The courts have awakened from their slumber.
It takes a while to promote neo-Nazis to most positions of power in the military; so as much as he would like to pull a coup with the military, it’s not ready to do so -yet.
I would classify him as a childish insane fascist.
The problem is the term fascist has been abused time and again; when I hear it used, I’m expecting an obligatory “mannn” after its invocation (like, “he’s a fascist, mannn…”)
I have read through @vanidackp’s posts and they are the best I have ever read on this topic. Two follow-up questions for now:
Have we made any progress at all in getting Cenk, Ana, John and the others to discuss live on-air this topic? Ana didn’t think Trump was a fascist… but so what … is she not willing to discuss this with a reputable and rational scholarly expert, on air? One of the reasons I ask is that Ana is not the first person I have run into pooh-poohing and cringing when one calls Trump a fascist. I first ran into this awhile back when I was speaking with a fellow cultural Jew and they dismissed my concerns about fascism and indicated discussion of Hitler was so “tired”. Later I ran into this rhetoric from Musk and to some degree we have heard it from Ana. Has she, or someone else, succeeded in quashing discussion of Trump and fascism on TYT? Maybe the discussion is there, but I’m just not aware of it.
I’d like to know if there is a permalink somewhere to Vanidackp’s research so that when I am elsewhere and want to refer someone to this sort of excellent reputable summary, I can do it with one link.
While we are trying to understand where TYT leadership is in its discussion (or non-discussion) of the American move toward fascism, I decided to try to take a look (within some severe personal time constraints) as to where TYT has been on this matter. Here are some links I found, most of which I have not examined yet, but which seem worth viewing, if I’m able to. This list is not well-curated, and does not get as much at the thoughts of some of the other TYT hosts. It’s just something I have quickly put together for myself and others as a starter.
[this one only seems to be about rising fascism in other countries, but I’m not sure yet]
6.07M subscribers
47K views 6 years ago
Ana appearing on another show four years ago:
757K subscribers
15K views 4 years ago
104,754 views Jun 2, 2018
56,756 views Jun 16, 2022
Arizona’s Fascist Attempt To Ban Protests
117K views 8 years ago
this appears to be a third party analysis of Ana’s comments on fascism last fall.
Jason W Blakely
1.77K subscribers
3.1K views 6 months ago
My working theory has become that Ana and Cenk have in some way made a conscious decision not to have discussion or debate about whether Trump is a fascist, or much discussion at all of fascism as it may relate to 2025 USA, though there is one notable exception. After the Ana/Cenk October 25, 2024 on-air discussion of fascism, Jayar Jackson seems to be the only TYT regular who uses the word regularly in trying to describe what he is seeing (though maybe the search engine on tyt.com is missing something important from other TYT contributors). Maybe we can appeal to Jayar to have Timothy Snyder (or a fascism scholar of that caliber) on for an interview.
Prior to October 25, 2024, and particularly in the 2017-2020 time period, we can see that TYT hosts other than Jayar were somewhat more willing to explore the matter.
I think it’s just a simple matter of TYT being assimilated into the establishment to become a unofficial “official” voice of the progressives, to manipulate the progressive audience. The money behind TYT simply wants america’s fascist progression to be downplayed, because if america ever addresses such, they have so much to lose.
Well, it’s worth mulling it over, as to why TYT is doing this (downplaying discussion of fascist takeover) when they did not in the past have so much reluctance to discuss, that I’m aware.
Other points to consider, in my opinion:
While Ana, Cenk, et. al. are in fact smart a decent amount of the time, they have their intellectual failings and blind spots. I think they have become relatively intellectually bankrupt in this area (as are so many of us throughout the country). I think I remember Ana responding to the topic with a certain amount of aggressive attempt to dismiss the topic when it came up in October 2024, and I thought I had a pretty good idea of what I was seeing. She is (as we know) very much open to persuasion from right-wing folks and it has been a clear strategy for quite awhile for some on the right to dismiss talk of Trump and fascism, claim that we have to argue “the issues” when it is time to understand Trump’s overt contempt for civility and the rule of law, etc. When Ana started responding dismissively, I thought it seemed well inline with the right-wing rhetorical approach of the time.
I had a conversation with another person who is culturally Jewish (as am I) but leans right (partly from a lifetime in law enforcement), and he dismissed talk of “Hitler” as “tired” (just as Musk did a few weeks later). What a non-denial denial! This conversation of course had nothing to do with Ana and Cenk but I am referencing some rhetorical patterns we can see from the right in how they want to manipulate conversations on this topic. The goal seems to be to downplay talk of the extent to which Trump/MAGA/project-2025/etc. have moved toward (and are likely to complete the move) the end of the rule of law in the US.
Yes, it’s awkward to bring up fascism, authoritarianism of any sort, etc. Yes, it means that the conversation will lose credibility in the eyes of some. But, I think TYT should be helping us parse that problem, bring on the world’s most credible experts (such as Snyder) and help the conversation get to a better place from where MAGA has undercut it.
OK, the reason that Ana and Cenk have not been using the terms “Nazi” and “Fascist” is because they feel that the terms are just being thrown around to describe EVERY Right Wing person or even just anyone that voted for tRump and those terms were loosing their meaning. And I agree with them on that. Personally, I have started to use MAGA in the same way that many during WWII and after used Nazi to describe these people. My ranking of them now goes: 1. MAGA 2. Nazi 3. Fascist in order of which is worst. But at the same time I will NOT just call a person that voted for tRump or just has conservative values MAGA or a Fascist or a Nazi because again that just diminishes the meaing.
Thats a great idea and point. I suppose if we think back to germany, they didnt call nazis “the black shirts” or the “squadtristi” just because mussolini came first. Just like maga they chose their own name.
Like i guess they explain in this reddit post ill put below, im not too read up on all this stuff but it seems about right. (ask anything about the naruto manga/anime and ill ace that) but as they said mussolini invented the term for modern context, so maybe some bunch of historians/political scientists could come up with a new term to represent the real bad part of MAGA? Since its true “fascist” is over used now.
Hi,
I can’t find the original TYT link, but from one of the TYT critics (unfortunately that is all I can find), at the start of the video, for about a minute, there is the debate that Ana and Cenk had on the air, around late October, as to whether Trump should be called a fascist. The debate was not about whether his followers should be called fascists.
https://youtu.be/Zm2jIfViYFI?si=zWOrs3GUetHI1HTe
TYT’s Cenk Uygur VISIBLY Frustrated After Ana Kasparian DENIES Trump is a Fascist
The Humanist Report
Oct 30, 2024
Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian of The Young Turks got into a heated dispute on-air over whether or not Trump is a fascist (read: he is, objectively speaking). Cenk got visibly frustrated as Ana made nonsensical arguments claiming Trump is not a fascist.
Sources:
Keene Presentation on Fascism
Faena’s Breakdown of Eco’s ‘Ur Fascism’
Umberto Eco’s Original ‘Ur Fascism’
Again, this was all I could find, I’m not trying to focus the discussion here on the 15 minutes worth of analysis done by one of Ana’s critics. I just wanted to have the basic question in front of us.
I do think I remember seeing this brief strong disagreement between Ana and Cenk at the time, and I remember particularly cringing at Ana’s shocking poor reasoning and dismissiveness. Yes, Cenk can be a pain and unreachable when he’s off on a rant, but Cenk’s off-the-cuff remarks were more or less on point, and Ana’s were woefully unworthy of the topic (which is atypical for her, I have a ton of respect for her on balance).
While I can completely agree that there is a problem out there with thousands or millions of folks throwing around the label of “fascist”, for decades, and cheapening the word, they are the boy-who-cried-wolf in this case, and that does not mean we should fail to discuss the matter now when it is most relevant. As Cenk very rightly says in the video, if we shouldn’t apply the word fascist, then the wording should be “would-be-dictator” or some-such. Indeed, (as the critic acknowledges in the video) diagnosing “fascism” and related can be inherently more difficult than applying a label like “conservative”. Ana’s poor quality response shows that at the time she did not think that he should be seen as any of those would-be-dictator type things. [cont.]
[cont.]
While it was a disheartening moment for me as a viewer, particularly because I wanted Ana to be able to pull up out of her tailspin of listening too closely to her would-be red-pillers without understanding their manipulations, I think an additional key for me in that moment, and now as well, is to discuss the extent that MAGA/Trump/et. al. have been very smart in their rhetorical manipulation on this issue. They have in effect shadow-banned relevant to-the-point cogent discussions (of whether Trump is a de facto or would-be dictator) in some circles, in part because of generations of sloppy left-wing thinkers who have cried “wolf” (or “fascist” in this case). I don’t know whether it could be said the topic is completely banned from TYT’s main two hosts since I don’t watch closely enough, but as I watched Ana’s totally inappropriate dismissiveness (masquerading as being reasonable while Cenk was off on a rant), I feared that such a shadow ban was in the works, and that may be what has happened.
While I was trying to find the video, I did turn up some substack pieces that point to maybe Ana or Cenk offering further clarification on their views on this in late October, and I’ll try to go and see now what more there was to say on this.
This is Ana’s substack that she wrote on the topic on October 31, 2024.
Historian Daniel Bessner joins Unaligned to discuss whether Trump really poses a fascist threat to America
Ana Kasparian
and
Daniel Bessner
Oct 31, 2024
It involves a half-hour interview with an historian expert, and a link to an article by that historian. This is excellent and although I wish I had found this sooner, I’ll try to absorb at least some of it when I can. Before I do I will say:
Democrats also didn’t pursue prosecution of Trump’s fake electors scheme until it was clear that he was going to run for President again. For me, the “Trump is a fascist and we must save democracy” line is simply a way to scare voters into supporting Democrats who really haven’t offered substantive policy proposals, only “vibes.”
Trump says a lot of dumb and unhinged crap that understandably scares people. I understand why my view that Trump is not an actual fascist upsets people. But that is not to say that I believe another Trump term would be good for the country. I just refuse to feed into a campaign tactic to instill fear among the American electorate.
Unless you want to be fearful. In that case, and by all means, go for it! But listen to my conversation with Bessner and read his piece first. If you remain unconvinced, that’s okay. You can keep yelling at me.
My point in response:
Ana, from what I have seen thus far, for a few of us, you definitely do not understand why your point of view upsets us. Some of us are not focused on the fact that the Democratic party uses the topic as a manipulative campaigning matter (and yes, their shallowness on this topic, including their reliance on the Trump-is-a-fascist-you-have-to-vote-against-him-idea, were awful). We are not all democrats. We are upset because Trump actually has checked off many of the boxes for qualifying as a would-be dictator for a very long time now, and we ask that our leading thinkers be more aware of this, and take it up on TYT, even if they disagree with us. Having experts on TYT, to update their points of view (such as in light of Trump’s authoritarian proposals now that he is in office) might be a good idea to further discussion of this topic and make us all smarter.
I believe she walked back and acknowledged that he’s one. We’re all entitled to mistakes, especially when we admit to them.
The faction-that-cries-wolf argument has logic to it; but when you ignore such what-aboutism and look at Bunker Boy as a single phenomena, you can’t but get that impression after J6.
Just look at his resorting to the groundwork for voter suppression and intimidating critics in the press with prosecution -what is that, but the definition of facism? Encyclopedias now need to add stipple portraits of him next to the entry for “facist”!
Idk if it vibes with the producers or the algorithms but maybe a segment on why them words have been used and created throughout history and what not. Experts are good n all but theres always the rebuttal that theyre “paid off” etc but just like math and physics you dont need an expert to state facts and educate.
“…I believe she walked back and acknowledged that he’s one. We’re all entitled to mistakes, especially when we admit to them…”
I absolutely agree that we are all entitled to mistakes, and I want to make clear repeatedly that I could not do as good a job as the TYT hosts. It would be extremely difficult to have to constantly react to the news and then figure out how to respond to all the many criticisms that would come in. I would probably drown in a sea of self-doubt, attempted contradiction-addressing, etc.
If Ana has addressed this, and acknowledged that Trump is a would-be constitution-annihilating dictator bent on ending the rule of law… if she has addressed this, then that would be great. Whether we call him a “fascist” or not is somewhat less important, but also something I think Ana got wrong and should address. Do you or anyone here have links? Heck, I can’t even find a link directly to the original conversation between Ana and Cenk that started this all, and that would also be helpful, if only so that we did not have to rely on the harsh criticisms of some TYT critic.
I did watch the entirety of Ana’s interview of Daniel Bessner, read her piece, and read his piece (which heavily references another scholar named Kuklick).
Daniel Bessner/
March 6, 2023
The Name Game
Does American Fascism Exist?
For nearly a century, Americans have been throwing the term around—without agreeing what that means.
Bessner wrote:
“… Into this fray enters the intellectual historian Bruce Kuklick, whose Fascism Comes to America provides an entirely new perspective on a debate that’s become a bit exhausting. Unlike other pundits and thinkers, Kuklick is not interested in whether “fascism” as such has arrived in the United States. Rather, he’s concerned with how the term itself has been used in the last century of American discourse…”
[cont.]
[cont.]
I have decidedly mixed views on what I heard from her and Bessner and will try to write them out during some other break from work. At least we can say that at the time she did do some work to try to address some of our concerns. But this was a piece published October 31, 2024 in which she more or less seemed to underscore that which she had expressed to Cenk a few days prior. In part it seemed like more of a reactionary response to Democrats and other Americans throwing the word “fascist” around sloppily for so long, and (more concerning to me than debates as to whether the word “fascist” has the meaning that many of us assume) her own characterization of Trump as engaged in some “ridiculous” comments or behavior, which I think missed the critical point. There are too many ways in which Trump provides evidence that he is on a clear path to become a constitution-ending repressive dictator. Many of us who went through Hebrew School or other education designed to introduce us to the idea of keeping an eye out for a dictator have tried to shout out about this. I’ll try to do better later to respond to Ana’s interview and comments she published in October.
After Bunker Boy got inaugurated and she saw some of his batshit crazy orders, she walked it back…
“After Bunker Boy got inaugurated and she saw some of his batshit crazy orders, she walked it back…”
But where? Does anyone have a link?
Will get back to you on this (caffeinating…)
There were three basic points she and Bessner raised that I can voice clear disagreement about.
While there may be some limited validity to the idea that the term has been cheapened coming from some sloppy intellectuals, I think the vernacular use of the term has always been to describe a certain type of right wing dictator. Wikipedia and other common published definitions reflect this, and some academicians such as Snyder, who may disagree with the academician Bessner, also reflect this.
Criteria include whether Trump is actually influenced by the explicit philosophy of fascism of European thinkers, or if there are wandering bands of young men wandering the streets reacting to an organized Left wing as there were in Italy and Germany. What struck me is what was absent from this analysis. I don’t have time to methodically go through the first part of the video and lay out the criteria that Bessner used or didn’t use, but perhaps the most to-the-point thing I can do here is say that he is not the only voice on this diagnosis and that experts like Snyder have made their case seemingly pretty well, that we need to be very concerned about some very specific signs that Trump and MAGA are headed toward an authoritarian end-of-rule-of-law type of state.
This is from 2017, and somewhat lengthy (as is Bessner’s commentary) but I think does a decent job of laying out some criteria that one academic uses, in contrast to Bessner:
[cont.]
