> In that case then neither can the American left call the right fascist.
Both sides call each other fascist, usually by misapplying the term. That said, the political program of today’s American right is much closer in alignment to historical fascism (and includes some self-avowed fascists) than the American left. Which makes sense, historical fascism was always a right-wing and conservative political program.
> By definition, you just said, the moment they are church affiliated they cease to be fascists. Isn't that right?
Well no, religiosity doesn’t make you fascist, and fascism doesn’t make you areligious… there’s a big leap between church-affiliated and totalitarian theocracy. Though, again, the American right is a lot closer to wanting to establish a totalitarian theocracy than the American left.
> And if that's true then we can say the left's agenda in calling the right fascists looks strikingly similar to the one you attributed solely to the right.
Well, no… if the American left were calling the American right something like “Christofascists”, then maybe. And I didn’t say that crafting propagandistic neologisms was exclusively a tool of the right, it’s just one the right is really prone to using precisely because those neologisms appeal to the more authoritarian elements of their base. And, yet again, the American right is way more aligned with authoritarianism than the American left, which is what makes the left’s own ignorant base more prone to discord than all joining in a chant of worship to their orange god-king. Precisely the point of this kind of propaganda, really.
The real center is when you realize what direction the Overton Window is from you. If it’s too your right, then the odds are you’re yesterday’s centrist and today’s communist. In today’s America the Overton Window is extremely far to the right.
>historical fascism was always a right-wing and conservative political program
Like when the right conquered the left in the civil war and freed the slaves? I suppose that could still be fascism, but you'll have to abandon the idea that fascism is wrong if you want to die on that hill. The real point is that to identify it as wrong or right, you need simply bend the meaning of the term.
The left has been silencing scientists that disagree with their agenda. That seems pretty authoritarian.
Isn't the left working towards censorship through cancel culture? That seems pretty conservative. (Fascist even?)
All these sum up to ambiguity and that's the same point we're both making. The subjectivity of the terminology is exactly why it's used so rampantly. You can paint anyone to be anything you want so long as you are using words that have no definition.
That's why you said this:
>Both sides call each other fascist, usually by misapplying the term.
Misapplying is subjective. Both sides can call each other whatever they need to in order to win the ability to collect lobbying dollars from the corporations whose interests they represent.
If one of them has succeeded in making you believe that they are the more agreeable, it can only mean that you find their marketing to be particularly effective.
Or, if you like, the opposite can be true and we can say that "Islamofascism" is a real term that applies in certain cases. We can take our pick. Both are true depending on the scope of the discussion. And you'll feel justified arguing one way or the other so long as the marketing has created a solid identity and sense of righteousness with which you can carry your argument.
Here are a couple more blurry points you can spend time on:
1. Republican Justice Kennedy wrote the ruling that made gay sex legal. [1]
2. A Republican majority congressional vote has been responsible for nearly every Civil Rights Act in the history of the US. [2]
Are these examples of conservative fascist religious idealism? As I just explained... sure they are! If you need them to be. But then so must be the Democratic party when they claim to champion civil rights and poverty solutions while enjoying the majority lobbying from Google, Meta, and Netflix.
> Like when the right conquered the left in the civil war and freed the slaves?
LOL, whut? You do know that, at the time of the Civil War, the Republican Party was the left-of-the-then-center progressive party and the Democratic Party was the right-of-the-then-center, yeah?
> I suppose that could still be fascism, but you'll have to abandon the idea that fascism is wrong if you want to die on that hill.
Fascism, as a political program, didn’t exist during the First American Civil War. By 1945 we should all have been pretty clear that the only good fascist is a dead one.
> The real point is that to identify it as wrong or right, you need simply bend the meaning of the term.
Precisely why I don’t like bending the meaning of the term in an attempt to make fascism apply to periods before anyone had called themselves a fascist.
> The left has been silencing scientists that disagree with their agenda.
I’m not sure those facts are in evidence. Silencing “scientists” who speak outside their area of expertise does happen a lot though, when those folks are going against well-established facts.
> That seems pretty authoritarian.
Please go look up the definition of authoritarian.
> Isn't the left working towards censorship through cancel culture?
“Cancel culture” is an invention of the right, coined for exactly the same purposes as “cultural Marxism”. Marx had nothing to say on culture, and the fact that social opprobrium attends on those saying unpopular or simply stupid things isn’t some radical new invention, and certainly not a new kind of culture.
> That seems pretty conservative. (Fascist even?)
Once more, go find a dictionary.
> […] You can paint anyone to be anything you want so long as you are using words that have no definition.
That’s why we use dictionaries, and why I use the term fascism to mean the historical political movement that defined itself fascism.
> If one of them has succeeded in making you believe that they are the more agreeable, it can only mean that you find their marketing to be particularly effective.
I find neither side agreeable. My metric is simple, if you have a choice between two evils, choose the lesser of two evils. The easiest way to determine the greater of two evils is “does their rhetoric demonize those without power”… since the middle of the last century the American right has claimed the title of greater evil, and keeps on doubling down on claiming it harder.
> Or, if you like, the opposite can be true and we can say that "Islamofascism" is a real term that applies in certain cases. We can take our pick.
No, we can’t, not unless you can find an Islamic state that is also a Fascist one. There actually was a time when there were some Islamic Fascists, but then Mussolini got himself hung and Hitler did the word a favor and shot Adolf Hitler and people realized that there was one reliable universal truth… the only good Fascist is a dead one.
> Are these examples of conservative fascist religious idealism?
No, they’re examples of the Overton Window shifting further and further right over time. See also why Republican majorities since Reagan have done absolutely nothing but hamper the expansion of the notion of civil rights, and why the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Clean Air Act, both championed by Republican presidents, are now excoriated and undermined at every turn by today’s mutation of their own party. It won’t be long before today’s Republican Party tries to undo the Emancipation Proclamation as well, considering their captive Supreme Court just sold their souls and blew away the other two.
Both sides call each other fascist, usually by misapplying the term. That said, the political program of today’s American right is much closer in alignment to historical fascism (and includes some self-avowed fascists) than the American left. Which makes sense, historical fascism was always a right-wing and conservative political program.
> By definition, you just said, the moment they are church affiliated they cease to be fascists. Isn't that right?
Well no, religiosity doesn’t make you fascist, and fascism doesn’t make you areligious… there’s a big leap between church-affiliated and totalitarian theocracy. Though, again, the American right is a lot closer to wanting to establish a totalitarian theocracy than the American left.
> And if that's true then we can say the left's agenda in calling the right fascists looks strikingly similar to the one you attributed solely to the right.
Well, no… if the American left were calling the American right something like “Christofascists”, then maybe. And I didn’t say that crafting propagandistic neologisms was exclusively a tool of the right, it’s just one the right is really prone to using precisely because those neologisms appeal to the more authoritarian elements of their base. And, yet again, the American right is way more aligned with authoritarianism than the American left, which is what makes the left’s own ignorant base more prone to discord than all joining in a chant of worship to their orange god-king. Precisely the point of this kind of propaganda, really.
The real center is when you realize what direction the Overton Window is from you. If it’s too your right, then the odds are you’re yesterday’s centrist and today’s communist. In today’s America the Overton Window is extremely far to the right.