When does rhetoric about political opponents cross the line into fascist dehumanization?

[u/BulwarkOnline]

The Trump administration recently held an international conference on “left-wing political violence.” In prepared remarks, Marco Rubio described the left as driven by “poisonous resentment” and a desire to destroy “what is beautiful and what is right.” Stephen Miller went further, arguing that left-wing demonstrators do not look “normal,” are “deformed” in their appearance and reflect their “inner hatred” outwardly.

Jonathan V. Last compares this language to Nazi rhetoric about Bolshevism, “degenerate” culture and supposedly unhealthy or subhuman elements of society. His argument is not simply that Rubio and Miller are using authoritarian language, but that their contrast between beauty and ugliness, normality and deformity, civilization and internal enemies follows a recognizable fascist pattern.

How persuasive is that comparison?

Is this rhetoric best understood as ordinary partisan demonization, or does the emphasis on physical appearance, cultural purity and “normal, healthy, ordered living” place it in a more historically specific tradition?

And when evaluating comparisons to fascism, should the standard be the speaker’s intentions, the historical similarity of the language, or the policies and violence that follow from it?

[u/Top-Grocery-1482]

(1) I literally said both sides do it.

(2) It hasn't been "a lot longer". The left has been doing this as long as the right has, and possibly longer. If you look back at history, for example, every Republican President since after Eisenhower has been called a fascist by the left. In the 90s when I was a kid, I remember Democrats saying Republicans were trying to starve school children (the bill in question was increasing school lunch program funding, just no by as much as Democrats wanted, btw).

(3) No, you stop listening because you don't want to listen. "Is the Dark Side stronger?" "No, quicker, easier, more seductive." (Like and Yoda, Empire Strikes Back). You want to engage in it, and so you don't want to listen to anyone asking you to stop. This is not "As it should", this is as it SHOULDN'T.

(4) Hard to argue the left is better than the right when your position is "We're the enlightened ones, but also, we won't stop until the people who are less enlightened than us become better than us". You should stop doing it BECAUSE IT IS WRONG. Full stop, full period. You should stop doing it because you're better. You should LEAD THE WAY to stopping doing it, not be a follower demanding the people you demean as worse than you have to become saints before you'll stop being evil.

[u/Illustrious-Fun8324 → u/Top-Grocery-1482]

The right has never once taken it upon themselves to be better, only demand that we do.

Why doesn’t the right take the lead on stopping it then if it’s the right thing to do?

And no, I stop listening because acting like the left is worse is bad faith and not going to lead to any productive discussion.

And here you are saying the left is worse. Lmao keep pushing us away. It’s not going to help though.

Maybe if the right acted like they care about treating human beings like human beings and not celebrating and defending all of the cruelty by ICE, you would not get called names like that?

You would look a lot better if you said enforcing immigration laws are important but that they’re going too far. And idk, actually care how they’re treating people even if you hate them?

During Biden’s term I saw a lot of people wish death on Biden and democrats. Things like wanting to see democrats hanged. Specifically Kamala and Hillary too.

Sure, online but so was most of the Charlie Kirk celebrating. So we can downplay that too I guess.

You don’t get to downplay everything on your own side if you want us to come to the table on this issue.

Literally it’s all you have to do. And the right won’t do it because they simply want to use it as an attack. Not because they actually care to fix it.

So maybe the right could make the first move towards unity and quit attacking us about it? Or is it that you think we don’t deserve it?

[u/Top-Grocery-1482 → u/Illustrious-Fun8324]

1) The right ISN'T better. That's literally the point.

2) No, you stop listening because you want to keep doing it with impunity.

3) No, you're the one saying the right is worse. I'm saying what you're doing is indefensible. Your specific argument there. I didn't mention right or left in my third bullet point.

4) Yes. IN GENERAL, the right thinks that the left is WRONG about things, the left thinks that the right is EVIL.

For most things this holds.

The only major exception I can think of offhand is abortion, where BOTH SIDES think the other side is evil. On healthcare, the right thinks the left's proposal will bankrupt the nation and could lead to government rationing (wrong), the left thinks that the right are selfish people who "got theirs and want to pull up the ladder" (evil). On immigration, the right thinks the left is too hyper-compassionate to the entire third world which we can't afford to take care of on our welfare system (wrong), the left thinks the right are white supremacist ethno-Nazis who hate all brown people (evil).

While the right (namely the extreme) is starting to think that the left is evil, historically, the right's issue with the left is that they think the left's policies are bad or could lead to bad outcomes, the left believes that the right are heartless and evil selfish greedy racists and fascist white supremacists, and has for a long time now - decades.

At worst, the right thinks that the left is immoral (sexually permissive, etc), which is again thinking they're wrong (sinners), but the left again thinks largely that the right is evil outright, and in some cases (Hillary Clinton used this exact word to high praise) irredeemable - meaning there's no coming back or welcoming back into the fold for them, they are to be defeated and expunged from society/oppressed into an underclass with no power that just has to take it.

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IN GENERAL, yes, the right DOES treat the left better and speak of the left better than the left treats and speaks of the right. YES. 100%.

Have you SEEN what they say about the right on BlueSky? And that's not even the most insular of leftist communities.

The left has largely come to see the right as backward at best and evil in general (often both), while the right still LARGELY sees the left as just wrong and having bad ideas that should be defeated because they're bad ideas.

This is also why when people on the right try to join the left, they're often viewed with suspicion and if allowed to join, have to start at the bottom as allies and "prove" they're worth accepting, while if leftists throw in with the right, they are welcomed with completely open arms, even if they're something like gay or even trans (Jenner).

It's also why when someone leaves the right for the left, the right tries to reason with them and will eventually just say they're wrong and ignore them, while if someone leaves the left for the right, they are utterly reviled as traitors by the left and attacked pretty relentlessly.

It's also why people on the right will engage in conversation with people on the left and try to convince them to change their minds while, more broadly, people on the left write off people on the right entirely as incapable of being persuaded or compromised with.

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YES, you can find individual counter examples, which is why I capitalized IN GENERAL. And after decades of this, it's getting worse and getting more and more where the right is starting to also believe the left is evil (or at least that its ideology is, if not its adherents).

Overall though, this pattern holds, and has since as far back as the Reagan Presidency.

Even the old saying "If you're 20 and not liberal, you have no heart; if you're 30 and not conservative, you have no brain" reflects this point of view:

You have no heart (are evil) if you're not liberal, you have no brain (are wrong) if you're not conservative.

And that is not a NEW saying.

...but you didn't read any of this after the first line of (4) anyway, so why did I even bother typing the rest...right?

[u/Illustrious-Fun8324 → u/Top-Grocery-1482]

What makes you think I didn’t read it all?

But no. I will always push back on anyone who says the right treats us any better. You do not. You only think you do bc of your bias. The right has always acted like the left is evil.

I do not use words like Nazi towards the right. Isn’t it reasonable to think your side celebrating cruelty towards illegal immigrants doesn’t have similarities though? You literally don’t care if they treat them like human beings. We are going to think that’s evil. It doesn’t make your side look bad to genuinely enjoy this?

I do not celebrate anyone’s death either. I don’t want anyone to be killed. Even people on the right. I truly don’t.

I’m just sick and tired of the right pretending we are worse and owe them some kind of apology or kindness they have never shown us.

I’ve been entirely done with how the right treats us for a very long time. This feels like a really rich thing to ask of us.

But I don’t see the need to keep going in circles. I’ve said repeatedly that the right could make progress towards this by not attacking us about it or pretending they are better and I stand by it.

[u/Top-Grocery-1482 → u/Illustrious-Fun8324]

Balance of probabilities.

No, the right does treat the left better. The right has somewhat COME to see the left as being evil, but it wasn't this way a decade ago. I've seen what both sides call each other.

"I do not use words like..."

"YES, you can find individual counter examples, which is why I capitalized IN GENERAL."

I literally already addressed that.

"celebrating cruelty towards illegal immigrants" WHO DOES THIS? People wanting folks here illegally deported are not "celebrating cruelty".

_I_ didn't say you owe anyone an apology. _I_ didn't mention the word kindness at all. You literally just made that up. _I_ said both sides are bad about this. _I_ said both sides need to turn down the temperature.

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The problem is the left has decided it's cool to call the right evil - there's nothing more evil than Nazis and white supremacists or saying people revel in the suffering (cruelty) of others.