Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a message of support Thursday for Elon Musk after the world’s richest man was accused of making a Nazi salute.
Musk “is being falsely smeared,” Netanyahu wrote on X, the social media platform owned by Musk. “Elon is a great friend of Israel. He visited Israel after the October 7 massacre… [and] has since repeatedly and forcefully supported Israel’s right to defend itself against genocidal terrorists and regimes who seek to annihilate the one and only Jewish state.”
Musk later thanked Netanyahu.
What does the word fascist mean according to you?
A fascist is someone who believes in a populist political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition.
Lets see, nation over individual? Yup, very much so
Centralized autocratic government? Yup, see DOGE.
Dictatorial leader? Given that trump openly admires dictators and that musk supports him, also yup.
And the economic regimentation has been going on for a while now. (the rich become richer, the poor become poorer and have far less power)
The denial of the existence of trans people already means a social regimentation. So that’s another check mark.
The suppression of opposition: See what’s happening in Texas by their team members of the republican party, where they’re trying to oust the Democratic party from major political roles in committees and such.
I’d say, it’s valid to call these people fascist.
Especially Nazi Saluting Musk, who supports openly fascist, former leader of Reform UK, Tommy Robinson in the UK, the very fascist AfD in Germany (so extremely far on the right, that even far right-wing French politician Marine Le Pen distanced herself from them)
Dont forget the obsession with masculinity
And their desire for traditional gender roles.
And where the distinction between business and government gets very vague. Musk standing next to Trump on the podium is a clear sign how far conflict ot interest has been launched out the window.
fascist also see compassion as weakness
Well, I appreciate you took the time I guess but this is an incredibly silly list of arguments. Just to pick a few of the more impressively nonsensical:
What on Earth? Because you have a conspiracy about DOGE it means there’s now an autocratic government? Wtf?
“He admires dictators so is a dictator!” That’s mind bogglingly dumb. And last time we called trump a fascist, guess what, there were free and fair midterms and a Presidential election. When those don’t happen, we can talk. Otherwise this is about the stupidest argument I can imagine.
Dafuq? Like, the same gap that’s been increasing across the world is now actually a sign trump is a fascist? That’s the “thanks Obama” of fascism declarations.
They won’t have us in committees in Texas, clearly the Democratic party is now suppressed and non viable.
That’s an incredibly facile position.
After getting a thorough definition, i gotta ask, what’s it mean to you…?
You see, Trump has to come out and openly say he is building a fascist regime and fly swastikas and call it the fourth Reich. These people have a reduced cartoonish understanding of history and political and economic systems. So unless reality matches their cartoonish notions then it doesn’t count. And even then they will be twisting themselves into knots trying to explain how it’s not ackchually fascism same as people are doing now with denying Elon Musk doing a very clear nazi salute
Exactly. I’ve seen some mental gymnastics that would make Cirque members writhe in agony. “How can it be genocide if there’s still Palestinians?” or “Israelis are Jewish, they can’t be Nazis” and on and on.
I mean, I’d quibble with parts of the definitions but it seems wild that folks are using that definition and then pretending it applies to trump or Netenyahu.
A fascist is someone who believes in a populist political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition.
Lets see, nation over individual? Yup, very much so
What on Earth? Because you have a conspiracy about DOGE it means there’s now an autocratic government? Wtf?
“He admires dictators so is a dictator!” That’s mind bogglingly dumb. And last time we called trump a fascist, guess what, there were free and fair midterms and a Presidential election. When those don’t happen, we can talk. Otherwise this is about the stupidest argument I can imagine.
Dafuq? Like, the same gap that’s been increasing across the world is now actually a sign trump is a fascist? That’s the “thanks Obama” of fascism declarations.
They won’t have us in committees in Texas, clearly the Democratic party is now suppressed and non viable.
That’s an incredibly facile position.
According to me it means what it means. You’re free to look that up on sites like wikipedia.org and google.com and as well as in the dictionary, you can then read papers and theses and essays to your heart’s content on “national socialism” or “Naziism” or “fascism” or any number of related concepts.
Consolidation of industry and government is one of the textbook definitions that was given to me in school. We are seeing it now as we speak.
Among many other aspects that were covered by other comments.