• xor@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      5 months ago

      That still doesn’t prove the claim “America was always fascist”

      Partially because being copied by the Nazis doesn’t intrinsically mean you’re fascist (they copied a hell of a lot of things, including but not limited to fascism)

      And partially because that doesn’t cover the “always” part at all

      • SailorMoss@sh.itjust.works
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        5 months ago

        Yeah, but in the case of The U.S. the things the Nazis copied were the fascist things.

        The Nazis were inspired by the American Eugenics movement. Fun fact the Eugenics movement was probably more popular in the U.S. than it was in Germany.

        They were also inspired by segregation for black people. I think most people would agree that at the time racial segregation was an improvement over how The U.S. treated black people at the founding of the country; when there was an even more intense form of racial hierarchy in the form of chattel slavery.

        The U.S. was also founded on the genocide of the Native Americans. That continued past the founding in the form of manifest destiny. More fun facts Hitler justified his invasion of Russia in the terms of manifest destiny.

        That’s a short list of some of the fascist things the Nazis took from the U.S. that stretch back to its founding.

        What did the Nazis take from America that wasn’t fascist?

        • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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          5 months ago

          Those are fascist things, but they do not make fascism. Dictatorial rule is pretty core to fascism. Yes, it shares similarities to fascism, but it is not fascist. It also shares traits with a ton of other political idiologies that it does not totally meet the definition of.

          For an example of insufficient conditions, Skyrim is a first person game where you fight enemies, sometimes while shooting. It is not a first person shooter though, even though they share traits it it. You must meet all traits to be that thing, not just some of them.

          • SailorMoss@sh.itjust.works
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            5 months ago

            At this point we’re just begging the question. If fascists could get what they want and call it democracy. They would do that. Throughout most of American history with rare exceptions our “democracy” has been captured by capitalists/corporate interests.

            Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power. — Benito Mussolini

            If it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck then it’s a fucking duck.

            Look if this is something that makes people who still hold onto American exceptionalism uncomfortable then I would say perhaps America has not “always” been fascist. There have been times of exception. However I want to emphasize those have been the exception rather than the norm.

            Basically the only exceptions have been during times of intense civil unrest. During the civil war, the civil rights movement and, perhaps WWII on an international level.

            It didn’t cost the nation one penny to integrate lunch counters. It didn’t cost the nation one penny to guarantee the right to vote. And the things that we are calling for now would mean that the nation will have to spend billions of dollars in order to solve these problems. —MLK

            The BLM protests were the largest movement of civil unrest in american history. We got Nancy Pelosi kneeling in kente cloth and Genocide Joe as president in response. The question remains if the U.S. can shed what remains of its fascist history. Because to do so would cost those corporate/capitalist interests something.

        • xor@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          5 months ago

          I assume you’re referring to couping, as opposed to storing chickens

          Your statement may be true, but also doesn’t prove the original claim

          The definition of fascism is not when someone is racist, or when someone does a coup

          The whole “fascism is when thing I don’t like” is exactly the thing the commenter above me was complaining about

      • undergroundoverground@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        If it was fascist at that time, would it have been less fascist when America had legal, designated concentration camps of black slaves?

        I understand the instict to dismiss it and maybe “always” will be a step too far but i think a lot of Americans are in denial the extensive cross over between early 20th century USA and nazi Germany. I’m not even just talking about how hitler literally based the Jewish ghettos and anti Jewish laws on the black ghettos and Jim crow or Germany’s Eastern expansion and extermination for land being modeled on Americas Western expansion:

        The economics of fascism is croney capitalism, with mass privatisation of public assets, ultra low tax for the rich, pitiful wages and endless toil for everyone else, huge corporate subsidies, handouts to the rich and a merger of the corporate and the state. Some of the state might even be outsourced. Whatever way they set it up, the result was always that.

        I’m not even saying that from a presumed position of my country being better. I’m from the UK and the East India company/royal west African company being a corporate state is about purest form of fascism you can get. Thats before you get to all the rest of it. Our biggest export is class subjugation.

    • SeattleRain@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Don’t know why you’re getting down voted. Hitler literally said he looked to the US Army’s genocide of Native Americans as a proof of concept for his own Jewish Holocaust.

    • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Doesn’t really prove much. If the meme said “the US has always beaten down its minorities” or something like that, we wouldn’t be quibbling over the wording here.

      • kora@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        5 months ago

        I’m sorry but how is that unique to the US, that’s literally all of human history and all humans in human history have always had an “other’”.

        What makes the US of any more note, if anything, is just the level and formalization of such disgraceful treatment of the “other” that, started with the colonialization of America and the slave trade that boosted it.

        Do I think it could be said that this is not the first time that such a thing has happened in history? It’s just this cycle, who knows how long these Cycles go, and hopefully it’s when we eventually evolve to get off of.

    • umbrella@lemmy.ml
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      5 months ago

      they even copied the segregation tactics the us was using against blacks, except they used it against jews.

      it was rightly treated as worth of national shame for generations for nazis, but when it comes to the us it was just an oopsie sorry but we aint doing it anymore. except they kind of are at home and moreso abroad.

    • Goldholz@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      5 months ago

      In art i use tactics by bob ross, am i now as great of a painter as bob ross? Am i now bob ross? No! See how your argument is shit?

        • TheFonz@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Parts of the definition do not make the definition. Are you intentionally obfuscating? Just because some actions share fascistic traits doesn’t de facto a fascist country make. Perhaps educate yourself on the definition of fascism?