"Brandon is SO oblivious to the obvious truth - he is the Fascist."
He's not oblivious or, more correctly, the Democratic leadership are not oblivious: it is a tactic they use ALL THE TIME. It is out of their playbook. They accuse their opposition of being something, or doing something, which they are actively being or doing. They use the term early and often to put the opposition on defense and to sucker those who are easily suckered.
But in the case of "fascism" I'd suggest he -- and you , and really everyone -- get clear on what YOUR definition is. Otherwise the finger pointing can go on forever, even if a lot of facts are available, and nothing can EVER be settled in debate.
I use the original definition: "Originally, [fascism] referred to a totalitarian political movement linked with corporatism which existed in Italy from 1922 to 1943 under the leadership of Benito Mussolini."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism
However, in general, using the word "fascism", without a clear definition, is either a PLOY to deliberately muddy the waters, or a really bad habit...where the person using the word is oblivious to the fact that they are just babbling and making themselves look stupid. A good test of whether someone has any clue what they are saying is, when possible, is to pin the person down and demand a definition. It's amazing how many people use words they can't define. Or define a word in terms of other words and phrases they can't define.
Wikipedia has more to say about this problem of fascism not having a useful definition at the above link. Or just read below:
"What constitutes a definition of fascism and fascist governments has been a complicated and highly disputed subject concerning the exact nature of fascism and its core tenets debated amongst historians, political scientists, and other scholars since Benito Mussolini first used the term in 1915. Historian Ian Kershaw once wrote that "trying to define 'fascism' is like trying to nail jelly to the wall".[1]
A significant number of scholars agree that a "fascist regime" is foremost an authoritarian form of government, although not all authoritarian regimes are fascist. Authoritarianism is thus a defining characteristic, but most scholars will say that more distinguishing traits are needed to make an authoritarian regime fascist.[2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]
Similarly, fascism as an ideology is also hard to define. Originally, it referred to a totalitarian political movement linked with corporatism which existed in Italy from 1922 to 1943 under the leadership of Benito Mussolini. Many scholars use the word "fascism" without capitalization in a more general sense, to refer to an ideology (or group of ideologies) which was influential in many countries at many different times. For this purpose, they have sought to identify what Roger Griffin calls a "fascist minimum"—that is, the minimum conditions that a certain political movement must meet in order to be considered "fascist".[4]
Scholars have studied the apocalyptic and millenarian aspects of fascism.[11][12][13][14][15][16][17]"
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BTW, with all that said, I want to say that I pretty much agree with you: Brandon, and the Democratic Party as a whole at this point, is Fascist under the original definition: corporatism + authoritarianism. The Republican Party (referring to the members, not the NeoCons who still occupy too many political seats) are quite clearly not.
Further, it increasingly seems to me that communism, fascism, and all manner of socialism, including Nazism, are just sub-variants of Collectivism. I was going to say they are all "Marxism", but I think Marx only wrote about Collectivism and put his own thoughts to the topic and way it might be used.
IMO, Collectivism is as old as mankind -- it is tribalism writ large, well beyond the ~100 people point where tribes can make functional sense (the point where everybody literally knows everybody). But collectivism is hard wired to some extent in everyone.
Mindless collectivism is probably responsible for mankind surviving as long as it has. It seems to me it is now our greatest bottleneck: Eloi + Morlocks.
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