A Visit, A Discussion, and A Definition

I had a visit from the younger WP Niece today, something I’d been looking forward to for some time. She’s been a reader of this blog and has, on more than one occasion, texted me about one post or another. While we don’t always agree on one political viewpoint or another, we do agree on many others. Part of the problem has been that we’ve tried having discussions electronically and we have found that really doesn’t work all that well, at least not for us. Face-to-face discussions always work better for us and lead to far fewer misunderstandings and the ability to debate things both profound and trivial without the inherent lag of electronic communications and inability to hear or see nuances that escape us when all we have to go by are words on a screen.

One thing that was mentioned was how many people will use labels for people they disagree with without actually understanding the meaning of those labels. One of those that are thrown about when describing Trump is ‘fascist’. Most of those using that term haven’t a friggin’ clue what that word means or what it entails. But they’ve heard others use it and so they do too.

What triggered me to write about this topic rather than some other topic? This picture. (Sorry, I still can’t embed pictures as Blogger is still ‘broken’ and I can’t seem to get any help fixing the problem.)

Do those calling Trump a fascist even know what the definition of fascism is? I’m making a SWAG here, but I’m guessing a large majority of them don’t. So here’s one definition from the American Heritage Dictionary:

A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, a capitalist economy subject to stringent governmental controls, violent suppression of the opposition, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.

Does that really sound like the Trump Administration? It sounds more like the Biden Administration to me. If it’s Trump, then he’s doing it all wrong.