part of the problem with assessing the response to trump is that we are witnessing some things that i think are authentically novel at the exact same time as we witness historical patterns repeating themselves, and it may be hard to disentangle one from the other. let’s talk about what the hell liberals think they’re doing right now

although liberals act as if this situation is historically unprecedented, for them it actually is not. maybe there’s something about an ideology that insists ‘forward progress’ is always and constantly occurring that catapults one into hysterical fits anytime things go from being how you want them to not how you want them. regardless, liberals were livid when bush ‘stole’ the 2000 elections, and again (though to a lesser extent, as many had by this point found accommodation with the bush regime) when he invaded iraq. the words ‘dictator’ and ‘fascist’ were thrown about with abandon; the historically nonsensical ‘14 points of fascism’ you’ve recently seen posted on facebook or even on here is a product of this era

while the left identifies trump with a genuine resurgence of popular fascism in the style of the 1930s and prepares a response based on that, we need to be careful not to imagine that liberals’ use of the word ‘fascism’ means they share this analysis or comprehend its gravity. in fact, liberal identification of trump with fascism is a given based simply on his being from the republican party. in the alternate reality where jeb! won, liberals are insisting the fact that he is the son and brother of former presidents is hard proof that he is a fascist, despite (1) the obvious hypocrisy of this coming from a clinton supporter, and (2) the historical fact that fascist regimes and formal transfers of power - dynastic or otherwise - are more or less wholly incompatible

so if to democrats, george w bush was a fascist, fascist, fascist, what did they do with this critique? what happened was they dragged leftists along for a few protests and legal actions (the bush administration having occurred at a historical nadir for the left which left it functionally unable to mount any critique independent from liberalism even had there been the will to do so), then they realised their personal material interests weren’t actually going to be impacted, then they went home and watched the daily show for eight fucking years. they will do this again. until trevor noah is summarily deported and jon stewart put in a reeducation camp and samantha bee reassigned to handmaiden duty, by god, liberals will find a way to sit in their homes and laugh while you bleed to death. this is what we can expect from the liberal resistance to trump’s ‘fascism’, no matter how heartening it may seem right now to see so many people apparently subscribing to a leftist analysis

that word does not - will not - mean to them what it means to you