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Comment by misja111 | Hacker News Reader

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Are you familiar with Curtis Yarvin, and his influence with Thiel, JD Vance etc? He absolutely advocates for monarchy and dismantling democracy. He's also, if we are to judge his extensive writing, very much a racist

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/inside-the-new-right...

I'm not saying that none of the Silicon Valley oligarchs have some fascist sympathies. But this book is generalizing over all of Silicon Valley.

Fair. Though Thiel has outsized influence in that sphere, so it is significant even if not universal

Have you read Umberto Eco's essay on Ur-fascism per chance? The dictator bit comes later, if it comes at all. Eco made 14 points that let you detect fascism - the higher the score, the higher the chance of a fascist regime being established.

It makes for a stunning read https://www.openculture.com/2024/11/umberto-ecos-list-of-the.... Brett Deveraux (historian) once tried to match US society to those 14 points with the expected result: the US matches all 14. He wrote on his blog about it here: https://acoup.blog/2024/10/25/new-acquisitions-1933-and-the-...

Well this is exactly what I mean with inflation of the term fascism. Surely there are lots of things wrong in US society, and surely some of them can be seen as part of a fascist society. But really this is nothing compared to self declared fascist regimes such as Franco, Mussolini or Hitler.

Yes the current Trump regime is trying to suppress other opinions, sometimes quite openly. But luckily there is still plenty of room in the US to criticize the sitting president. What do you think would have happened to someone like Seth Meyer under Franco or Hitler?

"What do you think would have happened to someone like Seth Meyer under Franco or Hitler?"

In what year? 1933? 1937? 1945?

People conflate Nazi Germany with murderous, full-borne authoritarianism, but it took a decade to actually get there. They were just as much fascists at the start as at the end -- it's just that their ideology had room to fully metastasize.

Not true. Long before Hitler rose to power, the militant section of his movement, the SA, was already physically attacking political opponents. That started in the early 20's.

When he finally became head of the government, in 1933, that violence immediately became much more official: the SA was officially deputized as 'Hilfspolizei' and attacks on e.g. communists became legalized. In that same year the first concentration camps were established.

So you mean like ICE and CBP pulling in new recruits from violent fringe groups that have been escalating for almost ten years of culture war worsening?????? Like proudboys and oath keepers?to create trumps own personal militarized police force?

> I see no support per se for a dictatorial leader, or for strong regimentation of society

Everyone who donated to the Trump inauguration knew what they were buying into, and it has definitely delivered troops-on-the-streets fascism.

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