[Balgair]

This is why in the debate of : Are they fascists or idiots? I tend to come down on idiots.

Fascist can be idiots, of course, but they tend to glorify the military (per Eco). And thus far, these guys have shown that they are mostly going to just bumble around and be gloryhounds. Sure Donny like the pomp, but real fascists wouldn't be gutting the NNSA or the DoD. They'd be building it up and expanding it, even at this early stage.

The only 'but' I can think of is that they are going to gut the military, then build it back up with fellow nutters. Something that many admins (and countries!) have tried to do to the Pentagon, and have all failed at.

Still, assume stupidity, not conspiracy, per Hanlon's razor.

[senordevnyc]

I think this is an excellent point. If Trump and Musk were as brilliantly malicious as the Left claims, they’d be going about this much smarter. I think they’re solipsistic, nihilistic fools, and they’re going to ruin tens of millions of people’s lives.

[jmull]

> brilliantly malicious

The left overwhelmingly describe Trump and Musk as idiots.

[fallingknife]

While they repeatedly lose to them. I find it hilarious.

[jmull]

From my perspective you are all dupes to the billionaires.

That people could fall for the left vs. right narrative is what I find hilarious (not in the "ha, ha" kind of way, though).

[fallingknife]

"Dupes to the billionaires" sounds like something a dupe to the bureaucracy would say. I've never once had a problem with a billionaire. They have the common courtesy to stay out of my life. Can't say the same for the bureaucrats and their worthless gatekeepers and credentialed "experts" I'm forced to pay and spend time on because of their endless rules.

[watwut]

Smart and winning are not the same. Left was very correct about conservatives, Trump and Musk. They were correct about Vance too. They were punished for being correct.

Plus the rules are assymetric - Republicans can lie, strike outrage and do massively amoral things, but left and democrats are criticized for the same. Both sidism ensures that when Republicans do something bad, center knee jerks with euphemism it away while massively criticizing minor issues on democratic side.

[beachy]

> real fascists wouldn't be gutting the NNSA or the DoD. They'd be building it up and expanding it, even at this early stage.

Not necessarily. If those organisations were not blindly obedient to the leader (which they shouldn't be in a functioning democracy) then the fascist playbook then would be to neuter them and replace them with a more loyal apparatus.

In Hitler's Nazi germany, the SS were a new organisation with loyalty to the Fuhrer rather than the state. The SS acquired immense power and became a virtual state within a state.

You're also assuming that the fascist end goal is global domination. If the Fuhrer was driven primarily by narcissism, and by nature lazy rather than as hard working as Hitler apparently was, and they already have control of the largest democracy and arsenal in the world, then war and global domination may not be required to satisfy their psychological urges.

[aredox]

There are fascist, but of the Mussolini type, not the Hitler type.