this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2024
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[–] [email protected] 102 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That's how to anti-troll. Wear it with pride and throw it right back at them. Once you show them it affects you negatively, you've lost.

I mean that's what they all did with the "deplorables" thing.

[–] [email protected] 85 points 9 months ago (2 children)

It's just so weird how they swing from "Biden old and inept" to "Biden is this massive 4D chess master rigging football games to make Taylor Swift rig the election"

[–] [email protected] 66 points 9 months ago (2 children)

It's the typical "the enemy is both strong and weak at the same time" shtick that authoritarians use.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago

"We're oppressed/we have them on the run"

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Hey look, feature 8 of Umberto Eco's Ur Fascism!

... Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. ...

Eco does make a point of clarifying that the presence of absence of any single trait he has identified does not prove a thing is or isn't fascist.

But in spite of this fuzziness, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism. 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.

(The full text of the feature I quoted above)

  1. The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies. When I was a boy I was taught to think of Englishmen as the five-meal people. They ate more frequently than the poor but sober Italians. Jews are rich and help each other through a secret web of mutual assistance. However, 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. Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy.
[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I was unaware of this text. Seems very interesting indeed. Thanks a lot! ♥️

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

It's pretty fantastic. In 2020 (only just beginning my journey of recovery from a conservative upbringing), I decided I should understand what fascism actually was. I found that dictionary definitions were terribly imprecise but eventually found Eco's essay. I understand there are other methods--of similar scholarly integrity--used to define fascism, but I have not spent the effort to find and compare these other works. It is my (uninterrogated assumption) vague understanding that Eco's definition isn't regarded as opinionated.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

Isn't that just 4chan trolling stupid people again. Eg flat earth

[–] [email protected] 63 points 9 months ago (1 children)

This is hilarious, the sitting president trolling the troll king and his minions.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago

Listen, fat

[–] [email protected] 37 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Finally, an ironically evil president

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (1 children)

At the very least a PR person.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Definitely, but he must have approved it.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 9 months ago

Biden is having way too much fun with this and I abso-fucking-lutletly love it

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago
[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Ok I'll say it: please explain I'm so out of the loop.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Some right wing nut jobs came up with an image they called "Dark Brandon" that you see here, and the social media people who work for Biden are just accepting it as their own and reposting it as a power move. You can be sure that it was greenlit by Biden.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 9 months ago (1 children)

And in this instance they posted it after the Super Bowl as the right wing nut jobs had the conspiracy theory that “they” rigged the Super Bowl so that Taylor swift could tell people to vote for Biden.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

That's fucking hilarious.

The way they see the world is fascinating.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)