A refusal to understand how transphobia is being weaponized to demonize an out group doesn't mean it isn't happening.
"Whether my argument that Chappelle is fascist-adjacent is true or not has no bearing on the fact that Chappelle isn't fascist-adjacent." ...maybe you should spend... more time on Twitter? No, that can't be right edit: we've birthed a new logical fallacy, congrats
I never thought arguing with you would turn into a Twitter-style race to the bottom. You're too smart for that. You're defining fascism as "speech I don't like, don't agree with, and may allow others to feel more comfortable with being intolerant". Of course it becomes tautological when you're arguing from a made up, self-serving definition. Calling things fascism sounds smarter than calling things Nazism, because that dead horse has been beaten to the point it's not recognizable. It's doesn't make it any more correct.
No, you're too smart to be so quick to denounce uncomfortable ideas as "Twitter-like". It's literally Weimar shit, thanks for pointing that out, and btw the idea that the first person to breach Godwin's law or, here, when I point out a classic facet of fascism somehow makes me lose an argument serves... who? It's not just me, scholars of fascist history draw a direct line between stoking transphobia and fascism, and we're wrong, because... we've decided we also don't like fascism? I am defining fascism as the most-commonly accepted definition of fascism. When Dave made offensive jokes 18 or so years ago, we weren't in the midst of such a clearly regressive slide wherein political candidates for office were running on revoking rights for (and even refusing the acknowledgement of!) transsexuals. Yep! That's literally a part of fascism. Am I saying Chappelle shouldn't be able to make transphobic jokes? No. I am lamenting the fact that he's found such a large audience for them in this current climate. And he is too smart to get a pass on not knowing any better.You're defining fascism as "speech... [that] may allow others to feel more comfortable with being intolerant"
You only think we're in a regressive slide because you're losing the forest for the trees. When I graduated high school in 2000 there were 3 openly gay people that I was aware of in the entire school, which comprised about 2500 students. And transgender people just simply didn't exist as a part of public life. "Fag" was probably the most common insult almost everywhere. Compare that to today, and we're regressing in the same sense that Bill Gates's fortune regresses when the stock market has a normal noise fluctuation downward compared to what he had before Microsoft was a thing. It would be weird if there weren't societal friction given the radical changes in public life over the last decade or two. Friction isn't fascism. And friction due to giant leaps forward in the way people think should be welcomed, since it's the way we work through things. Denouncing everything you disagree with as fascism pretty much white washes fascism and helps ensure that when truly fascistic things happen that no one will pay any attention since it's hard enough to separate the signal from the noise.
Yes, I agree that the social pendulum swings, but if you can't see how ruthlessly the LGBTQ+ -phobia has been co-opted by the clearly fascist MAGA movement, I don't know what to tell you. And I have a very clear set of criteria for what I identify as fascist, or fascist-enabling, fascism-adjacent, etc. Truly fascistic things are happening. (just for your everlasting love of the .gif, and a big shoutout to Ron and Rand Paul)
The acceptance/tolerance of LGBTQ+ is a seismic shift? edit: Genuinely asking, this isn't a "gotcha" trap. I think that's what you meant, but it was unclear if you meant that the backlash was seismic. I think I know now that you meant the success of the LGBT movement.