Far Right

Efforts to ban books jumped four-fold in 2021

From NPR Book banning is not new — in the U.S. alone the practice goes back to Puritan times, when Thomas Morton’s book New English Caanan and others opposing this way of life were tossed from Massachusetts. But the American Library Association said Monday that this year there have been more challenges to books than they have seen since

Democracy

The real and far scarier reason Republicans think Biden…

The real – and far scarier – reason Republicans think Biden is illegitimate. Many conservatives don’t think the 2020 election was stolen. But they believe democracy itself has betrayed America, by allowing the ‘wrong’ people to take charge. From The Guardian Earlier this month, Team Trump claimed in court that their efforts to nullify Joe Biden’s victory

Fascism

The Reactionary Prophet of Russian Ultranationalism

An interesting read for it’s insight into Bannon and the like. Most have probably never heard of Aleksandr Dugin or the global Traditionalist tendency to which he belongs. But the Russian thinker — and his analogues in Brazil, America, and beyond — have appeared to exercise real influence on the global right from a position

Democracy

When American democracy crumbles, it won’t be televised

Don’t expect a dramatic fascist storming of the Capitol building or a military takeover when our crisis comes to a head. Americans are not exactly known for nuance. Maybe it shouldn’t surprise us then that the rightwing protests that turned into a riot at the US Capitol building on 6 January 2021 were immediately described

Democracy

One-party rule is now the credo of Trump and…

An illiberal democracy, similar to Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, is increasingly the model for Republicans. The first anniversary of the invasion of the Capitol approaches, our cold civil war grows hotter by the day, and the numbers tell the story. A majority of Republicans view the attack as a defense of freedom (56%) and just under half (47%)