Great, thought-provoking writing as always. One thing it made me wonder: How many of those young prominent conservatives are posting groyper content under alts and burners? For those who don't, how many of them did post that kind of stuff growing up as teens on the early days of twitter, etc? When they use the language of that world, I think they are at times slipping into their other persona. Or even attempting to clean up for public consumption an idea they've already thoroughly play tested in rougher language anonymously in a friendly forum.
Like it's pretty clear that Blake Neff tried to figure out how to present ideas that originated from a 4-Chan type environment in a way that would play on prime time cable news. He was not a mere observer in that forum, but a prominent participant.
I guess what I'm saying is, it's useful for these young conservatives when talking to people like us, to maintain some sense of distance from that culture - as you say they are familiar with it and refer to it half-jokingly. But I think, as damning as that is, it's actually giving them too much credit. They are that culture.
Similarly, when people imagine groypers as basement dwellers and the like, I think it gives our society too much credit. It would be nice if these absolute freaks were consigned to basements. But some of them are on capitol hill.
And I wasn't sure where to post this, given your recent interest in the 90s Mafia, but I think you would quite like the made-for-HBO Gotti biopic with Armand Assante. I could sing its praises for many reasons, but the opening monologue alone, in which Gotti pontificates from prison about how, in a post-historical world, "they gonna miss Cosa Nostra, they gonna miss John Gotti" puts it firmly into Unclear and Present Danger territory. Plus the whole movie is available for free on YouTube:
Great piece!-- thanks from a recent subscriber. A pedantic but sort of interesting minor correction: Zizek seems to have gotten mixed up and ascribed a line ("am I that name?"-- meaning "whore") from Desdemona (in Othello) to Juliet. Juliet does say "What's in a name? That which we call a rose/ By any other name would smell as sweet.” I am now picturing Trump with the thought bubble, "Fascist... am I that name?" (ha)
Thank you, John, for again focusing attention on America's current neo-fascist resurgence. And I'm sure you and your readers are well aware of previous "warnings" of the nature and danger of these periodic eruptions of extreme right-wing ideologies. In my research I find example after example of this recurrent phenomenon in American history. Some comments from other writers relevant to today:
In 1952 Richard Hoftstadter (in "The Paranoid Style in American Politics") called right-wing extremism a "political pathology [that] appears to be all but ineradicable."
Daniel Bell's (ed.) 1963 "The Radical Right" describes numerous "periodic stampedes" to the far right.
And Madeleine Albright (in her 2018 "Fascism: A Warning") writes that “fascism has always been a latent force in American politics.”
It seems we are experiencing yet another viral episode of fascism raising its venomous head, for the same reasons, in the same manner, with the same types of enablers, apologists, and followers.
(I choose to call it Neo-Fascism: the old poison in a new red-white-and-blue bottle.) Past outbursts of free-floating hatred and violence usually peaked and passed (eg. Joe McCarthy) but America's current fascist-fever seems to be metastasizing, with new young demagogues (Marjorie Taylor Greene) frightening the cowardly old guard (McConnell, McCarthy) into silence.
The driving force of fascist leaders is always their own lust for power; they have no platform, and their method is always to bring resentment to a boil and give the discontented masses someone to hate. We're watching it play out now, and unfortunately, the neo-fascist hijacking of the Republican party has given them a position of power (in the House of Representatives, and in right-wing media).
This time, I think, is different from past "stampedes" to the extreme right. This time that latent force of fascism in America is taking root. It will not die with Trump.
I'm an old reader of history and politics, and for my grandkids' sake, I feel I have to fight this new wave of the old poison with the only tool I have. My pen/keyboard.
I had cancer, and rather than fight it with chemo and radiation, i chose surgery: just cut the damn thing out.
The recent mid-term elections were like chemo/radiation: fighting the thing back. But we didn't destroy it. So my question to all Americans is: how do we cut the damn thing out? Before the spreading cancer of right-wing extremism destroys democracy and lets loose W.B.Yeats's "rough beast?"
Good piece, thanks. I wonder if the Trump-Hitler comparison might be extended by comparison with Hitler's self-conception: didn't Hitler also have some doubts about whether he wanted to be Hitler, and was as much as anything a product of his follower's wishes about what he should be? so something like "Trump isn't Hitler, but a lot of people wish he was, including himself, and also Hitler (in his self-doubt, vacillation, and internal incoherence) was pretty Trumpian."
I think your "...elite project" thesis is basically correct. But the hysterics needn't worry. Everything feels fake and sapped now. Even though there's a subsidized art scene, and green shoots disrupting libs' censorship, and hotel-ballroom lanyard conferences, it's not the same. Bigger bottle, no lightning.
There's some indelible line readings that pop into my head all the time: "You know, all youse do, youse cry like babies, youse bust my ass likearoundtheclock." Is that in iambic pentameter?
In some ways this tracks with the intentionalist vs functionalist controversy in 3rd R historiography. In this case there's no ambiguity, there's no intentionalism here bc Trump has no ideology. But - the point about functionalism is that this does not necessarily mean that Trump couldn't be a vehicle (or "träger" in Marx's sense) for fascism. But to do that we need to rise above the psychoanalytic frame. We are dealing with the pathology of a society here, not that of an individual. Trump is symptom, not cause. Tactically we need to target individuals. But strategically we need to watch the bigger picture. Trump losing the nomination does not eliminate the threat, because he alone is not the threat. Go back to Paxton (and for that matter Neumann and Sohn-Rethal), the threat is systemic. If the consensus between the different factions of the capitalists and the state break down, then fascism can rise. Trump could not have won in 2016 if the previously-dominant neoliberal-globalist consensus still had hegemony. He is not the main event, He is only the harbinger
Broken link in "I actually want to return to an earlier take of mine and say, yes, it does appear that something like the class consciousness among the most reactionary fraction of tech capital" (I was saying something similar the other day https://twitter.com/mtraven/status/1592975462837653504 ).
I think some what's at stake here is the meaning of the fascist designation, in that often times it seems like a futile attempt to wish away one's opponents by just labeling their views beyond the pale.
On the other hand, I do think you've credibly made the case that it's actually an analytic tool, for trying to understand the sociological composition and motivations of the new right (i.e., when the conditions of capitalism are going through a legitimacy crisis the ideology-meter gets cranked up 11), and that it's validity can be measured by its predictive usefulness (i.e. of events like Jan. 6). I feel very strongly that the extent to which it's a virtual identity, with none of the mobilizing power of the old movements, often gets swept under the rug. But that argument is, in itself, best grasped through theories of fascism (Adorno, say) that point out its tangled relationship to democracy. I think that the prevalence of the discussion has to do with the discovery that a lot of the European texts on the subject are actually very useful for grasping American conservatism.
Great, thought-provoking writing as always. One thing it made me wonder: How many of those young prominent conservatives are posting groyper content under alts and burners? For those who don't, how many of them did post that kind of stuff growing up as teens on the early days of twitter, etc? When they use the language of that world, I think they are at times slipping into their other persona. Or even attempting to clean up for public consumption an idea they've already thoroughly play tested in rougher language anonymously in a friendly forum.
Like it's pretty clear that Blake Neff tried to figure out how to present ideas that originated from a 4-Chan type environment in a way that would play on prime time cable news. He was not a mere observer in that forum, but a prominent participant.
I guess what I'm saying is, it's useful for these young conservatives when talking to people like us, to maintain some sense of distance from that culture - as you say they are familiar with it and refer to it half-jokingly. But I think, as damning as that is, it's actually giving them too much credit. They are that culture.
Similarly, when people imagine groypers as basement dwellers and the like, I think it gives our society too much credit. It would be nice if these absolute freaks were consigned to basements. But some of them are on capitol hill.
And I wasn't sure where to post this, given your recent interest in the 90s Mafia, but I think you would quite like the made-for-HBO Gotti biopic with Armand Assante. I could sing its praises for many reasons, but the opening monologue alone, in which Gotti pontificates from prison about how, in a post-historical world, "they gonna miss Cosa Nostra, they gonna miss John Gotti" puts it firmly into Unclear and Present Danger territory. Plus the whole movie is available for free on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vOKv6xYDG0&t=4274s
Great piece!-- thanks from a recent subscriber. A pedantic but sort of interesting minor correction: Zizek seems to have gotten mixed up and ascribed a line ("am I that name?"-- meaning "whore") from Desdemona (in Othello) to Juliet. Juliet does say "What's in a name? That which we call a rose/ By any other name would smell as sweet.” I am now picturing Trump with the thought bubble, "Fascist... am I that name?" (ha)
[I deleted my comment because I did not make my point clearly, and I don't want to cause unnecessary rancor.]
Thank you, John, for again focusing attention on America's current neo-fascist resurgence. And I'm sure you and your readers are well aware of previous "warnings" of the nature and danger of these periodic eruptions of extreme right-wing ideologies. In my research I find example after example of this recurrent phenomenon in American history. Some comments from other writers relevant to today:
In 1952 Richard Hoftstadter (in "The Paranoid Style in American Politics") called right-wing extremism a "political pathology [that] appears to be all but ineradicable."
Daniel Bell's (ed.) 1963 "The Radical Right" describes numerous "periodic stampedes" to the far right.
And Madeleine Albright (in her 2018 "Fascism: A Warning") writes that “fascism has always been a latent force in American politics.”
It seems we are experiencing yet another viral episode of fascism raising its venomous head, for the same reasons, in the same manner, with the same types of enablers, apologists, and followers.
(I choose to call it Neo-Fascism: the old poison in a new red-white-and-blue bottle.) Past outbursts of free-floating hatred and violence usually peaked and passed (eg. Joe McCarthy) but America's current fascist-fever seems to be metastasizing, with new young demagogues (Marjorie Taylor Greene) frightening the cowardly old guard (McConnell, McCarthy) into silence.
The driving force of fascist leaders is always their own lust for power; they have no platform, and their method is always to bring resentment to a boil and give the discontented masses someone to hate. We're watching it play out now, and unfortunately, the neo-fascist hijacking of the Republican party has given them a position of power (in the House of Representatives, and in right-wing media).
This time, I think, is different from past "stampedes" to the extreme right. This time that latent force of fascism in America is taking root. It will not die with Trump.
I'm an old reader of history and politics, and for my grandkids' sake, I feel I have to fight this new wave of the old poison with the only tool I have. My pen/keyboard.
I had cancer, and rather than fight it with chemo and radiation, i chose surgery: just cut the damn thing out.
The recent mid-term elections were like chemo/radiation: fighting the thing back. But we didn't destroy it. So my question to all Americans is: how do we cut the damn thing out? Before the spreading cancer of right-wing extremism destroys democracy and lets loose W.B.Yeats's "rough beast?"
Good piece, thanks. I wonder if the Trump-Hitler comparison might be extended by comparison with Hitler's self-conception: didn't Hitler also have some doubts about whether he wanted to be Hitler, and was as much as anything a product of his follower's wishes about what he should be? so something like "Trump isn't Hitler, but a lot of people wish he was, including himself, and also Hitler (in his self-doubt, vacillation, and internal incoherence) was pretty Trumpian."
I think your "...elite project" thesis is basically correct. But the hysterics needn't worry. Everything feels fake and sapped now. Even though there's a subsidized art scene, and green shoots disrupting libs' censorship, and hotel-ballroom lanyard conferences, it's not the same. Bigger bottle, no lightning.
There's some indelible line readings that pop into my head all the time: "You know, all youse do, youse cry like babies, youse bust my ass likearoundtheclock." Is that in iambic pentameter?
In some ways this tracks with the intentionalist vs functionalist controversy in 3rd R historiography. In this case there's no ambiguity, there's no intentionalism here bc Trump has no ideology. But - the point about functionalism is that this does not necessarily mean that Trump couldn't be a vehicle (or "träger" in Marx's sense) for fascism. But to do that we need to rise above the psychoanalytic frame. We are dealing with the pathology of a society here, not that of an individual. Trump is symptom, not cause. Tactically we need to target individuals. But strategically we need to watch the bigger picture. Trump losing the nomination does not eliminate the threat, because he alone is not the threat. Go back to Paxton (and for that matter Neumann and Sohn-Rethal), the threat is systemic. If the consensus between the different factions of the capitalists and the state break down, then fascism can rise. Trump could not have won in 2016 if the previously-dominant neoliberal-globalist consensus still had hegemony. He is not the main event, He is only the harbinger
This is one of my favorite pieces of yours for sure. Some of what's here pairs well with a recent New Republic piece:
https://newrepublic.com/article/169050/masters-vance-weird-right-republicans
(I think you are referenced in it – apologies if you mentioned it somewhere already and I missed it).
Broken link in "I actually want to return to an earlier take of mine and say, yes, it does appear that something like the class consciousness among the most reactionary fraction of tech capital" (I was saying something similar the other day https://twitter.com/mtraven/status/1592975462837653504 ).
I think some what's at stake here is the meaning of the fascist designation, in that often times it seems like a futile attempt to wish away one's opponents by just labeling their views beyond the pale.
On the other hand, I do think you've credibly made the case that it's actually an analytic tool, for trying to understand the sociological composition and motivations of the new right (i.e., when the conditions of capitalism are going through a legitimacy crisis the ideology-meter gets cranked up 11), and that it's validity can be measured by its predictive usefulness (i.e. of events like Jan. 6). I feel very strongly that the extent to which it's a virtual identity, with none of the mobilizing power of the old movements, often gets swept under the rug. But that argument is, in itself, best grasped through theories of fascism (Adorno, say) that point out its tangled relationship to democracy. I think that the prevalence of the discussion has to do with the discovery that a lot of the European texts on the subject are actually very useful for grasping American conservatism.
Long way of saying, keep on keeping on!
Is that Trump Org logo for real? A 212 number on a Sheepshead Bay address?