In an interview with NBC News, Tom Homan described how protests in Los Angeles have affected Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in recent days.
What I took from it is they’re LARPing as fascists doing fashy things, but they’re not operating under the same level of competence that more successful fascist regimes do. It’s about a bunch of overweight pigs that can’t even pass a physical, putting on a German helmet and bossing people around, while being too fucking stupid to be capable of believing in anything let alone even know what they’re doing.
I think that idea that Nazis were evil geniuses is part of the problem. Perhaps a handful of the top party leaders could be reasonably described that way but by and large your average Nazi was as exactly as dumb as your modern Republican. Although you probably have a point about the fat content of the two groups.
they’re LARPing as fascists doing fashy things, but they’re not operating under the same level of competence that more successful fascist regimes do
Actually, “successful” fascist regimes don’t tend to be anywhere near as efficient as history teaches us.
A combination of their own propaganda persisting in spite of being debunked (for example the trains in Mussolini’s Italy did NOT in fact tend to run on time) and a natural tendency in humans to conflate monstrous ruthlessness with efficiency means that historical fascists get a lot of unearned credit.
Being stupid and incompetent ISN’T inherently incongruous with being fascist.
In spite of the dominant narratives of both themselves and their opponents, fascism often if not always contain kakistocratic elements as “true believer” isn’t synonymous with “truly cunning and effective”
Conclusion: the Trump regime IS a fascist regime by any objective criteria, none of which is “everyone is competent”
What I took from it is they’re LARPing as fascists doing fashy things, but they’re not operating under the same level of competence that more successful fascist regimes do. It’s about a bunch of overweight pigs that can’t even pass a physical, putting on a German helmet and bossing people around, while being too fucking stupid to be capable of believing in anything let alone even know what they’re doing.
I think that idea that Nazis were evil geniuses is part of the problem. Perhaps a handful of the top party leaders could be reasonably described that way but by and large your average Nazi was as exactly as dumb as your modern Republican. Although you probably have a point about the fat content of the two groups.
Actually, “successful” fascist regimes don’t tend to be anywhere near as efficient as history teaches us.
A combination of their own propaganda persisting in spite of being debunked (for example the trains in Mussolini’s Italy did NOT in fact tend to run on time) and a natural tendency in humans to conflate monstrous ruthlessness with efficiency means that historical fascists get a lot of unearned credit.
Being stupid and incompetent ISN’T inherently incongruous with being fascist.
In spite of the dominant narratives of both themselves and their opponents, fascism often if not always contain kakistocratic elements as “true believer” isn’t synonymous with “truly cunning and effective”
Conclusion: the Trump regime IS a fascist regime by any objective criteria, none of which is “everyone is competent”