Nationalism and Fascism

~ Clarissa

The people who say that the Charlie Kirk memorial looked fascist to them are expressing an important thought. They think that nationalism always leads to fascism.

Nationalism sometimes leads to fascism. That fascism became associated with nationalism as its only possible development is one of the greatest problems faced by the nation-state. We shouldn’t dismiss this reaction but look for ways to address it productively. We need people to work on how nationalism turns to fascism and how it doesn’t. Because usually it doesn’t.

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Published by Clarissa

49 thoughts on “Nationalism and Fascism”

  1. Well there is one simple way to tell how it will turn out. Nationalism has a few different end paths, depending upon the state of the country at any given point. Typically its going to run into patriotism and a sort of I dislike you idiots, but I don’t actually care enough to do anything about you attitude towards whatever government the country has at the time.

    This path is likely for most government types, Republics, Monarchs, Authoritarians, Juntas, etc. With two glaring exceptions. Communism which while you can still have nationalism under communism, at some point it will get to the point where one group or the other is eliminated. The longer a country is at war with an outside force however, the longer that stalemate will continue.

    And secondly the path of Fascism, and more specifically that of a Dictatorship. This is a path that emerges under a very specific circumstance. A country must be in absolute shambles with nothing left to loose and wickedness apparently having won. In that case it will keep emerging again and again. Why? Because it is the fastest, easiest, and most through method of fixing the damn country.

    Basically if you don’t want a dictator, then simply don’t let a country get to the point where it needs one to fix itself. Simple as. For instance, last year in the US, things were looking like a shooting war was about to kick off. Oh things are worse now, but there has also been some repairs done too, and realistically none of us really though things would just magically turn around with a new president. Which is why despite things being worse no one on the right is rioting. Repairs are taking place, but at a reduced rate because, A) the President is not a Fascist, and B) the traitors trying to kill the country are still in positions of power blocking things.

    My point is this. It looked like war, and if kamula had won, it would very likely have been time to fight or die. Under those circumstances, if a leader had emerged stating, give me total power and I will eliminate the traitors, the backstabbers, and the thieves. A sizable chunk of the right and the moderates would likely have said screw it and marched behind his banner.

    That is how Fascism starts. It starts when the country is so screwed up the only way to fix it is via force and bayonets. You don’t want Fascism, then fix the country before it is required.

    I should mention, at that state you could also get a communist takeover, or a authoritarian takeover depending upon where you were.

    My point though is normally nationalists don’t actually care enough to take such routes until left with no other choice. That is how you can tell if it will happen or not.

    • – W

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        1. Still listening. so far:

          Causal relationship between prenatal acetaminophen use and neurodevelopmental disorders.

          Probably we should delay HepB vax until older.

          Folate deficiency. Should be treated with Leucophorin.

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        2. Some of the presidential mumbling was about maybe spreading out the shot schedule instead of giving groups of them at the same time.

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        3. Guidance to state health departments on data collecting so we can have a better idea WTF we are looking at (paraphrase).

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        4. changed speakers again, so far looks like reiteration.

          TBH I’m very relieved. Autism is a poorly defined collection of symptoms with probably a multitude of causes. If they had jumped on a single cause and said “We solved it!” I was gonna bang my head on the desk a lot.

          This actually sounds sane.

          Basically: don’t take acetaminophen while pregnant unless there’s literally no other option. Leucovorin seems to help something like 40-60% of autistic kids (not cure, but improve things), and they’re recommending it, and making sure it’s covered.

          But also: this is ongoing, they’re still collecting data, there are more studies in the works, and they’ll be updating the public as results come in.

          And now they’re having some moms-of-autists on to talk, so I think that’s all the intel.

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          1. Thank you SO MUCH for the recap. I’m extremely grateful. Really wanted to know but it’s been crazy around here.

            Good news on Leucovorin. And it’s great they are taking autism seriously and not reducing it to the dumb “born this way.” There are so many autistic kids who were absolutely not born that way. This is a complicated issue, and absolutely, much of what’s grouped under autism is a range of completely different issues. Why I know it without being a doctor while the medical profession is impotent to figure it out, I have no idea.

            But thank you !!

            It’s Methylethyl, right?

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            1. Yeah that was me. The Linux is working out great, but for some reason WordPress hates me now, and I can log in to my own WP, OR I can comment on yours, but having a hard time doing both at once. Sigh.

              -ethyl

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  3. Trump does seem very aligned with authoritarianism. Maybe more the corporate CEO BS that the dark enlightenment people be surrounded himself are pushing for.

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    1. Ehh he really isn’t any more than any other wealthy CEO would be. Frankly I’d say he is more moderate than anything else. Well moderate leaning right anyway. Honestly my best guess is that he is just really ticked off and in a position to be doing something about it.

      If he leaned or was aligned with authoritarianism, he would be giving the courts and cops a lot more work, frankly the number of arrests of traitorous judges, politicians, people in the education department, healthcare department, and military would be absolutely staggering without having to put any more laws on the books. We would be seeing a lot more of follow the laws on the books or else. Non of which we are actually seeing, which to be honest is kind of disappointing.

      Mostly what he has done with law enforcement is focused on stopping the flow of drugs and criminals into the country, as well as sending back as many of the criminals as possible. Hell it even took most of a year of protests, abuse, etc before the ICE agents even started arresting any of the traitors. Hell even now its not even mass arrests its just one here another there, and not even their leaders, just those who keep getting in the way, or cut the tires of government property. Which I might remind is an arrest-able offense anywhere in the country, so in that case any agents ICE or otherwise would have arrested that person.

      Even President Trump’s latest actions are more of a reaction to what can only be seen as the left crossing the line. That’s not really authoritarianism, you would get the same response in most forms of government really. Hell in Germany and Britain if you read and like a meme the government doesn’t like, you can and will be tossed in jail for a few years. Note that I didn’t say create or share said meme, I said read and like. Both of them are Republics, yet the tactics their current leaders are using are less than ideal lets say.

      No President Trump is very boisterous, and talks a good game, but half of that is his personality, and the other half is likely to keep people off balance as a negotiation tactic. After all if you go into a negotiation thinking your opponent is a loudmouthed fool, well you don’t exactly bring you A-Game as it were, and then President Trump walks all over you. Which lets be fair with some exceptions he has gotten the upper hand in most negotiations. (Israel, Iran, Ukraine, and Russia being the exceptions)

      He despite his flaws is the best President we have had in at least the last 20+ years which is saying something. But an Authoritarian he is not by any stretch of the imagination.

      • – W

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      1. -W

        Actually, Americans as is often the case, had to choose the lesser of two evils. And as you pointed out one group was all but certain to create open violence, and still might. Trump quickly ended the open border, but seems slow to remove the illegal aliens. That potential for open violence might be the reason, so despite all the bitchin’, pissin’, and moanin’; there are few suggestions of authoritarian behavior. My only major concern is his fondness for tariffs and his imahining they once led to a gilded age. Historically conditions in that era were indeed marvelous for wealthy industrialists, but absolutely horrific for the working class.

        And as you are also fond of history, I have been saving this for you ;-D

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      1. Because that’s not what he cares about, obviously. His top priority is himself. Have you read about the $2 bln purchase of the Trump crypto security by one of the Arabic sheikhs in return for being allowed to buy nvidia processors that are the best for AI?

        Trump’s priority is Trump.

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        1. har har.

          I’m alarmed by today’s gold spot chart. Looks like we’re headed for the moon right now.

          Spike started the 19th, so I’m guessing the Kirk thing triggered that. That’s some pretty serious subsurface pessimism pushing that.

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  4. I might see your point if it wasn’t for Trump’s penchant for authoritarianism. For those living under a rock or just blinded by ideology these are some concrete examples:

    Trump has used threats, executive power, and regulatory agencies to silence critics, target political adversaries, and pressure media organizations, actions that align with classic authoritarian strategies.

    His deployments of military and police forces to cities, even over local opposition, federalization of local police, and willingness to override established legal norms are cited as unprecedented and authoritarian maneuvers.

    Trump’s rhetoric, such as openly expressing interest in ruling as a “dictator,” his quest for retribution against rivals, and policies targeting protesters and immigrants, are flagged as fitting authoritarian patterns

    If Biden did half of this you’d all be having a collective aneurysm.

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    1. “Trump’s penchant for authoritarianism”

      My hypothesis (not being blessed/cursed with ESP) is that he’s acting like an executive in the private sector and he perceives governments/countries something like corporations.

      There’s an old set of…. not quite rules but tendencies… in business regarding how executives operate.

      first – be nice to subordinates faces, promise them a lot, “yes, you all deserve raises!” (MAGA!)

      second – be nasty about subordinates to higher ups (and/or outsiders) complaining how you have to crack the whip “Frankly none of my team deserve raises this year” (not really deporting anyone only cosmetic changes to unpopular programs like H1B1)

      third – be nice to executives from other companies to their faces in public, compliment their acumen, make jokes about how well they’re doing etc (kissing up to dictators)

      four – threaten to cut their b@lls off in private and in actual practice. (…we don’t know much about this part yet….)

      There are obvious drawbacks to this approach, especially since countries are not, in fact, corporations and different governments have different priorities…. it’s painful watching him try to tempt russia and china by saying they could become more prosperous when that is not a primary (or secondary or tertiary) goal of those governments.

      There’s also something about the way he talks that deserves a lot more examination… he often rambles but seeds important information amid the empty verbiage…. I would look more at it myself but I don’t like listening to him talk…

      After russia sent drones to Poland he rambled and said it was probably a mistake and that it’s not somewhere they should be…. and no more drones have appeared since. It’s obviously far too soon to see how long that will last but (and one warning is never enough with russia) but….

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      1. yesterday’s was the first presser this term I’ve sat down to listen to live, because it was important to me. He is so painful to listen to, and it was such a relief when he handed the mic over to Makary and the other guys. Even JFK with his not-for-radio voice is easier to hear, and he’s like listening to an electric sander.

        I usually wait for the transcript, but since I did actually listen- a couple things stood out. There does, weirdly, seem to be strategy in all that meandering. I hate that, because I’d far rather someone just talk clearly and say what they mean, but (shrugs). What he was saying about tylenol was definite: there’s a causal relationship found by multiple studies. And then when he talks about vaccines, it’s a series of indefinite feelings-type statements, aside from a recommendation to maybe spread the shots out over lots more doc visits. (not gonna happen, IMO– the reason they do it that way is most parents aren’t going to bring their kid in once every two weeks for a year– even if it’s free at the health dept who has time. and if it’s your pediatrician, that’s $$$ every visit).

        Strategy, such as it was, seemed to be, vindicate the “it’s the vaccines” people and make sure they don’t feel betrayed and left out, but without saying anything to open up legal liability there or real action. Nothing definite. I don’t know whether they have info or not (I suspect not: those studies were carefully not done), but I do appreciate the one definite thing said on that score: that we’re going to DO the studies that should’ve been done 25 years ago.

        Looking at the flurry of discussion that happened after: a lot of the antivax crowd does feel vindicated that he spent so much time talking about their chief concern, even though nothing of substance changed with that. He said a lot *about* it but it was confused, meandering, and didn’t go anywhere, and people read what they wanted into it. And since you can’t take action against a sacred cow like vaccines without something really substantial to back it up, that seems to have been the goal: talk a lot, let people feel like you’ve heard their concerns, even if there’s nothing you can really give them at this time.

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      2. All good points as usual cliff.

        He definitely sees himself as the CEO of America, but like you said that runs into a lot of issues when you try to run a country as a company. This along with the dark enlightenment philosphy of his friends and allies like Musk, JD Vance, Yarvin, and Thiel just tells me that unfortunately he really has no real answers to our problems.

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    2. Can I see a list of these silenced critics? Just half a dozen names.

      We lived for years in a reality where people were debanked, deprived of access to their own money, and that was not authoritarianism.

      People were banned from social media, their accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers deleted. All of their content wiped out. That was not authoritarianism.

      I want to understand how that was not authoritarianism but not doing that is.

      Biden did all of this and more. But that was not authoritarianism. He dragged millions of God knows what people across the border when citizens overwhelmingly opposed that. But this was not authoritarianism.

      People were fired en masse for refusing COVID shots. Not authoritarianism.

      Finally, Biden himself was thrown out as a candidate after the voters chose him to lead the ticket. That’s also not authoritarianism.

      But Trump said words. Words are the real authoritarianism. It doesn’t matter what you do as long as you say the right things.

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      1. Don’t forget: the censorship started before covid. 2019 was when Google conspired with (government?) (private industry?) to censor every single alternative health outlet on the internet. A huge number of people completely lost their livelihood in a way that was never publicized and for which there was no appeals process, and they lied about doing it even though it was obvious what had happened.

        Those outlets, the ones that didn’t just cease to exist, are still being censored.

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            1. But that’s what I’m saying. These are all just words. Kimmel is not canceled or debanked. He has his show back. When people were actually destroyed, their bank accounts frozen, their publications retroactively erased, their entire content wiped out, why wasn’t that authoritarianism?

              The channel where I speak every week was erased twice, together with all the content. Years of content. None of this happened to any liberal EVER. When our channel was taken down and erased completely, why was that not authoritarianism? The content is irrecoverable. It’s gone. But the Jimmy Kimmel thing is authoritarianism while what happened to our channel isn’t?

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              1. Jo Massey’s poetry about sunshine on blades of grass was wiped out. Retroactively deleted from publications. Poetry! Which left-wing artist has this happen to them thanks to Trump?

                Alex Berenson, bestselling novelist and former NYTimes reporter, had his Twitter account wiped out on direct orders from the Biden administration. Was that not authoritarianism?

                I can list names for hours. Banned, debanked, content wiped. To claim that there’s anything remotely similar done by Trump is not based on reality. It’s simply not.

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              2. And the reason why everybody has heard of Kimmel’s slight contretemps and nobody knows about the thousands of artists, writers, journalists and creators on our side us because the entire public space belongs to liberals. We don’t have any hold on it. Social media are filled with stories from liberals who saw the Charlie Kirk memorial and were stunned to discover that half of the country has a completely different worldview, aesthetic, and way of speaking from them. Because the silencing of that other half has been so complete.

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              4. “But that’s what I’m saying. These are all just words. Kimmel is not canceled or debanked. He has his show back. When people were actually destroyed, their bank accounts frozen, their publications retroactively erased, their entire content wiped out, why wasn’t that authoritarianism?”

                That absolutely is authoritarianism. But two authoritarianism don’t make no authoritarianism.

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              5. If everything is authoritarianism, nothing is.

                Once again, can you give a list of names of people who were debanked, their content wiped, their access to means of expression destroyed by Trump?

                If not, then you don’t have anything to contribute to this discussion. You have no data. You have feelings.

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              6. “But Kimmel….”

                Geez.

                That’s like saying that somebody calling you names is *just like* the effing holocaust.

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              7. They are suffering from authoritarianism. After a week of loudly and obnoxiously mocking the assassination of one of our leaders, they are victims of authoritarianism. It’s extraordinary.

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              8. “How is this not authoritarianism? “

                Oh, but kimmel being off-air for what? Two weeks?

                That’s *totally* the same as being banned from YT and Twitter for YEARS, having your bank account shut down, having the GFM your friends put up to help you pay your rent also shut down, having the website that you were making a living from erased from internet search results…

                I can’t figure out if it’s no self-awareness, or if their perspective is seriously that warped by living inside the propaganda cage and never even trying to get out, because “muh trusted sources” are all lying to them, in the most comforting, smooth, professional, NPR-voice way possible.

                It’s like trying to bring people back from Faerie.

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              9. It’s the strangest situation when I give names, explain that I know these people in person, their content was destroyed. Wiped out completely. It doesn’t exist anymore. A decade of work. Wiped out.

                And in response, people say, “well, you see? It’s exactly what happened to Jimmy Kimmel.” When in reality the exact opposite happened to Jimmy Kimmel. Not a word of his content was destroyed. His story was not silenced, as evidenced by the fact that we keep hearing about it. He has full access to his bank accounts. And full access to every social media network. And he has his show back. How could his situation even be any more different?

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            3. ed

              You are simply projecting, but that is not the real problem. Kimmel was lying and everybody, including yourself, knows that. The murderer was not MAGA, he was a mentally ill homosexual with a furry kink. But worse, far, far worse, Kimmel lacked the human decency to shut his mouth when a young widow with two young kids will hear about his contemptible horseshit — and that behavior was so offensive to so many people that ABC shut him down because of the potential cost.

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    1. liberals who saw the Charlie Kirk memorial and were stunned to discover that half of the country has a completely different worldview, aesthetic, and way of speaking from them. Because the silencing of that other half has been so complete.

      This. This is why when I speak I realise that people cannot really understand what I’m saying. They’ve shut themselves off from anything that isn’t their own refracted echo-chamber discourse. We are actually speaking two different languages where the same word means the opposite or something completely different from its ordinary meaning or the meaning it had until recently.

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      1. It keeps happening to me that I tell a well-meaning liberal friend, “I’m conservative. I vote Republican”, and she stares at me for a second and then proceeds like I never said anything. Because there’s no setting in the program that provides a way to interact with anybody who doesn’t share the entirety of your political beliefs.

        I have now ordered a coffee mug with the words “Proudly conservative” for the sole purpose of keeping it in the forefront of people’s minds so that I don’t have to keep repeating it.

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      2. It doesn’t just happen in politics. I have this problem repeatedly in other contexts– not often, but enough that it remains fresh. Some people just aren’t listening. They’ve already formed a mental model of you, what you want, what they think you will say… and if the real you and what you actually say doesn’t match, the model asserts itself over the reality. It’s a surreal experience– people responding to things I did not say, and right there, in front of me, face to face, ignoring the question I asked, in favor of the one they thought I would ask, and not, apparently, noticing the disconnect.

        Best I can figure, it’s that their internal narrator is so loud, they can’t properly hear anything going on outside.

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