this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2024
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Because the reality of our shitty political system is that not supporting the only viable non-fascist candidate means supporting the one that is. It only actually matters in the handful of swing states, but the internet is worldwide and heaping negativity about supporting the non-fascist candidate can matter. This doesn't mean you shouldn't criticize Biden and the Democrats for their many failings, but not supporting him in the election for the sake of the country is cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Isn't this a little disingenuous? Or maybe individualism is so ingrained in the western psyche that people honestly don't see the asymmetry of this framing.
The reality of our political system is that the only way to get change is to demand it from the people who need your vote. By giving your vote without demanding change, you're supporting the system that disenfranchises you (and you're supporting the binary choice that was given to you by it).
No, not even slightly
If
You're
Doing
Genocide
Then
You're
A
Fascist
Candidate
You are aware that fascism already has a definition, correct? It's not just someone doing something that you don't agree with.
Please don't water down a word that has very serious implications right now.
Are we trying to do moral relativism on genocide?
The IDF knowingly and deliberately bombed food aid workers in clearly marked vehicles on a road designated for food aid delivery, entirely for the purpose of starving out war refugees.
They did that with munitions built and supplied by the American government.
And when questioned, the American National Security Secretary said it was the IDF's prerogative to bomb them.
This was deliberate, calculated, cold blooded murder of aid workers done with the participation of the US military under the command of President Joe Biden.
Everything you just said has nothing to do with fascism and is therefore irrelevant to the term.
I'm not saying that any of that is ok, but that doesn't make it fascism.
Polices of genocide and the ideology that justify it are both elements of fascist tendency.
Deliberately ignorance of the existence and perpetuation of genocidal policy is traditionally referred to as "Holocaust Denial", another classic fascist technique.
Holocaust denial is to deny that the holocaust happened, which was indeed a genocide.
Fascism is a type of government characterized by centralized authoritarian leadership, often with a dictatorship. Typically, power is maintained through violence, and the military is used to suppress any opposition.
I agree with you, genocide can be an element of fascism. However, it does not define fascism. Your argument is equivalent to saying that all engines are war machines. They can be, but not all of them are.
Are we done here with your bullshit false equivalences?
It is to deny when a holocaust happens. What is happening in Gaza right now is unquestionably a genocide. And Biden's role has consistently been to defend that genocide.
"They're doing a genocide, but they're not doing a fascist genocide" reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of how genocides are conceived of, executed, and rationalized after the fact.
This conversation is a difficult one for a liberal to hear, because it forces the liberal to observe things about their own country that they don't want to recognize.
So its very common to assert "Yes, foreigners did a bad thing somewhere else, but it could never happen here. My country and my generation could never be so complicit."
And yet, here we are.
I'm not denying that Isreal is committing a genocide. They are, and they should be stopped.
You are asserting that Biden is a fascist, which is simply incorrect. Biden is not attempting to insert himself as an authoritarian dictator in Israel, and to imply that he is makes you sound like a fool.
Trump, however, is attempting to do that in the United States. That is why Trump is a fascist candidate.
He's sending munitions to a nation in the midst of an ethnic cleanse.
Imagine if Clinton had handed Milosevic a fleet of F-16s and tomahawk missiles. You don't even have to thought experiment this on Bush, who straight up armed and encouraged Sunni and Shia militia groups to butcher one another as part of COINTELPRO in Iraq.
And here's the real nut of it. Biden's campaign of genocide abroad is fine (maybe even good, depending on your view of Arabs) because it's not happening to you, personally.
Trump is scary because he might take what Biden's doing abroad and bring it home.
Well, I'm already living in Texas. I already have a fucking gun to my head. Ken Paxton is almost certainly going to be our next governor and it's not like Greg Abbott is shy about ordering his State Troopers to drown a few babies.
I'm already here and it fucking sucks. And Biden hasn't lifted a god's damned finger to stop it. Neither did Obama, for that matter.
Enjoy your next four years, assholes. Looks like your chickens are coming home to roost.