As I was enjoying a pseudo-Pax- Americana during all my younger years I never thought I'd see the US lose its democracy & when that threat became more apparent I certainly did not see the US being responsible for threatening democracy around the world.
I know that I had not been the most attentive citizen but when Bush II started his war in Iraq I quickly became a consumer of much more news & politics & now I find myself nearly completely immersed in it, as far as a novice can be immersed that is. So, I will continue to watch & do what little I can to fight the oncoming threat. This Substack & the others that I follow will help me interpret what I'm seeing & hopefully it will help me make good citizen decisions.
The US has not been a real democracy when so many are kept from voting through various machinations and our schools are still separate and unequal. DT is making some aspects of Americana obvious to White Americans that have been obvious to others all along. Prof. Thomas Zimmer says America has been a democracy since the 1960s and I assume he means since the Voting Rights Act, but that has not been enforced, and good ole boys have been allowed to prevent others from voting all along, have packed the courts with judges that see only a certain kind of justice etc...
Our Supreme court is already the court of a totalitarian state, only attempting to appear as if they are not bought in some cases, clearly the ones they care less about, or intend to undo rights and protections for the people later.
Linda - I disagree with your viewpoint when you assert that "Our Supreme court is already the court of a totalitarian state," because on the one hand, it exaggerates the extent to which the current SCOTUS has become corrupt (in the sense of beholden to certain political and moneyed interests) and un-Constitutional in its rulings (by re-interpretation of decided case law). In conflating SCOTUS with totalitarian courts you are also insinuating that they -- the courts of the Hitlerian or Stalinist type -- were doing no more harm than the Roberts Court.
Put another way, it is important not to imagine ourselves as witnessesing the burning of Valhalla when so far the damage has been a few vandals setting bonfires in the courtyard (sorry for the mixed-up analogy or metaphor/what-have-you). Whether or not we ever had achieved true democracy is of less importance than whether we are losing whatever it was we had up to this point.
I am not saying your statement isn't prescient -- it may well be, as I am pretty sure that much worse is to come -- it's just that the destruction of our democratic systems and norms (faulty though they are) is just beginning.
I just think that they are not jumping into it all at once, but rather going the slower route. You know turning the heat up on the frogs, not throwing the frogs into boiling water.
We do not know how fast the courts changed under the Nazis or Stalin, because American textbooks tend to discuss these things as black and white. I find that is true of Black American history as well. I was just discussing this with a friend who is a prof of Slavic studies and Russian. In fact, all too often things are so portrayed as Black or White, when really there is complexity. I consider Christian Nationalists to be totalitarian and I see at least 4 if not 5 members of the court as belonging to this group.
Here is what AI says about Nazi courts.
No, the German courts did not become Nazi overnight, but rather through a series of steps that took place over time:
Early steps
In April 1933, Hitler purged Jewish and socialist judges, lawyers, and other court officials. The Nazis also merged all professional associations related to the justice system into the National Socialist League of German Jurists.
Oath of loyalty
In August 1934, German judges began taking an oath to follow Hitler instead of the German constitution.
People's Court
In April 1934, the Nazis created the People's Court to try political crimes. In 1938, the court began trying all crimes, and in 1939, minor offenses were added to its jurisdiction.
Civil Service code
In 1937, the German Civil Service code was revised to remove judges and judicial officials who did not rule in favor of the Nazis.
Police forces
The Nazis took several years to centralize the police forces under SS leader Heinrich Himmler's control. This wasn't possible overnight because German policing was decentralized at the time, with state and city governments in charge.
As for Stalin, apparently the basic Soviet structure was in place already under Lenin.
Nothing happens overnight. I am saying that it has already begun, and I recognized that with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, but perhaps it happened before then. I am sure many scholars could examine it and would come up with different responses.
Linda, thank you for your informed response. Yes indeed, even the strictest totalitarian regimes did not assert control at all levels all at once.
Early this year, as the prospect of another Trump presidency loomed, I re-read parts of Wm. L Shirer's excellent, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
Several things stood out in my reading. First, Nazi Party organization was quite thorough and directed from the top by Adolf Hitler and a few trusted associates. Everything -- political operations, economic policies, relations with capitalists and unionists, the military, etc. from high-level connections down to street-level thuggery -- was shaped through Hitler's concepts of Germanic History/mythology and Nazi precepts. A strict orthodoxy was imposed, and Hitler made sure to stamp out potential rivals to his control of the Nazi movement.
Does this sound anything like the chaos machine that is the emerging Trump Administration? To me, at least, it does not.
Prof. Reich has suggested (correctly, I think) that Trump himself, while useful to the 'bilious billionaires' whose money has funded Trump's revival, is too self-interested to last as the central, controlling figure in the anti-democratic cabal. Frankly, to my way of thinking Thiel, Musk, Vivek are all crackpots. The fact that they are clever enough to become billionaires is not an outstanding accomplishment in and of itself, as there are currently about 800 billionaires in the US today. The distinguishing characteristic between Musk et al. is the way these ideological newcomers are using their wealth to try to overthrow the very system that enriched them.
I agree that the Tech Bro Billionaires are an odious group and do not admire them, but try to avoid their damages. That is my daughter has grown up not going to Starbucks, not using PayPal, and obviously we are not driving a Tesla.
Prof. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, expert on fascism, has convinced me that Trump is a gifted illiberal leader, and gifted in the use of the tools of the autocrat in her book Strongmen, and her Substack Lucid.
Everyone who wanted to manipulate him underestimated Hitler. I am not doing that with Trump. I see lots of evidence that both Republicans and Democrats are falling into the manipulation and the rhetoric. Trump does seem less driven by ideology than Hitler although he does have his ideology, which is like a 2-year olds in some ways. It is ME FIRST. He also likes to surround himself by the most despicable people around. That he has in common with Hitler too. Trump is brilliant at seeking out ways to monetize everything he can as corruptly as possible, and he continues to get away with it. He seeks out those who can help him do this.
While German history was one thing I studied in University, I have been doing recent reading of many different sources including my daughter's history class material at a German university, of the Nazi's under Hitler. It shows him having mental breakdowns, and not being able to function, and many people playing along with him who were also evil and had a shared agenda with him. Also, some pieces were conceived of by others, such efficient killing of people.
Autocrats always act in consort with others who are willing to support them, and the people who allow them to get away with what they are doing. Did you read about the Berlin non-Jewish wives of Jewish men that made a protest in front of the Reichstag, and because it was local and public Hitler caved in and returned their husbands to them including one who had ended up at a death camp. These women were not willing to allow this. Other people were keeping their noses out of i. I think it is important that Americans understand that there are plenty of people here in the US who do and will do the same thing to injustices that they don't feel touch them personally.
Linda, thank you for the insights into cross-currents under the Nazi regime. I had never studied German history per se -- un studies were modern European, American and Asian history -- and I had not heard the story of non-Jewish wives' protest to Hitler.
I do not hold Trump's intellect to be worth much, though his animal instincts serve him very well in trying to suss out peoples' weak spots and assert dominance over others. He does understand well how mass media can be used to burnish his public image and dimish that of his rivals .
That said, his clownish, fawning behavior over Putin made me want to throw up. And his lack of impulse control is a frequent cause of "own goals."
So, if by dint of incredible good (for him) or bad (for the rest of the world) luck Trump succeeds in turning the US government into a quasi-monarchic libertarian autocracy, I fully expect its internal dysfunctional nature will mean it quickly spirals into chaos and confusion. We should have the results in the next year or so.
He hasn't even been inaugurated and already the wheels are falling off the Trump Transition bus.
Democracy in Chains, Nancy MacLean, Viking, 2017, offers a historical overview of when certain right-wing efforts began. She ties it all the way back to John C. Calhoun as the Marx for the wealthy and ideological founder of Libertarianism.
Her focus begins, however, in the wake of Brown vs. Board of Education, and historical responses well documented elsewhere (q.v., Evil Geniuses, Kurt Andersen).
Even Kevin Phillips with The Politics of Rich and Poor, and Mike Davis's Prisoners of the American Dream were documenting the changes in policy back in the late twentieth century, bringing us to now.
I greatly appreciate your highlights of how the Nazis consolidated legal authority to achieve authoritarianism. We need to share as much of this as possible to provide others who seem to be sleepwalking through their lives with a mirror. They and we must all see ourselves again or perhaps for the first time as participants in, not spectators of, history and current events.
We must revive them with our own bodies of knowledge and show them theirs again!
Yes! And thank you for mentioning Fetterman—I’m getting the creeps and everyone else I’m listening to is acting as if he has the answer in responding to the current situation. Also, on behalf of my pets…they all have a better sense of self than all of the GOP members of congress.
Pennsylvanian here, by birth and education, and Californian for life. I concluded that Fetterman had lost his mind after he advocated that Biden pardon trump. I wrote his Senate office after that and received no reply. Generally when you contact a Senate office, there is some acknowledgment.
Fetterman is off the wall and lost. I would suggest that "we the people" wage an email war with his office, continually pointing out that he is in the wrong pasture.
Also a Pennsylvanian by birth (Jersey girl now, lol) and was a big supporter of John Fetterman in 2022. I heard him interviewed by Rick Wilson before the recent election, and he sounded sort of cowed or even in awe of Trump’s electoral strength in PA. Also, he was mayor in a very Trumpy area of PA, so I suspect that, as usual, his openness to mumpiness is due to wanting to stay in office. Pretty gross - I didn’t think he’d be a sellout. If you live in CA, perhaps you could put some attention on Rep. Ro Khanna, who is also sounding awfully accommodating to his fellow tech bros lately.
I will have to think about how to shine light on Ro Khanna. I learned a couple years ago that while you can communicate electronically with all Senator, that is not the case with the House.
We are blessed with many intellectual perspectives, yours being one. Until we have some kind of Mump convention, creating an organized response which includes messages meaningful to uninformed voters, we are at the capriciousness of Mump. Dependency on the system or democrats leaves us powerless in “wait and see” paralysis. We must find our power. And then use it.
Timothy, I like the Mumpy theme, but I think something far more dangerous is going on in the world. When you connect the dots, the word you create is "identitarianism". Write a book about that ideology and how it is clandestine, just under the surface. Read anything from any of these folks Yarwin, Höcke, Oswald Spengler, Saummeur, Alain de Benoist, Dominique Venner, Guillaume Faye and Renaud Camus, Carl Schmitt, Martin Sellner. The Tech Bros are particular to Yarwin because he re-packaged Oswald's elitism ideology for the American Tech market. Especially Thiel, who can read both. Alice Weidel the leader of the German AfD is a Gay woman, her wife is a brown skinned Sri Lankan Swiss. They don't care about race, sexual preference, nationality...they are "ABOVE" all that. Just don't mix my elitist culture with your mediocrity...as per Vivek, yesterday!
A very dangerous development, indeed. Joyce today gave us a very good account of an aspect of the struggle in Germany and in the EU. The movement to the right in the EU was led by identitarian ideology (it is different from identity ideology). Which explains much of the AfD's strong appeal to intellectuals early on (few really understand what identitarian means and it is/was perverted relatively easily by the Fascists and Neo-Nazi's). In concept it is NOT a racially hierarchical ideology but rather a rejection of multiculturalism. "Each country in the EU should maintain its historical culture, and not coalesce into a "Melting pot" Europe. Migration at the levels you have described, of course, greatly disturb identitarian goals. By the way, you will not find much info on identitarian ideology in the usual sources on the internet etc. because the Identirary movement across the EU is clandestine. They do not participate in elections, they are somewhat under the normal radar screen). In the most recent "Wannsee Conference". Not the Nazi one in Jan, 1942, but the AfD event held in Berlin in 2023. Yup, they picked that spot in Berlin on purpose. The Identitarian leadership was spirited in secretly (the leaders are prohibited from entering Germany and one is living in Austria) to help the AfD work through their policy on "re-Migration" and "Blood Contamination". Yup, so the ideology of these people (which "started" in France, or was re-packaged there) are similar to the American Ku Klux Klan of the EU. Always present at Neo-Nazi and Right Wing demos; Never present in the poles; often very violent; outlawed in most EU states. Why do I bore you with this? Sorry if I am, I'll come to the point right now. Well , Elon Musk, of course. Identitarian is really nothing other than "Apartheid" re-packaged by a couple of French guys. Oh, and where is Elon Muskrat from? You have it!... and if you delve deeper into the ideology, and why he (a supposedly "smart" guy) is part of that team, you can really see where he is heading. Racial Separation, is only ) a slight shuffle to the right and you have "Racial/Cultural Superiority (although the original identitarians deny it. Oh-Oh! So, Elon is also usurping the right to be the "Oligarch of Germany", since there isn't a person (in his right mind) with that kind of wealth who will take on that position. That position is still vacant. Höcke tried, but he is already vilified by many in pacifist Western Germany, and is tied up in court every time he raises his right arm, and he doesn't have the cash. The AfD is right now losing voters to the BSW (A new far left, Moskau loving party named after its leader Bündniss Sahra Wagenknecht). What Höcke does have, is the New Provinces (former GDR). With a remainder population that can't come to grips with the freedoms of Capitalism and Democracy. They yearn for the days of "Planned Economy" and to be told what to do all day long. He also has the Neo-Nazi thuggery which has found a fertile turf there (in Thüringen) to brutally dominate in the New Provinces (Those that object are severely punished first, then killed if they persist). The German centrist parties made the mistake to leave "those crazy people" out of their calculations and attention since the 90's., thereby leaving a void for the AfD and others. With the Federal election coming up, the timing for Elon's appearance "on the scene" is perfect. Just as in our recent US election he can maybe move voters over to the AfD because the German populace certainly admires a successful "Tech Bro". He could help to put the AfD and its more radical sister parties over the 20% hurdle it is facing in the coming elections. That would be dangerous. For those of you who know all this, I apologize. I wanted to add some further insight to what is going on here in Europe. I said in yesterday's comment to Apache (another commenter), it is going to get rough here, and Putin is financing it all. I wonder what Muskrat and Pee Pee le Put had so much to talk about? Hmmm let me see...maybe the Muskrat really really needs to pee on some Russian Whores...nah, he can get those in the States. Hmmmm....musing
Isn't this kind of 'identitarianism' equally well covered by the word 'fascism'? Humans are always obsessed with membership of a group - the definitions of 'identitarianism' include identity politics and also feminism, so the word itself doesn't denote something evil or wrong. But it does completely cover the mechanics of Fascism, which DOES denote evil and wrongness.
And I'm not sure you can subsume what's happening in the US into it; for one thing, people have voted for something they were told about that doesn't exist. For another, the thing that has enabled all of this to develop, over hears of propaganda, is money. Dark money. I think the super-rich were originally more interested in scraping all the power and money. Then, the so-called 'meritocracy' (a discredited concept, btw) of the tech world joins the colour-blindness of the billionaire class (the only colour they can perceive is gold) in the simple fact that money is assumed to accrue to people who 'deserve' it, and thus that money is where the power is.
One thing I never see Americans mention as a cause of where we are now is 9/11. The separatist, 'us against the world' ideologies, the exceptionalism, the blindness to how America's international role plays out on the ground, in places that are just as real as Idaho, New York or Texas. The blanket assumption that America is always right, or is 'the best', or is 'better' than other places, is very dangerous, has PROVED very dangerous, to America. At least in Germany people know what they're dealing with. There have always been far right (or 'Neo-Nazis', as we used to call them'); they never went away. People have had to keep fighting them back this whole time - literally, sometimes in the streets.
But that's a ground-level thing. The populism that's sweeping over us like a very bad storm front is a different thing, and it's simply using these people as fodder.
Another thing America never seemed to perceive as dangerous - or as THIS dangerous - is the religious fundamentalism. It's been fostered lovingly by the libertarians, and others with the money to foster it, since oh, the seventies - and it's destroyed people's ability to think for themselves. They're sitting ducks for the populist lies, which have been standard-issue fascist playbook.
The oligarchical phenomenon has been very visible where I am (London) ever since Putin took power. For the past twenty years & more his money, and his henchmen, have filtered into everything here, including the Tory Party, where the son of his best friend is now a Lord. The writing has been on the wall a long time.
The rightwing papers have been inveighing against refugees and immigrants for the same period. And the far-right Tory govt was full of people of colour - even children of refugees - many of them merrily passing disgusting laws about how to treat others in the same position their families had been in. That looks like identitarianism, in that they're working to destroy all but the supposed 'English' way of life (despite being elected to represent Great Britain, mush of which is not English) - but Putin's money flooding the place is what makes it stick, what funds the think tanks, what funded Brexit, etc.
Let's not forget, either, that this election right now is another point on the same piece of string that contains Brexit. I wish I had a pound for every American on Facebook who told me after Brexit not to be so stupid, that of course Trump wasn't going to win. They were masterminded by the same cast of characters; Bannon was the VP of Cambridge Analytica, the illegally large donation to the Brexit fund given by a man called Arron Banks was traced by Anonymous to 'many sources very close to the Kremlin', and Arron Banks was also one of the three people (including Nigel Farage) who visited Trump Tower only a week after the 2016 election. Farage attended this year's RNC, and was also celebrating with Trump on 6 November.
Putin's dream is to destabilise NATO and get supreme power over Europe (and who knows, maybe beyond). So Trump has been his plaything. Musk is far more dangerous because of course, he has the money. He's been talking to Putin, on his own steam, for two years, and I'm willing to bet they speak more as equals than Trump and Putin.
Far more useful than the rather redundant term 'identitarianism', I think, is the concept of 'divide and conquer'. That's the classic populist tactic, and people are so brainwashed now they can't even tell what's real and what isn't. As Hannah Arendt said, once you get people THIS bamboozled (I paraphrase) you can so whatever you like with them.
Thank you for taking the time to rebut. You make several very cogent and true points which I believe are subsumed under this phenomenon indentitarian (ID from here on). I don't understand the redundant aspect you mention, but that's okay. I do think that the ID movement is working within a number of the "disturbances" and movements you mention, and you could be right, they might just be following. However, they have been at this as an ideological group a lot longer than MAGA, and Trump, and their stated objective is to infiltrate , not lead. So, maybe in your mind that takes care of the redundancy issue. I see it as an influencing force which takes our weaknesses, bends them to their plan, and makes the world worse for every step they take. And, they have the money. These latest steps, for me, definitely bear their mark, in the USA and Europe. I again offer their guidance of the AfD, and the guiding of the Tech Bros as examples. Theil, Vance, Musk, Höcke. Weidel are all painted with the ID ideology.
Now, what's the difference between Fascism and ID, you ask? Fascism craves electoral power- ID seeks the behind the scenes position, Fascism feeds on direct racial (or class) hatred and suppression- ID does not require the suppression, it only requires the separation (apartheid). Fascism needs the unwashed masses to rise up -ID quietly gathers the elite to seek separation. Fascism has historically picked a specific homogeneous group (like Latin Americans), and yes Trump is/was a fascist-whereas ID doesn't care what homogeneous group you are from, as long as you are part of their culture...in this case new: the very very rich, elite, narcissists, over IQ'd. And YES, they are using Trump (as I indicated). ID is is an economic strategy similar to the US South. They need me alive. They are the masters and we are the serfs. Fascism needs to get rid of me. Maybe I have not said that perfectly, but I hope you get (not needed to agree) my thinking.
The real interesting thought coming out of your thoughts for me, is whether ID ideologues will stay underground (so to speak), or try to more openly drive their agenda, and when. Because they have not yet done so, but the latest Tech Bro antics are pretty offensive.
As far as the strong argument on the religious nationalists. I could make an argument that there is elitism there too, but I won't. They are a whole different kettle of Pop corn. They are focused on bringing in the end times, and Trump is the anointed one. I have seen no hint of ID around them. It will be interesting though when King Dumpster does to them what he just did to the anti-immigration MAGA crowd, and I'm interested in the outcome there too. Will they tear him from his place next to God, or will they find another excuse for him. but you are right, I don't think even the ID people know what to do with the religious Nationalists.
Oh thanks for that - I just meant 'redundant' because I saw it as a subset of fascism.
I do think that ID, as you're calling it, engages in a hell of a lot of suppression, because they need us to become their serfs. They need us to thank them for oppressing us - a revolution would spoil everything. So to that extent, we're not in their group, sure - and all the divide & conquer stuff means we're not in each other's group, either.
There are SO many cartoons and memes going round now, about how the person you blame for all your problems isn't the person causing them - and indeed, look at eg fast fashion. Or Walmart & similar (and forgive me, I don't know which discount retail chains in the US are getting up to what - but I do know that as a class, corporations including 'family brand' retail establishments use unpaid prison labour, for instance, or sweatshops in foreign countries. Cheap retail chains using the poor of one place to exploit the poor of another (though the poor in Walmart in Wisconsin look unimaginably rich to the Chinese girl who sewed the label into their top.)
My niece was saying the other day that she thinks Billy Graham was instrumental in all this, btw. In that he was everywhere, making himself the 'face' of American religion, and had what she calls 'bad theology'. Or maybe she did say 'Ungodly theology' - I can't remember. But I thought it was a great insight, in fact, that he paved the way for all this - also with the scale of his operation. Instilling a trust in gigantic institutions that don't bear much close inspection... The ID crowd need these people because they're completely uncritical, though of course that could well change once they realise they've been had.
I like "the person you blame for all your problems isn't the person causing them". Had not seen the memes. I'll have to think some more on that.
Your niece is smart. I'll be using that term myself. I've been using: ChINO Christian in Name Only. My daughter is a practicing christian Nationalist. For her it's the "End Times", and she is real smart too. Amazes me what people will believe. But then I'm stoopid and really don't know anything. I was under the "illusion" that combining Church and State is not a useful thing to try again.
This is all new to me, the systematic description of Identitarianism. We should ask questions about what is going on in the brains of these people.
From a neuroscientific view, for instance, culture is the way a group duplicates brains in the next generation to be like those of previous generations of the culture. Natural selection is how genes replicate. But cultural replication has other behavioral tools closer to conscious intent. Culture is passed on both biologically through epigenetic means and directed behavior such as teaching.
Us//Them divisions are malleable. That seems to be at play with these ID folks coming together almost like football fans. If you sport the team colors, you are one of us. If you know the cheers and drink the Kool-Aide, we can be bros!
Wow! Gotta think on that, k. But yeah...learned vs. innate behavior. Or the existing divisions are simply irrelevant if you think you are developing a whole new culture superior to all. But it has got to be more than wearing the garb? You've got to have achieved our cultural distinctions to be a bro. Those being incredible wealth, are narcissitic attitude, living it and others. Cool thought.
I had no idea of the term “identitarianism” but I’ve been experiencing the feeling of it-I talk about it in layman terms and my family tells me I’m exaggerating. Thank you for the list of resources.
I could read it and appreciate it anyway, though I usually avoid anything without paragraph breaks. I learned something of Hoecke and Weidel in a documentary. Narrator pronounced it Hooker.
All these mumphets fighting it out on Twitter, we almost forgot about Hegseth’s alcoholism & rape allegation, RFK jr attacks on Public Health, Tulsi’s a Russian useful idiot, Dr Oz Miracle grafting cures, a treasury sec lacking real experience ( get ready for the crypto collapse), and Kash the crash the dept of Justice, and Linda McMahon, the Secretary of UnEduMication.
All part of Donnie’s script. Control everyone’s attention with ever escalating outrageousness. Roy Kohn style. Shock and awe, I think General Swartzkopf called it. Alls fair in love and war. It’s not the complex a game, but because we are such suckers for the sensational, media plays and gets the clicks and views they need to satisfy advertisers. Only problem is nothing gets done, and a whole lot of stealing is going on. Erghhh. Wake up ‘merica. Please wake up,
Trying, and failing, to feel optimistic about the next four or more years. Among the many points Tim makes in this essay, I found #2, particularly unsettling: Trump might go. I think that’s likely and it’s preplanned. Just in advance of his 80th birthday, when he will have further declined, Veep Vance (remember him?) will ascend to the Presidency. This will launch a more intense war among the oligarchy’s narcissists who are running the show called America. I’m re-reading an old, very relevant book “The Culture of Narcissism” by Christopher Lash. It could have been written today. It adds depth to Tim’s outlined points. It’s more enlightening now than then. It’s enlightening. I recommend it.
It’s starting to appear as if Mump still overstates the power duality of its portmanteau. Over the weekend, we watched as T-rmp literally bent his twittery knee to M-sk’s tech bro paean to HB-1 immigration. T-rmp’s expansionist shenanigans are likewise the fever dreams instilled by M-sk — who is happy to let Donnie play in the US sandbox for a few more years, while it is his eye that is on the Empire.
Oligarchs have no national allegiance; their troth is to Oligarchy itself. It appears the Ollies envision a Global triumvirate — split amongst Emperors M-sk, Vlad and Ji.
Emperor E-lon gets the Western Hemisphere, Western Europe (and Mars, of course); Vlad gets Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Russia; Xi gets the rest of Asia, most of Africa and India. There are poker games for the rest.
All the other Ollies will assume oversight of designated territories. They may war amongst themselves from time to time. The Emperors will be amused.
A triumvirate might suit them for a while, but will one of them demand to be acknowledged the universal, really big cheese?
It’s interesting that Xi is concerned with global warming and is taking actions. Musk and Putin, not so much. Electric cars, great, but AI uses huge amounts of electricity and water, too, doesn’t it?
I think of all Putin's Eastern Orthodox priests, all in long skirts, all adorned with coils of jewelry, as they parade intoning their calls for mass murder of "others."
Thanks for the article on Turing. I read it when it came out in 2019, but am now better equipped to understand it.
Just read on Joyce Vance's Substack that Eva Marie Kogel, the opinion editor at Die Welt, resigned after Die Welt ran an opinion piece by Musk praising AfD.
The glossary is funny and even useful. I have some colleagues (public school teachers and union members, believe it or not) who voted for Trump, and I will use this terminology whenever I speak to them. What I say to them, however, won't change their minds. Subsequent events orchestrated by the Mump Regime will have to do that.
As for the books, I've read "On Tyranny" and found it useful and insightful. I don't really need to understand anything more about how we got here. I need to know how I can usefully resist. As I am in California, my life may be minimally affected compared to my friends in Philadelphia, Texas, and Virginia. Even so, I've lost the country I thought I lived in. I don't know if it can ever be gotten back.
Musk is a national security risk at multiple levels, as are Gabbard and Hegseth, among others, as Trump's fascist oligarchy/kleptocracy/kakistocracy awaits officially taking power in 22 days. One of the patriots pointing this out is retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honoré, whom many Americans might remember as leader of the massive Task Force Katrina recovery effort after the devastating 2005 hurricane, and who later led a post-insurrection review of MAGA's January 6th assault on the Capitol.
The headline on Gen. Honoré's guest essay that The New York Times posted today gets right to the point: "Elon Musk Is a National Security Risk." Musk's ties to China and Russia are as brazen as they are troubling, but he's shamelessly dismissive of any concerns, as one might expect of the world's highest-profile Big Tech multibillionaire who bankrolled Trump's campaign with more than a quarter of a billion dollars and insinuated himself onto the pinnacle of Trumpist power in a prospective co-presidency.
One of the ironies of Musk being a co-leader of Trump's so-called Department of Government Efficiency is that the other co-leader is none other than Vivek Ramaswamy. Gen. Honoré writes:
"In May 2023, Mr. Ramaswamy went so far as to publicly state, 'I have no reason to think Elon won’t jump like a circus monkey when Xi Jinping calls in the hour of need,' a reference to China’s leader. In a separate X post targeting Mr. Musk, he wrote, 'the U.S. needs leaders who aren’t in China’s pocket.'"
But we're supposed to conveniently forget about that now, along with Musk's connections to Vladimir Putin and other corrupt Russian power brokers. (Selective memory and willful amnesia are required.)
"If Mr. Trump and his appointees mean what they say about getting tough on America’s adversaries," Gen. Honoré writes, "then they will act on this matter without delay. There is too much at stake to ignore what’s right in front of them."
But we all know that such national security risks will be ignored – because Trump and Musk themselves are foremost among those risks. It's safe to say that as of Jan. 20, 2025, our national security institutions will be controlled by those whose overriding principle of governing is self-enrichment. Unconscionable.
I have loved your On Freedom, On Tyranny, and The Road to Unfreedom books. I will pick up others soon. I have the first two in French as well.
But I took a detour and picked up a fabulous new book by a young independent French journalist Salomé Saqué. For 5 euros it was a quick 150 page read called Résister. There was one reference in her book to your On Tyranny. In fact I think your spirit of working towards freedom is infused in her inspiring book.
Please excuse this is not on-topic of glossary. But it is timely for anyone who here who may be interested and unaware that a march is being planned for Jan. 3-5 in Washington DC to peacefully call for congress to refuse to certify the vote on Jan 6 in support of 14.3 of the constitution.
This is being led by Jessica Denson, whose position has support from major constitutional lawyers who she has hosted on her program.
Those who cannot march are urged to write/call their US Senators and House Rep, urging them to refuse to the certify on grounds that Trump is disqualified by the constitution. Nothing in any SCOTUS rulings altered or dismissed the Colorado ruling that Trump is an adjuticated insurrectionist; as such, he is constitutionally disqualified from holding the offic unless congress passes an amnesty bill by 2/3 majority lifting his disqualification. This is clear in article 14.3
thank you. There is a Women's March, which is being held on Jan 18, 2025 in D.C. and around the Country. By entering a zip code you can find a location to participate https://www.womensmarch.com/
On the positive side we need terms for those who escape Mumpism. I’d like something that hints at Wicked’s “Defying Gravity”, but maybe “demupmification”, “demumpifier” will do.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. (As one familiar with metric prefixes, I hate to tell you "centi" is not the one you mean. You mean "hecto," but it is much less familiar to most people. "Centi" is 1/100, while "hecto" is 100. A centimeter is 1/100 of a meter, under half an inch, while a hectometer is 100 meters.)
Thanks for the glossary. Very helpful indeed.
As I was enjoying a pseudo-Pax- Americana during all my younger years I never thought I'd see the US lose its democracy & when that threat became more apparent I certainly did not see the US being responsible for threatening democracy around the world.
I know that I had not been the most attentive citizen but when Bush II started his war in Iraq I quickly became a consumer of much more news & politics & now I find myself nearly completely immersed in it, as far as a novice can be immersed that is. So, I will continue to watch & do what little I can to fight the oncoming threat. This Substack & the others that I follow will help me interpret what I'm seeing & hopefully it will help me make good citizen decisions.
The US has not been a real democracy when so many are kept from voting through various machinations and our schools are still separate and unequal. DT is making some aspects of Americana obvious to White Americans that have been obvious to others all along. Prof. Thomas Zimmer says America has been a democracy since the 1960s and I assume he means since the Voting Rights Act, but that has not been enforced, and good ole boys have been allowed to prevent others from voting all along, have packed the courts with judges that see only a certain kind of justice etc...
Our Supreme court is already the court of a totalitarian state, only attempting to appear as if they are not bought in some cases, clearly the ones they care less about, or intend to undo rights and protections for the people later.
Linda - I disagree with your viewpoint when you assert that "Our Supreme court is already the court of a totalitarian state," because on the one hand, it exaggerates the extent to which the current SCOTUS has become corrupt (in the sense of beholden to certain political and moneyed interests) and un-Constitutional in its rulings (by re-interpretation of decided case law). In conflating SCOTUS with totalitarian courts you are also insinuating that they -- the courts of the Hitlerian or Stalinist type -- were doing no more harm than the Roberts Court.
Put another way, it is important not to imagine ourselves as witnessesing the burning of Valhalla when so far the damage has been a few vandals setting bonfires in the courtyard (sorry for the mixed-up analogy or metaphor/what-have-you). Whether or not we ever had achieved true democracy is of less importance than whether we are losing whatever it was we had up to this point.
I am not saying your statement isn't prescient -- it may well be, as I am pretty sure that much worse is to come -- it's just that the destruction of our democratic systems and norms (faulty though they are) is just beginning.
I just think that they are not jumping into it all at once, but rather going the slower route. You know turning the heat up on the frogs, not throwing the frogs into boiling water.
We do not know how fast the courts changed under the Nazis or Stalin, because American textbooks tend to discuss these things as black and white. I find that is true of Black American history as well. I was just discussing this with a friend who is a prof of Slavic studies and Russian. In fact, all too often things are so portrayed as Black or White, when really there is complexity. I consider Christian Nationalists to be totalitarian and I see at least 4 if not 5 members of the court as belonging to this group.
Here is what AI says about Nazi courts.
No, the German courts did not become Nazi overnight, but rather through a series of steps that took place over time:
Early steps
In April 1933, Hitler purged Jewish and socialist judges, lawyers, and other court officials. The Nazis also merged all professional associations related to the justice system into the National Socialist League of German Jurists.
Oath of loyalty
In August 1934, German judges began taking an oath to follow Hitler instead of the German constitution.
People's Court
In April 1934, the Nazis created the People's Court to try political crimes. In 1938, the court began trying all crimes, and in 1939, minor offenses were added to its jurisdiction.
Civil Service code
In 1937, the German Civil Service code was revised to remove judges and judicial officials who did not rule in favor of the Nazis.
Police forces
The Nazis took several years to centralize the police forces under SS leader Heinrich Himmler's control. This wasn't possible overnight because German policing was decentralized at the time, with state and city governments in charge.
As for Stalin, apparently the basic Soviet structure was in place already under Lenin.
https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/soviet-criminal-justice-under-stalin
Nothing happens overnight. I am saying that it has already begun, and I recognized that with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, but perhaps it happened before then. I am sure many scholars could examine it and would come up with different responses.
Linda, thank you for your informed response. Yes indeed, even the strictest totalitarian regimes did not assert control at all levels all at once.
Early this year, as the prospect of another Trump presidency loomed, I re-read parts of Wm. L Shirer's excellent, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
Several things stood out in my reading. First, Nazi Party organization was quite thorough and directed from the top by Adolf Hitler and a few trusted associates. Everything -- political operations, economic policies, relations with capitalists and unionists, the military, etc. from high-level connections down to street-level thuggery -- was shaped through Hitler's concepts of Germanic History/mythology and Nazi precepts. A strict orthodoxy was imposed, and Hitler made sure to stamp out potential rivals to his control of the Nazi movement.
Does this sound anything like the chaos machine that is the emerging Trump Administration? To me, at least, it does not.
Prof. Reich has suggested (correctly, I think) that Trump himself, while useful to the 'bilious billionaires' whose money has funded Trump's revival, is too self-interested to last as the central, controlling figure in the anti-democratic cabal. Frankly, to my way of thinking Thiel, Musk, Vivek are all crackpots. The fact that they are clever enough to become billionaires is not an outstanding accomplishment in and of itself, as there are currently about 800 billionaires in the US today. The distinguishing characteristic between Musk et al. is the way these ideological newcomers are using their wealth to try to overthrow the very system that enriched them.
I agree that the Tech Bro Billionaires are an odious group and do not admire them, but try to avoid their damages. That is my daughter has grown up not going to Starbucks, not using PayPal, and obviously we are not driving a Tesla.
Prof. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, expert on fascism, has convinced me that Trump is a gifted illiberal leader, and gifted in the use of the tools of the autocrat in her book Strongmen, and her Substack Lucid.
Everyone who wanted to manipulate him underestimated Hitler. I am not doing that with Trump. I see lots of evidence that both Republicans and Democrats are falling into the manipulation and the rhetoric. Trump does seem less driven by ideology than Hitler although he does have his ideology, which is like a 2-year olds in some ways. It is ME FIRST. He also likes to surround himself by the most despicable people around. That he has in common with Hitler too. Trump is brilliant at seeking out ways to monetize everything he can as corruptly as possible, and he continues to get away with it. He seeks out those who can help him do this.
While German history was one thing I studied in University, I have been doing recent reading of many different sources including my daughter's history class material at a German university, of the Nazi's under Hitler. It shows him having mental breakdowns, and not being able to function, and many people playing along with him who were also evil and had a shared agenda with him. Also, some pieces were conceived of by others, such efficient killing of people.
Autocrats always act in consort with others who are willing to support them, and the people who allow them to get away with what they are doing. Did you read about the Berlin non-Jewish wives of Jewish men that made a protest in front of the Reichstag, and because it was local and public Hitler caved in and returned their husbands to them including one who had ended up at a death camp. These women were not willing to allow this. Other people were keeping their noses out of i. I think it is important that Americans understand that there are plenty of people here in the US who do and will do the same thing to injustices that they don't feel touch them personally.
Linda, thank you for the insights into cross-currents under the Nazi regime. I had never studied German history per se -- un studies were modern European, American and Asian history -- and I had not heard the story of non-Jewish wives' protest to Hitler.
I do not hold Trump's intellect to be worth much, though his animal instincts serve him very well in trying to suss out peoples' weak spots and assert dominance over others. He does understand well how mass media can be used to burnish his public image and dimish that of his rivals .
That said, his clownish, fawning behavior over Putin made me want to throw up. And his lack of impulse control is a frequent cause of "own goals."
So, if by dint of incredible good (for him) or bad (for the rest of the world) luck Trump succeeds in turning the US government into a quasi-monarchic libertarian autocracy, I fully expect its internal dysfunctional nature will mean it quickly spirals into chaos and confusion. We should have the results in the next year or so.
He hasn't even been inaugurated and already the wheels are falling off the Trump Transition bus.
Democracy in Chains, Nancy MacLean, Viking, 2017, offers a historical overview of when certain right-wing efforts began. She ties it all the way back to John C. Calhoun as the Marx for the wealthy and ideological founder of Libertarianism.
Her focus begins, however, in the wake of Brown vs. Board of Education, and historical responses well documented elsewhere (q.v., Evil Geniuses, Kurt Andersen).
Even Kevin Phillips with The Politics of Rich and Poor, and Mike Davis's Prisoners of the American Dream were documenting the changes in policy back in the late twentieth century, bringing us to now.
I greatly appreciate your highlights of how the Nazis consolidated legal authority to achieve authoritarianism. We need to share as much of this as possible to provide others who seem to be sleepwalking through their lives with a mirror. They and we must all see ourselves again or perhaps for the first time as participants in, not spectators of, history and current events.
We must revive them with our own bodies of knowledge and show them theirs again!
Yes! And thank you for mentioning Fetterman—I’m getting the creeps and everyone else I’m listening to is acting as if he has the answer in responding to the current situation. Also, on behalf of my pets…they all have a better sense of self than all of the GOP members of congress.
Pennsylvanian here, by birth and education, and Californian for life. I concluded that Fetterman had lost his mind after he advocated that Biden pardon trump. I wrote his Senate office after that and received no reply. Generally when you contact a Senate office, there is some acknowledgment.
Fetterman is off the wall and lost. I would suggest that "we the people" wage an email war with his office, continually pointing out that he is in the wrong pasture.
Also a Pennsylvanian by birth (Jersey girl now, lol) and was a big supporter of John Fetterman in 2022. I heard him interviewed by Rick Wilson before the recent election, and he sounded sort of cowed or even in awe of Trump’s electoral strength in PA. Also, he was mayor in a very Trumpy area of PA, so I suspect that, as usual, his openness to mumpiness is due to wanting to stay in office. Pretty gross - I didn’t think he’d be a sellout. If you live in CA, perhaps you could put some attention on Rep. Ro Khanna, who is also sounding awfully accommodating to his fellow tech bros lately.
I will have to think about how to shine light on Ro Khanna. I learned a couple years ago that while you can communicate electronically with all Senator, that is not the case with the House.
He's on Thom Hartmann once a week, taking phone calls...
Yes, I noticed that recently, but I was hoping I misunderstood. As I recall, he used to be a Republican, but switched so far, I tend to forget that.
We are blessed with many intellectual perspectives, yours being one. Until we have some kind of Mump convention, creating an organized response which includes messages meaningful to uninformed voters, we are at the capriciousness of Mump. Dependency on the system or democrats leaves us powerless in “wait and see” paralysis. We must find our power. And then use it.
Timothy, I like the Mumpy theme, but I think something far more dangerous is going on in the world. When you connect the dots, the word you create is "identitarianism". Write a book about that ideology and how it is clandestine, just under the surface. Read anything from any of these folks Yarwin, Höcke, Oswald Spengler, Saummeur, Alain de Benoist, Dominique Venner, Guillaume Faye and Renaud Camus, Carl Schmitt, Martin Sellner. The Tech Bros are particular to Yarwin because he re-packaged Oswald's elitism ideology for the American Tech market. Especially Thiel, who can read both. Alice Weidel the leader of the German AfD is a Gay woman, her wife is a brown skinned Sri Lankan Swiss. They don't care about race, sexual preference, nationality...they are "ABOVE" all that. Just don't mix my elitist culture with your mediocrity...as per Vivek, yesterday!
A very dangerous development, indeed. Joyce today gave us a very good account of an aspect of the struggle in Germany and in the EU. The movement to the right in the EU was led by identitarian ideology (it is different from identity ideology). Which explains much of the AfD's strong appeal to intellectuals early on (few really understand what identitarian means and it is/was perverted relatively easily by the Fascists and Neo-Nazi's). In concept it is NOT a racially hierarchical ideology but rather a rejection of multiculturalism. "Each country in the EU should maintain its historical culture, and not coalesce into a "Melting pot" Europe. Migration at the levels you have described, of course, greatly disturb identitarian goals. By the way, you will not find much info on identitarian ideology in the usual sources on the internet etc. because the Identirary movement across the EU is clandestine. They do not participate in elections, they are somewhat under the normal radar screen). In the most recent "Wannsee Conference". Not the Nazi one in Jan, 1942, but the AfD event held in Berlin in 2023. Yup, they picked that spot in Berlin on purpose. The Identitarian leadership was spirited in secretly (the leaders are prohibited from entering Germany and one is living in Austria) to help the AfD work through their policy on "re-Migration" and "Blood Contamination". Yup, so the ideology of these people (which "started" in France, or was re-packaged there) are similar to the American Ku Klux Klan of the EU. Always present at Neo-Nazi and Right Wing demos; Never present in the poles; often very violent; outlawed in most EU states. Why do I bore you with this? Sorry if I am, I'll come to the point right now. Well , Elon Musk, of course. Identitarian is really nothing other than "Apartheid" re-packaged by a couple of French guys. Oh, and where is Elon Muskrat from? You have it!... and if you delve deeper into the ideology, and why he (a supposedly "smart" guy) is part of that team, you can really see where he is heading. Racial Separation, is only ) a slight shuffle to the right and you have "Racial/Cultural Superiority (although the original identitarians deny it. Oh-Oh! So, Elon is also usurping the right to be the "Oligarch of Germany", since there isn't a person (in his right mind) with that kind of wealth who will take on that position. That position is still vacant. Höcke tried, but he is already vilified by many in pacifist Western Germany, and is tied up in court every time he raises his right arm, and he doesn't have the cash. The AfD is right now losing voters to the BSW (A new far left, Moskau loving party named after its leader Bündniss Sahra Wagenknecht). What Höcke does have, is the New Provinces (former GDR). With a remainder population that can't come to grips with the freedoms of Capitalism and Democracy. They yearn for the days of "Planned Economy" and to be told what to do all day long. He also has the Neo-Nazi thuggery which has found a fertile turf there (in Thüringen) to brutally dominate in the New Provinces (Those that object are severely punished first, then killed if they persist). The German centrist parties made the mistake to leave "those crazy people" out of their calculations and attention since the 90's., thereby leaving a void for the AfD and others. With the Federal election coming up, the timing for Elon's appearance "on the scene" is perfect. Just as in our recent US election he can maybe move voters over to the AfD because the German populace certainly admires a successful "Tech Bro". He could help to put the AfD and its more radical sister parties over the 20% hurdle it is facing in the coming elections. That would be dangerous. For those of you who know all this, I apologize. I wanted to add some further insight to what is going on here in Europe. I said in yesterday's comment to Apache (another commenter), it is going to get rough here, and Putin is financing it all. I wonder what Muskrat and Pee Pee le Put had so much to talk about? Hmmm let me see...maybe the Muskrat really really needs to pee on some Russian Whores...nah, he can get those in the States. Hmmmm....musing
Isn't this kind of 'identitarianism' equally well covered by the word 'fascism'? Humans are always obsessed with membership of a group - the definitions of 'identitarianism' include identity politics and also feminism, so the word itself doesn't denote something evil or wrong. But it does completely cover the mechanics of Fascism, which DOES denote evil and wrongness.
And I'm not sure you can subsume what's happening in the US into it; for one thing, people have voted for something they were told about that doesn't exist. For another, the thing that has enabled all of this to develop, over hears of propaganda, is money. Dark money. I think the super-rich were originally more interested in scraping all the power and money. Then, the so-called 'meritocracy' (a discredited concept, btw) of the tech world joins the colour-blindness of the billionaire class (the only colour they can perceive is gold) in the simple fact that money is assumed to accrue to people who 'deserve' it, and thus that money is where the power is.
One thing I never see Americans mention as a cause of where we are now is 9/11. The separatist, 'us against the world' ideologies, the exceptionalism, the blindness to how America's international role plays out on the ground, in places that are just as real as Idaho, New York or Texas. The blanket assumption that America is always right, or is 'the best', or is 'better' than other places, is very dangerous, has PROVED very dangerous, to America. At least in Germany people know what they're dealing with. There have always been far right (or 'Neo-Nazis', as we used to call them'); they never went away. People have had to keep fighting them back this whole time - literally, sometimes in the streets.
But that's a ground-level thing. The populism that's sweeping over us like a very bad storm front is a different thing, and it's simply using these people as fodder.
Another thing America never seemed to perceive as dangerous - or as THIS dangerous - is the religious fundamentalism. It's been fostered lovingly by the libertarians, and others with the money to foster it, since oh, the seventies - and it's destroyed people's ability to think for themselves. They're sitting ducks for the populist lies, which have been standard-issue fascist playbook.
The oligarchical phenomenon has been very visible where I am (London) ever since Putin took power. For the past twenty years & more his money, and his henchmen, have filtered into everything here, including the Tory Party, where the son of his best friend is now a Lord. The writing has been on the wall a long time.
The rightwing papers have been inveighing against refugees and immigrants for the same period. And the far-right Tory govt was full of people of colour - even children of refugees - many of them merrily passing disgusting laws about how to treat others in the same position their families had been in. That looks like identitarianism, in that they're working to destroy all but the supposed 'English' way of life (despite being elected to represent Great Britain, mush of which is not English) - but Putin's money flooding the place is what makes it stick, what funds the think tanks, what funded Brexit, etc.
Let's not forget, either, that this election right now is another point on the same piece of string that contains Brexit. I wish I had a pound for every American on Facebook who told me after Brexit not to be so stupid, that of course Trump wasn't going to win. They were masterminded by the same cast of characters; Bannon was the VP of Cambridge Analytica, the illegally large donation to the Brexit fund given by a man called Arron Banks was traced by Anonymous to 'many sources very close to the Kremlin', and Arron Banks was also one of the three people (including Nigel Farage) who visited Trump Tower only a week after the 2016 election. Farage attended this year's RNC, and was also celebrating with Trump on 6 November.
Putin's dream is to destabilise NATO and get supreme power over Europe (and who knows, maybe beyond). So Trump has been his plaything. Musk is far more dangerous because of course, he has the money. He's been talking to Putin, on his own steam, for two years, and I'm willing to bet they speak more as equals than Trump and Putin.
Far more useful than the rather redundant term 'identitarianism', I think, is the concept of 'divide and conquer'. That's the classic populist tactic, and people are so brainwashed now they can't even tell what's real and what isn't. As Hannah Arendt said, once you get people THIS bamboozled (I paraphrase) you can so whatever you like with them.
Thank you for taking the time to rebut. You make several very cogent and true points which I believe are subsumed under this phenomenon indentitarian (ID from here on). I don't understand the redundant aspect you mention, but that's okay. I do think that the ID movement is working within a number of the "disturbances" and movements you mention, and you could be right, they might just be following. However, they have been at this as an ideological group a lot longer than MAGA, and Trump, and their stated objective is to infiltrate , not lead. So, maybe in your mind that takes care of the redundancy issue. I see it as an influencing force which takes our weaknesses, bends them to their plan, and makes the world worse for every step they take. And, they have the money. These latest steps, for me, definitely bear their mark, in the USA and Europe. I again offer their guidance of the AfD, and the guiding of the Tech Bros as examples. Theil, Vance, Musk, Höcke. Weidel are all painted with the ID ideology.
Now, what's the difference between Fascism and ID, you ask? Fascism craves electoral power- ID seeks the behind the scenes position, Fascism feeds on direct racial (or class) hatred and suppression- ID does not require the suppression, it only requires the separation (apartheid). Fascism needs the unwashed masses to rise up -ID quietly gathers the elite to seek separation. Fascism has historically picked a specific homogeneous group (like Latin Americans), and yes Trump is/was a fascist-whereas ID doesn't care what homogeneous group you are from, as long as you are part of their culture...in this case new: the very very rich, elite, narcissists, over IQ'd. And YES, they are using Trump (as I indicated). ID is is an economic strategy similar to the US South. They need me alive. They are the masters and we are the serfs. Fascism needs to get rid of me. Maybe I have not said that perfectly, but I hope you get (not needed to agree) my thinking.
The real interesting thought coming out of your thoughts for me, is whether ID ideologues will stay underground (so to speak), or try to more openly drive their agenda, and when. Because they have not yet done so, but the latest Tech Bro antics are pretty offensive.
As far as the strong argument on the religious nationalists. I could make an argument that there is elitism there too, but I won't. They are a whole different kettle of Pop corn. They are focused on bringing in the end times, and Trump is the anointed one. I have seen no hint of ID around them. It will be interesting though when King Dumpster does to them what he just did to the anti-immigration MAGA crowd, and I'm interested in the outcome there too. Will they tear him from his place next to God, or will they find another excuse for him. but you are right, I don't think even the ID people know what to do with the religious Nationalists.
Oh thanks for that - I just meant 'redundant' because I saw it as a subset of fascism.
I do think that ID, as you're calling it, engages in a hell of a lot of suppression, because they need us to become their serfs. They need us to thank them for oppressing us - a revolution would spoil everything. So to that extent, we're not in their group, sure - and all the divide & conquer stuff means we're not in each other's group, either.
There are SO many cartoons and memes going round now, about how the person you blame for all your problems isn't the person causing them - and indeed, look at eg fast fashion. Or Walmart & similar (and forgive me, I don't know which discount retail chains in the US are getting up to what - but I do know that as a class, corporations including 'family brand' retail establishments use unpaid prison labour, for instance, or sweatshops in foreign countries. Cheap retail chains using the poor of one place to exploit the poor of another (though the poor in Walmart in Wisconsin look unimaginably rich to the Chinese girl who sewed the label into their top.)
My niece was saying the other day that she thinks Billy Graham was instrumental in all this, btw. In that he was everywhere, making himself the 'face' of American religion, and had what she calls 'bad theology'. Or maybe she did say 'Ungodly theology' - I can't remember. But I thought it was a great insight, in fact, that he paved the way for all this - also with the scale of his operation. Instilling a trust in gigantic institutions that don't bear much close inspection... The ID crowd need these people because they're completely uncritical, though of course that could well change once they realise they've been had.
I like "the person you blame for all your problems isn't the person causing them". Had not seen the memes. I'll have to think some more on that.
Your niece is smart. I'll be using that term myself. I've been using: ChINO Christian in Name Only. My daughter is a practicing christian Nationalist. For her it's the "End Times", and she is real smart too. Amazes me what people will believe. But then I'm stoopid and really don't know anything. I was under the "illusion" that combining Church and State is not a useful thing to try again.
Oh gosh that's sad x
That too is reality!
This is all new to me, the systematic description of Identitarianism. We should ask questions about what is going on in the brains of these people.
From a neuroscientific view, for instance, culture is the way a group duplicates brains in the next generation to be like those of previous generations of the culture. Natural selection is how genes replicate. But cultural replication has other behavioral tools closer to conscious intent. Culture is passed on both biologically through epigenetic means and directed behavior such as teaching.
Us//Them divisions are malleable. That seems to be at play with these ID folks coming together almost like football fans. If you sport the team colors, you are one of us. If you know the cheers and drink the Kool-Aide, we can be bros!
Wow! Gotta think on that, k. But yeah...learned vs. innate behavior. Or the existing divisions are simply irrelevant if you think you are developing a whole new culture superior to all. But it has got to be more than wearing the garb? You've got to have achieved our cultural distinctions to be a bro. Those being incredible wealth, are narcissitic attitude, living it and others. Cool thought.
I had no idea of the term “identitarianism” but I’ve been experiencing the feeling of it-I talk about it in layman terms and my family tells me I’m exaggerating. Thank you for the list of resources.
Thanks Pamela, Yeah, unfortunately most North Americans have not heard anything about this, but it is here...and over there. Read read read.
Thank you for the background!
It’s some what choppy but then I don’t profess to be a writer
I could read it and appreciate it anyway, though I usually avoid anything without paragraph breaks. I learned something of Hoecke and Weidel in a documentary. Narrator pronounced it Hooker.
That may be appropriate, Carol. He has sold his soul, why not the body too?
All these mumphets fighting it out on Twitter, we almost forgot about Hegseth’s alcoholism & rape allegation, RFK jr attacks on Public Health, Tulsi’s a Russian useful idiot, Dr Oz Miracle grafting cures, a treasury sec lacking real experience ( get ready for the crypto collapse), and Kash the crash the dept of Justice, and Linda McMahon, the Secretary of UnEduMication.
Thanks, Ted, for the reminder that we are being distracted from doing our bit to call our Senators to vote these nominees down.
All part of Donnie’s script. Control everyone’s attention with ever escalating outrageousness. Roy Kohn style. Shock and awe, I think General Swartzkopf called it. Alls fair in love and war. It’s not the complex a game, but because we are such suckers for the sensational, media plays and gets the clicks and views they need to satisfy advertisers. Only problem is nothing gets done, and a whole lot of stealing is going on. Erghhh. Wake up ‘merica. Please wake up,
“Flood the zone with sh!t”- Stevie Bannon
Trying, and failing, to feel optimistic about the next four or more years. Among the many points Tim makes in this essay, I found #2, particularly unsettling: Trump might go. I think that’s likely and it’s preplanned. Just in advance of his 80th birthday, when he will have further declined, Veep Vance (remember him?) will ascend to the Presidency. This will launch a more intense war among the oligarchy’s narcissists who are running the show called America. I’m re-reading an old, very relevant book “The Culture of Narcissism” by Christopher Lash. It could have been written today. It adds depth to Tim’s outlined points. It’s more enlightening now than then. It’s enlightening. I recommend it.
Thanks, I've downloaded it - a book I've often seen but never read.
It’s starting to appear as if Mump still overstates the power duality of its portmanteau. Over the weekend, we watched as T-rmp literally bent his twittery knee to M-sk’s tech bro paean to HB-1 immigration. T-rmp’s expansionist shenanigans are likewise the fever dreams instilled by M-sk — who is happy to let Donnie play in the US sandbox for a few more years, while it is his eye that is on the Empire.
Oligarchs have no national allegiance; their troth is to Oligarchy itself. It appears the Ollies envision a Global triumvirate — split amongst Emperors M-sk, Vlad and Ji.
Emperor E-lon gets the Western Hemisphere, Western Europe (and Mars, of course); Vlad gets Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Russia; Xi gets the rest of Asia, most of Africa and India. There are poker games for the rest.
All the other Ollies will assume oversight of designated territories. They may war amongst themselves from time to time. The Emperors will be amused.
A triumvirate might suit them for a while, but will one of them demand to be acknowledged the universal, really big cheese?
It’s interesting that Xi is concerned with global warming and is taking actions. Musk and Putin, not so much. Electric cars, great, but AI uses huge amounts of electricity and water, too, doesn’t it?
No doubt, but we’ve got a few organizational years — none of which will be seamless — to get through first.
Except that I think Putin is absolutely wedded to his monolithic and romantic vision of Mother Russia.
Funny you should say "Mother" Russia, Katy.
I think of all Putin's Eastern Orthodox priests, all in long skirts, all adorned with coils of jewelry, as they parade intoning their calls for mass murder of "others."
Thanks for the article on Turing. I read it when it came out in 2019, but am now better equipped to understand it.
Just read on Joyce Vance's Substack that Eva Marie Kogel, the opinion editor at Die Welt, resigned after Die Welt ran an opinion piece by Musk praising AfD.
https://joycevance.substack.com/p/musk-in-die-welt?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=607357&post_id=153731404&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=106pt&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Hey, thanks for the link to the Joyce Vance essay
You're quite welcome, Hope.
The glossary is funny and even useful. I have some colleagues (public school teachers and union members, believe it or not) who voted for Trump, and I will use this terminology whenever I speak to them. What I say to them, however, won't change their minds. Subsequent events orchestrated by the Mump Regime will have to do that.
As for the books, I've read "On Tyranny" and found it useful and insightful. I don't really need to understand anything more about how we got here. I need to know how I can usefully resist. As I am in California, my life may be minimally affected compared to my friends in Philadelphia, Texas, and Virginia. Even so, I've lost the country I thought I lived in. I don't know if it can ever be gotten back.
Musk is a national security risk at multiple levels, as are Gabbard and Hegseth, among others, as Trump's fascist oligarchy/kleptocracy/kakistocracy awaits officially taking power in 22 days. One of the patriots pointing this out is retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honoré, whom many Americans might remember as leader of the massive Task Force Katrina recovery effort after the devastating 2005 hurricane, and who later led a post-insurrection review of MAGA's January 6th assault on the Capitol.
The headline on Gen. Honoré's guest essay that The New York Times posted today gets right to the point: "Elon Musk Is a National Security Risk." Musk's ties to China and Russia are as brazen as they are troubling, but he's shamelessly dismissive of any concerns, as one might expect of the world's highest-profile Big Tech multibillionaire who bankrolled Trump's campaign with more than a quarter of a billion dollars and insinuated himself onto the pinnacle of Trumpist power in a prospective co-presidency.
One of the ironies of Musk being a co-leader of Trump's so-called Department of Government Efficiency is that the other co-leader is none other than Vivek Ramaswamy. Gen. Honoré writes:
"In May 2023, Mr. Ramaswamy went so far as to publicly state, 'I have no reason to think Elon won’t jump like a circus monkey when Xi Jinping calls in the hour of need,' a reference to China’s leader. In a separate X post targeting Mr. Musk, he wrote, 'the U.S. needs leaders who aren’t in China’s pocket.'"
But we're supposed to conveniently forget about that now, along with Musk's connections to Vladimir Putin and other corrupt Russian power brokers. (Selective memory and willful amnesia are required.)
"If Mr. Trump and his appointees mean what they say about getting tough on America’s adversaries," Gen. Honoré writes, "then they will act on this matter without delay. There is too much at stake to ignore what’s right in front of them."
But we all know that such national security risks will be ignored – because Trump and Musk themselves are foremost among those risks. It's safe to say that as of Jan. 20, 2025, our national security institutions will be controlled by those whose overriding principle of governing is self-enrichment. Unconscionable.
A very helpful glossary, and I love "The Mump Regime" (the concept, not the reality).
I have loved your On Freedom, On Tyranny, and The Road to Unfreedom books. I will pick up others soon. I have the first two in French as well.
But I took a detour and picked up a fabulous new book by a young independent French journalist Salomé Saqué. For 5 euros it was a quick 150 page read called Résister. There was one reference in her book to your On Tyranny. In fact I think your spirit of working towards freedom is infused in her inspiring book.
I’m using this glossary on my Bluesky Social account to spread the word.
With the #MumpRegime all bets are off.
#ChaosAgents 🤡
Please excuse this is not on-topic of glossary. But it is timely for anyone who here who may be interested and unaware that a march is being planned for Jan. 3-5 in Washington DC to peacefully call for congress to refuse to certify the vote on Jan 6 in support of 14.3 of the constitution.
This is being led by Jessica Denson, whose position has support from major constitutional lawyers who she has hosted on her program.
Those who cannot march are urged to write/call their US Senators and House Rep, urging them to refuse to the certify on grounds that Trump is disqualified by the constitution. Nothing in any SCOTUS rulings altered or dismissed the Colorado ruling that Trump is an adjuticated insurrectionist; as such, he is constitutionally disqualified from holding the offic unless congress passes an amnesty bill by 2/3 majority lifting his disqualification. This is clear in article 14.3
https://nowmarch.org/about/
https://thehill.com/opinion/congress-blog/5055171-constitution-insurrection-trump-disqualification/
Denson's most recent program:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-puZlM-47o&t=769s
thank you. There is a Women's March, which is being held on Jan 18, 2025 in D.C. and around the Country. By entering a zip code you can find a location to participate https://www.womensmarch.com/
And yes, Keep calling our Representatives!!!!
On the positive side we need terms for those who escape Mumpism. I’d like something that hints at Wicked’s “Defying Gravity”, but maybe “demupmification”, “demumpifier” will do.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. (As one familiar with metric prefixes, I hate to tell you "centi" is not the one you mean. You mean "hecto," but it is much less familiar to most people. "Centi" is 1/100, while "hecto" is 100. A centimeter is 1/100 of a meter, under half an inch, while a hectometer is 100 meters.)
Thanks for the pedantry. I decided to read through the comments before posting my own bit on the matter, and now there's no need to.