"If Trump is not stopped, he'll hand MAGA authoritarianism an enduring competitive advantage..."

[Dennis Donovan]

Link to tweet

Greg Sargent
"If Trump is not stopped, he’ll hand MAGA authoritarianism an enduring competitive advantage and perhaps permanently debilitate its liberal democratic opponents."

Useful, informative Matt McManus deconstruction of Trump's version of Orbanism:

Which Variety of Authoritarianism Is Trumpism?

It shares features with fascism but its closest ideological kin at the moment is Orbánism

Matthew McManus
Sep 17, 2024

“When Fascism came into power, most people were unprepared, both theoretically and practically. They were unable to believe that man could exhibit such propensities for evil, such lust for power, such disregard for the rights of the weak, or such yearning for submission. Only a few had been aware of the rumbling of the volcano preceding the outbreak.” — Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom

The interminable presidential election campaign has generated a discourse as predictable as is (sadly) important: Is Trump the second coming of Adolf Hitler? Op-ed after op-ed has weighed in on whether Trumpism is fascistic. These follow on the heels of lengthy academic and journalistic debates in tomes—like Did It Happen Here?: Perspectives on Fascism and America and The Wannabe Fascists: A Guide to Understanding the Greatest Threat to Democracy—that ponder whether Trump is better called a fascist, an authoritarian populist, or countless other neologisms. New Netflix series like Hitler and the Nazis: Evil On Triumph add fuel to the claim that U.S. 2024 is Weimar 1933, with commentators repeating how Hitler wanted to “Make Germany Great Again” and warning that history can repeat itself.

Not to be outdone, Trump and his supporters have fired back by describing Joe Biden as running a “Gestapo” administration and claiming liberals want to establish a nightmarish “total state” where presumably everyone is forced to watch RuPaul while being served only Bud Light. More recently, Trump called Kamala Harris a “fascist” (and a communist). And back in the day, even current Never Trumpers like Jonah Goldberg flirted with the “Obama is Hitler” schtick.

What Is Fascism?
The Trump-fascism question is very important. There’s of course a vapid reductio ad Hitlerum argument which manically frames any politician or movement one doesn’t like as the resurrection of Nazism. But Trump has long courted far-right movements and figures like the Proud Boys and Steve Bannon, and the love has very much been reciprocated.

Part of the difficulty lies in defining what Stanley Payne calls “generic fascism” in his 1980 Fascism: Comparison and Definition—a set of features common to all fascist movements across space and time which allow us to recognize one when we see it. This is made all the more difficult by the fact that very few far-right groups and politicians would wish to be identified as fascist (in contrast to pre-World War II) and will resist any such characterization, even when it might be warranted. Consequently, any ascription of the label will likely be imposed by enemies of both fascism and the group so labeled, making the process incredibly controversial.

/snip

[zorbasd]

1. That's the whole point!!

That's why he has a love of Orban of Hungary. It's the model the Fascists want to bring on America's shore.

[Cha]

2. No Doubt. TY & Greg Sargent

[WarGamer]

3. Good read.

For once an author carefully researches the definition of fascism and realizes the definition is NOT "something I don't like"

Two thumbs up.

[dalton99a]

4. Kick

[allegorical oracle]

5. Orban's history is frighteningly similar to Project 2025...

A sampling of his Wikipedia bio reveals a couple of examples:

--2012 Orban's party implements a new constitution (behind closed doors). It supports traditional values, nationalism, references to Christianity, and electoral reform. That reform reduced the seats in parliament from 386 to 199.

--2020 Parliament grants Orban the right to "rule by decree". He delivered the Great Replacement Theory and spoke against the "mixing of European/non-European blood."

In summary:
"Orbán's blend of soft Euroscepticism, populism,[200][201][202] and national conservatism has seen him compared to politicians and political parties as diverse as Jarosław Kaczyński's Law and Justice, Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia, Matteo Salvini's Lega (previously Lega Nord), Marine Le Pen's National Rally, Donald Trump,[203] Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Vladimir Putin.[204] Orbán has sought to make Hungary an "ideological center for ... an international conservative movement".[205]"

[B.See]

6. Personally, I'm not as inclined to

parse fascism (or the elements thereof) into shades of grey via the (bullshit cosmopolitan whitewash?) of the learned author(s) in the linked material,

preferring instead the "if it quacks like a duck" principle.

A fascist by any other name...