What does a fascist state mean to you, out of interest?
Also I don’t think it is a bad position to have utter contempt for US style democracy. It means that 74 million people at least have to have a government they don’t support, a government they have very little means of communicating with and their only means to change it is to vote every four years where their vote in the grand scheme of things is actually powerless. There is no exit option.
Good question. We use terms loosely. On a purely intuitive level - I've never studied it - I guess for me it means many things. All dark all negative. I think about fascist regimes of the past and now and their commonalities.
They are built on a complex order of many many lies and a demand for compliance. And I acknowledge that fascism doesn't have a monopoly on lies and demanding compliance.
They more often than not have a leader who is the saviour and so sole source of the truth. His lies are the new truth. Absolute loyalty is demanded. Transgressors are ruthlessly punished often involving public humiliation which ends up career ending or life threatening.
Fascist regimes undermine democratic institutions that threaten or contradict their narrative, their will. They peddle confusion and distrust in any body or institution outside of the regime so that fellow government officials, electoral and legal institutions, the media, the security branches, medical and educational institutions etc are all to be dismissed as enemies of the regime and so the people if they don't fall into line.
They invent grand conspiracies and upon these conspiracies nurture a lived experience disconnected from fact and tainted in fear. People and cultures and institutions which are not enemies are portrayed as such. Xenophobia reins. There is much to fear. They are racist.
Conciliation is viewed as weakness. And fascism is patriarchal so control over a woman’s body is essential. As such half of the population is perpetually discriminated against. I just can't think of anything inviting in fascism but that's my intuition.
Can you think of a country under a fascist regime now or in the past in which you would like to bring up your family?
As for the US, the state of play is contemptuous I agree. Way way too partisan. It's awful. How did it come to this?
Simply voting at election time isn't enough. It seems obvious that democracy is a fragile thing that needs to be constantly tended to by active community involvement at every level. And it obviously relies heavily on good faith actors of which unfortunately the US doesn't have enough of.
Have you a theory on why the US is so broken? If we were to roll back time and not invent the internet I wonder what a counter factual 2021 America would be like?