Thread by @GregTSargent

Interesting @lionel_trolling piece on the “does Trumpism = fascism” debate. Ganz says fascism-denial is mostly academics protecting their turf from upstart analysts who are basically unserious.

I’d like to suggest something else is also going on here. 1/

unpopularfront.news/p/what-happene…

I think fascism deniers are at least in part motivated by a particular reading of the liberal opposition to Trump. They want to say that liberals who allege fascism are in some sense refusing to own up to liberal elites' culpability in allowing Trumpism to flourish. 2/

This is why you sometimes hear fascism deniers also attack the cringey uncool lib resistance (per @SamAdlerBell), the wine moms, Panera voters, etc, whose reaction to Trump betrays cluelessness about deep structural political and economic problems facilitating MAGA politics. 3/

In this reading, tyrannophobe resistance libs are in denial about or covering up their role in sustaining deep inequalities they benefit from. Driven only by Trump hatred, their political aspirations/reasons for mobilizing in 2018/2020/2022 are superficial/unworthy of respect. 4/

Taking 1/6 seriously & seeing quasi-fascism in Trump’s incitement/subsequent martyring of 1/6ers makes it harder to locate a strain of virtue in Trumpism's rebellion against liberal democracy. Denying that virtue risks weakening the case for deep structural/economic reform. 5/

But the tyrannophobe libs/Dems pushed the most ambitious structural political/economic reforms in the last half century. Ds representing affluent suburbanites voted for many of these bills, which were/are as central to the Dem Party response to Trump as the 1/6 hearings were. 6/

.@andrewmarantz endorses the "semi-fascism" thesis. But this is also the reading of many libs! Skeptics need to account for why this reading *did* prompt years of meaningful political mobilization & *does* provide motive for ambitious reform agenda. Aren't those good things? 7/7

@threadreaderapp please unroll (reader requesting)