“Some opponents have likened Donald J. Trump to Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini; supporters call that a smear tactic. Credit Associated Press”

The one essay I did at university from which I learned the most and have often thought about was titled, “Fascist Criticisms of Liberalism”. And what I learned was that fascism was a form of totalitarian ideology that was essentially tied to an authoritarian leader-principle and whose economic principles were basically socialist. Central planning was at the heart of its economic methodology. It was the nation that counted and not the individual. Hitler alone among the pre-War fascists, married the ideology to racism, but none of this was found in the ideologies of Mussolini, Franco or Salazar. You can tell a fascist state by its use of police power to suppress dissent. Fascism remains as alive today as a living reality – see Cuba and Castro – but the word itself has transmogrified into a term of abuse used by socialists to criticise everyone else. The reality, however, is that fascism is a Soviet-type Marxist socialism without its international dimension. Any ideology can be at its centre as long as it claims to be absolute truth from which no deviations are permitted.

The picture and text is from The New York Times in an article titled, Rise of Donald Trump Tracks Growing Debate Over Global Fascism. Here’s the definition they use:

Fascism, generally defined as a governmental system that asserts complete power and emphasizes aggressive nationalism and often racism.

Let’s see which of the following would characterise the US if Donald Trump were elected:

• an ideology to which every member of the community must subscribe
• a police state in which opponents of the regime are in peril of their lives and are often imprisoned
• a centrally planned economy
• suppression of dissent
• a state run media

Not one of these is even remotely possible if Donald Trump were elected president. The article is worth a read since it represents just how far the modern media has fallen. The plain reality is that they cannot criticise Trump on the specifics of what he has in mind since even to state Trump’s aims would only add to his support. So it is just ignorant name calling by people who have no idea what they are talking about but manage to have their views printed in what was once one of the prestige newspapers of the world.

Calling Trump a fascist is ignorance attempting to deceive the willingly ignorant. If they don’t know that calling Trump a fascist is slander without content then why would you read such a newspaper ever again, other than to remind you of what great dangers our civilisation must now face in dealing with the actual fascists in our midst.

If you work for Murdoch, them’s the rules. You cannot support Donald Trump for president. So let us see how Tim Blair gets around it.

A number of friends and many readers are fans of Donald Trump. That’s OK. I understand his appeal, even if he’s a fraud. Although it’s true that he does sometimes make the right calls:

Donald Trump on Friday picked a prominent climate change skeptic to help him craft his energy policy and pushed back against renewed calls that he release his income tax returns — saying his tax rate is “none of your business.”

But for Melbourne-based artist and writer Aubrey Perry, support for Trump is an absolute deal-breaker. This applies even when Trump’s supporters are her parents:

I’d known for a while that my mum was open to the idea of Trump as her candidate. My dad has been a Trump supporter from the beginning. But I’ve lived in Australia for the past seven years. They live in the US. We text and Facebook with each other, but we don’t discuss politics.

And I don’t use Twitter much. But, wow. My mum does. I recently checked her Twitter page for the first time in a while and was shocked …

I was shocked.

I told her so. Publicly. Finally. I wrote back, “Your Twitter feed makes me disappointed and embarrassed of you as a person, a supposed critical thinker, and my mother. Shocked.”

Here’s her mother’s Twitter page. It isn’t shocking at all. It’s just the opinions of someone who happens to be very enthusiastic about a certain presidential candidate. Yet this has led Aubrey to denounce her family as racists and to “sever all ties with my parents as long as they promote these ideologies of hate and xenophobia”.

A reminder to Aubrey, who is evidently a Clinton backer: Hillary attended Trump’s wedding. Shocked!

But do go to her mother’s twitter page and you will find a quite nicely put and succinct summary of why sensible people support Trump and abominate Hillary. Lots to see, but this one I liked best, specially in this context:

From The New York Times, in a story with the title, Little Is Off Limits as Donald Trump Plans Attacks on Hillary Clinton’s Character.

Donald J. Trump plans to throw Bill Clinton’s infidelities in Hillary Clinton’s face on live television during the presidential debates this fall, questioning whether she enabled his behavior and sought to discredit the women involved.

Mr. Trump will try to hold her accountable for security lapses at the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and for the death of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens there.

And he intends to portray Mrs. Clinton as fundamentally corrupt, invoking everything from her cattle futures trades in the late 1970s to the federal investigation into her email practices as secretary of state.

These are all true. The question is why he is the only one who would use these stories? That is what is wrong with American politics and its media. If telling the truth about Democrats in relation to character issues that matter is considered unfair, the election of Democrats of bad character is guaranteed.

It’s getting to be a bit of a habit among these Obama people, first Ben Rhodes and now this: Charlie Rose and President’s Speechwriters Laugh About ObamaCare Lie. They just play their own voters for fools, and rightly so:

CHARLIE ROSE: My point is do you have equal impact on serious speeches? Because it’s about style, use of language, etcetera?

JON LOVETT, FORMER OBAMA SPEECH WRITER: I really like, I was very — the joke speeches is the most fun part of this. But the things I’m the most proud of were the most serious speeches, I think. Health care, economic speeches.

JON FAVREAU, FORMER OBAMA SPEECH WRITER: Lovett wrote the line about “If you like your insurance, you can keep it.”

LOVETT: How dare you!

[laughter]

LOVETT: And you know what? It’s still true! No.

So let me remind you what Obama’s foreign policy “expert” said about how dimwitted the journalists he deals with are and how easily it is to get them to report the party line to get voters to swallow industrial strength idiocy:

“The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.”

Their voters are poorly informed but the saddest part is that these Obama advisors, although a bit more polished, are as dumb as the voters they deceived, since all they tried to do was convince them of the ridiculous things they believe themselves.