Im not arguing the federal and state governments cannot mandate vaccinations, they certainly can. This does not make connecting a vaccine to a punishment not fascist. If you want to remove the connection to welfare benefits and argue a legal mandate under “general welfare” or “health and safety”, go for it. I’d be against that too but my issue with your original position is it is connected to a public benefit.
In summary, you believe connecting welfare benefits with a vaccine mandate is fascist — something that is already done in the U.S. Hence you believe we already live in a fascist country. Good to know.
My position has always been that facism is not exclusive to one political party, it can be practiced by anyone. Typically it's the extremists that employ the tactics as it suits their agenda. Everyone likes a little of it until it circles back around to them, and it always does. The list of enemies always gets larger, the trusted inner circle always smaller. It always starts with a boogeyman filled with half truths. It's been Jews, it's been Blacks, it's been gays, it's been many things. The new boogeymen are white males and anyone who questions the Covid narrative. Nothing new under the sun as the saying goes and this round of fascism ends like it always does, messy and bloody.
No. So the government at the state and federal level have extensive powers. That doesn’t mean they should impose those powers in a fascist way. But I don’t think you’ll ever understand why a punitive approach is fascist while an incentive approach is not so I won’t bother wasting our time with that. We do run into a legally dubious situation with the proposal you make to tie welfare benefits to Covid vaccinations. It’s established legally the government can use federal funds to coerce behavior. For example, the court’s famously held the federal government can withhold highway funding from states that fail to impose highway safety measures like seatbelts. The legal basis is that there is a logical connection between highway safety and highway funds. Same would be true for welfare funds to drug testing because there’s a logical connection. In America welfare is temporary assistance and an accepted way of getting off welfare is to become employed or better employed, whatever. Drug use can make someone unemployable and therefore a condition of welfare would be not make yourself unemployable by habit and thus a logic connection to the benefit. School and vaccines the same way - group setting, children spread disease -> logical connection. What you’re arguing is no logical connection, just punitive compliance. Now here’s the kicker, neither the states nor the feds need any other reason to make vaccines mandatory to everyone. Mandatory vaccinations fall under health and safety, and general welfare, respectively.