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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   27930 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 13, 2025

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If no one else is going to link to Scott's latest CW-related post, I guess I'll try to meet the mods' wishes for a top level comment... (Though I didn't re-read it, so...)

Fascism Can't Mean Both A Specific Ideology And A Legitimate Target

I agree, inasmuch we stipulate "Political violence in America is morally unacceptable" means "literally, categorically unacceptable, due to our assessment of the threat of fascism" and "(at the current time)" ignores the possibility of near-future change in the threat-assessment. Though I emphatically oppose political violence, I don't think it would be logically incongruent to leave open the possibility that fascism is bad enough that we're near the point of political violence being acceptable. But I don't think Scott's doing a motte-and-bailey, by using a narrow denotation; just stating a motte, with the expectation his readers take it at face value.

Characteristic of Scott, the post is a neat exercise in logical tidiness. However, it only gestures at the bigger, scarier question: How do societies classify danger and determine when violence becomes permissible? The classification of threats is important, because names carry significant policy weight (e.g., Trump labeling Antifa a domestic terrorist organization...). Label something "fascism" as a distinct ideology, and you direct attention towards connotations and lineage. However, use the same term as a moral epithet (i.e., a catch-all for political enemies) and you alter the rhetorical perception.

This post is definitely a nu-Scott post: It's unclear, short, and boring. His bottom line is that violence (so far it seems) would not help make anything better. It is so short he didn't exactly argue why (not that I disagree with him). Whatever part of his audience he is trying to persuade, I am not sure how this is supposed to do it.

If I squint, I can kinda extract a Scott-like interpretation, but it's not particularly insightful: he argues that Fascist is just a boo-word, and so premise #1 isn't even factual in the first place (this also explains why he doesn't even attempt to argue that its true). Having defused the word that provides moral cover, the one is left to "show their work" that things are so bad that violent revolution is necessary. Unfortunately, Scott didn't stoop into the object-level of ICE taking people off the streets or whatever so it won't be changing any minds. Probably, he doesn't know how to construct a verbal argument to pacify the militant anti-fascists that the wants to reach.

If you truly believe you are living in a fascist country, or that fascism is a serious possibility in the near future, then you should obviously not take up arms. You should either keep your head down or flee.

Nobody even seems that interested in what fascism actually is.

Is Miller really a fascist because he wants to enforce immigration laws? Surely not, otherwise we would have to define Eisenhower of Operation Wetback fame as a fascist.

IMO, fascism is a combination of militarism, imperialism and racism within a social darwinist worldview. Not merely 'I don't like these backwater savages' but 'it's our job to subjugate them in the short term and maybe get rid of them outright, we need to tile the world with us and ours'. Nazism is fascism + anti-semitism.

Also, all violence is political to some extent. If a thief (poor) robs someone (rich) then there's a political angle to it. Some leftists would say it's justified, especially if its a big corporation. The whole point of the police is administering violence to baddies, how much violence and who is a baddy, that's a political question. Politics is about power and violence is the most important kind of power. Challenging the sovereignty and values of the state is very political violence.

Again, Scott links to his review of Mussolini's book in the post, using that as his reference for fascism, as an ideology.

In 1944, before the actual, everyone-can-agree-they're-fascist fascist states of Italy and Germany had been defeated, George Orwell wrote an article highlighting how the term had devolved into an insult and lost any useful, shared, descriptive meaning of any actual political system: https://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/efasc

It will be seen that, as used, the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else.

Yet underneath all this mess there does lie a kind of buried meaning. To begin with, it is clear that there are very great differences, some of them easy to point out and not easy to explain away, between the régimes called Fascist and those called democratic. Secondly, if ‘Fascist’ means ‘in sympathy with Hitler’, some of the accusations I have listed above are obviously very much more justified than others. Thirdly, even the people who recklessly fling the word ‘Fascist’ in every direction attach at any rate an emotional significance to it. By ‘Fascism’ they mean, roughly speaking, something cruel, unscrupulous, arrogant, obscurantist, anti-liberal and anti-working-class. Except for the relatively small number of Fascist sympathizers, almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’. That is about as near to a definition as this much-abused word has come.

But Fascism is also a political and economic system. Why, then, cannot we have a clear and generally accepted definition of it? Alas! we shall not get one — not yet, anyway. To say why would take too long, but basically it is because it is impossible to define Fascism satisfactorily without making admissions which neither the Fascists themselves, nor the Conservatives, nor Socialists of any colour, are willing to make. All one can do for the moment is to use the word with a certain amount of circumspection and not, as is usually done, degrade it to the level of a swearword.

From what I understand, Mussolini's fascism wasn't particularly racist by the standards of the time, at least not until his Italy had become utterly dependent on Nazi Germany during the war and he gave Hitler some racist policies as a concession.

I'm very far from an expert on Italian fascism, but to the extent that I know anything about it, to me it seems characterized by being a strongly collectivist nationalist ideology that is both a response to and a rejection of both capitalism and communism. This is reflected in Mussolini's own path of having been a socialist when younger, then turning away from mainstream socialism because he disliked its internationalism and was more interested in making Italy great again.

Perhaps the core concept of Italian fascism was the idea of using an extremely powerful nationalist state to overcome the conflict between capitalists and workers and forge both together into dynamic collaboration that could revitalize the nation without the total class upheaval or internationalism pursued by mainstream socialism.

Hitler pursued the same concept, and in that sense Nazi Germany was a fascist state. Both Mussolini's and Hitler's ideal was that the fascist party would become completely dominant over society and subordinate all other power groups - churches, capitalists, labor movements, intellectuals, etc. - to its own will. There could still be churches, capitalists, labor movements, and intellectuals, but they would be ruled by the party/the government (one and the same thing, in the fascist ideal). Any disagreements between those groups would be mediated by the government for the greater good of the nation, and the individual interests of the groups would not be allowed to interfere with the greater goal of making the nation strong.

The key ideological difference between fascism and Bolshevism was that fascism did not seek to do away with capitalism, only to utterly subordinate it to the government, and that fascism was explicitly nationalistic in a way that Bolshevism (while it often pursued nationalistic goals in practice) rejected thoroughly on the level of ideology.

Unlike traditionalist conservatism, fascism was also profoundly revolutionary in its ethos. It did not seek to conserve existing mentalities except to the degree that they would be pragmatically useful, it did not seek to return to a pre-modern way of being, it had little use for religion other than for pragmatic reasons, and it had no issues with technological progress. Like communism, it sought to create a new kind of man. It had totalizing ambitions. In the ideal fascist future, there would be no distinction between individuals, the party, and the state. In this perhaps it was influenced by the recent experience of total military mobilization during World War One. The fascist state perhaps sought a similar, but perpetual mobilization of all society in the service of the one goal of national strength, even in peacetime.

Another key characteristic of fascism was that it explicitly glorified struggle and conflict as a means of both spiritual and material renewal. Fascism considered peace to be a lower state of being and believed that man could only fully fulfill his potential in combat, whether literal or metaphorical. This is another key difference between fascism and communism. The professed ideal of communism was to bring about a new society in which class warfare had been overcome for the people's benefit. Communism glorified being a warrior for the sake of the cause, but the image of the ideal society that communism sold to people as its ultimate goal was a peaceful one. Fascism, on the other hand, considered war in itself to be a good thing, something that elevated and spiritually purified human beings. Communism, on the ideological level, claimed to seek to overcome social Darwinism. Fascism, on the other hand, considered social Darwinism to be inherently good - it just sought to reduce or at least master social Darwinism within the nation, in order to become better at social Darwinism in competition between nations.

There are various powerful political entities today that share some aspects of fascism, but none that I can think of really have the whole package.

The People's Republic of China shares fascism's characteristic of binding capitalists, workers, intellectuals and so on under an extremely powerful and nationalistic government that manages their conflicts for the supposed greater good. However, in its current form it does not actually have (although it might claim that it does) fascism's profoundly revolutionary ethos.

Trumpism also, to a much much lesser extent, shares the idea of binding capitalists, workers, intellectuals and so on under a strong nationalistic government that manages their conflicts for the supposed greater good and rejects both pure profit-seeking capitalism and the social upheaval of communism. Hence the ethos of right-wing populism, the tariffs, and so on. However, while Trumpism might in practice to some extent be collectivist, it does not explicitly glorify collectivism - on the contrary, no matter how collectivist some of its policies might be in practice, on the level of ideology (that is, on the level of the image that it seeks to convey) it actually glorifies individualism, or supposed individualism, and it glorifies small government no matter how much Trumpism in practice might actually strengthen the government. On the level of ideology, Trumpism promises to free society from the excesses of the left, not to subordinate individuals to an all-powerful state. The music of Trumpism also has strong notes of a desire to return to a supposedly better past. In this it differs from fascism. Fascism sought to make Italy great again, but just in the geopolitical, nationalist, and martial sense. In other words, it was nostalgic for the Roman Empire's martial ethos and geopolitical strength but as far as I know it did not want to return Italy to the social conditions of the Roman Empire, except insofar as the Roman Empire reflected its own goals of social strata united under a powerful state. Also, unlike fascism, Trumpism does not glorify endless combat and struggle. Trumpism instead claims that, with the problems caused by the left eliminated, society will just be nice and hunky-dory.

One additional significant attribute that you missed is cult of personality or the duce or Führer principle. Otherwise this is an excellent summary.

However, in its current form it does not actually have (although it might claim that it does) fascism's profoundly revolutionary ethos.

TBH, they've kinda already pulled off the revolution and successfully brainwashed the populace. There's no requirement in fascism to continually revamp society after you've turned it into a beehive, the way that SJ lionises activism as a lifestyle and has thus had massive scope creep and a degree of cargo-cult activism untethered from any plausible theory of change.

There's the goal of fighting outsiders, but, uh, they're pursuing that.

Agreed on the rest.

All good points.

I skipped over the economic angle and indeed fascist economics is significant, it's all about advancing national interests rather than pure marketism or collectivism as you say. I think the key element is the demographic part though, fascism isn't about making the country rich but about making the people strong and populous too, Mussolini had his 'Battle for Births' and as usual, the Nazis and Japan did a better job at it with their pro-natal campaigns.

While Italy wasn't terribly racist by Axis standards, they did heavily suppress Libya and went in very hard against Ethiopia with gas and such. But it's hard to be that racist if you can't actually conquer very much. They wanted to resettle Italians to Libya and Ethiopia and parts of Dalmatia but didn't get around to it with wartime difficulties.

The People's Republic of China shares fascism's characteristic of binding capitalists, workers, intellectuals and so on under an extremely powerful and nationalistic government

Yeah China's an odd one, they've got the economics but not the foreign posture. Rhetorically, diplomatically, they're still third-worldist and anti-imperialist.

Yeah but a lot of the China rhetoric stuff is paying tribute to the legacy that led them to the current moment and sufficient undercurrent of 'if you do not pay lip service, you will not advance'. At an individual level from having chatted to a decent amount of Mainlanders there's a collectivist spirit but anything that your standard Westerner would call 'communism' is fairly dead on the ground.

Fascism is the political movement that Mussolini built to win control of Italy. If I'm being generous, you can lump in the Nazis and maybe Franco (though the Spanish Falange is really a cadet branch at best).

Even your definition is too broad. Was the 19th century US fascist? Australia? Imperial Britain or France? There needs to be some kind of mass mobilization of society to apply. And, probably, intentional mass murder of political opponents and demographics labeled the Enemy, since that's what people most strongly object to and mean to apply when labelling a contemporary a fascist.

The British, French and Americans didn't actually adopt and implement social Darwinism, they had 'the white man's burden' and 'the civilizing mission'. Kipling wrote it to encourage America to colonize even though he makes it out to be a thankless, exhausting burden.

Take up the White Man's burden—

Send forth the best ye breed—

Go bind your sons to exile

To serve your captives' need;

To wait in heavy harness

On fluttered folk and wild—

Your new-caught, sullen peoples,

Half devil and half child.

That's critically different from actual fascists who would say 'wtf is this, we're here to extract as much as we can and couldn't care less about the welfare of these subhumans'. The Nazis wouldn't have had any problems with Ghandi, they'd just keep shooting until the Indians were under control.

The native Americans weren't subjugated to eliminate them or permanently other them, they were subjugated to integrate them as Americans, they got treaties and reservations. The Australians went around massacring Aboriginals in an ad-hoc bottom-up way because it was easy but there was never any actual policy to get rid of them, the closest they got is 'the arc of history bends towards us, no big deal if they wither away but we won't actually make it happen, we'll do weird things like them away from their parents and raise them as our own'.

Not social-darwinist, full-bore racism, it was wishy-washy 'civilizing' racism.

As hydro said, the Amerindians were originally kept as separate as possible from the white American population. Amerindians weren't given unconditional birthright citizenship until 1924, and the reservations are still considered sovereign territory for their respective Indian nations. Later developments would take Indian policy in a more assimilationist direction, but that was mainly from a Christianizing perspective and not broadly miscegenatory.

The Australians went around massacring Aboriginals in an ad-hoc bottom-up way because it was easy but there was never any actual policy to get rid of them, the closest they got is 'the arc of history bends towards us, no big deal if they wither away but we won't actually make it happen, we'll do weird things like them away from their parents and raise them as our own'.

While there was no official policy of extermination, there was a considerable amount of more active efforts to expedite the withering process.

From Mark Twain's "Following The Equator":

Here is an instance. A squatter, whose station was surrounded by Blacks, whom he suspected to be hostile and from whom he feared an attack, parleyed with them from his house-door. He told them it was Christmas-time-a time at which all men, black or white, feasted; that there were flour, sugar-plums, good things in plenty in the store, and that he would make for them such a pudding as they never dreamed of-a great pudding of which all might eat and be filled. The Blacks listened and were lost. The pudding was made and distributed. Next morning there was howling in the camp, for it had been sweetened with sugar and arsenic!

The white man's spirit was right, but his method was wrong. His spirit was the spirit which the civilized white has always exhibited toward the savage, but the use of poison was a departure from custom. True, it was merely a technical departure, not a real one; still, it was a departure, and therefore a mistake, in my opinion. It was better, kinder, swifter, and much more humane than a number of the methods which have been sanctified by custom, but that does not justify its employment. That is, it does not wholly justify it.

The native Americans weren't subjugated to eliminate them or permanently other them, they were subjugated to integrate them as Americans, they got treaties and reservations.

This was a later development. The original rationale for reservations and treaties was very much ‘get out of the way’.

we'll do weird things like them away from their parents and raise them as our own'.

I'd say the intention of the Stolen Generation was ultimately benevolent from the government of the day even if the way it was carried out has a bunch of controversies. Also the ironicness of the Stolen Generation ultimately producing the vast majority of educated, reasonably-affluent Indigenous and their descendants who now rally endlessly about how bad the stolen generation was whilst their un-stolen counterparts essentially continue to rot in the ass-end of nowhere maybe deserves a serious thinkthrough.

All political action is violence... or at least the threat of violence. We've put a nice facade over it and depending at what point in history the majority and even the vast majority do not think about this. In my more argumentative days I figured I'd pierce the facade and instead of people giving up violence for petty thing got more "Fine, I'm OK killing you". Since no one wants to be an anarch-capitalist be careful when piercing the facade with unstable people.

Tags: Libertarian "Gun in the Room", Nothing every happens

All [...] is violence

This is such a bizarre argument, particularly for one I've seen repeated again and again in different variations with negligible pushback. When they say "This movie may contain scenes of violence", they aren't talking about a parliamentary committee crafting legislation. When the FBI gathers events for inclusion in their "violent crime" statistics, they don't count voter fraud. People with a commitment to "nonviolence" have no problem voting, and they aren't regarded as hypocrites for doing so.

People have no problem with recognizing violence (or the lack of it) when they see it, but this novel expansive definition of violence keeps popping up.

... or at least the threat of violence. We've put a nice facade over it

A facade, and a wall, and armor plating, and a maze beyond that. Stalin had a facade of nonviolence as he was genociding Ukrainians, but we (practically) have the real thing. People don't think about the "facade" because there are genuine, strong social barriers to using (normally-defined) violence.

...I figured I'd pierce the facade and instead of people giving up violence for petty thing got more "Fine, I'm OK killing you".

One man’s modus ponens is another man’s modus tollens.

  1. Issuing a parking ticket and murdering someone are both X
  2. You should treat all X consistently
  3. Therefore...?

This is such a bizarre argument, particularly for one I've seen repeated again and again in different variations with negligible pushback.

It gets negligible pushback in places like The Motte because beyond a certain level of political-philosophical acumen, it becomes ubiquitously understood as true. Even doing a study, declaring National Northern Hemispheric Penguin Day, ordering lunch, done on taxpayer time with taxpayer-funded resources. And taxes are backed by threat of violence. Normies push back on this understanding because they attach normative baggage to violence. Virtually no one is a pacifist; we're all cool with violence. The actual debate is not around whether political action is backed by violence, it's when the violence is legitimate.

While you’re welcome to argue that you think something is obvious, please refrain from consensus-building.

This is libertarian nonsense. Words have meaning, and declaring Penguin Day is not violence. This is akin to redefining White Supremacy to include punctuality. Just because anyone with sufficient intellect can play 7 degrees of [violence/White supremacy/Kevin Bacon] doesn’t make it so.

This is very similar in form to the “everything is political” crowd. Often on reddit, if someone complains about politics in X, some oh-so-smart objector will point out that everything is political, even a painting of a flower is political (perhaps it is conservative because it upholds traditional notions of beauty or the status quo or is silent on leftist social issues, perhaps it is environmentalist because it presents nature as beautiful). And in some abstract sense I accept that a clever person can extract a political meaning from any text/object/artwork by sufficient mental gymnastics. But all this really does is deprive us of a word. If we are to say that everything is political, then what word do we have to distinguish between a straight up campaign ad for Trump and a painting of a flower. Even if sufficient efforts can divine a political meaning in both there is surely some real meaningful difference in the strength, obviousness, legibility or centrality of that political message, and we could use a word to express that.

Similarly here there is surely a useful difference in violence between punching a guy in the face and Penguin Day that is useful to talk about, and twisting the word violence into contortions just replaces a useful definition of the word with a useless definition of the word. This is only popular with Libertarians because they are the only people for whom the new definition is useful. They want to import the bad scary evilconnotation of violence to new territory by a bit of trickery. They think if they can redefine scary bad feeling word to encompass any government action no matter how benign it will trick people into applying this old emotional association (scary, bad, evil) onto the new definition (any govt action). Woke people redefining White Supremacy are trying the exact same trick

In general a good rule of thumb is this: if someone appears to be using a very nonstandard definition of a word they are almost certainly trying to manipulate you dishonestly.

Are you saying no taxpayer funding is involved in declaring National Penguin Day, or are you claiming that taxes aren't collected by threat of violence? Also if you wouldn't mind providing your definition of violence. I'm using the first one in Merriam-Webster

1 a: the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy

Are you saying no taxpayer funding is involved in declaring National Penguin Day, or are you claiming that taxes aren't collected by threat of violence

I believe he's claiming that "Penguin Day">"paid government bureaucrats">"taxes">"violence" is too many degrees removed to meaningfully equate one end of the chain with the other - the sense in which Penguin Day 'involves' implicit violence is so abstract as to be meaningless in any everyday sense of the wod 'violence'. Compare "Starbucks">"cheap imported coffee beans">"Western economic supremacy">"legacy of colonization" as supposed proof that having coffee makes someone complicit in the evils of 18th century colonialism.

Part of the original point is that we aren't discussing common conceptions of these concepts. The chain is not abstract, it is very direct. Violence is the foundation of political action. Political action is forcing others who disagree with you to take part in your ends. At best forcing them to fund your desires. This is the defining difference between political action and non-political action.

"Penguin Day">"paid government bureaucrats">"taxes">"violence"

Are you saying that is not the chain of events? Without the threat of violence that chain still exists?

I'm perfectly comfortable saying I'd be able to buy coffee today without colonialism.

I think this is a different argument from the typical "words are violence". This seems to come from the libertarian view that "government is [a monopoly on] violence", and ultimately that all laws the legislators craft are enforced at the threat of violence. You do something that sounds banal like banning the sale of "loosie" individual cigarettes to enforce tax laws and maybe wave hands about "public health", and ultimately if some of the populace resists this seemingly-nonviolent policy, your enforcers will end up killing them. I doubt there's a single law of the state for which sufficiently determined noncompliance won't end with physical violence.

That said, while I think the libertarians have a mostly-self-coherent ethical view (which is more than many can say), I think some level of civilization is worth the trade off in terms of absolute freedoms.

This seems to come from the libertarian view that "government is [a monopoly on] violence"

Do people consider Max Weber to be a libertarian? But yes I'm coming at it from the libertarian traditions. Hence the tag...

That said, while I think the libertarians have a mostly-self-coherent ethical view (which is more than many can say), I think some level of civilization is worth the trade off in terms of absolute freedoms.

In "defense" of my less radical brethren, the vast majority of libertarians agree. Ancaps are - or were - over represented in parts of the internet. There are far more minarchists and those are greatly eclipsed by just self-described libertarians who make all sorts of tradeoffs.

A parliametary committee crafting legislation isn't violence any more than a crime boss saying "And anyone but us starts dealing drugs north of Third Street, you put them in the hospital". Nor any less.

Nah. I can recognize the difference between organizing and directing people to assault others, and measuring environmental contaminants. The first one is closer to violence, if it was unclear to you.

As a practical issue, I often see "X is violence" paired with the (sometimes unstated) claim that "X can be resisted with violence". I'll admit to some motivated reasoning as my opposition to murdering parliamentarians bleeds through, but I still think there's a difference between being one step removed from fighting in a gang war and being a dozen steps removed from issuing a fine for corporate noncompliance.

Nah. I can recognize the difference between organizing and directing people to assault others, and measuring environmental contaminants. The first one is closer to violence, if it was unclear to you

Measuring, maybe, but that's hardly all the legislature does. Sometimes crime bosses just order lunch too. The legislature makes rules which the direct result of which is violence applied to those who disobey, and no amount of talking about environmental contaminants will change that.

Measuring, maybe, but that's hardly all the legislature does.

I didn't set the standards we're discussing here. The claim upthread is "All political action is violence." If you didn't agree with that, then it would've been nice to know earlier. I don't have any reason to debate the fact that some political action is violence.

Sometimes the politicians order lunch too. Or proclaim today National Northern Hemispheric Penguin Day or some other such thing. But a lot of it is about deciding what acts will now call for state violence against the actor, or arguing about how to divide the spoils from the protection racket.

Not to be rude, but this feels like an unusually weak post for Scott. Those celebrating Kirk’s murder would obviously disagree with his third premise, “Political violence in America is morally unacceptable (at the current time).” In fact I’m having trouble imagining someone that would agree with his first premise, that most Americans are fascists, without believing political violence was acceptable. This post seems aimed at a constituency that I’m not sure exists, those that believe fascists are everywhere but are opposed to any political violence.

This post seems aimed at a constituency that I’m not sure exists, those that believe fascists are everywhere but are opposed to any political violence.

This probably isn't that uncommon a view among his immediate friend group, which I assume to be wildly progressive but relatively pacifist compared to most progs. Niceness and Civilization progressives, as it were and however misguided they may otherwise be.

In fact I’m having trouble imagining someone that would agree with his first premise, that most Americans are fascists, without believing political violence was acceptable.

Political violence against the majority would be novel.

Would it? Is that not just most cases of domestic terrorism?

How often are terrorist attacks designed to discriminate between victims based on self-proclaimed ideology? Isn't the terrifying aspect of terrorism that attacks are largely indiscriminate?

If the target group is actually the majority, then any indiscriminate attack hurts the correct target in expectation.

(Besides, my impression is that domestic terrorism is more often than not in fact properly targeted - racists go for black churches, Islamists go for Christmas markets, etc.)

I think most of the time political domestic terrorists don't think that the majority is actually opposed to their ideology. Instead, the logic seems to be that society is stuck in some kind of controlled equilibrium, the majority is aligned but stuck in some kind of Schelling point or false consciousness, and all that's needed is some shock to the the system that will bring about a series of rapid changes to bring the ideology to fruition.

Otherwise, if you believe society is genuinely against you and everything you stand for, it seems like a very visible act of terrorism can only go badly for your cause.

I think you underestimate the amount of domestic terrorism that is either not strategic at all, or seems to have the purpose of sending a message like "it's not worth the trouble to keep oppressing my allies". The latter must be the case for instances of religious and ethnic domestic terrorism - surely the PKK or ETA didn't think that the Turks or Spanish actually wish for them to have more rights and must just be awakened to the fact.

The vast majority of political domestic terrorists in democracies are regionalist movements - normally full-on secessionists (like the IRA, ETA, and Tamil Tigers) but occasionally groups demanding a level of autonomy that would require the central government and its voter base to compromise their principles (like the first Klan and later the Redeemers in the former Confederacy).

Most such groups think that they have supermajority support among "their people" - they may even be right - but are aware that they don't have majority support or anything close to it in the country as a whole.

I think the same paradigm applies to the Black Panthers, Nation of Islam, and other radical Black groups in the US - the only reason that they aren't secessionist is the absence of a defined territory to secede in.

He really didn't want to put out any concrete examples of what he considered 'fascist' even though he spent a lot of time talking about Stephen Miller. Things like this where he talks very carefully around certain subjects just reinforces my sense of the San Fransisco bubble that he lives in.

There seems to be this weird equivocation between right wing nationalist and fascist. Why doesn't this equivocation happen between member of the communist club at college and hardcore tankie pol pot enjoyer; used as justification for brown shirted McCarthy squads to give them a beating? This is of course rhetorical. Their rules applied unfairly.

Antifa and black block really do seem to be the modern equivalent of brown shirt thuggery. It never made sense how this was tolerated by the government except by sympathetic people giving them cover and support from inside the institutions.

Edit: A few words.

Edit edit: What makes me the most frustrated about this labeling is that Trump's policies are roughly aligned with Bill Clinton style 1990's Democrats.

He really didn't want to put out any concrete examples of what he considered 'fascist'

He linked to his review of Mussolini's book, though the review, itself, is paywalled.

Frankly, MAGA has a lot more in common with fascism than being right-wing nationalist.

Taking Eco's definition, I would argue that MAGA checks about half the boxes.

The points which apply IMHO from WP:

  • "The cult of action for action's sake," which dictates that action is of value in itself and should be taken without intellectual reflection. This, says Eco, is connected with anti-intellectualism and irrationalism, and often manifests in attacks on modern culture and science.
  • "Fear of difference," which fascism seeks to exploit and exacerbate, often in the form of racism or an appeal against foreigners and immigrants.
  • "Appeal to a frustrated middle class," fearing economic pressure from the demands and aspirations of lower social groups.
  • "Selective populism" – the people, conceived monolithically, have a common will, distinct from and superior to the viewpoint of any individual. As no mass of people can ever be truly unanimous, the leader holds himself out as the interpreter of the popular will (though truly he alone dictates it). Fascists use this concept to delegitimize democratic institutions they accuse of "no longer represent[ing] the voice of the people".
  • "Contempt for the weak," which is uncomfortably married to a chauvinistic popular elitism, in which every member of society is superior to outsiders by virtue of belonging to the in-group. Eco sees in these attitudes the root of a deep tension in the fundamentally hierarchical structure of fascist polities, as they encourage leaders to despise their underlings, up to the ultimate leader, who holds the whole country in contempt for having allowed him to overtake it by force.
  • Fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies as "at the same time too strong and too weak." On the one hand, fascists play up the power of certain disfavored elites to encourage in their followers a sense of grievance and humiliation. On the other hand, fascist leaders point to the decadence of those elites as proof of their ultimate feebleness in the face of an overwhelming popular will.
  • "Disagreement is treason" – fascism devalues intellectual discourse and critical reasoning as barriers to action, as well as out of fear that such analysis will expose the contradictions embodied in a syncretistic faith.
  • "Obsession with a plot" and the hyping-up of an enemy threat. This often combines an appeal to xenophobia with a fear of disloyalty and sabotage from marginalized groups living within the society. Eco also cites Pat Robertson's book The New World Order as a prominent example of a plot obsession.

I do not see the classic militarism (universal heroism, permanent warfare), Trump does not want his followers to die in Stalingrad for him, for the most part. The full rejection of the Enlightenment is probably limited to the retvrn crowd, and there is little embrace of (fake) tradition. Machismo is also rather absent, Trump has women in positions of power. Newspeak also does not seem a prominent feature, covfefe aside.

And of course, MAGA is also characterized by a denial of objective truth and widespread kleptocracy, and is ideologically too light-weight for classic fascism.

  • -15

•Its important to go out there and DO SOMETHING

•Rich people are just different from you and me. They're all evil. So are white people, apart from the ones who are Allies

•[middle class people are struggling and need help so long as they're the right color]

•[poor people are good so long as they're the right color]

•Chuh, learn to code, boomer. Sucks to suck, women and queer PoCs are the future, your time has passed, something something mediocre white man

•We live in a fascist white supremacy where klansmen lurk around every corner plotting to lynch [TV actors], but also we are on the right side of history and our time is now and a people's revolution is right around the corner once we all unite behind revolutionary leaders like Hasan Piker, comrade.

• [disagreement is treason] I'm not going to bother with this one.

•White supremacist Nazi racist misogynist gatekeeping chuds are dog-whistling about their conspiracy to keep trans women of color from playing video games.

My point is, a lot of those things are just universal tactics to rile people up and bully your way into relevance.

Obligatory warning against arguing from fictional evidence (though I can't remember where I first saw this warning), but this definition from an alternate-history author who presumably has done some research into the topic may be relevant.

Between January and June of 1929, the CAUR [Comitati d'Azione per l'Universalità di Roma, Action Committees for the University of Rome, led by Eugenio Coselschi at the direction of Mussolini] worked on three separate goals: a universal definition of fascism, an aim later picked up at the Conference of Montreux in 1929 and 1930; to identify the criteria that an organization must fulfill in order to qualify as truly "fascist"; and, finally, to lay the groundwork for the Conference, to be held in December of that year. The first major obstacle, that of creating a proper and official definition of fascism, proved to be particularly troublesome and ultimately led to rather loose criteria's being used for the first conference, which was opened to all who had "their spirits oriented toward the principles of a political, economic, and social renovation based on the concepts of the hierarchy of the state and collaboration between the classes". In practical terms, this meant using criteria such as adherence to anti-communist ideals, the principle of "National Revolution", and corporatism, which was in itself loosely defined and allowed for the potential inclusion of any conservative or rightist groups—and, indeed, regimes that were "merely" corporatist.

In this work of fiction, there later is a schism between Nazism and fascism proper.

Amongst the declarations made at Montreux the day following the walkout [from the 1934 Montreux Conference of the NSDAP and its allies], of particular importance was that of Eugenio Coselschi, who in his capacity as Chairman of the Fascist International declared Hitler and Nazi Racism as dissidents who "yesterday opposed Christian Civilization, today Latin Civilization, and tomorrow human civilization itself". Furthermore, a formal declaration was made proclaiming that the International "rejected any materialistic concept which exalts the exclusive domination of one race above others".

Taking Eco's definition

This thing was invented by Eco because he was seething at Silvio Berlusconi's electoral victory and came up with the broadest possible definition of Fascism that would include his party. That's all it is, not a deep reflection of an intellectual on the nature of fascism but a knee-jerk reaction to an italian political party from the 90s.

Eco is the worst possible source on this topic and deserves to be anathemized from polsci altogether for having originated it.

This is like if people just kept insisting that a human is a featherless biped to this day despite the definition being so prima facie terrible it was ridiculous and ridiculed in its own time.

Nothing less precise than "Palingenetic ultranationalism" is worth even entertaining.

TBH (without having read Griffin's book) I've always wondered if "palingenetic" is superfluous here. I mean, the fascist movements we do know have had the palingenetic element (and it doesn't really affect the question of whether Trump's a fascist or not since the palingenetic element is obvious down to the MAGA slogan), as one could imagine a fascist movement built on the basis of "our nation has never been particularly great or important, but we are going to be great in the future".

one could imagine a fascist movement built on the basis of "our nation has never been particularly great or important, but we are going to be great in the future".

Without that specific spiritual foundation it just decays into regular old authoritarian nationalism. Most right wing African governments have this sort of setup and they are recognizably not fascist. And South America has its fair share of Caudillisms too.

When you start to bring out some mythic past to rewrite the history and meaning of all institutions through fanatical and totalitarian mass politics, then you're in fascist territory.

In a weird way the Woke movement is as close to Fascism as MAGA, just from the other side. But neither are fascist.

MAGA is also characterized by a denial of objective truth and widespread kleptocracy

This is also very obviously true of the Democrat party (see, eg, Burisma, 50 years of NGO graft, and various officials claiming to have seen Joe Biden doing cartwheels). As such, it doesn't tell us anything in particular about MAGA, except that you don't like it.

I'll never forgive Eco for managing to establish his "definition" as the one every midwit on Reddit reflexively reaches for, simply by the virtue of being a fancy writer of the worst mental masturbatory kind.

It's not completely bad, but something like "a progressivist ideology aimed at a complete rebuilding of society that tries to capture the discontent of the dispossessed masses and wears a reactionary façade to appease the elites and the middle class" is a much better one, in my opinion. However, this means that Fascism 1.0, as created by the Mussolini, is only possible in an industrialized state undergoing a demographic transition, where you have a massive restless working class.

The US is nothing like that. It's a post-industrial country that does have some restless working class, but it wasn't going to be captivated by communist agitators any time soon.

but it wasn't going to be captivated by communist agitators any time soon.

While I agree with you that the US is not actually in danger of imminent capture by communist agitators, a key part of the MAGA worldview is that the Democratic Party, Ivy League, mainstream media, FAANG middle management etc. already have been captured by communist agitators, and that the threat of said communist agitators consolidating power and imposing the Glorious Bugpod Future is an emergency that justifies tearing up the rulebook.

If "Drives support from small-c conservatives by exaggerating the threat of Communism" is a warning sign of fascism (and I think it is, though it is a long way from being pathognomic), then it is one of the warning signs that MAGA triggers.

Which of these communist agitators have been talking about violently seizing the means of production?

They haven't - I think MAGA are wrong about the American establishment being full of communists - even with a small "c". But the whole point of the "cultural Marxist" meme as used by the right is to allow you to call people communists even if they are talking about racial equality and not violently seizing the means of production. Similarly "Bio-Leninism", which is a favourite of MAGA-friendly Motteposters.

But the question "Are left-wing authoritarian wokists communist?" is fundamentally irrelevant - it is an argument about the definition of a defeated ideology. It is no more useful than the question "Are right-wing authoritarian MAGA supporters fascist?" If you abstract out the meaning of controversial words and try to answer questions about the real world, the key questions are "Was there ever a real threat of a left-wing authoritarian woke takeover that would justify a right-wing authoritarian response?" (MAGA think the answer to this one is "Yes", and appear to do so sincerely) and "Is there a real threat of a right-wing authoritarian takeover under the Trump-Miller administration?" (The fact that Trump, Miller, and their supporters in the country all think that the answer to the first question is "Yes" is a large part of why the answer to the second question is "Yes")

You shouldn't take Eco's definitions for anything at face value. Half his point apply to commies as well.

Yeschad.jpg

If you look at the nature of the thing and not the political rhetoric, fascism and communism are more similar than different. If they were materially different, it would be obvious which Orwell's Oceania is. The whole point of Nineteen eighty-four is that it isn't.

Fascism is what a dictatorship of the working class looks like when it forgets to invite any women.

Communism is what a dictatorship of the working class looks like when it forgets to invite any men.

I don't think the USSR was a particularly feminised society. Blue-haired feminists may consider themselves communist, they may even be communists, but they definitely haven't established Socialism in One Country.

Why? I think it was very feminized- layers of bureaucracy simply to make work (especially important for women), a total lack of emphasis on family formation and children (China is an even better example of that), and total equality of outcome (which favors the gender with the evolutionary disadvantage when it comes to producing physical things at scale).

Were the same things true of the fascists? No; where communists increase bureaucracy fascists do away with it, where communists fail to provide suitable accommodations fascists say 'living space', and equality of outcome is as far as I can tell not a thing for a Nazi (unless it's a group for which a claim that they owe reparations can be made).

a total lack of emphasis on family formation and children

I was just a baby at the time, but that seems a bit off. My parents told me the message at the time was "the family is the basic cell of a society", and other such slogans that you could easily mistake for coming from the Tradcath sphere.

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I don't think the USSR was a particularly feminised society.

As feminists (and even superficially non-feminist women) will tell you, even today's society isn't. The USSR definitely did have a short stint of the sort of progressive craziness we are facing right now, which Stalin had to cut short, when he realized it's ruining the country, and he might have a war or two to fight.

when he realized it's ruining the country, and he might have a war or two to fight

Translation: Stalin perceived that the valuation of men in society increased (or would increase), resulting in it being necessary to pander more to their interests lest his forces simply permit the Germans to walk right into Moscow and overthrow the government through inaction.

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Liberalism is what a dictatorship of the working class looks like when it goes through gender affirming care.

That's just communism calling itself liberalism. It's the equivalent of a nation calling itself a "Democratic Republic" when it is in fact neither of those things.

Liberalism is not a dictatorship of the working class; liberalism is a codified cease-fire between groups that naturally seek to become dictatorships to let them exploit their resource surplus (this is distinct from monarchy and oligarchy, where in those cases the benefits of that resource surplus can be easily captured by a limited number of actors- liberalism self-establishes when that is not possible).

Once that surplus runs out, including for hedonic treadmill reasons, people turn their attention back to reforming those dictatorships.

Liberalism is not a dictatorship of the working class; liberalism is a codified cease-fire between groups that naturally seek to become dictatorships to let them exploit their resource surplus

That's the Superbowl ad of liberalism that it purchases to try to sell itself. What liberalism actually is, is a silent conspiracy of lizardmen to sell you for a slave, while pretending this is what you wanted all along.

Joke's on you, most of this applies to modern liberals as well.

There's a bunch of nonsense right here.

"The cult of action for action's sake,"

Of course, our guys only topple statues, set fire to district courts, attack the police, smash windows of the stores, burn down gas stations and loot supermarkets only after deep intellectual reflection. While their fascist goons are taking actions just out of base animalistic instincts, because they are uncapable of deep thought - otherwise they'd already be agreeing with us, as any reasonable person who is not a fascist does.

How can one take something like this seriously as a "definition" of anything? Of course exposing the vacuous nature of such intellectual pretense can be called "anti-intellectualism", but this is bullshit - these people have no right to usurp the mantle of "intellect" and use it to cover their vapid nonsense.

"Appeal to a frustrated middle class,"

So you're saying, taking into consideration the interests of a group of voters who are about 3/4 of the voters, is something that "fascists" do? Congratulations, every single politician is a fascist now. This can't be serious, of course every political movement in a democratic country would consider interests of the middle class, and in every welfare state a lot of middle class is frustrated because they bear the bulk of the burden of maintaining the welfare state, while not deriving a lot of benefit from it. The only movements that would not are the ones like communists which would rather see the democratic regime overthrown and the dictatorship of the proletariat installed - there would be no stinking "middle class" there!

Selective populism" – the people, conceived monolithically, have a common will, distinct from and superior to the viewpoint of any individual

This is literally THE leftist slogan. "People united" and so on. When I was in Soviet school (long time ago), I had to memorize a ton of poems about how an individual is nothing and the collective is everything. And it's the opponents of MAGA that had been consistently trying to suppress individualism and unapproved viewpoints for decades now.

Fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies as "at the same time too strong and too weak."

This can be applied to any anti-establishment movement. People say the elites oppress them? "too strong!" People say the elites are morally corrupt and decadent? "too weak!" Here, every movement attacking the establishment - even obviously oppressive, corrupt and decadent one - is now "fascist". That's not a definition, that's a smear.

"Disagreement is treason"

This is especially poignant now, when the Left actually just murdered a person whose only life's business was publicly disagreeing with them, and massively agreed this is a good thing to do and needs to be done more. I mean, without that I could spend some time on explaining how the left had been repressing dissent for the last decade, but I no longer need to. They are literally, as a movement, enthusiastic about murdering people for disagreement.

"Obsession with a plot" and the hyping-up of an enemy threat.

That's another nonsense - who defines what's "hyping up"? You take your enemies actions seriously? You are "obsessed" and therefore a fascist. You are passionate about human rights and injustice? "Obsessed" again. This is literally how late Soviets suppressed the dissidents - they just declared them mentally ill, because obviously only a mentally ill person can be obsessed with proving USSR is an oppressive dictatorship with no freedoms or human rights.

This of course is especially great when we know now that there are organized networks and institutions working to achieve exactly the goals the "conspiracy theorists" said they want to achieve - a fundamental transformation of Western society and imbuing it with values radically different from the ones it used to have. If you notice any of that, you are obviously a fascist.

I think of these

  • "too strong and too weak" is a stretch (I haven't actually seen much Trumpist rhetoric arguing that the Left is weak - degenerate and doomed in the long run, perhaps,but not weak right now)

  • "contempt for the weak" feels more like outgroup slander as everyone in the US frame has some groups that they value and think the others don't value enough which to them amounts to contempt; probably Trumpists could equally paint "deplorables"/"learn to code"/"flyover states" rhetoric from the Left as contempt for the weak, and it would ring as inappropriate as whatever you are arguing (because I think Eco really intended it to mean contempt for the weak qua weakness: "if you are weak, you suck", not "you suck and you are weak")

  • "selective populism" - are there instances of Trump suggesting that he represents the will of an abstract People, as opposed to just claiming that he represents the will of his followers and his followers are the better people? (This would cover a lot more political movements)

seem like a stretch. I would even argue that the points are about the same level of applicable to the Russian influence/Ukraine narrative - in particular there there is a lot of "too strong and too weak at once", healthy servings of disagreement-as-treason, obsession with plots and cult of action, and a gradual growth on the militarism axis now too.

Just as a sanity check let’s run the same test cases against wokeness. By my count these apply.

  1. Rejection of modernism. Obviously wokeness favors alternative “ways of knowing” and rejects objectivity, rationality and the scientific method as white supremacy.

  2. Cult of action. The motto “Punch a nazi” is certainly proudly anti-intellectual, elevating the propaganda of the deed/direct action above any intellectual debate.

  3. Disagreement is treason. This is too easy, wokeness considers silence as violence and obviously disagreement is violence.

  4. Obsession with a plot. White supremacy is behind everything. Bad test scores? White supremacy. Crime statistics? White supremacy. Every institution is full to the brim with hidden, covert racists.

  5. Enemies simultaneously too strong and too weak. Trump is simultaneously a fascist dictator but also a bumbling, senile buffoon.

  6. Newspeak. Control and redefinition of language is one of wokeness’ defining traits.

The selective populism and appeal to the middle class are basically free squares that can be applied to any ideology

I think they're basically all free squares; the list is just a toolkit for anytime you want to coordinate the masses into some kind of political action.

If you tried to form a political project that was the exact inverse of what the list describes, you get a kind of bloodless, nebbish classical liberalism. Which is nice, but it's not something a movement has ever been made from.

Cult of action.

I thought action was an example of white supremacy?

I haven't heard that specific one. While it wouldn't surprise me if someone did say something like that, it's not exactly hard to come up with examples that would contradict, unless the revolution is supposed to happen all by itself.

The Smithsonian has an evergreen cheat sheet for understanding white supremacy:

  • Action Orientation

Frankly, MAGA has a lot more in common with fascism than being right-wing nationalist.

Taking Eco's definition

Most left wingers have a lot more in common with fascism, if you take Eco's definition.

Frankly, MAGA has a lot more in common with fascism than being right-wing nationalist.

Taking Eco's definition, I would argue that MAGA checks about half the boxes.

That's nothing special, so does Social Justice:

  • The rejection of modernism
  • The cult of action for action's sake
  • Disagreement is treason
  • Obsession with a plot
  • cast their enemies as "at the same time too strong and too weak."
  • Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy
  • Selective populism
  • Newspeak

Either those summaries are too broad to be useful, or some traits of Fascism have become broadly entrenched in our society, regardless of what we call the groups that embody them.

Nothing special indeed; FDR's New Deal checks about half the boxes too:

  • The cult of action for action's sake
  • Disagreement is treason
  • Appeal to a frustrated middle class
  • Obsession with a plot
  • Enemies (the rich) are at once too strong and too weak
  • Pacifism (after WWII started brewing) is trafficking with the enemy
  • Selective populism
  • Newspeak (in tons of agency and program names)

Eco was opposed to fascism, taking his definition of fascism as definitive is like taking an atheist's definition of Christianity (instead of Nicean creed), or Rand's definition of socialism. Luckily an endodefinition1 exists:

Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.

I suspect the reason that this defition is not used, is that describes better2 the relationship democrats have with the state, than republicans do. And also, the preference for anti-fascist sources, even if secondary.

1: That completely accurately, but if forced at gunpoint to chose, democrats are slightly closer: Operation Chokepoint, lockdowns, censorship during lockdowns.

2: It is queer that in the age of transsexualism, not only is self-identification not applied, a group is defined by outsiders. If one were to transpose discourse surrounding the definition of fascist, onto the debates surrounding gender, it would be like the canonical definition of a woman being something some misogynist thought up.

I think that almost all societies which are commonly labeled fascist did not use that as an endonym. Comes with the territory -- "we just adopted an ideology of the Italians" is a hard sell for ultra-nationalists.

I think there is a cluster in thing-space for the states of Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, and it is useful to have a word to reference that cluster, and the word their opponents have adopted for better or worse is fascism. One can debate how well it applies even to Franco and if it ever applied to any other states, of course.

Just because the SJ lets people pick some common identifiers it does not mean that individuals get to pick all identifiers. The SJ certainly does not like "I identify as native-American", and "I identify as assigned-female-at-birth" is absurd. Nor do we respect people deciding that they are not schizophrenic, but merely willing servants of the man in the moon.

Fascism as used by Eco is mostly an exonym, and it makes sense to have an exodefinition for that.

I feel like the whole debate completely misses the point entirely. Political violence can mean anything from violently resisting laws, assassinating politicians, to murdering random civilians with opposing views.

When people say “just kill fascists”, is the latter one what they mean? Would they have considered morally acceptable to open fire on a train of Mussolini voters during Fascist Italy? To kill a random grandma for supporting Il Duce, even if she was retired, had no influence whatsoever and just believed it because that’s what most people did?

When people say “just kill fascists”, is the latter one what they mean?

Absolutely yes, based on my experience living with people who say things like this and along with people who are on the border of saying things like this. From my observation, the people who actually believe in fighting fascist in ways that involve specifically targeting individuals with power but are against blanket condemnation of wide swaths of people tend to not to be the ones who jump on to slogans like that one. The ones who are willing to carelessly embrace extreme or extreme-sounding slogans like that almost always mean it in the most extreme way it can be interpreted (usually more extreme).

As ever, Scott’s take was fair as far as it goes, but the entire discussion of when is the right time to start murdering your political adversaries in the concrete gives me pause. It’s impossible to broach that topic and not tacitly endorse murder. The conversation is definitely more murdery than the post itself, including his own replies in which he suggests coordinated ???

I think everyone who is not a radical pacifist will endorse the deliberate killing of other persons in some circumstances. Once you have conceded that, you are merely haggling over the price.

Fortunately, this is very moot in the contemporary US, because Trump can be easily voted out of office in about three years, which is a far better outcome than any violence could hope to accomplish. I also do not see him defeating the federal bureaucracy to the point where he can rig or suspend the elections, so even that hypothetical is not very relevant.

Trump is term-limited, there will be no vote on whether or not he leaves office absent a Constitutional amendment (which is extremely far-fetched).

US elections are also held at the state level, so there's no real way for him to rig the elections via the federal bureaucracy (unless he's using the CIA to hack the voting machines, or something). I suppose he could attempt to stage a coup of some variety, but I agree with you assessment of the federal bureaucracy there.

FWICT, the right believes that Trump is in the process of trying to rig the elections by:

  • Deporting illegals, since many on the right believe that places like California and Oregon actually have been making it possible for them to vote.
  • Pushing for more gerrymandering, claiming it's in defiance of far more extreme democrat gerrymandering.
  • The VRA is currently before SCOTUS, and if gutted, could lead to the loss of several majority black districts in the South.

Additionally, the Putin loophole does not seem to be addressed in the 22nd Amendment. I think Trump running as Vance's VP as a backdoor into a third term would go against the spirit of the 22nd, but whether it's actually forbidden would be something the courts would have to decide.

Keep in mind that Electoral College votes are determined by population (which would include illegal aliens), so even if no illegal aliens vote their presence, if large enough, does skew the Electoral College. Not coincidentally, the President has been calling for a new census.

Gerrymandering and court cases and deportations might be unseemly (or they might be politics as usual, I suppose that depends on the specifics and your personal judgment) but all of them are at least done under the color of law, unlike outrider voter fraud.

I think Trump running as Vance's VP as a backdoor into a third term would go against the spirit of the 22nd, but whether it's actually forbidden would be something the courts would have to decide.

This would be extremely funny, and I hadn't considered that seriously, but I suppose it is possible. The 12th Amendment bars people ineligible for the Presidency from the position of Vice-Presidency, though, which might be ruled to put a damper on the idea.

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