Corruption erodes trust, fairness, and ultimately, the rule of law. A fair playing field is necessary for a thriving democracy. Justice must come for the rich just as she comes for the poor.
- see the full list on bookshop.org
Corruption Books
Authoritarianism Books
Many people around the world were shocked in the aftermath of World War II. How could “polite” society break down so utterly, so swiftly, and so zealously? Why did authoritarian personalities come to dominate human affairs, seemingly out of nowhere? How thin is this veneer of civilization, really?
A braintrust of scholars, public servants, authors, psychologists, and others have been analyzing these questions ever since.
Books about authoritarianism
For a long time it was convenient to think of authoritarian personality as primarily a European problem, or in any case, a phenomenon that happened elsewhere. We are still waking up (…again) to the scope and depth of the problem, while anti-government groups organize relatively openly and we have yet to see justice for the January 6 attack on our capital. There is much work to be done, and in the meantime we can always continue to educate ourselves about our nation’s history — and the role of slavery, white supremacy, and racism in the shaping of the country and the future class structure of today’s America.
- See the full list on bookshop.org
Repression causes authoritarianism
Research has shown that emotional repression causes authoritarianism (Altemeyer, Adorno, Stenner et al). Fundamentalist religious groups favor the most repression, culturally — ergo, fundamentalist groups are at the highest risk for nurturing authoritarian traits.
Emotional repression is the keystone of fundamentalist parenting. The strict application of “Biblical law” as cherry-picked by extremists is inherently contradictory & hypocritical, stunting emotional and psychological growth through corporal punishment and capricious applications of anger for sometimes opaque reasons.
When trusted caregivers apply physical violence to a developing mind, seeds of deep distrust and paranoia are planted. Children learn to “obey” by repressing negative parts of themselves so deeply they fall out of conscious awareness altogether & rule the personality “from below.”
The abused child learns “splitting” as a psychological defense mechanism, which later in adulthood is considered a “superpower” — they present a saccharine but False Self in their outer aspect to the tribe, and sequester negative id impulses deep down into an “inner sociopath.”
Repression creates divided minds
Never being given the required emotional support to transcend the paradoxical human project of reconciling the positive & negative aspects inherent in all people, they become “arrested” at a moment of obsession with punishment as the only solution to every problem. They see the world in very black and white terms — the classic “you’re either with us or against us” zero-sum worldview in which everybody who doesn’t agree with you must be delegitimized and eradicated completely.
Continue reading Repression causes authoritarianismIs America a Christian nation? No.
The Founders knew acutely the pains of centuries of religious warfare in modern Europe and resoundingly did not want that for their new nation. Many of them moreover knew religious persecution intimately — some whose families fled the Church of England for fear of being imprisoned, burned at the stake, or worse. Is America a Christian nation? Although many Christians certainly have come here, in a legal and political sense the nation’s founders wanted precisely the opposite of the “Christian nation” they were breaking with by pursuing independence from the British.
Contrary to the disinformation spread by Christian nationalists today, the people who founded the United States explicitly saw religious zealotry as one of the primary dangers to a democratic republic. They feared demagoguery and the abuse of power that tilts public apparatus towards corrupt private interest. The Founders knew that religion could be a source of strife for the fledgling nation as easily as it could be a strength, and they took great pains to carefully balance the needs of religious expression and secular interests in architecting the country.
Americans sought religious freedom
The main impetus for a large percentage of the early colonists who came to the Americas was the quest for a home where they could enjoy the free exercise of religion. The Protestant Reformation had begun in Europe about a century before the first American colonies were founded, and a number of new religious sects were straining at the bonds of the Catholic Church’s continued hegemony. Puritans, Mennonites, Quakers, Jesuits, Huguenots, Dunkers, Jews, Amish, Lutherans, Moravians, Schwenkfeldians, and more escaped the sometimes deadly persecutions of the churches of Europe to seek a place to worship God in their own chosen ways.
By the late 18th century when Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, many religious flowers were blooming within the 13 colonies. He had seen for himself the pitfalls of the experiments in which a unitary control of religion by one church or sect led to conflict, injustice, and violence. Jefferson and the nation’s other founders were staunchly against the idea of establishing a theocracy in America:
- The founding fathers made a conscious break from the European tradition of a national state church.
- The words Bible, Christianity, Jesus, and God do not appear in our founding documents.
- The handful of states who who supported “established churches” abandoned the practice by the mid-19th century.
- Thomas Jefferson wrote that his Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom was written on behalf of “the Jew and the gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan, the Hindu and the infidel of every denomination.” In the text he responds negatively to VA’s harassment of Baptist preachers — one of many occasions on which he spoke out sharply against the encroachment of religion upon political power.
- The Constitution explicitly forbids a religious test for holding foreign office.
- The First Amendment in the Bill of Rights guarantees that “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
- There is a right-wing conspiracy theory aiming to discredit the phrase “wall of separation between church and state” by claiming that those exact words aren’t found in the Constitution.
- The phrase comes from Thomas Jefferson’s 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists, wherein he is describing the thinking of the Founders about the meaning of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which Jefferson contemplates “with sovereign reverence.”
- The phrase is echoed by James Madison in an 1803 letter opposing the building of churches on government land: “The purpose of separation of Church and State is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries.”
- The 1796 Treaty of Tripoli states in Article 11: “As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,-as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen,-and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.” — President George Washington first ordered the negotiation of a treaty in 1795, and President John Adams sent the treaty to the Senate for ratification in 1797, with this article widely interpreted to mean a reiteration of the purpose of the Establishment Clause to create a secular state, i.e. one that would not ever be going to holy war with Tripoli.
The Founders were deists
For the most part, the prominent Founders were deists — they recognized the long tradition of Judeo-Christian order in society, and consciously broke from it in their creation of the legal entity of the United States, via the Establishment Clause and numerous other devices. They were creatures of The Enlightenment, and were very much influenced by the latest developments of their day including statistics, empiricism, numerous scientific advancements, and the pursuit of knowledge and logical decision-making.
- They distrusted the concept of divine right of rule that existed in Europe under monarchies. We fought a revolution to leave that behind for good reason.
- They disliked the idea of a national church, and were adamant about the idea of keeping the realms of religion and politics independent of each other.
- Thomas Paine lamented that “Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law.”
- Paine also pushed the envelop even further, asserting his belief that the people would eventually abandon all traditional religions in favor of the “religion” of nature and reason.
Who really increases the national debt?
Mythology has it that “reckless Democratic spending” is to blame for the ballooning of the national debt — though the historical record shows otherwise.
In fact, the conservatives‘ beloved demi-god Ronald Reagan was the first President to skyrocket the debt, thanks to some bunk ideas from an old cocktail napkin that linger to this day — the Republican monetary theory in a nutshell is (I shit you not) that we should take all our pooled tax money and give it to… billionaires. Because, you know, they’re clearly the most qualified people to make decisions affecting the 99% poor people. Supposedly they’re the smartest folks to entrust with our money.
Except it’s not true, as year after year and study after study shows. Nor for all their finger-waggling at Democrats over the national debt has the GOP turned in a balanced budget since Nixon. Republicans are the most gigantic hypocrites on economics writ large, but particularly so for the national debt — with Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, and Trump all turning in record debt increases, primarily through tax cuts for the wealthy and the Gulf and Afghanistan wars.
Meanwhile, Bill Clinton balanced the budget, created a surplus, and reduced the debt during his 8 years in office, and Obama inherited the deepest recession since the 1929 Great Depression.
The financial crisis of 2008-09, itself caused by the reckless Republican zeal for deregulation — this time of financial derivatives — was a wholly GOP-owned debacle that the next president paid for politically. Nevertheless, President Obama had the debt again on a reduction path as a percentage of GDP — but then Donald “I bankrupted a series of casinos!” Trump oozed his way into the highest office in the land.
During the Trump administration, Republicans patted themselves on the back for giving a $2.7 trillion tax cut to billionaires for no reason, while the economy was relatively hot already (after being rescued by Obama). Not only was no progress made on diminishing the debt, but the national debt actually increased (both nominally and as a percentage of GDP) under Trump’s first term even before the sudden arrival of a novel coronavirus caused it to leap into the stratosphere like a 21st century American tech oligarch.
Only when President Biden arrived on the scene and took the helm of fiscal and monetary policy did the national debt begin cooling off once again — all while dramatically and quickly scaling up covid-19 vaccine production and distribution and passing over $3 trillion in Keynesian legislation meant to get the dregs of the middle class reoriented to a place on the map vis-a-vis the 1% once again.
Republican national debt bullshit
I am hereby calling bullshit on Republicans’ crocodile tears over the national debt, which they suddenly remember only when a Democrat is in town and summarily ignore while their guy is in the hot seat burning through cash like it’s going out of style.
We need to have a better collective narrative for Democratic success on the economy. The Republicans are no longer the kings of the economic world — if they ever were. It feels more like smoke and mirrors each passing day, with climate change denial, the Inflationary Boogeyman, and other GOP Greatest Hits playing ad nauseum on the AM social media waves.
Here are at least a few things to remember about the national debt, that Republicans generally get wrong:
- wars are very expensive
- booms in social services are expensive too; but not as expensive as wars
- there is not any perceivable truth in the old GOP party line that Democrats always overspend and Republicans are always thrifty
- be wary of graphs that don’t “normalize” to GNP — it’s an attempt to “lie with statistics” by obfuscating the roles of inflation and the growth of the economy itself
- there is more than one way to look at and evaluate the level of public debt
National Debt by President since the 20th century
| President | National Debt Change | Total National Debt |
|---|---|---|
| Taft | +$210 million | $2.13 billion |
| Wilson | +$21.5 billion | $23.5 billion |
| Harding/Coolidge | +$7.9 billion | $22.3 billion |
| Hoover | +$7.3 billion | $29.7 billion |
| F.D. Roosevelt | +$218.9 billion | $260.1 billion |
| Truman | +$7.5 billion | $256.6 billion |
| Eisenhower | +$23.2 billion | $272.8 billion |
| Kennedy/Johnson | +$54.9 billion | $311.9 billion |
| Nixon/Ford | +$371 billion | $698.1 billion |
| Carter | +$299 billion | $997.9 billion |
| Reagan | +$1.86 trillion | $2.86 trillion |
| G.H.W. Bush | +$1.55 trillion | $4.42 trillion |
| Clinton | +$1.40 trillion | $5.81 trillion |
| G.W. Bush | +$5.85 trillion | $10.71 trillion |
| Obama | +$8.59 trillion | $19.30 trillion |
| Trump | +$7.80 trillion | $27.10 trillion |
| Biden (as of March 2023) | +$3.00 trillion (projected) | $30.10 trillion (projected) |
Koup Klux Klan: The authoritarian movement trying to take over America
It may have seemed like the election of 2016 came out nowhere, and the January 6, 2021 attempted coup event was another deep gash to the fabric of assumption — but in reality, the authoritarian movement to dismantle America has been working diligently for a long time. Depending on how you count, the current war against the government began in the 1970s after Roe v. Wade, or in the 1960s after the Civil Rights Act, or in the 1950s with the John Birch Society, or in the 1930s with the American fascists, or in the 1870s with the Redemption and Lost Cause Religion, or in the 1840s with the Southern Baptist split, or in the 1790s when we emerged from the Articles of Confederation.
We are facing an unprecedented crisis of democracy under attack by the most current roster of these extremists, hardliners, theocrats, plutocrats, and others of their ilk. The following mind map diagrams the suspects and perpetrators of the Jan 6 coup as we know so far — including the Council for National Policy, the Koch network, Trump and his merry band of organized criminals, the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and other right-wing groups — from militia convicted of seditious conspiracy, to rioters who have been arrested in the January 6th probe, to persons of interest who have been subpoena’d by the January 6 Committee in the House, to anyone and anything else connected to the ongoing plot to kill America whether near or far in relation. The map extends to include coverage of the basic factions at work in the confusing melodrama of American politics, and their historical precedents.
Mind map of the seditious conspiracy
I’ll be continuing to work on this as information comes out of the various investigations and inquiries into the attempted coup to prevent the peaceful transfer of power, from the January 6 Committee to Merrick’s DOJ, the GA district attorney, NY district attorney, various civil suits, and probably more we don’t even know about yet. You can navigate the full mind map as it grows here:
Head onward into “Continue Reading” to see the same mind map through a geographic perspective:
Continue reading Koup Klux Klan: The authoritarian movement trying to take over AmericaProperty vs. People, all the way down
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 smokescreen, that is both real and manufactured — instigated, exacerbated, agitated by the likes of schlubby wife abusers like Sloppy Steve Bannon, wrinkly old Palpatines like Rupert Murdoch, and shady kleptocrats like Trump and Putin.
The United States has nursed an underground Confederacy slow burning for centuries, for sociopathic demagogues to tap into and rekindle for cheap and dangerous political power. Like The Terminator, racist and supremacist troglodytes seem always to reconstitute themselves into strange and twisted new forms, from slavery to the Black Codes to sharecropping to convict leasing to Jim Crow to Jim Crow 2.0 — the psychopaths want their homeland.
The political left loves people, and our extremists for the most part destroy capital or property that insurance companies will pay to make shiny and new again — unlike the right wing extremists who bomb federal buildings, killing hundreds of people and costing taxpayers’ money to replace.
Meanwhile, the right wing claims to be the righteous party for its extreme fixation on life before birth, yet its regulation-allergic capitalists destroy people and the natural world more broadly, from factory farming to deforestation, the destruction of habitats, strip-mining and other toxic extraction practices, and on into climate change itself. Being in fact the chief architects of manmade atmospheric devastation, they have managed to make themselves invisible from the deed by simply (wink wink!) denying it exists.
WWJD?!
Certainly, not anything the Republican Party is up to. Jesus would be sad.
Freedom produces diversity
Freedom means the right to make choices. When you have a large population, that means many different kinds of people are making many kinds of different choices for different reasons. That means, mathematically speaking, a broad distribution graph of options chosen over time. Freedom produces diversity, as a direct consequence of its own laissez-faire philosophy.
The Founders knew this. James Madison was an intellectual of his day, and a polymathic student of the great ideas of his time. It is hard not to see the influence of exposure to Condorcet’s theory about decision-making in Madison’s later ideas about diffusing the flames of factions by essentially dousing them in the large numbers of people spreading out within the growing nation. He believed that ideas and interests that were actively opposing each other would be a good way to preserve enough vigor to sustain an active self-governing democracy.
Regardless of the origin, Madison clearly himself was advocating for the power of diversity to preserve the very republic. He believed that this diversity of views in fact provided the structure that would help prevent singular demagogues from rising up too far and destroying democracy forever in their quest for unlimited power. The founders shared this foresight — that giving Americans the freedom to live as they may would lead to a healthy democracy, through the promulgation of different ideas and knowledge as well as through vigorous debate.
You can’t have freedom without diversity
Many who cite Freedom as their patriotic raison d’être do not seem to tolerate well the exercise of freedom by others, particularly others they disagree with or do not like. But as the great Civil Rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer once said, “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.” She had the insight that if her civil rights could be taken away from her, then no one else’s rights would be safe in this nation either.
America has always struggled to live up to its founding ideals — but it seems like if we want to truly honor their memories, we would continue to take that vision at face value and continue to carry the light of the torch of equality, perhaps upwards to the crest of a hill from whence we may shine once again.
Global financial crisis 2008
A national banking crisis in America that eventually spread to threaten economies around the globe, the economic crisis of 2007-8 was precipitated by the financial industry getting deeper and deeper into highly leveraged risk with a specific type of financial product called a subprime mortgage.
The loans were not of very high quality, due to the effects of predatory lending and of companies “pushing their luck” in a deregulated market by knowingly offering mortgage credit to Americans who couldn’t really afford to buy the homes they were encouraged to purchase. Mortgage underwriters were often incentivized with large bonuses for subprime signups, and even relatively well-off home buyers were often shepherded into subprime loans with worse terms than the traditional 30-year mortgages they would have qualified for.
Financial “hot potato”
The mortgages were securitized as complicated new types of assets, re-packaged into large bundles of derivatives to better obscure the sources, and rated far more favorably than warranted by the nation’s credit rating agencies. Sold swiftly around the world and especially here in the U.S. to institutional investors (who manage, among other securities, the pensions and retirement funds of the country), the game of financial “hot potato” ensured that almost no one in the complex chain of exchange had any incentive to take responsibility for the actual solvency of the underlying loans.
Eventually, the bubble popped and the house of cards came tumbling down. The downturn is widely regarded as the worst economic disaster in American history since the Great Depression of the 1930s, brought on by the stock market crash of 1929.
Moral hazard: Does commercial and investment banking under one roof create the wrong incentive?
In post-recovery, much scrutiny remains over the question of whether one specific law — the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 which separated commercial banking from investment banking in response to the Great Depression — should be reinstated. Following its passage, the U.S. was able to stop the previous historical cycle of banking crises with regularity about every ~15 years:
…Until “stagflation” (high inflation coupled with stagnant growth) plagued the American economy in the 1970s, and the political establishment began to adopt policies heavily influenced by Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of economic thought, which borrowed heavily from an earlier wave of economic philosophy in the 1930s loosely congealed under the term “neoliberalism.” Widespread financial deregulation ensued, leading to the full repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999. Many economists now point to the deregulation spree as the ultimate cause of the 2007-8 financial crash.
For a great resource on this, check out Matt Taibbi (of Rolling Stone fame)’s book Griftopia: A Story of Bankers, Politicians, and the Most Audacious Power Grab in American History
Estate tax
The estate tax only kicks in at $5.4m in wealth — so it’s not about the “American worker”!
Repealing it would give away $270 billion to rich elites.
The concept of “double taxation” is a red herring, because most estates contain real estate assets whose capital gains have never been realized and taxed.
Inequality
Inequality is the difference in measures of economic well-being between individuals in a group, among groups in a population, or among countries. Also known as economic inequality; inclusive of both income inequality and wealth inequality.
In the United States, the data broadly shows shared economic growth and prosperity in the post-WWII period until the 1970s, when things begin to take a turn: economic growth slowed and income inequality began to increase. For the past 40-50 years, income growth for lower and middle class Americans has stagnated while income growth at the top of the distribution remained growing strongly. Meanwhile as wages have stagnated, costs have risen dramatically, especially in key universal areas like housing, utilities, health care, and education.
Wealth is even more greatly concentrated than income. A recent Oxfam report found that the world’s richest 62 people control as much wealth as the bottom half of the entire population of the planet. In the U.S., the richest 20% of families owned about 89% of the country’s wealth as of 2013 figures.
Those at the top of the wealth distribution who benefit financially from the growing inequality find numerous ways to justify the architecture of the system, and retain much of the power and control over its design. Yet an overwhelming majority of the available historical and present-day data indicates that stark income inequality has wide-ranging negative effects on societies as a whole, from exacerbating social ills to deleterious effects on basic human needs.
Related effects
- Endangers the basic viability of democracy by concentrating power vs. distributing it broadly
- Social Security shortfall
- Hinders and can even destroy social mobility
- Negative effects on population health, lifespan, and basic social values/contracts
- Rising Gini coefficient
Further resources
- Pew Research Center research on income inequality
Neoliberalism Explained: Why it must be dismantled
Or: How Milton Friedman destroyed Western civilization, the neolliberalism story.
An economic ideology first theorized in the 40s and 50s by scholars, it was brought to popular attention in the 1970s by the works of economist Milton Friedman and novelist Ayn Rand among others. It grew in popularity and became widely adopted in U.S. economic policy beginning with Ronald Reagan in the 80s.
The essential heart of neoliberalism is the idea of the rich as top performers and job creators, driving the economy forward through their achievements and innovations; and that societies work best with little government regulation and where citizens are shaped to work according to market principles. Its adoption as a major driver of policy effectively undid many of the gains to middle class opportunity created by the New Deal, FDR‘s ambitious public works project that pulled the nation out from the grips of the Great Depression following the 1929 crash on Wall Street.
Neoliberalism is the dominant economic orthodoxy in the modern era. It is both a political and a financial ideology, with the following extremist beliefs:
- Antigovernment sentiment — Their pitch is that all governments, including democratic ones, threaten individual liberty and must be stopped (or “drowned in the bathtub,” in the words of anti-tax zealots and movement conservatives).
- Free markets should conquer governments — They claim, absurdly, that the toppling of self-governance would improve both economies and individual liberties.
- The victory of markets is inevitable and there is nothing you can do about it — The fall of the Soviet Union and Cold War Communism was deemed the “end of history” by neoliberals, who believed that laissez-faire free market capitalism would inevitably triumph over all other forms of economic and political systems.
- Economies work best when governments don’t intervene — Neoliberals want to prevent the powers of government from interfering with their ability to cut corners, dump industrial waste, pay fair wages, offer benefits, adhere to safety standards, engage in deceptive advertising, commit tax evasion, and so on — while continuing to supply them a steady stream of the public’s money via unpaid for tax cuts that balloon holes in the deficit. They fight against regulation tooth and nail, and try to claim that markets operate “naturally” as if under something akin to laws of physics — while failing to mention that there are no markets without regulation, without standards of fairness, without a justice system to enforce contracts and do its best to ensure a relatively equal business playing field.
- The alchemy of neoliberalism will transmute greed into gold for everyone — The neoliberal promise is about spreading wealth, freedom, and democracy around the world — at the barrel of a gun, missile, or drone if necessary. Neoliberals consider greed to be the essence of human nature, and have modeled an entire societal system around this most base of human instincts. They claim, improbably — and surely many are True Believers — that narcissism and the aggressive pursuit of power and wealth will somehow magically create peace, happiness, and riches for everyone.
The insistence that governments and self-rule should be subordinated to the ultra-rich, to the oligarchs — that, to me, is the core essence of why this framework is evil. The staggeringly dissonant conviction about transforming sociopathy into global peace is a very close second.
Since the 1970s and accelerating with Reagan years, wealthy elites in the right wing have been spending gobs of their ill-earned wealth on creating a conservative movement echo chamber of think tanks, talk radio, literature, televangelists, YouTube streamers, and more — it is the vast right-wing conspiracy Hillary Clinton warned us about. It most certainly exists, and it most certainly is aggressively pursuing its political aims to disenfranchise the American people as fully as possible, so as to better walk away with an absurdly unjust share of the mutually created wealth by the wealth of intelligent and diligent labor here in the United States.
Common whites
It appeals to the MAGA crowd because it allows them to vicariously tag along with the rich and powerful right-wing bigots who flaunt and dangle their wealth in front of the plebes by which to entice them to open up their wallets and send in a meagre donation for this or that white victimhood fund that does nothing but enrich the scam artists who run it as a hollow shell. It validates their hardcore white supremacy and casual racism alike, provides the sadistic satisfaction of attacking their enemies (symbolically and/or literally), gives them something to do and believe in, and keeps them entertained while their pockets are being fleeced in broad daylight.
Neoliberalism has succeeded in undermining some of the last shreds of democratic infrastructure and civic goodwill in society at this point in American political history. The defenses brilliantly architected by the Founders to ensure checks and balances would manage the power games in Washington to within workable levels have frayed even further under 4 years of Trump, and the vitriol of the January 6 coup attempt and insurrection that’s fueled further right-wing Big Lie entrenchment and domestic terrorist extremism.
Democracy is in crisis, and neoliberalism the culprit of this hostage story.
At least Joe Biden is correct in his analysis of the solution: we should tax the rich.
Human History Timeline v0.1
This is an attempt (bear with me!) to encapsulate a framework of the major events of importance since our curious species came down from the trees. Human History Timeline is going to be a work in progress… forever! Be sure to check back as time unfolds.
| Year | Event | Region | Theme | Domain |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| -250000 | Modern humans emerge in Africa. | Africa | Ancient History | Science |
| -120000 | Earliest cave paintings we know of are located in a South African cave. | Africa | Ancient History | Arts |
| -100000 | Modern humans migrate to the Middle East. | Middle East | Ancient History | Human History |
| -75000 | Modern humans arrive in Southeast Asia and China. | Asia | Ancient History | Human History |
| -40000 | Modern humans had now spread around the globe as we arrived in Europe, living alongside Neanderthals. The earliest European cave paintings are from around this time in Spain. | Europe | Ancient History | Human History |
| -28000 | The Neanderthals go extinct. | Europe | Ancient History | Human History |
| -16000 | Humans cross the Bering Strait to Alaska over a land bridge exposed by the warming planet | North America | Ancient History | Human History |
| -15000 | The ice age ends, and global temperatures rise by 15 degrees C. | Global | Ancient History | Science |
| -14000 | Modern humans reach South America | South America | Ancient History | Human History |
| -10000 | First human settlements begin in the North American Great Plains, modern-day Syria, and in the Yellow River Valley region of China. | Global | Ancient History | Human History |
| -7000 | Invention of textiles in Egypt | Africa, Middle East | Man vs. Nature | Technology |
| -5000 | Cultivation of tin as a metal resource | Ancient History | Technology | |
| -4241 | The Egyptians begin using the 365 day calendar | Africa | Our Place in the Universe | Knowledge |
| -3800 | Bronze Age begins | Global | Ancient History | Technology |
| -3500 | Mesopotamian cities Ur, Uruk, and others have emerged in and around modern-day Iraq | Middle East | Ancient History | Politics |
| -2980 | The Great Pyramid of Zoser is built in Egypt | Africa, Middle East | Ancient History | Architecture |
| -2000 | The last woolly mammoths die out and the species go extinct | Global | Man vs. Nature | Science |
| -2000 | Epic of Gilgamesh composed | Middle East, Africa | Our Place in the Universe | Arts |
| -1792 | Hammurabi's Code of Laws | Middle East | Democracy's Story | Politics |
| -1200 | The Iron Age begins almost simultaneously around the world, in the Middle East, Europe, and India | Middle East, Europe, Global | Man vs. Nature | Technology |
| -800 | The city of Rome is founded by Romulus and Remus | Europe | Ancient History | Politics |
| -560 | Siddharta Gautama born in India, later to become the Buddha; founder of Buddhism | Asia | Our Place in the Universe | Knowledge |
| -530 | Greek tragedy is in full swing with contributions from Aeschylus, Thespis, soon Sophocles, and others | Europe | Our Place in the Universe | Arts |
| -510 | Roman Republic formed when the citizens overthrew king Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, aka Tarquin the Proud | Europe | Democracy's Story | Politics |
| -49 | Republic of Rome becomes the Roman Empire when Julius Caesar overthrows the Republic | Europe | Age of Empires | Politics |
| -27 | Julius Caesar Augustus becomes the first emperor of Rome, ruling for 45 years | Europe | Age of Empires | Politics |
| 79 | eruption of Mt. Vesuvius | Europe | Man vs. Nature | Science |
| 312 | New self-made Roman emperor Constantine converts to Christianity — at least nominally; he makes the empire safe and welcoming to Christianity, while maintaining many of his old Roman beliefs | Europe | Age of Empires | Politics |
| 325 | Council of Nicaea called by Emperor Constantine; the adoption of the Nicene Creed establishes the empire's stance on the divinity of Jesus and establishes Christianity as the state religion | Europe | ||
| 476 | The last western Roman emperor , Romulus Augustinius, is deposed — beginning the era of the Holy Roman Empire and marking the end of Antiquity and the beginning of the Middle Ages | Europe | Age of Empires | Technology |
| 632 | Death of Muhammad leads much of the Middle East and North Africa to convert to Islam | Middle East, Africa, Europe | Our Place in the Universe | Politics |
| 656 | The first battle between the Shia (followers of Ali) and the Sunnis (followers of Aisha) over the fate of Islam — a war still raging to this day | Middle East | ||
| 900-1200 | the golden age of North African science | Africa | Our Place in the Universe | Science |
| 1000 | an Indian mathematician recognizes the power of zero | Central Asia, Asia | Our Place in the Universe | Science |
| 1040 | Movable type is invented in China | Asia | Knowing Things | Technology |
| 1066 | Battle of Hastings — France's William the Conqueror defeats the other claimant to the English throne Harold and is crowned the first Norman king of England. | Europe | Conquest, Imperialism, and Colonialism | Politics |
| 1073 | China invents an elaborate incense seal clock | Asia | Knowing Things | Technology |
| 1149 | Founding of Oxford University in England | Europe | Knowing Things | Knowledge |
| 1200 | Cambridge University founded in England | Europe | Knowing Things | Knowledge |
| 1265 | first Parliament elected in England, consisting mostly of feudal lords, knights, and wealthy aristocrats | Europe | Democracy's Story | Politics |
| 1271 | Venetian Marco Polo travels to China with his father at the age of 17; having been the first Europeans to visit the court of Kublai Khan over a 9-year stretch, the elder Nicolò Polo brings his son with him on the return journey — it will take them a trek of three and a half years | Europe, Asia | Age of Empires | Knowledge |
| 1328 | The sawmill is invented | Europe | Business of the World | Technology |
| 1330 | the hour becomes essentially our modern concept of hour | Global | Man vs. Nature | Technology |
| 1347-1351 | Approximately 75 million people die from the Bubonic Plague | Europe, Africa, Middle East | Man vs. Nature | Science |
| 1399 | English poet Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales | Europe | Our Place in the Universe | Arts |
| 1431 | Joan of Arc is burned at the stake | Europe | Age of Empires | Politics |
| 1445 | Gutenberg invents the printing press | Europe | Attention Must be Paid | Technology |
| 1492 | Christopher Columbus lands in the Americas, ushering in the age of Spanish Conquistadores and the colonial period — first in the Bahamas, then Cuba, then Hispaniola before heading home | North America | Conquest, Imperialism, and Colonialism | Knowledge |
| 1517 | Martin Luther, a German monk, becomes disillusioned with the church's selling of indulgences to fund construction projects (and with Calvinism more generally). Submits his 95 theses to papal authority, and after various machinations is excommunicated for challenging the authority of the Pope | Europe | Our Place in the Universe | Knowledge |
| 1583 | Galileo dedicates himself to the study of mathematics and physics | Europe | Our Place in the Universe | Knowledge |
| 1585 | Founding of the first American colony at Roanoke, in modern-day North Carolina | North America | Democracy's Story | Politics |
| 1607 | Founding of the second American colony at Jamestown, in modern-day Virginia | North America | Democracy's Story | Politics |
| 1636 | Harvard University founded | North America | Our Place in the Universe | Knowledge |
| 1637 | the first American slave ship sets out on her maiden voyage | North America, Africa | Conquest, Imperialism, and Colonialism | Politics |
| 1665 | Plague arrives in London | Europe | Man vs. Nature | Science |
| 1688 | Glorious Revolution in England: Parliament invited Dutch William of Orange & his wife Mary, James's Protestant daughter, to replace James | Europe | Democracy's Story | Politics |
| 1701 | Yale College founded | North America | Our Place in the Universe | Knowledge |
| 1760 | invention of the steam engine in England (James Watt) | Europe | Man vs. Nature | Technology |
| 1776 | U.S. Declaration of Independence is written in Philadelphia | North America | Democracy's Story | Politics |
| 1787 | U.S. Constitution written in Philadelphia | North America | Democracy's Story | Politics |
| 1789 | U.S. Constitution is ratified | North America | Democracy's Story | Politics |
| 1799 | ~10-year French Revolution overthrows the monarchy | Europe | Democracy's Story | Politics |
| 1839 | Louis Daguerre demonstrates the photographic technique he's developed: the camera | Europe | Our Place in the Universe | Arts |
| 1844 | The Associated Press founded | North America | Attention Must be Paid | Knowledge |
| 1859 | Charles Darwin publishes The Origin of the Species | Europe | Our Place in the Universe | Knowledge |
| 1865 | U.S. Civil War ends | North America | Democracy's Story | Politics |
| 1914 | WWI begins | |||
| 1921 | Tulsa massacre | North America | Democracy's Story | Politics |
| 1942 | Pearl Harbor | North America | Conquest, Imperialism, and Colonialism | Politics |
| 1945 | WWII ends | |||
| 1949 | Formation of NATO | Europe, North America | Democracy's Story | Politics |
| 1953 | Korean War ends | |||
| 1954 | Brown v. the Board of Education | North America | Democracy's Story | Politics |
| 1961 | Stanley Milgram conducts his famous obedience studies showing how willing students are to give electric shocks to their peers if ordered to by authority figures | Science | ||
| 1964 | Lyndon Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act | Democracy's Story | Politics | |
| 1975 | The Vietnam War ends | |||
| 1980 | Election of former actor and PR agent Ronald Reagan as President of the United States | |||
| 1984 | Breakup of the Bell system monopoly | |||
| 1986 | Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine | |||
| 1987 | Iran-Contra scandal wherein Reagan trades arms for hostages and lies about it | |||
| 1989 | Berlin Wall falls | |||
| 1990 | Tim Berners-Lee puts up the first web page | |||
| 1991 | Soviet Union collapses | |||
| 1998 | Microsoft monopoly broken up | |||
| 2000 | Vladimir Putin becomes Russian President following Yeltsin's resignation | |||
| 2007 | Apple announces the first iPhone; Google announces Android | |||
| 2008 | Bitcoin and the blockchain invented | |||
| 2010 | Citizens Unied ushers in the era of dark money in politics | |||
| 2012 | Sandy Hook mass school shooting |
American Fascists & the Global Right 😈
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 FDR‘s New Deal and prevent the U.S. from getting into World War II.
They fought against labor unions and labor organizers, often using private militia as henchmen to do their dirtywork with plausible deniability for themselves. The Ku Klux Klan — the principle paramilitary organization formed during Reconstruction to undo egalitarian gains from the Civil War — was just one of many instruments put to use in service of plutocratic aims to quell any “communist awakening” amongst their workers, lest they get any uppity ideas for themselves. They fell for the popular conspiracy theories of their time, which included Hitler’s bogus assertion that Jewish bankers controlled the world and had to be stopped before they destroyed the white race.
Fascist revanchism
Those fascists, butthurt over America’s overwhelmingly popular decision to enter the war and stop Hitler from exterminating the Jews, seethed with jealousy at the post-war “liberal consensus” that flourished alongside the booming US economy, propelled first by the war effort and later by the peacetime success of the New Deal‘s long shadow and the burgeoning of the American middle class.
The American fascists turned into the John Birch Society, and the McCarthyites, and the Libertarians, and the Moral Majority, and the Gingrich Revolution, and the Tea Party, and the MAGA / QAnon stew sloshing around mass media. The kooks on the far right — the kind of ilk so cray cray that even William F. Buckley excommunicates you from the Republican Party — have taken over the hen house now. Outrage sells, as Facebook well knows — and as two-bit dictators around the world have bribed Mark Zuckerberg to brainwash the masses using the most inanely illogical propaganda prolefeed, the world tilts dangerously towards authoritarianism and the end of our democracy as we know it. And with it, all hope for truth and light into the future for some time to come — the equivalent of a political meteor hitting the Earth.
The American fascists are still around, and now they have tools of propaganda that Goebbels could never have even wet dreamed of. They’re more powerful and more well-connected — to other sociopaths, malignant narcissists, and other pathological cult-leader types who might be of transactional service to each other from time to time. Many of them cling to ideas of Christian nationalism and Strict Father Morality. We’d be wise to keep an eye on these folks.
| Name | Type | Location | Known for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Greg Abbott | Politician | Texas | The 48th governor of Texas since 2015 who has presided over multiple energy grid disasters, a self-induced economic fiasco at the border, and ghoulish vigilante legislation designed to terrorize women seeking abortion services, and a perversion of the child sex trafficking apparatus to instead target and tyrannize trans youth |
| Roman Abramovich | Foreign agent | Russian oligarch close to both Putin and Trump | |
| ACU Strategic Partners | Foreign agent | A company seeking to build nuclear power plants in the Middle East in partnership with a sanctioned Russia company; Mike Flynn was working for them without having disclosed it to the US government as required. | |
| Sheldon Adelson | Businessperson | Las Vegas, NV | CEO billionaire of the Sands Corp casino empire (died, 2021) |
| AggregateIQ | Corporation | Canadian data firm connected to Cambridge Analytica parent company SCL Group that played a role in spreading Brexit propaganda | |
| Roger Ailes | Media personality | Deceased | Primogenitor of Fox News whose downfall came over dozens of women testified to his decades of sexual assault and blackmail behaviors |
| Todd Akin | Politician | Missouri | Politician who lost his Senate race to Clairse McCaskill in 2012 when he made the comment on TV about women having a way to "shut the whole thing down" to avoid becoming pregnant if raped. |
| Nelson W. Aldrich | |||
| Ali Alexander | Extremist | One of the primary organizers of the Stop the Steal rally on January 6 that turned into and/or attempted to mask a coup attempt | |
| Samuel Alito | Judge | Washington, DC | Supreme Court Justice who penned a draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, riddled with Christian nationalist tropes and arbitrary Originalist interpretations |
| American Energy Alliance | Non-profit | A tax-exempt nonprofit that advocated for corporate-friendly energy policies. Koch's Freedom Partners donated $1.5 million in 2012. | |
| American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) | Non-profit | Corporate-funded nonprofit that writes legislation for Republican legislatures, including spearheading the efforts to wrest partisan control over election results in 49 states. | |
| Americans for Prosperity | PAC | The Koch Brothers' Libertarian political advocacy arm | |
| Philip Anschutz | Businessperson | Colorado | CO oil and entertainment billionaire and founder of Qwest Communications |
| Michael Anton | |||
| Lee Atwater | Political Operative | Infamously brutal Republican strategist for Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush who promoted the "abstraction" of racism via Southern Strategy and ran the infamous Willie Horton ad against Michael Dukakis in 1988. | |
| Michele Bachman | Politician | MN | Minnosota Republican politician who was the first woman in her state to be elected to the House of Representatives, she is known for her extremist Dominionist views |
| Steve Bannon | Media personality | Houseboats | Former Breitbart provocateur who joined the Trump administration as a key advisor and dark propagandist for Trump intent on sowing chaos |
| Ross Barnett | |||
| William Barr | Public Sector | Donald Trump's Attorney General who shielded him from public awareness of his crimes, corruptions, and compromises during the 45th presidency. | |
| Maurice Barres | Author | France | French nationalist author in the early 20th century who introduced Great Replacement theory |
| Louis Beam | White Supremacist | ||
| Roy Beck | White Supremacist | Executive Director of NumbersUSA, member of the white supremacist Tanton Network | |
| Andy Biggs | Politician | AZ | House Republican subpoena'd by the January 6 Commission for his role in the attempted coup |
| Black Legion | Extremist | Michigan | Secret society of black-hooded terrorists working in MI against labor unions and labor organizers in the 1930s. Legionnaires talked of staging a coup to oust FDR and imposing a fascist regime in the United States |
| David Bogatin | Oligarch | NYC | A top figure in the Russian mafia who bought 5 luxury condos in Trump Tower to launder money, he admitted in 1987. |
| Jacob Bogatin | Oligarch | David Bogatin's brother, and a partner of notorious Russian mob moss Semion Mogilevich | |
| John Wilkes Booth | Criminal | Deceased | Stage actor and Confederate sympathizer who shot Abraham Lincoln in the back of the head in April 1865, a few months after his re-election in 1864. |
| L. Brent Bozell | Extremist | BFF of William F. Buckley and author of Conscience of a Conservative to support Barry Goldwater's candidacy in 1960. | |
| Harry and Lynde Bradley | Kochtopus | Midwesterners who built their wealth on defense contracts | |
| Andrew Breitbart | Media personality | Founded both Brietbart and the Huffington Post | |
| Anders Breivik | Extremist | Oslo, Norway | Mass murderer who killed 77 people in Oslo, Norway as inspired by the white supremacist ideology of Great Replacement theory |
| Mo Brooks | Politician | Huntsville, AL | House Republican from Alabama subpoena'd by the January 6 Committee for his role in the attempted coup |
| Brother's Circle | Criminal | Organized crime gang pursued by then-FBI head Robert Mueller circa 2011 | |
| Michael Brown | Ferguson, MO | Unarmed black man killed by the police in Ferguson, Missouri, sparking a series of riots in the city. | |
| Pat Buchanan | Politician | Washington, DC | Politician and paleoconservative who worked for presidents Nixon, Ford, and Reagan before running against incumbent George H.W. Bush in 1992; widely considered a bigot, racist, and antisemite. |
| William F. Buckley Jr | Media personality | ||
| Doug Burley | Political Operative | Founding and leading both The Family and the National Prayer Breakfast of right-wing power brokers | |
| Cambridge Analytica | Corporation | London, UK | Data firm implicated in the propaganda campaigns of both Brexit in 2015 and Donald Trump in 2016 that stole hundreds of millions of Facebook profiles and mined the treasure trove of information for weaknesses to manipulate in attempts to persuade |
| Renaud Camus | Author | France | French writer and critic who created the recent 2011 formulation of the Great Replacement Theory |
| Tucker Carlson | Media personality | NYC | Fox News evening opinion anchor and fish stick heir who promotes the Great Replacement conspiracy theory to his primetime audience of older white men. |
| Doug Casey | Businessperson | Ayn Rand devotee and "anarcho-capitalist" who specializes in how to profit from turmoil | |
| Michael Catanzaro | Lobbyist | Partner at the CGCN Group lobbying firm who headed "energy independence" for the Trump transition team. | |
| Cato Institute | Think Tank | ||
| Madison Cawthorn | Politician | NC | |
| Center to Protect Patient Rights | Kochtopus | Dark money group funded by the Kochs to attack the ACA with fearmongering and vitriol | |
| Mike Cernovich | Media personality | ||
| CGCN Group | Lobbyist | Lobbyist for the Koch brothers | |
| James Chaney | Activist | Neshoba County, MS | One of 3 civil rights activists murdered by local white supremacists when engaging in non-violent civil disobedience, along with Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman |
| Jeremy Joseph Christian | Extremist | Portland, OR | stabbed 3 people who tried to intervene while he was hurling anti-Muslim slurs at 2 young women in Portland, OR |
| Chris Christie | Politician | Former governor of NJ and former Trump supporter and transition team lead who became a Trump critic | |
| Michael Cohen | Businessperson | NYC | Donald Trump's personal lawyer, sentenced to 3 years in federal prison for felony crimes, including campaign finance crimes |
| Steven A. Cohen | Businessperson | Finance (SAC Capital Advisors) | |
| Roy Cohn | Political Operative | Deceased | Lawyer who represented Senator Joseph McCarthy in the infamous televised 1954 hearings, and later went on to become a mafia-connected fixer in NYC and mentor to budding real estate developer Donald Trump |
| Competitive Enterprise Institute | Think Tank | Washington, DC | A Washington think tank that had been bankrolled by fossil fuel industries, particularly the Kochs. |
| Continental Resources | Corporation | Oklahoma | OK-based shale oil company with a large and profitable fracking operation |
| Coors brewing family | Koch Investor | Colorado | The Coors gave money to Oliver North to fund the Iran-Contra operation |
| Council of Conservative Citizens (CoC) | |||
| Ted Cruz | Politician | Texas | |
| Jefferson Davis | |||
| Kim Davis | Public Sector | Kentucky | Former county clerk of Rowan County, KY who defied a US federal court order to issue marriage licenses to gay couples in 2015 |
| Devos family | Koch Investor | Founders of the Amway marketing empire; Betsy DuVos was the Secretary of Education under Trump | |
| Amadou Diallo | New York | a West African immigrant mowed down by 41 shots from police when leaving his apartment on February 4, 1999. | |
| James Dobson | Media personality | conservative talk-show host and fundamentalist Christian who strongly advocated spanking and corporal punishment be applied liberally to children | |
| Chester Doles | Former KKK leader who runs the white supremacist American Patriots USA. Nearly beat a Black man to death in 1993. Marched in 2017 in Charlottesville. | ||
| Rod Dreher | Extremist | Benedict Option author and traditionalist | |
| Dinesh D'Souza | Media personality | Conservative gadly who alleged that Obama was "African" in outlook rather than American, absorbing his "radical" views from his Kenyan father | |
| Doug Ducey | Politician | AZ | Governor of Arizona |
| Aleksandr Dugin | Extremist | Russia | Russia's primary fascist political philosopher and originator of Eurasianism conspiracy theory |
| David Duke | White Supremacist | ||
| John Eastman | Political Operative | Ran against Kamala Harris in 2010 for California AG, then showed back up in 2020 to write an outrageous op-ed that Newsweek for some reason actually published, that claimed that she was "secretly" not a US resident and therefore not eligible to be the VP! Now the Kamala Harris birther | |
| Myron Ebell | Political Operative | Outspoken climate change skeptic, who headed the Trump transition team for the EPA | |
| Election Integrity Project California | Extremist | Election fraud group working with Leonard Leo | |
| Larry Ellison | Businessperson | Gave $5 million to Marco Rubio | |
| Cassandra Fairbanks | |||
| Jerry Falwell, Jr | Televangelist | ||
| The Family | Lobbyist | Shadowy DC group with tremendous sway in Congress and around the world, following a distorted "strongman Jesus" version of Christianity. | |
| The Federalist Society | Extremist | ||
| Scott Fitzgerald | Politician | WI | House Republican |
| Michael Flynn | Cult Leader | ||
| For America | PAC | ||
| Nathan Bedford Forrest | |||
| Fox News | Corporation | ||
| Free Congress Foundation | |||
| Freedom Caucus | Politician | ||
| Freedom Partners | Kochtopus | The Koch Brothers' secretive donor club. | |
| FreedomWorks | Extremist | ||
| Matt Gaetz | Politician | ||
| Kevin Gentry | Kochtopus | VP of Special Projects and VP of the Koch Foundation | |
| Greg Gianforte | Politician | body-slamming Guardian reported Ben Jacobs while running for a GOP House seat in Montana | |
| Newt Gingrich | Media personality | ||
| Tim "Baked Alaska" Gionet | White Supremacist | ||
| Rudy Giuliani | Politician | NYC | |
| GiveSendGo | "Christian" donation platform | ||
| Barry Goldwater | Politician | AZ | |
| Seb Gorka | Political Operative | ||
| Billy Graham | |||
| Madison Grant | Political Operative | Close personal friend of Herbert Hoover who helped draft the exclusionary Immigration Act of 1924 -- the Stephen Miller of his day. His "Passing of the Great Race" was beloved by Hitler as "his bible." | |
| Chuck Grassley | Politician | Senator | |
| The Great Awakening | |||
| Marjorie Taylor Greene | QAnon | GA | |
| Eric Greitens | Politician | MO | |
| Harold Hamm | Kochtopus | Billionaire founder of Continental Resources, an OK-based shale company with large fracking business & one of the charter members of the Kochs' donor circle. | |
| James Henry Hammond | Extremist | ||
| Warren G. Harding | Politician | Enthusiastically supported the white-supremacist work of Lothrop Stoddard et al | |
| Billy James Hargis | Extremist | ||
| Orrin Hatch | Politician | Sen. Orrin Hatch raised concerns about funding certain entitlement programs. “I have a rough time wanting to spend billions and billions and trillions of dollars to help people who won’t help themselves, won’t lift a finger and expect the federal government to do everything,” he said. | |
| Josh Hawley | Politician | MO | Missouri Senator funded by Peter Thiel who gave the January 6 mob a fist bump on his way in to object to certifying the electoral count |
| Matthew Heimbach | Extremist | White nationalist and one of the founders of the Traditionalist Workers Party | |
| Jesse Helms | Politician | ||
| Leona Helmsley | |||
| Diane Hendricks | WI | The wealthiest woman in Wisconsin at $3.6 billion | |
| Heritage Foundation | Think Tank | Washington, DC | |
| Honest Elections Project | Extremist | A conservative legal organization connected to Leonard Leo that files legal briefs to SCOTUS opposing mail-in ballots and other voting reforms that help more people to vote, | |
| Herbert Hoover | Politician | Washington, DC | White supremacist and wealth supremacist, he was adamant about doing nothing to help people during the Great Depression. |
| Mike Huckabee | Politician | ||
| Laura Ingraham | Media personality | Fox News host | |
| Andrew Jackson | Politician | Deceased | US President |
| John Birch Society | Extremist | ||
| Andrew Johnson | Politician | Deceased | US President |
| Chuck Johnson | Media personality | Alt-right super troll | |
| Ron Johnson | Politician | Wisconsin Republican Senator who supported Donald Trump, promoted ivermectin for covid, and said he wasn't afraid of the January 6 mob because they were white people | |
| Alex Jones | Media personality | Host of InfoWars, the 9/11 conspiracy show that put the genre on the map | |
| Jim Jordan | Politician | OH | A long-time Tea Party hyena, the Congressman known as Gym once helped his buddy cover up decades of sexual abuse of young wrestlers in their care. |
| Judicial Education Project | Extremist | A legal group tied to Leonard Leo, working to advance conservative takeover of the judiciary. | |
| Islam Karimov | Oligarch | Uzbekistan | Former Communist official who became the first president of Uzbekistan in 1991, and remained the country's dictator until his death in 2016. |
| Alex Kaschuta | Media personality | Right-wing podcaster | |
| Brett Kavanaugh | Judge | DC | |
| Dr. D. James Kennedy | creating a Dominionist "conversion" playbook | ||
| John F. Kennedy | Politician | Deceased | |
| Robert F. Kennedy | Politician | Deceased | |
| Anna Khachiyan | |||
| Martin Luther King | Activist | Deceased | Civil Rights leader in the 1960s, and enemy of Southern politicians |
| Charlie Kirk | Media personality | ||
| Walter Kirn | Author | MT | Up in the Air author and disaffected former member of the American intellectual class |
| KKK | White Supremacist | ||
| Bill Koch | Businessperson | ||
| Charles Koch | Kochtopus | Kansas | industries: pipelines, oil refineries, lumber and paper, coal, chemicals, commodity futures, etc. |
| David Koch | Kochtopus | Deceased | industries: pipelines, oil refineries, lumber and paper, coal, chemicals, commodity futures, etc. (now deceased) |
| Fred Koch | Kochtopus | Kansas | Father of Charles and David, Fred Koch was an early and fervent acolyte in the ultra-conservative John Birch Society |
| Frederick Koch | Businessperson | New York | |
| David Koresh | Cult Leader | Waco, TX | |
| Ku Klux Klan (see KKK) | White Supremacist | ||
| Kylie Jane Kremer | |||
| David Lane | White Supremacist | Member of the white supremacist group The Order who coined the 14-word slogan popular with Great Replacement adherents: "We must secure the exisatence of our people and a future for white children" | |
| Ken Langone | Businessperson | Founder of Home Depot | |
| Lyndon LaRouche | Cult Leader | ||
| Robert LeFevre | Kochtopus | Charles Koch's mentor, a quasi-anarchist, who said, "government is a disease masquerading as its own cure" | |
| Leonard Leo | Extremist | Chairman of the Federalist Society, a legal organization working to pack the courts with conservative judges. | |
| Marine Le Pen | Politician | France | |
| Honor Levy | |||
| Liberty Counsel | Christian special rights group | ||
| The Liminal Order | |||
| William S. Lind | Political Operative | ||
| Kelly Loeffler | Politician | Georgia | Insider trading immediately upon arriving at her unelected Senate seat when her husband, President of the NYSE, found a way to have some money arrive at Brian Kemp, the Governor, who appointed her. |
| Dana Loesch | Media personality | NRA spokeswoman | |
| Sen. Huey Long | Politician | Deceased | |
| Thomas Mair | Extremist | Assassin of British MP Jo Cox, who was outspoken against the UK's Brexit campaign | |
| Paul Manafort | Lobbyist | ||
| Clarence Manion | |||
| Blake Masters | Politician | AZ | |
| John McAfee | Businessperson | Deceased | |
| Sen. Joseph McCarthy | Politician | Deceased | Senator best known for his demagoguery against alleged Communist agents in the US government during the Cold War in the early 1950s |
| Kevin McCarthy | Politician | CA | |
| Michael McKenna | Kochtopus | Lobbyist and President of MWR Strategies lobbying firm, who have the Koch brothers as clients | |
| Timothy McVeigh | Extremist | Oklahoma City, OK | White supremacist McVeigh was a disgruntled former military guy who took up with the white power movement and executed the Oklahoma City bombing -- as inspired, he said, by enacting "revenge" for Waco. |
| Andrew Mellon | Businessperson | ||
| Rebekah Mercer | Oligarch | Daughter of NY hedge fund manager Robert Mercer; she helped guide the Trump transition team following the 2016 election, and funded right-wing social network Parler | |
| Robert Mercer | Oligarch | Father of Rebekah Mercer and longtime right-wing donor | |
| MicroChip | Pro-Trump bot-king | ||
| Stephen Miller | Extremist | ||
| Michael Milken | |||
| Cleta Mitchell | Extremist | OK | Lawyer who represented various right-wing entities including the NRA, and was considered the "fringe of the fringe" -- at age 70 she "represented" Trump during his telephone call to Brad Raffensperger asking him to find ~11,000 votes |
| Semion Mogilevich | Criminal | Notorious Russian mob boss | |
| Stefan Molyneux | Media personality | Alt-right troll | |
| Sun Myung Moon | Cult Leader | Leader of the Moonie cult and self-proclaimed deity, Mr Moon served time in federal prison for tax fraud, among other charges. | |
| Roy Moore | Politician | AL | Trump-backed politician and pedophile who narrowly lost the Alabama Senate race to Doug Jones in 2018. |
| JP Morgan | Businessperson | ||
| Rupert Murdoch | Oligarch | Fox News owner famous for his amoral media | |
| Jack Murphy | |||
| Benito Mussolini | |||
| MWR Strategies | Kochtopus | Lobbying firm for the Koch brothers | |
| Dasha Nekrasova | |||
| neo-Nazis | Extremist | ||
| Terry Nichols | Extremist | Blew up the Oklahoma Federal Building with Timothy McVeigh | |
| Richard Nixon | Politician | ||
| Ralph Norman | Politician | House Republican who skirted the metal detectors to enter the House floor after the January 6 insurrection | |
| NRA | Extremist | National Rifle Association | |
| NYPD | Public Sector | New York Police Department | |
| Barack Obama | Politician | Chicago, DC, Los Angeles | The 44th President of the United States, and the first black person to hold the job. He was widely loathed by the Right despite his positive record. |
| John M. Olin | Kochtopus | Chemical and munitions company titan | |
| Viktor Orban | Politician | Radical right president of Hungary and Putin supporter | |
| The Order | White supremacist group | ||
| Candace Owens | Extremist | ||
| Matt Parrott | Extremist | Co-founder with Matthew Heimbach of the Traditionalist Workers Party | |
| Laszlo Pasztor | |||
| Norman Vincent Peale | Businessperson | Christianity as a business man's religion | |
| Mike Pence | Media personality | Donald Trump's VP | |
| Rick Perry | Politician | ||
| Scott Perry | Politician | House Republican who skirted the metal detectors to enter the House floor after the January 6 insurrection | |
| Jordan B Peterson | Academic | A sort of hero figure to the incel crowd | |
| William Pierce | |||
| Pioneer Fund | A white supremacist group set up for "race betterment" in 1997 at a private club. | ||
| Jeanine Pirro | Media personality | Fox News host known for having a bit of a drinking problem and a brash on-air personality | |
| Mike Pompeo | Public Sector | Sec of State after the firing of Rex Tillerson; former CIA Director; former Republican congressman from KS and largest recipient of Koch campaign funds in all of Congress | |
| Jack Posobiec | Media personality | ||
| Lewis Powell | Businessperson | Wrote a 1971 memo that rallied the largely white and male business community around a plan to dismantle the New Deal and the liberal consensus | |
| Sydney Powell | Political Operative | Also Associates with UFO believers and anti-vaxxers | |
| Proud Boys | Extremist | Militia group involved in the January 6 coup attempt | |
| Thomas Pyle | Businessperson | president of the American Energy Alliance, funded by Exxon and the Kochs | |
| QAnon | QAnon | Conspiracy theory about Democratic pedophiles that recycles Nazi ideology | |
| Jean Raspail | Author | France | French author of the 1973 Camp of the Saints novel about migrants organizing to take over France; the racist fiction inspired the white power movement of the 1980s, Steve Bannon, and a host of other fascist movements in Europe, America, and around the world |
| Nancy Reagan | Media personality | Deceased | |
| Ronald Reagan | Politician | Deceased | Actor and Republican who became the 40th President from 1981 through 1989 |
| Kyle Rittenhouse | |||
| Pat Robertson | Televangelist | ||
| Dylann Roof | |||
| George Romney | |||
| Mitt Romney | Politician | UT | |
| Murray Rothbard | Extremist | ||
| Dave Rubin | |||
| Richard Mellon Scaife | Koch Investor | Heir to the Mellon banking and Gulf Oil fortunes, and Koch donor | |
| David Schnare | Political Operative | "Free-market environmentalist" who accused the EPA of having blood on its hands, who joined climate change denier Myron Ebell on the Trump transition team for the EPA | |
| Stephen Schwarzman | Finance | ||
| Rick Scott | Politician | ||
| Jeff Sessions | Politician | AL | |
| Marc Short | Political Operative | Ran the Koch Brothers' secretive donor club, Freedom Partners, before becoming Mike Pence's senior advisor during the 2016 presidential transition | |
| Sinclair Broadcasting Group | Corporation | ||
| Paul Singer | Koch Investor | Finance (Elliott Management hedge fund). Supported Rudy Giuliani. | |
| SNCC | Non-profit | ||
| Social Contract Press | White Supremacist | A racist publishing company, part of the Tanton Network, that published the white nationalist novel Camp of the Saints | |
| Richard Spencer | White Supremacist | ||
| Balaji Srinivasan | Businessperson | ||
| State Policy Network | Kochtopus | Funded in part by the Kochs | |
| Dan Stein | White Supremacist | President of Tanton Network organization FAIR | |
| Lothrop Stoddard | White Supremacist | Author of the 1920 book The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy | |
| Roger Stone | Lobbyist | ||
| Richard Strong | Businessperson | Strong Capital Management Mutual Fund | |
| Sen. Robert Taft | Politician | ||
| John H. Tanton | White Supremacist | Michigan | White nationalist who organized The Tanton Network of 13 anti-immigrant organizations |
| Tea Party | PAC | Intensely antitax group | |
| Peter Thiel | Businessperson | Los Angeles, CA | Eccentric Silicon Valley billionaire and pocketbook for the New Right project |
| Clarence Thomas | Judge | Washington, DC | |
| Ginni Thomas | Political Operative | Washington, DC | |
| Three Percenters | Extremist | Militia group who had a heavy presence at the January 6 attempted coup | |
| Traditionalist Workers Party | Extremist | ||
| Turning Point USA | Extremist | Charlie Kirk's right-wing PR organization | |
| Unabomber | Criminal | ||
| Unification Church | Cult Leader | ||
| Unite the Right | Activist | Charlottesville, NC | Charlottesville, NC event in 2018 where white supremecist groups marched with tiki torches, and activist Heather Hyer was killed by a right-wing extremist who drove his car through the crowd. |
| University of Texas at Austin | Academic | Austin, TX | |
| JD Vance | Politician | OH | Venture capitalist and Peter Thiel acolyte running for Senate in Ohio |
| Ricky Vaughn | |||
| Ruben Verastigui | Criminal | DC | Former RNC and other GOP offices staffer who made social media ads for the Trump campaign and was later arrested with child porn on his phone after a DHS sting. |
| John Vinson | Extremist | Head of the Tanton Network-backed anti-immigrant hate group American Immigration Control Foundation (AICF) | |
| George Wallace | Politician | Alabama | |
| Joe Walsh | Media personality | ||
| Kelli Ward | Politician | AZ | GOP Chair |
| Ron Watkins | Extremist | Identified as the most likely suspect to be Q of QAnon | |
| Randy Weaver | White Supremacist | Naples, ID | |
| Vicki Weaver | White Supremacist | Naples, ID | |
| Weev | White Supremacist | Andrew "Weev" Auernheimer | |
| Paul Weyrich | White Supremacist | Arch-deacon of the New Right ultraconservative movement and hugely influential figure who founded the Heritage Foundation, Council for National Policy, and ALEC. | |
| White Citizens Councils | White Supremacist | ||
| Geert Wilders | |||
| Darren Wilson | Public Sector | Police officer who brutally killed a Black man, Michael Brown, in Ferguson, MO in 2014. | |
| WikiLeaks | Foreign agent | ||
| Milo Yiannopoulos | Media personality |
Trump is driving Evangelicals from the flock
It’s been said that the devilish ways of pedophiliac liberal Democrats are killing Christianity in America, but the numbers tell a different story. Following the 2016 Armistice in the War on Christmas, Donald Trump yet managed to drive 1 in 7 Evangelicals from the fold, according to data from Pew and PRRI.
Far from the surge in True Believers prophesied by the right wing, the religious right’s deal with the proverbial and/or literal devil seems to have driven members away. Trump is losing Evangelicals, and really — should we be so shocked? If it doesn’t matter (to some) whether our leaders are serial philanderers and lifelong business cheats, or earnestly striving public servants spreading compassion — what use is their moral code, then? None. It is bankrupt.
Shrödinger’s Moral Leadership
The religious right can’t have it both ways — either moral leadership is important, or it isn’t. It can’t selectively be important *only* when a Democrat is in power. Evangelicals also need to make a choice between God and Caesar. Prosperity gospel is the latter and not the former, but many pretend otherwise or are fooled — after all, fool’s gold can still fool.
Cognitive dissonance upon dissonance continues to fall in the totally unraked forest of right-wing values. I’m aiming to continue pulling on a few threads connecting the religious right, and Evangelicals in particular, to the rise of political extremism in the Republican Party:
- The pitch that winning the culture war is more important than God’s law is thin at best
- Donald Trump is not a Christian
- The “imperfect vessel” fails as moral justification
- Jesus didn’t care about tax cuts
- Christian leaders’ claims that politics is amoral ground beyond the reach of God’s teachings is self-evident nonsense
- Christians are leaving their own moral house unguarded. No one is showing the living proof of Jesus’ teachings anymore — and it’s not the fault of the people on the left who weren’t doing it before.