The AfD is the German version of the present day US Republicans and they only got 20% of the vote, not won both a Presidency (which in Germany is mainly a symbolic post) and an absolute majority in the Bundestag (roughly, their Congress).
Further, just like the effects of Brexit on the UK cooled down for at least a decade the anti-EU sentiment in the rest of Europe, what Trump and the Republicans are doing with the power they got in the US is likely to (once enough of the side effects of his actions pile up) cool down any love for that kind of Fascism in the rest of the West.
The Far Right has an ideological framework of purelly criticizing/complaining/accusing, which is great when you’re an observer sitting on the sidelines and shouting about how those who are actually doing things are doing it all wrong, but doesn’t at all work when they’re in a position where they actually need to do things themselves, so they invariably fuck things up badly, generally because over the mid and long term the side effects of their actions completelly wipe-out any positive direct effects those actions were expected to have and then remain active and further destroying for far longer than the positive effects do.
IMHO, the danger for the rest of the West is far more that Elon and Trump start WWIII, than that people in other countries will be inspired to follow their ideology by seeing what they do with it in the US.
(The danger for the US, which I suspect is pretty much guaranteed since both major parties there have sided with the Pillager segment of society, is the country will be firmly and forever dethroned from its position as super power within a decade)
There is something that happens when fascism’s failures become increasingly obvious. They don’t necessarily lose power. What they do is insist that the problem is that they weren’t cruel enough so far.
“You can deceive some people all of the time or all people some of the time, but you can’t deceive all people all of the time”.
My point is that they need to deceive all people (well, most people) to get into power in most Democracies and their lies only stretch so far once they have to actually show results in things that matter to everybody, so eventually they’re back at deceiving some people (i.e. true believers) all of the time just like when they started and that’s not enough for power (plus the distrust in them after they had power, fucked it up and the many stopped believing their lies, tends to last at least a few decades).
As long as they can be voted away Fascists, whilst never going extinct (there are always the true believers), will not hold power for long.
However if they manage to change the system into Autoritarianism (like Orban in Hungary and Putin in Russia) they can stay there until the day they die.
So back to my original point, Trump might become dictator for life in the US if he manages to subvert what little is left of Democracy in that country, but due to the huge media exposure of US policy everywhere in the World, his example will be counted in the “can’t deceive all people all of the time” side for any wannabe Fascists everywhere who haven’t already got themselves enough power to destroy the Democratic system in their country.
PS: Thinking about this, Europe in the time when the NAZI party was growing is a great example of my point - several countries turned Fascist at the same time as Germany and those which didn’t participate in WWII in the side of the Axis and got defeated (like Spain and Portugal) remained Fascist Dictatorships for decades, but countries which had strong internal support for Fascist ideas (such as the UK, were there is even a photo of young Princess Elizabeth - later Queen - being taught how to do a NAZI salute by her uncle the then King) during the growth of the NAZI party but hadn’t turn Fascist by the time Germany invaded neighbouring countries, turned away from Fascism when that happenned and never became Fascist nations. Further, this had impact outside Europe (including in the US were there was also a lot of support for Fascism) and only by the 70s did Fascism returned somewhere (specifically, the Pinochet Dictatorship in Chile from 1973 to 1990).
(That said the exception is Greece which became Fascist right after the end of WWII, curiously with the military support of the Brits who attacked the Communist Resistance in Greece to stop that nation from turning Communist and allowed the Fascists to take power)
The CDU guy who’s about to be chancellor is the classic “economically liberal, anti regulation, blame foreigners for all violence” far right who pretends he’s not far right by taking the head of a party that keeps helping the far right rhetoric, instead of straight up joining the far right party, for some reason. He’s been mad at Merkel for 20 years because she sidelined him in the party because he was too much further right. He’s not Musk, but he’s the guy who keeps making sure Musk and Trump never get shut down.
Well, then it might very well be that the effects of Trump’s policies did not manifest themselves on time to sway Germans away from the Far-Right.
Having lived through Brexit, I still very much expect that what Trump is now doing in the US will fuckup most of the Far-Right in Europe. This belief is also anchored on what we are now seeing in countries which were “ahead of the curve” in bringing the Far-Right into Government, such as Poland, who are now turning away from it as well as things like the recent, sudden and somehow unexpected growth of the (real) Leftwing reversing the trend of moving to the Right in places like Finland.
I expect that, given its much greater economic dominance, size and footprint of reporting about it in of the media space, the example of the US will be far more visible and impactful in the general population of Europe than the examples of Hungary, Poland or Finland.
I don’t want to unnecessarily downplay fears, but I think the main way a world war would be initiated here would require them to win over the army. While there’s some nutjobs in that sector that will gleefully imprison defenseless immigrants, I don’t think anyone wants to go to war against a world power, and many have taken an oath against following blatantly evil orders.
Much of the control exerted by Trump has been through emails and small bands of fowl actors given security through the executive branch. They also have a faction of chaos enabled by the J6 rioters, who are spiteful but not someone he can direct. That’s scary, but it also means he doesn’t have any kind of actual legion of force lifting their arms in unified salutes.
There is some danger of war creeping out through Russia’s constant slow greed, which would likely mean the USA not getting involved until our internal politics can reach an agreement.
Trump just replaced the the chairman of the joint Chiefs of staff (the highest military position) with a syncopant. He has 4 more years to purge the military and he is absolutely going to try.
If the military stops his coup, it will be the lower ranks overthrowing the leadership. I have no faith. The military will be a different beast by the time trump goes for a third term.
Whilst I would say that triggering an Economic Crisis in the US which spreads to other Economies is a greater risk than a World War, American Presidents starting wars to distract from their own mismanagement is tradition and given Trump’s “if some is good, the maximum possible is the bestest” philosphy in his policy choices so far in this presidency, him through an accumulation of measures that make enemies out of friends, and small military interventions creating a situation that escalates to WWIII, is a realistic possibility.
I mean the idea that the threat of Military Force is a valid tool even against US Allies predates Trump - just look at the Legislation Congress passed to invade The Netherlands if ever an American national was arrested by the ICC - and Fascists traditionally see Military Force as a perfect valid tool in the Great Game and Allies as only good as long as they’re useful.
Considering just how many Americans voted for him and the brainwashed hyper-nationalism that’s the bread and butter of military training everywhere, I wouldn’t rely on the US Army to not go ahead and attack a target in a country that was deemed a US Ally just months earlier and something like that escalating to something much bigger.
What legislation from Congress are you referring to? I searched on the motions you were citing but only found Trump’s recent executive order - and he writes so many (often contradicting themselves, failing explanation, or getting rejected in court) those are often with less merit.
I generally understand that America’s far right doesn’t hope to invade anyone - they vote for their leaders under beliefs that Democratic leaders are “too weak” to prevent conflicts or that they have sinister/hostile motivations.
You’re not completely wrong in your analysis, but these days I think more populations have become aware of the divide between government/civilian opinions.
The AfD is the German version of the present day US Republicans and they only got 20% of the vote, not won both a Presidency (which in Germany is mainly a symbolic post) and an absolute majority in the Bundestag (roughly, their Congress).
Further, just like the effects of Brexit on the UK cooled down for at least a decade the anti-EU sentiment in the rest of Europe, what Trump and the Republicans are doing with the power they got in the US is likely to (once enough of the side effects of his actions pile up) cool down any love for that kind of Fascism in the rest of the West.
The Far Right has an ideological framework of purelly criticizing/complaining/accusing, which is great when you’re an observer sitting on the sidelines and shouting about how those who are actually doing things are doing it all wrong, but doesn’t at all work when they’re in a position where they actually need to do things themselves, so they invariably fuck things up badly, generally because over the mid and long term the side effects of their actions completelly wipe-out any positive direct effects those actions were expected to have and then remain active and further destroying for far longer than the positive effects do.
IMHO, the danger for the rest of the West is far more that Elon and Trump start WWIII, than that people in other countries will be inspired to follow their ideology by seeing what they do with it in the US.
(The danger for the US, which I suspect is pretty much guaranteed since both major parties there have sided with the Pillager segment of society, is the country will be firmly and forever dethroned from its position as super power within a decade)
There is something that happens when fascism’s failures become increasingly obvious. They don’t necessarily lose power. What they do is insist that the problem is that they weren’t cruel enough so far.
“You can deceive some people all of the time or all people some of the time, but you can’t deceive all people all of the time”.
My point is that they need to deceive all people (well, most people) to get into power in most Democracies and their lies only stretch so far once they have to actually show results in things that matter to everybody, so eventually they’re back at deceiving some people (i.e. true believers) all of the time just like when they started and that’s not enough for power (plus the distrust in them after they had power, fucked it up and the many stopped believing their lies, tends to last at least a few decades).
As long as they can be voted away Fascists, whilst never going extinct (there are always the true believers), will not hold power for long.
However if they manage to change the system into Autoritarianism (like Orban in Hungary and Putin in Russia) they can stay there until the day they die.
So back to my original point, Trump might become dictator for life in the US if he manages to subvert what little is left of Democracy in that country, but due to the huge media exposure of US policy everywhere in the World, his example will be counted in the “can’t deceive all people all of the time” side for any wannabe Fascists everywhere who haven’t already got themselves enough power to destroy the Democratic system in their country.
PS: Thinking about this, Europe in the time when the NAZI party was growing is a great example of my point - several countries turned Fascist at the same time as Germany and those which didn’t participate in WWII in the side of the Axis and got defeated (like Spain and Portugal) remained Fascist Dictatorships for decades, but countries which had strong internal support for Fascist ideas (such as the UK, were there is even a photo of young Princess Elizabeth - later Queen - being taught how to do a NAZI salute by her uncle the then King) during the growth of the NAZI party but hadn’t turn Fascist by the time Germany invaded neighbouring countries, turned away from Fascism when that happenned and never became Fascist nations. Further, this had impact outside Europe (including in the US were there was also a lot of support for Fascism) and only by the 70s did Fascism returned somewhere (specifically, the Pinochet Dictatorship in Chile from 1973 to 1990).
(That said the exception is Greece which became Fascist right after the end of WWII, curiously with the military support of the Brits who attacked the Communist Resistance in Greece to stop that nation from turning Communist and allowed the Fascists to take power)
The CDU guy who’s about to be chancellor is the classic “economically liberal, anti regulation, blame foreigners for all violence” far right who pretends he’s not far right by taking the head of a party that keeps helping the far right rhetoric, instead of straight up joining the far right party, for some reason. He’s been mad at Merkel for 20 years because she sidelined him in the party because he was too much further right. He’s not Musk, but he’s the guy who keeps making sure Musk and Trump never get shut down.
Well, then it might very well be that the effects of Trump’s policies did not manifest themselves on time to sway Germans away from the Far-Right.
Having lived through Brexit, I still very much expect that what Trump is now doing in the US will fuckup most of the Far-Right in Europe. This belief is also anchored on what we are now seeing in countries which were “ahead of the curve” in bringing the Far-Right into Government, such as Poland, who are now turning away from it as well as things like the recent, sudden and somehow unexpected growth of the (real) Leftwing reversing the trend of moving to the Right in places like Finland.
I expect that, given its much greater economic dominance, size and footprint of reporting about it in of the media space, the example of the US will be far more visible and impactful in the general population of Europe than the examples of Hungary, Poland or Finland.
I don’t want to unnecessarily downplay fears, but I think the main way a world war would be initiated here would require them to win over the army. While there’s some nutjobs in that sector that will gleefully imprison defenseless immigrants, I don’t think anyone wants to go to war against a world power, and many have taken an oath against following blatantly evil orders.
Much of the control exerted by Trump has been through emails and small bands of fowl actors given security through the executive branch. They also have a faction of chaos enabled by the J6 rioters, who are spiteful but not someone he can direct. That’s scary, but it also means he doesn’t have any kind of actual legion of force lifting their arms in unified salutes.
There is some danger of war creeping out through Russia’s constant slow greed, which would likely mean the USA not getting involved until our internal politics can reach an agreement.
Trump just replaced the the chairman of the joint Chiefs of staff (the highest military position) with a syncopant. He has 4 more years to purge the military and he is absolutely going to try.
If the military stops his coup, it will be the lower ranks overthrowing the leadership. I have no faith. The military will be a different beast by the time trump goes for a third term.
Whilst I would say that triggering an Economic Crisis in the US which spreads to other Economies is a greater risk than a World War, American Presidents starting wars to distract from their own mismanagement is tradition and given Trump’s “if some is good, the maximum possible is the bestest” philosphy in his policy choices so far in this presidency, him through an accumulation of measures that make enemies out of friends, and small military interventions creating a situation that escalates to WWIII, is a realistic possibility.
I mean the idea that the threat of Military Force is a valid tool even against US Allies predates Trump - just look at the Legislation Congress passed to invade The Netherlands if ever an American national was arrested by the ICC - and Fascists traditionally see Military Force as a perfect valid tool in the Great Game and Allies as only good as long as they’re useful.
Considering just how many Americans voted for him and the brainwashed hyper-nationalism that’s the bread and butter of military training everywhere, I wouldn’t rely on the US Army to not go ahead and attack a target in a country that was deemed a US Ally just months earlier and something like that escalating to something much bigger.
What legislation from Congress are you referring to? I searched on the motions you were citing but only found Trump’s recent executive order - and he writes so many (often contradicting themselves, failing explanation, or getting rejected in court) those are often with less merit.
I generally understand that America’s far right doesn’t hope to invade anyone - they vote for their leaders under beliefs that Democratic leaders are “too weak” to prevent conflicts or that they have sinister/hostile motivations.
You’re not completely wrong in your analysis, but these days I think more populations have become aware of the divide between government/civilian opinions.