Huge opportunity here to censor your disfavored groups by calling them fascist, which has, in recent times, evolved from being a political science term, to being a very broad type of insult/accusation usable against almost anyone you don’t like.
> I suspect that “fascism” is increasingly a popular slur even for Americans who aren’t so terminally online, and because a word’s meaning is popularly determined by its usage, that means that it’s pointless to complain that they are “using it wrong”.
If you're right that it's becoming such, than I would agree it's simply changing its meaning, I'm not a presciptivist.
However, from my experience, which is limited to online content, I've only seen accusations of fascism being used by left-wing speakers against right-wing (or perceived right-wing) adversaries.
So, my theory is that the term actually retains most of its original meaning even by those throwing it around willy-nilly. It is then not a wrong use of the term nor a novel use, but in fact a sign of increasingly extreme language. That is, people who call you fascist for not caring whether you add alt text to an image aren't using fascist to mean generic bad person, they actually intend to compare your actions to Hitler.
It's similar to how "socialist" is used by right-wing pundits. When they call a boss who raises employee wages "socialist", they are not using that as a generic insult, they explicitly mean to compare that boss with Stalin or Chavez or other such boogeymen.
I think it's all a sign of increasingly more extreme discourse. I would actually be much happier to find out that you are in fact right and fascist is just a more generic insult now.
I've seen it used against people spouting QAnon, Big Pharma mind control vaccine theories and support for fascist elements of various governments like USA, China, Turkey, Russia, and Poland. Seems appropriate to me. It's not healthy to tolerate these folks, especially the fascists.
> I'm sorry, but you don't get to do that! `fascism` already has an established meaning. Please make up a new word for what you believe `fascism` means
I see your point, but honestly, that's not how language work. Changes in meaning over time are not so uncommon, and "fascist" has been used in a loose sense for years (at least in Italian), but looking at Wikipedia this holds for English too.
I think everyone is very confused with what “fascist” means. Some say not having a gender-neural bathroom is “fascist”. But anyway, it seems you’re very set on not liking someone, so it’s better to leave you alone.
>when the president in power has insinuated the assassination of his opponents, encouraged his supporters to engage in violence, been spinning outlandish lies about the former president wiretapping him, etc, well I call that fascism ¯\_(?)_/¯
Consider looking up the definition, because the definition of fascism is not "having a leader who makes dumb statements".
Nor is this word a label for "a politician who makes you feel really bad emotions".
> Do you use fascist techniques like criminalizing speech
“Criminalizing speech” by itself isn't a particularly fascist technique, since it's been done by movements all over the political spectrum, starting long before fascism. Fascism (in the broad sense) isn't really defined much by technique (you could perhaps credit Naziism or Italian Fascism specifically with some techniques, like the distinct propaganda approach of the Nazis, but even that isn't as distinguishing as the ideological goals of the movement.)
Huge opportunity here to censor your disfavored groups by calling them fascist, which has, in recent times, evolved from being a political science term, to being a very broad type of insult/accusation usable against almost anyone you don’t like.
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