1/11. The people who told you that fascism was not a threat were wrong.
2/11. The people who told you that Russia was not fascist were, if possible, more wrong.
3/11. Fascism is might over right, conspiracy over reality, fiction over fact, pain over law, blood over love, doom over hope.
4/11. Fascism advances every injustice. Its victory will leave us serfs of a vengeful nature, of relentless technology, and of unquestionable oligarchy.
5/11. Analytic clarity is needed for political clarity. If you do not know what you face, you do not know how to act.
6/11. Once named, fascism can be defeated. Indeed, once named it can be easily defeated.
7/11. Russian fascism must lose on the battlefield. Americans can bring this about by supporting courageous Ukrainians.
8/11. American fascism must lose at the ballot box. Americans can bring this about by organizing, canvassing, phone banking, donating, and voting.
9/11. We know from history that fascism can lose. And we know today the contests that must be won.
10/11. Compared to challenges that others face around the world, our odds in 2024 and 2025 are excellent. Americans have chances, not excuses.
11/11. A defeat of fascism is not a negation. It is an affirmation: of a future that can be more beautiful, more just, and more free.
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1/7. We Americans have a hard time seeing ourselves in the world, and so even when we want to criticize our fascist oligarchs we fail to see the international networks of which they are nodes. politico.com/newsletters/po…
3/7. Trump emerged into international far right networks that backed him, funded him, ran social media campaigns for him, and supplied him with role models.
1/5. I want to try to amplify this point — Vance does not believe that morality is an autonomous sphere of life at all; only fools think that, in his world.
2/5. What he means by the word "morality" is propaganda from some religious institution that justifies the world the way it is, including his own personal power and corruption.
3/5. The whole point of Vance’s notion of God is to justify fascist oligarchy — consider his grotesque invocation of God just the other day in Budapest as a reason why Hungarians must vote for Orbán.
1/5. Orbán pioneered a model whereby oligarchs trade the fascist memes and electoral tricks they use to stay in power. He made Budapest a node between Moscow and Washington of the international far right.
2/5. He is central to Trumpism, more important than almost any American in the movement.
3/5. For Trump and Vance, Orbán must win, because there must only be one inevitable path of history, towards right-wing oligarchy and the end of democracy.
With this settlement the US is worse off in every way than it was before the war; Iran is strengthened by the huge new tolls in the Straits of Hormuz, paid by the whole world. (1/14)
I will lay out the strategic defeat but I want to make clear that it is a symptom of the basic problem of injustice and inequality. (2/14)
Consider — where are those new tolls going? To Iran’s murderous regime. Is it too much to wonder, though, whether a portion reaches the pockets of US negotiators or other Americans? (3/14)
Given Trump’s Easter threats to carry out new war crimes in Iran, we should think one or two steps ahead about a coup attempt connected to the war. And then deter it. (1/17)
Why is Trump so enthusiastic about destroying Iranian civilian infrastructure? It won’t win the war. It is likely for another reason: to provoke an Iranian response that Trump can use for his own purposes. (2/17)
Provocation is not a complex form of politics. Let’s not imagine Trump is not smart enough to have thought of this. He is. And exploiting a wartime incident to try to seize total power is normal tyrannical behavior. It’s on us not to dodge that historical fact. (3/17)