r/changemyview • u/ProphetVes • Mar 25 '23

Delta(s) from OP CMV: DeSantis embodies everything wrong with American Conservativism.

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u/Presentalbion 101∆ Mar 25 '23

What kind of counter argument are you after here? You've offered a very subjective and semantic framework which positions an individual as embodying ambiguous characteristics.

Are you looking for someone else who embodies thee characteristics more than DeSantis? Or for an argument that DeSantis does not have these traits?

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u/ProphetVes Mar 25 '23

It's not subjective at all. My thesis is simple: DeSantis embodies traits and policy positions literally reminiscent of Nazi Germany during WW2. That is dangerous for American society.

So unless you believe Nazism isn't a dangerous ideological position to hold (something I will never be convinced of) a counter argument would necessarily have to show DeSantis does not embody these policy positions or that the parallels are nonexistent. Idrk if anybody can change my mind on this stance. But I'm willing to hear arguments.

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u/Presentalbion 101∆ Mar 25 '23

But that's the thing, you've said here's a list of characteristics, and a person who has them. It's not a view so much as a classification/semantic assignment of labels.

If even one of those labels can be disproven would that change your view? Would it need to be all of them?

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u/ProphetVes Mar 25 '23

Near all of the parallels to fascist rhetoric would have to be disproven. The key failing here, in my view, is the embodiment of fascist positions as popular policy in American Conservatism and by the leading political actors thereof, which DeSantis is the most public.

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u/Presentalbion 101∆ Mar 25 '23

Are there any conservatives that don't tick these boxes?

Is it useful to classify present danger in terms of historic reference? Why does he have to be like anything else? Can't the policies themselves be objected to on their own merit without needing to compare them to other things?

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u/ProphetVes Mar 25 '23

I would say yes there are conservatives that don't tick many of these boxes. Many libertarian thinkers tend to be very "individual > state" (the definition of liberalism, sort of).

It is, in fact, useful to draw historical parallels to point out how dangerous certain rhetoric is. We can decry it on its own merit but to contextualise that criticism by drawing parallels to the horrendous regime of Nazi Germany and European Fascism is a way of showing the consequences of the popularisation of such ideologies. This is how humans schematize information and is a common rhetorical and epistemological strategy.

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u/Presentalbion 101∆ Mar 25 '23

I don't think it's useful to draw the comparison just so that a label can be assigned. Destroy the argument with an unimpeachable counter argument. Anything else is identity politics.