Because stirring up hate against vulnerable minorities, by positioning them as a threat is a well tested and effective technique for the power hungry to gain and retain power. And it’s effective, because it works by pulling people in and making all of the conversation about whether or not it’s right to hate on the group they’re targeting.
The more I read these comments it sound like the USA is entering its Hitler phase.
They very much are…
https://www.faena.com/aleph/umberto-eco-a-practical-list-for-identifying-fascists
In an essay published in the New York Review of Books, Umberto Eco distilled the 14 typical elements of “Ur-Fascism or Eternal Fascism,” while warning that, “These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.”
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The cult of tradition. “One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements.”
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The rejection of modernism. “The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense, Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.”
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The cult of action for action’s sale. “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.” Disagreement is treason. “The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture, the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.”
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Fear of difference. “The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.” Appeal to social frustration. “[…] one of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups.
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The obsession with a plot. “The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia.”
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The enemy is both weak and strong. “[…] the followers must be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.”
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Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. “For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.”
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Contempt for the weak. “Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology.”
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Everybody is educated to become a hero. “in Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death.”
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Machismo and Weaponry. “This is the origin of machismo (which implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality). Since even sex is a difficult game to play, the Ur-Fascist hero tends to play with weapons—doing so becomes an ersatz phallic exercise.”
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Selective Populism. “There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.
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Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. “All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.”
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I’m a southerner. Take what I’m about to tell you as close to the grain of the problem as possible, because it is.
Here’s the thing. 9 times out of 10, a Southern man is going to meet a lone trans or gay person, have a pleasant experience talking to them and go about their day, they even make friends with the person, spend years talking to them, send gifts, become family members, etc.
But you know what?
Behind closed doors, it’s “fuck those trannies”, “not in my schools”, etc. My mom does it, her sister does it, my dad did it. It’s hypocrisy at an extreme level while also ignoring it at an extreme level.
“Well I have gay friends… I’m not homowhatzit”
THEY’RE TEACHING WHAT!?
“Double Standard” might as well be the tagline for the entire South. They’ll protect their religion and the expectations put on them by their parents and social norms on a general level across the board, while still shaking hands and eating cake with their lgbtq+ buddies.
Just remember any southerner is one thought from God away from stabbing you in the back at all times, because no matter how close you get to them, even as a family member, that book and the expectations behind it means more, was beat into them more, every day since they were born until you met them.
Southerner here and I’ll say you were right, up until your last paragraph.
Just remember any southerner is one thought from God away from stabbing you in the back at all times
This part however, is bullshit.
We’re not all the same and that you would suggest so actually pisses me off. Replace the word “southerner” in that sentence with any other group of people and see if you still find it acceptable.
Fucking lol at hateful idiots stereotyping an entire geographic area. I’m sure in their minds it’s completely different than stereotyping people because of their race/creed/gender/whatever.
I lived with them long enough that the shadow of a doubt has its own lamp. I’ve heard racist and misogynist shit from people I’ve known for a decade or more who never had a sign of it before.
Yep, I’m set with it. Fuck em. Worth it.
Yeah that’s called “prejudice” and isnt a good quality.
Swap “southern” for “black” or “gay” and see if you’d be proud to make that same claim.
I’ll be goddamn. I’ve seen family members ousted from a dinner table, in my own fucking family.
Maybe in your pampered version of the South.
In mine, they leave and never come back or speak to you again and all the old folks wonder why, while forgetting the last 60 family get togethers’ arguments.
“Pampered version of the South” lol I grew up in Bum-Fuck, Florida and have lived in various southern cities as well as spending much of my youth in random rural areas.
Racists and pieces of shit exist everywhere and I’m not denying that. Your blanket statement regarding all southerners is where I take issue.
Don’t forget you said you were a southerner yourself, so am I to expect God will speak to you at any moment and turn you into an even more prejudiced person or…? Because if that’s a true statement, which it isn’t, you’re saying you yourself should never be trusted. And if that’s the case, why should we listen to what you, who is just another Southern, backstabbing, secret Bible thumping, homophobic, racist (accordng to your own flawed statement) have to say anyway?
