Originally published at: JD Vance Received A Dire Warning About The Groyper Takeover Of The GOP From A Strange Source - TPM – Talking Points Memo
The call warning of a dangerous tide of extremism in Donald Trump’s Washington is coming from inside the house — the vice president’s house. And this alarm bell that things are going way too far didn’t come from some liberal or Never Trump conservative. It came from a member of the entourage of Hungary’s right-wing…
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Could somebody explain the attraction of neonazism to affluent young American conservatives. . Why are they so insecure? Don’t they realize they are already at the top of the heap?
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Here’s one thought, triggered by a conversation with my conservative brother, who worked for quite a while at Jack Welch’s GE.
A core believe of these folks is that for every interaction, there has to be a winner and a loser. Mutually beneficial interactions don’t exist, so if they see somebody rising up from their previous station, they must feel threatened that they will be going down.
In such a world, their resistance to “The Other” might make sense, if in fact we lived in such a world. Fortunately, we do not but you’re not going to persuade the average MAGA of that, it’s a core part of their belief system.
QED…
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So, a crazy guy is warning an opportunistic douchebag that there are even crazier guys to worry about? Do I have that right?
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A Ponzi Scheme? Those on the inside still know it is rotten at the core and that they must continuously whip up the frenzy or the rubes might get ugly against them.
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It doesn’t help that when there is more equality of opportunity it really shines a spotlight on the mediocrity of the average white conservative male. Increasing the pool of talent is great for society, but when these guys see someone they deem as their inferior promoted over them they cannot conceive that promotion is based on merit because their unearned confidence simply won’t allow it.
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Worth noting that yesterday, Fuentes tweeted, “MAGA is dead.”
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For the past several years, the movement of largely Generation Z extremists has been at the heart of a schism between the explicitly anti-Semitic alt-right and more mainstream anti-Semitic MAGA Republicans.”
It needed a minor tweak.
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“A core belief of these folks is that for every interaction, there has to be a winner and a loser.”
Agreed. They can’t work towards win-win, let alone multiparty winning…the most stupid produce lose-lose and think they’re winning. Here’s the classic treatise on stupidity:
The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity By Carlo M. Cipolla
“Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places and under any circumstances to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.”
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All of the important wins I have had in my life have been the result of lining things up so both sides could claim a win. In my experience fighting to the death never solved any problem. Of course you have to make sure you define win to include supporting your principles.
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It’s a sign of weakness that Vance refuses to cut the worst of the worst loose. He knows he needs this class of energized counter-elites to become heir to the throne but there may be others vying for their fickle attentions. Competing for the groyper crowd will be an interesting race to the bottom.
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Whenever I see a picture of Vance I can’t help but see his Tattoo-esque characterization on South Park.
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They killed Charlie!!
Nick Fuentes and Groyperism
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“The Jesuits believe that if they can get you to agree to their premise, they can win every argument” - Highschool World Religions Teacher (a Christian Bros [ne catholic]), circa 1975
“All Ideology is Evil” - Pope Francis I (to Norah O’Donnell) circa 2024
“The Problem with Ideology is that it tries to answer a question before its been asked” - Bill Clinton to Jon Stewart on the Daily Show
“How one thought shall live, provide the others die, for I have riches more than these.” - The Moody Blues 1971
The problem with ideologies, no matter the ideology, is that they do try to provide an answer before it has been asked. Eventually reality serves up a context that renders that answer absurd &/or nihilistic, leading to the “We had to destroy the village in order to save the village” scenario.
“Common Law was made by Judges, answering questions, on a case by case, almost molecular level, with the judges free to choose from the market place of ideas on a pragmatic basis, and so they did, turning Anglo-Saxon civics into a giant patchwork quilt of ideologies, each employed where and when it made the most sense and ignored when it did no: a system of values-laden-inductive-pragmatism. -Oliver Wendell Holmes (paraphrased and summed up with great and fanciful liberty).
Ours system is based upon Anglo-Saxon civics; which means, its based upon the Common Law. That system does not and is not meant to be based upon ideology, but instead a form of values-laden, inductive pragmatism. This is the genius of Anglo-Saxon society and a big part of the reason Anglo-Saxonism went from a country of less than 4 million at the time of Shakespeare to an international community well over 400 million in first language speakers, and 1/3rd of the world using the Common Law as its legal system.
Ideologicalization of politics was a result of Napoleonic code, also called more generically as Civil Code system. In that system, Judges are not allowed to make law. All law must be created in legislatures. This means, if any ideology gains a majority in a legislature, it has hegemony over all other ideas and ideologies. The result of Napoleonic Code was that it turned politics into desperate ideological struggles.
The problem with this was made evident in the Great International crisis that dominated the first half of the 20th century. One by one, Civil Code nations fell to rogue ideological rule: Russia/Communism, Italy/Fascism, Germany/Naziism, Japan/Militarism, Spain/Falangism. Meanwhile the Anglo-Saxon nations muddled thru the crisis until they characteristically stumbled upon the solution: The Mixed Economic system (in the U.S. the New Deal).
WWII then, can be seen as a conflict between rightist rogue ideologies versus the Anglo-Saxon countries plus the sole leftist idelogocal ruled nation (Russia). When the latter 2 won the war, they then were paired against each other in the Cold War. Anglo-Saxonism won that struggle too.
But just as it did, the American system succumbed to Rogue ideological rule. How come? Why? The answer is the rich. They bought the media, they framed the arguments ideologically. So now you are either on the right or the left. To them, if you believe leftist economics, you also believe in leftist cultural issues like transsexuals, homosexuals, and pro-immigration and so on. I can’t be for unions and universal healthcare without being pro-immigration and pro-transsexual.
This framing serves the rich but not the economy, society or the nation as a whole: it is a destruction of the nation. The rich don’t care if the nation or the middle class collapses.
We have to return to our original system of civics. This system helped us settle a continent in less than 100 years, win two world wars, including one two front war, invent the atomic bomb, and eventually land a man on the moon - all things that had never been done before. That system couldn’t have a higher pedigree than that.
Why have we abandoned it so recklessly and with both hands? Look where it has taken our society in the last 55 years? We simply need to go back to what we used to do and to be. And that means taking money interests out of civics.
With each new band of ideology we hit a new low, while billionaires, themselves, hit a new high in their networth. We simply have got to drop that system that allows them to leverage all of society’s resources onto themselves. Groypers today, what will it be tomorrow?
Why wait for that tomorrow? Lets reverse Citizens United. Let’s make funded lobbying illegal (“defund lobbying”), Lets pass laws against Journalistic Slander, Lets place spending caps on political campaigns, lets provide public funding of political campaigns that equal the spending caps. Lets consider adding 2 more branches of government like they have in Taiwan: one branch whose job is to police the other branches for corruption and another branch to ensure promotion in society is done on a merit not influence.
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The reason nothing can break the link between Trump and his supporters is that Trump supporter’s entire identities are explicitly linked to his success and infallibility. His wins are theirs. His fails can’t exist because they too would feel like failures.
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Dreher simply admits to preferring Orban-style Fascisim + Crony Govt over the youthful/ignorant/aggressive, bully-boy, burn-the-place-down fascism of Fuentes & Incel Groypers.
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“After these last three days in Washington, I am more convinced than I have ever been that we are moving towards some kind of totalitarianism — or at best, authoritarianism,” said Dreher.
Omg what a stunning insight.
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FWIW: Dreher is and has always been an absolute dirtbag. Doesn’t mean his reportage is lies, but it does mean he likely has mendacious motives.
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Ronbyers, your post fails to address why Trump supporters cheer Trump’s gratuitous cruelty, or as has been said many times, to Trump and his supporters “meanness is the point”.
That is while I think most of what you say is true for those of us who are not Trump supporters, for Trump supporters it is more about the other guy losing then anyone, including themselves, winning.
It is why Trump supporters often cheer policies that harm them, they are more concerned with the other guy losing then they are with themselves winning.
This is not a new phenomenon. I will never forget my experience living in Louisiana in 1984. All the White people, men and women, understood Ronald Reagan’s policies were screwing them. But they loved Reagan because “he is screwing Black people worse”. That is not a direct quote because they never said “Black people”. Even more then the word they used for Black people it was how they said it, hard on the N and G. Real unreasoned hatred.
Even though they were losing, they were happy to lose so long as the other guy also lost.
So in the view of Republican voters, as has been said many times Trump did not create his base but his base created Donald Trump, their only real principle is the other guy losing and they celebrate that even if it means they also lose.
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Watching it now. What’s with the weird accent?