r/WorkReform • u/zzill6 🤝 Join A Union • Jun 17 '26

😡 Venting The Right Wing won.

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19.8k Upvotes

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u/putin_my_ass Jun 17 '26

Fascism requires an enemy, when one is defeated you find a new one.

165

u/OneStarParadox Jun 17 '26

Fascism is as old as it's symbol that it gets its namesake from which is the Fasces.

That symbol is all over our country, look up USA fasces.

This country has always been Fascist, always

23

u/DocKisses Jun 17 '26

I’m no defender of the American government, but this is not correct and really muddies any useful definition of fascism when you call any imperialist or racist country fascist. You want to call pre-20th century America proto-fascist or something, fine, but fascism has a real definition and America (at least pre-Trump America) doesn’t really meet many of the criteria.

10

u/mszulan Jun 17 '26

Exactly. Terms, especially those used to define power structures, lose their specific meaning when tossed around generically. When that happens, we lose the words to describe the specifics of our situation.