Let's talk about Trump's fascist posturing last night, the death cult that worships him, and how fascism is a war on reality as well as masculine overcompensation.
I want to be right up front with this. We're in the grips of a fascist movement in this country that operates like a murderous death cult.
This is what happens when a country with a nationalist religion begins to falter. We have to call it what it is
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Trump performed live propaganda last night, staging for Americans a show of strength and power, ripping the mask off, posturing, all of it a matter of reassuring everyone he was stronger than the virus.
It was fascist propaganda. Pure and simple.
Let's break it down.
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Inbetween poses, Trump labored to breathe and looked terrible. He's much sicker than he's letting on.
Fascism isn't about strength. It's weakness and masculine fear of appearing weak, resulting in shows of overcompensation.
It's based in the flaws of masculinity.
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Besides failing nationalist myths, fascism relies on bruised and endangered masculinity, masculinity in crisis, to light the fire for preemptive violence and societal oppression.
It radicalizes men who are lost, feeling weak, and calls them to a great masculine mission.
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The fascist appeals to a nation in crisis, a nationalist cult that feels defeated and demoralized, and appeals using masculine symbols of militarism and unbridled aggression.
Again. It isn't strength. It's the illusion of strength in the face of weakness.
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We have been tricked into believing fascism is for "strongmen," that they are cruel but competent.
It's all a lie. It uses our stereotypes of patriarchal masculinity, which is all an illusion anyway, to hide fear and weakness.
That's what we're dealing with.
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Trump furthered the overcompensation, telling Americans not to let the pandemic "dominate" them.
It was based in flagging masculinity and pushed the idea that the country is only suffering because it's weak and that a rush of masculinity and willpower would alter reality.
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Trumpism is saturated with delusional masculinity. This pampered, sheltered businessman, this soft fraud of a man, is idolized as if he is the masculine ideal while he wears makeup, frets over his hair, seems ready to topple over.
It's mass hysteria.
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It bears noting that authoritarianism relies on this myth of masculine power.
There's a reason Putin's propagandists have created this artificial idea of Putin as a man's man. It was engineered to feed off our cultural stereotypes and the power of masculine insecurity.
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There's a reason "strongmen" flock to one another, support one another.
They're cut from the same cloth. Weaklings who profit and consolidate power behind the illusion of masculinity while failing to stand upon the strength of their ideals or principles.
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The American Right is drowning in this masculine overcompensation, so much so that the pandemic has been worsened because of these ludicrous ideas of what power and courage are.
There's a reason Trump and the Right are simpatico. It's the same tortured logic and fear.
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So much of what happens on the Right is instigated and worsened by how insecure they are about themselves and masculinity.
Turn on Hannity one night for five minutes and watch the pitiable overcompensation mixed with posturing meant to create an illusion of strength.
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This isn't new, of course. We've seen the Right traffic in these illusions, lose themselves in masculine posturing that leads to death on a mass scale.
It is this neurosis and insecurity that powers national security states, neverending wars, militarism, and oppression.
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Of course, this masculine overcompensation leads to shows of force, including paramilitary groups and street gangs, another essential part of fascist movements.
There's a cycle here, and we must understand how it happens and why.
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Fascism was founded on the idea that "men of history" are strong enough to impose their will on reality. That if they "dominate" reality and society they can actively twist the world into their vision and force others to accept it or else die.
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The Fascists of the 20th century believed they were above the law and not subject to "reality."
They believed "deeper truth" emanated from themselves, and their willingness to use violence or any means necessary, to be "stronger" than everyone else would change reality.
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It's important to note that fascists use existing faiths that circumvent empirical evidence to turn themselves into cult leaders and living gods.
What Trump has done with white-identity Evangelicals is nothing new or all that novel.
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What happens is that fascists form alliances with religious faiths based on preference and power. Eventually, because of their personalities, they coopt the religion altogether, creating a cult around themselves that supersedes the religion itself
That's what we're watching
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Once the fascist leader absorbs the religion they've coopted, they move to become the actual embodiment of the religion.
They become cult leaders, living, breathing receptacles for new revelations and "divine knowledge."
They become living messiahs.
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You need to understand this.
Because Trump is considered a "divine agent" by so many white identity evangelicals, he's infallible. He's divinely inspired.
He's beyond questioning, and so his fight to twist reality is aided by the mythology of religion.
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Rallies and events become churches unto themselves. They're about worshiping the cult leader and reaffirming a consensus belief in the new reality that has been put forth.
They are political, religious events, the spectacle itself reminiscent of the replaced religion.
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In these fascist rallies, the cult leader appears, blesses his devotees with his presence, re-indoctrinates them into his twisted, preferred worldview, and radicalizes them into continuing their worship and fealty.
It is a cult and Trump is the leader.
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For those who say it can't happen here, it already has. We've seen huge fascist movements in America, including a vibrant Nazi movement prior to World War II.
Not only are we not immune, we're incredibly and especially susceptible due to our myth of exceptionalism.
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We have seen viable candidates and political figures who openly embraced fascism, appealed to flagging masculinity, and called on America to join Hitler and the Nazis in a worldwide battle to preserve and advance white supremacy.
We are RIPE for fascism in America.
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As the hold of the cult spreads to the country, a "patriotic education" is necessary to bring the country's youth into the fold and cement them within the alternate reality of the fascist cult leader's choosing.
It indoctrinates entire generations by altering history.
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Because of the cult leader's control, not to mention the oppression of dissenters and manipulation of education and reality itself, the fascist is seen as being a god among men, a living, breathing deity who has proven his worth through violence and supposed strength.
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The cult leader fascist surrounds himself with sycophants who espouse their love and devotion and actually compete and destroy one another in a contest over who loves them the most.
It is rabid dysfunction and leads to gross incompetence and mass death.
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Meanwhile, every situation is laundered through the lens of the cult leader's infallibility. Everything is under control even as the world burns.
It's mass delusion and they and their believers begin to believe they are capable of miracles and wonders, being a deity and all
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Because the fascist requires reality bend to their whim, science and empirical facts break down. Even their experts are forced to lie and accept the altered reality that is beyond their own senses.
It is a matter of dark faith and deadly delusion.
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If the cult leader fascist wanes, becomes sick, suffers a setback, you will be deluged by propaganda that spotlights them as powerful and beyond fail.
This desperate delusion and attempt to twist reality flickers in and out, making you feel like you've gone mad.
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And finally, to control reality, the fascist targets anyone who troubles their viewpoint and mass delusion.
Anyone dissenting and not pledging their undying loyalty becomes a heretic and a terrorist. Their lack of faith seals their fate and necessitates their death.
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Because of the need to totally control reality and the reliance on paranoia, insecurity, and conspiracy theories, it becomes necessary for the fascist state to dole out violence en masse should the population question their chosen reality.
It leads to so much suffering.
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But the state cannot suppress all dissent. It relies on paramilitary goons, street gangs, but also the radicalization of their supports to mete out vigilante, preemptive violence.
It's an infection and a disease that spreads and eats away at the tissue of the society.
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We're witnessing a fascist movement, a death cult that worships to the point of mass casualties and widespread delusion.
We can't dance around it any longer. This is what we've been warning about. It's here. We're in it and we have to fight it.
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The first step in defeating fascism is recognizing it as fascism and not hiding behind national delusions of exceptionalism or immunity.
The next is establishing communities so we can reaffirm our realities and not live in fear
We must see this as weakness, not strength.
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The Mark Robinson revelations are disgusting. But we can’t lose sight of something.
This is who the GOP is. A political party that represents a deep, deep unwellness in our culture that is based in -self loathing turned into hatred and violence.
We knew who Mark Robinson was before these posts were unconvered. All you had to do was listen to him launder Nazism, attack gay and trans people, say women should be subservient, and call for violence against his enemies.
The rot he represented was on full display.
We are largely in denial about what the GOP represents, but we have a wealth of research into what drives authoritarian beliefs.
It comes down to self-hatred and loathing that is sublimated and then projected onto the rest of the world.
You’ll notice our media is always most concerned when Trump tramples norms.
But we never hear about the fact that Trump is just a spokesman for wealthy authoritarians who have systematically dismantled democracy and our institutions.
This week, Trump revealed that he would be happy to either place Musk in his cabinet or put him in charge as a czar over government resources.
This is a wildly dangerous and frightening development that Musk has worked his way into through financial support and manipulation.
Despite accusations that our media is “leftist,” the truth is that it is from a corporate lens as it is controlled by a small group of wealthy individuals and corporations.
This pushback, the first against Harris from our media, is telling.
Harris’s proposals are anything but radical. They’re common-sense shifts that maintain the system and address some of the glaring problems. The vitriol and anger reveals a desire by the wealth class for a continued push for accumulating wealth and power despite warning signs.
The most important story of the 2024 Election is going untold.
Kamala Harris isn’t just facing Donald Trump, JD Vance, and the GOP. She’s squaring off against fascist Tech billionaires using them as puppets to destroy democracy.
Vance becoming Trump’s VP pick was a political marriage between MAGA and Far Right Tech Fascism. They are now a front for Musk, Theil, and a generation of tech oligarchs who have been quite open about their desire to co-opt government for power and profit.
What is happening with the Tech Fascists is the same thing we’ve seen before. Industrialist always use their obscene wealth to corrupt government and then find authoritarian puppets to finish the job and multiply their power.
This is yet another chapter in a long, long story.
JD Vance is a historic piece of shit who sold out his family and people to make a buck and gain power. He’s in bed with techno-fascist billionaires and is one of the foremost advocates for a literal fascistic ideology that seeks to take MAGA to the next level of oppression.
It’s bad enough that Vance is such a colossal asshole and that his ideology is literally fascistic, but he is capable of taking the MAGA baton and turning it into a force the likes of which most have yet to even imagine.
Terrible, terrible day for the country.
If our media returns to fawning over Vance because they want to hate poor people, I’m going to lose my everloving mind.
This is serious, serious business. And we all got a whole lot less safe today.