White Supremacy discussion thread

[Dejado Atras]

And yet it has become another tired buzzword for anything right.

As has "socialism" & "communism", on the other hand.

That’s-a fair.

[Fahran]

Which is, of course one of the other competing definitions of fascism: the process of colonial methods of governance and control seeping back into the imperial core. Those Latin American caudillos could not have existed without American political interference and strategy.

This is a bit reductionist and centers Latin American political phenomena on American intervention. Caudillos have often preceded serious American efforts to impose our authority abroad, with many coming to the heights of power immediately following the wars of independence against Spain.

[Fahran]

As has "socialism" & "communism", on the other hand.

The problem is that the sorts of paleoconservative and neoconservative academics who often resorted to such rhetorical flourishes have become vanishingly rare whereas the sorts of socialist academics who envision fascism solely as a catch-all term for reaction have remained prominent enough to steer the conversation more often than not. It's often severely limited our ability to dissect ideas.

[Odreria]

As has "socialism" & "communism", on the other hand.

The problem is that the sorts of paleoconservative and neoconservative academics who often resorted to such rhetorical flourishes have become vanishingly rare whereas the sorts of socialist academics who envision fascism solely as a catch-all term for reaction have remained prominent enough to steer the conversation more often than not. It's often severely limited our ability to dissect ideas.

Either I can't read or nobody specified academics

[Dejado Atras]

As has "socialism" & "communism", on the other hand.

The problem is that the sorts of paleoconservative and neoconservative academics who often resorted to such rhetorical flourishes have become vanishingly rare whereas the sorts of socialist academics who envision fascism solely as a catch-all term for reaction have remained prominent enough to steer the conversation more often than not.

I faced those myself back in college.

Both sides have their buzzwords and rhetoric playbooks, but one side in particular has - not just retained their advantage position - but advanced it and now heavily outnumber the other. People shrug it off as being a false point or propaganda, but academia these days has a very heavy left slant. Which is then I feel like foolishly interpreted by student bodies and others as left wing isms and politics being absolute in correctness and irrefutable by all else.


EDIT: For example in the day when social conservatism was prominent among academics and social progressives were seen as fringe whack jobs by a majority element. (If I’m citing my history correctly.)

[Fahran]

Either I can't read or nobody specified academics

It's relevant because they have institutional power and the ability to have a more consistent and long-term impact on discourse than boomers who watch OAN and wire all their savings to Nigerian princes or other such average Joes.

[Nilokeras]

As stated previously, there's quite a lot to criticize in Eco's conception of fascism, which, by his own admission, is more an disparate set of ill-formed anti-modernist tendencies than any concrete or ideological.

Which is why I think it's more useful to think of Eco's conception of fascism and specifically that of ur-fascism as the substrate upon which fascist ideologies grow out of, not as a complete diagnosis of things like falangism or Italian fascism as fully grown things. Hence the extended and probably belabored 'root' analogy.

Interpreting them in the broadest possible sense could make applicable the designation of fascist to even many conservatives and socialists who have raised critiques of modern political institutions, modern socioeconomic elites, and post-modernist ethical frameworks and the abiding nihilism intrinsic to many present societies.

Nobody is immune to fascist or ur-fascist beliefs or currents in this conception. It isn't a phenomena solely of the right - its part of the ideological superstructure we're all raised and socialized in at birth. Hence why the history of the 20th century is littered with socialists who drifted into fascism as a result of the same material crises facing their rightist fellow travelers. It's why Nazism could encompass both Strasser and dyed-in-the-wool conservative closet monarchists, or Italian fascism with its colourful cast of futurists and reactionaries. Eco's observation at its heart is that these 'critiques' tend to accumulate together and that adopting one makes it more likely to adopt other components.

If fascism is a tendency, it is a tendency that has been with us ever since the French Revolution and one we might just as easily term insular nationalism or traditionalism.

I think your diagnosis of the start point is correct but not the label. The French revolutionary republic had a lot of characteristics we might consider ur-fascist in this conception, like a rejuvenated idealistic nationalism and an obsession with purifying itself of traitors and enemies that were bent on destroying it. In this conception the flight to Varennes and the betrayal of the king were the traumatic events - proof that there could be no reconciliation between the old ideological order and the new. But it wasn't traditionalist in any real sense of the word, and at least prior to the Restoration there wasn't much ur-fascist sentiment among the traditionalists hanging out with the Duke of Brunswick. It again took a traumatic material event (the fall of Napoleon and the arrival of the Bourbons in the Allies' baggage train) to bring out that revanchist revitalizing spirit among the traditionalists. That's why I think it's not useful to simply call those tendencies 'insular nationalism' or 'traditionalism', because in many ways it was a new formulation and coalescing of all those tendencies.

[Kowani]

Either I can't read or nobody specified academics

It's relevant because they have institutional power and the ability to have a more consistent and long-term impact on discourse than boomers who watch OAN and wire all their savings to Nigerian princes or other such average Joes.

do they really though
like, this would be accurate if we all had the same communication channels
but we don't
the american right-wing lives in an entirely different media bubble that is radically disconnected from larger cultural discourse, and who mostly brings on academics to rationalize and give an "intellectual" veneer to pre-existing positions
i know i stress this a lot, and it may sound like a bit of a broken record at this point
but i don't think it's impossible to understate how much the decades-long disinformation war has sent the american right careening off the cliff

[Nilokeras]

Which is, of course one of the other competing definitions of fascism: the process of colonial methods of governance and control seeping back into the imperial core. Those Latin American caudillos could not have existed without American political interference and strategy.

This is a bit reductionist and centers Latin American political phenomena on American intervention. Caudillos have often preceded serious American efforts to impose our authority abroad, with many coming to the heights of power immediately following the wars of independence against Spain.

The Monroe doctrine, which was the first formulation of what we might call an American imperial ideology, was created specifically in response to the Latin American wars of independence and with an eye to preventing European re-conquest of their former possessions. The American proprietary interest in South American politics grew out of that and became an active interest in maintaining stability and preventing European nosiness, up until and including the bankrolling and acting as guarantor of the funds of many early caudillos.

[Fahran]

do they really though
like, this would be accurate if we all had the same communication channels
but we don't
the american right-wing lives in an entirely different media bubble that is radically disconnected from larger cultural discourse, and who mostly brings on academics to rationalize and give an "intellectual" veneer to pre-existing positions
i know i stress this a lot, and it may sound like a bit of a broken record at this point
but i don't think it's impossible to understate how much the decades-long disinformation war has sent the american right careening off the cliff

I actually don't think right-wing bubbles can sustain any sort of serious cultural discourse. They can't root themselves to much beyond the prejudices of their audience and the charisma of certain pundits, and are heavily reliant on media like television and talk radio that excel at keeping people tuned in but do not have the ideological staying power of books rooted in serious theory and analysis. This force can absolutely exercise power, albeit in a nebulous and ill-focused way from decade to decade. But will they keep records of what has happened? Or will those perspectives die with the generations that birthed them?

[The Alma Mater]

do they really though
like, this would be accurate if we all had the same communication channels
but we don't
the american right-wing lives in an entirely different media bubble that is radically disconnected from larger cultural discourse, and who mostly brings on academics to rationalize and give an "intellectual" veneer to pre-existing positions
i know i stress this a lot, and it may sound like a bit of a broken record at this point
but i don't think it's impossible to understate how much the decades-long disinformation war has sent the american right careening off the cliff

I actually don't think right-wing bubbles can sustain any sort of serious cultural discourse. They can't root themselves to much beyond the prejudices of their audience and the charisma of certain pundits, and are heavily reliant on media like television and talk radio that excel at keeping people tuned in but do not have the ideological staying power of books rooted in serious theory and analysis. This force can absolutely exercise power, albeit in a nebulous and ill-focused way from decade to decade. But will they keep records of what has happened? Or will those perspectives die with the generations that birthed them?

Does it matter ? The whole Q thing currently is an excellent example of Orwells "we were always at war with eastasia" principle. To the followers it does not matter it is inconsistent as hell, blatantly says the opposite of what it said mere weeks ago. They will believe what they were told, will believe they have always believed that and completely and utterly forget ever thinking differently. Self reflection and looking back are never done.

This can easily be sustained for ever.

[Fahran]

Does it matter ?

In terms of longevity and ideological impact, yes. Admittedly, I'm a bit biased due to spending all my time reclining indolently in ivory towers, but I do believe this is a distinction of some import and substance.

The whole Q thing currently is an excellent example of Orwells "we were always at war with eastasia" principle. To the followers it does not matter it is inconsistent as hell, blatantly says the opposite of what it said mere weeks ago. They will believe what they were told, will believe they have always believed that and completely and utterly forget ever thinking differently. Self reflection and looking back are never done.

I never stated that they wouldn't have some power in the short-term, merely that the persistence of their ideas beyond the present generation and thus impact on the long-term discourse was much in doubt. With QAnon, it's charitable to grant that they even have a serious ideology or paradigm. I'd almost fall into pathologizing with reference to that particular crowd.

This can easily be sustained for ever.

What is there to sustain? Irrational paranoia devoid of any true purpose beyond hating an establishment that can and will change and supporting a man who will in all likelihood be dead in less than twenty years?

[The Alma Mater]

What is there to sustain? Irrational paranoia devoid of any true purpose beyond hating an establishment that can and will change and supporting a man who will in all likelihood be dead in less than twenty years?

Yes. Trump is not needed for the mindset to continue.
In fact, the longer it persists, the easier it will adapt.

[Kowani]

do they really though
like, this would be accurate if we all had the same communication channels
but we don't
the american right-wing lives in an entirely different media bubble that is radically disconnected from larger cultural discourse, and who mostly brings on academics to rationalize and give an "intellectual" veneer to pre-existing positions
i know i stress this a lot, and it may sound like a bit of a broken record at this point
but i don't think it's impossible to understate how much the decades-long disinformation war has sent the american right careening off the cliff

I actually don't think right-wing bubbles can sustain any sort of serious cultural discourse. They can't root themselves to much beyond the prejudices of their audience and the charisma of certain pundits, and are heavily reliant on media like television and talk radio that excel at keeping people tuned in but do not have the ideological staying power of books rooted in serious theory and analysis. This force can absolutely exercise power, albeit in a nebulous and ill-focused way from decade to decade. But will they keep records of what has happened? Or will those perspectives die with the generations that birthed them?

I mean, they can. We know this. See, the bubble may start there-but it doesn't stop in New Media. Rather, it births an entire infrastructure from that starting point. It is, you must understand, a full-on propaganda effort-not just in the literal sense, where Fox was explicitly set out from the outset as a propaganda outlet (though it is that too). But rather, the way it works through a systemic, simultaneous dual effort of delegitimization of outside sources of information and the indoctrination of people into an extremely narrow (but emotionally compelling, because it draws on the underlying ideas of American myth) worldview.
So let's begin.
An analysis of the right-wing disinfo sphere does not actually centre exclusively on talk radio and televison, though those are key portions.
Disinformation may originate there (though not exclusively so), but it goes further. The disinformation is then amplified by "publications" like the Daily Wire or Breitbart, or the Gateway Pundit-or any of the other 300 conservative propaganda outlets, and then once they are firmly in the conservative media ecosphere, are solidified through the closed-off information loops of Parler, Telegram, or the echo-chambers on social media. It is critical, however, that this process is understood as a closed-loop: the only time outside information appears is when it is either entirely unavoidable (Biden won the election, please don't sue us) or favourable to the interests of that system (Eric Slawell being in a relationship with a Chinese Spy).
And I do want to emphasize this with an example, because I think it's illustrative: More GOP voters had heard ‘a Lot’ about the move to pull a few Dr. Seuss books than they had the COVID-19 relief bill vote (or anything else)

This is bad for a lot of reasons, but for our purposes, we're just going to stick to it as a metric for closed-loop information sequences.
And that's almost certainlya result of comparative differences in coverage.

Now, elites may amplify this, but they're responding to grievances being-not established, but manufactured by the Right-Wing disinformation network.
But this is only exacerbated by a second problem-the Right...doesn't trust other media outlets (note that this was done prior to the salience of OAN and Newsmax, but it seems they are the exception to this pattern). In fact, the only outlet with a net-positive trust from conservatives, regardless of strength of ideology...is Fox News

(though this gets muddled when asked about trust vs distrust, the basic pattern still holds)

This is, of course, made worse, by the fact that the right-wing media ecosystem, constantly repeats the message that other media, the "Mainstream Media" cannot be trusted. A leftie critique here is that this is ridiculous-the Murdoch Empire is worth billions, and that its reach is worldwide. But when right-wing disinfo hosts talk about "mainstream media", they're not talking about themselves-it's to play on their audience's sense of victimhood and persecution.
And that sense is critical to understanding the staying power there. Because it's everywhere. Specifically, it plays on both cultural conservative and white grievances (though it should be noted that these are not mutually exclusive).
And it works.
We've all probably seen the Malcom X quote at some point- "The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses. The press is so powerful in its image-making role, it can make the criminal look like he’s a the victim and make the victim look like he’s the criminal. This is the press, an irresponsible press. It will make the criminal look like he’s the victim and make the victim look like he’s the criminal. If you aren’t careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing."
And yeah, that's exactly what happened-in large part thanks to the disinfo apparatus.

Three months after a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol to try to overturn his November election loss, about half of Republicans believe the siege was largely a non-violent protest or was the handiwork of left-wing activists “trying to make Trump look bad,” a new Reuters/Ipsos poll has found.

Six in 10 Republicans also believe the false claim put out by Trump that November’s presidential election “was stolen” from him due to widespread voter fraud, and the same proportion of Republicans think he should run again in 2024, the March 30-31 poll showed.

(Note that this may actually underestimate the number of republicans who believe this, since there's a systematic problem with polling Republicans)

So let's expand away from Fox News for a bit, and look at how the rest of the spectrum works.
Firstly, local news. So, local news is the most trusted news source in America (the Pew data cited earlier didn't include it)

This pattern even holds for Republicans-though it's going to be important here that, along with Fox News and "Family and Friends", local news is the only thing with a net positive trust rating.

Now, I've commented on this before, but most local media is not actually "local." 72% of the market is owned by two companies, Sinclair Broadcast Group and Tribune Media.

The issue here is that Sinclair, which owns about 40% of the market, isn't a neutral actor-it's explicitly pro-Trump, to the point where it might as well be an arm of the Trump campaign.

Donald Trump's campaign struck a deal with Sinclair Broadcast Group during the campaign to try and secure better media coverage, his son-in-law Jared Kushner told business executives Friday in Manhattan. Kushner said the agreement with Sinclair, which owns television stations across the country in many swing states and often packages news for their affiliates to run, gave them more access to Trump and the campaign, according to six people who heard his remarks.

In exchange, Sinclair would broadcast their Trump interviews across the country without commentary, Kushner said. Kushner highlighted that Sinclair, in states like Ohio, reaches a much wider audience — around 250,000 listeners — than networks like CNN, which reach somewhere around 30,000.

(though this was really just an intensification of an already existing lean)

Sinclair, a Maryland-based company, has been labeled in some reports as a conservative-leaning local news network. Local stations in the past have been directed to air “must run” stories produced by Sinclair’s Washington bureau that were generally critical of the Obama administration and offered perspectives primarily from conservative think tanks, The Washington Post reported in 2014.

And because of course they did, this ended up being a key part in the same trend as before-right-wing media intentionally fostering distrust of the media. (Seriously, watch the video, it's eerie.)
And yeah, this is a systemic problem-consolidation (particularly by Sinclair) increases the rightward slant of local media.

Figure 4 shows the density of the resulting slant estimates across stations. There is some dispersion across stations in the measure, with standard deviation equal to about 0.02.12 Sinclair’s portfolio of stations is, unsurprisingly given the anecdotal reports, shifted to the right relative to non-Sinclair stations; the mean difference is about 0.012. Figure 3(c) shows the over-time change in this measure for stations in one of the Bonten Group DMAs; again, trends are close to parallel for acquired and non-acquired stations until the time of the acquisition, when the Sinclair acquisitions move rightwards.

....by a lot, actually

In Table 5, we analyze the ideological slant of coverage, as measured by our text-based slant estimate described in Appendix C. For the purposes of this analysis, we focus on segments with 50% or more weight on the national politics topics. We restrict to national-politics-focused segments because the training set used to fit our model of ideology on phrase frequency comes from the Congressional Record (CR) and hence focuses on national rather than local issues. Including other non-national-politics segments tends to compress the distribution of slant estimates because doing so adds numerous phrases with no ideological valence in the CR.

Columns 1–2 of this table show that according to this measure, Sinclair stations on average are more right-leaning compared to the rest of the sample (column 1) and other stations in the same market (column 2). The DiD results in columns 3–4 show that, first, Sinclair’s 2017 acquisitions were actually somewhat left-leaning prior to the acquisition (row 2). This preexisting difference is also visible in Figure 3(c). Second, after the acquisition, coverage shifted to the right at these acquired stations, relative to other stations in the same set of markets (row 4). The size of the effect is an increase of 0.023 in the projected DW-NOMINATE score of the national politics coverage on these stations. In terms of the distribution of DW-NOMINATE scores in Congress, this is a small increase, but as Figure 4 shows, the distribution of projected scores for local news coverage is much more compressed than the distribution in Congress.21 The magnitude of the DiD estimate here corresponds to an increase of roughly one standard deviation of the distribution of slant scores for local news stations.

In Appendix E, we show that the results of this slant analysis are very similar if instead of scaling segments relative to speech in Congress, we scale relative to speech on cable news. Sinclair stations’ coverage looks more similar to Fox News Channel coverage, and less similar to MSNBC coverage, than non-Sinclair stations.

The difference-in-difference results demonstrate that evidently, the content difference we see in the cross-section is not purely a function of differences in audience characteristics—stations newly acquired by Sinclair in 2017 shifted their coverage after the acquisition, making their coverage look more like that at existing Sinclair-owned stations in other markets. The large relative magnitudes of the shifts in content we measure imply that the supply-side role in the determination of news content is substantial.

(it also moves the conversation to the national level, which is relevant to the feeling of victimhood, but not enough to warrant a full analysis, other than to say doing so makes it easier and more pronounced)

But what I'm getting at is that this is a full-scale propaganda effort, with its tendrils in everything. And it has, for the most part, worked.
And because it plays on and amplifies already existing grievances, it's extremely hard to dislodge.

The critical question, then, is if the disinfo sphere will translate on across generations.
And while it may not have of this operated on its own...because this is a deliberate propaganda blast, it turns out that there has been an attempt to indoctrinate children.

Through its huge ad campaigns on Facebook and YouTube, PragerU has made itself known to Generation Z. Most parents, though, have never heard of it. Founded in 2009 by talk radio host Dennis Prager, PragerU is a nonprofit organization turned conservative media powerhouse. Known for its exceptionally slick content and conservative videos for young people, it’s grown exponentially in the last few years, operating on a $25 million budget in 2020 with a $35 million goal for 2021. The nonprofit is primarily concerned with producing polished content, capturing new clicks and viewers through its quick turnaround. And originally, it was all made possible through big financial backers, like fracking barons Farris and Dan Wilks.

Five-minute videos are PragerU’s bread and butter. With over 4.8 billion total views, the videos often go viral and have titles like “Just Say ‘Merry Christmas’” and “The Myth of Voter Suppression.” “It’s slick, it’s cute, it has amazing graphics, and their narrators are diverse,” said Ashley Woodson, the head of Freedom School, an educational program for the Abolitionist Teaching Network.

The website looks like any other educational organization’s, with programs and videos loaded with smart-looking graphics. But its content has a clear right-wing agenda woven through its hundreds of videos.

Ellis and Lannes aren’t the only students watching PragerU videos in school. On Twitter and Reddit, dozens of students are saying that their teachers are assigning the right-wing content, especially in required history, government, and economics classes. What was reported as a single instance of the videos being assigned as extra credit in an Ohio public-school district last October only scratched the surface of a much bigger phenomenon. According to the students I spoke to, PragerU’s content has been in public schools for years.
[...]
Last fall, PragerU began its first massive initiative to concertedly push its content into schools. Known as “PREP,” the educational program already has over 6,000 educators and parents signed up. An annual donation of $25 gives users access to the program’s materials and a private Facebook group with over 1,400 members. Its website says that the media nonprofit launched the program “to give [educators and parents] the resources, support, and tools to teach their children about America’s blessings and limitless opportunities.”

According to Jill Simonian, the director of outreach for PREP, the program includes resources specifically designed for students from kindergarten to 12th grade. She said that the five-minute videos, which many students say they have seen in school, were in fact created for adults, not kids. “Occasionally, high school students might watch them,” she said. “But those videos are not meant to be consumed for PREP.”

But that’s not true. On the PREP resources page, playlists with these exact videos are advertised as a part of the program, despite the fact that Simonian says that those videos are “for adults.” These playlists include videos like “Gun Rights Are Women’s Rights” and “The Best Book to Read To Your Kids.” (No surprise: “This book, of course, is the Bible,” says the host of the latter video.) In April, PREP is set to put out even more content for kids. Simonian described a publication detailing Ayn Rand’s life for third through fifth graders, and a video showing how to properly fold an American flag.

According to Jennifer Rich, assistant professor of sociology at Rowan University and author of the forthcoming book Politics, Education, and Social Problems: Complicated Classroom Conversations, even seemingly innocuous PragerU videos are a gateway to explicit right-wing content. And Google algorithms serve these goals. When PragerU’s videos are assigned by teachers for students to watch at home, more right-wing content comes up again and again for kids on social media and YouTube.

PragerU is, to us, pretty much a joke. But as a propaganda organization, they're extremely effective-especially when backed by the authority of a school.

These latent sentiments are then directed into "activism", via youth groups like TPUSA and YAF. These groups aren't equivalent to the Hitler Youth, obviously. But they do help reinforce the "ideas" that are part and parcel of the disinfo sphere-distrust of the media (except the conservative media), denigration of liberals as irrational, and playing on the same grievances as Fox and OAN. (Though admittedly, they have not, to my knowledge, endorsed great replacement theory).

But there's one other thing I need to address here: these (admittedly very shitty) books
while they are explicitly political, they are not necessarily electoral-though some of them are

This is cultic politics, something you dedicate your entire life to, along with the lives of your children, whether they want it or not.

This has, for reference, shown itself to be relatively good at surviving the deplatforming of various members, even if their personal influence diminishes. The implosions of Bill O'Reilly and Milo Yiannopoulos (much less the death of Rush Limbaugh) did not stop the crazy train. New voices just rise to fill the gaps, propelled by the same machinery that's been developed over decades.

Even the supposed "intellectuals" of the modern right aren't actually offering an alternative to the disinformation bubble-they're just putting a veneer of legitimacy and "intellectualism" on the same arguments being advanced by Sean Hannity or Lauren Chen or Dinesh D'Souza, or whatever pundit you want to name.

As I've noted elsewhere-Trumpism did not start with Trump, and it does not end with him-no matter how comforting it might feel to imagine otherwise. It is hard to grow much more (the why is complex)-but it is nearly impossible for this to dissipate, at least anytime soon.

[New yugoslavaia]

Wait, free gift bundle?
THAT'S COMMUNISMS!

[Suriyanakhon]

Fascism as an ideology contained in the actual writings of what you might call 'fascist' theoreticians is entirely dead.

While some make the mistake of thinking something has to mirror the Doctrine of Fascism (a purely abstract work) in order to be fascist, I don't think it's theory to say that corporatist economics is one of the core components of a fascist ideology or that ideologies which lack this totalitarian desire to subjugate everything under the state aren't fascist. It's why we don't consider Salazar, Pinochet, etc. as fascist despite them being right-wing dictators.

They've been dead ever since the various purges in Spain, Italy and Germany in the 1930's.

Not entirely sure who you're specifically referring to, but the Fascist Chamber of Corporations was enacted in 1939, the conceit of corporatism was always a major component of fascist economics before and after the war.

To the extent fascism is alive today it's as a strain of Eco's ur-fascism: a revanchist nationalism that harkens back to an imagined 'purer' past and which sees their opponents as degenerate elites that must be toppled to unify the organic nation. Ur-fascism lies rooted under the surface of our culture, and Italian fascism and Nazism or falangism are just individual growths that emerged and flowered before being cut down.

This is extremely essentialist and would cover ideologies that existed before fascism was created, such as the Boulangists, Boxer rebels, and even romantic liberal nationalists during the early 19th century. It's turning fascism into something much grander than it actually is, from a failed 20th century ideology to a nebulous force that lays hidden under Western (or world?) cultures.

Because people don't want to admit that the US, the country that supposedly ended fascism, is increasingly falling into its grasp.

Also, because a lot on the right support American Fascism, consciously and subconsciously.

If the GOP is so fascist, why don't Nakena and Suri support it? :^)

Fahr, you try to get me to read Carl Schmitt constantly, you are the last person to make this joke.

[Borderlands of Rojava]

As has "socialism" & "communism", on the other hand.

The problem is that the sorts of paleoconservative and neoconservative academics who often resorted to such rhetorical flourishes have become vanishingly rare whereas the sorts of socialist academics who envision fascism solely as a catch-all term for reaction have remained prominent enough to steer the conversation more often than not. It's often severely limited our ability to dissect ideas.

It is not rare at all for conservatives in America to call everything socialism. Trump spent an entire election calling Joe Biden a socialist and I can't can't you how many times one of his fans has talked about "radical socialism destroying America." On the right nowadays, it is more common than ever before to call anything they don't like socialism or communism.

[Diarcesia]

As someone posted in another thread:

Obviously, there are a multitude of factors here beyond privilege rhetoric. Insanity, perhaps. Disconnection from reality. Something along those lines.

But there is a factor here that the privilege rhetoric does have real world effects which I've cited and proven - hatred of poor whites by liberals, and solidarity from conservatives, and this drives social effects. You don't really want white conservatives having too much white solidarity (Belgium seen sweating), or white liberals hating the poor. This is likely one of the factors where the absolute disdain for "middle america" comes in from the left, and, is repaid, in kind, for the "coastal elites".

It drives division. Division drives terrorism.

It also doesn't help we had someone in the white house literally doing his best to sow division for four years.

When you describe it like that, I must agree.

Racial and ethnic privilege doesn't exist, as it was never about race or ethnicity. It was all about classes all along. It doesn't matter if the billionaire is black or white, Catholic or Muslim, Chinese or American. No mater the race ethnicity or religion, billionaires will keep fucking over the poor and the workers while polluting the earth.

Whether the poor person in question is Asian, black, or white, they need to unite under the banner of 'fuck the rich class people that have been fucking them'.

Shiting on poor white people is a ploy by rich to keep them selves in the money and preventing any real change from happing.

Liberals need to drop the whole racial and ethnic privilege thing, as it only hurts there own cause and causes division. When people of all races should get together to fight back against the billionaires that are taking all the money.

Also yes Trump did fuck things up big time.

Bolded for emphasis.

Always has been *blam*

It was a case of a group of people holding economic and political dominance long enough that they thought their genetics made it inevitable. They did not realize that had a few things go a different way, it would be them at the bottom of the pyramid instead.

[Elwher]

As someone posted in another thread:

When you describe it like that, I must agree.

Racial and ethnic privilege doesn't exist, as it was never about race or ethnicity. It was all about classes all along. It doesn't matter if the billionaire is black or white, Catholic or Muslim, Chinese or American. No mater the race ethnicity or religion, billionaires will keep fucking over the poor and the workers while polluting the earth.

Whether the poor person in question is Asian, black, or white, they need to unite under the banner of 'fuck the rich class people that have been fucking them'.

Shiting on poor white people is a ploy by rich to keep them selves in the money and preventing any real change from happing.

Liberals need to drop the whole racial and ethnic privilege thing, as it only hurts there own cause and causes division. When people of all races should get together to fight back against the billionaires that are taking all the money.

Also yes Trump did fuck things up big time.

Bolded for emphasis.

Always has been *blam*

It was a case of a group of people holding economic and political dominance long enough that they thought their genetics made it inevitable. They did not realize that had a few things go a different way, it would be them at the bottom of the pyramid instead.

Check out Farnham's Freehold by Heinlein for a fictional example of how that might work.

[Ayytaly]

As someone posted in another thread:


Bolded for emphasis.

Always has been *blam*

It was a case of a group of people holding economic and political dominance long enough that they thought their genetics made it inevitable. They did not realize that had a few things go a different way, it would be them at the bottom of the pyramid instead.

Check out Farnham's Freehold by Heinlein for a fictional example of how that might work.

Or just read about the Battle of Teutoburgh. Had Arminius not ambushed Publius Varus' legions, we'd probably not been subjected to the English.

[Kowani]

As someone posted in another thread:

th
When you describe it like that, I must agree.

Racial and ethnic privilege doesn't exist, as it was never about race or ethnicity. It was all about classes all along. It doesn't matter if the billionaire is black or white, Catholic or Muslim, Chinese or American. No mater the race ethnicity or religion, billionaires will keep fucking over the poor and the workers while polluting the earth.

Whether the poor person in question is Asian, black, or white, they need to unite under the banner of 'fuck the rich class people that have been fucking them'.

Shiting on poor white people is a ploy by rich to keep them selves in the money and preventing any real change from happing.

Liberals need to drop the whole racial and ethnic privilege thing, as it only hurts there own cause and causes division. When people of all races should get together to fight back against the billionaires that are taking all the money.

Also yes Trump did fuck things up big time.

Bolded for emphasis.

Always has been *blam*

It was a case of a group of people holding economic and political dominance long enough that they thought their genetics made it inevitable. They did not realize that had a few things go a different way, it would be them at the bottom of the pyramid instead.

this is....a really dumb sentiment
class is important and fundamental to understanding the broad inequities and injustices in america, but making the jump to "Racial and ethnic privilege doesn't exist, as it was never about race or ethnicity" is to fundamentally miss a huge subset of American issues and suffering
it doesn't help that race and class are intertwined, for that matter
whether the question of "liberals taking up the cause of racial and ethnic privilege has only hurt their own cause" is accurate (or an ethical political strategy) is much harder to address

[Borderlands of Rojava]

As someone posted in another thread:


Bolded for emphasis.

Always has been *blam*

It was a case of a group of people holding economic and political dominance long enough that they thought their genetics made it inevitable. They did not realize that had a few things go a different way, it would be them at the bottom of the pyramid instead.

this is....a really dumb sentiment
class is important and fundamental to understanding the broad inequities and injustices in america, but making the jump to "Racial and ethnic privilege doesn't exist, as it was never about race or ethnicity" is to fundamentally miss a huge subset of American issues and suffering
it doesn't help that race and class are intertwined, for that matter
whether the question of "liberals taking up the cause of racial and ethnic privilege has only hurt their own cause" is accurate (or an ethical political strategy) is much harder to address

We should stand against any and all bigotry and not celebrate any oppressor of any kind. How's that everybody?

[Diarcesia]

As someone posted in another thread:


Bolded for emphasis.

Always has been *blam*

It was a case of a group of people holding economic and political dominance long enough that they thought their genetics made it inevitable. They did not realize that had a few things go a different way, it would be them at the bottom of the pyramid instead.

this is....a really dumb sentiment
class is important and fundamental to understanding the broad inequities and injustices in america, but making the jump to "Racial and ethnic privilege doesn't exist, as it was never about race or ethnicity" is to fundamentally miss a huge subset of American issues and suffering
it doesn't help that race and class are intertwined, for that matter
whether the question of "liberals taking up the cause of racial and ethnic privilege has only hurt their own cause" is accurate (or an ethical political strategy) is much harder to address

Well yeah it makes sense in an American context. For me what makes it dumb is trying to make it universally applicable. Hope I was able to express my point clearly there.

Even then, the racial and ethnic privilege in America is rooted in the economic/class privilege that started with the English colonies.

[Borderlands of Rojava]

this is....a really dumb sentiment
class is important and fundamental to understanding the broad inequities and injustices in america, but making the jump to "Racial and ethnic privilege doesn't exist, as it was never about race or ethnicity" is to fundamentally miss a huge subset of American issues and suffering
it doesn't help that race and class are intertwined, for that matter
whether the question of "liberals taking up the cause of racial and ethnic privilege has only hurt their own cause" is accurate (or an ethical political strategy) is much harder to address

Well yeah it makes sense in an American context. For me what makes it dumb is trying to make it universally applicable. Hope that makes sense.

Yeah writing a paper on "white privilege in Moldova" just makes the author rather unintelligent.

[Kowani]

this is....a really dumb sentiment
class is important and fundamental to understanding the broad inequities and injustices in america, but making the jump to "Racial and ethnic privilege doesn't exist, as it was never about race or ethnicity" is to fundamentally miss a huge subset of American issues and suffering
it doesn't help that race and class are intertwined, for that matter
whether the question of "liberals taking up the cause of racial and ethnic privilege has only hurt their own cause" is accurate (or an ethical political strategy) is much harder to address

Well yeah it makes sense in an American context. For me what makes it dumb is trying to make it universally applicable. Hope I was able to express my point clearly there.

Even then, the racial and ethnic privilege in America is rooted in the economic/class privilege that started with the English colonies.

ah yeah, that's true
...though i think Herp is canadian, in which case First Nations people's are getting fucked over-