FYI, this was not in the museum but was briefly available at the gift shop. As evidenced by the price tag.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/holocaust-museum-warning-signs-fascism/
In 2017, it was observed that Trump had ticked all but two boxes. Now that he’s bent on controlling the media, it seems there’s just 1 remaining. But there is still free media, so perhaps it’s more like 1.5.
Some have commented that the elections are already fraudulent, but I remain skeptical of this. I’ll admit that gerrymandering is a problem, but gerrymandering has always been a problem so it’s not a bright-line for me. Still, I can’t shake the idea that the main reason there hasn’t been a fraudulent election under the 47th presidency so far is that there hasn’t been an election at all yet.
Either way, you don’t need every box checked to be alarmed.
Some have commented that the elections are already fraudulent, but I remain skeptical of this.
A lot of things that other functioning democracies consider fraud or corruption are legal in the US. So elections aren’t technically fraudulent, but neither are they free or fair.
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It’s an interesting point you raise. The media has mutated since the list was written, now encompassing anyone with an opinion and an internet connection. Where in the past the media was more centralised and therefore more easy to control totally, now it’s very difficult to eradicate dissent completely - the media has become more aligned to the masses than to the elites. So a different approach is needed to get to totalitarianism.
My take is that they’re already applying pressure to the new media, and it might be the last thing to buckle. Perhaps left wing content creators will be criminalised soon (NSPM-7 could be the first step, or indeed the only step, in practice to this end) and then we only have to wait until the 2028 election to be able to shout “Bingo”.One popular approach is alignment of businesses and government in creating an ecosystem that is the internet for most people, like everything-apps. Musk did claim to create a WeChat-alike from X but it didn’t went far.
Weird acquisitions though are increasingly more alarming. First, Musk got Twitter as a whole company, and although we didn’t initially know who co-paid for it, there weren’t explicit commentary on what exactly Elon would do with it, you needed to read between the lines. Recent TikTok USA purchase by Ellison though not only helped by the government, it’s publicly aknowledged that it would become a propaganda tool for MAGA to affect genZ and genA.
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It seems to me like the media is about the same as it was in 2017, as even in 2017 anyone with an opinion and an internet connection could gain throngs of followers online. The difference I see is that major news organizations have shifted to be moderately more conservative (previously ~centrist organizations are now moderately trump-approving, and previously conservative organizations are now far right, previously democrat-favouring organizations are now hedging their bets). MAGA is pressuring or threatening to pressure social media organizations to shift toward more MAGA content, but I think we’re not even at the inflection point for this yet.
Fully agree, but I wrote my comment with the context that the original post was of an exhibit from at least decades ago, not in this presidency.
Free media? Wtf? Larry Ellison’s money just bought Paramount, Fox is owned by another billionaire. Colbert gets fired after strong arming by the president. I could go on, but a free media doesn’t mean a media owned solely by billionaires in league with the administration.
As an outsider looking in at American media it’s been horrifying for decades at the deluded propaganda rammed down the population’s throat, and freely accepted.
How DARE that museum target the Trump administration, in such a focused and deliberate manner?
A warning to some. An instruction to others.
That’s the U.S. in a nutshell.
Yeah. I went to the Holocaust Museum with a Trump supporter. The cognitive dissonance was astounding.
Early warning signs of liberalism
Liberals are centrists (though American Democrats are more Near Right) where as Fascism is a Far Right belief system.
No. Under the liberalism → fascism model, this would be late liberalism, early fascism. It’s where we are now.
Yeah, because in the past 150 years we didn’t have liberal democracies match these criteria and it being considered “business as usual”.
Nationalism? That’s the main way liberals distract from class and enforce unity of the people’s.
Mass media control? Yeah, mass media controlled strictly by private capitalists who always spread a handful of narratives that only serve to reinforce the dominant ideology and never going against it.
Common enemyism? Just look at geopolitics for 0.001s
Rampant sexism? Women were the property of men with no voting rights for a long time under liberalism, with fierce opposition to women’s suffrage.
And so on and so on. Also liberalism -> fascism model isn’t real, else every country would have gone fascist already. Fascism is a tool for a specific kind of situation (economic crisis + worker militancy threatening capital existentially), but often it isn’t needed and electorialism can be preserved which is the defining feature of liberal democracies. Besides, under crisis there’s nothing stopping a democratic liberal democracy from committing atrocities fascists would to save itself and the system.
Least cool guide yet.
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You could apply this to communism as well
Hard disagree. Corporatism is distinctly on the fascist side of the house, and it distinctly has an in-group and an out-group at its very basic ideological level whereas communism in principle seeks to eliminate classes.
Now, you might have classes in practice, sure, but explicit racism/ethnostate situations is definitely not a defining feature of communism. I would agree if you said this sign describes authoritarian regimes! But, I think that communism has a distinct meaning that is separate from being authoritarian whereas fascism is inherently authoritarian (in group oppresses everyone else). This seems to be conflating something to say that it’s communism as well.
Now, granted, the OP didn’t say anything about corporatism, which was originally developed as a comprehensive ideology under Italian fascism. However, it’s not as simple as in the OP - “corporate power protected” and “labor power suppressed”. In fascism, both corporate and labor power are subservient to the state, and fascist corporatism involved the input of both private industrial interests and labor interests. Ultimately it was the state making the decisions, though. I suppose it’s important to remember that fascism arose as a response to class conflict in the aftermath of the industrial revolution - a third way between bourgeois liberalism and communism. In this sense, the point was to establish an equilibrium between capital and labor. Corporatism was the means to that end. In fascism, in practice, this often meant that capital simply colluded with the state, and left-radicalism in labor was violently stamped out so the workers could be brought to heel. Workers were then treated quite well, assuming they didn’t run afoul of the state because they belonged to one of the many groups that fascists considered enemies.
Many European nations still practice forms of corporatism, although today the state is more like an equal partner to the other parties. So I guess my point is that corporatism is not distinctly fascist, despite developing under fascism.
*you could apply this to authoritarism as well
These museums hold zero authority anymore.
