2. The pro-Trump -- or at least anti-anti-Trump -- position on this is Trump isn't serious. It's bluster. He doesn't have the brains, will-power, or support needed to pull off a coup.
3. Trump's intent seems uninteresting and irrelevant. As per other authoritarian regimes, the method is "working towards the Donald." He issues broad goals and people try to please him by carrying them out. Doesn't matter what he intends as long as followers are there.
4. An earlier example of Trump coup talk (from last year) gives the outlines of how he sees it working: military, police & Bikers for Trump would support him.
5. Let's take the possible coup forces one by one. He has the bikers, he has some of the police. But neither would be able to aid in a take over of the government. He doesn't -- and this is crucial -- have the military.
6. The military -- especially the officer corps. -- isn't on board for a coup. Their refusal to join in the crackdown against BLM protest shows that, I'd argue. In the future, I think historians will see that as the peak moment of crisis.
7. The more immediate threat than a coup -- or rather the road to a coup which needs to be more immediately dealt with -- is court shenanigans. About which, more here: thenation.com/article/politi…
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1. Trump's goal of taking over Gaza (after Palestinians have been ethnically cleansed) is evil and deranged. It's also not going to happen, along with many other similarly crackpot, criminal goals: annexing Canada, Greenland, Panama Canal etc. These absurd goals are evidence of imperial decline
2. Feature of all of Trump's recent trade wars is that he uses hyperbolic threats (annexing Canada, 25% tariffs etc), then reaches an agreement whereby other country concedes little or nothing. Pattern has been seen in Canada, Mexico, Panama, Colombia. Declare war, do nothing, declare victory,
3. Trump's a product of the world of professional wrestling where kayfabe (fake feuds, fake fights) are the norm. He's brought that narrative technique to politics and foreign affairs. Important to both condemn his goals as evil but also at the same time debunk them as kayfabe.
1. One reason why Wall Street has been down only slightly is that they are quite rightly assessing Trump's trade wars as mostly bluster. Trump wants some headlines showing he's fighting foreign foes and its been easy for target nations to diffuse situation with a few symbolic (even non-existent) concessions: Colombia, Panama, Mexico.
2. A few symbolic concessions on both sides & quick de-escalation. Again, Trump wants headlines saying he's strong, nothing more.
3. In Panama as well, conflict defused after they agreed to give up deals with China that had already been suspended years ago. In other words, symbolic gestures that let Trump beat his chest.
1. The idea of USA annexing Canada, Greenland & the Panama Canal might seem like a typical Trump brain fart, but it has deep roots in the far right. MAGA Manifest destiny owes much to Pat Buchanan, Peter Brimelow & the strange figure of Lee Craig Schoonmaker (a gay rights pioneer turned hate-monger)
2. Trump's America First foreign policy isn't a quirk of his weird personality (altho his thuggish/trollish expression of it is). "America First" is real tradition going back to McKinley, Hoover, Lindbergh & Taft. Miscalled "isolationism" is policy of European disengagement & hemispheric dominance
3. Pre-Trump the immediate manifestation of America First foreign policy was the circle around Pat Buchanan in 1980s/1990s called paleo-conservatives. As against dominant neo-cons faction which at end of Cold War wanted to extend USA global reach, paleo-cons wanted focus on hemispheric dominance.
1. "What a minute," yo might ask, "Isn't Milei a self-proclaimed libertarian, even an anarcho-capitalist who who wants to abolish the state? How can he be using police power to repress free speech & protests?" Well, the history of anarcho-capitalism has the answers.
2. The term anarcho-capitalism was coined by Murray Rothbard, this elfin looking guy, tweaking an earlier formulation by his friend Karl Hess (a Goldwater speechwriter turned anti-war activist). Rothbard was a pioneer in coopting language of anarchy for authoritarianism
3. Rothbard was politically all over the map, at various points allying himself with Robert Taft, Joseph McCarthy, Ayn Rand, William F. Buckley, New Left historical revisionists like William Appleman Williams, the Maoist Peace & Freedom Party, the Koch bros, Pat Buchanan
1. Fun fact: New Criticism was an outgrowth of a group called The Fugitives or Southern Agrarians. Their governing ideology was a celebration of hierarchical & traditional societies like the pre-Civil War south & pre-industrial Europe. Guess what they thought of Blacks & Jews?
2. This is a complicated story but the New Critics were Southern white reactionaries who idealized pre-industrial life & Christian hegemony, whitewashed slavery, and embraced formalism in criticism as a way of exalting an idealized order untouched by historical change.
3. It's kind of hard to place the New Critics in terms of contemporary politics because they were both anti-socialist and anti-capitalist, seeing industrialization as a falling off. And their critiques of capitalism & industrialization have real force & value.
I've literally been reading racists right-wingers (notably Samuel Francis and Pat Buchanan) since Yglesias was in kindergarten. It's a big part of the work I do. Yet I somehow manage to avoid praising them as interesting parts of the discourse even as analyze their work.
The key thing here is that Yglesias thinks of the revanchist & racist right as part of his universe of discourse, people who are wrong on some stuff but worth engaging with. By contrast, for him left & left-liberals beyond the pale.
"He's clearly quite racist! But...." There's always a but.