And then there were two-and-a-half

[jducoeur]

Not really a surprise: McCain and Romney split Florida, with Giuliani in third. Pretty much what I expected, but I believe it means that Giuliani is toast: he staked everything he had on winning it. I'll be surprised if he stays in the race at this point. So I think that leaves the Republicans with three candidates who have any credibility, maybe really only two: still too many, but gradually weeding...

Comments

[jducoeur]

Hmm. That's an entirely fair complaint. And I don't know if I'm ever going to have time to write the carefully-reasoned post that I've been intending. So let's outline at least the basics off-the-cuff.

It's all about how Giuliani presents himself and his priorities. For instance, look at his campaign ads and speeches. They *hammer* 9/11, over and over and over again. And yes, this was a great tragedy -- but man, it's wasn't the worst tragedy in American history, and it was now a fairly long time ago. All of World War II happened in less time than the time between 9/11 and today.

So what is he trying to accomplish? Fear, basically. His message, quite consistently, is, "The world is a frightening and scary place. You need Me to protect you from it." It's a fundamentally authoritarian message -- indeed, it's practically the essence of the authoritarian message. It's the kind of story that dictators sell when they're trying to take over.

Also, it's a fundamentally divisive message. Fascism generally has to have a Bad Guy, usually a boogeyman. In this case, it's Islamic Terrorism. Not just terrorism, mind -- *Islamic* Terrorism. That's what the 9/11 message keeps driving home. Those Ay-Rabs are the bad guys. Oh, he'll claim otherwise, that he's all sweetness and light towards the non-terrorists. But then he'll turn right around and continue to emphasize that Islamic Terrorists are the greatest threat we face today, and that insinuates into the American mental landscape the notion that "Islam == Bad".

And let's be clear: it isn't. Really, I'm rather disappointed that America has proven so cowardly that a single attack traumatized it so badly. Yes, it was a horror, but we need to get on with our collective lives. There are a lot of other problems in the world that are far more dangerous in the long run, and they require strong but subtle diplomacy if we're going to navigate them successfully -- not the brute-force approaches that Giuliani appears to favor.

Fascism is also very bound up with a fanatical attention to *loyalty*: the whole concept is people bound together. Giuliani's instincts very clearly run in that direction, just as much as W's do -- you're either with him or against him. Read up on him and his upbringing -- it's actually a tad creepy, with mob overtones all over it. He has too often emphasized loyalty as an absolute. Admittedly, that's usually *personal* loyalty, which doesn't match the fascist ideal very well -- but the two tend to be rather closely related in practice.

So yeah: I think he's essentially a fascist at heart. Most politicians are guilty of the same sins to some degree, but he does so more than the rest of the current bunch. He's hammering the war drums too hard, and for all the wrong reasons; he's trying to get people to be afraid, so that they will fall into the arms of the state; and he personally is too much about "us vs. them". Put together, and I think he'd be a terrible president, exactly what this country doesn't need right now.

(Oh, and just in case it isn't clear: yes, Bush is even *more* clearly a fascist, and Cheney probably even moreso. But they're leaving office, and largely discredited anyway, so I'm not worrying about them so much: they're largely yesterday's problem.)

[dlevey.livejournal.com]

While Agree with much, if not most, of what you're saying, I think you're not quite getting at all of the terrorism thing.

It's a fine line, moreso because of the PC tendency to need to not say anything bad about anyone in particular. There was *one* attack on US soil. If that were it, I think you'd be on target. But it wasn't. There have been attacks in England, Madrid, Indonedia... Iraq, whose terrorist attacks were previously held at bay only by that strongman Saddam Hussein. Then there's Lebanon, not just Hezbollah attacking Israel but terror attacks in the country itself. Not to mention Gaza and the West Bank. Oh, and I almost forgot Egypt. Go back a few more years and we have Yemen, and Italy. There is ONE thing that links all these acts, and it's not a tenuous link.

Exhortations to terror are being spouted by imams, are being shouted in houses to worship. They're being repeated by the official state-sponsored media of theocratic nations. Should we attack all these countries? Of course not. But should we pretend that they are our friends? THAT would be dangerous. The vast majority of terrorist action in the world today *is* Islamic terrorism. Sure, I wish it weren't so, but it's the fact, and we ignore it at our peril.