How does feigning some pretense of being “fair” help anything? It is stuff like your own column here that gives his supporters ammunition.
To be as objective as possible, we must begin with the meaning of words.
When political terms are abused as cheap insults, they quickly lose their descriptive power. They cease to refer to concrete, measurable qualities and become nothing more than shorthand for strongly-felt but poorly-defined feelings.
Fuzzy words rob us of the ability to have productive dialogue. They cause us to focus on the perceived intent of a given claim rather than the actual substance.
In addition to “fair”, there is little in your piece that anyone can rationally call “objective”.
Throughout your piece you list each of Eco’s “factors” but you misstate some of them and make up your own definitions for them. Many of your examples of Trumpster’s actions also don’t fit where you are placing them. You are trying to infer meaning instead of showing actual examples.
Exhibit A:
Feature #3: Rejection of modernism.
Fascists aren’t against technology itself. In many cases, they’re its most successful adopters (e.g., Hitler and Mussolini with radio and film). What they’re against are ideas and systems that increase structural equality — i.e, that unify people they want agitated and divided.
As such, the fascist selectively rejects developments that would create the “wrong” kind of progress by labelling them unpatriotic or conspiratorial.
When a known activist against feminism and other equality causes (who happens to have close ties to Trump’s chief advisor) was met with protests at UC Berkeley, Trump threatened to withdraw federal funding(something he has no legal power to do).
Though the scientific consensus firmly supports the reality of manmade climate change, Trump has long called it mythical — though he has yet to present any evidence-based counter-argument.
Eco lists this as: “The rejection of modernism. “The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.””
Eco mentions nothing of “structural equality”. Eco’s position is that the fascist is against rationalism. Arguments both for and against claims of structural equality can be (and often are) irrational and being rational doesn’t infer “progress”. It may very well be rational to NOT progress on a specific issue.
“As such, the fascist selectively rejects developments that would create the “wrong” kind of progress by labelling them unpatriotic or conspiratorial.”
One could make the argument that those opposing Trump are rejecting him as “… the “wrong” kind of progress” by labeling him as unpatriotic or conspiratorial. Trump’s calls to roll back EPA regulations and “restore coal” are both “progress” but I see lots of people claiming that both are the “wrong” kind of progress.
His rejection of climate change fits probably fits Eco’s concept but your first example has nothing to do with it at all.
Yiannopoulos may very well be against what you (and I) perceive as rational arguments for feminism, etc… but that isn’t what Trump was commenting on. His comment was directed at Yiannopoulos’s First Amendment rights and UC Berkeley’s failure to protect them. Your use of that as an example is an attempt to infer that Trump agrees with Yiannopoulos’s views the issues Yiannopoulos talks about.
If that is true then the U.S. Supreme Court and the ACLU would also fall to the fascist side under this factor. They’ve both supported the KKK’s right to free speech so both must agree with the KKK’s organizational objectives, right?
Your piece here reminds me of Naomi Wolf’s previous attempt at the same sort of thing with Bush and her later attempt to claim that in fact, Bush had taken actions institute a coup.
Trump is giving us plenty of perfectly valid reasons to object to him. Don’t feed his supporters evidence that the left if passing around conspiracy theories.
