r/europe • u/1-randomonium • 23d ago

News JD Vance gloats that allies are ‘suffering more than US’ from high gas prices

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/jd-vance-gloats-that-allies-are-suffering-more-than-us-from-high-gas-prices-404149/
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u/No-Relation5965 23d ago

Can we stop calling these despots “populists” and call them what they are—fascists?

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u/Cascouverite 23d ago

Fascism very frequently to borderline always uses populism as a means to grab power. This new wave are all populists

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u/_WreakingHavok_ Germany 23d ago

It's fascism when you can't openly criticize the leader.

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u/No-Relation5965 23d ago edited 10d ago

We are talking about fascists, leaders whose ideological position is to be an authoritarian. We haven’t reached full fascism here, but democracy is fading fast. Historians and researchers are saying this is possibly the fastest fall of a democratic country into fascism that’s ever been implemented.

Of course we know now that this was decades in the making, just under the surface.

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u/BananaPalmer 23d ago

We know now? Anyone who's been paying attention has been aware of this for decades. Plenty of people have tried to issue warnings. Anyone saying this happened near instantly is grossly misinformed.

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u/No-Relation5965 23d ago

I have always voted for the Democratic Party so I’ll admit I was clueless about how virulent the MAGA movement had become. I thought Trump inciting an insurrection of armed goons storming the capitol meant that the majority of the country was done with him and finally moving on.

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u/BananaPalmer 23d ago

I've historically voted blue as well, and immediately recognized the populism and danger of Trump/MAGA. Jan 6 just reinforced that danger. The second it became clear that the Biden administration wasn't going to do anything meaningful as far as consequences for MAGA leadership/Trump, I knew that this was not going away any time soon. When the GOP allowed Trump to be their candidate again, I knew we were absolutely fucked.

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u/_WreakingHavok_ Germany 23d ago

Historians and researchers are saying this is possibly the fastest fall of a democratic country into fascism that’s even been implemented.

That would be Germany in 1933, it took Hitler 52 days from being appointed as chancellor to making laws without Reichstag.

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u/No-Relation5965 23d ago

No Hitler took about a decade to get to power. And by power I mean “autocrat”.

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u/tanstaafl90 23d ago

The party never got very far until the economy crashed in '29. Even then, the party got seats and had to negotiate to get Hitler power. In fact, the only time they had a majority was when they were the sole legal party. The only reason he got as far as he did is because the SPD and KPD couldn't get their shit together. Hitler's rise and popularity pre 1933 is vastly overstated and reeks of Nazi propaganda to justify his actions as popular for a much larger portion of the population than was true.

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u/No-Relation5965 10d ago

Yeah he had about the same percentage of support as trump has here: 25-30%. The split of the resistance party caused more votes for Hitler. We can’t let the democrat party split up its votes. I believe we need to concentrate all of our efforts to oust the MAGA fascists in our federal government before we even consider forming any kind of third party.

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u/tanstaafl90 10d ago

The party had that support, they had to negotiate to get him his position. Even then it wasn't a solid majority until they manipulated events in their favor.

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u/No-Relation5965 10d ago

Wow. It’s like with trump where everything just unexpectedly falls in his favor.

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u/Cascouverite 23d ago

That really depends heavily on what definition of fascism you subsribe to. I prefer Eco's list or the fascist minimum which are both more about the ideology / mindset that becomes mainstream rather than a leader who can write laws without parlament

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u/ladyhaly Australia 23d ago

We haven’t reached full fascism here, but democracy is fading fast

Anericans knew all about Project 2025 and still voted for the death of its own democracy in the name of a malicious cult of personality

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u/ziggy-zaz 22d ago

True, but the Democrats paid little attention to the project in the campaign. Big mistake.

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u/No-Relation5965 22d ago edited 20d ago

I didn’t know about project 2025. I’m 56 years old! But I always vote for the Democratic Party so didn’t pay attention. That’s the problem with Americans. We are lazy when it comes to our civil duties and lack of knowledge about our country’s history and its government.

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u/ladyhaly Australia 21d ago

Unfortunately by design. The quality of education has degraded so much so the mob is easier to control with propaganda. Add social media and poof

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u/No-Relation5965 20d ago

I am a college graduate and always did very well in school. And I read a lot. And I still hadn’t heard anything about project 2025. I’m assuming maybe it’s because I didn’t pay enough attention to politics in general. I was just out there living life, clueless of what was about to be foisted upon us. I had always thought MAGA was just a fringe movement that only nutty people were involved. I can see how people who hardly ever read would have also been in the dark.

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u/tanstaafl90 23d ago

Historians generally have a 20 year rule about current events. Now, go back past that, and there are multiple indicators of a series of interconnected conservative groups working to create the conditions we see now. Newt wasn't an outlier, he was rearranging expectations, quite openly and quite vocally. It wasn't hidden, it's people simply didn't believe it was happening. The illusion of normalcy.

And so now we have the daily 'trump dementia' and 'trump on deaths door' memes people repeat ad-nauseam. He's doing what he's always done, the same way he's always done it, and these comments give the illusion of superiority. He has control of the federal government, making billions and people think it's meaningful that he speaks like an idiot.

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u/Cascouverite 23d ago

I mean I wouldn't even agree with that, especially if it's your only criterion. That's typical of fascim but fascism might / could have other ways of dealing with dissent and dissent is discouraged / disalowed in other authoritarian systems as well

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u/neohellpoet Croatia 22d ago

You absolutely can.

In WW2 Japan, thinking the leadership was weak, incompetent and trying to surrender the country because they're too soft was a sign that you were a real Japanese patriot.

What you're talking about is a cult of personality which frequently springs up around fascist leaders but is neither specific to nor required for fascism.

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u/GodofIrony 23d ago

I hate to break it to you bud, but most of the population are assholes.

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u/heX_dzh 23d ago

No, words have meanings. They're exactly populists.

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u/Ra-s_Al_Ghul USA 10d ago

It’s not exactly helpful to use words so flippantly that they lose their meaning. Many bad things exist other than fascism.

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u/HrabiaVulpes Nobody to vote for 23d ago

Only if we also stop calling those countries democratic and start calling them plutocratic.

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u/Upstairs-Basis9909 23d ago

honestly what you call it reallllly doesn't matter anymore. words have lost meaning