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On May 10 2019 16:44 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:Show nested quote +On May 10 2019 10:56 Nebuchad wrote:On May 10 2019 10:39 Danglars wrote:
The current demand for fascists exceeds the supply of fascists, so people rebrand more and more things as fascistic.
Then some people pretend the ones they branded white supremacist/fascist/racists need to come back into the fold for the good of the country. Trump’s small potatoes when it comes to tearing the country apart. He couldn’t do a better job than Democratic leadership & media allies if he tried. What does fascism mean to you, and how are you able to clearly tell the difference between that and what we are being supplied? The further left you go the more things you brand as fascist. Go back to Bill Clintons 1995 SOTU and hear his tough talk on “Illegal aliens” and strengthening the borders. The irony now democrat supporters and the silicon valley social media giants censorship of viewpoints they disagree with.The overton window is not where you think it is, thats why Trump won.Less authoriatianism all round would be good, more debate less censorship. The internet is poorer than it was 10-15 years back due to the decline of forums like this and the rise of twitter and facebook in their place.My opinion but many agree.
America is one of the least left wing countries on earth. Your left wing is right wing. You're still having debates about things the rest of the western world decided were basic rights decades ago. You know, like healthcare and abortion.
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On May 10 2019 16:44 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:Show nested quote +On May 10 2019 10:56 Nebuchad wrote:On May 10 2019 10:39 Danglars wrote:
The current demand for fascists exceeds the supply of fascists, so people rebrand more and more things as fascistic.
Then some people pretend the ones they branded white supremacist/fascist/racists need to come back into the fold for the good of the country. Trump’s small potatoes when it comes to tearing the country apart. He couldn’t do a better job than Democratic leadership & media allies if he tried. What does fascism mean to you, and how are you able to clearly tell the difference between that and what we are being supplied? The further left you go the more things you brand as fascist. Go back to Bill Clintons 1995 SOTU and hear his tough talk on “Illegal aliens” and strengthening the borders. The irony now democrat supporters and the silicon valley social media giants censorship of viewpoints they disagree with.The overton window is not where you think it is, thats why Trump won.Less authoriatianism all round would be good, more debate less censorship. The internet is poorer than it was 10-15 years back due to the decline of forums like this and the rise of twitter and facebook in their place.My opinion but many agree.
That makes no sense. What most of us point out as fascism are authoritiarian acts. What most of us are worried about is authoritarianism and the sidestepping of the norms and processes of democracy. When you shoot or threaten to shoot people you disagree with, that is the ultimate form of authoritarianism, to silence someone by killing them.
For example, in the past 24 hours, we have paramilitary groups roaming the border with guns, with moral support given in rallies given by the President of the USA, ramming of abortion legislation in Alabama by passing a motion without going throughdue process. This is alarming and authoritarian.
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On May 10 2019 16:44 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:Show nested quote +On May 10 2019 10:56 Nebuchad wrote:On May 10 2019 10:39 Danglars wrote:
The current demand for fascists exceeds the supply of fascists, so people rebrand more and more things as fascistic.
Then some people pretend the ones they branded white supremacist/fascist/racists need to come back into the fold for the good of the country. Trump’s small potatoes when it comes to tearing the country apart. He couldn’t do a better job than Democratic leadership & media allies if he tried. What does fascism mean to you, and how are you able to clearly tell the difference between that and what we are being supplied? The further left you go the more things you brand as fascist. Go back to Bill Clintons 1995 SOTU and hear his tough talk on “Illegal aliens” and strengthening the borders. The irony now democrat supporters and the silicon valley social media giants censorship of viewpoints they disagree with.The overton window is not where you think it is, thats why Trump won.Less authoriatianism all round would be good, more debate less censorship. The internet is poorer than it was 10-15 years back due to the decline of forums like this and the rise of twitter and facebook in their place.My opinion but many agree.
If you have to go back 24 years to find your example of why the left is fascist (from a centrist president) while the american right swims daily in xenophobia, hatred of islam, authoritarianism, anti intellectualism and a disdain of facts and truth never seen in the west since the ww2, you are probably not doing well.
And let’s be clear, Trump is not a fascist, because that would imply he actually believes in something, while he is just a conman and a narcissist. But his rhetoric, a lot the people who support him and the impulse that led him to power clearly are.
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I got a feeling that many people just learned that Facism = Bad, whiteout ever being told what actually makes it bad in principle.
Facism is obviously horrible, but this is not as obvious as you would might think, else it would never have gotten as big as it was.
If you believe in a strong leader, want to put your nation first, have a strong belief in order (not necessarily law, just order), that your culture has to be protected from outside forces and so on...
Well, chances are very high that you are actually pretty open to Facism.
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Nazis being turned into uncritical video game villains and the thing of movies has really twisted the public’s concept of what fascism is. People in the US see WW2 starting and ending in the 1940s and know very little of the 1930s and how fascism came to power. Which is why we get terrible statements like “If Hitler had just focused on making Germany great” without any understanding that he was in power for 4 weeks before they started doing terrible shit. And did terrible shit to get into power. People in the US don’t understand that McCarthy employed the same tactics fascist of shamelessly lying. And because we are so far removed from the last rise of fascism, there are few people with first hand experience to raise the alarm when fascist shit starts happening.
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Authoritarianism is also not the best way to describe fascism because it gives people an out. They can go full "I'm for small government" and ignore your argument. Obviously fascists don't want the government to be authoritarian toward them either, they think it should be authoritarian toward some other people. This difference in treatment between you and your friends and The Others is what's at the root of fascism, and how it can be appealing to other ideologies where there's also a rigid social hierarchy.
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Norway28600 Posts
On May 10 2019 06:23 xDaunt wrote:
I'm genuinely curious as to how many of the posters around here truly believe that Trump's comment at the rally is a big deal. I'd really like to know who each of these posters is for future reference.
Compared to the Trump's worst elements (policy wise, that he either pretends to or is such an actual idiot that he doesn't acknowledge man made climate change as real, personality wise, that he has no ability to or that he doesn't care about differentiating truth from fiction), this is completely insignificant. If he were less abhorrent in general, maybe I would find myself caring a bit, because I do expect more from any head of state. But as it is, I actually think Trump's comment is reasonably funny. It's less bad than Reagan's we've outlawed the sovjet union we will start nuking in 5 minutes or whatever joke, and most other things about Trump are actually worse than him..
Like not too long ago I talked to a far leftist (left of me) colleague of mine who is running for a very small and local political position - but a political position nonetheless. He mentioned having been super drunk and talking to people from the other side of the political aisle, and basically yelling something akin to WHEN THE REVOLUTION HAPPENS.. YOU WILL BE DANGLING FROM THE STREETLIGHTS..
I don't think that's a remotely acceptable attitude from anyone, let alone a teacher assistant-politician. I mean, he didn't either, he thought it was really stupid and he had been really drunk. But when he told me the story, I laughed out loud while shaking my head - at best, I gave a very mild admonishment. I think it's good to give people credit for standing up for their values even when someone you're otherwise on friendly terms with challenges them. That's a very good quality in people, and an area where I find myself falling short. But I can't really blame people for giving a less than stellar response to something like that. And especially not when it's Trump - I expect him to fall short in every single area that actually matters, this one doesn't really register on my radar.
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Those stories aren't really comparable. If your friend, instead of being repentant and embarrassed about something he said while he was drunk, was openly and unironically talking about hanging liberals and conservatives because they don't listen to reason, would your reaction be the same?
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Norway28600 Posts
Nope, but i also have a much more established relationship with him than what trump has with his rallygoers. I think it is much more problematic that trump himself says things that are significantly less bad/ slightly less bad than what this guy said than that he doesnt make some unequivocal 'the opinion stated by this fellow rally attendee is under no circumstance acceptable, even as a joke.' At this point, truth be told, trump could have made that statement, but i myself would probably not have considered it genuine.
I really dont intend this as a defense of trump, but i think if i spent some time, I'd be able to make a 50+ point list over more important reasons why he's a disgrace as a president . Consequently i dont consider this particular example particularly noteworthy or a big deal. What trump himself states is far more important than what fans of him say that he does not admonish , and this, to me, is even more so the case because i know that I am not too fond of or great at admonishing people i am sympathetic towards who express opinions i otherwise find wrong or offensive.
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The stories are comparable, they just have notable differences.
Your questioning follows as "Yes, you dislike Trump, but do you dislike trump -enough-?
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On May 10 2019 21:33 Velr wrote:
I got a feeling that many people just learned that Facism = Bad, whiteout ever being told what actually makes it bad in principle.
Facism is obviously horrible, but this is not as obvious as you would might think, else it would never have gotten as big as it was.
If you believe in a strong leader, want to put your nation first, have a strong belief in order (not necessarily law, just order), that your culture has to be protected from outside forces and so on...
Well, chances are very high that you are actually pretty open to Facism.
Are monarchies fascist?
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On May 11 2019 01:16 Fleetfeet wrote:
The stories are comparable, they just have notable differences.
Your questioning follows as "Yes, you dislike Trump, but do you dislike trump -enough-?
I don't think that's true, no. Drone is classifying this event as minor, and one of the rationales that he uses to do that is this comparison with what he did with his friend in that situation. My questioning was designed to challenge that rationale.
Another rationale is that Trump has done worse things already when it comes to fascism and yeah, that's true. But he did this one in the present, not in the past, and we tend to speak about things chronologically, so I don't find that to be all that convincing either.
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On May 11 2019 01:05 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Nope, but i also have a much more established relationship with him than what trump has with his rallygoers. I think it is much more problematic that trump himself says things that are significantly less bad/ slightly less bad than what this guy said than that he doesnt make some unequivocal 'the opinion stated by this fellow rally attendee is under no circumstance acceptable, even as a joke.' At this point, truth be told, trump could have made that statement, but i myself would probably not have considered it genuine.
I really dont intend this as a defense of trump, but i think if i spent some time, I'd be able to make a 50+ point list over more important reasons why he's a disgrace as a president . Consequently i dont consider this particular example particularly noteworthy or a big deal. What trump himself states is far more important than what fans of him say that he does not admonish , and this, to me, is even more so the case because i know that I am not too fond of or great at admonishing people i am sympathetic towards who express opinions i otherwise find wrong or offensive.
I don't think anyone is arguing that this is the worst thing he has done. In fact, I don't think Trump is the reason why people are discussing it at all. He is a factor, but not the specific reason the topic is being discussed. It is the fact that at a political rally featuring the president someone yelled to shoot illegal immigrants at the border and the crowd laughed and cheered. In my lifetime never seen something like that. And the reason that the discussion has taken hold in the thread is due to the general unease with how it has been received and covered by the press and political parties.
The question at hand isn't "It Trump bad and does this prove it?" The question is "What does this mean for our country when this is the nature of our political rallies." The typical response is that it is a single joke and we shouldn't read it into it to much. But in my 39 years in the country, I've never seen anything like it in US politics. I've never seen states pass laws to jail women for having a miscarriage or abortion. I've never seen troops deployed to the border to deal with a fictional crisis. Or asylum seekers rounded up and put into camps. When people talk about the what was said at the rally, it is a commentary on all the things they have been required to accept at "normal" since Trump took office and them questioning when the the turning point will happen.
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On May 11 2019 01:05 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Nope, but i also have a much more established relationship with him than what trump has with his rallygoers. I think it is much more problematic that trump himself says things that are significantly less bad/ slightly less bad than what this guy said than that he doesnt make some unequivocal 'the opinion stated by this fellow rally attendee is under no circumstance acceptable, even as a joke.' At this point, truth be told, trump could have made that statement, but i myself would probably not have considered it genuine.
I really dont intend this as a defense of trump, but i think if i spent some time, I'd be able to make a 50+ point list over more important reasons why he's a disgrace as a president . Consequently i dont consider this particular example particularly noteworthy or a big deal. What trump himself states is far more important than what fans of him say that he does not admonish , and this, to me, is even more so the case because i know that I am not too fond of or great at admonishing people i am sympathetic towards who express opinions i otherwise find wrong or offensive.
You're right on both the hierarchy of criticizable actions and that people would disbelieve it regardless.
I'll say it one more time: the people most wanting conservatives to condemn trivial actions (and he already said "It's only in the Panhandle you can get away with that statement" by means of condemnation for inappropriateness) are loading up fascist and white supremacist and vile rhetoric in their cannons and firing indiscriminately at conservatives already. There isn't really a step down that isn't unilateral surrender on rhetoric. The message has become "Take it, conservatives, because you deserve it, but don't you dare use the biggest microphone to throw it back!" Funny joke, guys.
Drone, you could probably get my support on 20-30 of your 50 point list. I don't think he's a good president on a great number of metrics. I happen to value a small number of metrics very highly that he performs average or well on, and people don't like it, but that's politics. I'd really prefer somebody that can defend his policy positions, not blatantly lie, and give better speeches off the cuff, but in their absence, I'll still pick somebody whose appointments and policies will better the country. I suggest to you, Drone, that you would do the same if you truly thought the other guy would impoverish and hurt the country.
Links:
My past response to your AGW characterization, related on the words we use and manner of humor
Orwell, showing fascism just means "something undesirable" and lost meaning back in the 1940s or earlier. The degradation of political taxonomy is quite old.
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On May 11 2019 01:29 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On May 10 2019 21:33 Velr wrote:
I got a feeling that many people just learned that Facism = Bad, whiteout ever being told what actually makes it bad in principle.
Facism is obviously horrible, but this is not as obvious as you would might think, else it would never have gotten as big as it was.
If you believe in a strong leader, want to put your nation first, have a strong belief in order (not necessarily law, just order), that your culture has to be protected from outside forces and so on...
Well, chances are very high that you are actually pretty open to Facism. Are monarchies fascist?
I think that's a good question, I've been asking myself similar questions lately. I find a lot of similarities between the two, with the exception of feudalism vs capitalism. Absolutism tends to focus on the leader as a person rather than on the nation, but I would argue that you don't really need to focus on the nation in these days because basically everyone is already a massive "nationalist" (that's a bit anachronistic but I trust you get the idea?). Sort of in the same way that the founding fathers didn't need to say that black people weren't humans when they said all humans have unalienable rights.
If you're saying this because there's a glaring difference that I'm overlooking I would very much like to see you make that argument, cause I find this interesting.
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On May 11 2019 01:42 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On May 11 2019 01:29 IgnE wrote:On May 10 2019 21:33 Velr wrote:
I got a feeling that many people just learned that Facism = Bad, whiteout ever being told what actually makes it bad in principle.
Facism is obviously horrible, but this is not as obvious as you would might think, else it would never have gotten as big as it was.
If you believe in a strong leader, want to put your nation first, have a strong belief in order (not necessarily law, just order), that your culture has to be protected from outside forces and so on...
Well, chances are very high that you are actually pretty open to Facism. Are monarchies fascist? I think that's a good question, I've been asking myself similar questions lately. I find a lot of similarities between the two, with the exception of feudalism vs capitalism. Absolutism tends to focus on the leader as a person rather than on the nation, but I would argue that you don't really need to focus on the nation in these days because basically everyone is already a massive "nationalist" (that's a bit anachronistic but I trust you get the idea?). Sort of in the same way that the founding fathers didn't need to say that black people weren't humans when they said all humans have unalienable rights. If you're saying this because there's a glaring difference that I'm overlooking I would very much like to see you make that argument, cause I find this interesting.
Maybe when I have more time I’ll circle back to monarchies, but to put perhaps a finer point on it, is xenophobia fascist?
Has anyone else noticed that travel has become a status symbol among educated millennials in a way that owning your own house might have been 20 years ago?
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On May 11 2019 01:05 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Nope, but i also have a much more established relationship with him than what trump has with his rallygoers. I think it is much more problematic that trump himself says things that are significantly less bad/ slightly less bad than what this guy said than that he doesnt make some unequivocal 'the opinion stated by this fellow rally attendee is under no circumstance acceptable, even as a joke.' At this point, truth be told, trump could have made that statement, but i myself would probably not have considered it genuine.
I really dont intend this as a defense of trump, but i think if i spent some time, I'd be able to make a 50+ point list over more important reasons why he's a disgrace as a president . Consequently i dont consider this particular example particularly noteworthy or a big deal. What trump himself states is far more important than what fans of him say that he does not admonish , and this, to me, is even more so the case because i know that I am not too fond of or great at admonishing people i am sympathetic towards who express opinions i otherwise find wrong or offensive.
Reminds me of Sunday's Last Week Tonight. While there are numerous reasons why I wouldn't fuck my mom, the glaringly obvious one is because "She's my fucking mom!". It doesn't matter that she's a bit old and not really my type, she's my mom. Likewise this is just one of many reasons why Trump shouldn't be president, but it doesn't even compare to some of the most glaringly obvious ones, like the fact that he's scammed the majority of the population for his rich friends, obstructed justice, broken numerous campaign laws, ran on a platform of being a "the best business man" while hiding the fact that he's roughly somewhere around "the worst", is super racist, homophobic, uses his position to pad his own wallet, consistently breaks national security, and has numerous indications that he's in the pocket of another country's leader.
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On May 11 2019 01:52 Excludos wrote:Show nested quote +On May 11 2019 01:05 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Nope, but i also have a much more established relationship with him than what trump has with his rallygoers. I think it is much more problematic that trump himself says things that are significantly less bad/ slightly less bad than what this guy said than that he doesnt make some unequivocal 'the opinion stated by this fellow rally attendee is under no circumstance acceptable, even as a joke.' At this point, truth be told, trump could have made that statement, but i myself would probably not have considered it genuine.
I really dont intend this as a defense of trump, but i think if i spent some time, I'd be able to make a 50+ point list over more important reasons why he's a disgrace as a president . Consequently i dont consider this particular example particularly noteworthy or a big deal. What trump himself states is far more important than what fans of him say that he does not admonish , and this, to me, is even more so the case because i know that I am not too fond of or great at admonishing people i am sympathetic towards who express opinions i otherwise find wrong or offensive. Reminds me of Sunday's Last Week Tonight. While there are numerous reasons why I wouldn't fuck my mom, the glaringly obvious one is because "She's my fucking mom!". It doesn't matter that she's a bit old and not really my type, she's my mom. Likewise this is just one of many reasons why Trump shouldn't be president, but it doesn't even compare to some of the most glaringly obvious ones, like the fact that he's scammed the majority of the population for his rich friends, obstructed justice, broken numerous campaign laws, ran on a platform of being a "the best business man" while hiding the fact that he's roughly somewhere around "the worst", is super racist, homophobic, uses his position to pad his own wallet, consistently breaks national security, and has numerous indications that he's in the pocket of another country's leader. To me its not so much about "look at how bad Trump is" but what it tells his followers and what they might do.
The militia complete with guns are already at the border to defend it from the invasion.
At this point its a matter of when someone gets shot, not if.
And in light of that, anything other then a strong condemnation of violence against illegals is a problem.
My problem is a less then stable individual, of which there are plenty, seeing that rally and the comment and going "yes, I should go and shoot them".
I mean, we already had an armed man walk into a pizzaria to save the children from Clinton's child sex ring.
This stuff isn't even far fetched.
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Fascism is very hard to define and circumscribe imo. F.e. it shares a lot of elements with some of the communist countries which are supposed to be on the other side of the political spectrum, but I'm not sure I'd define Russia as a fascist country f.e. despite checking a lot of boxes I'd consider core fascist principles (one-party state with a strong hierarchy, control through terror, discrimination against parts of society, imperialistic superiority complex). I probably would define NK as a fascist country though, mainly because my impression is that it's more strict and has a stronger inclusion of the populace in their party programs.
@IgnE I think Monarchies lack the group dynamics that fascist countries have. Also most monarchies lacked the tools to be as stringent as fascist nations, controlling large parts of your populace was a pipedream before the 20th century.
On May 11 2019 01:42 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On May 11 2019 01:29 IgnE wrote:On May 10 2019 21:33 Velr wrote:
I got a feeling that many people just learned that Facism = Bad, whiteout ever being told what actually makes it bad in principle.
Facism is obviously horrible, but this is not as obvious as you would might think, else it would never have gotten as big as it was.
If you believe in a strong leader, want to put your nation first, have a strong belief in order (not necessarily law, just order), that your culture has to be protected from outside forces and so on...
Well, chances are very high that you are actually pretty open to Facism. Are monarchies fascist? I think that's a good question, I've been asking myself similar questions lately. I find a lot of similarities between the two, with the exception of feudalism vs capitalism. Absolutism tends to focus on the leader as a person rather than on the nation, but I would argue that you don't really need to focus on the nation in these days because basically everyone is already a massive "nationalist" (that's a bit anachronistic but I trust you get the idea?). Sort of in the same way that the founding fathers didn't need to say that black people weren't humans when they said all humans have unalienable rights. If you're saying this because there's a glaring difference that I'm overlooking I would very much like to see you make that argument, cause I find this interesting.
I think there are a bunch of differences. The biggest one is time, society was very different in some areas to how it is today or was 60 years ago. Industrial revolution and the spreading of literacy and books as a result of the printing press massively reshaped our societies in the 18th and 19th century, including the spreading of ideas such as nationalism and self-determination. As a result before the 19th century the average peasant didn't care much about who ruled over him and the average peasant was 90% of the populace for most of written history.
But it's not just the lower classes that are different, the upper classes are different too. High nobility in monarchies are elements the king has little influence on, they receive their justification from religion, not the king. As a result high nobility very commonly played their own game and the king had a lot less power, even in absolute monarchies.
On the flipside a fascist dictator can mostly choose the people in power and often is powerful enough to purge people opposing him.
Again, exceptions exists and lines blur on occasion, but they are still exceptions.
Also the main defining feature of monarchies is faith, steel and gunpowder, they are centered around the monarch being the chosen/incarnation/child... of god. Nationalism and xenophobia can play a role, but very mildly so compared to fascist regimes in which it is one of if not the central dogma. While some monarchies had strong xenophobe tendencies (ww2 japan comes to mind), most monarchs that weren't sitting on an island were more interested in keeping internal peace than glorifying their own ethnic group. They were outwardly xenophobe on occasion, but very rarely inwardly and very very rarely to a comparable extent to fascist regimes. Even the colonial empires weren't really fond of genocide compared to fascist states, who very often intentionally weaponize xenophobia and where heavy discrimination by the government is a daily occurrence.
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Monarchies and fascism share similarities, for sure. One could argue that fascism is a rebranding of ideology of monarchies for an era where nations and nationalism dominate political thought. During the evolution of democracy throughout Europe, you see lurches forward to democratic institutions and then the nations reverting to the "stability" of monarchy.
But one of the key differences of fascism is how it is designed to subvert democratic ideals and institutions to gain power with the express intent of destroying those institutions. The fascist will shamelessly lie that they respect democratic ideals to be treated as a good faith actor. Monarchies, though centered around a central rule and unjustly empowering a class of people over the rest of the population, does not share the subversive underpinning of fascism. Instead it relies on theological reasoning, like divine rule, to justify its existence.
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EPT
