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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/24/usa-american-fascism-expert-warning-australia-you-guys-are-probably-next>
"It’s a warm autumn evening and Jason Stanley is walking through downtown
Toronto, his home of a fortnight, discussing his view that America is sliding
into fascism, and its global and historical parallels.
“But the far right is everywhere,” he tells the
Guardian. “There is a chill
of fear everywhere.”
As if on cue, a man emerges walking in the opposite direction wearing a bright
red T-shirt bearing the slogan “Canada First”, a nationalist political movement
promoting the mass deportation of migrants.
“You can feel the sense of threat,” Stanley says. “Fascism begins with
immigrants and national minorities, and it moves quickly to political
opponents.”
The trend is a global one, Stanley argues; the United States is just further
down the path than other places. It is descending more quickly – and, as the
events of past days have shown, more violently.
When we speak, it is a week since rightwing provocateur Charlie Kirk was
murdered at a university campus in Utah. In the days since, Kirk’s death has
been weaponised by some supporters to attack political opponents. In an address
from the Oval Office, the US president, Donald Trump, specifically blamed
“radical left political violence” for Kirk’s death.
A website has been established to dox anyone the site’s creators believe has
“celebrated” Kirk’s assassination, or made comments they deem insufficiently
orthodox on his legacy. People’s names, phone numbers, home addresses and
places of work have been listed online, accompanied by threats and acts of
violence.
A thread on X is celebrating people losing their jobs for making comments about
Kirk’s death: the thread lists dozens of cases of journalists, teachers, even
hamburger cooks and Secret Service agents, summarily fired.
“And JD Vance, the vice president of the United States, has encouraged ordinary
citizens to report people for their negative comments about Charlie Kirk,”
Stanley says.
“That was a real signal saying, ‘We’re going to police your speech at every
level’ … It’s a terror campaign against ordinary citizens’ speech.”
Stanley made global headlines in March this year when, as a Yale professor
specialising in the study of fascism, he announced he was leaving the US
because he believed it was at risk of becoming a “fascist dictatorship”."
Via Kenny Chaffin.
Clarice Boomshakala responded:
"Compulsory voting, preferential (ranked-choice) voting, and proportional
representation in the Senate, collectively incentivise parties to appeal to a
broad electorate rather than just their base, resulting in fairly moderate
governments.
Waleed Ali once said: “In a compulsory election, it does not pay to energize
your base to the exclusion of all other voters. Since elections cannot be
determined by turnout, they are decided by swing voters and won in the center…
That is one reason Australia’s version of the far right lacks anything like the
power of its European or American counterparts. Australia has had some bad
governments, but it hasn’t had any truly extreme ones and it isn’t nearly as
vulnerable to demagogues.” but we have elected dickheads…and will no doubt do
so again"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
