Why wasn't DJT any of those things back then? Did we know everything about him back then? Was the reporting that good? Did he lie back then?

Why is DJT those things now? The reporting is already far worse than it was and more and more is proven false. You believe everything he says now?

Can people not say and do the opposite of what they're actually thinking? Can people not think ahead? Can people not manipulate?

Once people make a decision about something, can they not deviate from that ideology in anyway or do their minds automatically follow it exactly?

When people make a decision, can they not change their minds? How long before they can change their mind? Every decade? Every year? Each day?

Are 'products' not allowed to go backwards? If changes are made and it makes them worse, or even a safety concern, do we just keep 'selling' them?

Does the right ever progress/drift more right? Does the left ever progress/drift more left? How does the position of center react to those changes?

Does National Socialism only apply to the right? Is there anything about National Socialism that applies to the left?

Right : (looks up and see's a perfectly blue sky) 'The sky is blue'.

Left : (looks up and see's the same thing) 'That's not true. The sky isn't always blue.'

Whether or not Donald Trump is a Republican is an observable fact, unless you mean Republican in the loose sense that he votes for Republicans overwhelmingly. He is registered and holds status as a high level Republican. This was not true in the 90's and early 00's.

As for the rest, we can make observations of what he says and does, from a variety of sources. The media isn't a unified behemoth. If different independent sources observe a thing, then that thing is more likely to be true. 

The idea that society is a "product" is a weird take, but no you can't really "go backwards." Everything inherits from what came before it. I don't necessarily believe in progressive historiology (that things always get better over time), but I do believe that you can't suddenly reinvent a modern society to become a medieval one. Likewise with a post-modern one with a modern one. The error in palingenetic accounting is that it suggests things were overall better in some golden age, and it is only a matter of returning to it by eliminating the "fifth column" that made society fall, but that golden age never really existed as it is accounted to have and there is no "fifth column."  

In the U.S both the mainstream right and left are further polarized than they were in say the New Deal, post-war era. Eisenhower, for example, wouldn't have said something like "the Civil Rights Act was a mistake" and Johnson likely wouldn't be pro-LGBT. The center has overall shifted rightward on economics and leftward on cultural issues though. 

National Socialism (outside of suppressed forms of it like Strasserism) was a right-wing ideology. Right-wing ideologies describe those ideologies which are oriented toward the preservation and naturalization of social hierarchies. Left-wing ideologies are those which are oriented toward deconstructing social hierarchies and which argue they are largely constructed by society. Nazis believed strongly not just in racial and ethnic hierarchies, but also in class hierarchies (people of different classes should know their place and collaborate.) The exception of course we're the strasserites who believed class hierarchies (within the Germanic "race") should be eliminated/reduced/abolished. But at best you can say their ideology  was syncretic, as they still believed in racial and ethnic hierarchies.

This isn't to say there weren't totalitarian leftist movements, but it is to say that in so much as they were left wing they weren't Nazi movements. 

Plenty didn't and still don't see DJT as Republican or on the right, they just see him as part of that affiliation since that's what he ran under. Are they wrong? Did DJT run as a Republican because that's what he is, or are there other more important reasons? Can we trust what he said or did back then? Can we trust what he says or does now? If everyone was jumping off a bridge, does that most likely mean it's the right thing to do? Do entities ever work together to accomplish a goal? Are those goals always for the better? Better for everyone?

I didn't mean a product when I said 'product', and didn't mean sale when I said 'selling'. That should've been obvious as you realize it doesn't make any sense. Much like you should have realized what my questions are all about and what your answers have been proving about them. Suggesting that things were never better in the past makes no sense. Things don't only ever get better, and at times, things are so bad, they need to be reverted before progress can actually be made, like with poorly updated broken products, for example. It has nothing to do with society being 'perfect' at some point in the past, since that's not a thing.

Relativity, not ideology. The center politically has shifted towards the right because pretty much everything has drifted and expanded so far left.

Well said CK, well said.

Is fascism right or left? When that's the kind of thing that gets posted, then a thread ban is in order because the person in question just wants to waste everyone's time.

That's ignoring the user's posting history which would only back up the need for a thread ban.

Being a big "R" Republican is an affiliation. Political parties are defined by the association of their members. There is no essence to being a "Republican." It's precisely why the party under Donald Trump, as its leader, is very different than under - say - Calvin Coolidge or Abraham Lincoln. 

The rest of your questions are anti-empirical nonsense. The only way to understand the world is to critically make observations of it. It is silly to go through a conspiratorial hole without actual evidence. 

I understand your product analogy. I think it fails. Society is much more stigmergic/spontaneously ordered than an implemented product. Thinking of society as a product to be designed is a very authoritarian way to think of it.

Nobody mentioned a perfect society. Palingenetic views don't depend on there having been a perfect society in thr past, but rather an overall better one that should be replicated and returned to. You don't need to return to an old revision of a product to make it better. You can be inspired by old ideas, but usually returning entirely to something old is a mistake. There are a multitude of reasons why society propelled and changed from that old status. 

Sorry no. Not everything shifted to the far left. Americans have fewer labor rights, for example, than in 1950. Top marginal income tax rates are lower. Wealth inequality is higher. Public goods like education are more expensive (relatively.) As far as economics is concerned the U.S is shifted rightward. Things have shifted culturally leftward, yes, but the alternative of that happening literally is for the U.S as a polity to fracture according to cultural lines (like it almost did during the Civil War.) That is why things changed. 

If it were so trivially true that good ideas beat bad ideas, then why do bad ideas exist? 

One, I don't even think this makes sense in the first place. People don't base their politics based on left/right. There is no right wing conservative, who learns that Nazis are considered to be far right, and goes "oh I need to completely change my political positions".

Two, these words aren't magical. They only have the meaning that most people give them - that can get tricky if some people are using the words differently. But if tomorrow, everyone swapped left and right, that wouldn't matter. You would just start gauging policies based on that definition you're using.   

The left/right spectrum is generally based on hierarchy - generally class, but race, sex are frequent issues, it's not state vs private. Fascism imposes a hierarchy.  

'Words don't have meaning'. 'We also tell you what those words mean.'

You people also spent every day since the political assassination of a person you still shamelessly label as an extremist, telling people it must've been an alt-right crazy because you needed vindication.

"The ‘Armed Queers of Salt Lake City’ is a marxist paramilitary group being investigated by federal authorities in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s left-wing political assassination.

This radical group immediately deleted their social media in the aftermath of Charlie’s murder. However, all data was captured by investigators and it’s very concerning.

A federal law enforcement source told me directly that the group “Deserves classification as a domestic terrorist organization”

The logo of ‘Armed Queers’ features the same caliber bullet that struck Charlie engraved with leftist messaging, just as Charlie’s was.

In a now deleted video, the leaders of the Armed Queers of Salt Lake City brag about a trip to communist Cuba in May of 2025 where they trained with militant marxists to stage a “revolution in America” when they returned home. The Marxist leaders they met with bragged about being labeled “terrorists” by the United States. The leaders of ‘Armed Queers’ refer to America as the “Belly of the Beast” in the video. The group has openly coordinated with the Cuban government in various venues and events.

Meet the leader of the Armed Queers of Salt Lake Ciry; Ermiya Fanaeian. She is an Iranian immigrant and self-identified communist who has been honored by the US State Department, United Nations and his ties to NGO Utah Global Diplomacy.

Utah Global Diplomacy has wiped all of her mentions on their pages.

Authorities are now looking into Armed Queers SLC’s ties to Charlie Kirk’s assassination. This story is developing.

It is important to begin investigations into the global, militant left-wing radicalization networks that seek to destroy western civilization.

Excellent information from @DataRepublican and her team."

By Ermiya Fanaeian

January 15, 2024

In defense of the removal of Mecha de U of U from the Center for Equity and Student Belonging’s sponsored status, The Salt Lake Tribune Editorial Board wrote, “What [Mecha] doesn’t have the right to do is to stop other people and other organizations, on campus and elsewhere, from meeting to promote their views and demonstrate in support of their causes. Even if one of the causes might well be seen as a heinous stand against the rights of transgender people.”

This sentiment, expressed by both media sources and the University of Utah’s administration, reflects a political position that, for too long, has been portrayed as enlightened and fair: the position of remaining neutral to both sides. From the dignity of trans people to the mandate for Palestinian liberation, the insistence that vague and individualistic positions take priority over the right of oppressed people to resist continues to pollute mainstream political conversation. Even when siding with the oppressed seems entirely obvious, and required of us morally. 

What the proponents of granting right-wing forces full reign to organize without pushback fail to realize is just how partial this position actually is. As a political organizer, I’ve had the honor of working closely with the young and inspiring activists of Mecha. In one of the first of what would become a pattern of disputes with the U administration, they faced pushback from the U for an event they co-hosted with Armed Queers Salt Lake City, which I am an active organizer of.

The pushback from the U was over the advertising of the event, insisting that the flyers promoted a level of militancy that was not palatable enough and recommended they change the symbolism. This occurred shortly before a student organization plastered anti-trans propaganda all over campus, a clear breach of “equity, diversity and inclusion,” which was met with no pushback or recommendations of palatability. 

Rather, the propaganda was met with full defense from both institutional mandate and media apparatus, insisting resistance against it was a violation of free speech, attempting to persuade us to believe that, for trans and all oppressed people, resisting propaganda organized against them is equivalent to the consequences of the propaganda itself.

However, it does not escape us that the forces attempting to draw this equivalency were also leading the effort to pacify Mecha’s events, and stood in favor of the silencing they are constantly subject to. It also does not escape us that the law, the First Amendment in particular, was invoked to make these assertions. Yet, neither the law nor the First Amendment has ever truly stopped the repression of political movements, and the decades of McCarthyite attacks, which continue to this day. And so long as the First Amendment is shaped by the state and legitimized through a constitution created by a slave-owning class, it can never be neutral and without political alliance.

Indeed, transphobia, Zionism, racism and the history of anti-left witch hunts have been responsible for some of the most undeniable forms of silencing. With trans and queer activists consistently facing vigilante intimidation and Palestinian activists making up a mass wave of political prisoners, we must always ask, freedom of speech for who?

Clearly, it has never been for popular struggles.

To frame both sides as the same, to insist there is a right to bigotry that outweighs the struggles of oppressed people, undoubtedly benefits one side over the other. “Freedom of speech” is only invoked in favor of those who have it the most, the rest of us are far too much of a political threat to receive such benefit.

It is clear that both-sides-ism, the phenomenon of prioritizing centrism above any substantive goal for our world, has left us weak as the forces of fascism continue to grow. If we wish to adequately organize and build power amongst our communities, it can no longer take place within institutions or through their regulations. We have to be willing to build and mobilize with the understanding that institutions are antithetical to activist projects. Relegating our movements to obsolete diversity campaigns, activism must always take place outside of the U.

It is also clear that the people, on the U’s campus and all over the world, have chosen a side. As hundreds of thousands have shown up in favor of Palestinian liberation and energy on college campuses continues to grow in favor of trans liberation, the side of resistance strengthens its numbers by the day.

If there are two sides, the masses have shown up for only one of them and unequivocally rejected the other. Centrism remains entirely unpopular, while commitment to political struggle presents a promising future for all of us.

— Ermiya Fanaeian, Student at the University of Utah

You start your post here mischaracterizing the argument made. 

The argument wasn't words don't have meaning. It was the meaning of words are relational and inter-subjective. 

That's the basis of much of semiotics. 

We can literally measure this when we embed semantics in vector spaces. 

This isn't remotely what was said.  

It's hard to take anything you've said seriously, if you're either so incapable of understanding what arguments are being made, or if you're being intentionally dishonest about what arguments are being made.  

Most people here have been trying to follow whatever evidence/argument seems to come out.  

Still kind of waiting for better confirmation.  I think the better evidence right now points to them being left leaning. But if it was that simple, the media wouldn't have to be digging so hard to find trans people that he associated with.  

I also looked back at the past 20 pages, with ctrl + F to search the pages (which admittingly has had issues before), to find people calling Charlie Kirk an extremist. And I didn't get any hits. 

I doubt most people you're accusing of, even care if it is 100% a left winger. It doesn't particularly change what happened. There is always extremist violence in the first place, and most of it isn't done in the name of left wing politics.   

Julius Streicher was the publisher of Der Stürmer, a Nazi newspaper devoted to antisemitic hate. He wasn’t a general or a policymaker — his “crime” was words. At Nuremberg, the Tribunal ruled that his relentless incitement of hatred and extermination was a crime against humanity. He was executed in 1946 solely for propaganda.
That history matters today. Figures like Charlie Kirk and Ben Shapiro dress up their politics as “commentary,” but what they’re really doing is classic fascist propaganda: scapegoating minorities, spreading fear, vilifying women, LGBTQ people, and immigrants. This isn’t harmless opinion — it’s rhetoric designed to dehumanize and radicalize.
If Streicher taught us anything, it’s that propaganda is a weapon. Free societies can’t afford to shrug it off as “just speech.”