I doubt you read the rest of my comment. Please go back and do so. You seem to have taken my point about rights and freedoms to mean the exact opposite of what I wrote. Freedom in the US is probably at or close to an all time high. This indicates that the US is no where close to being a fascist state.
Pol Pot, Nikolai Ceausescu, Li Si, António Salazar, Idi Amin, Jean-Claude Duvalier, and Enver Hoxha. Of them, Salazar was almost "elected" (if you count appointment by your friends who held a coup as "election"), and all of them were actually fascist, totalitarian state leaders.
That I addressed concerns that were not yours does not indicate that I am unaware of what you were saying. It indicates that what I am arguing against (eg: the claim that America is "moving towards fascism") is incorrect, and that I am not straying from that point.
It takes an authoritarian regime to be fascist, but not every authoritarian regime is fascist. Most of the dictators you mentioned don't have the corporatism that is one of the central tenets of fascism. Others lack the collectivism. Others like the populism. Some are simply petty thugs with no real ideology.
"You can't really know something until you ruin it for everyone." -some guy who used to have an account here [ Parent ]
Granted, a state can be fascist and a kleptocracy. But it seems fairly clear to me that by the time the Duvalier's voluntarily went into exile that virtually all the fascist elements of the government had decayed into chaos. If MNS has listed Francois Duvalier, I'd probably not have crossed him off the list.
