late, but all the intents and actions clearly highlight a desire to be one. Maybe you can argue we aren't legally authoritarian because we have the constitution, but where exactly is the line? Russia still has elections, after all.
And you don't think people here don't have those? Families separated, sent to concentration camps, or exiled to El Salvador? People wrongfully detained at borders, and even dying in ICE confinement in a few days?
Conversely, do you think everyone suffered in other examples? That some people didn't flee, didn't just slide through life keeping their head down? Those don't get recorded in history as loudly. The only difference is that WWII did indeed devastate many countries. The US, meanwhile, hasn't had a war on its land for 150 years.
Just keep in mine some US states have more people than many EU countries. That will change the dynamics of fascism immensely
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary...
I read that as "for imposing Texas on us without our consent" and had to do a double take. I needed that laugh today, though!
ALSO THAT.
WE ALL KNOW ITS AN ANTI-LITTERING CAMPAIGN, TEXAS. WE ALL KNOW.
/half joking
It's this one for me:
They're not just happy to let it burn, conservative capital (is that redundant) saw in 2020-2021 how much money they could make when the American people were pinched, & spent the next four years strategizing how to make it happen again—it's not Nero too disconnected from the people to care, it's your cousin who set someone's business on fire so he could buy the burned-out lot for cheap: they're not sabotaging themselves, they're sabotaging us.
For sure, if we still have textbooks in 50 years this is the picture for the chapter we're in—we are seconds away from glorious leader Wallace Breen-levels of this shit. "Pick up that can" my ass.
There are two things that give me a certain amount of hope going forward. The first is that Trump is entering his 80s not his 40s. Nature will eventually bring the Trump experiment to a hard stop.
The second thing is that when I compare Trump to Hitler, Hitler was more willing to favor his followers and shield them from the negative impact of his policies. Hitler cut government employees but protected veterans in government service. Trump doesn't care about the military or farmers or citizens married to immigrants.
I highly recommend the biography Plaintiff in Chief. Trump has always been careless and reckless about making enemies.
JD Vance is in his 40s, just saying.
Vance doesn't have the same loyalty from Trump's voters.
Or even trumps political allies. Given that this entire topic is about fascism, the important metric is the loyalty of the military.
As a Canadian, this is terrifying and I don't see a world where we avoid becoming America's Czechoslovakia.
I'm holding out hope. Canadians are vicious in battle, with a history of punching way above our weight class. The Marvel character Wolverine was meant to embody the Canadian spirit after all. We also feel betrayed by our closest ally who we sincerely do not want to become a part of, so that's extra motivation to defend our country.
Canadians have never before been as unified as I've seen them since the start of the 2nd Trump administration. We've been pretty damn unified in our "elbows up" message, that we will not stand for annexation.
Think back to the past, idk, ten wars the US has been in. They haven't had a win since 1945. They have a hard time dealing with people in jungles or other heavily forested areas. They have a hard time dealing with impoverished farmers in the desert, where anyone could be an insurgent. They've also never encountered a war on their own soil.
Now imagine if there are thousands upon thousands of kilometres of undefended border going through wilderness, where the insurgents speak exactly the same language, know exactly the same cultural references, and can pass as Americans perfectly. There could be a 9/11 level event every week if Canadians had motivation to do so. Look to The Troubles in the UK if you want to know how these sorts of things play out with similar cultures on a land border.
They can't nuke us since 90% of our population is within 100km of the US border. In theory we have NATO allies. I'm not looking forward to what happens if they try, but I'm also not too concerned about our sovereignty. We're a resilient people.
Besides for the revolutionary war, the war of 1812, the civil war, in some senses the Mexican-American war, the Indian/Apache war, and world war II (Alaska and hawaii), I suppose this is true!
Edit: cheekiness aside, I wouldn't worry about it overmuch. There is no world in which the US invades Canada to annex it.
Fair points. To be equally cheeky I think the last one that was a boots-on-ground land invasion was the war of 1812 where the Brits who lived in Canada came and burned down the White House.
Anyway, I would caution my fellow Canadians to remain vigilant and pay attention. Trump's actions are precedented. We've been down this path before. History really does repeat itself. I have absolutely no faith in the checks and balances of the US government anymore. It appears the executive branch now wields ultimate power. This is like the second chapter of any book describing fascism.
PS: "overmuch" is a great word. I'm going to try and incorporate it into my vocabulary.
I'd like to believe that we still have something in common with the young men who took back those towns in WW1 Holland and France, but I'm not convinced that we have the same gumption.
That was my grandparents' generation and they were made of far harder stuff than I am.
I guess it depends how comfortable you'd be living under US / Trump rule. I for one, wouldn't stand for it. I'd rather go down defending my country than live under fascism. I'm not even a patriot. I'm sorta indifferent towards Canada as a nation. I just know that the alternative is far, far worse.
Of course, and I'm in the same boat. That said, I don't think that will is a perfect replacement for the hard living and lessons of a subsistence agrarian lifestyle.
They were made from tougher stuff from the start, and while I'm eager to see my generation and younger rise to the occasion, I just don't think that we have the kind of endurance, discipline or tenacity of those the stories are written about.
I think what I'm saying is that time and time again, despite insurmountable technological advantage, the US military has been overcome by sheer willpower alone. We have a lot more determination to defend our country than the average US soldier has to invade us.
Yeah, I see that. I was reading somewhere that if push came to shove, taking Canada would not be an easy task. Guerrilla warfare in a nasty climate would make things tough, and in addition to that, were a highly educated country with a ton of our own resources. You'd probably see something akin to Ukraine's drone program ramp up if we were under attack.
They'd take the cities but would be under constant assault from small cells operating outside of them.
Go Wolverines! Lol
I'd hope not just in theory but in practice an invasion would trigger Article 5 and see it honored.
Look, this is of course speculative and in my honest opinion exceedingly unlikely, but realistically speaking an expansionist US will see more resistance than they'd probably expect. The current day rhetoric around NATO strength being mainly the US military is misguided at best. The new spending targets already see a combined military expenditure exceeding US defense spending.
We're going really far afield from the original point now - and to be clear, I don't think there's any scenario in which the US and Canada go to war - but I also categorically disagree that the US isn't the main force of NATO. Sure, at the new spending targets (not achieved yet) the other countries will spend more than the US does on balance, though that doesn't equate to more military power, in part because distributed spending like that is inherently inefficient. But let's take the "NATO wars with the US" scenario at face value for illustrative purposes. ......How would they get there? Naval power and air power are the two areas where military strength is even more lopsided in favor of the US. By contrast, it is virtually certain that the US could get to Europe. That asymmetry illustrates, I think, that the US still provides the bulk of NATOs power.
I think you misinterpreted that as if I said the US isn't the strongest individually. The crux is that the combined forces of NATO sans US are already more numerous than the US forces alone before the spending increases. They're not a paper tiger without the US, which is often a point presented as if it's just the undeniable truth.
Fair enough!
No worries, I can easily see how it can be interpreted in multiple ways.
I didn't want to what if the rest of your post because it's A. Difficult to speculate and B. Undeniable the US has a shitton more aircraft and most notably the carriers to take them places. You're right that just having the troop count doesn't equal being able to get them where they need to be. But if push comes to shove we can't rule out a stalwart resistance, at least on paper.
Canada would probably also have
guerillaresistance support from inside of the US, at least I'd hope so.Insane that it has come so far that we have to speculate about these scenarios.
In all truth, the United States was effectively a plutocracy even before the Trump takeover. You could have your pick of the green(-ish)/tech-forward billionaire party or the fossil fuel and mineral extraction billionaire party.
Trump simply consolidated the billionaires, and packaged this up with a back-to-the-imagined Gilded Age revanchism. If there's a philosophy of governance that can be rolled back to 1855 - 1890, it will be. The fact that popular will would be vehemently opposed to this (moreso if anyone really grasped the implications of Project 2025) is what brings us the (tiny) iron fist.