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This line of analysis really highlights just how incompetent Trump is at being fascist.
Most seasoned politicians are more like Vance and can sell their reactionary policy in all the nice language liberals like to use.
It also highlights how fucked the US is once Trump becomes irrelevant, because any one of the more competent fascists could potentially take his place, and Trump has set the bar so low that just about anyone else will be able to clear it.
Maybe all the wannabe fachos'll all infight to death?
One can hope right?
This line of analysis really highlights just how incompetent Trump is at being fascist.
I've got to disagree. This isn't incompetence, its a deliberate strategy. One candidate plays the Nice Polite Republican and the other whips the base.
Traditionally, you get your aw shucks Good'ole'Boy on the front of the ticket - your Bush, your McCain, your Romney - and the nail-eating red meat psychopath as VP - Cheney / Palin / Ryan. In this particular election, Trump's press is so bad that Vance looks sane by comparison. And the debate was an opportunity to really layer the mask on thick to calm the rubs into thinking he's the normal one.
any one of the more competent fascists could potentially take his place
Just look at the primary ballot. Your options ranged from the vindictive culture-war sadists DeSantis and Christie to the neocon forever war hawks Hailey and Scott, with a few paleocons and grifters sprinkled in the margins.
Then there's the ones who didn't run - Abbot and Cruz down in Texas are both gunning for the Presidency in 2028. All these people suck.
I just don't see anyone on the Dem side of the aisle who is going to do better than Hilary did in 2016, once Trump is off the stage.
Don't you dare bring Abbott into this. I do not wish his bull shit on anyone else.
Non-zero chance he's going to be in Trump's cabinet if Trump wins.
This isn’t incompetence, its a deliberate strategy. One candidate plays the Nice Polite Republican and the other whips the base.
Maybe I could see that? I mean, if Vance rationalizes Trump enough to actually win then I guess it's effective. Trump is just such a sweaty big boy, a lot of libs who would otherwise go along with it just can't get themselves to associate, whereas if Vance was at the top of the ticket I think a lot of libs would be like "fuck me, that doesn't sound so bad".
Idk. If i'm thinking of any other historical example of fascist leaders, they're basically all deeply serious people. Bibi is a good example actually - Harvard educated, military background, exceptional political maneuvering. When he makes his threats you know he has the political capital to actually back it up. Contrast with Trump: he is just so plainly self-obsessed that his fascist message misses the mark for most people. Trump just flubs around in front of a camera and makes demands and only about half of his target audience takes it seriously, maybe less.
Taking a step back even, maybe what you're saying could apply to the duopoly, too. It would certainly explain Harris' shift to the right on immigration and law enforcement: Trump riles up the electorate into pogroms, and the liberal candidate offers a reactionary policy as a concession to placate the bloodlust.
I just don’t see anyone on the Dem side of the aisle who is going to do better than Hilary did in 2016, once Trump is off the stage.
Yea, that's my thing. Trump has created an appetite for reactionary governance, and the democrats just don't have a real response to it except "yea ok, I guess you're right". They'll either lose to the next republican or they'll slide into fascism themselves.
You’re missing one major historical fascist leader: a broke artist immigrant who substituted volume for grasp on reality and was less of a cause of fascism than an embodiment of the reactionary attitude in his country. Trump isn’t like Mussolini or Franco, but he’s very much like Hitler.
In my personal opinion trump isn't ideologically fascist. I would consider him opportunistically fascist.
I believe he wields his rhetoric for his own personal gain. I'm thinking he would just as quickly change his rhetoric if it advantaged him.
None of what I've seen from the current GOP tells me any one of them has the same saucy charisma as trumf. He's not built like them, his defining trait with the GOP is that he's a garbage human being.
I think this way of viewing fascism is misleading. All fascist leaders use it to gain power - it is the willingness to use force against the out-group and hyper-nationalism that helps them solidify their position. It is the belief that doing so will make their country 'great' that is the ideological underpinning, and Trump absolutely fits that description.
I think he's just really bad at it.
That could very well be true. I chose to believe he doesn't really believe he is making the country 'great'. He is simply reading from fascisms playbook, as a result of late capital.
I agree, that some might say he subscribes to palingenetic ultranationalism. Yet, I think that would make him a fascistic collaborator.
Either way its all bad news.
God damn he has dead eyes
The guyliner really brings them out, and I think he thinks that's good
I really hope these motherfuckers lose. I'm so tired of hearing about them every day.
We should’ve been done with this shit almost 4 years ago. Trump and everyone else that participated in Jan 6 should’ve been rotting in prison cells by now.
unfortunately rich people are coddled by the justice system in the US. It doesn't help Citizens United is allowing piles of money to set everything on fire.
As a European I'm so tired of this bullshit, must be crazy over there.
Just go out and vote, okay pretty please?
From the east, go out and vote... These fuckers have taken everything for granted
Its clear there are no moral lines with vance. If Trump said "somebody should stab JD vance hundreds, thousands of times with a knife" Vance would try to agree with it. He's such a greasy little weasel.
Little more than four years from now, the insurrectionist crowd will be chanting "hang JD Vance". And JD Vance will chant along.
He has the moral compass of a windsock
That's a damn good line. Totally stealing it.
Why not 4 months instead of 4 years?
Probably more realistic, I was just working out of the premise that history would repeat itself.
“Ya see what Donald Trump said was that I’m hung, but that’s not how the Haitian illegal fentanyl traffickers, let in by the non-existent Border Czar, should’ve done that in the last 3 1/2 years.”
-JD Vance (probably)
And they want this little shit weasel to take the reins if Trump is ever incapacitated or kicks the bucket. Pence was insufferable but this void of human emotion or empathy would literally sell out to the highest bidder while on a hot mic.
He’s certainly a skeevy little weirdo
He is a weasel politician with no real stance on anything.
A failed (at everything) businessman and a pure politician....good job maga.
The fact is, Trump has said rising sea levels means “a little more beachfront property” and suggested the noise from wind power “causes cancer.” Vance can’t wash those comments away.
Lunacy and I'm glad it's being pointed out, but it's not in a publication that anyone who needs to see it will visit.
Vance came off as very likeable. He lied a bunch thats not the point, he was likeable for a lot of people. That matters more than policy sadly.
Vance is dangerous now that he just seems to be a weird okay guy. No one who watched the debate can say Tim won. They both won but vance more so.
He lied a bunch thats not the point
This is the problem right here
I think part of it, too, was calibrating himself to go up against Walz. He was gollygeewashed.