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I heard a quote awhile ago that was something like "be careful telling people they are Nazis, because one day they might believe you."
If every young white man who has a valid criticisms of the prevailing cultural dogma is pigeonholed into that classification, the author isn't doing himself any favors. It's true that Dissident Right talking points are increasingly being embraced by the mainstream conservative movement. Is that due to sadism, or is it maybe because the DR is getting at something real, and the perspective can no longer be ignored by the conservative talking heads?
Here's Matt Walsh a couple weeks ago:
It would have been unthinkable for someone like Matt Walsh to say this even a few years ago. Matt isn't saying this because he's sadistic, he's saying it because the prevailing cultural dogma is actually pretty hostile to white people. Gaslighting people with "If you believe that you're a Nazi" has greatly contributed to the Nazi memes, I can guarantee you that.
This is so uncharitable that it bears no resemblance to reality. Let's take a look at one of the many various compilation videos of Hitler's speeches that gets clicks from e-fascists. The fascist subjectivity here is not the indulgence of sadistic feelings. It invokes:
Feelings of revolutionary triumph from an undesirable status quo
Sense of community
Strong leader with a charismatic devotion to the people
Proposing the nation as inherited from a people
The author has no understanding whatsoever for why this propaganda is compelling to those people, and why there might be a lack of these elements in the present culture that does indeed explain Trump and the growing influence of the Dissident Right. But it's not due to sadism, it's due to very real deficiencies in the culture that do not provide for these human needs, so they are sought in heterodox and taboo spaces.
Edit: OP deleted the post, which was just a copy + paste of this article with no additional commentary.
Not for the first time I realise that all of those people I mocked back when I was a good little unthinking left-wing redditor for saying "anti-racist is code for anti-white" were, well, exactly right. I just didn't have the piece of the puzzle that there are people who believe that all white people bear the original sin stain of racism.
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Part of the problem is that "Nazi, fascist, far-right extremist, white supremacist" have been so over-used that people are now reacting "If that makes me a Nazi, okay I'm a Nazi" instead of falling over themselves trying to deny it or dropping whatever argument they had been making.
Trump is a fascist. DeSantis is a fascist. I'm a fascist, you're a fascist, they're a fascist. Everybody except me and the six people who agree with me in lockstep are fascists, and as soon as one of them demurs even slightly from my list of acceptable right-think, they'll be a fascist too.
Either that, or they're "reactionaries", another favorite left-wing snarl word.
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That view's now become common in our political parlance, as a result of Democrats and leftists alike having their heads this deep in their own ass. I've never encountered any political opposition that can currently and coherently articulate a right-wing viewpoint, without satirizing or sneering at it. I'll admit I've got positions on things that could be found at home within Fascist ideology, but to them, there isn't even a normal right-wing. There's only the 'sane and normal' leftism that claims to travel the middle of the road, and right-wing, neofascist extremism, the moment you even venture an inch to the right of that.
Define "coherently"
Are we talking "internally consistant" or are we talking about "abiding by the norms of inductive reason and dialectical materialism" because if the latter it's lack of coherency is arguably a feature rather than a bug.
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I recall having had conversations with genuine ultra progressive leftists who I’m reasonably sure have changed their gender since then, who admitted I made fascism sound reasonable even if they didn’t disagree with it. They’re clearly capable of interfacing with right wing ideas even if they don’t understand what fascism is, they just don’t. I think most of that is filter bubble.
They're capable of interfacing with the 'form' it takes, but not the actual fascist political organs themselves. Yet they get funny in the head when I point out to them that it works the other way around, too. The CCP for instance, is highly Democratic 'in form', if you accept the Democratic principle that government is justified by the consent of those they govern. Plenty of people are happy and content with the lifestyle improvements that the CCP has delivered for them. Now a leftist may reply back, that well even if they didn't approve, they couldn't do away the CCP, despite wanting to vote them out of office. And I could always reply back, that the same is true of the 'so-called' Democracy we have here in the US. If a leftist is content with the illusion of our effective two-party duopoly, then I suppose that'll suffice for them. But that's a pretty superficial political endorsement. By that standard, Cuba could've become a Democracy overnight, if the choices were between Fidel Castro and his brother Raul. But I tend to think you've got Democracy only in name, and not in actuality. Yes, Democracy is 'also' an autonomous political system, but that doesn't mean authoritarian systems can't be 'highly' Democratic.
Leftists are all but fully content with the near full on, totalitarian cultural stranglehold they've got over the country. The largest states in the US are effectively the trendsetters for the direction the rest of the country takes, after themselves. But I have no illusions that they actually believe any of their idealized principles. They're equally prejudiced asswipes in the opposite direction. And that's fair enough. As a right-winger, I'm playing that same game. But I'm not peddling bullshit in the process. I'm not someone for instance that would go around saying bodily autonomy is important, and then violate that all but 'sacred' principle, the moment COVID mandates get brought up. If you're a hypocritical POS, own it out in the open.
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I’d better go read all this fascist literature to understand who I am
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It's weird how nobody seems to recognize this, from either side. The right keeps diluting "socialism", and then the left calls them on it... and proceeds to dilute "fascism".
Ironically, the right only showcases their own ignorance when they call someone like Joe Biden a socialist. It's one of the most insane and asinine things I've ever heard.
People say this shit as self evidently true but really why is it self evident? Biden doesn’t believe in government ownership of the means of production but he seems pretty into the government control of the means of production along with re distributing wealth (albeit to his tribe). The amount of money the federal government spends would make many socialist governments blush.
He isn’t a 1960s socialist but that doesn’t mean he isn’t a socialist.
I'm extremely confused on what you're getting at (or even talking about?).
It's pretty clear. Biden has enough socialist policies that calling him a socialist is not "showcasing his own ignorance".
What socialist policies does Joe Biden promulgate? Last I checked, he isn't trying to democratize Walmart, trying to make it look more like the Mondragon Corporation.
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Yeah but the amount of people who'd outwardly self-identify as Socialist/Marxist influenced is far greater than the amount of people who'd outwardly self-identify as fascist.
Yes, because the professed ideals of socialism (universal brotherhood of man, equality, freedom from toil and force and brute necessity, creation of riches and plenty for all, etc.) are pretty consistent with the professed goals of western liberal civilization.
Thus, it's easy to convert people to a crude form of socialist-identity just by saying "don't you want sick people to be treated by doctors? Don't you want people not to starve? Don't you want people not to have to work 16-hour days in horrible coal mines?" and yadda-yadda-ing and handwaving (or even just ignoring) the question of how we get from here to there.
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Well, in many ways you and Ganz make the same argument (at least until he starts psychologizing, of course). Ganz actually agrees with you that, say, Elon discussing Soros memes is world-historically significant. He’d probably highlight the same Matt Walsh quote. The thing that he’s apparently noticing is the thing you point out regularly in this thread in your top-level posts and comments.
Yes I agree with Ganz on a lot of what he it saying, but at some point he has to recognize that the gaslighting isn't going to work and acknowledge that people who gravitate towards right-wing radical politics kind of have a point, and they aren't there to indulge some latent demand for inner sadism. The mainstream starting to adopt radical talking points and slogans is more acknowledgment that there are salient points to their underlying perspective that the mainstream can no longer entirely ignore.
Honestly, Ganz seems like he could be a cheerleader of fascism, he identifies some real undercurrents and then just denounces them as racist or antisemitic like they are self-evidently wrong. I have to believe when he goes on about something like "Reactionary Modernism" and says:
You know some people are going "sounds kind of based", but Ganz seems to think that if he can tie something to fascist thought he has proven it to be wrong.
Why? Or what? Finish the thought. The real world isn't a logic proof, and people are really good at clinging on to irrational and incorrect beliefs out sheer tribal affiliation, or contrarianism, etc.
This is my first exposure to Ganz, but he seems to have penchant for making fascism seem way cooler and more credible than the best propaganda efforts of the radical right. Self-deception can go far, but only so much. Is he going to say Matt Walsh is a fascist now indulging in his inner sadism, and the Daily Wire is primed to join the techno-fascist takeover to constitute the Silicon Reich? Maybe he will, but at some point he seems like a smart person and I think he will recognize his model of the world breaking down such that he has to acknowledge some sort of substance to the radical right beyond sadism and fatalism. It's not a high bar.
But in the meantime, his articles I've read so far are enjoyable, and he does have a good finger on the pulse of some esoteric undercurrents among the Radical Right, but he seems resistant to interpreting them rationally.
I mean, this is not that uncommon an opinion on the activist left, so yes probably? Moreover, "fascist" just means "evil." Orwell recognized this back in the 40's, when OG fascism was still technically alive. So there's no real mental model to the term that can be confronted with contrary detail.
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