Thread by @JYSexton

All right, we need to talk about the celebration and marketing of Kyle Rittenhouse by the GOP.

Market forces have corrupted our society, dismantled our politics, and have ensured that Right Wing violence and authoritarianism will only grow with time

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jaredyatessexton.substack.com/p/when-the-fre…

Since Rittenhouse's killings in Wisconsin and his acquittal, he has become one of the hottest celebrities in GOP circles.

Networks flock to him. Personalities fight over his attention. And all of this shows that the GOP is dangerous, but also exposes a massive problem.

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The commodification and marketization of this tragedy is as disgusting as it is predictable. Vigilante justice, shooting people down in cold blood, is now not only acceptable in the GOP, but celebrated and rewarded.

It means money. It means celebrity. It means power.

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To understand how we've arrived at this crisis, as well as how something like January 6th occurred and will probably happen again, only worse, we have to look at the radicalization of the Right, but also how market forces and hypercapitalism have made this so much worse.

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What people fail to understand about Trumpism and this crisis is that it is political movement but also a consumer movement.

People worship Trump in part because he, his merchandise, and political project are an expression of themselves as consumers.

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Because our politics have been dismantled and the people disempowered, it has twisted and turned until people now have merged their consumer identity with their political identity.

It's like rooting for a sports team and having that become *you*.

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jaredyatessexton.substack.com/p/politics-as-…

To get into how this happened, we have to take a detour to talk about neoliberalism, a political and economic project that came to dominate the United States, Britain, and then the world.

It was intended to sedate politics and ideology, but it has plunged us into chaos.

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Neoliberalism rose, in part, from the thoughts of people like Friedrich Hayek, who is the favored economic prophet of many in the past GOP.

Hayek wanted government to leave markets alone completely and demanded that markets serve as the ultimate societal arbiter.

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With Hayek were men like Milton Friedman, who pushed the economics of a completely "free" market that government would aid but never control or really affect.

We're talking about unrestrained greed here, and obviously this fed into what we call "Reaganomics."

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"Trick Down" Economics are an absolute fraud, a dog n pony show put on by Reagan and his administration to push neoliberal policies that pushed austerity in culture and an open door for the wealthiest few to plunder literally everything.

Unfortunately, this won out.

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Neoliberalism became the order of being, finding consensus among the Republican and Democratic Parties.

The purpose was to aid the economy, limit social spending as much as possible, and cut down on democracy as it wasn't "conducive" to business.

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The cruel truth of neoliberalism is that it was tested in authoritarian societies like Chile, where neofascistic groups overthrew democratically elected leaders, broke the backs of workers, and were able to institute neoliberal plans in order to study their effectiveness.

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To carry out neoliberal policies in Chile, students of Milton Friedman's and the neoliberal schools were put in positions of power.

The results were tragic for the people, but fantastic for business interests.

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Ruling Chile with an iron fist was Pinochet, a neoliberal dream. Hayek loved him because he had no real ideology beyond total control, which meant he was more than happy to carry out the neoliberal plans.

A point of order: neoliberal is, by design, totally without ethics.

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Over time, the neoliberal project twisted and turned, enforcing austerity and human suffering until a demogogue grifter like Donald Trump could come along and blame vulnerable populations for the suffering.

In this way, he gained power and commodofied himself.

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Trump supporters expressed their consumer identities by dressing and performing as star-spangled neofascists, wearing neofascist gear, flying neofascist flags, sporting guns and claiming they were ready to carry out violence whenever needed.

It is an identity.

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The problem is that consumer identity can become a person's identity. Though neoliberalism sought to end ideology, what it did was make it possible for ideology to hide itself within consumerism.

January 6th was both a coup attempt AND a consumer expression.

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Kyle Rittenhouse is a product of this toxic culture. He stewed in Right Wing fearmongering (also a consumer appeal) and presented himself as someone "ready to take action."

He bought into the marketing appeals so much that he began living them.

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The lionization of Rittenhouse only ensures more people will act like Rittenhouse. It's not only politically called for but there's money in it. Advertising. Speaking fees. Celebrity.

The grift turns real turns grift turns real. It's an ugly, awful cycle.

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We're watching a really, really twisted thing here. Economic appeals marketing fake ideology are becoming actual ideology.

Marketing of neofascism and conspiracy theories are being taken for granted, because, well, how could they not be? They *become* real.

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Neoliberalism was meant to subtract ideology from the equation, but like everything it touches it simply made it a commodity.

It's marketing vigilante justice as a product. It's marketing neofascism as a product. And the market will escalate as it seeks profit.

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With neoliberalism we're dealing with an idea that is not only inhuman but is aggressively anti-human. It doesn't care if we live or die. It throws us into a pandemic, it escalates neofascism, it profits from school shootings and it will and has welcomed authoritarianism.

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