Darrin Durant

I think a highly useful distinction is that between contextualizing fascism (historicism re: original contexts and specific dynamics) and de-contextualizing fascism (freeing newer forms from older markers).

Asserting Trump can’t be fascist because he is not Hitler fails to decontextualize fascism

Lucky this wannabe-fascist is not sitting in the halls of power, @radiofreetom.bsky.social.
Oh, wait

If the concern is that using the label ‘fascist’ breeds sloppy thinking, then why is Tom continually engaging in sloppy thinking with the “now is not exactly like then” argument?

Do I need to post (again) the historians who demonstrate why that is sloppy thinking?

The Fuhrerprinzip (unquestioning obedience to the leader) was established by the Nazis in 1926. Does the boiling frog metaphor offer any cautionary lessons?
@radiofreetom.bsky.social

Rasmussen (2022) constructs a “looser & more relaxed” account of fascism, responding to contradictions in late capitalism & settling for a “spectacle economy”, an “infantalized public sphere”, “racial re-enchantment”, and the”consumerist fantasy” of “capitalist accumulation without fragmentation”.

Elay (2023) suggests we need a portable definition of fascism that involves both contextualizing (historicize old variants) AND decontextualizing (free the term from historical markers to capture new variants).

All ‘but now is not exactly like then’ FAIL to decontextualize fascism?

Ur-Fascism Umberto Eco Ur-Fascism June 22, 1995

It is helpful to remember Umberto Eco writing that “the fascist game can be played in many forms” due to family resemblance relations not exact replication of every feature in every manifestation.
theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umbe...

Tom you have not clarified “popular mobilization” but declare that fascist element absent in the Trump Regime?

No, Passmore defines such mobilization: parallel admin chosen according to ideology, weaponizing civil society (welfare, education, leisure, rallies), internal cleansing.

Like the debate in statistics that cautions against precision obscuring significance, fine if you want to call the Trump Regime illiberal democracy. But it includes fascist elements: threat othering, conspiracy thinking, truth delegitimization. Maybe substantive significance trumps precision here?

Imagine living in a rosy world with few challenges to mitigation or adaptation & little regional rivalry: you’re in SSP1 Land not SSP3 Land.

Further imagine you work for a conservative think tank and get upset scientists won’t accept ‘debate me bro’. Welcome to Pielke Land.

Detained South Korean Workers Wary of Returning to U.S. Despite guarantees that they can re-enter the U.S., some Korean workers have questioned whether or not they want to, especially after their reportedly harrowing ICE detention.

Not that Trump’s ICE would abduct South Korean workers.
Oh, wait
time.com/7317215/sout...

“AI is the asbestos we are shoveling into the walls of our society and our descendants will be digging it out for generations”.
- Cory Doctorow.
pluralistic.net/2025/05/27/r...

Trump declares war on Portland, OR.

Portland: “Is it our coffee-roasters, did they not add sufficient orange rind for the orange autocrat?”

It is more expensive for Finland (w/ 41% nuclear share of electricity) to prioritize nuclear over RE expansion but the Australian pro-nuclear lobby thinks it cheaper to go nuclear over RE despite Oz having 0% nuclear.

When you don’t need a study.

Inside the hidden conservative network bankrolling an "ecosystem" of right-wing news John Solomon's Informing America set out to create an echo chamber to shape public opinion. It's working.

Painting the battling of online disinformation as a ‘censorship industrial complex’ is exactly what the right wing propaganda industry wants you to think.
www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Agreed it’s probably anti-intellectualism more than anti-science. So that problematizes ‘technocratic industrial-scientific’ as foundation?

Maybe Hofstadter types of anti-intellectualism are useful guides here?Religious anti-rationalism, populist anti-elitism, and unreflective instrumentalism.

Worth pointing out this totally unfortunate and accidental ‘typo’ re: Mr Shellenberger.
reneweconomy.com.au/coalition-sa...

I still remember about 15 years ago, talking to some folks who had attended one of the Breakthrough Institute conferences. I said Shellenberger was a grifter who would go off the rails and they insisted he was legit.

Called it

Mockery has a good track record as anti-authoritarian, so I advise accepting the gesture. Though I agree with the need for a focus on social inequity. Less corrupt clowns in public office would help:
bsky.app/profile/atru...

The Australian Prime Minister taking the stairs without threatening to arrest people because he was using his own motor power.
Just a little bit of non-fascism that Amerikkka could emulate.

Was Comey also turned into a radical leftist ideologue by one semester of online study at a University?

Fusion Net Gain Is Manufactured Ignorance – Arena Critical * Radical * Australia * Earth

Fusion power is nowhere near ‘commercial feasibility’. I put knowing the ‘legal blind spots’ about fusion on a par with legal questions about whether the tooth fairy is open to break and enter charges.
arena.org.au/fusion-net-g...

Trump seeks arrest over Escalatorgate? What is the charge? “Walking oneself upstairs is a social injustice”?

Dear Brett, tell us you don’t know the difference between opposing hate speech and censorship without telling us …

The ‘US expert’ is Pielke Jr: climate ‘contrarian’ who left academia for the AEI (right wing think tank). His claim is the Oz Rpt exaggerates impacts & minimizes costs of mitigation. Aka new denialist talking points. Pielke thinks the headlines are ‘colourful’ not BS. 🤦‍♂️
@thierryaaron.bsky.social

Using “dubious” (to describe Trump’s systematic election denial and attempted coup) and “dabbling” (to describe some Harris fans’ thought bubbles) is a vacuous false equivalence.

OpenAI admits AI hallucinations are mathematically inevitable, not just engineering flaws In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limi...

AI inevitably hallucinates and lacks the humility to admit uncertainty.
Every “but humans make mistakes” answer hallucinates a social world where we forget AI systems are being sold as decision-makers free of human fallibility.
www.computerworld.com/article/4059...

So Shorten imagines Higher Ed teaching assumes empty vessels, and micro-credentials from Uni’s lacking breadth is the fix?

Have I mentioned I used to live across the street from Bill and for years he never had anything insightful to say? Just sayin’

After Charlie Kirk’s murder, the US might seem hopelessly divided – is there any way forward? Trying to change someone’s mind can seem futile. But there are approaches to political discourse that still matter, even if they don’t instantly win someone over.

Yes critics of hagiography of Kirk are being targeted, but the hagiography goes deeper. Kirk started Professor’s Watchlist to target critics, so we are seeing a continuation of what he started? Kirk’s ‘open debate’ wasn’t that open either.
theconversation.com/after-charli...

Yes, Kirk Hagiography is pretext for authoritarian repression of the entire “left”. But it’s also hagiography to say Kirk would disapprove of the campaign against free speech: he started Professors Watchlist to harass, intimate & attempt to fire critics.
www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...