We regret but have to temporary suspend the shipments to USA

Funny that this time this started from the right side of the political spectrum.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory

Authoritarianism is the common denominator; only the details vary.

Good to remember that pretty much all leftist governments had to pivot toward authoritarianism 'for the greater good'.

If you think you have the best idea, the natural next move is to force everyone to follow that best idea, no room for disagreement or alternatives.

This pops up everywhere, everywhere ideology is involved in decisions.

AfD is objectively far more popular in the former east Germany. Look at a map of votes, it’s clear as day. The borders are exact. They are not a left wing party, not at all. They are a far right party.

It makes sense that the the economically struggling former communist areas would be both more drawn to extreme parties and have a distaste for the left.

Stalin, Mao, Castro, Hitler- they were all 'idealists.'

They were in it to improve the human (or some subset thereof) condition. And they weren't going to let anyone get in their way of making things better!

They are a populist semi big tent party as well. They are not particularly coherent but there is some overlap between some of their policies and what some in the far-left might support (Euroscepticism, the Euro and such)

No, fascist consolidation of state and businesses has little to do with communism and "seizing the means of production".

You can follow citations from these citations to find primary search that shows quite a bit of support for it in academic political science.

One of the first things the Socialist government did was violently put down a communist coup. The communists would have abolished democracy ASAP and purged the socialists if they ever took power.

Fact is that extremist movements will crack down on anyone that tries competing with them for power. Ideological affinity hardly matters.

That: "have a distaste for the left" is extremely wrong, because before the AfD, the far-left parties which traced their history back to the SED (the socialist party of the GDR (East Germany)) were very popular there, much more so than in West Germany.

Hitler was an O.G. troll, taking over the Workers' Party and renaming it with the word Socialism purely to aggravate his political opponents. He hated socialists, communists, and anarchists.

Yeah sure they are very different except for the consolidation of state and business that every fascist and every communist state has attempted :)

If you say so. Seems like a rather incoherent view though…

Fact is that there is a lot of overlap between far and far right voters in ex-socialist parts of Eastern Europe. Just compare the supporters of BSW and AFD in Germany..

If you want the most absurd example this was a thing: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Bolshevik_Party

Government control over transportation, newspapers, and other industries that should ideally not choose profits over quality of service. Communalized non-profit grocery stores. Sounds familiar?

Strict measures to ban or nationalize war profiteering, high interest rates, capital heavy business models allowing rent seeking. Explicit profit sharing required by large companies.

Welfare state with free healthcare and expanded pension funds.

Sometimes 'bad' people have the same 'good' ideas you have. Now sure why this is so difficult to grasp.

The mechanisms behind both ideologies are different, and the outcomes are different too.

You can't make an omellete without breaking a few eggs, after all. That was Lenin, supposedly.

edit: spelling of "one"

It is worth a watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf-bSAnW_E0 but it itself is a somewhat simplistic take.

No, hence horseshoe theory.

You are the one arguing for 'erases' here. Given the horseshoe theory is valid, it seems completely on point for these assholes to have some far left ideas. Doesn't make them not nazis.

East Germany was economically crippled for the latter half of the 20th century under Soviet rule. It's started to recover, a bit, but it's slow going. That makes the people there more willing to listen to anyone who will lie to them about a) who's responsible, and b) how easy it is to solve their problems.

Everyone else gets to be exploited, deported, or just plain murdered.

The "political compass" has two dimensions: left/right horizontally and authoritarian/libertarian vertically.

Unfortunately "political compass" is also for the quadrant memes: https://en.meming.world/wiki/Political_Compass (which has some good commentary on the compass and great examples).

And there's the Nolan Chart: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Chart which is even more confusing. The word "liberal" is not used in New Zealand much, although perhaps the US meaning is taking hold. Also centrist here is unclear so the Nolan Chart makes no sense to me.

Which is why they all failed.

I bet it's related to the tendency for narcissism where you believe that you alone have all the right answers.

No idea what you mean. Public transportation? If that's socialist, then any functional, modern society is going to be socialist on your book. If you mean control over private transportation, then I guess America was socialist during WWII.

newspapers

There's nothing socialist about that.

Welfare state with free healthcare and expanded pension funds.

I really don't think that you can call a "welfare" program Socialist when it excludes Jews, non-Germans, and even anyone who was against the regime.

Sometimes 'bad' people have the same 'good' ideas you have.

You have absolutely no idea what ideas I have.

Now sure why this is so difficult to grasp.

Not sure why you choose to be rude.

Everything goes fine when you have enough resources.

When you don't, you suddenly always need to create this division between 'real citizens' and 'others' to maintain (1) your hold on power through votes or force, and (2) expected standard of living.

This is why promising free stuff to everyone is a bad idea, not because people shouldn't have stuff, but because once you can not, things get ugly.

I’d go so far as to say I think anyone peddling horseshoe theory is a politically illiterate fool regardless of their supposed qualifications.

It’s funny that you want me to read the imitation though.

“ Several political scientists, psychologists, and sociologists have criticized the horseshoe theory.[3][4][5] Proponents point to a number of perceived similarities between extremes and allege that both tend to support authoritarianism or totalitarianism; political scientists do not appear to support this notion, and instances of peer-reviewed research on the subject are scarce. Existing studies and comprehensive reviews often find only limited support and only under certain conditions; they generally contradict the theory's central premises.”

Ofcourse it was all built on economic quicksand.

2) From my understanding, the only times a country has ever claimed itself to be "fully socialist", or attempting to be so (rather than democratic socialism, like various northern European countries), the countries have actually been authoritarian dictatorships with a few superficial trappings of socialism-for-the-few.

3) The common counterargument I have seen to #2 is "but that's just a No True Scotsman fallacy!" It is not. No True Scotsman applies when there is some potential fuzziness to the definition of the term that the person committing it is exploiting to try to argue that the thing is not what is being claimed. The USSR, for instance, was no more Socialist than the DPRK is Democratic; it was so in name only, in an attempt to claim that it was a genuine step on the road toward Marxist communism, when in fact it was just an authoritarian state. The term "Socialism" does not stretch to cover "any state that declares itself to be Socialist, no matter what its actual policies are."

4) As a global—and especially Western—society, we have more abundance today than we have ever had before. We have vastly more capability to produce food, medicine, housing, and all the other necessities of life, as well as modern conveniences like internet, computers, and smartphones, and even luxuries, than we did during the periods in the 20th century when various countries were attempting to convert to communism or socialism (and being, almost universally, co-opted by dictators). Even if we grant your premise in full, that we have, as a collective, been unable to sustain socialism in the past due to a failure to actually provide for all people does not mean that such conditions are still in effect. It certainly does not mean that they will hold forever.

5) Really kinda suspect that you post this as a snide response to a post very specifically explaining what Nazism was. Though somewhat less surprising looking just a little bit into your comment history.

I don't know what to tell you except that the term "red-brown" became popular for a good reason.

(And I'm far left myself, by the way.)

You keep repeating that yet on certain axis like authoritarianism, free speech etc. there is a massive overlap to the extent that there is based almost no difference in some of the policies supported by far left/right.

It’s not an argument at all IMO, but good for you.

> I'm far left myself, by the way

So you would, logically, describe yourself as a fascist then?