2020 US Presidential Election

yeah completely disregard how kinky libs are, the real perverse shit goes down in the social circle jerk, not the actual one

conservatives are the real kinky people the prudes are always the secret freaks

imagine thinking this person should be in the male bathroom https://i.pinimg.com/originals/72/75/3a/72753af359ff0bafc749abe5accf5fb4.jpg or that this person should be in the women bathroom https://storiescdn.hornet.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/24103009/pink-mantaray.jpg pretty weird world you wanna live in, m8

@nebelstern In response to the broad gesturing at 'Is Trump actually a fascist'?: Yes, looking comparatively at Eco's definition of Ur-Fascism, I'd say he fits the bill: The cult of tradition. - Trump has this in spades, be it his bible photo-ops, or his gesturing to the imagined past of America's forefathers. The rejection of modernism. - He seems to not like a lot of modernist things, like treating women like human beings, or globalism, or free movement of people. And the way he acts like universities are all run by like marxist leftists or something. The cult of action for action’s sake. - Build a wall comes to mind. Or that time he had Suleimani assassinated. Or his insistence on holding rallies during coronavirus. Or just generally his response to coronavirus and how he's tried to 'sell' that to the American people Disagreement is treason. - The way he acts with regard to the media, and when he constantly doubles down on the obvious lies that he tells. Him crying 'fake news' is an obvious way of casting the media in doubt because he *really* doesn't like it when someone tries to hold him up on his bullshit even a little bit. Fear of difference. - So he's been quite shitty against a *lot* of groups. Called mexicans rapists. Is a raging islamophobe. Is a misogynist. I think there was that time he told AOC, Ilhan Omar and one other to go back to where they came from, too. Appeal to social frustration. - Saw this in both 2016 and now. Back then it was rural/urban divide. Now it's demonisation of 'anarchists' The obsession with a plot. - Hoo boy, where to start. Antifa, as though it was somehow an organisation. All his fearmongering over China fits the bill pretty nicely I think Fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies as "at the same time too strong and too weak." - This is also the way he acts towards Antifa, and now leftists more generally. To be honest I'm pretty sure he's been that way about China, too. Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. - I forget whether or not he's done this one, but if he did that'd be pretty funny considering how he's a draft-dodger. Contempt for the weak. - Basically his entire rhetorical strategy is him channeling this against his opponents. Everybody is educated to become a hero. - Personality cult around Trump, the way he constantly signals to fascist groups. Machismo - Is so fixated on perceived markers for his sexual prowess that he insists everybody remark how large his hands are. I imagine the incident involving a sex worker might apply to this but I don't remember all of the details of that offhand. He clearly doesn't view women as people, though. Selective populism. - Remember that time when he was going for election when he was like "I'm going to deal with all those elites in Washington", despite actually just having been one of those 'elites' in the first place? Newspeak. - I mean I don't even know if this is intentional on his part, but his vocabulary barely even counts as a vocabulary. Can't even really string coherent sentences together. He more than qualifies for 'Newspeak', and it's not just because he can't spell coffee. Oh did I mention that the USA has concentration camps on the border? Because that's what those ICE camps are. This is all just a cursory glance, too. Like if I actually bothered to properly research any of this stuff I imagine I'd probably turn up a lot more. Also, with regards to 'what does a fascist believe' - the reason why I refer to Ur-Fascism is because actually existing fascists will believe (or at least try and appear to believe) whatever they need to in order to get power. What a particular fascist actually believes is totally irrelevant. Ur-Fascism as defined by Eco is sort of like a common blueprint, of sorts, that all fascists to an extent will adhere to.