Talk:Donald Trump

QAnon
From the usual source p. Anna Livia (talk) 15:16, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Aluminium foil hat required?
The latest 'suggestion' and. There are sufficient other web articles of 'sites of interest to RW' for a mention here. Anna Livia (talk) 18:12, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

At war with the Constitution
'You couldn't make it up' - this. Anna Livia (talk) 14:21, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

LMAO
Yet more evidence that NFTs are a massive scam (and a vehicle for mass art theft). This is fucking hilarious. Vee (talk) 14:25, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Silver
I think this article should be a silver --Aethieizt (talk) 07:08, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Have you read the RationalWiki:Article rating for silver? Have you proofread the article? The article still has bare 'http' citations, so that is at least one problem. Bongolian (talk) 17:45, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

I think some of the sections in "rhetoric deceit and overall behavior" should be moved to the Rhetoric of Donald Trump article --2600:4040:475E:F600:ECE2:FB63:D1EA:327B (talk) 00:40, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Some things may need to be updated. Would mention that it was for clearing for fences. Could still be too far, and could mention Donny using that picture for political pander, and really bad timing. Patty   Pat  17:55, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Trump and fascism
I remember watching a video from a leftist YouTuber discussing how trump isn’t a fascist, but rather the ultimate result of neoliberal and American propaganda manifested as a person. I’m not defending trump in any way (the guy’s a sociopathic narcissistic and a threat to American democracy), but I do feel that we should approach these topics with much more nuance and critical thinking. So with that being said, does trump truly qualify as a fascist? Rational Dude (talk) 12:59, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
 * My take: Trump qualifies by some definitions but not by others. For example, I would argue that Trump meets all of.
 * The main quibbles I can see with calling Trump fascist at the moment:
 * A) Trump does not exactly fit the mold of any 30s fascist leader or government. (However, even the 30s governments lumped into "fascism" were quite different from each other.)
 * B) A big problem here is that he was an authoritarian wannabe, not an authoritarian; he lashed out at the free press, ultimately for no gain; he attempted a weak autocoup, which failed; state violence overall (including violent suppression of the Other) was from my perspective more or less at the standard level of the US for a while, instead of the heavy levels you saw with 1930s fascist governments. So he's more a fascist wannabe by rhetoric than an actual fascist by actions (a few weak actions being the exception) in many ways. So far, at least.
 * C) Isolationism is not really a core of 1930s fascism that I know of (except perhaps economically a drive towards self-sufficiency, eg autarky; and corporatism, the later a feature of the US economy well before Trump). However, a core of Trump's policies are essentially wanting the US to retreat from its position in the global order and keeping the "Other" out. Trump did not engage in territorial expansion; pretty much all the 1930s fascists did.
 * There's probably plenty more quibbles that could be thought of.
 * Some day, maybe, someone will come up with a term to lump together the similarities between Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, Viktor Orban, and others who I see as similar ilk, which take pages from the fascism playbook, but don't quite get there; even "para-fascist" doesn't sound quite right. Arguably all three kind of have similarities in particular with the particular form of fascism that Vladimir Putin has built in Russia (and I have zero quibbles calling Putin fascist); but all implemented such in "light" forms that are varying degrees quite a bit less authoritarian than Putin.
 * So as far as the "fascist" tag goes, it depends how "fuzzy" we want to be in application I guess. BobJohnson (talk) 18:56, 11 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Is DT committed/ideological enough to be considered a fascist?
 * One dividing line - 'accepting a successor': DT and some of the others can contemplate or designate a successor, while Mussolini, Putin, and some others have a more 'après moi le déluge' presentation. (The boundary is a bit woolly - Franco planned for Juan Carlos to succeed him.) Anna Livia (talk) 19:17, 11 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I completely agree with BobJohnson. I'll say again something I've said here before. When Trump was elected, I was sure he'd resign within a year once he realized that there were checks and balances in place that prevented him from just doing whatever he wanted. I think the only reason he didn't resign was because he never realized that. He didn't seem to realize the difference between US government property and his personal property, thought he could just order the media to do nothing but praise him and, of course, declare that he had won the election in spite of the fact that he hadn't. So yeah, I do not doubt that given half the chance he would have been a dictator. And if not a fascist dictator, he certainly would have been an ur-fascist one. Spud (talk) 02:06, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I understand. While trump does have authoritarian qualities, he doesn't check off all the boxes necessary to be a fascist. Rational Dude (talk) 15:59, 12 May 2023 (UTC)