US Democrats have spent recent days trying out a relatively new attack line on Donald Trump: that he is weird. The tactic is almost certainly calibrated to resonate with young and independent voters who, polls show, are moving from marked disinterest in the now-dropped matchup between Joe Biden and his presidential predecessor to engagement in the 100-day contest between Trump and Kamala Harris.
In a press release Thursday, vice-president and presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris issued a list of the main takeaways of what Trump had given the American people. “Is Donald Trump OK?” the X message said. The seventh of nine entries was: “Trump is old and quite weird?”
At a fundraising event in Massachusetts on Saturday, Harris tried out the line again, describing what Trump and running mate JD Vance had been saying about her as “just plain weird”.
“I mean that’s the box you put that in,” Harris said after Trump had called her “a bum” the previous day and Vance disparaged her in 2021 as a “childless cat (lady)”.
Absolutely. Another Hallmark of fascism.
It’s like they’ve been using Eco’s Ur-Fascism as a guidebook and checklist rather than a warning/description.
Btw if anyone hasn’t read the (very short, like 8 page PDF it’s worth it trust me) essay “Ur-Fascism” by Umberto Eco, you really should. Hey look here’s a PDF of it: https://sites.evergreen.edu/politicalshakespeares/wp-content/uploads/sites/226/2015/12/Eco-urfascism.pdf
Only takes a few minutes, but just does an amazing job outlining what fascism is (with first hand accounts of growing up in fascist Italy), why it’s a nebulous concept that is hard to pin down, then does the impossible by pinning it down using 14 “defining features” of fascism, and wow are they eye opening…
Things were different min 1995, and Eco believed that it wasn’t possible to form a coherent government around all 14 because they can be at odds with one another at times. According to Eco, only one of said features is needed in order to consider a state (or person, etc.).
Again, as Eco could not have foreseen, turns out you can go for the high score of 14/14. Unfortunately. Then again, I’m not sure I would ever say that the fascism of maga is “coherent”. But that’s just another plus for them. But seriously, go read it
Anyway here’s the link to the PDF again. It’s a must-read: https://sites.evergreen.edu/politicalshakespeares/wp-content/uploads/sites/226/2015/12/Eco-urfascism.pdf