If You Don't Want To Be Called A Fascist, Stop Supporting Donald Trump

[Sgman91]

Alright, so once we get past the throwing around of tons of vague accusations in the intro, here's his arguments, and what's wrong with them:

1) Trump used populist language about "draining the swamp," "shaking up the system," "not being a politician," "being in tune with the common man," etc. Hitler also said similar things, therefore Trump is a fascist.

He ignores, of course, that TONS of politicians from every political persuasion use this kind of language. It's common to almost all populists, of which fascist leaders tend to be. The common strand is populism, not fascism.

2) Supporting free speech and free markets allows facists to take over.

He doesn't really go into an alternative here. I assume he's against free speech and the free market? It's pretty obvious that it's a dumb point though. Being for those things obviously doesn't make you anywhere close to a fascist.

3) Fascist intellectuals went after "liberal intelligentsia" like the media, universities, etc. The US right does this generally, therefore they are fascists.

Right, and murderous communists went after the wealthy landowners. Does that make Sanders a Stalinist? No, of course not, because lots of people go after institutions in different ways and to different degrees. While the right does see a problem with the vast majority of the media and university staff being on the left, they aren't calling for a government ousting of the media or university, a violet uprising, etc.

We can critique things without going to the extreme.

4) Fascists use "newspeak," which he defines as an "elementary syntax which appeals to the masses."

So first of all, that's not at all what "newspeak" is. It wasn't about being easy to understand, it was about controlling the language in order to stifle free thought. Secondly, is he saying that everyone who uses simple language is a fascist? Again, he's taking these super brought categories, saying that fascists also did that thing, therefore Trump is doing it for racist reasons.

It's just bad logic equivalent to making the correlation = causation fallacy.

______________________________________________

He continues further, but there's a consistent issue that pervades the entirety of the video. He takes vague and general ideas, shows that fascists did that thing, shows Trump also did that thing, and concludes that Trump is fascist. To put it simply, his arguments usually take the form of:

1) If A, then B.
2) If C, then B.
3) Therefore, if B, then A.

1) If someone is a fascist, then they will use simple language.
2) If someone is Trumpian, then they will use simple language.
3) Therefore, if someone is Trumpian, then they are fascist.

The problem with this logic is obvious. The fact that fascists use simple language doesn't mean that everyone who uses simple language is fascist. This is the kind of argument he uses throughout the video. What makes someone racist, as opposed to some other ideology, are the things that are unique to fascism. That's what makes any ideology what it is. To define fascism by the general ideas and tools used extensively by many ideologies is just silly.

He also doesn't really present arguments as much as he presents some quote or article title, and leaves the conclusion to the audience. So he doesn't explicitly say, "Trump uses simple language, therefore he's a facist," but that's the inference that the audience is clearly supposed to be making. This type of lazy argumentation makes it hard to pin down exactly what he's even trying to say.

[Newb]

While I agree with your overall conclusion that calling anyone a fascist who seems to, on the surface, show features exemplified by fascist rhetoric (just as all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares), it does not seem to me you are properly presenting his argument in this series of videos. Did you watch only this one, or also the other previous ones?

[Sgman91]

I watched only this one. The post was specifically referring to the arguments made in this video.

[Kazumi]

If you watched it, then it would reflect in what you wrote, or we watched two entirely different clips.

Ur fascism is not a definition of fascism, but the stages leading up to what is usually considered a fascist leadership. It's still on the same spectrum as full blown fascism, which is exactly what this video is about. It isn't saying that trumpism = fascism, it's saying that trumpism = fascistic. If something ticks a sufficient amount of boxes and literally follows the same steps/modus operandi required to reach an all out fascist government, then it would be fair to assume that you can call that a fascist ideology. The German National Socialistic Party was a bunch of fascists back in 1932, something that the German communist party echoed by calling them social fascist.

If something acts fascist and follows the same steps as other fascist ideologies, then you can literally call it fascist. You don't need to wait for permission to do so. God forbid that Trump and the GOP reach step 5, because then it'd be a bit to late.