I'm just glad I'm not American. I can't imagine being told I'm only allowed to choose between a politician I disagree with and a fascist and not chosing one means the fascist wins by default. There honestly doesn't seem to be a winning move.
this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2024
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It's just the nature of power: Because governments are powerful and therefore attract people who want to grab control of that power, you're never going to see a big, powerful government that's not doing some large amount of naked fascism. Russia, China, and the US all succumbed to it to some degree, regardless of what high-minded rhetoric went into their formation. It's always going to take a significant battle by "the little guy" to make them behave in any at all reasonable fashion.
We're always going to have to be putting some sustained energy of resistance, activism, politicking, good works outside the machinery of pure politics, what-have-you, into the system in order for it to behave in any way that's not just naked oligarchy. It's just a natural result of what powerful people will tend to do in order to grab the reins of government to continue and extend their power: If there's nothing counterbalancing their pressure, then they'll win. It's a lot easier in the US than in Russia or China but it's definitely not easy.
Put another way: If showing up one day and pushing one button to choose a clearly better option over a clearly worse option is too much to ask of you, then there's absolutely 0 chance that you have the energy for the amount of work that would be needed to create an actually good government like the one you're saying the US should have (which, absolutely yes, I agree with you.)
Israel is not an ethnostate, nor is it historically fascist, though it has been sliding in that direction under Netanyahu.
73.2% (about 7,208,000 people) are Jews, including about 503,000 living outside the self-defined borders of the State of Israel in the West Bank 21.1% (around 2,080,000 people) are Israeli citizens classified as Arab, some identifying as Palestinian, and including Druze, Circassians, all other Muslims, Christian Arabs, Armenians (which Israel considers "Arab")[2] An additional 5.7% (roughly 554,000 people) are classified as "others". This diverse group comprises those with Jewish ancestry but not recognized as Jewish by religious law, non-Jewish family members of Jewish immigrants, Christians other than Arabs and Armenians, and residents without a distinct ethnic or religious categorization.[2][1]
According to a 2011 Government Social Survey of Israelis over 20 years of age, 49% report Hebrew as their native language, Arabic 18%, Russian 15%, Yiddish 2%, French 2%, English 2%,[3] Spanish 1.6%, and 10% other languages (including Romanian, and Amharic, which were not offered as answers by the survey). This study also noted that 90% of Israeli Jews and over 60% of Israeli Arabs have a good understanding of Hebrew.
Pretty poor numbers for an ethnostate. And while I have little doubt there is systemic racism and discrimination present in the society at large, the law provides all citizens of Israel with the same rights to vote, own business, etc etc.
Worth noting, it is likely a long-term goal of Israel's far right to change them into an ethnostate. But that does not make them one today.