"Mr. President, we were just doing our jobs. If you were our boss you'd fire us if we didn't put ALL we had into our work. Can we start reporting for you? We're getting pounded here."
I'm sure they settled amicably with "Literally Hitler". I'd expect a switch from them where they act like they begrudgingly agree with the changes being made and the last eight years is memory-holed.
-Mussolini became popular because Italy was in total disarray after WWI, and parliament was totally unable to alleviate the problems facing disaffected industrial workers, farmers in the Italian interior, and war veterans; this made them skeptical of democratic institutions, and hence increasingly open to rule by a strongman, with the idea being that he would push aside the squabbling elites in parliament and fix the people's problems using the efficiency of centralized power
-Before the war, two key developments had already predisposed the men of the nation to get swept up in Mussolini's cult of machismo: first, a decades-long movement that had focused on women's empowerment (the interwar '#MeToo'); second, the rise of 'atheistic' socialism, (the 'woke' philosophy of 'the libs') which threatened conventional Christian identities
-Mussolini, like most strongmen throughout history, was a great performer (especially when he inhabited the classic 'macho man' ethos) and also masterful at leveraging new communication technologies to more directly communicate with the populace, establishing a 'personal' relation with them. (radio was just coming into its prime in the '20s and '30s, and Mussolini knew how to calibrate his bombastic speeches perfectly to suit radio broadcasts--what Trump is to Twitter/X and social media, Mussolini was to radio)
-Mussolini began his entrance into politics by targeting socialists, whom he had come to despise for not having supported the nation during the war, along with their effete internationalist (i.e., 'globalist') philosophies; at his encouragement, his followers openly harassed them, and this was very popular with the common folk, who shared his distaste towards them (i.e., they hated the 'woke' socialists, and loved that Mussolini 'owned the libs')
-Most importantly, all of Mussolini's rhetoric possessed the same framing: that 'your country' was 'under assault' from 'global elites abroad' and 'internal saboteurs'. (i.e., the globalists and the Deep State are after you); using this framework he denigrated his critics in the press, portraying them as liars and enemies of the common folk (the purveyors of 'fake news'); and, as he grew in popularity, his language grew increasingly aggressive towards them (he went from 'fake news' to calling the opposition 'vermin' and 'the enemy within', whom he was going to 'get revenge on')
-Lastly, before consolidating power, (as Trump has said he plans to do soon, by replacing the independent civil service with loyalists employed 'at-will') Mussolini was popularly elected; initially, the industrial elites were uncomfortable with this, but he was able to successfully gain their allegiance by incorporating them into his government (the way Musk is now incorporated into Trump's) and privatizing the electric, telephone and insurance sectors so the latter could buy them out.
Reading a description of 'Il Duce's public performances before parliament in the New York Times, the echoes of Trump are everywhere:
"Standing in his characteristic pose...with chest well thrust out, thumping the Ministers’ bench with his tightly clenched fist to emphasize his points… he spoke with fire, passion and vehemence … Only force, he said, can decide between Fascism and the Opposition, and this force he now proposes to use...It was the greatest triumph of Mussolini’s whole political career...Deputies rushed at Mussolini from all sides and lifted him shoulder-high carrying him in triumph out of the chamber."
Or, in the words of Carlo Ciseri, a young Italian officer who hated politicians until he saw Mussolini speak, who wrote in his diary: "I immediately felt hugely drawn to him. I liked his words, I liked his pride, his force and the look in his eyes...I have seen something exceptional in this man." (you can read the whole quote here, in Duggan's history of fascism: https://books.google.com/books?id=tP3rhiGG21sC&q=hugely+drawn+to+him#v=onepage&q&f=false)
Your comparison is cosmetically and fundamentally accurate, but I think there are still differences. One of them is technology. Your analysis seems to not address that at all, and that is arguably the biggest difference between the time of Mussolini vs. contemporary US politics. But that makes sense, because your aim is clearly to underline similarities, not identify differences in political environments in which these two men operate(d).
"-Mussolini became popular because Italy was in total disarray after WWI, and parliament was totally unable to alleviate the problems facing disaffected industrial workers, farmers in the Italian interior, and war veterans; this made them skeptical of democratic institutions, and hence increasingly open to rule by a strongman, with the idea being that he would push aside the squabbling elites in parliament and fix the people's problems using the efficiency of centralized power."
Your analysis "an inept government that couldn't solve the issues of the populace was abandoned in favor of a populist candidate that convinced the polity that he can solve their problems". Except in the US, these woes weren't caused by depletion of resources fighting in a world war. They were caused from just plain old inept governance and a focus on the wrong things, which themselves are cosmetic- such as Social Justice ideology. This alone makes this comparison much more interesting when drilling down into root causes.
-Before the war, two key developments had already predisposed the men of the nation to get swept up in Mussolini's cult of machismo: first, a decades-long movement that had focused on women's empowerment (the interwar '#MeToo'); second, the rise of 'atheistic' socialism, (the 'woke' philosophy of 'the libs') which threatened conventional Christian identities
Yeah, except that if you poll the young men of this country, your root cause analysis doesn't hold up because only a sliver of the affected men we're talking about identify as religious, and even fewer as Christian. The excesses of postmodern-based political strategy that insists on the oppressor/oppressed gets tougher when you realize even our homeless people have iPhones. You propose that focusing on women's rights was enough to do that in pre WW2 Italy. Perhaps. But it took more than that here- men, particularly straight white men had to be lambasted and decried for several political cycles before we saw that inevitable result. It wasn't just focusing on lifting another group up- the political powers behind the social movements very much sought to take the aforementioned demographic down several notches, and deliberately.
-Mussolini, like most strongmen throughout history, was a great performer (especially when he inhabited the classic 'macho man' ethos) and also masterful at leveraging new communication technologies to more directly communicate with the populace, establishing a 'personal' relation with them. (radio was just coming into its prime in the '20s and '30s, and Mussolini knew how to calibrate his bombastic speeches perfectly to suit radio broadcasts--what Trump is to Twitter/X and social media, Mussolini was to radio)
Sure. But, ahem, the opponents of such an individual being covertly and overtly censored for years also plays a huge role in the election outcome. This analysis is conspicuously missing from your assertions of similarity.
-Mussolini began his entrance into politics by targeting socialists, whom he had come to despise for not having supported the nation during the war, along with their effete internationalist (i.e., 'globalist') philosophies; at his encouragement, his followers openly harassed them, and this was very popular with the common folk, who shared his distaste towards them (i.e., they hated the 'woke' socialists, and loved that Mussolini 'owned the libs')
Again, we can clearly see here that your analysis is pinned to post WW1 rhetoric, and rightly so. But then the US isn't in a post-war reconstruction bottleneck or struggle. So what presupposes the similarity between Trump and Mussolini isn't similar at all- and that is indeed where your analysis begins. Invoking "woke" for a time period before the 1940s is also misplaced. It's not the same at all. There was no internal commandeering of journalistic, academic, and corporate institutions like there is today. That's a major factor, in my opinion. Also, it was Democrats who shit all over "common folk" to begin with, which arguably drove them in the direction of the populist, not the other way around.
-Most importantly, all of Mussolini's rhetoric possessed the same framing: that 'your country' was 'under assault' from 'global elites abroad' and 'internal saboteurs'. (i.e., the globalists and the Deep State are after you); using this framework he denigrated his critics in the press, portraying them as liars and enemies of the common folk (the purveyors of 'fake news'); and, as he grew in popularity, his language grew increasingly aggressive towards them (he went from 'fake news' to calling the opposition 'vermin' and 'the enemy within', whom he was going to 'get revenge on')
Just curiosity for this one- do you believe any of Trump's arguments hold merit? Is there a sort of takeover that was occurring in which the coastal elites were elevated and the inner "rubes" were discarded?
-Lastly, before consolidating power, (as Trump has said he plans to do soon, by replacing the independent civil service with loyalists employed 'at-will') Mussolini was popularly elected; initially, the industrial elites were uncomfortable with this, but he was able to successfully gain their allegiance by incorporating them into his government (the way Musk is now incorporated into Trump's) and privatizing the electric, telephone and insurance sectors so the latter could buy them out.
LOL yeah, you mean "selecting a cabinet"? Yeah, incoming Presidents tend to do that. And, I might add, with the secret ballot selection of the majority leader in the Senate, the pressure on Gaetz, and now Gabbard, it's clear that the boogeyman you so ardently proselytize against, doesn't have as much power as you purport. Otherwise, he would just appoint whomever he wants with no obstruction whatsoever to his plans. This is also a unique difference between pre WW2 Italy and and 2024 USA that you don't address at all.
Well that is certainly a lot of mental gymnastics to just say he's a fascist.
Now, do a dissertation on how the "Empty Picture Frame" currently in the White House is working out for all of us.
Include why you think firing missiles into Russia while claiming "we are not at war with Russia" is a viable path forward.
For all of your scholastics you have failed to contemporize the "Trump is a fascist" diatribe as you fail to acknowledge the fascism sitting on top of us RIGHT NOW who have been using a vast propaganda machine to present a skewed version of reality, (and even outright falsehood,) for decades as it looted out material and financial resources for it's corporate partners -right in front of your face with the aid of a trillion dollar entertainment and news industry preventing you from knowing the truth.
There you go, there's Mussolini's sell: "Democracy is irreparably compromised and merely a way for the elites to exploit you. I, the strongman, will fix it."
In the short-run, it is highly seductive to people who feel their society is in disarray, and are witnessing the decline of its middle class.
But, without exception, history tells us it never ends well.
What you say is true, of course, but this is what the political landscape in 2024 has given us. Do we keep a regime that has discarded everything, including rationality in a nuclear game of chicken, and only given us a maniacal focus on racial, gender and sexual demographics and ignores virtually everything else to the country's detriment? Or do we select the political force that opposes those things? Those were our choices. There's always revolution, but the US is too large and disjointed for anything that resembles true, organized revolution, so this is indeed what we have. The historical choice between the status quo that the incumbent has built, and the force which opposes it. To call attention to the nature of the incoming force, and not what caused the country to select that over the status quo, is an incomplete analysis.
Agreed that it is far from an ideal landscape--however, I think properly sending the message to Democrats without supporting a de facto fascist take over could have been easily accomplished by large-scale split-ticket voting. That would have handed the GOP massive majorities in Congress, repudiating the Democrats' identity-obsessed politics and 'selecting' the counterforce; and it would have also sent the message that strongman rule is also not an option in one of the world's oldest and most powerful continuous liberal democracies.
It also pushes the parties to course correct for 2028, asking for a less authoritarian leader for the GOP, and asking the Democrats to stop adopting unpopular policies. And then whoever does *not* course correct gets slaughtered at the polls.
Abandoning liberal democratic principles, or brushing them aside on the assumption that they are totally broken, will only open the door to authoritarian rule. Which may have some appeal in the short run, but in the long run will always end poorly in places like Europe and *especially* the US, where the subordination of individual liberty is taken as anathema to the state's basic foundations, in the former by way of the French Revolution's legacy and in the latter as an originary cornerstone of the American state. (I am open to, if not 100% convinced by, the argument that societies like China are more capable of operating under long-run authoritarian rule, simply because the several-thousand-year legacy of the imperial system that existed until just a century ago is viewed with more acceptance and veneration by the average Chinese citizen--but that is another conversation)
You're just trading "He's HITLER!!!" for "He's Mussolini!!!"
Got anything else?
Maybe redirect your ire toward the fascists already sitting on your shoulders RIGHT NOW.
Write about how the empty picture frame in the WH is absent mindedly allowing the MIC to start a hot war with the most dangerous nuclear power second to the US.
I'm trading "He's Mussolini!" to "He is historically analogous to Mussolini," which he is.
And the Ukraine incursion was as much a foregone conclusion when Trump began undermining multilateral relations with NATO as Hitler's occupation of Czechoslovakia was once Mussolini signed the Munich agreement. Hitler swore up and down that the agreement was *solely* about letting him have the Sudetenland because the Sudetenland belonged to the Germanic peoples, just as Putin swore up and down that taking the Luhansk and Donetsk regions was all about securing ethnically Russian territory in the Ukraine. Lo and behold, Hitler rolled right on to invade the Czechs, claiming Germany needed 'Lebensraum'; lo and behold, Putin staged a massive military build up at the Ukrainian border starting (shocker) in 2018, and accelerating in (shocker) 2019 when Trump was busy holding up Ukrainian aid and calling the other members of NATO leeches...then rolled right on towards Kyiv.
Biden is a pretty big doofus himself, but the dominoes were already falling by the time he took office. The prevailing question now is "If you walk away from Ukraine, will it be enough for Putin?" Last time we answered 'yes' to a similar question, Putin came back a few years later, and started declaring "Ukraine is historically a part of Russia, it belongs to us," before invading it. If you're Polish, how much are you willing to bet that, if he gets Ukraine without a fight, he'll suddenly change his stripes, and won't come around a few years later saying 'Poland was historically part of the Russian empire; it belongs to us', before performing the same feat?
I don't live in Poland, but if I did, it's not a bet I'd want to make. And if you don't want WW3, it's not a bet you should make either. Regardless, one thing is quite clear when you take the long view: when strongmen trample over liberal democratic institutions, take power and start cozying up to one another, things end poorly--and, typically, with tremendous, wide-spread violence--for everyone.
What a lot of people don't know, is that pre 2016 election, if Trump were to come to a sudden halt, we'd have had to dig Joe Scarborough out of Trump's ass for a week. It switched suddenly, and now has again. How this knob has any credibility at all, is beyond me.
Keep doubling down on this gibberish. It worked so well for you guys on Nov. 5th. At this rate, you won't see another candidate left of center win in your lifetime. Hilarious.
The media wanted Trump and most voters hate the idea of women being anything but weak, stupid, and cowardly. Trump WILL declare martial law and make himself dictator for life.
Yeah, people said this exact same thing in 2016 through 2020. I think my nightly BIOS reset of your simple brain theory is starting to grow legs. Tell me more about your intuitive political analysis that has somehow never happened before, yet we have examples of. You kooky lady, you crack me up!
Cut it OUT, already! My father and uncle fought and were imprisoned by ACTUAL NAZIs! I listened to them speak of their experiences in war and prison camps. Republicans in general and Trump in particular are not Nazis. If you are looking for Nazis try any college campus. Your hysterics are utterly ridiculous.
Trump and Trumpers haven’t had the chance to do as much harm as the Nazis. That doesn’t mean they won’t if we allow them to do so. Trump wants to be Hitler so bad it pains him and if we allow it he will be Hitler with nukes. He wants that to happen.
Buckle up sweetie, you're gonna see a lot more of that. You're going to see people YOU depended upon to uphold your narrative over the last 8 years fold like cheap suits, and it's going to be very upsetting.
I hate to have you two working yourselves to death. Well, maybe not really. 🤗❤️❤️ I do much appreciate two doing two ATW’s in this fast moving and momentous time. Thank you.
Hi Matt, not a fan of the vertical format. I'm watching on a desktop with a big screen but I can't turn it 90° to fill up the picture like somebody with a phone could do, presumably. That probably doesn't make sense but anyway, it's easier to see details like screen shares of newspaper articles in the old format.
1:14. Matt and Walter are talking about having to watch videos of duck-and-cover during the Reagan administration.
You had to watch movies? I was *doing* it. I was in grade school in the late 50s and through the 60s and we had to do those duck-and-cover drills. They had us terrified about nuclear war.
Except for second and fourth grade, where I was in Indiana, my entire school career was in California and I vividly remember those duck-and-cover drills. Now that you mention it, I don't really remember doing it in the Midwest. Out of range, perhaps?
As a 1st grader in late 50s practice was routine ( I had no knowledge of Hiroshima till high school but saw lots of atomic tests filmed in the S. Pacific to scare me & classmates)
If caught on the playground when the big one went off, you were supposed to crouch at the foot of a wall with your hands clasped on the back of your neck. Even at that tender age, I wondered how on earth that could possibly help.
I started elementary school around 1965, & I only heard about "duck & cover" much later in a film called The Atomic Cafe. My late husband, who was 10 years older, said that he had taken part in "duck & cover" drills.
What is up with California? In France they have one day to vote - a Sunday. They must show proof of citizenship and have a photo ID. Paper ballots are placed in a transparent urn. Results are known that same night (there might be a second day of voting two weeks later if no one gets more than 50% of the votes, this is usually the case.)
What is up is cheating by mail-in ballots. We have a track record since 2018 with ballot harvesting and ballots for every “citizen” — signed into law by Jerry Brown before he left office.
After that it happened in my (red) district first. Like 2 weeks to “slow the spread”, err I mean — change the result, it flipped blue for the first time in memory.
Look what happened in the LA mayoral race of Caruso vs Bass. Caruso won by 7 points on election night but 2 weeks of counting votes gave union-favorite Bass a tiny “victory”
RE: Walter's "ISM" -- calls to mind a long-defunct computer company in Boulder -- "NBI" which was commonly understood to signify "Nothing But Initials"
Dr. B. is a great pick for Surgeon General. I don’t know if there’s an assistant or deputy position but Dr. Scott Atlas would be a great choice too. He’s a Stanford MD with a specialty in public health and worked with Trump early on during COVID. His advice to Governor DeSantis helped keep the schools open and insanity to a minimum in Florida. I really do hope common sense and integrity is restored to our medical system with these appointments.
I will take as many bonus ATW’s as Matt and Walter want to give us!
Ditto: Re: Walter/Matt on Ukraine. No single source is reliable. Three I consult: the first two regularly:
Alexander Mercouris: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJFfm3agH5Q anti-NATO left
The Military Summary Channel - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNBQBfr_NJo&t=252s - daily Russian generally reliable military briefing-confirmed by
ISW https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-november-18-2024 Atlantic Council Neo-Con clowns discussing the same daily battlefield changes.
Day-to-day accounts match up fairly well if we compare all three. Alexander's are long. Military Summary Channel under twenty minutes. None of three ever present war porn imagery. For the big, bleak picture: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=john+mearsheimer+ukraine JM's 2015 lecture will make your hair stand on end: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=john+mearsheimer+ukraine
👍
ATW is one of the highlights of my entire week.
I know exactly what you mean. An oasis of sanity in a desert of madness.
Joe and Mika visited Hitler. Wonder how that went.
If this becomes a thing, Mar a Lago could replace Santiago de Compostela as the world's most popular pilgrimage destination.
Two pompous & nasty people.
"Mr. President, we were just doing our jobs. If you were our boss you'd fire us if we didn't put ALL we had into our work. Can we start reporting for you? We're getting pounded here."
I'm sure they settled amicably with "Literally Hitler". I'd expect a switch from them where they act like they begrudgingly agree with the changes being made and the last eight years is memory-holed.
Hitler comparisons are kinda weak.
The proper historical analog is Mussolini.
-Mussolini became popular because Italy was in total disarray after WWI, and parliament was totally unable to alleviate the problems facing disaffected industrial workers, farmers in the Italian interior, and war veterans; this made them skeptical of democratic institutions, and hence increasingly open to rule by a strongman, with the idea being that he would push aside the squabbling elites in parliament and fix the people's problems using the efficiency of centralized power
-Before the war, two key developments had already predisposed the men of the nation to get swept up in Mussolini's cult of machismo: first, a decades-long movement that had focused on women's empowerment (the interwar '#MeToo'); second, the rise of 'atheistic' socialism, (the 'woke' philosophy of 'the libs') which threatened conventional Christian identities
-Mussolini, like most strongmen throughout history, was a great performer (especially when he inhabited the classic 'macho man' ethos) and also masterful at leveraging new communication technologies to more directly communicate with the populace, establishing a 'personal' relation with them. (radio was just coming into its prime in the '20s and '30s, and Mussolini knew how to calibrate his bombastic speeches perfectly to suit radio broadcasts--what Trump is to Twitter/X and social media, Mussolini was to radio)
-Mussolini began his entrance into politics by targeting socialists, whom he had come to despise for not having supported the nation during the war, along with their effete internationalist (i.e., 'globalist') philosophies; at his encouragement, his followers openly harassed them, and this was very popular with the common folk, who shared his distaste towards them (i.e., they hated the 'woke' socialists, and loved that Mussolini 'owned the libs')
-Most importantly, all of Mussolini's rhetoric possessed the same framing: that 'your country' was 'under assault' from 'global elites abroad' and 'internal saboteurs'. (i.e., the globalists and the Deep State are after you); using this framework he denigrated his critics in the press, portraying them as liars and enemies of the common folk (the purveyors of 'fake news'); and, as he grew in popularity, his language grew increasingly aggressive towards them (he went from 'fake news' to calling the opposition 'vermin' and 'the enemy within', whom he was going to 'get revenge on')
-Lastly, before consolidating power, (as Trump has said he plans to do soon, by replacing the independent civil service with loyalists employed 'at-will') Mussolini was popularly elected; initially, the industrial elites were uncomfortable with this, but he was able to successfully gain their allegiance by incorporating them into his government (the way Musk is now incorporated into Trump's) and privatizing the electric, telephone and insurance sectors so the latter could buy them out.
Reading a description of 'Il Duce's public performances before parliament in the New York Times, the echoes of Trump are everywhere:
"Standing in his characteristic pose...with chest well thrust out, thumping the Ministers’ bench with his tightly clenched fist to emphasize his points… he spoke with fire, passion and vehemence … Only force, he said, can decide between Fascism and the Opposition, and this force he now proposes to use...It was the greatest triumph of Mussolini’s whole political career...Deputies rushed at Mussolini from all sides and lifted him shoulder-high carrying him in triumph out of the chamber."
Or, in the words of Carlo Ciseri, a young Italian officer who hated politicians until he saw Mussolini speak, who wrote in his diary: "I immediately felt hugely drawn to him. I liked his words, I liked his pride, his force and the look in his eyes...I have seen something exceptional in this man." (you can read the whole quote here, in Duggan's history of fascism: https://books.google.com/books?id=tP3rhiGG21sC&q=hugely+drawn+to+him#v=onepage&q&f=false)
Your comparison is cosmetically and fundamentally accurate, but I think there are still differences. One of them is technology. Your analysis seems to not address that at all, and that is arguably the biggest difference between the time of Mussolini vs. contemporary US politics. But that makes sense, because your aim is clearly to underline similarities, not identify differences in political environments in which these two men operate(d).
"-Mussolini became popular because Italy was in total disarray after WWI, and parliament was totally unable to alleviate the problems facing disaffected industrial workers, farmers in the Italian interior, and war veterans; this made them skeptical of democratic institutions, and hence increasingly open to rule by a strongman, with the idea being that he would push aside the squabbling elites in parliament and fix the people's problems using the efficiency of centralized power."
Your analysis "an inept government that couldn't solve the issues of the populace was abandoned in favor of a populist candidate that convinced the polity that he can solve their problems". Except in the US, these woes weren't caused by depletion of resources fighting in a world war. They were caused from just plain old inept governance and a focus on the wrong things, which themselves are cosmetic- such as Social Justice ideology. This alone makes this comparison much more interesting when drilling down into root causes.
-Before the war, two key developments had already predisposed the men of the nation to get swept up in Mussolini's cult of machismo: first, a decades-long movement that had focused on women's empowerment (the interwar '#MeToo'); second, the rise of 'atheistic' socialism, (the 'woke' philosophy of 'the libs') which threatened conventional Christian identities
Yeah, except that if you poll the young men of this country, your root cause analysis doesn't hold up because only a sliver of the affected men we're talking about identify as religious, and even fewer as Christian. The excesses of postmodern-based political strategy that insists on the oppressor/oppressed gets tougher when you realize even our homeless people have iPhones. You propose that focusing on women's rights was enough to do that in pre WW2 Italy. Perhaps. But it took more than that here- men, particularly straight white men had to be lambasted and decried for several political cycles before we saw that inevitable result. It wasn't just focusing on lifting another group up- the political powers behind the social movements very much sought to take the aforementioned demographic down several notches, and deliberately.
-Mussolini, like most strongmen throughout history, was a great performer (especially when he inhabited the classic 'macho man' ethos) and also masterful at leveraging new communication technologies to more directly communicate with the populace, establishing a 'personal' relation with them. (radio was just coming into its prime in the '20s and '30s, and Mussolini knew how to calibrate his bombastic speeches perfectly to suit radio broadcasts--what Trump is to Twitter/X and social media, Mussolini was to radio)
Sure. But, ahem, the opponents of such an individual being covertly and overtly censored for years also plays a huge role in the election outcome. This analysis is conspicuously missing from your assertions of similarity.
-Mussolini began his entrance into politics by targeting socialists, whom he had come to despise for not having supported the nation during the war, along with their effete internationalist (i.e., 'globalist') philosophies; at his encouragement, his followers openly harassed them, and this was very popular with the common folk, who shared his distaste towards them (i.e., they hated the 'woke' socialists, and loved that Mussolini 'owned the libs')
Again, we can clearly see here that your analysis is pinned to post WW1 rhetoric, and rightly so. But then the US isn't in a post-war reconstruction bottleneck or struggle. So what presupposes the similarity between Trump and Mussolini isn't similar at all- and that is indeed where your analysis begins. Invoking "woke" for a time period before the 1940s is also misplaced. It's not the same at all. There was no internal commandeering of journalistic, academic, and corporate institutions like there is today. That's a major factor, in my opinion. Also, it was Democrats who shit all over "common folk" to begin with, which arguably drove them in the direction of the populist, not the other way around.
-Most importantly, all of Mussolini's rhetoric possessed the same framing: that 'your country' was 'under assault' from 'global elites abroad' and 'internal saboteurs'. (i.e., the globalists and the Deep State are after you); using this framework he denigrated his critics in the press, portraying them as liars and enemies of the common folk (the purveyors of 'fake news'); and, as he grew in popularity, his language grew increasingly aggressive towards them (he went from 'fake news' to calling the opposition 'vermin' and 'the enemy within', whom he was going to 'get revenge on')
Just curiosity for this one- do you believe any of Trump's arguments hold merit? Is there a sort of takeover that was occurring in which the coastal elites were elevated and the inner "rubes" were discarded?
-Lastly, before consolidating power, (as Trump has said he plans to do soon, by replacing the independent civil service with loyalists employed 'at-will') Mussolini was popularly elected; initially, the industrial elites were uncomfortable with this, but he was able to successfully gain their allegiance by incorporating them into his government (the way Musk is now incorporated into Trump's) and privatizing the electric, telephone and insurance sectors so the latter could buy them out.
LOL yeah, you mean "selecting a cabinet"? Yeah, incoming Presidents tend to do that. And, I might add, with the secret ballot selection of the majority leader in the Senate, the pressure on Gaetz, and now Gabbard, it's clear that the boogeyman you so ardently proselytize against, doesn't have as much power as you purport. Otherwise, he would just appoint whomever he wants with no obstruction whatsoever to his plans. This is also a unique difference between pre WW2 Italy and and 2024 USA that you don't address at all.
Well that is certainly a lot of mental gymnastics to just say he's a fascist.
Now, do a dissertation on how the "Empty Picture Frame" currently in the White House is working out for all of us.
Include why you think firing missiles into Russia while claiming "we are not at war with Russia" is a viable path forward.
For all of your scholastics you have failed to contemporize the "Trump is a fascist" diatribe as you fail to acknowledge the fascism sitting on top of us RIGHT NOW who have been using a vast propaganda machine to present a skewed version of reality, (and even outright falsehood,) for decades as it looted out material and financial resources for it's corporate partners -right in front of your face with the aid of a trillion dollar entertainment and news industry preventing you from knowing the truth.
But do go on comparing apples and oranges.
There you go, there's Mussolini's sell: "Democracy is irreparably compromised and merely a way for the elites to exploit you. I, the strongman, will fix it."
In the short-run, it is highly seductive to people who feel their society is in disarray, and are witnessing the decline of its middle class.
But, without exception, history tells us it never ends well.
What you say is true, of course, but this is what the political landscape in 2024 has given us. Do we keep a regime that has discarded everything, including rationality in a nuclear game of chicken, and only given us a maniacal focus on racial, gender and sexual demographics and ignores virtually everything else to the country's detriment? Or do we select the political force that opposes those things? Those were our choices. There's always revolution, but the US is too large and disjointed for anything that resembles true, organized revolution, so this is indeed what we have. The historical choice between the status quo that the incumbent has built, and the force which opposes it. To call attention to the nature of the incoming force, and not what caused the country to select that over the status quo, is an incomplete analysis.
Agreed that it is far from an ideal landscape--however, I think properly sending the message to Democrats without supporting a de facto fascist take over could have been easily accomplished by large-scale split-ticket voting. That would have handed the GOP massive majorities in Congress, repudiating the Democrats' identity-obsessed politics and 'selecting' the counterforce; and it would have also sent the message that strongman rule is also not an option in one of the world's oldest and most powerful continuous liberal democracies.
It also pushes the parties to course correct for 2028, asking for a less authoritarian leader for the GOP, and asking the Democrats to stop adopting unpopular policies. And then whoever does *not* course correct gets slaughtered at the polls.
Abandoning liberal democratic principles, or brushing them aside on the assumption that they are totally broken, will only open the door to authoritarian rule. Which may have some appeal in the short run, but in the long run will always end poorly in places like Europe and *especially* the US, where the subordination of individual liberty is taken as anathema to the state's basic foundations, in the former by way of the French Revolution's legacy and in the latter as an originary cornerstone of the American state. (I am open to, if not 100% convinced by, the argument that societies like China are more capable of operating under long-run authoritarian rule, simply because the several-thousand-year legacy of the imperial system that existed until just a century ago is viewed with more acceptance and veneration by the average Chinese citizen--but that is another conversation)
You're just trading "He's HITLER!!!" for "He's Mussolini!!!"
Got anything else?
Maybe redirect your ire toward the fascists already sitting on your shoulders RIGHT NOW.
Write about how the empty picture frame in the WH is absent mindedly allowing the MIC to start a hot war with the most dangerous nuclear power second to the US.
I'm trading "He's Mussolini!" to "He is historically analogous to Mussolini," which he is.
And the Ukraine incursion was as much a foregone conclusion when Trump began undermining multilateral relations with NATO as Hitler's occupation of Czechoslovakia was once Mussolini signed the Munich agreement. Hitler swore up and down that the agreement was *solely* about letting him have the Sudetenland because the Sudetenland belonged to the Germanic peoples, just as Putin swore up and down that taking the Luhansk and Donetsk regions was all about securing ethnically Russian territory in the Ukraine. Lo and behold, Hitler rolled right on to invade the Czechs, claiming Germany needed 'Lebensraum'; lo and behold, Putin staged a massive military build up at the Ukrainian border starting (shocker) in 2018, and accelerating in (shocker) 2019 when Trump was busy holding up Ukrainian aid and calling the other members of NATO leeches...then rolled right on towards Kyiv.
Biden is a pretty big doofus himself, but the dominoes were already falling by the time he took office. The prevailing question now is "If you walk away from Ukraine, will it be enough for Putin?" Last time we answered 'yes' to a similar question, Putin came back a few years later, and started declaring "Ukraine is historically a part of Russia, it belongs to us," before invading it. If you're Polish, how much are you willing to bet that, if he gets Ukraine without a fight, he'll suddenly change his stripes, and won't come around a few years later saying 'Poland was historically part of the Russian empire; it belongs to us', before performing the same feat?
I don't live in Poland, but if I did, it's not a bet I'd want to make. And if you don't want WW3, it's not a bet you should make either. Regardless, one thing is quite clear when you take the long view: when strongmen trample over liberal democratic institutions, take power and start cozying up to one another, things end poorly--and, typically, with tremendous, wide-spread violence--for everyone.
I suspect that Mika & Joe were just angling for an invite to some of those repulsive "galas."
What a lot of people don't know, is that pre 2016 election, if Trump were to come to a sudden halt, we'd have had to dig Joe Scarborough out of Trump's ass for a week. It switched suddenly, and now has again. How this knob has any credibility at all, is beyond me.
Trump wants to be Hitler and you will help him achieve his goal
There she is!
Karen is literally Hitler.
😜
Keep doubling down on this gibberish. It worked so well for you guys on Nov. 5th. At this rate, you won't see another candidate left of center win in your lifetime. Hilarious.
The media wanted Trump and most voters hate the idea of women being anything but weak, stupid, and cowardly. Trump WILL declare martial law and make himself dictator for life.
Yeah, people said this exact same thing in 2016 through 2020. I think my nightly BIOS reset of your simple brain theory is starting to grow legs. Tell me more about your intuitive political analysis that has somehow never happened before, yet we have examples of. You kooky lady, you crack me up!
You will continue to defend Trump as you watch your neighbors being hauled off to American Treblinkas. You might even help kill some of them yourself.
You are literally Hitler.
Cut it OUT, already! My father and uncle fought and were imprisoned by ACTUAL NAZIs! I listened to them speak of their experiences in war and prison camps. Republicans in general and Trump in particular are not Nazis. If you are looking for Nazis try any college campus. Your hysterics are utterly ridiculous.
Karen is literally Hitler.
Trump and Trumpers haven’t had the chance to do as much harm as the Nazis. That doesn’t mean they won’t if we allow them to do so. Trump wants to be Hitler so bad it pains him and if we allow it he will be Hitler with nukes. He wants that to happen.
You mean, except for the four years they were in power already and had the House and Senate majority for half that time? Except for that, right?
He has more efficient Nazis and no restraints now.
Karen is literally HITLER
I read somewhere they used to be friends and were at Mara Largo all the time before Trump ran in 2016. Same with Erin Burnett and a few others.
I'll repeat something I saw on X that made me cry laughing:
Monday Nov 4 Joe and Mika: TRUMP IS HITLER.
Wednesday Nov 6 Joe and Mika: Nice bunker, Mein Fuhrer.
They bent the knee. Fuck them and everything they do.
Along with every other person who refuses to fight Trump to the last breath.
Trump and Trumpers are monsters leading the world to a Dark age from which we will NEVER emerge.
Probably time to go hide in a cave where you can be safe.
Karen is literally Hitler.
I wish I had that option. Trump is going to destroy civilization
Bot response #83.
Biden is about to do it first in Ukraine!
You are literally Hitler.
What purpose does this serve? On what facts do you base this conclusion?
One could ask you the same question about your claims.
You are literally Hitler. Who needs facts when the accusation is THIS strong?
Also, you are a racist.
They've been on their knees for years. Why should you care who the service now?
Buckle up sweetie, you're gonna see a lot more of that. You're going to see people YOU depended upon to uphold your narrative over the last 8 years fold like cheap suits, and it's going to be very upsetting.
You are literally Hitler.
What a joker you are!
Mondays got better since you all began the Live Stream!
It would be great to get an audio option for these live streams, especially one that works with podcast apps.
I hate to have you two working yourselves to death. Well, maybe not really. 🤗❤️❤️ I do much appreciate two doing two ATW’s in this fast moving and momentous time. Thank you.
Don't overlook the Democrats openly defying the law in Pennsylvania. They're channeling the spirit of George Wallace
Hi Matt, not a fan of the vertical format. I'm watching on a desktop with a big screen but I can't turn it 90° to fill up the picture like somebody with a phone could do, presumably. That probably doesn't make sense but anyway, it's easier to see details like screen shares of newspaper articles in the old format.
I'm far too fond of Walter's ears to support the vertical format.
1:14. Matt and Walter are talking about having to watch videos of duck-and-cover during the Reagan administration.
You had to watch movies? I was *doing* it. I was in grade school in the late 50s and through the 60s and we had to do those duck-and-cover drills. They had us terrified about nuclear war.
I was in Ohio staring 1st grade in fall of 1957. Never ever did we have a duck and cover or anything like that.
I only heard about it when Atomic Cafe or wherever it was called, came out.
Except for second and fourth grade, where I was in Indiana, my entire school career was in California and I vividly remember those duck-and-cover drills. Now that you mention it, I don't really remember doing it in the Midwest. Out of range, perhaps?
Same here!
Atomic Cafe!
As a 1st grader in late 50s practice was routine ( I had no knowledge of Hiroshima till high school but saw lots of atomic tests filmed in the S. Pacific to scare me & classmates)
If caught on the playground when the big one went off, you were supposed to crouch at the foot of a wall with your hands clasped on the back of your neck. Even at that tender age, I wondered how on earth that could possibly help.
My husband was born in 1955 in California. He did the drills for real.
I never did that!
I started elementary school around 1965, & I only heard about "duck & cover" much later in a film called The Atomic Cafe. My late husband, who was 10 years older, said that he had taken part in "duck & cover" drills.
It was definitely a thing in California.
I wonder what the geographic distribution was.
What is up with California? In France they have one day to vote - a Sunday. They must show proof of citizenship and have a photo ID. Paper ballots are placed in a transparent urn. Results are known that same night (there might be a second day of voting two weeks later if no one gets more than 50% of the votes, this is usually the case.)
What is up is cheating by mail-in ballots. We have a track record since 2018 with ballot harvesting and ballots for every “citizen” — signed into law by Jerry Brown before he left office.
After that it happened in my (red) district first. Like 2 weeks to “slow the spread”, err I mean — change the result, it flipped blue for the first time in memory.
Look what happened in the LA mayoral race of Caruso vs Bass. Caruso won by 7 points on election night but 2 weeks of counting votes gave union-favorite Bass a tiny “victory”
Apparently the French have not determined that requiring photo ID and proof of citizenship is "voter suppression."
Love if you'd publish this stuff to the podcast apps after broadcast. It's way easier to listen that way.
Yes!
Dr. Meryl Nass was forced to lie about a prescription for her patient and lost her medical license.
These incidences can't be forgotten.
Would love to hear thoughts about Whoopi Magua Goldberg’s meltdown over cupcakes. 🧁 one of them literallly spit out a cupcake in solidarity.
RE: Walter's "ISM" -- calls to mind a long-defunct computer company in Boulder -- "NBI" which was commonly understood to signify "Nothing But Initials"
Your genius comes thru regardless of your head sizes.😂
Well said.
Dr. B. is a great pick for Surgeon General. I don’t know if there’s an assistant or deputy position but Dr. Scott Atlas would be a great choice too. He’s a Stanford MD with a specialty in public health and worked with Trump early on during COVID. His advice to Governor DeSantis helped keep the schools open and insanity to a minimum in Florida. I really do hope common sense and integrity is restored to our medical system with these appointments.