Yves here. I have to be confess to not being wild about the framing of this post, since as Tom Neuburger quickly points out, there is not a unified right wing but factions each with its own cluster of beliefs and policy priorities. It’s hard to see groups with at best overlapping interests forming a durable, cohesive coalition.
Admittedly, we are in the midst of a conservative counter-revolution which has taken a lot of ground and looks set to take even more. I keep thinking of the French Revolution, which featured a succession of ever more radical factions in charge, rising levels of violence (the Reign of Terror and then Thermidor), and an effort to remake the social order and create a new sort of man as citizens. But then five years of more instability and violence under the Directory led to the coup of 18 Brumaire, the end of the Revolution and the move towards the Empire. So a protracted period of factional violence and bloody retribution is well within historical norms.
I pinged Nat about the fact that Neuburger had not included black-pill nihilists in his analysis and what Nat thought of Neuburger’s assessment generally. Nat’s reply:
The young nihilists have no one in power (yet) and don’t have a coherent ideology.
With someone like Fuentes it’s impossible to parse where he’ll ultimately end up. I had written him off as a #3 [“White supremacy & race restoration”] but then he opposed the Gaza genocide (largely out of anti-Semitism was my initial view but after listening to him there does seem to be some basic humanity there).
We’re in a blender and are decades (or years if good evolution is also accelerated) away from coherent ideologies developing that match our realities. All bets are off.
By Thomas Neuburger. Originally published at God’s Spies
Note: Nothing below is meant to apply to us Muppets, the Littles, the voters and passengers on the rich-people’s train. Yes, some Muppets share these beliefs, but no Muppet has power. My point below is only about those who do — the Masters and some of their Minions. Specifically, I’m talking about the powerful Right Wing machine and people like Thiel and Vance, not those of us Smalls who are the market for their propaganda.
Our robotic transhumanist future. Guess who’ll be in charge?
“I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”
—Peter Thiel, Palantir founder, billionaire tech financier and J.D. Vance promoter
For years I’ve been asking myself, “What if the Right wins absolutely, the machine of the Right? What does the State then look like? What do the Right and its leaders actually want?”
These are key questions, for example, when contemplating a book on The Fourth American Constitution.
The problem is that the Right isn’t really one Right — it’s several, and they don’t all agree about what they want. That division is reflected in the mishmash structure of Project 2025 — many authors and wish lists, multiple contradictions. As a result, the Right doesn’t have just one agenda, but several, some of which contradict what other’s hold dear.
Roughly speaking, the primary and disparate concerns of very Hard Right are these:
- God & control of sex — Your classic Religious Right. Power centers include New Apostolic Reformation leaders like Brian Simmons, Ché Ahn, Mike Bickle. Also Right Wing notables like Boebert and Charlie Kirk (yes, him). Some Catholic and evangelical leaders fall into this group. A lot of these people have an anti-female agenda.
- Cops & punishment of “the other” — Those who love prosecution and what they call justice. Stephen Miller’s a prime example, as are heads of the Constitutional Sheriffs. Leaders who sing “law and order” are part of this group. They have roots in the slave militias that roamed the South, roots in the anti-union Pinkerton gangs, and roots in anti-immigrant cops that kept wage-slave workers in line.
- White supremacy & race restoration — Desire for white supremacy lurks in many groups, but this agenda also has its own leaders. Kris Kobach and Richard Spencer are two, as are those who lead orgs like Proud Boys and Moms for Liberty (you read that right), and pubs like The Daily Stormer.
- No restrictions on money — The Ayn Rand brigade. Libertarian leaders, men like Charles Koch and George Bush; those who want capital flow to trump national rights; bankers and hedge fund kings; the already very rich who want more money still. While many of the hyper-rich have only one focus, some, like Howard Ahmanson, Jr., are aligned with other agendas as well. This group is large, as it contains most real wealth.
- “Endless war for eternal peace” — More than just neocons, anyone primarily interested in constant war and endless war-industry profits falls into this group. Leaders include the now-dead Dick Cheney and the still-living Marco Rubio. It’s large and highly bipartisan.
- Wannabe tech overlords — A newish group made of tech-rich people Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen. These people are self-styled heirs of the “I see the future” aura once owned by Steve Jobs. A libertarian offshoot, these wealth-addicted people have emerged as a unique force with striking and wildideas. They share much overlap with libertarians, some overlap with Endless Warriors, and almost none with the Race and Religious Right.
There are other power centers with other agendas, but these are the most consequential.
How Will These Groups Unite?
Short answer: They won’t, except through natural overlap. They won’t deliberately adopt each other’s agenda.
Long answer: Right-wing power centers will compete until one group consolidates enough power to achieve its full agenda. When that occurs, the other groups get what they get. For example, when Bush-Cheney held power, Money and Neocons did well, but White Restorationists lost.
The One Common Element: Lust for Unlimited Power
If there’s no one Right Wing agenda — what holds these groups together? The answer is simple. For each, the real goal is power. They each want control of everyone who isn’t themselves.
So when we ask — what does the Right really want? — the answer is dominance. Of what? They differ somewhat, but control is their true common bond. Koch doesn’t care about race if money trumps all. Stephen Miller may be religion-adjacent, but he’s punishment-first. And radical Christian leaders care less about wealth than they do about punishing sex.
Elisabeth Moss in The Handmaid’s Tale, a vision of society controlled by the Religious Right (Hulu/Youtube)
Our Wannabe Tech Overlords
Which group will win, will see its vision of the State be realized first? Which right-wing agenda is closest to full realization?
Right now, the Tech Overlords have a considerable lead. Like the rest, they want total control — so much that they’re not even lip service–fans of democracy. “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible,” says billionaire Peter Thiel. They desperately want an intrusive, unchallenged, domestic security state.
Palantir Founder: ‘They need to wake up scared and go to bed scared’
A Palantir Primer: Tools for the Muscular State
They share this with most of the other groups, which is why the spook state won’t die.
And for all their crazy ideas — they think they can live forever; their solution to the climate crisis is to move us to Mars; they espouse “transhumanism,” which despite its veneer, is code for “the smartest should rule” — they have an advantage others don’t, an aura of being “advanced,” of seeing the future. In many of our minds, they are true heirs of the magic that surrounded Steve Jobs.
The Cult of the Airman, V.2
This is not new, this aura — it’s merely another flavor of the “cult of the airman,” a mistaken belief that delighted the pre-War part of the long-dead 20th century.
Then as now, it was believed that the technically advanced — in their case, pilot adventurers like Charles Lindbergh — could literally see the future and thus should lead. Not true, of course; Lindbergh was a prominent right-winger whom FDR was “absolutely convinced” was a Nazi. But then as now, the illusion was strong.
Poised to Take Over
Yet for all their faults, the Tech Right is poised to take over. This is already long, and I’m certain that, as this evolves, I and others will return to expand that point. So for now, just consider the following: The keys to victory are in place today, and if JD Vance follows Trump, this trajectory won’t change.
(Click here to see the whole infographic; it’s interactive, well researched, and a valuable source.)
So what will happen if the Right wins absolutely? It depends on which Right.
The Right wins absolutely? Are you kidding???
I’d bet a solid amount of my meager income they don’t even keep their majorities in congress at the mid-terms.
Does Neuburger have even the slightest awareness of the level of dissatisfaction of the mainstream right with the current administration?? Never mind the dissatisfaction of the extreme right. Trump has pleased exactly NOBODY.
Wow.
I’m a Republican. I wanted the following promises kept:
1. Break up of the medical monopolies (as outlined by K. Deninger). He promised this in his first administration and didn’t get it done. Still hasn’t.
2. Exposure of the Epstein situation… and indictments for the true offenders.
3. Enforcement of existing laws against corporations / businesses for all sorts of illegal stuff, not just the hiring of illegal alien workers and H1B visa frauds… but those, too.
4. Stop the damn borrowing and get the budget under control.
I want EXISTING laws ENFORCED by the EXECUTIVE. That’s his damn job description. He’s done BUPKISS!!!!
We can debate and vote on what laws are for good of for ill, and that’s fine. In the meantime, I’d like to see the ones we’ve already agreed on and ratified ENFORCED.
Sheesh!
No offense, but I think Neuberger addressed this in the opening note, e.g.,
“I’d bet a solid amount of my meager income they don’t even keep their majorities in congress at the mid-terms.”
If the Republican party loses elections, the Democrat party, which is merely another promoter of right-wing ideologies, takes over.
The Republicans represent the conservatives, the Democrats the liberals. Historically, both conservatives and liberals, representing different social and economic sectors (agriculture vs. industry, trade vs. professional services, protectionism vs. free-trade, land vs. city, catholics vs. protestants, etc) were ferocious enemies of anything left-wing — whether socialists, communists, or anarchists — and this applies to countries in America and Europe. This hostility endures to this day.
What will happen though, is that some of the six flavours of the Right find more support for their policies and ideology in one party than in the other, and this will inflect the evolution of their ascent to power — linking to the very last sentence of the post.
And I agree with your demands.
I’d say the D party are the conservatives, and the R party reactionaries. Both are liberals, of a sort, with some pre and post-liberal influence creeping in at the margins of both, through religion on the one hand and tech on the other.
In line with your question what version of the right is current day Israel–the right that pretends to be left? Or have they given up even pretending?
Personally I think that superficial ideology has little to do with any of this and that most people, given a billion dollars, would act the way billionaires act. Many if Israelis might act the way they act too.
It all comes down to human psychology in the end and those nature and nurture factors that shape who we are. So instead of wondering how we are different the more important question is how are we alike.
Yes Vicky Cookies, you are right. Both R’s and D’s are small ‘l’ liberals as was in the beginning and has always been since the American founding forefathers. I’ve posted about this before. The prognosis for the US of A as a result is not good.
Yes. This is often a problem with Neuburger’s observations, especially those dealing with the “radical right”. It’s not that they are wrong, but they are too one-sided. I know he also criticizes mainstream Democrats and would probably object to this label. But Democrat, even “liberal” Democrat, support is a crucial element in the last three of his “Hard Right” categories. As you say, Dems and Republicans, “liberals” and “conservatives,” etc. use somewhat different rhetorical appeals to mobilize different constituencies. But that is surface phenomena…
I just posted a comment in today’s Links on the Un-Diplomatic essay ‘How I almost Became a Palantir Democrat’ that does a nice job describing an important element of what Neuburger leaves out here. I’d recommend it.
Usonian …Not knowing you from a bar of soap as we say in Oz …
How can I gently say it … Republicans have always been pro corporate and the first to embrace neoliberalism, Dems converted under Clinton e.g. Washington consensus or Third Way. In fact under that administration more was done to advance the neoliberal project of markets before society than predecessors and now even more so under the Trump administration. In reality it will matter not if Dems win mid terms because both parties are submissive to their investors[tm]. You get the same economics with both but with different social value identifiers.
BTW the federal government does not borrow, its not funded by the rich, marginal taxation makes that a joke, consumer pays just like with the tariffs Trump gaslighted everyone with. With both parties you will only end with the poor will always be a buzz kill for the wealth and full employment is end times stuff unless a war to steal others GDP or safeguard absentee investors income is on the hook – see history.
Yep. I agree. However, I think we’re at the logical conclusion and end of Reaganomics, or Thatcheromics, aka neoliberal economics. The country can’t stand any more of that economic destruction. What is about to happen with the failure to pass a sane extension of the subsidies for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) may set off an economic implosion.
From the Due Dissidence guys. Utube, ~19+ minutes.
Johnson Moves To NIX VOTE on ACA Subsidies Despite GOP Pushback
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kbw4rnXww0
Drama is at its core that privatization drives cost up by 15% minimum due to admin remuneration and profit expectations via shareholder value marry go round dynamics. Some call this efficiency.
I would only add that market ideology has no ethnic barriers or notion of historical constructs … its just a balance sheet flora …
Carter was the first president to embrace and espouse neoliberalism. His deregulation program affected huge sectors of the economy and began the looting. His administration was the inflection point of downward economic and job security for the 90%. What little retrenchment that happened after Vietnam was undone and DoD increases began. And don’t forget the Carter Doctrine, birthing jihadis and Afghanistan and the wars in Central America. Carter was the wellspring of so many bad things. I struggle to find any positives from his era.
Only disagreement I have with your comment is its affiliated with a political person and not all the elite machinations behind it all e.g. Powell memo level stuff. Once neoliberalism became the dominate economic force[tm] it does not matter who you vote for …
Carter also put a smiley face on the “born again” evangelical version of Christianity and made it respectable. At the beginning of the 1970s this was still mostly a fringe movement outside the South, but by the time Carter left office it had become the dominant strain of Christian practice in the US, and the formerly somewhat socially liberal “mainstream” Protestant churches had gone into a long and steady decline. Not saying Carter was a bad person, as compared to the Presidents just before and after him, but he was the hinge that the overall rightward shift in American political and social life turned on. If only Frank Church had been able to mount a credible campaign in 1976!
Thank you all for the thoughtful replies; sincerely!
Don’t really disagree with anything any of you have said… I was just stunned to see that he thought Trump had adequately serviced the desires of nearly any of the groups he’d listed, maybe with the exception of the tech bros who I agree are probably wing-neutral!
I’m nominally Republican, but today’s R leadership is pretty damn far from what I’d consider ‘responsible’ in any way shape or form. That said, I’m terrified by some of the almost Stalinist rhetoric I see on the Democrat side. Can I at least keep my private property rights and not be subject to forced medical interventions? That’d be nice.
Thanks again for your perspectives! I wish you all well in the spirit of the season… and beyond!
I find Neuburger to be a little heavy on the strawmanning when it comes to analysis of what the right wants. I think this should be read as ‘what the left thinks the right wants’. He is a little more nuanced here than usual admittedly and does seek to capture some of the different factions.
I admit my reaction was similar to skippy’s (you really thought Trump was going to do any of this?) But Democrats aren’t exactly much better on that front. I think Trump is particularly bad on point 3 though – I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a President with such contempt for the legal system and constitutional processes, and that’s a high bar.
Agreed. I also think it is derisible to put the religious and racist strands on anything like equal footing with the billionaires. Doug Wilson and Andrew Anglin are not the equals of Musk and Thiel and Karp and Bezos and so on. Richard Spencer is a gnat who flamed out years ago. Bill Ackman gets laws changed and prominent people fired.
Epstein stuff dribbling out now with more expected tomorrow. Hoping media will parse through honestly it so people don’t have to be polluted any more than they already have been.
It’s not going to be the “right” that wins, but some strange coalition of factions that today make up the “left” and the “right.” We saw the glimpses of it already, with the Cheneys emerging as heroes to many of the “Dem leaders.” Without the racist baggage (which I don’t believe is all that central–many people are casually racist, but it doesn’t drive their actions generally unless they are actively being disadvantaged), a lot of stuff that appeal to the MAGA right also appeal to putatitvely “left” voters as well. Potential coalitions thst might end up forming are unclear: a lot will depend on the quality of leadership. I suppose this is where, at least for now, the “right” may have an advantage: populist right seems to have something like genuine leaders while the populist left does not. (Not going to comment on the ghoulish factions of both left and right)
Whatabout “Right-AI”? Does AI have political aims? If we pay attention to some of the AI talk, soon, AI in charge of policymaking, will solve all problems: HC, Climate Change, wars (in favour of the US of course)…
On the basis that 80% of congress is uniparty, it matters little who wins elections. There might be a small change of emphasis,more ‘noise’ about small adjustments but the main elements remain unaltered. Protection of ’empire’ , never ending ‘war is peace’, US-model AI to rule the world etc. I very much doubt that the current admin was ultimately responsible for the ‘new’ spheres of influence policy nor will it be changed with a revised balance of power in congress ( or President).
Maybe it’s simpler. Philip Agre (2004) says conservativism boils down to control of society by an aristocracy. Well known article of his:
https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/agre/conservatism.html
I don’t know about the short term, but in the US less than half of the voting age population votes. That’s a lot of people that could really ruin anyone’s plans if they were actively courted correctly.
Both the right and the liberal D’s have actively been discouraging nonbelievers from voting, but that could some day work against either or both groups.
No offense, but I think that is wishful thinking.
The vast majority of USians are simply not going to vote for parties they perceive as “non-viable”.
To quote Ian Welsh:
“The reason third parties aren’t “viable” is that people won’t vote for them because they aren’t viable. You see the issue.”
https://www.ianwelsh.net/america-is-ruled-by-reddit-trolls/#comment-164936
The mention of “young nihilists” leads me to consider Taibbi’s latest column. A supposed nihilism doesn’t come out of nowhere, imo.
“Are White Men a “Lost Generation”? Interview With Author Jacob Savage
The disenfranchisement of young men has already come at a heavy cost, and the biggest consequences likely lay ahead”
public excerpt:
https://www.racket.news/p/are-white-men-a-lost-generation-interview
Full Savage article in Compact Magazine:
https://www.compactmag.com/article/the-lost-generation/
Someone already posted in links the other day and asked where you were fora.
I would posse the question, too you, the idea of ethnic [????] ownership of the U.S. is a dead horse. It was occupied and owned [ no western notion of property laws ]. The drama here is the prevalent notion of race [misnomer] as someone like you should be well knowledgeable about e.g. DNA does not lie. In that the notion that was spread post WWII is White boys got the job done.
Lmmao at the Compactmag link … ffs the dynamic he is banging on about is all driven by white men in power that have no/zero compassion for poor or not class affiliated with them. They only see numbers in a account or how they dictate social organization to their benefit as individuals and as a group. White People Lmmao ~~~~
Your last para brings up an interesting point, imo. For decades it was “understood” by management in un-unionized workplaces that women and minorities could be hired for less pay than white men for doing the same work. / ;)
I often wonder if DEI is less about opening opportunities to all and more about hiring people who are willing to work for lower wages than white men. DEI: less about equality and more about increased profits for corporations by lowering labor costs. / ;)
There was a popular Peggy Seeger ballad in the 70’s – Gonna Be and Engineer – about a young woman studying to become an engineer and the obstacles she faced. Here’s one verse:
‘The boss, he says, “We pay you as a lady
You only got the job ’cause I can’t afford a man
With you, I keep the profits high as may be
You’re just a cheaper pair of hands.” ‘
I think at the end of the day, regardless of dynamics, we are only talking about how much income one needs, too not only survive but, too address family formation which in turn lends to a functional state/society.
I think you are right.
Whom knew “Survival of the Fittest” had no ethnic clause … its all self imposed ethnic suggestion/s. Numeric symbology only matters in the market place thingy ….
Savage is completely wrong, but it’s Compact Mag so that’s no surprise. The division via which millennials have done worse than prior generations is, as always, based on class, not some “reverse racism” nonsense. Census figures bear this out in hard data. There is no statistically significant decline in outcomes for white men in my generation, what there ACTUALLY is is a decline of our generation’s entire working class as neoliberal elites hoover up more and more of society’s wealth and leave all of us worse off.
https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2025/12/17/what-does-the-census-data-say-about-the-lost-generation/
Amends flora … pray tell how did the white people fare in the great depression due to neoclassical and others notions of laissez-faire economics. So called white people did not care about poor white people and others had it worse. How do I square that, and now its an identity crisis for the entire nation and if not corrected it falls apart due too it. See Trump.
I read that last night–the Compact article–and it’s definitely worth a read and perhaps some discussion here. The complaint is that the meritocracy is not working for the young white men portion of the aspiring middle class and it doesn’t ignore the point that in the past this was always true for minorities and women.
So the question is whether turning the tables on the former overlords is making society itself better. Also it says that the older and therefore entrenched portion of those white overlords are still dominating the upper reaches and are the ones who are doing the flipping since it doesn’t threaten them.
” The first shall be last and the last shall be first” leaves us with the same old game of first and last.
” Turning the tables” still leaves us with the same old turning tables.
I believe that the key exacerbater of conflict, war and environmental destruction is wealth concentration into fewer and fewer hands. This I contend is, if not the intention, then the inexorable outcome of rabid or neoliberal capitalism; not a bug but in fact a feature. Of course, the outcome of this process is a neo-feudal society of few “nobles” and many “serfs” (chattel). I’ve been watching this unfold for decades and I don’t see it stopping. It only accelerates. More wealth creates the desire for even more wealth while increasing the means. Like a barrel rolling down a hill, wealth concentration will not stop on its own but must be stopped, or will continue to its inevitable conclusion.
I concur with this.
Most of my students (18-25 years old) have something like post-liberal political intuitions, with many of them veering toward the hard faux-populist right. They have these intuitions not because they are racist, fascist, transphobic, etc., but largely because they are looking into a future of high indebtedness, meager job prospects, and little to no chance of home ownership. Marriage and family are not even considerations for most.
I had a long discussion with a colleague the other day–a scholar of Catholic Social Teaching from Leo XIII onwards–and he was expressing exasperation that so many of his younger students veer away from liberalism. This is in part inspired by the influence of MacIntyre (who is, of course, firmly on the left) but mostly, I think, because of their similar perception that the existing “liberal democratic order” carries no material benefits for them. It is a hard thing for older scholars to understand, because many of them are simply unaware of how dire the economic prospects look for anybody under 35 (more or less) in the United States.
Because there is no real Left as a political or cultural force in the United States, students’ dissatisfactions with the status quo almost always make them seek out various forms of right populism as an alternative.
I suppose my point is that the rhetoric of economic populism always wins–whether with Bernie and Trump in 2016 or Mamdani in NY in 2025. And with few exceptions, figures on the far right like Fuentes and (though I wouldn’t put him in the same boat exactly) Carlson tend to speak the language of economic populism more consistently and stridently than most figures on the left. The self-destruction of Bernie post 2016 and the (to my mind) apparent doubling-down on cultural issues in left spaces during Trump 1.0 has a lot to do with this.
Of course, figures on the right with no interest in actual economic populism–Palantir bros, Trump, most “professional” MAGA figures–take advantage of all this quite easily. I think the trend will continue until and unless there develops a real push toward economic redistribution in “left” politics. But, in every case since the late 1970s, arguably, every time that has started to develop the Democratic Party has successfully domesticated and transformed it into symbolic virtue signaling. So I don’t see a lot of hope on the immediate horizon.
Money = power.
In a two party system, if one party offers voters nothing and the other offers nothing + scapegoats, the latter is going to have a popular advantage.
IMO that’s the US in a nutshell. The über-rich have all of the power and control both parties. The Dems’ platform is “everything is fine” and the GOP’s platform is the dystopian mishmash described above + scapegoats. The situation will continue until the power is redistributed.
My grandson is in the age group your reference. I wonder how he can prepare for his future with AI possibly eliminating many jobs. Even academic advisors must be in the dark about it. I hope he finishes his college education, but it might seem like a waste of time, money, and effort for many his age.
The unifying ideology that they all seem to have is a sense of victimization.
They are always always always the victims.
A lot like the state of Israel.
The right is ascendant in many countries but truth be told, it is like the actions of a pendulum that swings from left to right and back again. But if there is a surge to the right going on, a lot of the blame has to be laid at the door of the so-called left who in many countries abandoned those issues that affected ordinary people but instead chose to focus their energy on marginal interests which at heart they probably did not even believe in. People did not leave left-leaning parties. Those parties left their supporters/voters and started to chase after monied interests who paid them off to sideline anything that would benefit ordinary people. Of course in countries like the US, the right has taken power but has proven themselves to be like those left-leaning parties and are chasing ideological aims & monied interests instead of improving the lives of ordinary people and so are hemorrhaging both supporters and voters. And back comes the pendulum again.
“People did not leave left-leaning parties. Those parties left their supporters/voters…”
Pasokification.
A podcast I listened to made an astute observation that wherever you look at these rightward lurches across the globe, you can be sure there’s some combination of crypto, surveillance tech industries, and evangelicalism at play. Something about these factors working in tandem seems to be the secret sauce for “late fascism.”
Thanks for this comment, AJ. Occam’s Razor tells me that you (and that podcaster) are correct..
Hidden hands, indeed. ;)
Imagine the pendulum is made of iron. If the right has a magnet, the iron pendulum will stick to the right until something forces it loose. If the left has no magnet to attract and/or hold the iron pendulum, the iron pendulum will start moving back right as soon as its single-swing momentum to the left is played out.
The Left of today has no magnet to attract the iron pendulum with . . . no magnet to hold it.
I think it’s less a pendulum than repeated efforts to throw the bums out, alternating between Ds and Rs. I’d argue that this pattern began in 2006, when the voters threw out the R bums only to have the Ds hide behind “look forward, not back.” It continued in 2010 and in 2014, 2016, 2020 and 2024. I don’t believe voters’ ideology has shifted back and forth that often. It’s just that whenever they throw the bums out in our two/uni party system, they get more bums that they then try to throw out as soon as possible.
The time is so ripe for a new people’s party, but the Ds and Rs have cooperated for decades in eliminating the possibility of a new party replacing them, plus the donors have no interest in changing the status quo.
The Right won the minute The US Constitution was signed. Everything else has been deciding how far to the Right the US was going to go. Jefferson changed Locke’s “Life, liberty, and property” to “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence to delude a himself with flowery language. Property ruled from day 1.
“La crisi consiste appunto nel fatto che il vecchio muore e il nuovo non può nascere: in questo interregno si verificano i fenomeni morbosi più svariati”
. . . rather than the pithy translation of “this is the time of monsters,” my translation is:
The crisis of collapse worsens in these times as the new world struggles to be born – rot, decadence, and death appear everywhere.
Today we can see the old world showing the zombie pestilence and putrefaction destroying the body of civilization from the inside – the fish rots from the head – while opportunists fight over the decaying corpse of the old.
It’s also important to note that in Italian, “crisi” is much worse than “crisis” in English. It’s used as if from the viewpoint, that the world is collapsing in. On you. On your company/livelihood. On your society. On your world.
Gramsci’s lesson is, I argue, that it’s not important whether the rot is labeled as left or right; in either case, it’s not going to catch mice, and the feed grain will be eaten before winter. Historically, this is when vox populi turns to strongmen, because you need a tougher bastard to protect your group from the other tough bastards.
So what is the new world? We can see the outlines. AI and robotization will amplify human performance, and the question is whether the surplus population will be productively or destructively occupied. The fork in history towards Star Trek (utopianism) or Blade Runner (cyberpunk). Meanwhile, the tech leaders and their sycophants are trying to create Elysium (sky utopianism in the sky supported by dystopian hell on earth).
There are clear outlines of the fork and its prime actors: China is on the utopian path, whereas Neuberger chronicles the West’s descent down the cyberpunk path. Russia jumped paths (was kicked, more accurately); its experience with the 90’s era of rot was formative, and the global South is desperately trying to connect with anything but the cyberpunk vision…
Being a Romantic, I’d argue there’s another option: ecosocialism. Star Trek is well beyond our reach. Technology will not make the hard choices moot. Similarly, an Elysium escape is well beyond our capabilities, and there’s not much time left to change that. Cyberpunk is a temporary stop on the way to complete collapse. Humanity has tried going to war against the Earth for 5,000+ years. Now it’s time to begin the journey back home, perhaps taking with us the most helpful and least destructive elements of what we’ve learned in our effort to become gods.
I do not think an eco-topian future can arise on the current Earth population, which is much greater than the carrying capacity. And moreover, life at the whim of the elements (gods) often is quite brutal, lessened through technology – but can the level of technology be maintained at say 10% the current human population?
Note that at around 800,000 years ago humanity almost went extinct.
That’s what “the Jackpot” is for …
I think it depends also on outside forces as well nowadays. The time where US was the first mover is gone and we have seen that actions by Chinese, or Russians do impact quite signifficantly the US. And some commenters alluded to this fact.
“So for now, just consider the following: The keys to victory are in place today, and if JD Vance follows Trump, this trajectory won’t change.” What I want to know is, if anybody else follows Trump, will trajectory of The Authoritarian Tech Network change? Anybody think a “democrat” or a “progressive” is going to change it? I have grave doubts.
So where does Gramsci’s new world reside while we await its crowning and delivery? The metaphor doesn’t really give us a clue. The great Spanish anarchist, Durruti, proposed that it currently lies within us, as yet not fully revealed.
In Gramsci’s time, the era of direct colonialism was coming to an end, warfare was shifting due to mechanization and its ability to slaughter by the millions, which changed for the bipolar world of imperialism and capitalist exploitation in the Global South was emerging. Western imperialism and the suppression of the Indian and Chinese economies, which historically, other than the last 500 years, were 75% of the global economy.
I would humbly suggest the characters of the new world will emerge from those mighty millennium-old civilizations. As to what its character will be – hard to say. In the meantime, vicious opportunists arise to self-enrich, empower and aggrandize at the expense and life of so many. Self-opportunists who could not seize control in a more power-balanced time.
“If there’s no one Right-Wing agenda, what holds those groups together? The answer is simple. For each, the real goal is power. They each want control of everyone who isn’t themselves.”
And, of course, the exact same logic and emotion governs liberals, progressives, and the Left.
From my perspective, a fascinating question then arises from this situation. What are the foundations of collective action, no matter where one is on the so-called political spectrum?
In attempting to answer this question for myself, I have been forced to more carefully reflect on the key assumptions of my own world-view–something I have found extremely uncomfortable because I now believe I was wrong or naive about what I initially considered key causative factors for explaining my interpretation of political, economic, and cultural reality.
For example, does my old economic/materialist perspective on the world completely explain the rise of contemporary nihilism in the West, especially among the younger generations? I currently believe that it doesn’t.
Consequently, I’m presently focusing on what I consider deeper causative variables like the process of secularization in the West and different types of family systems so instrumental in the creation of individual personal mentalities.
Where all this leads is anyone’s guess; but, I agree with the comments of hk above that we are likely to see quite strange and unusual coalitions in the future.
I take that possibility as a good sign.
Could someone please define “right”, “left”, far-right, and far-left? How do these categories map onto “fascists”, “liberals”, “socialists” and “communists”? Examples of movements tagged as such from the last 50 years or so ?
AFAIK Joe Hill and Co. were “leftists”. Are there similar folks around today?
The first substrate level is Pandit et al: those categories don’t exist in hunter-gatherer societies without class relations. At least half the population is exploited in a class system. The transition from ‘community’ to ‘society’ brackets ‘political economy’ by how that relation is handled. Left/Right comes from the French National Assembly; those who opposed the royal veto sat to the left of the presiding member, while those who supported monarchy and the Church sat to the right. Around here, ‘left’ is considered aligned with the working class.
The next level can be seen with the World Values Survey. In that frame, hunter-gatherers would be in the Traditional/Survival quadrant. Ethnocentric and family/clan orientation can scale up, as Nazism attests.
Right = Royal, elite, authoritarian, insider, top, Traditional/Survival
Left = Commons, masses/majority, equality, outsiders, bottom class, Secular-rational/Self-Expression.
The far-variants have one strong correlation in violence. The far-left applied the guillotine while the far-right was burning witches. Modern variants are for social death: unpersoning, debanking, doxxing, shunning, censoring…
The other terms refer to who controls property/means of production. Liberal (via Locke) is for individual rights, vs divine/royal ownership of all. Fascism substitutes ‘the State’ for ‘king’, but Boss Hog still rules. Socialism & communism are Marxist terms distinguished from capitalism, and again are property relations, but have so many overlays of meaning they need local definition. Rather like how Liberal changed from the freedom of people to the freedom of capital.
I think it will make absolutely no difference what faction from which side of the increasingly irrelevant aisle wins if it is essentially kosher in essence, if not form. Things will continue more or less as they have for the past thirty years, the only change will be the rate and angle of descent.
I differ from most as I do not see Protestant “fundamentalism” as a serious threat. Putting aside the fact that it’s cafeteria approach to scripture is not actually a form of fundamentalism, this religious strain is revealing itself to be something like a Zionist pyramid scheme with a pedigree going all the way back to the Scofield Bible. I realize this will rub wrong those who still take the Handmaid’s Tale seriously, but there it is.
This leaves so-called ethno-nationalism as the only force in the West that can challenge liberalism in its broad, classical sense. Nick Fuentes dislikes blacks and is performatively misogynistic but is not an ethno-nationalist. Richard Spencer voted for Kamala Harris last year. David Duke is 75 years old.
Despite the left’s pathological longing for another Hitler, there simply isn’t one at the moment.