Trump Derangement Syndrome

[Alexis Jacobi]

I think the people waving Nazi flags might reasonably be called Nazis...

In reality, and when one examines the issue closely, and especially what those who take a dissident position (in America and Europe and to a limited extent in the Southern Cone of South America) have written on the topic, there is a wide range of opinion.

It runs the gamut from general disapproval/detestation up to open admiration. But in nearly all cases (that I have examined) there is an aspect of revisionism. Not a falsification of history but a re-interpretation of it. I have gathered that many of those who do think in these ways have come to believe that they have been lied to more or less from *day one*. That they see themselves as living under a régime which controls how history, and therefore the present, is interpreted. Something along the lines of Orwell's assertion in 1984:

"Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past," repeated Winston obediently. "Who controls the present controls the past," said O'Brien, nodding his head with slow approval.

This realization, or perhaps it should be called paranoia, leads them to look at those things which they were taught were 'absolutely evil' and utterly immoral from a different perspective. What I try to point out is that there is an extremely wide range of dissident opinion operating in the American body politic at this time. Most people, those who read only conventional sources, are simply not aware of the opposition. And they are not aware of the ideation that supports that opposition.

Bringing a Nazi flag to Charlottesville could be an indicator of someone having Nazi sympathy, that is true, but within the dissident circles themselves there was a certain amount of speculation that such a flag was brought in order to tarnish the image of the Unite the Right rally. So the point that I would make is, realistically, I am not convinced that there is, within the dissident circles, anything like a 'Nazi ideology'. But I would not deny that in America there have been openly sympathetic Nazi admirers. George Lincoln Rockwell being a good example 1961, This Time The World:

In Mein Kampf I found abundant 'mental sunshine' which bathed all the gray world suddenly in the clear light of reason and understanding. Word after word, sentence after sentence stabbed into the darkness like lightning bolts of revelation, tearing and ripping away the cobwebs of more than thirty years of darkness; brilliantly illuminating the heretofore obscure reasons for the world's madness. I was transfixed, hypnotized. I could not lay the book down without agonies of impatience to get back to it. I read it walking to the squadron, I took it into the air and read it, propped up on the chartboard, while I automatically gave the instructions to the other planes circling over the desert. I read it on the Coronado Ferry. I read it into the night and resumed the next morning. When I had finished, I started again and reread every word, underlining and marking especially magnificent passages. I studied it, thought about it and wondered at the utter, indescribable genius of it. How could the world not only ignore such a book, but damn it and curse it and hate it, and pretend that it was a plan for 'conquering' the world, when it was the most obvious and rational plan for saving the world which has ever been written? Had nobody read it, I wondered, that people went around saying it was the work of a mad "rug-chewer"? How could sensible people get away with such monstrous intellectual fraud? Why was it so hated and cursed? I could see why the Jews would hate and curse it, but why my own people? I reread and studied it some more. Slowly, bit by bit, I began to understand. I realized that National Socialism, the iconoclastic worldview of Adolf Hitler, was the doctrine of scientific, racial idealism, actually, a new 'religion' for our times. I saw that I was living in the age of a new worldview. Two thousand years ago there had been a similar rise of a new approach or worldview, called a 'religion'; a worldview which shook and changed the world forever.

Tillingborn continues:

Some of the people involved in the assault on the Capitol would qualify as terrorists. People who bomb abortion clinics. There really are people prepared to use terror and violence to achieve their aims.

At the same time, actually preceding that riot, there were far more consequential rioting, terrorism and destruction brought on by those of an apparently different political persuasion. I know, that was a bit of whataboutism. However it is true.

A better example of rightwing terrorism was the Christchurch massacre and the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting qualifies as terrorism.

But the term 'terrorist' is defined as:

Terrorism: the calculated use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population and thereby to bring about a particular political objective. Terrorism has been practiced by political organizations with both rightist and leftist objectives, by nationalistic and religious groups, by revolutionaries, and even by state institutions such as armies, intelligence services, and police.

I think I would agree that the invasion and occupation of the Capital had 'insurrectionist elements' (in the sense that it was a riot and also in the sense that some intended to disrupt government business and process) but I do not think it qualifies as a terrorist act.

On the other side of the coin I would at least make cite the use of Federal police (the FBI) to go after a wide range of private individuals and political organizers with somewhat dissident opinions in recent days, and their arrest in the course of spectacular raids, as a sort of political terror.

The bombing of an abortion clinic is certainly extreme violence. But (from one perspective) what is done in those clinics is perceived as and interpeted to be the initial or instigating violence. Still I take your point.

[commonsense]

For anyone who is uninclined to conduct an internet search on his own, here is the pablum you need, spoon fed to your needs:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_ ... ywood_tape

Ditto:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_ ... nformation

No comment from Immanuel? Couldn’t trust that I wasn’t lying and couldn’t be bothered to examine the evidence.

[tillingborn]

I think the people waving Nazi flags might reasonably be called Nazis...

In reality, and when one examines the issue closely, and especially what those who take a dissident position (in America and Europe and to a limited extent in the Southern Cone of South America) have written on the topic, there is a wide range of opinion.

It runs the gamut from general disapproval/detestation up to open admiration.

Then is it unreasonable to think perhaps the people waving Nazi flags are expressing their open admiration of Nazism? Some people are Nazis, and some people, if not practising, are would be terrorists. If you don't accept that, I can't be bothered to prove it to you.

But in nearly all cases (that I have examined) there is an aspect of revisionism.

One of the tropes that is widely taken for granted is that the winners write history. As your research clearly shows, the losers also have their say.

Not a falsification of history but a re-interpretation of it. I have gathered that many of those who do think in these ways have come to believe that they have been lied to more or less from *day one*.

Indeed. There are more false narratives than true ones. Most of what we hear is wrong and some of it is lies.

That they see themselves as living under a régime which controls how history, and therefore the present, is interpreted.

Perhaps they do, but if those who believe an alternative version of history can't see that there are alternative versions of history, they can only be incredibly stupid. In some places there are state sanctioned histories. In some there are sanctions for expressing opposition. More broadly, we have to be conscious that some of our opinions are best kept to ourselves in certain circumstances. Those of us who are free to say what we like have to deal with those who disagree with us. That is just what free people have to deal with.

Most people, those who read only conventional sources, are simply not aware of the opposition. And they are not aware of the ideation that supports that opposition.

We all choose what sources we trust. Generally they are the ones that most align with what we wish were true. I doubt anyone is so analytical that they decide everything purely on evidential merit.

Bringing a Nazi flag to Charlottesville could be an indicator of someone having Nazi sympathy, that is true, but within the dissident circles themselves there was a certain amount of speculation that such a flag was brought in order to tarnish the image of the Unite the Right rally.

It doesn't seem to me that anybody involved in the rally objected at the time.

So the point that I would make is, realistically, I am not convinced that there is, within the dissident circles, anything like a 'Nazi ideology'.

You have already conceded the possibility.

there is a wide range of opinion.
It runs the gamut from general disapproval/detestation up to open admiration.

But I would not deny that in America there have been openly sympathetic Nazi admirers.

Then why not now?

[Alexis Jacobi]

Then is it unreasonable to think perhaps the people waving Nazi flags are expressing their open admiration of Nazism?

It could be considered *reasonable* in the sense that you mean, yes. But I assert that binary perspectives, so common today (otherwise known as black & white) impede understanding. More often than not those with binary perspectives see parts of the truth but not a larger, holistic picture. The use of the swastika has a range of purposes, not just one. In general, among those of the Dissident * intelligentsia* all use of such symbols, and declarations of admiration for National Socialism, is rejected. However, those of the Dissident Right's intelligentsia do not refrain from reading widely among philosophers who are considered illegitimate -- and some who influenced fascism and fascists.

Some people are Nazis, and some people, if not practising, are would be terrorists. If you don't accept that, I can't be bothered to prove it to you.

You are approaching this conversation, with me, through a set of a prioris. That is to say standard & conventional outlook. What I am trying to point out is that doing that will certainly help you define a partisan position, but it will not help you to gain what I call *understanding*. Given that this is a philosophy forum I would say that the best approach for all of us would be one that is more philosophical and less partisan. Conversations here on political themes, as everyone knows, are exceedingly redundant and boring. I think there are better approaches.

So, returning to Charlottesville and returning to the use of the swastika I will tell you what my opinion is, based on observation (reading and study of what people in the Dissident Right in America write and say): the swastika is a convenient emblem of 'sheer opposition'. It is a sort of 'fuck you!' screamed in the face of those they see as 'occupiers'. I can cite an example: Randy Weaver and the incidents at Ruby Ridge. I do not expect you to know anything particularly about Ruby Ridge but if you do not know anything about it, and if you do not know about the Militia Movement in America, then you will not really be able to understand the tidal shift that if going on in America today. And one of the elements or effects of that groundswell of popular opinion and ideation was, most certainly, the unexpected election of Donald Trump.

So when the Federal government, after employing undercover agents to entrap Randy Weaver on a gun charge, as part of a wider federal police operation to infiltrate and weaken the developing Militia Movement in the US, and when they occupied the area around Ruby Ridge, many people of dissident persuasion who lived in this remote area, saw the occupation by (literally) a federal army with all the equipment an army has, needed to interpret this. Interpretation is a term that runs through everything I write. All events must be interpreted, and how one does this, and what interpretive lens one has and applies, obviously has importance (if we are using philosophical methods to examines such events).

And one of the terms that those people used, and still use, is ZOG: Zionist Occupied Government. And some of the protestors who showed up at the periphery where the Ruby Ridge stand-off would likely have decried the 'Gestapo' tactics of the federal police while, contradictorily, have heard and *believed* some of the revisionist discourse that made a contrary interpretation of the actions of Adolf Hitler and his larger régime.

Again, I do not expect you to have any background in any of this. Why would you? But at that time, and up in that remote part of Idaho, there was a sort of ultra-right commune run by Richard Butler (the Aryan Nations). Given the name, and that it was constructed around a Christian Identity and a White-American nationalism, it should not be hard for you to see that it would have had some level of -- what is the right word? -- admiration for the National Socialist.

"I admired [Hitler] because it seemed like he was the only one who stood up."
— Quoted in1999 in the Los Angeles Times

"The white man is now on trial. Hate laws are against him. No hate laws can be applied to a nonwhite. That makes the white man a third-class citizen, in my mind."
— Quoted in 2000 in the Spokesman-Review

"I advocated the preservation of the white race, whatever it takes to preserve it. The white race is the most endangered species on the face of the earth."
— Butler testimony in 2000 civil trial brought by the Southern Poverty Law Center

Now the irony is that they would (I mean those in the wider Dissident movement or the Militia Movement or the Christian Identity Movement) would have used convenient labels to describe the federal para-military force that killed Weaver's wife and chid.

So now I return to your recent statements:

Then is it unreasonable to think perhaps the people waving Nazi flags are expressing their open admiration of Nazism?

The answer is actually far more complex than you'd imagine.

Let us proceed numerous decades and right up to the present. I am only trying to be of some service to you and to those who read here. I am not here as an advocate. Right now, today, the same federal police are conducting nation-wide raids, often theatrical and spectacular, but more often than not under the radar, and they are focusing their attention on people who describe themselves as American patriots who see their country coming apart at the seams. And who speculate and apply interpretive models so to develop a way of seeing events that makes sense to them. This is where the study of *conspiracy theories* must be undertaking with a great deal of care and caution.

The idea of an "occupied government", the use of mass-manipulation techniques (propaganda, PR, mind-control and social engineering), the sense that the Nation has been *sold out*, and that perverse influences and certainly people and institutions with perverse intentions (which those people and institutions do not regard as *perverse* of course but as 'nomral' or some sort of next step in social and cultural evolution), and as I often say a movement, appearing to be directed by those élites I have referred to (and which they definitely refer to), to restructure and remodel the Nation at fundamental levels and effectively create another sort of nation and one based on extremely different ideological grounding . . .

If you (and here I mean a wide you-plural) do not understand this, if you will not understand *what is really going on*, then you really cannot understand what is developing in our present. And if you cannot see clearly in this rather limited area, on what basis should I or anyone assume that you-plural (those of conventional outlook, mediated by corporate media-systems) have any base at all upon which to offer a valid view of contemporary events?

So my suggestion is that you-plural revision the entire question of Trump Derangement Syndrome and examine it as a psychological upheaval and reaction that is both created and manipulated at the same time.

But I would not deny that in America there have been openly sympathetic Nazi admirers.

Tillingborn: Then why not now?

Your question-statement is really just a guess. The advantage I have here is that I have read tons on the topic. I read both the Left-Progressive material and the Right-Dissident material so, at least, I have more of a base than most people to attempt *reasonable statements*.

You likely do not know that many ex-soldiers, those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, those who were conscripted to *swear an oath* to protect and defend the American Constitution, came back to America with a severe case of *internal political dissonance* (cognitive dissonance). You need to take into consideration that people like Steve Bannon served in the US military and that all his ideas about preserving and defending the US (and its Constitution) are deeply felt and coherently expressed. And you need to understand that a great number of those who *support Trump* have served or are now enlisted in the US military. I think that in no sense could these people, this broad coalition, be described or even conceived as being 'Nazis' in any sense at all. However, they have been made to seem (portrayed) as such through PR and propaganda tactics.

I would not deny that in all of this there is not a great deal of volatility and confused ideation. But interested in and supportive of National Socialism for America? No.

If you are interested in examining the issue of the radicalization of ex-soldiers (from a hyper-progressive perspective mind you) check out Bring The War Home by Kathleen Belew.

We all choose what sources we trust. Generally they are the ones that most align with what we wish were true. I doubt anyone is so analytical that they decide everything purely on evidential merit.

Well, I can speak only from my own experience. I spent years & years reading Left-Progressive material (Noam Chomsky was a major influence and I still refer to 'Power & Ideology: The Managua Lectures' and recommend that one grasp his Machiavellian style of analysis and exposure of power-systems). But then I felt it necessary to seriously examine the *other side of the coin*. So I cannot (and I do not) offer a political or ideological platform that can be cookie-cut to create some platform or political position for concerted activism.

So the question of *lenses* (or perception and understanding and interpretation) is then turned into the area that needs to be explored -- philosophically of course!

PS: Another book by Kathleen Belew (and Ramón A. Gutiérrez) that I recommend -- in order to be able to see with clarity the general, accepted Progressive orientation of one class within the political body) is A Field Guide to White Supremacy (2021). It is, in my view, an ideological manual which clearly outlines what the Progressive-Left faction envisions not only for America but for the world. It is not only a 'style manual' (what politically correct terms and phrases should be used by journalists) but also a type of ideological manual for those politically-correct views that one should hold. (I admit that I read such books a bit differently than they are intended to be read. I am not the best subject for political or sociological indoctrination).

If the 'larger conversation' does indeed interest you, and if you desire to understand a really radical perspective, and to understand that there are people who, for different reasons, do explore radically countervailing ideas and views, take the time to listen to Jonathan Bowden's talk on Savitri Devi.

[tillingborn]

Some people are Nazis, and some people, if not practising, are would be terrorists. If you don't accept that, I can't be bothered to prove it to you.

You are approaching this conversation, with me, through a set of a prioris. That is to say standard & conventional outlook. What I am trying to point out is that doing that will certainly help you define a partisan position, but it will not help you to gain what I call *understanding*.

I'll try one more time. I do not doubt you:

In reality, and when one examines the issue closely, and especially what those who take a dissident position (in America and Europe and to a limited extent in the Southern Cone of South America) have written on the topic, there is a wide range of opinion.

Among that wide range of opinion will be people who really are Nazis; subtle, nuanced, all too human perhaps, but nonetheless Nazis. If you mean to imply that I believe everyone on your 'dissident right' is a Nazi, that is itself a binary perspective. If you set your own trap, spare yourself the embarrassment of walking into it.

there was a sort of ultra-right commune run by Richard Butler (the Aryan Nations). Given the name, and that it was constructed around a Christian Identity and a White-American nationalism, it should not be hard for you to see that it would have had some level of -- what is the right word? -- admiration for the National Socialist.

What does one have to do to qualify as a Nazi? You talk about understanding as though it is something you more than others are privileged with; yet you apparently cannot understand that stating that some people are Nazis is simply true. How much do you intend to write before you concede that some people are Nazis?

[Alexis Jacobi]

Among that wide range of opinion will be people who really are Nazis; subtle, nuanced, all too human perhaps, but nonetheless Nazis. If you mean to imply that I believe everyone on your 'dissident right' is a Nazi, that is itself a binary perspective. If you set your own trap, spare yourself the embarrassment of walking into it.

Well, in my case, and in my course of study of the Dissident Right (of American and Europe) I have not had confirmed what you wish to assert. I can quite easily put forth that some on the ultra-right (like Butler) have ideas that could be described as Nazi-like -- but I do not think this type of comparison will lead one to understanding of what they advocate, and why they advocate it. I am sort if I appear non-cooperative with the only point you seem to want to make. What I have found is that the use of Nazi emblems is meant to indicate not so much a belief in the actual operative tenets of National Socialism but rather of an attitude of rebellion. I cannot think of any person, who I am familiar with in any case, that actually defines a Nazi political program. But I am aware that there are people who have carried out, or do carry out, different types of revisionism. And who also read some of the political philosophers that influenced some Nazi theorists as well as fascist theorists.

How much do you intend to write before you concede that some people are Nazis?

Simply put I am not interested in conceding anything except what I carefully enunciate.

I think that the term 'Nazi' as it is used today is debased and cannot help us -- that is if we are actually interested in understanding. I turn against the entire tendency evident and prevalent in the use of hot rhetorical terms. I hope that you will concede that this is a smart thing to do.

As well I recognize the total lack of response to the larger set of ideas present. Don't be troubled: I know where I am located.

You talk about understanding as though it is something you more than others are privileged with

I must admit that there are times when it seems to me that many people have lost, or surrendered, the ability to reason fairly and carefully. I would definitely wish that you'd correct me if you think, in the course of my larger exposition, that I am veering off course. The floor is yours of course!

[tillingborn]

Well, in my case, and in my course of study of the Dissident Right (of American and Europe) I have not had confirmed what you wish to assert. I can quite easily put forth that some on the ultra-right (like Butler) have ideas that could be described as Nazi-like -- but I do not think this type of comparison will lead one to understanding of what they advocate, and why they advocate it.

Perhaps this is just a misunderstanding. Could you explain what you believe Nazis advocate, which you are welcome to do in essay form, and why the people waving Nazi flags are the only people you feel confident are not advocating it? Is every example of people displaying Nazi regalia

a sort of 'fuck you!' screamed in the face of those they see as 'occupiers'.

I am sort if I appear non-cooperative with the only point you seem to want to make.

It is not the only point I want to make, but it is so basic that if you can't acknowledge it, I don't see any point continuing. Do you have a definition of 'Nazi' that doesn't apply to any living person?

[FlashDangerpants]

It's quite probable that he thinks the holocaust was necessary self defence.

[Alexis Jacobi]

It is not the only point I want to make, but it is so basic that if you can't acknowledge it, I don't see any point continuing.

Having spent a good deal of time on forums like this, I believe I understand pretty well how forum games are played. I hope that you also have noticed the same. There is nothing I want to contribute to what I have already said. If you genuinely feel there is no point in continuing, then you have taken your stand. I assert that your stand was your a priori position and was baked in before the start.

Personally, and with all the respect I can muster, I think you are non-qualified to participate in conversations of this depth. And I have spent a good deal of time musing in an attempt to understand why this is.

As you well know Nazism pertains to a specific cultural and political movement that developed in the early 20th century. If it seems relevant to you to capsulate what it was please proceed. I don't.

Do you know that your level of conversation (quote/unquote) is not significantly different from that of Hot Pants? Are you content with that?

[tillingborn]

Personally, and with all the respect I can muster, I think you are non-qualified to participate in conversations of this depth. And I have spent a good deal of time musing in an attempt to understand why this is.

As you well know Nazism pertains to a specific cultural and political movement that developed in the early 20th century.

You really can't complain of a lack of depth if your argument for why contemporary thinkers on the 'dissident' far right are not Nazis is because this isn't the early 20th century. I will rephrase my question. Do you think no contemporary members of what you call the dissident far right have values that Nazis of the early 20th century would share?

[Gary Childress]

It is not the only point I want to make, but it is so basic that if you can't acknowledge it, I don't see any point continuing.

Having spent a good deal of time on forums like this, I believe I understand pretty well how forum games are played. I hope that you also have noticed the same. There is nothing I want to contribute to what I have already said. If you genuinely feel there is no point in continuing, then you have taken your stand. I assert that your stand was your a priori position and was baked in before the start.

Personally, and with all the respect I can muster, I think you are non-qualified to participate in conversations of this depth. And I have spent a good deal of time musing in an attempt to understand why this is.

As you well know Nazism pertains to a specific cultural and political movement that developed in the early 20th century. If it seems relevant to you to capsulate what it was please proceed. I don't.

Do you know that your level of conversation (quote/unquote) is not significantly different from that of Hot Pants? Are you content with that?

Who is "Hot Pants"?

[Gary Childress]

This realization, or perhaps it should be called paranoia, leads them to look at those things which they were taught were 'absolutely evil' and utterly immoral from a different perspective. What I try to point out is that there is an extremely wide range of dissident opinion operating in the American body politic at this time. Most people, those who read only conventional sources, are simply not aware of the opposition. And they are not aware of the ideation that supports that opposition.

Bringing a Nazi flag to Charlottesville could be an indicator of someone having Nazi sympathy, that is true, but within the dissident circles themselves there was a certain amount of speculation that such a flag was brought in order to tarnish the image of the Unite the Right rally. So the point that I would make is, realistically, I am not convinced that there is, within the dissident circles, anything like a 'Nazi ideology'. But I would not deny that in America there have been openly sympathetic Nazi admirers. George Lincoln Rockwell being a good example 1961, This Time The World:

So the speculation among some on the right is that those who brought Nazi flags to the Unite the Right rally were actually trying to undermine the people who were rallying? That sounds a bit like speculation among some on the left that vandalism at their demonstrations is sometimes the work of "counter-demonstrators" trying to undermine the movement.

[FlashDangerpants]

Do you know that your level of conversation (quote/unquote) is not significantly different from that of Hot Pants? Are you content with that?

Who is "Hot Pants"?

That would be me, I don't think I can be bothered retaliating in kind.

He thinks that if he obscures his own voice with a passive enough one, he can pose as an academic superman with such a talent for detached observation that he might as well be an alien anthropologist observing humans as if we were ants compared to his might.

It's bullshit and the only idiot falling for it is him. He completely assumes all the precepts of various racist theories such as the great replacement and so on. In fact for all the usual boring hard-right conspiracy nonsense, he's just as deeply invested as IC whose false detachment is equally absurd. But he has the extra bit that he clearly and obviously does believe in a Jewish plot to rule the world, and he won't explain what part of the holocaust he thinks is mythical.

[promethean75]

Imagine the number of personel that would be involved in, and required for, a conspiracy the size and complexity of 'the great replacement' or Zionism. How long you reckon a group of conspirators could keep it up without getting cold busted?

from Wikipedia:

The physicist David Robert Grimes estimated the time it would take for a conspiracy to be exposed based on the number of people involved. His calculations used data from the PRISM surveillance program, the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, and the FBI forensic scandal. Grimes estimated that:

A Moon landing hoax would require the involvement of 411,000 people and would be exposed within 3.68 years;

Climate-change fraud would require a minimum of 29,083 people (published climate scientists only) and would be exposed within 26.77 years, or up to 405,000 people, in which case it would be exposed within 3.70 years;

A vaccination conspiracy would require a minimum of 22,000 people (without drug companies) and would be exposed within at least 3.15 years and at most 34.78 years depending on the number involved;

A conspiracy to suppress a cure for cancer would require 714,000 people and would be exposed within 3.17 years.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Who is "Hot Pants"?

It's quite probable that he thinks the holocaust was necessary self defence.