These days the GOP is just 3 cults in a trenchcoat — nevertheless, it’s helpful to understand some of the ideologies and extremist beliefs that folks on the right engage with. Understanding the psychology can help us make predictions about actions, reactions, and other developments in the political landscape. What is an ideology? An ideology […]
It’s not just here at home in the US that fascism seems to have taken root in the population. There are many burgeoning nationalist movements resurrecting right-wing populism around the world, and as per many experts’ warnings, right-wing authoritarianism is on the rise around the globe. Many of the right-wing populist thatches that have sprung […]
The right wing alleges that Antifa and Black Lives Matter are the “violent lefties” of yore — and though the kernel of truth is that leftist anarchists did have a reputation for violence a century ago, these days it’s the right whose militant fantasies routinely animate stochastic terrorism and planned aggressions of all sorts. Antifa […]
The radical right is a fervent anti-government strain of Libertarian ultraconservative, emerging out of the anti-New Deal ideology of the 1930s. From McCarthyism to the John Birch Society, from fiscal conservatives to Christian nationalists, the radical right contains some of the most extreme ideologies in the right wing. Conservative ideology has gotten more and more […]
It feels like the 1930s all over again — and with good reason. The rise of American fascists and right-wing extremism around the world has been a known trend for decades, and America’s past flirtations with fascism had been largely swept under the rug by the then anti-semites who tried to put a stop to […]
I’ve been reading John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty” and am reminded of the quintessential liberal definition of the term: The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain […]
Regardless of whether or not you agree that slashing spending, fiscal austerity, balanced budgets, and a low federal deficit are good ideas, the fact remains that the Republican Party does not generally live up to its aims of expense reduction and small government. As hard as it is to believe, there are still some people […]
A network of exceedingly wealthy individuals and organizations have channeled their vast fortunes into influencing American politics, policy, and public opinion — they’ve formed a wealth cult. And they’ve leveraged that cult and its considerable fortune to influence and in many ways dramatically transform American politics. The term “dark money” refers to political spending meant […]
One of two major parties in our American first-past-the-post voting system of dual-party reality, the Republican Party, has evolved (or devolved…) into a full-throated authoritarian movement seeking to overthrow our democracy, The Constitution, and the rule of law in order to establish a fascist regime in the United States. It’s been a not-so-secret fever dream […]
The Big Lie about the 2020 Election was hardly the first or even the Biggest of the Big Lies in American history — fomented in vast majority by the right wing. Call it a personality trait, an ideology, or perhaps a financial preference — but Republicans seem to lean towards the disingenuous end of the […]
Great Replacement Theory is a conspiracy theory animating the radical right wing that claims non-white immigrants are being brought to the U.S. and the west to “replace” white voters with their woke political and cultural agenda. Those who believe this white supremacist ideology see routine immigration policy as a white genocide and extinction of the […]
Cultural Marxism is a conspiracy theory originally promoted by ultraconservative American political operatives William S. Lind and Paul Weyrich, claiming the existence of an organized conspiracy against the “traditional Christian values of America.” It’s a modern derivative of the Nazi propaganda term “Cultural Bolshevism,” which was used as a derogative slur against anything progressive, modernist, […]
Loser Politics is the psychology of the right wing — the mentality of Confederates through the ages. It is the also rans, the disaffected former military or government personnel, the failed actors and artists, closet gays, and all those jealous jerks who are butthurt over their own assorted failures. It is the mindset of the […]
The caricatures of the TV show — at least some of them — ring true, especially politically these days. The MAGA folks who remain loyal are truly stuck in time. They’re back at an event that’s over — some to spend the rest of their lives relitigating the election and holding onto its Lost Cause-style […]
Or capital vs. labor, oligarchs vs. plebes, plutocrats vs. proles, rich vs. poor — however you want to narrate it, the property vs. people struggle continues on in new and old ways, each and ere day. Here in America, the plutocrats have devised many clever methods of hiding the class struggle behind a race war […]