The idea of the unitary executive, for example, is a very fascist concept.
No it isn't.
"Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion."
All are themes in both Shorty's and Coulter's screeds.
I don't think either Longshort's or Coulter's most extreme statements are meant entirely seriously. I don't think Coulter thinks we should invade every country in the Middle East, and convert them all to Christianity at gun point. Making such a statement is over the top, and reasonably considered offensive, but if not serious isn't an indicator of facism. Of course if people are prone to make statements that they don't seriously support it can be hard to tell what they would seriously support.
Also Coulter presumably doesn't post on SI.
I'm not sure either of them, even in non serious statements, supports "cults of unity".
Another definition of fascism -
"a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition"
m-w.com
Doesn't sound like either of them to me.
Another definition -
"Mussolini defined fascism as being a right-wing collectivistic ideology in opposition to socialism, liberalism, democracy and individualism. He wrote in The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism:
Anti-individualistic, the fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal will of man as a historic entity.... The fascist conception of the State is all-embracing;"
en.wikipedia.org
Again not something that either Coulter or Longshort would be likely to support.
More that they wouldn't be likely to support -
"fascists did have a number of important political views that shaped many of their economic decisions. The first of these was the fundamental fascist opposition to both socialism and liberal capitalism. Fascists argued that the implementation of their ideas into the economic sphere would represent a "third way", and they favoured corporatism and class collaboration...
...Fascists claimed to provide a realistic economic alternative that was neither laissez-faire capitalism nor communism.[15] An inherent aspect of fascist economies was economic dirigisme.[16] In general, apart from the nationalizations of some industries, fascist economies were based on private property and private initiative, but these were contingent upon service to the state. "
en.wikipedia.org |
