I'm past the midterms, we know what's going to happen. I'm almost past the 2024 election, because Trump will either win, lose and unsuccessfully try another coup, or lose and successfully try another coup. I'm worried about 2028. The reason has to do with the VF piece you link to above.
Let me tell you what it was like to be a teenager in…
I'm past the midterms, we know what's going to happen. I'm almost past the 2024 election, because Trump will either win, lose and unsuccessfully try another coup, or lose and successfully try another coup. I'm worried about 2028. The reason has to do with the VF piece you link to above.
Let me tell you what it was like to be a teenager in the early 70s. Earnest gabfests about Marx and Marcuse. High school newspaper polemics about saving the world. But mostly, demonstrations against the war. Which were only partly about the war, and mostly about the cool music, potent weed and easygoing women. Oh, and about driving our parents crazy. Not one of us would even think about blowing up a building, let alone shooting a cop, but we cheered them all on. We were cool, we were transgressive, we were the future. In fact, we were everything except serious.
I saw something of that in the young bros and babes profiled in the VF article. And perhaps they are no more dangerous than my friends and I were 50 years ago (wow, that was painful to write). But however performative their proto-fascism, there are some frightening differences. First, they have serious leaders, intellectual and political, who are much more closely engaged with developing them than Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin were with us. Second, they are focused. Getting high and getting laid weren't just on our agenda, they *were* our agenda. This crew really wants to change the world. They have organizations, they have conferences, they have a ground game. And finally, they have tools for communicating and fundraising that we couldn't have dreamed of. And they use them well.
If that crowd is scary now, why focus on 2028? Because over the next six years, two things will happen. Some of the Bushwick-dwellers who get off on weaponizing Catholicism and holding conferences in Hungary will move on to the next shiny thing. But the others will have had six more years of experience, six more years of fundraising, and six more years of persuading voters that illiberalism is a politically sound and morally appropriate organizing principle for American life. In short, six more years to get better at fighting liberalism.
Orban has proven (the Poles as well) that illiberalism doesn't require violence.when a population is willing to see public institutions misused. The young New Rightists seem to understand that they are never more than one election away from putting their plan into motion. Maybe they can start in 2024, but six years from now they'll definitely be ready. And they could win.
I tend to agree with you. It takes time to build the consensus that they’re looking for. They’ve been at it for several years. When trump came along, he was the perfect candidate for the Christian Right to use him as their tool. Now their ideas have started to go mainstream, they have the media with them (fox), SCOTUS is on their side. The game is ready. Give them a few more years to perfect their game, to hire more insiders, to set the rules. By 2026-2028, their playbook will be ready and the game will begin.
I know Polish immigrants in the US. They love, love Trump. They are very conservative, but in the same way people were in the '50s. They want their daughters to marry a rich guy. The drink they have fun. Nice people, but the leader should be a strongman and put down anyone who is not white and Christian. To them, too its all about money, which coming from Poland I can't blame them. Rich people are good. Poor people bad.
I'm past the midterms, we know what's going to happen. I'm almost past the 2024 election, because Trump will either win, lose and unsuccessfully try another coup, or lose and successfully try another coup. I'm worried about 2028. The reason has to do with the VF piece you link to above.
Let me tell you what it was like to be a teenager in the early 70s. Earnest gabfests about Marx and Marcuse. High school newspaper polemics about saving the world. But mostly, demonstrations against the war. Which were only partly about the war, and mostly about the cool music, potent weed and easygoing women. Oh, and about driving our parents crazy. Not one of us would even think about blowing up a building, let alone shooting a cop, but we cheered them all on. We were cool, we were transgressive, we were the future. In fact, we were everything except serious.
I saw something of that in the young bros and babes profiled in the VF article. And perhaps they are no more dangerous than my friends and I were 50 years ago (wow, that was painful to write). But however performative their proto-fascism, there are some frightening differences. First, they have serious leaders, intellectual and political, who are much more closely engaged with developing them than Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin were with us. Second, they are focused. Getting high and getting laid weren't just on our agenda, they *were* our agenda. This crew really wants to change the world. They have organizations, they have conferences, they have a ground game. And finally, they have tools for communicating and fundraising that we couldn't have dreamed of. And they use them well.
If that crowd is scary now, why focus on 2028? Because over the next six years, two things will happen. Some of the Bushwick-dwellers who get off on weaponizing Catholicism and holding conferences in Hungary will move on to the next shiny thing. But the others will have had six more years of experience, six more years of fundraising, and six more years of persuading voters that illiberalism is a politically sound and morally appropriate organizing principle for American life. In short, six more years to get better at fighting liberalism.
Orban has proven (the Poles as well) that illiberalism doesn't require violence.when a population is willing to see public institutions misused. The young New Rightists seem to understand that they are never more than one election away from putting their plan into motion. Maybe they can start in 2024, but six years from now they'll definitely be ready. And they could win.
I tend to agree with you. It takes time to build the consensus that they’re looking for. They’ve been at it for several years. When trump came along, he was the perfect candidate for the Christian Right to use him as their tool. Now their ideas have started to go mainstream, they have the media with them (fox), SCOTUS is on their side. The game is ready. Give them a few more years to perfect their game, to hire more insiders, to set the rules. By 2026-2028, their playbook will be ready and the game will begin.
I know Polish immigrants in the US. They love, love Trump. They are very conservative, but in the same way people were in the '50s. They want their daughters to marry a rich guy. The drink they have fun. Nice people, but the leader should be a strongman and put down anyone who is not white and Christian. To them, too its all about money, which coming from Poland I can't blame them. Rich people are good. Poor people bad.