Color drawing of smiling dog leaning on the letters "DOGE," with American flags, and with words "Department of Government Efficiency" arching above.

The DOGE and the neoreactionaries

Matthew N Lyons

While MAGA movement ideology centers on right-wing populism, DOGE’s attack on the administrative state is guided by neoreactionaries, whose ideology glorifies elites and rejects populist appeals in principle. And while the first Trump administration was backed by an unstable coalition of competing capitalist interests, now high technology capitalists closely aligned with neoreactionary politics are at the head of the pro-Trump business bloc. These changes have helped make the second Trump presidency more dangerous than the first, but they also point to potential divisions and conflicts within the Trump coalition.

Antifascist, business and politics, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, neoreaction, tech capitalists


Fascist revolution doesn’t turn back the clock: a reply to Alexander Reid Ross on Trump

Three Way Fight

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Part 4 of Alexander Reid Ross’s series on “Trumpism” on the website It’s Going Down is largely a reply to my piece “Trump’s impact: a fascist upsurge is just one of the dangers.” Reid Ross …

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Trump’s impact: a fascist upsurge is just one of the dangers

Three Way Fight

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In some ways it doesn’t matter whether we call Donald Trump a fascist or “just” a right-wing populist. However we categorize him, his presidential campaign represents a serious danger. Whatever direction he takes in the …

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Jack Donovan on men: a masculine tribalism for the far right

Three Way Fight

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Donovan: “Ur-fascism is the source of honor culture and authentic patriarchal tradition.” All far rightists promote male dominance, but the kinds of male dominance they promote differ enormously. The Christian right’s revolutionary wing — the …

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On Trump, Fascism, and Stale Social Science

Three Way Fight

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Donald Trump’s rise as a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination set off a flurry of articles labeling him a fascist. These pieces — which have appeared on sites as varied as Newsweek, Common Dreams, …

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Oath Keepers, Ferguson, and the Patriot movement’s conflicted race politics

Three Way Fight

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When a group built around right-wing conspiracy theories sends heavily armed white men onto streets filled with Black Lives Matter protesters, it makes sense to be worried. But if these are white supremacist vigilantes, why …

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The LaRouche network’s Russia connection

In the United States, Lyndon LaRouche is widely dismissed as a wing-nut conspiracist — a guy who claims that Queen Elizabeth pushes drugs. But in Russia, LaRouchite ideology is taken seriously by high-ranking politicians and …

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Notes on Trump/MAGA 2024

Matthew N Lyons

5 comments

Even more than in the past, Trump and the MAGA movement have brought key elements of fascist politics into the Republican Party, and a second Trump presidency is likely to be significantly more authoritarian than the first one.

Antifascist, Donald Trump, MAGA movement, US presidential elections

Who’s Afraid of Luigi Mangione? A Response to Alexander Reid Ross

3WF

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Luigi Mangione’s recent alleged killing of an insurance CEO touched a wedge issue that cuts across class and across the political spectrum—the massive corruption of the health insurance industry—and created an opening for the left. A recent article by ex-leftist Alexander Reid Ross, which dismisses Mangione as expressing an American proclivity for violence, represents a counterinsurgency action in defense of the state.

Alexander Reid Ross, Anti-capitalism, counter insurgency, health care, health insurance industry, liberal antifascism, Luigi Mangione

Reading Adam Shatz on the war in Gaza

Three Way Fight

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by Matthew N. Lyons How do we forcefully make the case to defend the Palestinian people in Gaza against Israel’s increasingly genocidal assault, and also honor the conflict’s heartbreaking contradictions? This is a question I’ve …

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Burn the foundation and all that it upholds: an antifascist review of “Tell Me I’m Worthless” by Alison Rumfitt

Three Way Fight

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“The House spreads. Its arteries run throughout the country. Its lifeblood flows into Westminster, into Scotland Yard, into every village and every city. It flows into you, and into your mother. It keeps you alive. …

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Trump’s Gospel: A Review of Jeff Sharlet’s The Undertow

Three Way Fight

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So much has been already said about Donald J. Trump, Trumpism, and the amorphous mass known as his “base” that it hardly seems worth revisiting the topic almost eight years after his fateful descent down Trump Tower’s golden excavator. Just as the 2016 election seemed to confirm everything that virtually everyone had already been saying about US politics for years, so too does Donald Trump today seem self-explanatory.

Book Review, Dave Ranney


Books

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No longer merely metaphor: Re-reading The Plague by Albert Camus

Albert Camus, 1957 Albert Camus’ novel The Plague offers a portrait of a town under quarantine, ravaged by an epidemic. It tells us of life arbitrarily constrained and unjustly shortened, of human beings isolated by

Interview with Hilary Moore, co-author of No Fascist USA!

I recently interviewed writer and anti-racist political educator Hilary Moore about the new book No Fascist USA! The John Brown Anti-Klan Committee and Lessons for Today’s Movements, which she co-authored with James Tracy. The book

Far rightists divided on coronavirus and Trump

Julia DeCook has a good article outlining how right-wing media activists have been exploiting the coronavirus pandemic to spread xenophobia, conspiracy theories, and other forms of misinformation: The conspiracy theories about the virus range from

Comment on Foucault and the Iranian Revolution

The Philosopher and the Ayatollah: “A Perplexing Affinity”  A comment on Foucault and the Iranian Revolution  by Kristian Williams If we want to defeat fascism, we need to understand its attraction. Sometimes an exceptional case

Trump, Iran, and the right-wing anti-interventionists

[This commentary grew out of discussions among Three Way Fight supporters.] When Donald Trump ordered the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, many people feared it would lead to full-scale war between the U.S. and

An antifascist guide to Patriot movement websites

By Sebastian Porreca   As a window into the Patriot movement’s inner workings, here are brief profiles of many lesser-known Patriot websites and organizations. Editor’s note: The Patriot movement first exploded in the mid 1990s,

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The DOGE and the neoreactionaries

While MAGA movement ideology centers on right-wing populism, DOGE’s attack on the administrative state is guided by neoreactionaries, whose ideology glorifies elites and rejects populist appeals in principle. And while the first Trump administration was backed by an unstable coalition of competing capitalist interests, now high technology capitalists closely aligned with neoreactionary politics are at the head of the pro-Trump business bloc. These changes have helped make the second Trump presidency more dangerous than the first, but they also point to potential divisions and conflicts within the Trump coalition.

Chaos or Revolution? It Depends on Us

The institutional far right is strong, while the far left is weak and disorganized. To develop the capacity to meaningfully intervene in the current crisis, far leftists need to engage with oppressed communities and work together with liberals in a united front.

Review of Alberto Toscano’s “Late Fascism”

Alberto Toscano’s book offers a helpful overview of antifascist writings with an emphasis on authors loosely associated with Critical Theory. Of particular value is Toscano’s discussion of the role of myth in fascist ideology, which focuses on contributions by Italian scholar Furio Jesi and has relevance for understanding Donald Trump’s speeches and far right online meme culture. Yet Toscano’s discussion of “racial fascism” exaggerates capitalists’ ability to control events, strips both fascists and antifascists of political agency, and reflects an obliviousness to antifascists’ strategic and tactical concerns.

Review of “Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism”

Shane Burley and Ben Lorber offer a thoughtful radical analysis of how antisemitism works, how it fuels supremacist politics more broadly, and how the charge of antisemitism is misused to attack Palestine solidarity and the left. To combat antisemitism they argue for a strategy based on mass mobilization, dialog, and an intersectional critique of oppressions.

Who’s Afraid of Luigi Mangione? A Response to Alexander Reid Ross

Luigi Mangione’s recent alleged killing of an insurance CEO touched a wedge issue that cuts across class and across the political spectrum—the massive corruption of the health insurance industry—and created an opening for the left. A recent article by ex-leftist Alexander Reid Ross, which dismisses Mangione as expressing an American proclivity for violence, represents a counterinsurgency action in defense of the state.