(12-07-2022, 12:49 PM)Lucky2Last Wrote: The RINO's aren't Marxists... any more than most of the political left. They are fascists, though. Same with their leftwing counterparts. The only quibbles are which billionaires get our money.

There are few words that are harder to define than fascism.
Fascism is often imagined as the merger of the state with large corporations, and perhaps some voted for it or donated to it on those terms, but in practice fascism is usually just direct state takeover of both the corporations and the labor unions.  The practical difference between the fascists and the communists was only in the arguments each would make to gain power.  The fascists would appeal to decency, morality, and national and racial destiny, while the communists would appeal to progress and international workers, but once in power their goals were very similar.  Eliminate all possible centers of dissent, consolidate to a single unquestioned leader, etc.

But yes there is a disturbing way that we grant expansive powers to large corporations to basically use their donations as a cudgel to make sure they are regulated only by people that they have trained and selected, and that any new government program to stimulate or even out the economy has their blessing above all, above even the blessing of the voters.  That definitely rhymes with what the intellectual founders of fascism claimed they were trying to set up. 

The differences are that we've washed the racism off of it, mostly, the morals have changed (a negative attitude towards homosexuality used to be required, now, a positive attitude is), and there's a two-party system in front of it.  A lot of people think, before Trump, the two party system was all posturing and false choice.  I don't agree with that, fully, I think either party is willing to do whatever it takes to win.  Their failure to diverge on certain issues simply because the consensus among the American public really is that strong, even if a few prominent intellectuals are able to make persuasive counter arguments.  But it's not as if our elections were fake.  Certain corporations have sometimes faced real harm from the "wrong party" winning the elections.

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