Comment by rhexs | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rhexs | Hacker News Reader

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I've always thought that most of the rage came from a dying traditional media quickly realizing they could capitalize on Trump's bombastic style for a critically important advertisement cash injection. Look at viewership of major media properties declining until around 2016. Opinion pieces, designed to induce rage-clicks, are vastly more cost effective than actual journalism or just reporting the facts. Plus, for the average viewer, it's just plain fun to read your "team's" spin on the facts. I'm sure the typical response to this is that "the media has always been like this", but I certainly haven't seen a situation quite this extreme in a while.

If you spent all of your time in a bubble reading these opinion pieces from a select group of sources and news aggregators that presumably aggregate the news that is most likely to generate ad impressions/clicks (Reddit, Google News seems to push highly inflammatory opinion pieces), sure, I can see how you'd think Trump is some sort of fascist dictator hellbent on destroying the world. The average political junky isn't going to spend brainpower trying to understand the diametrically opposed.

To be clear though, most level headed individuals don't actually believe Trump is a fascist. That's an extremist view (and obviously insulting to anyone who has lived under fascism) that's just used to sow discord and get a reaction.

It's a fact that Trump sympathizes a lot with dictators and got along with Xi Jinping, Kim Jong-Un, Putin and others much better than e.g. European leaders.

He always avoided distancing himself from fascist and racist movements and their actions in the US. He teargassed people just so he could get a couple pictures taken in the middle of a protest. He tried to cast a democratic election into doubt and talked for months about his intention of not conceding the oval office in the case of a loss in the election.

I don't think Trump could ever be a dictator, but he clearly does not oppose the idea and undoubtedly contributed to the political divide in the US.

Trump is inarguably fascist, just incompetently so. Nobody really disputes this.

I mean, sure, I imagine no one disputes that in whatever self-selected bubble you get your news from, but that isn't the debate here. Yes, as stated above, I totally agree that if you filter down your news into whatever makes you feel safe, comfortable, and doesn't challenge any of your beliefs, it is easy to come to the conclusion that "Trump is a fascist". That isn't useful for anyone trying to become an informed voter though.

> Trump is inarguably fascist, just incompetently so. Nobody really disputes this.

I'd argue against Trump being an incompetent fascist. That's still giving him too much credit.

He's authoritarian, a narcissist, views the world through a zero-sum transactional lens, doesn't see anything wrong with cronyism or nepotism, and as far as he's concerned you're either with him or against him.

Some of that has certainly allowed fascistic people to accrete around him, and enact policies that are fascistic, but as far as I can tell, that's only because the lowest hanging fruit and the clearest path to avoiding blame was in removing restraints and checks and balances. IOW writing (and reading) and passing regulations is hard, removing or ignoring them is comparatively easy.

If it were easier to avoid blame, punish enemies, line his pockets, and put his stamp on things by nationalizing industries, he'd have been doing that instead.

And I wouldn't quite rule anything out as an attempt at some kind of "grand bargain" before he leaves office if he decides he wants to punish the GOP.

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