Erik Haugen @ech@qoto.org

@TruthSandwich @freemo It wasn't meant as a defense of anything? Or even something I'm claiming.

@TruthSandwich @freemo I can't tell what you two are arguing about. Is it whether some significant percentage of Trump voters decline to say their race when answer polls? If so, why are you arguing about this?

@TruthSandwich @freemo He told them to go protest, that's true IIUC. I don't think that's a useful definition of fascism, though.

There was clearly no coherent plan by anyone to murder Pelosi or Pence. 😂 Again, this is not how you autogolpe.

(I guess I can't say for sure Trump isn't *trying* to be fascist and is merely so incompetent at doing anything at all that it is impossible to say if he's even trying.)

@freemo @TruthSandwich Yeah, I wish he and Hillary wouldn't have done that. Again, agreed his rhetoric is gross.

@TruthSandwich @freemo Nah.

Autogolpe: I agree he got carried away with the lawsuits. But he went in through the front door, in a sense – I mean, this is exactly what Gore did in 2000, right? Trump just did it an unseemly amount, which is sort of on-brand for him. Remember though how *his* judges threw out all his cases? If I was attempting autogolpe, I would have at least *tried* to get judges in place that would have supported me. I mean, isn't that what you do when you're autogolping?

"cavorts with Nazis" You mean Fuentes? Do you seriously think he did that knowingly? 😂 His handlers were all doing damage control after that because they know they *screwed up* by letting him in.

@freemo @TruthSandwich He took the lawsuits about the election a bit far, but we see that kind of thing quite often. I think it's best to think of lawsuits about close elections as "part of the game" these days. He and e.g. Hillary did have obnoxious *rhetoric* about stolen elections – again, this is my point: it's the rhetoric that has gone of the rails, not the actual policy preferences or actions.

In the same vein, I was quite alarmed by his 2016 campaign *rhetoric* about “I'm going to open up our libel laws" to go after his detractors, etc. I think just saying that is enormously harmful. (I agree some of that rhetoric was fascist-ish.) Good thing his presidency had like ~nothing to do with his 2016 campaign.

@freemo @TruthSandwich (so option (a) I guess? 😂 )

I suggest to you that calling Trump a fascist because he wanted a stupid parade is probably not useful for productive political discourse; I think this isn't what most people mean by the term.

(Also ... what? Bastille Day Parades: has France been "fascist" for the last 150 years??)

@TruthSandwich @freemo well beg pardon then. (I don't think americans are quite that consistent, though.)

@freemo @TruthSandwich Yeah sorry I just assumed Sandwich meant "classically liberal" as in "equal treatment under the law", "freedom of speech", and "due process". My favorite D's support those things, and I think most outside of the really fringy idpol still do.

@TruthSandwich @freemo I'm not sure how to make this more clear? I don't support (1) unless by fascist you mean something silly like "supports single-family housing zoning". I've like made this point that the word "fascist" is being wildly misused for rhetorical reasons in pretty much every post in this thread. You keep talking to me as if I never said anything like that and instead obviously agree with your framing – I'm not quite sure how to respond if you keep doing that.

@TruthSandwich @freemo I think most Democrats are Liberal, but there's a rising fringe that is decidedly illiberal. They're still fringy, though, I think, just as any kind of "fascist" (for any kind of normal definition of that word) contingent in the US is.

@TruthSandwich @freemo I kind of feel like we could define fascism in a way that makes Freemo's claim obviously true. I would agree with you, TruthSandwich, that such a definition is not useful and would lead to more heat than light. But I would say the same about your definition. 😂

(And both definitions are going to cause most Americans to roll their eyes at you two; we're getting a little tired of it.)

@freemo @TruthSandwich "I'd tend to agree if you support Trump you support fascism." Then you either (a) have a weird definition of fascism, for reasons I can't begin to imagine or (b) you have an alarming mental model of ~40% of the country that has a favorable opinion of him.

@TruthSandwich @freemo Can you link me to a poll where the majority of "some group" identify as fascist?

@freemo @TruthSandwich I don't know if it matters much what definition of "white" you use. It's more the definition of "fascism": it's admittedly hard to define, but it's being used to describe things like "disagrees with me about housing policy", with predictably silly results.