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Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 6, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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From Grok: From communists and the far left: This is where associations with fascism occasionally appeared. East German Communist leader Wilhelm Pieck in September 1952 attacked Eisenhower’s call for a “crusade against communism” (in a speech to the American Legion) as repeating “the program devised by Adolf Hitler” and using “the language of Hitler and Goebbels.” U.S. Communist Party materials from the period sometimes warned that the Eisenhower administration represented a “sharpened war and fascist danger,” linked McCarthyism and anti-communist policies to fascist tendencies, or framed the Republican victory as heightening fascist risks.

So yeah, same same. The center libs were too circumspect to accuse Eisenhower of fascism directly, but the far left wasn't.

I'll go further and say neither you nor I will ever see a Republican candidate for important office anywhere, ever, who isn't called a Nazi/Fascist/Hitler. Nor will we ever see such a candidate fail to garner some vague rape claims, often by large numbers of anonymous women. The only question is how far toward the center believing such things extends.

I suppose you're probably right on a literal level here, but it seems like there needs to be some level of notoriety to the claims, or it's almost trivially true of any public figure. It's probably true for every member of Congress. It might be true for most city council persons nationwide, even.

Ken Paxton doesn't seem to be accused of any of this stuff- he's receiving perfectly accurate accusations(that he's an adulterer who takes bribes) instead.

The normal corruption is easier and thus a more common tone, but it's still present.