When Fascism Comes Wrapped in the Flag and Carrying a Cross | Hacker News Reader

When Fascism Comes Wrapped in the Flag and Carrying a Cross

wisewolfmedia.substack.com

85 pointsdouchecoded61 comments

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> When Fascism Comes Wrapped in the Flag and Carrying a Cross

Doesn't it always?

Totalitarianism has some great designers.

Russian revolutionary Posters by David King has some other greats too - for balance.

https://www.davidkrutbookstores.com/books/russian-revolution...

> voted for Trump twice. I'm not a Democrat or Liberal—I'm an American who remembers when we fought fascism. If I can see what he's doing, why can't you?

I guess, for the same reason the author was blind this whole time before the revelation?

The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is today. Let people become allies and reconcile with why they took so long another time.

I've given blanket forgiveness for anyone in my life who voted for Trump in 2016, but anyone who voted for him a second time after watching his hate-driven anti-competence regime the first time around is written off in my book. At that point we're back to "I didn't care until it hurt me personally" - a viewpoint Republicans take on so many issues (see also the Republicans who said "I guess not ALL homosexuals are evil" only after a close family member came out).

These people haven't changed and they'll still be off supporting hate and awful causes until they're directly burned, so it's not worth wasting time or energy on them and I'm certainly not obligated to forgive them.

I largely agree it's fine to cut those people out of your life. But I go to things like food not bombs and if someone shows up a decade from now and confides they voted for Trump but they've since learned why that was bad, and they are actually putting in the work to undo the damage it caused, maybe I am willing to give them a chance.

Ultimately a vote matters very little. What other actions a person takes matter far far more. If they have other things to atone for, they probably have more work to do than a few votes.

>Ultimately a vote matters very little

It matters an incredible amount, as we're seeing. There's an enormous difference between candidates and the number of votes deciding that was small compared to the pool of though eligible voters.

It really does not matter. Biden didn't meaningfully solve anything (and if anything, he made Trump's ascendency easier). Harris would not have solved things either. She'd continue to empower corporations and the wealthy, just like Biden, Trump, Obama, Bush, and Clinton.

You know what does help people? Community building. Feeding people. Organizing workplaces. Forest conservation. Building housing. Forming tenant unions. Organizing anti-ICE demonstrations. Etc.

Actions solve problems commensurate with the time and effort it takes to perform. Voting takes very little effort, and solves very few problems. Community organizing takes a lot of effort and solves lots of problems.

Vote for whomever you want, I'm not going to demonize someone for voting for Harris. But like, that should be the smallest contribution you make by at least two or three orders of magnitude.

This is malicious nonsense. Anyone who claims there is no difference between the parties at this point is trolling or sufficiently ignorant as to be indistinguishable from a troll.

The Biden Administration got inflation under control, strengthened international relationships and trade, forgave student loan debt, invested in domestic microchip manufacture, prosecuted antitrust, enforced civil rights legislation, added environmental protections, and so much more.

Just because things can't be solved in 4 years when faced with the Senate filibuster and a compromised Supreme Court does not mean that it made no difference. It made an enormous difference, as we have seen from the quick and sharp contrast.

You know what helps people? Not have the federal government trying to criminalize their existence. Having access to clean water and safely inspected food. Predictable economics and pricing instead of tariffs that change day to day.

> Anyone who claims there is no difference between the parties at this point is trolling or sufficiently ignorant as to be indistinguishable from a troll.

Good thing that's not what I said.

Biden dramatically increased Arctic oil drilling, shut down labor strikes, increased police funding and militarization, declared the Covid pandemic over prematurely, deported 4.6 million people (vs Trumps 2 million), reduced protections for lgbtq individuals, and enabled a genocide.

> Not have the federal government trying to criminalize their existence.

Biden is a big part of why we have "truth in sentencing" and "three strikes" laws. See the 1994 violent crime control and law enforcement act. He's literally one of the poster children for the carceral state.

Biden deported over twice as many people as Trump, he eliminated protections for trans youth, he bombed Gaza. Clean air? The man pushed oil drilling. The concessions in the IRA alone will be polluting for generations.

You can convince me there are good Democrats, but not Biden. Biden was a right wing politician. One left of Trump, no doubt, but he would fit right in with a Bush or Reagan.

>shut down labor strikes

Biden could have done better about the railroads, but his administation and his appointees increased union protections, dramatically increased enforcement of punishments for union busting, extended overtime wages to huge classes of new workers and more. You're cherry picking things to complain about and again, if you don't think any of the last three Democratic nominees were any good you're not arguing in good faith.

Holding out for perfection gets you fascism.

These are not cherry picked examples. These are meaningful, material regressions in policy that impact communities I'm either in or close to. Quit suggesting they don't matter, or that somehow they are no big deal. Or even worse, suggesting that when I talk about how he hurt my communities I'm somehow "arguing in bad faith."

Maybe Biden made your life easier and that makes it hard to see how he sacrificed millions of people to make that happen, but it's not bad faith to express these major policy concerns.

And fascism? It didn't come from leftists holding out for perfection. Historically it comes from Liberal (the traditional meaning, not the synonym for democrats) governments not addressing the material needs of their people. Through demagoguery and violence, fascists take over the working class. When the party that used to stand for the working class is pushing austerity and beholden to big business, fascism has no meaningful opponents. Go read some history, what happened here has happened many times in the past, and has nothing to do with purity tests at the ballot box.

Unfortunately this assumes a reasonable alternative existed. A lot people felt that one didn’t which is one of the reasons why every time Trump ran he received more votes than the time before.

I didn’t vote for Trump, ever. However, I couldn’t vote against him these last three presidential runs either.

I voted third party. But ultimately a presidential vote is worth very little compared to actually putting in the work in one's community. Too many people think if they vote once every four years they've done their civic duty and can return to branch or whatever.

To vote third-party in our system is to implicitly vote for the winner... while you think yourself clever for your invisible, meaningless statement.

Seems to me that it’s not all that “clever” to reinforce the decision to provide an awful candidate from one of the two “winnable” political parties hoping that people will still hold their nose and vote for the lesser of two evils…whichever subjective one that is to you.

Lots of people were asking “where did all our 2020 votes go in 2024?” It’s not so “invisible” when your folks wake up to your stupid shenanigans en masse and walk away.

If I voted for Biden nothing fundamentally changes in 2024. My state already went hard for Biden. No, I did not support the winner.

But I agree, a vote for President is an invisible meaningless statement. At least we can agree there.

That's a different issue, I was answering the question the author raised himself, but to your point - "another time" never comes

the author has shown himself not to be an ally in this piece.

I’m a life long liberal but Republicans won the House, Senate, and Supreme Court. Checks and balances exist they’re just wildly favoring conservatives. The DNC overplayed their hand by turning on Sanders, they’re continuing their pay for it. We’re suffering for the mistakes of 2010 Democrats. Liberals across the board have to accept that to better plan for the next election.

If checks & balances still existed, the Republican controlled Congress would have impeached Trump for any number of things, or the Republican controlled Supreme Court wouldn't have said it's not a crime if a Republican does it. We are beyond checks & balances at this point (unless a Democrat is elected... then I'm sure we'll see the Republicans suddenly care about rules & laws again).

The burden of leadership has always existed. Biden shutdown the US during COVID. Some people argue the lockdowns were unconstitutional and abuse of power. Maybe. But it’s beside the point. Right or wrong, the US public VOTED for Republicans to take the House and Senate, that means US citizens wanted to see radical conservative reform. That’s what we’re witnessing. And I wish liberals would realize that, adjust their game accordingly and realign but they’re currently failing to do that with this kind of talk. Trump ran on Democrat hypocrisy and won twice. Think about it.

a portion of the US public voted for Republicans... US citizens as a whole did not want this, just a slim majority of voters, many of whom are suffering the consequences of their poor choices

not sure what you mean by "this kind of talk"... you'll get no argument from me that the Dems are either not up to the fight or all in as a false foil

All interested US citizens voted and Trump swept Harris by taking 7 out of 7 swing states.

Liberals are falling into conservative traps to easily. They need to stop focusing on Trump and start building a real plan. Right now Democrats feel like old out of touch slam poets.

>Biden shutdown the US during COVID.

No. Trump was president during COVID shutdown, which was mainly in 2020.

COVID was declared a global pandemic in March at the tail end of Trump’s first administration. The Presidential election was held in November. Biden unfortunately had to oversee enforcing lockdowns and vaccinations. I remember because I worked through the whole ordeal to put my wife through college.

That was an entire 11 months of trump overseeing various degrees of lockdowns

Trump was ambushed by COVID at the tail end of his first term during an election year. The Biden administration had to pickup all the pieces for nearly three years. It got him elected and then spread him thin.

Look I’m not advocating for any of these people but you have to get the story straight to mount a respectable campaign against Republicans. That’s the Achilles heel to Democrats these days, they’re hotheaded, intellectuals in decline. Learn to take criticism and strategize.

I'm not a Democrat, and how does being 8 months from an election mean Trump didn't oversee various states of lockdown while in office?

The whole world was ambushed by COVID, not everyone bungled it a bad as the US.

I’m not a Democrat either. I’m thinking in terms of a timeline. COVID was from roughly 2020 to 2023 so Biden would have gotten 2/3 COVID vaccinations and lockdowns. Biden and Democrats were criticized by Republicans for keeping lockdowns going too long, that Biden bungled things (as you put it).

What’s your criteria for “bungled it as bad as the US”? The US didn’t start COVID so that’s something to keep in mind too.

And that’s like 8 months during Trump’s last year, in the run up to an election.

So the lockdowns didn't happen? What are you trying to say

Trump started lockdowns and vaccinations but Biden had to oversee all of it and masking for 2/3 of COVID pandemic. It’s all well documented. Maybe look up a wiki article on it or something before you ask me more questions? idk.

It goes much further than 2010’s mistakes.

Brazil arrested Bolsanaro for the same scheme Trump pulled. Imagine a world where we held people accountable for crimes in the US. Garland did nothing.

You’re lucky the US isn’t willing to replay the Chile playbook for that.

Botched political maneuvers and rhetoric by the Democratic National Committee in the 2010’s directly lead to Trump getting elected. The Clintons played a big part in all of it. Christopher Hitchens warned the public about it for decades. Trump ran on Democrats being a laughable alternative to corrupt Republicans and it worked TWICE and it continues to work.

>Editorial Note: I am a lifelong conservative Republican, ordained minister for 20+ years, voted for Trump twice. I'm not a Democrat or Liberal—I'm an American who remembers when we fought fascism. If I can see what he's doing, why can't you?

If you saw Trump's first term, saw the January 6 attack, saw the Project 2025 manifesto, and voted for him again, don't come looking for sympathy about fascism. The signs were all there and you voted for him a second time. This is on you, author of the article.

.....god, it keeps going. All of these signs were known well before you voted for him a second time.

>How can rational people reconcile supporting a leader who has been accused of sexual misconduct by dozens of women, paid millions in civil settlements, built his fortune on casinos, and demonstrated a consistent pattern of dishonesty and cruelty?

I thought he bankrupted the casinos, he just inherited daddies money + real estate through an elaborate tax avoidance scheme.

Trump has like 5 or 6 bankruptcies, but it's not a bad thing and pretty much on purpose. He extracted the value from the companies, saddled them with debts, declared bankruptcies and managed to make money from that. On that particular point, he is as competent as any business leader in the US.

I'm going to guess they voted 2016 and 2020, prior to January 6th & Project 2025

That's the only way this makes sense. Thanks for clarifying.

A fair point that I hadn't considered. The second quote still consists entirely of things we knew in 2015 before the author voted for Trump a first time and comes across as disingenuous.

... it's strictly better that this guy realized that there's a problem and spoke up rather than staying quiet, or staying a GOP supporter

that said it's very hard to accept that most people are truly proper fucking idiots, and cannot be reasoned with, cannot be shocked out of their confirmation bias.

even harder is to see that many times we are smack dab in the middle of the crowd that's blind to reality.

If the choices are fascism and communism I (and it looks like most other people) will always choose fascism.

Libertarianism was supposed to be a compromise but people were still allowed to be "fascist biggots" in their homes and the left couldn't handle that. That's why we're doing this now.

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