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Comment by unclad5968 | Hacker News Reader

Im uninvolved in politics. Can someone explain to me why it's facist that the government is recording who is cooperative and who isn't? That doesn't seem malicious to me, unless you assume it will be used for punishing poorly cooperative companies. Even then, lawmakers know who cooperates and who doesn't, they don't need a spreadsheet for it. I'm willing to be enlightened of my ignorance here.

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There is never any purpose for a government rating people/organizations on an axis except to act on that information in some way, and there is basically no way that the government acting on ratings of loyalty to the present leadership, is not, at a minimum, a dangerous promotion of private interest above public interest.

It is fascist, though, only in the context of other actions by the administration.

I think this is a good question that shouldn't be down-voted.

If you look at various definitions of what facism means, you may see something like: "characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition" (from M-W).

A "loyalty rating" implements both economic regimentation (the insinuation that higher scoring companies have better favor) and suppression of opposition (that companies actively avoid being seen as opposition).

So this is text-book fascist behavior.

It's not hyperbole to envision the justice department looking the other way for high-scoring companies, and actively persecuting low-scoring companies. You're right in that this is already happening (like with e.g. Harvard), but implementing a score in the open makes it shockingly easy to carry out fascist directives across the government bureaucracy.

> Can someone explain to me why it's facist that the government is recording who is cooperative and who isn't?

Because your experience with the government in a democracy shouldn't be dependent on whether the person in power decides you have shown sufficient fealty.

> unless you assume it will be used for punishing poorly cooperative companies.

Like they have so far?

The administration's vindictiveness and obsession with loyalty is extreme (for the US).

John Adams: "I see a new nation ready to take its place in the world; not an empire, but a republic; and a republic of laws, not men."

This government already has a track record of punishing poorly cooperative companies! Look into the illegal executive orders that targeted various law firms.

> unless you assume it will be used for punishing poorly cooperative companies.

You don't have to assume that. The US government has already made that policy quite clear.

Does this also apply to Tesla with the previous administration, or is this new dynamic?

Sure, the Biden admin actively targeted a publicly traded company[0] because their CEO was critical of the administration, but that's not fascism. Fascism is when the bad guys make spreadsheets.

[0] https://www.newsweek.com/ev-tax-credit-2024-tesla-model-3-ex...

Do you have any evidence that the change in enforcement was targeted at Tesla or that the change was in response to Musk’s criticism?

Also, comparing the actions of Trump to anything any previous President (including Trump 1!) almost feels like you’re being disingenuous.

It's funny, actually. When an anonymous source says there's a scary spreadsheet in the Trump White House, progs are happy to believe the unsourced and unprovable claim on faith, imagine the worst possible implications, and assert those entirely imaginary implications are evidence of fascism. But when considering the fact that the Biden admin actually, actively did financial harm to one of their most prominent critics, progs instantaneously drop the concerned citizen schtick and are happy to assume that any and all real harm done to critics is accidental until proven beyond a reasonable doubt!

The thing is that this administration has repeatedly and openly punished, intervened, otherwise interfered directly the affairs of _specific_ private companies in a blatantly corrupt manner based on the opinion of the president. This is indisputable, and this spreadsheet would just be an extension of that.

Believing the anonymous source about (rather believing that Axios hires credible journalists who will investigate sources) is not a stretch based on what we’ve seen. The implications are not imaginary at all. These are things the president has done.

The previous administration changing some guidance that impacts a massive industry and for vague reasons _may_ be targeting a political adversary, is a much shakier case.

Frankly, this massive difference in scope is why I think comparisons are often disingenuous.

Those battery sourcing provisions for the EV tax credit came from the Inflation Reduction Act which was enacted in August 2022. The administration did not ask for them to be put in. The came from a deal in July or August to get Senator Manchin to vote for the bill, which was critical for its passage.

Afterwards when it came to implementing them the administration implemented them as loosely as it could to try to minimize the number of EVs that would lose the tax credit. In particular it did not apply them to leases, which greatly upset Manchin who said that they were supposed to apply there too.

It does not, because the previous administrations haven't openly spoken about retracting contracts because of personal infighting[1]. I am under no illusion that the American Democratic party is also quite terrible, but that does not make the current administrations outright corruption any more unclear.

[1]: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1146322069923...

Read up on the law firms he targeted simply for having dems as clients.

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