Someone recently said of the American right that its Gramscian phase had come to an end and now it was in its Sorelian phase, meaning it no longer sought hegemony over institutions but was now animated by myths and the belief in redemptive acts of violence 1/

I think the total divorce from reality evinced by these efforts to overturn the election are not a positive sign for the country's political life and I really don't understand the continued "Oh, haha, it's all ridiculous nonsense" in some quarters

There's this reflexive need to denigrate custom because defending it is either duping oneself into going along with "the system" or just dowdy; I don't share that disposition. I agree it's important to keep perspective and recognize the absurdity, but it's also disturbing

Corey Robin, someone who I admire a lot even though I disagree with him, said recently "Well, Trump lacks the sort of emphasis on the power of the will that fascists have." The point is taken: he is lazy, but his will manifests itself in this total denial of reality

Trump's combination of utter cynicism and total belief in nonsense is part of the reason why fascists viewed him as an avatar of their type of politics, maybe he's more a John the Baptist than a Christ but its nonetheless in the same vein

Again, my position is that this not what Paxton calls "classical fascism" so much as some kind of para-fascism, but the idea "Oh it can't be anything like fascism because its manifestly absurd and attracts losers and crackpots" is just self-contradictory