'Red Caesarism' is rightwing code - and some Republicans are listening
Earlier DU thread: The Conservative Plan to Take Over the Country (you need to know about this)
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Source: The Guardian
‘Red Caesarism’ is rightwing code – and some Republicans are listening
Argument for a ‘red Caesar’ to rule US may seem esoteric but conservative thinktank behind idea has connections to Trump
Jason Wilson
Sun 1 Oct 2023 15.00 BST
Last modified on Mon 2 Oct 2023 12.52 BST
In June, rightwing academic Kevin Slack published a book-length polemic claiming that ideas that had emerged from what he called the radical left were now so dominant that the US republic its founders envisioned was effectively at an end.
Slack, a politics professor at the conservative Hillsdale College in Michigan, made conspiratorial and extreme arguments now common on the antidemocratic right, that “transgenderism, anti-white racism, censorship, cronyism … are now the policies of an entire cosmopolitan class that includes much of the entrenched bureaucracy, the military, the media, and government-sponsored corporations”.
In a discussion of possible responses to this conspiracy theory, he wrote that the “New Right now often discusses a Red Caesar, by which it means a leader whose post-Constitutional rule will restore the strength of his people”.
For the last three years, parts of the American right have advocated a theory called Caesarism as an authoritarian solution to the claimed collapse of the US republic in conference rooms, podcasts and the house organs of the extreme right, especially those associated with the Claremont Institute thinktank.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/01/red-caesar-authoritarianism-republicans-extreme-right
Alternate non-walled link: https://news.yahoo.com/red-caesarism-rightwing-code-republicans-140047963.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
After Trump's victory, Anton went on to serve the new president on the National Security Council. That lasted a little more than a year. Once he had left the White House, Anton returned to writing and speaking publicly in defense of Trump and in favor of his re-election. Two months before the 2020 vote, he predicted an attempted "coup" from the left if Democrat Joe Biden didn't prevail. When events unfolded in precisely the opposite way — with Trump losing the vote, refusing to accept the result, and attempting a hapless coup of his own to stay in power — Anton said nothing to acknowledge either the irony or the error. Quite the opposite, in fact. In the months since Trump left office, Anton has been doing his best to throw open the doors of the conservative intellectual world to ideas once considered far too extreme for American politics.
How extreme? So extreme that in late May, Anton set aside nearly two hours on his Claremont Institute podcast ("The Stakes"
for an erudite, wide-ranging discussion with self-described monarchist Curtis Yarvin about why the United States needs an "American Caesar" to seize control of the federal government, and precisely how such a would-be dictator could accomplish the task.
...
When federal agencies refuse to go along, Yarvin suggests, Caesar (whom he now begins referring to as "Trump"
will use a "Trump app" to communicate directly with his 80 million supporters on their smart phones, using notifications to tell them that "this agency isn't following my instructions," which will prompt them to rally at the proper building, with the crowd "steered around by a joystick by Trump himself," forming a "human barricade around every federal building, supporting Trump's lawful authority." Where maybe 20,000 people stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, millions responding to the Trump app would be much more effective — a modern-day version of the paramilitary groups that ensured Lincoln's safety during the hard-fought, dangerous 1860 campaign for president that preceded the Civil War (and the president's subsequent suspension of habeas corpus and shuttering of hundreds of newspapers).
https://theweek.com/politics/1003035/the-far-right-contemplates-an-american-caesar
The Claremont Institute is, sadly, still influential in far-right circles that think they are "intellectual". And Anton, with the track record of that awful "Flight 93 Election" screed that the right wing creamed its pants over, and then working for Trump, has credibility among them. Yarvin is a bit more fringe, admired by billionaire and senator-owner Peter Thiel:
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/inside-the-new-right-where-peter-thiel-is-placing-his-biggest-bets
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23373795/curtis-yarvin-neoreaction-redpill-moldbug
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/curtis-yarvin/
Thiel got J.D. Vance into the Senate, and tried to get Blaker Masters in too. It's a lot bigger than "one man's dream in a book".
He did not come to a good end
They're trying to make Chump into Caesar and taking down the Constitution in the process.
How is this in any way consistent with Christianity or the teachings of Jesus?
Just sayin'
