Recommended Reading: Authoritarian Cult
This Week's Recommended Reading on Substack: Jared Yates Sexton, Joyce Vance, Dean Obeidallah, Erin Reed, Derek Beres, Joshua Hill and Parker Molloy
This Week's Recommended Reading on Substack:
writes that “if Trump were to face this trial alone, without party support, there would be an inherent message for anyone willing to hear. While it may be unsavory or uncomfortable, devotees could see that their exalted leader is facing the consequences of his actions. But for the Speaker of the House to put himself on the line, for senators to stand in support, for all of these individuals and the whole universe of Right Wing influencers and personalities to coalesce behind a narrative that this is a Deep State plot to not only persecute Trump but also steal another election, it is a counter-message with a very specific goal: communicate that America’s systems are so poisoned that only a Right Wing dictator or authoritarian movement could put it to rights.”
writes that there’s “bad news for Steven Bannon. He has to report to federal prison by Thursday to begin serving his four-month sentence for contempt of Congress. Bannon sought a delay, but prosecutors told the Judge it was time, and the Judge agreed. Bannon responded to the order to report to prison by saying, ‘I’m shocked they want to silence the voice of MAGA.’ Take him at his word. Bannon has used his ‘War Room’ podcast to normalize some of the most repressive policies associated with Trump’s Project 2025.”
writes that “Texas GOP Governor Greg Abbott sent an unmistakable message this week that if you kill a Black Lives Matter protesters--or engage in any violence against the GOP’s political enemies--he will have your back. Abbott is simply following the lead of Donald Trump who has praised his Jan 6 terrorists and vowed to pardon them if he wins in November. This is more of what fascism on US soil looks like.”
writes that “the comparison of transgender people who have had surgery with cisgender people rather than other transgender people is a relatively common mistake used to make incorrect claims about the effectiveness of transgender care. Anti-transgender activists and politicians often cite, for instance, ‘the Swedish study’ and incorrectly claim that it shows transgender care is ineffective, leading to a 19 times higher suicide rate. The study they cite, published in the journal PLOS One, used a similar control group of cisgender people. In that case, the control group selection was purposeful, used to evaluate health risks of transgender people compared to cisgender people.”
writes “how about choosing what school your children attend? That's certainly something we can all agree on, right? Sounds good in practice. In reality, this is one of the most egregious generational plans that the right has waged. The right has gone on the offense against public schools ever since Brown v Board of Education offered non-white children a choice in what school they could attend. Today, ‘school choice’ is a not-very-quiet dog whistle for funneling public tax dollars into religious schools and re-segregating schools along caste lines. And by religious, we should be clear: Christian schools, as right-wing activists have fought against the choice of, say, Islamic instruction. Not much of a choice, really. And that’s the point.”
writes that while Harrison Butker’s “speech is laughable is countless way, there’s also a less funny part here. He should be mocked, no doubt, but we should also recognize that he’s emblematic of an era where right-wingers are increasingly saying what they want to say – and that what they want to say is plain bigotry, homophobia, and sexism. Valentina Gomez, a woman running as a Republican to be Missouri’s next Secretary of State, ran a short ad almost the same day as Butker’s speech. In it she says, ‘In America, you can be anything you want. So don’t be weak and gay. Stay fucking hard.’ I wish I was making some part of that up. You can watch for yourself, if you’d like to experience 15 seconds you can never get back. But again, in all seriousness, we’re seeing a remarkably fast rollback of the consensus that you don’t say overtly bigoted things from any sort of important podium, let alone while running for office.”
writes that “the issue of digital decay isn't just about personal or academic inconvenience. It's about the broader implications for historical record-keeping and accountability. Imagine trying to track the development of a policy or the evolution of public opinion on a topic, only to find that crucial documents have been erased. It's a digital form of amnesia.”