We witness Fall 2020 US GOP political collapse. The feral nihilism behind the white tribal authoritarian Movement irrrevocably exposed. And rejected.
For over 15 years this site revealed Rightist Movement middle brow (and lesser) policy entrepreneurs hijacking the GOP apparatus. We described in detail how these mediocrities commingled their fragile white male racialism with ill-digested Continental fascist and neo-fascist authoritarian critqiues to attack liberal democratic empiricism.
For readers, ours was a lonely 15 year effort. US political and media Status Quo resolutely ignored our warning US Right’s open drift first to anti-Semitism, many radicalized by Iraq and prone to lazy Neoconservative generalizations. This site diagrammed the Rightist segue from there to white racial nationalism, Putinism and Trump. And how the Movement devoured the GOP from within.
It took Trump unleashing unfiltered white racial authoritarianism to wake people up. Until Trump’s palsic Id spewed political truths, the US remained singularly unprepared for and vulnerable to Rightist anti-Enlightenment political hacking. All happened in open sight. Tragically, US political culture did not understand the 2002-2008 Neocon authoritarian, anti-empirical impulse is merely the flip side of Trumpism and today’s Movement and its enfeebled GOP host.
Obama and US Status Quo unwisely sought to “turn the page” in 2009. Ignorant of ideological politics and Continental political philosophy, they naively discounted Right radicalism as a temporary fever. The hubris left America wide open. Never forget that David Frum, The Atlantic contingent and NED crowd among many others insisted Trumpism is economics (sadly still peddled by the Sanders horseshoe Left).
They, US media and US political culture generally lack philosophical grounding in Continental politics and could not see its open emergence in the US Right. Naturally, US Right racial authoritarian rage caught them completely by surprise. As did Putin’s parallel revanche. US political journalism’s lack of education in political philosophy and sense of history still remain the Rightist Movement’s most potent asset.
US racial authoritarians seized temporary, calamitous political successes 2010-2020. America pays a needlessly heavy price for a generational awakening. But it is happening.
It’s now clear – viscerally – to the American electorate US Rightist mediocrities act out white male psycho-emotional collapse. Their imposed psychodrama mirrors equally reactionary patriarchal, racial impulses from Russia, Orban’s Hungary, AfD in Germany, both Le Pens in France, Salvini et al. in Italy – and most comically – the BREXIT fiasco stupidity. It is a pan-civilizational crisis in white identity.
We celebrate their imminent US defeat November 2020. Losers all.
Let us memorialize the original Patient Zeroes. Scott McConnell. Jim Pinkerton. Gavin McInnes. Steve Sailer. Richard Spencer and his ex-wife Nina Kouprianova (Dugin’s English translator). Stephen Miller. Steve Bannon. Jared Taylor. Robert (and Rebekah) Mercer. Franklin Graham. Jerry Falwell (both). Peter Thiel. Roger Ailes (Emeritus). Paul Weyrich (Emeritus). Pat Buchanan. And so on.
The list is long. A roll call of fragile white male enraged mediocrity.
Whom would you add?
Iroquois Pliskin says
Stiftung – as a new reader I appreciate a new post after the long hiatus, just chiming in to say so.
Looking from the Left (I don’t expect the Democrats to save us, but I do volunteer for Joe), a lot of us are aware of the “intersectional” nature of the threat posed by the Movement and wish others would be. The lines have been blurred for a long time and it’s hard for many Americans to imagine their neighbors are willing to go along with a project that would trade voting rights for abortion restrictions. Not only is there a fatal lack of historical consciousness in the media and political sphere but a financial incentive among many to pretend this is all some type of normal. There is no shortage of frustration with any of these people among people I know. In media Politico specifically is good for some laughs lately.
Re the GOP in 2010 I’m reminded of the ambush on David Koch that got us the interview tidbit that he was okay with the stoking of racial animus toward Obama because it aligned with the Koch Brothers’ economic agenda. We know Stormfront membership surged after Obama’s election, then DHS’s 2009 report that domestic terrorism was our greatest threat got its creator fired and team disbanded over conservative outrage, and here we are today talking about the coup attempt against Big Gretch.
Anyway, your framing of Empiricism vs. the Pre-Modern seems truly apt these days. The virus doesn’t care if you believe in it or not, as the White House is now learning.
In making sense of things it’s been incredibly helpful to understand what we the public are really up against from top to bottom and from a historical perspective and I wish Blue party leadership would understand this, of all people. Carl Schmitt ought to be required reading for liberals.
Cheers,
-Millenial in a swing state
Dr Leo Strauss says
Greetings! Thanks for the eloquent perspective. Harry Tuttle, Gilliam’s subversive plumber in “Brazil,” says “We’re all in this together.” Yet your actions – and GOTV in swing states – will decide things.
A sober appraisal – especially your reminder about Koch, DHS and the Right radical surge then. Agree with you Carl Schmitt’s shadow will be with us after a Trump defeat/Biden victory.
It’s a daunting political path for any republic – or even demotic democracy. How to re-animate core inclusive social and political culture with ~35% of electorate prepared to opt out, consciously or not?
We get to reach that challenge first by crushing Trump and GOP.
Welcome to the Stiftung family.
Iroquois Pliskin says
Thanks. I’ll say the volunteering and the conversations have helped me stay somewhat sane through all this. It’s absolutely essential that the local organizing that’s going on becomes a permanent fixture in political culture and we do not repeat 2008-2009’s demobilization. The best path to sanity, I think.
Dr Leo Strauss says
As readers can imagine, am partial to Stuart Stevens’ (belated) analysis in many ways. Although readers of this site knew full well years before 2012, his patina of conservatism long rejected by the Movement. The Lincoln Project cohorts and leadership today should have made this stand, made this fight for the soul of American rational, empirical conservatism by 2011. 2013 at the very latest.
They fight over a contaminated GOP corpse now.
I welcome the combative stance of Lincoln Project personnel and supporters. But obviously, some of their most famous and publicly celebrated personas (not Stuart Stevens, Steve Schmidt, John Weaver, btw) gleefully poured kerosene on American politics as ideological arsonists for decades up to 2016.
rkka says
Stuart Stevens traces the Republican pathology that Trump is the culmination of back to Goldwater & his decision to “…hunt where the ducks are.” Buchanan & the “Southern Strategy dialed it up to 11, and were central to Reagan’s and Dubya Shrub’s appeal.
Re:Russia, for those who thought Bl;olshevism was The Problem, Russia post 1991 would have a natural appeal.
Iroquois Pliskin says
Mafia-oligarchy looks good to would-be oligarchs, that’s for sure.
rkka says
Actually, it worked the other way around. Anglo/Euro plutocrats have been enjoying the delights of offshores since decolonialization got seriously underway. Tangier first, then Switzerland in the ’60s, then the web of islands comprising the remnants of The Empire, on which the sun still never sets. The model was pull capital from colonies on the verge of independence, to ensure they started their independent existence as broke as possible, and would then submit to “investment” on extortionate terms.
And the heirs of these folks complain about the “predatory” BRI…
Russia’s oligarch’s not nearly so secure & deeply entrenched as Anglo/Euro oligarchs.
rkka says
So to Anglo-Euro plutocrats, Russia ditching Communism and joining the Plutocrat League under Yeltsin wasn’t so much an example, but more of a deeply satisfying confirmation that Plutocracy was the way to go.
Iroquois Pliskin says
That’s fair, it WAS the Anglos that brought privatization and the share schemes to Russia, you’re right.