Over at National Review today I came across a link to a "massively researched, thoroughly reported, and well-thought-out essay" that is "an early contender for essay of the year."
NR is a nice, mainstream conservative publication, so I clicked the link to find out what mainstream conservatism finds interesting these days. Here is one paragraph:
Something monstrous is taking shape in America. Formally, it exhibits the synergy of state and corporate power in service of a tribal zeal that is the hallmark of fascism. Yet anyone who spends time in America and is not a brainwashed zealot can tell that it is not a fascist country. What is coming into being is a new form of government and social organization that is as different from mid-twentieth century liberal democracy as the early American republic was from the British monarchism that it grew out of and eventually supplanted. A state organized on the principle that it exists to protect the sovereign rights of individuals, is being replaced by a digital leviathan that wields power through opaque algorithms and the manipulation of digital swarms. It resembles the Chinese system of social credit and one-party state control, and yet that, too, misses the distinctively American and providential character of the control system. In the time we lose trying to name it, the thing itself may disappear back into the bureaucratic shadows, covering up any trace of it with automated deletions from the top-secret data centers of Amazon Web Services, “the trusted cloud for government.”
That's from the prologue, which is 2,000 words long. The actual essay itself turns out to be 11,000 words long. It's by Jacob Siegel, an editor at Tablet, and the topic is disinformation, which Siegel calls "the hoax of the century."
I won't pretend that I read all 13,000 words closely, but I did skim my way through the entire thing.¹ Siegel's contention, delivered with the connect-the-dots fervor of a JFK conspiracy theorist, is that the deep state has invented a fake disinformation crisis as a way of justifying the creation of a massive left-wing surveillance apparatus based on government control of social media and designed to censor conservative thought. Siegel relies mostly on stale old hobbyhorses like Hamilton 68, the Twitter files, GEC, CISA, the Steele dossier, and the "Russia hoax," and along the way he namechecks a rogues gallery of conservative bugbears, including George Soros, Alex Berenson, Klaus Schwab ("capo di tutti capi of the global expert class"), Hunter Biden, and "a class of journalists, retired generals, spies, Democratic Party bosses, party apparatchiks, and counterterrorism experts against the remnant of the American people who refused to submit to their authority."
In other words, it's basically made up out of buzzwords and gauze. There's barely a single word that exposes either a massive domestic surveillance operation or any serious government control of social media. And it's not as if the government doesn't know how to set up something like this if it wants to. As you may recall, the NSA really does surveil practically everything that crisscrosses the country, and it requires thousands of people, millions of terabytes of storage, and dozens of massive supercomputers. Siegel can do no more than point to a few haggard little groups of maybe 10 or 15 people each.
Is this essay the "Flight 93 Election" of 2023? Or just a lonely conspiracy theory that happened to get picked up by an NR writer on a bad day? I will be curious to see if it gets any further pickup in right-wing circles.
In any case, it's an interesting look at a particular way of thinking that's been picking up steam over the past year or two: namely that conservatives are widely convinced that social media is involved in a massive plot to censor them despite the fact that conservative accounts are among the most popular on nearly every social media platform. If you wonder how they square these two things, Siegel's essay is a place to start.
¹Because I'm a pro, that's why.
I wish the deep state would start censoring Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, Glenn Greenwald, Elon Musk, Right Wing Twitter, and the National Review.
Because you don't like what they say?
Probably, like me -- like most thinking people -- because I don't like how they say it.
Because you don't like what they say?
Correct. Because I'm a liberal fascist. But alas, there is no "deep state censorship" operation ongoing to take care of my request.
In other words the essay Kevin cites—like most things emanating from the right wing resentment swamp—is pure, unadulterated bullshit.
Your kidding? Right?
I think his point is that if there is such everywhere-all-at-once deep state conspiracy, it's making a damn poor job of it.
+1
👍👍👍👍👍
Yeah, if they were so all powerful, wouldn't they have suppressed this article that revealed their plans?
👍
I think its because if they are going to be accused of censoring then they ought to actually do it. Those listed would seem like a good start.
Query- Is it possible people on the right dont know how to use Google? Every time they say its something not covered by the MSM or you cant say it in the MSM I use Google and find multiple examples of what was not covered in seconds.
Steve
I think a lot of people don't know how to perform a search of any kind, and many others do not want to face a cognitive dissonance, so they avoid it.
They really are doing a bad job of it, aren't they. Soros is just not getting his money's worth.
Ok. I'm glad to know you don't mean it. Point taken. I want to know why so many people on this blog disparage Glenn Greenwald. Glenn is not a conservative.
He’s a jerk though. King of the Deep State BS. I used to read him way back when but his absolutist nonsense lost me.
It doesn’t need to make sense. It just needs to reinforce the claim of victimhood. If the deep state really were that skilled and powerful it would be game over. We’d be living in some sort of 1984 police state.
Yes. That, and "working the refs" 101.
It's dream logic and dream thought creating a dream state that privileges belief.
It has to be addressed directly by the President and by every Democrat whenever a conservative says anything, that it's never real, that nothing they ever say is ever real. If it were they could prove it and they never can.
The threats comes from "a class of journalists, retired generals, spies, Democratic Party bosses, party apparatchiks, and counterterrorism experts against the remnant of the American people who refused to submit to their authority."
That's not too far afield from what Rudy Giuliani said on November 18, 2020. Grand conspiracy, etc.
Also, what this about "conservative bugbears, including ... Alex Berenson"? He's popular with the anti-vaccination crowd. Why is he a conservative bugbear?
They think he’s been censored for being antivax
He was censored for being anti-vax. He was suspended from twitter for over a year.
Right, but it was because he promoted outright lies, not simply because he was anti vax
It's difficult to be anti-vax without promoting outright lies.
True, you gotta be really egregious about it for Twitter and Facebook to bother banning you
This is yet another example of accusing Democrats of doing what Republicans have done or want to do.
This is too serious to just pay you a compliment but..."made up out of buzzwords and gauze..."
...is just really great phrasing. Other posters above me are correct in pointing out how serious this craziness, this cognitive disease, is.
Best Wishes, Traveller
Business owners who can't sell their products blame government. This is just a twist on that: Conservatives can't sell their main ideas, so they blame...someone! Anyone!
As the Right continues to peddle misgovernment as outrage, it's found an idea it can sell to its true believers over and over again in different clothes: WE ARE THE VICTIMS.
Can anyone believe that a party that has managed to overturn Roe v Wade, flooded the the country with semi-automatic, large-magazine weapons and has blocked virtually any realistic moves toward dealing effectively with climate change is the victim of the Left? More like victims of their own ideology.
Conservatism can not fail, it can only be failed!
(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*.✧ on target.
Conservatism doesn't really try to sell its main ideas, which are tax cuts for billionaires and corporations and deregulation. Instead it promotes racism and religiosity to divert lower-income whites from its economic objectives. Once the base is excited by these instinctive group motivations, it can be convinced about almost any nonsensical claims to the point where it loses touch with reality. Republicans (not really conservatism) have been very successful at this.
1+.
The problem with this strategy is that once somebody even better in bambooling their voters, they lose. That is why Trump succeeded to take over the republican party.
Bingo. I was reading, hoping to be the one to spring it - but you did it very well. Thank you.
Sounds like this guy is against NDAs, which surely “censor” more “speech” than anything else in our society. Is he?
If you doubt me I suggest googling “Tesla NDAs”
Deep State got us into Iraq and eliminated all opposing voices from mainstream media at the time. Shit, "Liberal" MSNBC not only fired Donahue(!) for speaking out against the war, but now has two hours of Bush Spokeswoman every night.
Its all fun and games when they go after who you want them to go after. But the shoe will be on the other foot.
I do not have cable. Who is this "Bush Spokeswoman" who gets two hours on MSNBC every night?
Dana Perino, I believe
She's on Fox, he means Nicole Wallace who is on MSNBC
I believe it's referring to Nicole Wallace. She was a Bush spokesperson and now presents as extremely anti Trumpism.
Her show is late afternoon ET.
You obviously haven't watched the show. BTW, it's on at 4 pm eastern time
I don't know how you define "deep state," but your examples don't fit my definition. If you mean "corporate influence" or "deep pocket influence" than I don't see it as even an imagined enemy of rightwing causes.
To me, :"deep state" are all the nonelected worker bees in the federal government - BLS, DOJ, EPA, etc. It's easy for the Right to imagine they are arrayed against them because they - the Right - are fundamentally against government itself. But the DS members are powerless to do anything to the Right, because they are controlled by elected and appointed people, and because they generally adhere to the rule of law (unlike many appointed people working under a lawless leader, like you-know-who).
👍👍👍
There are a lot of fairly right wing guys who sound at least somewhat normal until this topic comes up and then suddenly there are thousands of liberals continually censoring right wing speech. The fact that every right wing kook posts batshit crazy stuff every day on every platform means nothing. But it isn’t just that millions of right wingers post stuff every day, it is that when left wing or even centrist or even right of center (but not crazy) people have their stuff censored it means nothing. Either it just doesn’t happen, it happens but it doesn’t matter, or some other fantasy, when non-right wing people are censored by social media it means nothing to them.
Everything is a massive effort to suppress the right wing no matter how easy it is to have their ideas thrown in my face.
The fantasy of persecution by secret cabals and governments is baked deep in modern right-wing DNA and no amount of evidence can touch it. It's a deep need.
IMO they're living out what they understand as the central story line of a worthy life: the true believers are always persecuted, always hounded, always chased and flogged from pillar to post, because they know the real truth and believe the real truth. It's the basic story line of every Protestant cult I've ever heard of (which makes seeing it time and time again very wearisome, but never mind that). They, and they alone, possess the truth and believe the truth and their enemies persecute and flay them for it. It's a belief that needs no evidence.
The most dangerous part for the rest of us is their need for vindication, because they need and want to see their belief materialized in our real world, whatever that belief might be. They're ready to destroy the world if that's what it takes to vindicate that belief in their real truth. It's how they'll know the truth is real. When trump says he's their "vindication" I think that's how they hear it.
What they're basically upset about is that they can't push their bullshit ideas anymore in the public sphere without pushback and have more or less lost the culture wars, which they're now fighting using the one thing they've said they're always against, namely the coercive power of the state. Flailing hypocrisy all the way down.
It seems like what passes for "conservative viewpoints" these days is basically Charlie's Pepe Silvia rant from Always Sunny.
" ... it's an interesting look at a particular way of thinking"
The "particular way of thinking" is the pre-learning phase of the learning process. You make an assumption, and when the assumption is challenged you look for evidence to defend and confirm your assumption.
The next phase is the learning phase: you look at the evidence first, and then you draw a conclusion.
The technical name of the former is "unconscious incompetence," and the latter is called "conscious incompetence." Unfortunately, if you've been elected and have a letter R beside your name, or you're a so-called "conservative intellectual," then you're stuck in "unconscious incompetence." Caution: others are learning while you're heading in the wrong direction.
"Siegel relies mostly on stale old hobbyhorses like Hamilton 68, the Twitter files..."
Twitter Files has been around a few weeks, and it is already a stale old hobbyhorse. Anyone honest can see the left has completely given up on the importance of civil rights and free speech. They wanted "regulated" free speech... Boomers...
It is. The twitter files basically prove that twitter was massively solicitous towards right-wing speech, going out of the way to allow it to cross lines others would not have. And... that's it.
If this were true you ought to be able to point to some prominent left-wing legislation or proposed legislation that curtails either. Indeed, the left remains the only force in this country committed strongly to civil rights.
The right wing always demands 100% control. When we have the right wing controlling the presidency, congress and the supreme court, one will still see letters and comments complaining that the left wing is still ruling the world and making it a horrible place. Anything less than 100% is completely unacceptable to them.
While written about a specific case of fascism, Eco's points can fit very well. Eerily well.
I keep seeing people say this, and I'm always like "show me this use of state power. You ought to be able to point to regulations and legislation, or proposed regulations and legislation, or those making ideological cases that demand same."
The closest thing there is to this "synergy" is that the government often flags social media and says "hey, this seems out of line." And... that's it. And the government has the same right to do that as any other organization.
Jeebus, This one small step (or maybe less) from "precious bodily fluids"
This thread is one of the best analyses of movement 'conservatism' I've read. I'd add the essay is also internal justification for any response 'conservatism' believes necessary, i.e., true totalitarianism as a necessary, unfortunate, "you forced us to do this" response to our modern liberal Illuminati. "Jews will not replace us", indeed.
Q: 'I will be curious to see if it gets any further pickup in right-wing circles.'
A: Rod Dreher has a Substack piece today which quotes that same National Review paragraph.