Jared Yates Sexton Profile picture
Hoosier, Political Analyst, Muckrake Podcast, Author THE MIDNIGHT KINGDOM: A HISTORY OF POWER, PARANOIA, AND THE COMING CRISIS @duttonbooks available now
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Mar 26 4 tweets 1 min read
Moments like the NBC and MSNBC revolt over the hiring of Ronna McDaniel and the resulting cave by management serve as ready-made examples of how the power of employers is dependent upon a complete and total illusion of total authority that can be easily shattered. The truth is that capitalist exploitation is all based on the hope that employees never remember that they are more essential than the management class that uses them. That’s why it’s so necessary to bust unions and aggressively break the will of employees whenever possible.
Mar 20 5 tweets 1 min read
I know it’s cathartic to see Trump bled of his assets, but there are millions of Americans deeply familiar with having their homes and cars taken from them and liens on their paychecks.

Just saying, maybe pump the breaks on the “optics being bad.” I continue to be shocked by how hating Trump is revealing so many deeply-held beliefs people would rather pretend aren’t there. Disgust with fat people, constant cosmetic judgments, disdain for poor people.
Mar 17 5 tweets 1 min read
The wealth in this country is divided between antidemocratic billionaires and corporate “centrists” who are consistently moving rightward as the billionaires rush headlong into authoritarianism.

That’s why it increasingly gets worse as tired political lenses make less sense. The old “Left vs Right” narrative is false. We have a center and a Right, and the center continues to move rightward. Money, power, and influence tear away at liberal democracy as we’re continually told a long dead paradigm is at play.
Mar 13 4 tweets 1 min read
Important to realize anti-vax conspiracy theorists have more political representation in the United States than people wanting to strengthen unions or reverse consensus austerity and neoliberal authoritarianism. And that’s not an accident. The wealthy and powerful have so captured our processes that their main weapon of influence - conspiracy theories that redirect the blame for what they’ve done to their political enemies - has become its own constituency.
Mar 8 5 tweets 2 min read
Katie Britt’s response was disastrous because it felt like being trapped in a horror movie

We’re fortunate the GOP is so off-putting and weird right now. It makes them vulnerable. But like all authoritarian movements, the weirdness can soon become normal

jaredyatessexton.substack.com/p/the-deep-wei…
Image We have a really terrible understanding of authoritarianism. We’ve been taught leaders brainwash with speeches, but what happens is that they twist reality by normalizing madness.

The GOP is currently repellant, but their wild beliefs are being normalized every single day.
Feb 25 5 tweets 1 min read
Some people like to pretend it happens in a vacuum, but radicalization is supercharged by the very essence of the modern internet.

Algorithms feeding off market segmentation consistently create rabbit holes for profit. Sooner than later that has to be addressed. Obsession with profit is the main driver of our crisis, but the American delusion that we’re all making decisions separate from unconscious motivations and capitalist manipulation is a huge reason why we’re in this mess and why we can’t truly counter it.
Feb 18 8 tweets 2 min read
The economy was built on capitalizing on insecurities and a desire to present fantasy selves.

Since neoliberalism systematically depowered collective action and representative government, politics have largely become yet another consumer identity.

This should help explain MAGA. Image MAGA is actually a fascist movement, but it’s also a brand identity. It’s meant to sell white Americans who terrified about their futures the ability to express the fantasy that they’re powerful mavericks when they’re just consuming the same garbage.
Feb 18 4 tweets 1 min read
One of the most damaging things that happened was the proliferation of the idea that politics were a thing to watch, root for, and, at most, something to post about it donate to.

The participatory elements of democracy have been intentionally undermined. The universalization of punditry and Beltway insider was an incredibly damaging component. People beyond the real-life consequences of politics and creatures of the culture taught so many to treat it like a sport or even the stock market. And that has spread so far.
Feb 16 5 tweets 1 min read
What the Right does and has done for centuries is redirect critiques of capitalism, entrenched power, and white patriarchal supremacy to their enemies and vulnerable populations by creating conspiracy theories playing on prejudices.

That’s the whole ballgame and always has been. The Right pounces on dissatisfaction with the market and capitalist trends by telling white people it’s actually a sinister plot carried out by Jews, traitors, and ignorant or malevolent minorities.

It’s a misdirection operation and prejudices make it an effective one.
Feb 15 5 tweets 1 min read
You’re either against authoritarianism or you’re not. There’s no negotiating with it. There’s no accepting it here and rejecting it there. There are no half measures. The moment you start sacrificing innocent peoples is the moment you lose it all. History is littered with cultures that play games with rights. Playing both sides, picking and choosing. And those cultures look up one day and see authoritarianism sweeping in like a plague. It’s a predictable cycle. And we must, must, must do better.
Feb 9 6 tweets 1 min read
Authoritarianism is a system of abuse that activates the trauma of followers while inflicting vicious trauma on everyone else.

It’s meant to ward off challenges by systematizing intimidation and violence, all while destroying any imagination about a better future. Authoritarians embrace a reality of violence and forcibly narrow windows of opportunity, creating an environment where the only options are increasingly dire.

And then the choice: accept that future or risk being ground into dust.
Dec 13, 2023 5 tweets 1 min read
Reportage continues to gift The Right the benefit of the doubt it doesn’t deserve.

Some Republicans do believe unless immigration is curbed bad things will happen. But many are interested using fear to control cheap, exploitable labor while also reinforcing a tiered legal system Way, way too many people are afraid to recognize that America is a thinly-veiled apartheid state that is looking to expand the numbers of almost completely oppressed and exploited people without any hope of representation or legal protections.
Dec 13, 2023 6 tweets 1 min read
It’s not a coincidence that as things get worse and authoritarianism grows that media writ large is deemphasizing news in order to protect consumerism and mindless consumption. Authoritarianism feeds on anger and resentment, but also apathy. Things are supposed to get so bad that you throw up your hands and say you’re so tired that you just want to be left alone and don’t care to hear what’s being done outside your door. It’s a breaking of spirit.
Dec 12, 2023 7 tweets 2 min read
A really damning and incredible thing that happened is that neoliberal hypercapitalism tried to drain actual politics from every part of our lives and substitute consumerism as a meaningless expression and now we’re waking up from that slumber with a panicked start. So many institutions, from our schools to our government to our culture, were completely consumed by hollow neoliberalism and hollowed out themselves and staffed by feckless managers and now, as the inevitable crisis hits, everything is just crashing violently.
Nov 28, 2023 4 tweets 1 min read
The Right Wing conspiracy theory mindset is a collection of narratives designed to legitimize antidemocratic, racist, sexist, and classist beliefs.

It’s not a surprise that we’re watching one of the most powerful men on the planet radicalized. It happens all the time. We need to reframe how we understand Right Wing radicalization. It’s not a poison that just spontaneously creates these ideas. It’s a framework that legitimizes existing prejudices and gifts the holder an out to believe they’re not prejudiced but a “realist.”
Nov 26, 2023 6 tweets 2 min read
Love watching one pundit after another tie themselves in knots trying to explain what’s happened because none of them want to admit or can understand that capitalism is a parasite that feeds off nation states and leaves them hollowed out husks. It’s a cycle you can set your watch by. Under the auspices of nationalism, capitalism is served by the machine of state until the stakeholders are able to buy off representative government and then any notion of democracy is smothered.

It’s that simple.
Sep 14, 2023 6 tweets 2 min read
Mitt Romney wasn’t a “good Republican.” He made millions of lives worse so the rich could get richer.

But his public performance allowed people to believe the GOP wasn’t authoritarian to its core and that Trumpism was the disease instead of a symptom.

jaredyatessexton.substack.com/p/the-best-the…
Image Romney was a relic of an age where authoritarian and oppressive policies could be hidden through decorum.

But at the heart of it all, it’s always been about bringing the boot down while enriching the powerful.

The narrative around Romney is a fiction. Period.
Sep 12, 2023 5 tweets 1 min read
It never ceases to amaze me how much analysis of our politics and crises just completely neglects to mention wealth inequality and how the rich have used excess profits to create this status quo.

You simply cannot wrestle with any of this without that key understanding. But let’s also be clear: so many of the experts and pundits who should be connecting the dots between engineered inequality and our crises are also funded by and part of an ecosystem dependent on it.

So you get a sort of learned, motivated ignorance.
Sep 5, 2023 7 tweets 2 min read
I don’t know who needs to hear this, but let’s make it clear once again.

The GOP isn’t “pro-family.” Its only priority is control. Control through patriarchal institutions, control over women, children, behavior, and control through exploitative, cheap labor.

That’s it. Stop trying to make their behavior logical outside of this framework. Their “pro-life” stance isn’t about life. It’s about controlling women and exploiting people. That’s it. They’re not going to support programs or social safety nets. They’ll just dig the whole deeper and deeper
Sep 4, 2023 7 tweets 2 min read
Always a good day for people to reframe their understanding of “foreign policy” to grasp fully what’s happening with the GOP.

Things like the Cold War were a convenient covers for using US military power to neutralize Leftists and organize the world to the liking of the wealthy. What a lot of you thought was “patriotism” or “national defense” was just mythology meant to launder oppressive actions domestically and around the world to benefit white, wealthy people and their corporations.
Aug 25, 2023 4 tweets 1 min read
Republicans know climate change is real. They also know their political fortunes are chained to lying on behalf of the fossil fuel billionaires and corporations.

The entire point is to profit off the cause of the destruction and then pivot to profiting off the destruction itself We spend most of our time and energy treating GOP positions as if they’re real instead of cynical and strategic. There are no principles. They’re all cudgels.

The quicker people start to understand this the better.