Climate Change Denial: From Big Tobacco Tactics to Today’s Global Challenge In the complex narrative of global climate change, one pervasive thread is the phenomenon of climate change denial. This denial isn’t just a refusal to accept the scientific findings around climate change; it is a systematic effort to discredit and cast doubt on environmental […]
Buckle up, we’re in for a wild ride. Many of the serious scholars of political history and authoritarian regimes are sounding the alarm bells that America has rapidly tilted towards authoritarianism. How did we get here?! How has hyper partisanship escalated to the point of an attempted coup that is not only shrugged off, but […]
Old Boomers like Donald Trump and Charles Koch just copied their fascist fathers. Donnie inherited racism and eugenics from Old Fred, while Charlie was indoctrinated in the extremist delusions of the John Birch Society and the pseudoscience economics of the Austrian School acolytes. They are men with little imagination, who seek to exalt themselves by […]
Who were the early conservatives? They emerged out of the group of former fascists and Nazi sympathizers in the US. 1930s opposition to Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal 2 main right-wing factions then: After the Allies won World War II, a number of the early Hitler sympathizers “hid out” in anti-communist circles, allowing them to cloak […]
The Founders meant for the republic to be agile in philosophy — always changing to meet the new demands of the next generations. They meant for us to be self-governing, and empowered to create policy for problem-solving in new eras they themselves could not even conceive of. Thomas Jefferson wrote forewarningly of the Dead Hand […]
We are rarely content with mere survival — we want naturally to be flourishing… most of us, anyway. A very vocal minority perennially aims to fuck it all up though, with disinformation and bullying and violence and domestic terrorism. Those power mad, money hungry, fame whoring moral prostitutes seek to keep us all surviving vs. […]
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 […]
When using the Broken Record method, think K.I.S.S. for quick and dirty media strategy: Keep It Simple, Stupid. Then, repeat those short phrases or sentences frequently. Themes to Broken Record for 2022 (and beyond): Fascism / Authoritarianism warnings Optimism > Pessimism Buddhism and Stoicism were hopefully about humanity — these were philosophies that placed humans […]
Supremacy is the magical thinking that one’s ingroup is the only source of truth. It’s the ultimate conspiracy theory, and the apotheosis of a hierarchical worldview. Supremacy is a common worldview shared by narcissists and totalitarians. Supremacist groups in American history White supremacy in particular is both a psychological condition and an institutional condition — […]
This is more of a scratch pad of ideas at the moment I’m afraid, but I’m aiming to come back and curate this as we get further into 2022. Cliff’s Note version: Broken Record messages for 2022 About Democrats We have a terrible habit of being Debbie Downers about our own party. No matter how […]
Majority Leader Schumer is right to come around to the idea that the filibuster must be changed in order to pass voting rights and save our democratic republic from the forces of authoritarianism. The filibuster is an archaic rule that was at first only there by accident, then whittled into a sharp blade of minority […]
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 […]
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 […]
A tax-exempt nonprofit that advocated for corporate-friendly energy policies. Koch’s Freedom Partners donated $1.5 million in 2012.
The Koch Brothers’ Libertarian political advocacy arm