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Cake day: September 18th, 2025

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  • His reluctance to devolve power, his lack of loyalty towards his most zealous followers, his readiness to chop and change policies, his preference for mediocrities and sycophants over men of natural ability, and, most of all, his increasing tendency to believe his own rhetoric about the state of the nation ensured that the new state was never going to be a meritocracy

    Nature of Fascism, R Griffin

    This is in reference to Mussolini, but it’s a valid description of Trump as well.











  • Since fascism’s mythic power is automatically sapped by the renewed ascendancy of the private over the public sphere of life which ensues once political stability and relative social harmony are restored, it can only maintain its momentum and cohesion by continually precipitating events which seemed to fulfil the promise of permanent revolution, of continuing palingenesis.

    Though it may seek through agitation and propaganda to develop into an ‘irresistible’ mass movement, fascism must always in the last analysis be imposed by an elite in the name of a national community yet to be realized, and whose realization, even once the movement is installed in power, will initially (and in practice indefinitely) involve reeducation, propaganda and social control on a massive scale.

    Since only a minority of the population can be temperamentally susceptible to converting spontaneously to fascism or becoming the new breed of homo fascistus, and since even at the height of its popularity, no modern regime can enjoy total support, the thorough-going ideological coordination of the national community could never come about ‘naturally’. A grotesque parody of it has to be enacted through the extensive use of propaganda and terror.

    Nature of Fascism, R Griffin.


  • Incredible as some of these aberrations may appear, we must yet be on our guard not to dismiss them as mere accidental by-products which have nothing to do with the essential character of a planned or totalitarian system. They are not. They are a direct result of that same desire to see everything directed by a “unitary conception of the whole,” of the need to uphold at all costs the views in the service of which people are asked to make constant sacrifices, and of the general idea that the knowledge and beliefs of the people are an instrument to be used for a single purpose. Once science has to serve, not truth, but the interests of a class, a community, or a state, the sole task of argument and discussion is to vindicate and to spread still further the beliefs by which the whole life of the community is directed. As the Nazi minister of justice has explained, the question which every new scientific theory must ask itself is: “Do I serve National Socialism for the greatest benefit of all?”

    The Road to Serfdom, Ch. 11 The End of Truth, F. A. Hayek


  • These “influencers”, or propagandists to be concise, are encouraging the masses to ignorantly embrace the arbitrary rule of a vulgar conventionalist. They need the eradication of the Rule of Law, the dismantlement of Democracy and the Balkanisation of America to fulfill their twisted utopian vision of technofeudal fiefdoms.

    Vulgar conventionalism is … that the life according to nature is the preserve of a small minority, of the natural elite, of those who are truly men and not [born] to be slaves. To be more precise, the summit of happiness is the life of the tyrant, of the man who has successfully committed the greatest crime by subordinating the city as a whole to his private good and who can afford to drop the appearance of justice or legality.

    Natural Right and History, Leo Strauss.




  • The means of action of the leaders. Affirmation, repetition, contagion

    When, however, it is proposed to imbue the mind of a crowd with ideas and beliefs—with modern social theories, for instance—the leaders have recourse to different expedients. The principal of them are three in number and clearly defined — affirmation, repetition, and contagion. Their action is somewhat slow, but its effects, once produced, are very lasting.

    Affirmation pure and simple, kept free of all reasoning and all proof, is one of the surest means of making an idea enter the mind of crowds.

    Affirmation, however, has no real influence unless it be constantly repeated, and so far as possible in the same terms.

    When an affirmation has been sufficiently repeated and there is unanimity in this repetition … what is called a current of opinion is formed and the powerful mechanism of contagion intervenes. Ideas, sentiments, emotions, and beliefs possess in crowds a contagious power as intense as that of microbes.

    The Crowd, Gustave Le Bon






  • Personally, I think it is more accurate to call him a vulgar conventionalist and para-fascist with a narcissistic personality disorder. He isn’t what one would call a “true believer” of fascism, he doesn’t have any real ideology, just whatever his limited intellect can use to gain as much wealth and power he can. However, I won’t fault anyone calling him fascist.

    Vulgar conventionalism is … that the life according to nature is the preserve of a small minority, of the natural elite, of those who are truly men and not [born] to be slaves. To be more precise, the summit of happiness is the life of the tyrant, of the man who has successfully committed the greatest crime by subordinating the city as a whole to his private good and who can afford to drop the appearance of justice or legality.

    Natural Right and History, Leo Strauss.

    para-fascism – a form of authoritarian and ultra-nationalist conservatism which adopts the external trappings of fascism while rejecting its call for genuine social and ethical revolution (see pp. 120–4)

    Nature of Fascism, R Griffin







  • MrSmiley@lemmy.zipOPtoWikipedia@lemmy.worldStruggle session
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    6 days ago

    The purpose of the “Hundred Flowers Campaign” was to make opponents come out in the open so they could be arrested and eliminated. The subsequent “rectification” campaign could not, in Mao’s words, be “gentle as a breeze or a summer rain for the enemies of the people.”

    Even a propaganda centered on education cannot do without terror. In order to arrive at full compliance with propaganda, the 7 percent “incorrigible” individualists must be eliminated. The objective of Mao’s propaganda is a double one: to integrate individuals into the new body politic as deeply as possible, and, at the same time, to detach them from the old groups, such as the family or traditional village organizations. These groups must be disintegrated, always through action from within. For this there must be maximum conformity on the part of the individual.

    Propaganda, Jacques Ellul