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Comment by krapp | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately, Trump's brand of conspiracy theory populism resonates with a significant number of American voters more so than any other political ideology. Trump was so popular that his base increased over the last four years. So popular with that base that an actual messianic cult formed around him. Trump himself just wasn't charismatic, competent or forward thinking enough to capitalize on it at scale the way populist dictators in other countries have. But that still leaves the danger of a competent successor to Trump in the future.

What we need to watch for is whether or not the Republican Party interprets this as a repudiation of Trumpism, or merely of Trump himself.

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> Unfortunately, Trump's brand of conspiracy theory populism resonates with a significant number of American voters more so than any other political ideology.

The problem runs deeper than that. Unfortunately Trump's blend of populist rhetoric fueled by conspiracy theories, divisiveness, and victimization coupled with a vindictive/authoritarian agenda has seeped out of the US borders and reverberated in european countries that are now struggling (again) with he rise of fascist parties.

Take for example Spain's Vox party, which is quite literally a fascist apologist which copies Trump and recently even went as far as claiming that Spain's current government is the worst in 80 years, subtly bundling Franco's fascist regime in comparison and thus stating that it was a better alternative than the current democratic regime.

The free world has a problem with fascism in specific and authoritarian regimes in general, and Trump contributed to whitewash these political movements to the point that they might regain mainstream status throughout the world.

Exactly. USA may not get it because they never really had fascism, but some of us in Europe do. It’s not pretty. It’s not good for our national far-right parties to look at one of the most powerful nation in the world and think: “they did it, we can too”. Like I said in another comment, it’s not about US citizens thinking about other countries before casting a vote.

But it’s understandable that some of us non-US citizens are glad to see Trump go.

> Exactly. USA may not get it because they never really had fascism, but some of us in Europe do. It’s not pretty.

The scariest part, to me, regarding the way the Trump administration whitewashed fascism is that those of us who live in countries who experienced it are fully aware that fascism doesn't dawn upon us with a bang, and more often than not it just seeps in.

Therefore, people are desensitized towards fascism because they expect it to come as a bogeyman that strong-arms his way into power in an obvious way and against everyone's wishes. It does not. It sneaks in with overwhelming popular support, based on a rhetoric that there's an inhuman enemy threatening the little people and that the fascist hero is here to save everyone from evil by doing whatever it takes. That's precisely what we are seeing with Trump, with their supporters demanding beheadings and bullets to the head of reactionaries, while their supporters praise Trump for being a bully that's on their corner protecting them.

> those of us who live in countries who experienced it are fully aware that fascism doesn't dawn upon us with a bang, and more often than not it just seeps in.

I feel the same way about socialism and communism.

You may want to review the history of how the major communist states became communist states.

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