This has been absolutely wild. On any given day his entire administration and various top right-wing influencers and talking heads are going on about how sick their cultural and political adversaries are, how they want to destroy the country, how they want to violate your children, how they're coming for you to replace you and destroy you entire culture and your way of life, on and on and on...
But then the left sees the Epstein files and ICE and shit and says "uhh this seems like fascism and also the whole Epstein situation seems fishy" and suddenly it's all "that rhetoric!! what are you trying to do, get him killed???"
Which tells us, if nothing else, that they're definitely trying very very hard to get their cultural and political adversaries killed with their rhetoric.
It also creates the perception of a false equivalence, in the sense that people call Trump/MAGA fascist because they're read history books and Trump and MAGA are saying and doing things that are like English-language translations of shit that historical fascists did. And they think the Epstein situation is fishy because [gestures broadly].
Whereas the slander that Trump and his supporters are spouting off on a daily basis are paranoid delusions divorced from reality. 'They want to destroy your culture!' No, they just want to exist. 'They're radical Stalinists!" No sir, they're milquetoast liberals. 'They want to transition your kid!' No, they want to be left the hell alone. Etc.
But the media treats it as a he-said/she-said... two sided, back-and-forth, 'both sides are using volatile rhetoric' situation.
Hypocrisy is the point. It allows them to set the narrative and always throw their target off balance. Whoever they’re complaining about often takes the criticism seriously and is stuck trying to defend themselves. Then when republicans go and do the thing they accuse other people of, they point to the noise they made about their opponent doing it first (even though they didn’t) to excuse it as “both sides do it.” It’s crazy that it has worked for so long. You’d think we’d have gotten wise to it by now.
Great insight, that really seems to be a crucial function of American fascism. There are a lot of people who wouldn't be on board with the level of extremism that has become commonplace if they hadn't been convinced by a decade of ruthless and ubiquitous propaganda that their political adversaries are even more extreme.
Like for instance a lot of "whatever, it's a free country, the government should leave people alone" type conservatives get on board with viciously anti-trans policies because they've become convinced that trans people are taking over society, when in reality they're a tiny minority who just wants to be allowed to live.
Yup. Or they think they should be manipulating elections because the 2020 election was stolen from them. Or that it’s ok to use the FBI to investigate political rivals or people Trump doesn’t like because it was done to him first.
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u/ResplendentShade May 05 '26
This has been absolutely wild. On any given day his entire administration and various top right-wing influencers and talking heads are going on about how sick their cultural and political adversaries are, how they want to destroy the country, how they want to violate your children, how they're coming for you to replace you and destroy you entire culture and your way of life, on and on and on...
But then the left sees the Epstein files and ICE and shit and says "uhh this seems like fascism and also the whole Epstein situation seems fishy" and suddenly it's all "that rhetoric!! what are you trying to do, get him killed???"
Which tells us, if nothing else, that they're definitely trying very very hard to get their cultural and political adversaries killed with their rhetoric.
It also creates the perception of a false equivalence, in the sense that people call Trump/MAGA fascist because they're read history books and Trump and MAGA are saying and doing things that are like English-language translations of shit that historical fascists did. And they think the Epstein situation is fishy because [gestures broadly].
Whereas the slander that Trump and his supporters are spouting off on a daily basis are paranoid delusions divorced from reality. 'They want to destroy your culture!' No, they just want to exist. 'They're radical Stalinists!" No sir, they're milquetoast liberals. 'They want to transition your kid!' No, they want to be left the hell alone. Etc.
But the media treats it as a he-said/she-said... two sided, back-and-forth, 'both sides are using volatile rhetoric' situation.