To all the people saying stuff the effect of, "we traded one fascist for another," please just stop. Not because it upsets me, but because you're so obviously wrong.
To all the people saying stuff the effect of, "we traded one fascist for another," please just stop. Not because it upsets me, but because you're so obviously wrong.
Biden is many things--a Drug War czar, a war criminal, a crony capitalist--but he's not a fascist.
Words have meaning, and fascist is not a synonym for "authoritarian" or "lying asshole." Fascist ideology generally includes several of the following tenets (this list isn't exhaustive, btw):
- Extreme nationalism to the point of isolationism (except when waging a war against an "other" that threatens the nation state)
- Scapegoating of a marginalized group or groups for all the ills of society that the fascist regime has failed to eradicate (see above)
- Discrediting (and eventually, persecuting) journalists, especially those who challenge the fascist regime
- Cult of personality around a leader who can, in the eyes of their followers, do no wrong
- Challenging the validity of free elections
- Threatening to bring private businesses under direct control of the state
Biden is a terrible leader on many levels, and I do not want to argue in favor of him as a president. But of the two candidates running, which one embodied more characteristics of fascism?
Biden is also not a socialist. (If you doubt me on that, ask some actual socialists how they feel about Biden.) He has no intention of massively redistributing private property. He's so far right on the "leftist" scale that most of the world laughs at us for being scared of him as a socialist.
Again, there's plenty to criticize about Biden and Harris. They have decades of propping up systemic racism to account for on their records. Biden in particular has a history of hawkish foreign policy, and he pushed for the war in Iraq more than possibly any other Democrat. I don't like him, I don't trust him, and I don't want him to be the leader of the free world.
But he's not a fascist, he's not a socialist, and he's not as much of a direct threat to freedom and human rights as his predecessor was. If you can't look at the past four years and see that, I really don't know else to tell you besides bravo on being able to live your life mostly unaffected under a narcissistic tyrant.