U.S. Presidential Election 2020 Discussion

[baystateoftheart]

[NewsFromHome]

[Tha1ChiefRocka]

I'm hoping that meteor that's supposed to pass Earth a day before the election is larger than they think it is.

[Luigii]

[Hayden]

So tired bro.

Now there some demon-looking cult woman screaming.

[Luigii]

[Hayden]

[Luigii]

[PurpleHazel]

[NewsFromHome]

Started writing a response but had to go do something. Came back after a few hours to find that you had edited your second paragraph and a lot of the nuance out. I get this Keith; saying Biden has never said anything that a white supremacist would find favorable is just factually inaccurate. I am too lazy to edit this though so keep in mind there are somethings I’m responding to here that no longer are recorded:

I am more concerned about trumpism and fascism than I am neoliberalism. Never said I wasn’t, nor was I trying to imply that. You are oversimplifying my point though. The pandemic isn’t entirely the reason Spencer (who originally got famous for his 2016 Trump endorsement) is making the switch. It’s certainly more ideological than that and about the opportunities Spencer can see for fascism. Even when the pandemic is over Spencer can get about as much done under Biden as he can Trump.

Biden doesn’t dogwhistle nazis like trump. We’re going to see Joe and Kamala do the ol’ razzle dazzle every time a white supremacist gets too loud. A good round of “we hear you, we see you, we’re with blm!” (just god, anything but the BLM alphabet blocks that Warren pulled at the convention; I beg them to raise the bar just an inch) . But it’s not like Joe is going to make a single policy change to help where it counts. It’s not like Joe is actually going to sniff and root out fascism in America. He’s going to hold steady the same infrastructural racism that has plagued America for generations. Him being Obama’s Vice President might be a beacon of hope for some, a return to normalcy, but it’s not. The greatest year of Black death at the hands of the police was under Obama in 2015. I don’t think Biden is equipped or has the history of being equipped to deal with this. This is a man who used to be pro segregation in the 70’s.

Now maybe you say it’s wrong to pull up history that old, but it is kind of disingenuous to claim that Biden’s never pandered to white supremacists. More recently he’s said repeatedly some of his closest working friends are white supremacists (Biden loves his Dixiecrats), he’s actively stating he will INCREASE police funding (which in the city I’m in where we have already dedicated upwards of 50% of the budget to the police force is just unacceptable), Kamala’s incarceration rates of POC individuals in my state are atrociously high, Biden has always had a soft spot for vigilanteism that always feel just a littttttle racially biased (cornpop, his traffic violation citizen arrests), his rave culture ban bill which succeeded in dispersing a large segment of POC and queer communities. I could go on. The Biden administration isn’t going to be the thing that stops fascism. If anything they’ll give them a seat at the table as long as they’re quiet just as he already gave Colin Powell a seat last week at the DNC. Fascism in the US is too out there now to really be stopped by a party that’s decided to become the 80’s Republican Party (those, be the hero for your country speeches at the DNC are sounding mighty Raegan-y) just with extra progressive lip service but no action. Spencer can obviously see that because Trumpism isn’t Fascism in the year 2020. Both movements are inherently far right for sure but they have different means to achieving goals.

Trumpism has all the nationalism you’d want as a nazi, but in 2016, Trump and the MAGA orc horde advertised another aspect as well. The promise of a right wing collectivist movement. It was this combined with the ethno state signaling that fanned the spark of the online alt right movement into the streets aflame.

Now in 2020, Trumpism is very different. It’s too corrupt, too insular and nightmarishly spontaneous. It’s a war of power between Trump’s aides, lobbyists and his own mood swings that’s keeping this administration so unstable that fascists can’t really accelerate their particular right wing brand. Fascism can't be the political force that say the Qanon people (Also deeply white supremacist) are. The Qanon people are only going to be more of a threat and will be in the house next year when the few qanon reps that won their primaries that are running in this years election inevitably do get in because they’re running in a red state. And that represents a particularly philosophically tense, individualistic brand of far right bullshit that while super fucking racist is somewhat at odds with fascism.

I’m genuinely worried for all outcomes all the while I see my community dying or getting more injured every day, either from Covid or a corrupt police state. We’re in the conditions that fascism thrives in. And it’s not going to be beaten at the end of this election.