AntiTrumpAlliance

The dirty truth is that the Real Social Consequences of supporting fascism have, historically, been the full throated support of US business, media, and military.

Germany was the exception, not the rule. Spain, Chile, the Philippines, South Vietnam, Israel, Apartheid South Africa, Bolsanaro's Brazil, Modi's India, Trump's America... That's the rule.

If you think back before that, weren't those the most self-centered and selfish ones?

I remember a situation with a friend of mine from back in my Uni days (not a case of him turning out to be a Trumpist but a case of him having drifted away from his family, rather than "facing it like a man" he just kept deceiving them and living a double life until things inevitably blew up) and looking back from my by then far more mature and adult point of view than when he and I became friends I could spot how he was always the guy who put himself ahead of the rest of the group.

I get the impression that Trumpists are those who are a mix of being the most "what's in it for me" types (to the point of putting the satisfaction of petty and even mean personal psychological wants ahead of other people's actual lives) and useful idiot, and those would have a track record of putting themselves first even in situations were one wouldn't act like that with friends.

COVID broke people's brains too. don't know about your timeline but in my opinion while some people started showing their true colors, some people actually changed during that time.

They don’t see it as fascism. They just see that their “team” is “winning”, and the “other” people are losing. That’s all life is to them, winning over everyone else, even when it goes against self preservation.

I own a business, and I wouldn’t hire someone who is openly MAGA.

I work in the O&G industry. Quite a few of the rank and file office folks are vanilla liberals. The senior execs are all Christian MAGA.

Silicon Valley has the same problem. The professional working class is liberal, while the senior sex pest corporate ice chewers are all in the same insane Scientology cults and Mormon tabernacle choirs and Longtermist Transhuman Collectives.

I've seen the same dynamic in health care, professional sports, Big Law, finance, heavy industry...

Great that you managed to break into the club as a Normal. But I don't see a future where I'm sitting on the board of a Fortune 500 corporation. A notable reason why is that I'm not working my way up the chain at Opus Dei.

the tricky thing has been sorting real fascists from those just so grossly misinformed by the propaganda network that they're basically decent but brainwashed.

Unfortunately, we are at a point in human history where there is no functional distinction between smart fascists and stupid fascists. The end result is still propagation of unbridled evil and it cannot be tolerated regardless of the origin.

It's a dumb line anyway. There's no obligation for us to tolerate their antisocial behavior in the first place. All that line does is betray that the fascist treats liberalist ideals as a game or a weakness, only a fool would humor their insincere appeals to liberalism.

Jean-Paul Sartre, Réflexions sur la question juive (1946)

"Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past."

I will tolerate anyone but the intolerant

I mean, it should be socially acceptable to punch Nazis.

Yes, it should be that way everywhere. In plenty of societies, it already is.

An international friend of mine in the UK was let off lightly by a judge for punching a Nazi, because the victim was a Nazi. Obviously judges can be a game of luck so I'm not claiming this is a low-risk action, but law isn't set in stone.

it's like returning the shopping cart: you don't have to punch nazis, but if you don't do it you're a bit of a dick

They're talking about 'affiliating with' too. The plain truth is that people who aren't fascists themselves still enable fascism. (Yes, I know, the whole "1 fascist sitting at a table of 10 is just 10 fascists" line is a great slogan, but at the end of the day, there's no point wasting time flaming someone by calling them a fascist when they don't think they are one, it's semantics, the critial point is they're a fascist-enabler regardless and therefore responsible for and complicit in fascism)