Monday, December 12, 2016

Donald Trump is not a fascist

American Thinker ^ | December 12, 2016 | Bookworm 

For months now, the Democrat-Progressive fever swamps have been using the word “fascist” in connection with Donald Trump and those who voted for him. It took Michael Kinsley to elevate this shoddy claim onto pages of the Washington Post: Trump, he asserts, is a fascist.
Sadly, Kinsley reveals, as so many before him have, that academic degrees are no substitute for intelligence, knowledge, critical analysis, and basic logic. The term “fascist” is a very distinct one and Kinsley can apply it to Trump only by redefining it entirely. His is a deconstructionist effort that leeches all meaning from the word.
Because Kinsley’s essay is currently behind a paywall, let me summarize briefly what his argument is before I demonstrate what a shoddy piece of disinformation it is.
Kinsley opens in a defensive posture, absolving himself of proving Godwin’s Law, which holds that internet discussions always end with Hitler analogies. Instead, Kinsley boasts, “I mean ‘fascist’ in the more clinical sense.”
What is this clinical sense? If you plow through an endless cascade of words, Kinsley accuses Trump of being a crony capitalist, not to enrich himself and his friends, but to claim boasting rights about his skills conferring material benefits on the American people. Kinsley calls this “corporate statism,” which he says is the same as “fascism,” although he considers himself too classy to call Trump a fascist (except when he calls Trump a fascist).
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...

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