The capital gains tax is hilarious. I wish some public figure would put out a public service announcement where they explain it “Bruh, if you buy $100 worth of stock, and then you sell it for $200, then you get to keep $185 (netting $85 in profit). If you think this is a problem, you are either a demon or a moron.”
In the presence of hierarchy, there will always be those in the underclasses who will betray anyone to secure their place as “first of the least”. It is why white women vote republican in such large numbers. It is why so many among the working class clamor to defend billionaires. ‘Notice me, senpai’ as ideology.
They arent cops but they do derive their authority the same way cops do: the govt imbues them with that authority.
I do not want to be seen as defending fascists or being obscurantist but I regularly encounter normal people who literally never learned how to identify a fascist. To them, it vaguely means authoritarian and imperialistic and deploying it in conversations within an american context seems unnecessarily inflammatory. The average person has neither the time nor the inclination be as plugged into politics as we are. Words actually do mean things…just different things to different people.