It’s probably a terrible idea to bring up, but I think it’s an important societal question that should be discussed civilly, given its relevance in both the past and the present.
We all know it. We’ve seen pictures of people with Hitler mustaches slapped on them, we all know Godwin’s law. We’ve used and abused such terms. Actual fascists, militant antifascists, and everyone in between has been affected by these words before. But in today’s age, fascist has arguably turned into a political epithet, used to describe everyone from Donald Trump to Barack Obama to Joseph Stalin. It’s been debated before, but does using fascist as an insult take away from the villainous acts committed by fascist regimes? Does it further polarize and divide us in a time already considered divisive? I say that it does. Fascism is not to be taken lightly, and to many it’s merely a word to describe your opponent, or an “edgy joke that you normies wouldn’t understand”. This casual use of the word makes fascism seem like a walk in the park, a simple way to make your opponent evil, or a “joke for shock value”. Similar concepts apply to red-baiting. Americans have often heard that “Democrats are communists, Republicans are Nazis”. Economic reforms are considered the first step towards a dictatorial communist regime where the party cannot be questioned and everyone is dying in a gulag. Using tyrannical ideologies as political epithets makes the true evil of those ideologies trivialized. By misusing these terms, we are normalizing the ideals these people supported.
But that’s just my opinion. I’m trying hard to be civil, and I hope everyone else does too.
