Zarni's remark: There have been numerous debates and discussions as to "Fascist" and "Fascism" are accurate, Apr or simply unnecessarily incendiary and provocative. Son of a New York's KKK member of German descent, Donald Trump, the world's biggest Conman, is seen as simply pragmatic, if unhinged, but not Hitler or Mussolini or even Sir Oswald Mosley. Trump has for decades publicly talked about his German racial supremacy via his genes. Just ignore this one as a tortured logic to pin the root of Trump's Fascist worldview onto his late 19th century German migratory root.
To keep splitting the hair around "is Trump Fascist like Hitler and other mass-murderous leaders of Europe?" is: 1) to miss the fundamentally "impure" (that is, multiple strands and eclectic) nature of ideology - all bodies of human thoughts, really, including organized bodies of religious thoughts, 2) to elevate "Fascism" to the intellectual heights or depths which this assorted set of morally pathetically and intellectually weightless ideas simply does not have. None of us - certainly I would not - consider Hitler or Mussolini or Togyo - a "(rational) thinker", or " (rational) philosopher", in the way Marx or Gotama Buddha or Confucius is.
If one reads whatever bodies of speeches, writings, testimonies left by Nazis and other Fascists in considerable quantities Fascists were always drawn from multiple class - and even racial backgrounds. There were literally thousands of German Jews in Hitler's openly Jew-hating Nazi military, until they were told to "take off your Nazi military uniform because you have Jude blood".
Additionally, to read Fascism and Fascist as something that needs to be judged against the Gold Standard Fascisms of Europe - really the Darkest Continent in which everything mass-murderous has been rooted, over the last 500 years (include neo-Totalitarian Capitalism, Totalitarian Communism, etc. is not dissimilar warped genocide deniers, looking for purpose-built death camps and crematoriums with gas chambers, and cattle cars running in and out of these sites of Inhumanity, to see post-Holocaust genocides meet Hitler's Gold Standards.
In a rather pathetic way, the Germans I know, including elite Federal Foreign Office diplomats in Berlin - not the entire people - have argued with me over the Rohingya genocide as to why flimsy bamboo- or barbed wire fenced places/camps in Rakhine state could not be referred to as "concentration camps". Finally, even if the German and Italian fascists of the Old Europe - throw in Austrian, Norwegian, Czech, Hungarian, Croatian, Dutch, French, English, and many other Europeans who thought Fascism was cool in the 1920's, 1930's -- are to be our yardstick, their strands of ideas & strengths of hate and anger that were loosely lumped under this ominous label Fascism differed significantly. Just glance at the US army psychologists profiles and testimonies of a few dozen senior Nazis held in Nuremberg for the trials in 1945/46.
You would notice these Class A criminals and sick minds had their own material priorities and varying degrees of racial bigotry towards "non-pure" Germans. Finally, I am reminded of my conversation in Hanoi back in Dec 2005 with the Sorbonne-educated Vietnamese royalty who gave up her upper class life in Paris, and returned to Vietnam to join Ho Chi Minh's liberation struggle first against the French and subsequently against the Americans. (I was with a small group of the Rockefeller Leadership fellows - we were just blowing Standard Oil man's ill-gotten money - made "prestigious" over decades - on 5 or 6 stars hotel, "studying poverty" and devouring fancy cuisines in places like Mekong Delta, Jamaica, Oxaca, etc. ) The royal-cum-communist leader told us about Hanoi "socialism with Vietnamese characteristics". I asked her to define what she meant by that, she said, "we are still discussing and debating that in the Party". She was chair of a major committee.
I loved it then. I use it as my yardstick against any talk of Trump and MAGA Fascism: if a really sharp Vietnamese woman properly educated at the Sorbonne at an era when Socialism and Communism were the World View of all national elites in former Euro-colonies could not define what Socialism with Vietnamese characteristics, forget Trump and 100 million MAGA Americans including Burmese migrants, refugees and exiles, offering us any clarity on Trump's ideology. Call it what you will. I see a Fascist nation over there. If it quacks like a duck, and if if walks like duck, it can't be a poodle. Have a great day! Zarni
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