I’m new here, so this is a genuine question — not trying to stir things up.
I’m trying to understand how images like this fit within the community rules, especially the parts about ‘no misinformation’ and ‘good-faith arguments.’ It’s clearly political humor, but it also reads as a literal accusation list.
I haven’t seen any similar memes from the opposing perspective, so I’m wondering where the line is drawn. What qualifies as humor versus misinformation or bad faith here? I’m asking because I’d like to participate without accidentally breaking the rules myself.
Well, yes, that’s exactly what I’m getting at. The image presents a list of statements as ‘THE FACTS,’ yet none of them are backed by evidence or citations. They’re framed as literal confessions of criminal activity that have never been legally established.
For example:
• It claims he ‘staged a coup’ and ‘incited sedition’ — those are legal terms implying conviction, which hasn’t happened.
• It says ‘I knew I lost, I lied anyway,’ but that’s speculation about his internal thoughts, not a verified fact.
• It concludes with ‘We belong in prison,’ which again asserts guilt without due process.
That’s why I questioned it under the ‘no misinformation’ rule. Even if it’s meant as humor, it’s still presented as a factual list and I’m unsure if there’s similar treatment allowed for jokes about the opposite side as there seems to be none.
I’m not asking for it to be removed, just trying to understand where the boundary is between political humor and posts that make factual claims without evidence.
Yeah, a bit, I’m honestly just trying to figure out if this community applies its own rules evenly. I actually agree with the rules as written, but if it turns out they’re enforced with a double standard, I’d probably rather just leave or block the community instead of fighting it.
I don’t even get what’s supposed to be “funny” about it.
HAHA HE’S WEARING A SILLY HAT GET IT HE’S NOT SMART
Really, you’re not wrong for being confused, it’s low-effort boomer-humor for anti-trumpers. Not actually funny or clever, doesn’t create engagement or conversation, only serves to self-stimulate people who are already angry.
This would go hard if it was posted on a conservative Facebook group, it would legit rile conservatives up and create seething rage before being taken down or however facebook works. I don’t get why it’s posted here though.
Yeah, I get the feeling I’d be definitely be considered a fascists to you for sure. Word has been so misused for so long though It’s lost all meaning, so I’m cool with it.
Or maybe don’t assume that people here aren’t as politically uneducated as the rest of the people you interact with on social media.
I’ve been personally using Eco’s term “ur-fascism” or nascent fascism until recently. Read the essay, it’s only like 9 pages, and tell me it doesn’t describe recent US history.
However now we are past that point, and we’ve gone full on fascist.
I’d love for you to explain to me why I’m wrong though.
Yeah, I’ve read Eco’s Ur-Fascism, the full nine-page essay everyone likes to name-drop as proof we’ve hit fascism 2.0. It’s not a checklist where you can tick a few boxes and yell “we’re fascist now.” Eco’s whole argument is that fascism isn’t a single coherent system; it’s a messy collage of emotional instincts that can appear anywhere, left, right, religious, secular. He even calls it “a fuzzy totalitarianism,” meaning it has no fixed core.
If you actually line up his 14 points against the U.S. in 2025, the comparison doesn’t hold. There’s no cult of tradition or sacred national myth, America is perpetually arguing about what to change, not what to preserve. There’s no rejection of modernism; we’re obsessed with technology and innovation. We don’t live in a culture of permanent warfare or heroic martyrdom; most Americans recoil from both. There’s no state-mandated Newspeak or enforced ideology, if anything, the problem is too much speech, not too little.
Sure, some traits echo faintly: populism, conspiracy rhetoric, social polarization. But those exist in every democracy during high-stress periods. Populism isn’t fascism; nor is cultural stupidity the same as dictatorship. Fascism, as Eco lived it, required one-party rule, abolished dissent, outlawed unions, censored the press, and built a cult of death and war. None of that defines the U.S.
So when you insist we’ve gone “full fascist,” you’re not channeling Eco, you’re contradicting him. He warned against moral laziness, against turning “fascism” into a universal curse word. Reducing every political decay or populist movement to fascism doesn’t enlighten anyone, it just proves how little critical thinking you’ve retained from the man’s essay in the first place.
And as for the part about not assuming people here are “politically uneducated”? You don’t need to assume anything, it’s self-evident when someone quotes Eco like scripture while missing the entire argument. Dressing it up in intellectual language doesn’t make it any less shallow
You didn’t have to quote Eco, you just repeated his buzzwords without context.
And no, we’re not “reliving Germany in the 1930s.” That comparison gets thrown around by people who know how that decade ended but not how it actually unfolded. Germany in the ’30s had a one-party regime, a silenced press, outlawed unions, political imprisonment, and a militarized propaganda machine. The U.S., for all its dysfunction, still has open elections, a free press, armed political opposition, and a population that can’t even agree on a movie to watch, let alone a dictator.
So maybe instead of reenacting Weimar trauma on Lemmy, you could start by actually reading the essay you’re invoking, or that history book you just recommended.
I’m new here, so this is a genuine question — not trying to stir things up.
I’m trying to understand how images like this fit within the community rules, especially the parts about ‘no misinformation’ and ‘good-faith arguments.’ It’s clearly political humor, but it also reads as a literal accusation list.
I haven’t seen any similar memes from the opposing perspective, so I’m wondering where the line is drawn. What qualifies as humor versus misinformation or bad faith here? I’m asking because I’d like to participate without accidentally breaking the rules myself.
Is someone suggesting this is ‘misinformation’?
Well, yes, that’s exactly what I’m getting at. The image presents a list of statements as ‘THE FACTS,’ yet none of them are backed by evidence or citations. They’re framed as literal confessions of criminal activity that have never been legally established.
For example: • It claims he ‘staged a coup’ and ‘incited sedition’ — those are legal terms implying conviction, which hasn’t happened. • It says ‘I knew I lost, I lied anyway,’ but that’s speculation about his internal thoughts, not a verified fact. • It concludes with ‘We belong in prison,’ which again asserts guilt without due process.
That’s why I questioned it under the ‘no misinformation’ rule. Even if it’s meant as humor, it’s still presented as a factual list and I’m unsure if there’s similar treatment allowed for jokes about the opposite side as there seems to be none.
I’m not asking for it to be removed, just trying to understand where the boundary is between political humor and posts that make factual claims without evidence.
Only the evidence of our eyes and ears.
mhm.
No, they’re asking what counts as misinformation and what counts as political humour so that they don’t break the rules
Yeah, a bit, I’m honestly just trying to figure out if this community applies its own rules evenly. I actually agree with the rules as written, but if it turns out they’re enforced with a double standard, I’d probably rather just leave or block the community instead of fighting it.
I don’t even get what’s supposed to be “funny” about it.
HAHA HE’S WEARING A SILLY HAT GET IT HE’S NOT SMART
Really, you’re not wrong for being confused, it’s low-effort boomer-humor for anti-trumpers. Not actually funny or clever, doesn’t create engagement or conversation, only serves to self-stimulate people who are already angry.
This would go hard if it was posted on a conservative Facebook group, it would legit rile conservatives up and create seething rage before being taken down or however facebook works. I don’t get why it’s posted here though.
The “opposing perspective” in this case is literal fascism, and we don’t take kindly to that ideology in these parts.
Yeah, I get the feeling I’d be definitely be considered a fascists to you for sure. Word has been so misused for so long though It’s lost all meaning, so I’m cool with it.
Or maybe don’t assume that people here aren’t as politically uneducated as the rest of the people you interact with on social media.
I’ve been personally using Eco’s term “ur-fascism” or nascent fascism until recently. Read the essay, it’s only like 9 pages, and tell me it doesn’t describe recent US history.
However now we are past that point, and we’ve gone full on fascist.
I’d love for you to explain to me why I’m wrong though.
Yeah, I’ve read Eco’s Ur-Fascism, the full nine-page essay everyone likes to name-drop as proof we’ve hit fascism 2.0. It’s not a checklist where you can tick a few boxes and yell “we’re fascist now.” Eco’s whole argument is that fascism isn’t a single coherent system; it’s a messy collage of emotional instincts that can appear anywhere, left, right, religious, secular. He even calls it “a fuzzy totalitarianism,” meaning it has no fixed core.
If you actually line up his 14 points against the U.S. in 2025, the comparison doesn’t hold. There’s no cult of tradition or sacred national myth, America is perpetually arguing about what to change, not what to preserve. There’s no rejection of modernism; we’re obsessed with technology and innovation. We don’t live in a culture of permanent warfare or heroic martyrdom; most Americans recoil from both. There’s no state-mandated Newspeak or enforced ideology, if anything, the problem is too much speech, not too little.
Sure, some traits echo faintly: populism, conspiracy rhetoric, social polarization. But those exist in every democracy during high-stress periods. Populism isn’t fascism; nor is cultural stupidity the same as dictatorship. Fascism, as Eco lived it, required one-party rule, abolished dissent, outlawed unions, censored the press, and built a cult of death and war. None of that defines the U.S.
So when you insist we’ve gone “full fascist,” you’re not channeling Eco, you’re contradicting him. He warned against moral laziness, against turning “fascism” into a universal curse word. Reducing every political decay or populist movement to fascism doesn’t enlighten anyone, it just proves how little critical thinking you’ve retained from the man’s essay in the first place.
And as for the part about not assuming people here are “politically uneducated”? You don’t need to assume anything, it’s self-evident when someone quotes Eco like scripture while missing the entire argument. Dressing it up in intellectual language doesn’t make it any less shallow
Did I even quote Eco, let alone as scripture?
Weird reply dude.
Read a history book. We are reliving Germany in the 1930s.
You didn’t have to quote Eco, you just repeated his buzzwords without context. And no, we’re not “reliving Germany in the 1930s.” That comparison gets thrown around by people who know how that decade ended but not how it actually unfolded. Germany in the ’30s had a one-party regime, a silenced press, outlawed unions, political imprisonment, and a militarized propaganda machine. The U.S., for all its dysfunction, still has open elections, a free press, armed political opposition, and a population that can’t even agree on a movie to watch, let alone a dictator. So maybe instead of reenacting Weimar trauma on Lemmy, you could start by actually reading the essay you’re invoking, or that history book you just recommended.
If you actually know as much as you claim to about history and fascism, then I have to believe that you know exactly what you are doing.
You got me, you’re so smart. How do you do it.