I Want My Party Back

[Some Schmo]

The irony in criticizing Democratic pundits for calling out Trump's obvious fascism is that has been the primary strategy of the GOP for the last several decades: demonizing liberals and Democrats, with damned nonsense! For years! What Democrats are saying about Trump has evidentiary substance.

How dare they demonize Trump with valid reasons? Quick, let's accuse Kamala of eating babies. Oh, and while we're at it, let's accuse a minority of eating people's pets!

It's hard to imagine the back pain from having your head that far up your ass.

[Marcus]

...Harris never called Americans Nazis. Are you getting your talking points from Fox? C’mon.

I apologize if I stated that Harris referred to Americans as Nazis.

Ok.

I was addressing the notion that over the past few months, I feel that a significant portion of her support has been undermined by the party and the news media, which have been working diligently to persuade Americans that voting for Trump equates to supporting Nazis.

Do you have factual support for your feelings? Because they are telling you things that aren't true.

... We won't attract new voters by attempting to persuade individuals that Republicans are akin to Nazis.

who is doing that? I mean who factually, not what you feel.

...If we are going to attempt to assign a label to Trump, let's ensure it is something that is credible...

Ok. I am curious what you think about all the non-credible names Trump has called people in the past few months. Do you have any concerns about that? Because I do. His name-calling has been divisive in the extreme.

[canpakes]

Labeling a significant portion of the population with terms like Nazis, racist, stupid, and brain dead, along with numerous other insults, has resulted in losing the White House, Senate, and likely Congress as well.

You have your sentence backward. Trump's standard procedure of "labeling a significant portion of the population" with numerous insults and slurs has resulted in Trump winning.

That was one of two primary pillars of the campaign, as evidenced with the endlessly repeating insults, blame and disparaging comments about illegal immigrants and transgender people, who are all apparently stealing everyone’s jobs and converting Christian kids to the opposite sex against their will, during lunch breaks at school. Like, as ridiculous as that sounds, this BS was repeated at every rally. I can’t even make up things as stupidly offensive as were heard at those rallies.

The other pillar was convincing voters that Trump will wave a magic wand on Day 1 that will make energy costs decline 50% and make grocery stores drop all of their prices. His voters believe stuff like this because they don’t realize that this nation already pumps more oil out of the ground today than it did during any time that Trump was last in office, and they don’t seem to want to understand how pricing for goods and groceries responds to market forces as opposed to campaign BS.

[yellowstone123]

I think it worth noting/reminding that Trump's own Republican Vice President has compared him to Hitler.

Good point, Doctor Steuss.

Bad analogy on his part on that day.

[yellowstone123]

You are right, Schmo, about Harris not personally referring to Trump as Hitler, but she did make a statement right before the election reminding people that general Kelly, who worked for him said he fits the definition of a fascist and that Trump admired Hitler’s generals. She suggested he would use the military for his own personal use.

I disagree.

Who knows, It might have been the Trump Mirrors Hitler thread.

[canpakes]

When Biden ran, the memory of what a Trump presidency was like was fresh on people's minds. Now, I think everyone has this weird nostalgic halo effect that has created a myth. They've forgotten the chaos, irrational impulses, world leaders literally laughing out loud at our President's lies and idiocy to his face, and the perpetual economic turmoil. When you have distance from something, it's easy to just not care or convince yourself that it was better than it was.

And how do we know that this is true? Because the last presidential election campaign was occurring on the heels of the pandemic, in which MAGA voters lost their collective minds about how much misery they were in from ‘lockdowns’ and masks (gasp!), between duking it out with their neighbors at the local Costco over toilet paper.

But, come 2024, and Trump is asking folks if they were ‘better off than they were four years ago’, and MAGA cries out in another pity party - in boat parades, no less - how they’re suffering more today.

Either there’s a whole lot of amnesia happening in MAGA minds, or they’re openly lying about one of those years, or both. Neither option is a good look.

[huckelberry]

I think many people may have looked at Trump and said he is not attacking Jews and not planing to invade Canada so he is not acting like a fascist or Nazi. The accusations must be false and an indicator of desperation.

There may be quite a few people whose idea of fascist is limited to things like that, or are willing to limit their reflection to those things.

Well for whatever reason the idea completely failed to help the democratic campaign.

[drumdude]

I think many people may have looked at Trump and said he is not attacking Jews and not planing to invade Canada so he is not acting like a fascist or Nazi. The accusations must be false and an indicator of desperation.

There may be quite a few people whose idea of fascist is limited to things like that, or are willing to limit their reflection to those things.

Well for whatever reason the idea completely failed to help the democratic campaign.

It may be useful to remember the definition of fascism:

Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.

Thankfully Trump’s first presidency bears little resemblance to the definition of fascism. Is he crude and rude and does he say hyperbolic crap? Yes. Has he started jailing political opponents? He wouldn’t even lock up the one person he explicitly promised to- Clinton.

[Some Schmo]

He wouldn’t even lock up the one person he explicitly promised to- Clinton.

That's only because Jeff Sessions wouldn't go along with it.

You can bet he'll get a more compliant AG this time.

[Gadianton]

You lost me at the notion of “reasonable and compassionate alternative” having something to do with Donald Trump.

After democrats have put up with 40 year campaign of hate and demonization starting with Rush Limbaugh, continuing with hundreds and hundreds of hate radio Rush wannabes, through Fox News, Brietbart, and the whole current fetid right wing media ecosystem, your tone policing comes off as a little silly.

Those “compassionate” people you are describing have called me “libtard,” “demon rat,” “communist,” “Marxist,” “pedophile,” “vermin,” “demon,” and other flavors of “not human.” So, this notion that language used by democrats drove Musk, Rogan, Kennedy, or anyone else to Donald Trump is absurd.

And this idea that all Ds are running around calling all Relief Society Nazis is just false. What is true is that Trump and the Republicans ran a campaign straight out of the same playbook that Hitler and the Nazi party used to scapegoat and dehumanize Jews, homosexuals, Romanis and others. They just did it to people here without permission and trans folks instead of the Third Reich’s targets. If that’s your idea of compassion, then I’d say you are well outside the core values of the Democratic Party.

There is no going back 60 years. It’s easy to be nostalgic for the 60s, until you remember that John Kennedy was murdered, Robert Kennedy was murdered, Martin Luther King was jailed and murdered, and black folks fighting for their civil rights were beaten and murdered.

There is no going back. There is only where are and how we go forward.

absolutely.