The thing about racist authoritarianism is that there *is no coherent ideological justification* for it. You can justify it with mysticism -- God chose this group, we are destined to rule, etc. -- but you can't justify it within the broad Western tradition of small-l liberalism.
It is from a much older & more common tradition: might makes right. We will dominate because we can. We will dominate because life & society are a zero-sum struggle among groups & our group has the power to win that struggle. It's not an argument, it's just the will to power.
So NYT editors, who take small-l liberalism for granted, keep making category mistakes, like the idea that Tom Cotton is "debating ideas." That's not how authoritarians use language. They use language as a tool for domination, like everything else.
What NYT editors clearly, plaintively, somewhat pathetically want is *arguments* from Trumpists, so that they can stroke their chins & perform being open-minded. But Trumpism is not the sort of thing for which one can argue. It is a will to power & domination.
When confronted with a will to power & domination, one can fight or one can submit, but *arguing* is beside the point. Will to power is psychologically primary, pre-conscious, pre-verbal. It doesn't result from arguments or ideas & won't be changed by them.
All US citizens & institutions, including the NYT, can fight or submit. But because VSPs like the editors of the NYT are so resistant to seeing that choice clearly, they'll probably keep arguing & arguing their way right into the work camps. Sigh. </fin>
