In his defense he is one and we are ten ganging up on him.  Doesn’t mean we ten are wrong.  I would like Michael to defend his position and explain why he thinks Meloni, Trump, and all MAGA supporters are “fascist”.

First we must start with the definition of fascism.  Originally it was a “totalitarian political movement linked with corporatism”, especially as applied to Mussolini.  Later racism and xenophobia were added as supposed features and I suspect this is what Michael thinks is the main definition and that it applies to anyone not far left.

Fascism is nationalistic in that it puts the importance of the state over the individual.  This is supposedly the opposite of socialism (communism) but we know that in practice socialism and communism also put the state (collective) over the individual.

In the second half of the 19th century the vast empty western territories were up for grabs by the railroads, who competed to be the first to reach California.  Two railroad moguls, General Palmer of the Denver & Rio Grande Railway, and William Barstow Strong, of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe, were bitter rivals who hated each other, both racing to lay tracks over the Raton Pass at the border of Colorado and New Mexico to go south of the Rockies and on to the west coast, and to lay a track through the Royal Gorge along the canyon of the Arkansas river to access silver mines beyond.  It was only wide enough for one track.  For years these two men fought literal wars over these ambitions, at the worst point involving armed militias, as well as manipulating what legal authority there was in the territories to outmaneuver each other. 

In the entire history of the United States there are probably no two men who hated each other more.  But the reason they remained such well matched enemies is because they were exactly alike.  Cut from the same cloth, they kept guessing each other’s moves, reading each other’s minds, showing up to thwart each other’s plans just in the nick of time.

This is communism(leftism) and fascism.  Both are a system of privileged ruling elites putting themselves in centralized control of a population.  The two are not opposites of each other but two faces of the same totalitarian evil. The current worldwide conservative-populist movement is what is opposite of them; it is opposed to centralized control, and favors returning power to more local levels.  The left uses “fascism” as a pejorative to falsely paint this movement as something it is not. 

I suspect that Michael and the left think the right in the U.S. is “fascist” because of their recent actions on issues like abortion and gay/trans.  On these social issues they are correct, the right has overreacted to the left’s overreach on these matters.  The right has proposed national bans on abortion, defense of marriage, that sort of thing, because the woke left pushed the issues into lunatic land.

What led to RvW being overturned was the left pushing to legalize abortion in the 9th month.  What led to bathroom laws where you have to use the one you were born as, and don’t say gay laws, was the left’s absolutely insane forcing the issue affecting a tiny minority on all the rest of us, making us change our pronouns - lunacy!

The left is creating an authoritarian right backlash on these issues.  If that’s what Michael means then he is correct but has only himself to blame if he votes for these insane far left Democrats.

But on economic issues the right is nowhere near totalitarian control of the economy, but on the contrary wants to loosen centralized control.  Allow Keystone, allow drilling, cut regulations so the economy doesn’t suffocate, cut taxes to empower the middle and lower classes.  All of this is the opposite of both far left communism and far right “fascism”.

Only here could the election of a facist be regarded as "a sign of hope"

Given what happened at PoA  I privately contacted Brian over on thepilotsplace.com last night to ask if it would be Ok to announce our forum there. I got a long detailed response that I need to reply to sometime this afternoon but the bottom line is that such a post would not be welcome. Fair enough.