Fascism: a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.
Noticing in our current political climate that when you don’t like the other side of the political spectrum, people resort to calling each other fascists. Fascism was the political style of the Nazi party and the Italian dictatorship of the Axis powers during World War II.
But now as a new form of political mudslinging, it’s the new trend to call your opponents fascists when you don’t like their message or you don’t agree with what they’re saying. It’s all silly and unnecessary, honestly. When people don’t like others they now resort to referring to them as the worst criminals in human history.
Recently at Cal State Los Angeles, Ben Shapiro showed up to talk and caused quite a controversy. When he was speaking at the school and people tried to interrupt him, he made sure to call everyone opposing him a fascist.
The Left has done it too. People repeatedly call the Republican candidates fascists, especially Ted Cruz. One joke I heard was: a Fascist, a Canadian and a Conservative walk into a bar, and the bartenders says, “What can I get you, Mr. Cruz?”
In today’s political landscape, no one is willing to compromise and in my experience, everyone attacks each other when they don’t agree with something. We can’t let bygones be bygones, we have to attack each other because we don’t like the other side.
Using fascists as an insult is almost as bad as using conservative and liberal as an insult. If you affiliate with those parties and someone tries to use that to insult you, it's lazy, it makes no sense and just makes the person hurling the insult look unintelligent.
This just reminds me of the '50s when people were calling each other communists. It’s dumb and we shouldn’t do it because Americans aren’t communists or fascists, so stop calling each other these names. It’s only adding to the huge divide in our political landscape.
In times of extreme separation, we need to build each other up rather than bring each other down. The first step is to stop calling each other fascists. Insults won’t ease any of the tension between the parties and their followers. Get creative with your insults, because frankly it’s getting embarrassing.
