No Need to Look Abroad to Mussolini: Donald Trump's American Antecedents

Werner Herzog's Bear, my friend, historian, very smart man, and proprietor of the blog Notes from the Ironbound has a new essay on Donald Trumpmania and American Right-wing politics. I agree with Werner Herzog's Bear's analysis: it is easy and tempting to call Trump a fascist by looking abroad for his political forefathers.

[Is this habit some type of ironic anti-American Exceptionalism?]

Moreover, it is very tempting to call Trump a fascist precisely because so many in the commentariat are eager to throw that language around without parsing out its definition and attributes. They want to carpet bomb the whole area. But, the enemy may be burrowed deep underground. The target survives.

I have several essays on Donald Trump and related matters forthcoming. One of the concepts I have been returning to in my thinking about the Republican human zoo in this political moment--and the language that the media summons to describe it--is "historical specificity". 

This concept is deceptively simple, i.e. what particular material and social arrangements have produced the dynamics of this particular point in time. However, historical specificity can also be a very challenging concept because the best "critical theory" takes the unseen and the assumed and lays them bare for analysis.

Werner does some good thinking here, as he always does, which is why I was moved to share
"America Has Its Own Antecedents For Trump".

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It's been interesting to see folks (many of whom I am a big fan of) draw comparisons between Trump and Mussolini.  Trump fits the fascist bill in their estimation (and mine) because:

• His appeal to nationalism, fascism's key ingredient
• His naming of internal enemies to be expunged for the health of the nation
• His militaristic bent in foreign policy
• His misognyny
• His authoritarian proposals and demeanor
• His appeal to voters across regional, religious, and social class lines
• His support of a strong (for a Republican) social state
• His attacks on cultural and political elites
• Trump is a charismatic leader from outside of the regular political world with a cult of personality around him

None of these things alone makes someone a fascist, but put them together....

Why Aren't the Families of Vester Flanagan's Murder Victims Being Asked if They Forgive Him Yet?

As is our weekend habit, please do treat this as a semi-open thread. What matters of public or private concern would you like to share? Any interesting news items? Labor Day holiday plans? Sleeping? Eating? Rutting? All three?

I have written several pieces about The Ritual of obligatory (and often immediate) expected public forgiveness by black people towards those white folks who have committed racially motivated violence against them. The Ritual is a salve for white guilt as it offers a type of "cheap forgiveness", one that demands no redistributive, recuperative, or compensatory justice.

The tragic killing of Alison Parker and Adam Ward by Vester Flanagan is an opportunity to apply the ritual of forgiveness on the other side of the color line.

Thus, a basic question.

When will the Parker and Ward families be asked by a reporter or other person in the news media if they forgive Vester Flanagan for killing their loved ones?

Several days have passed since Vester Flanagan's violent deeds. Considering that black folks are almost immediately asked to perform The Ritual, one would think that the Parker and Ward families would also be doing The Ritual very soon.
I know that white privilege permits white anger and white vengeance, but one can still hope for a bit of fairness regarding the healing and redemptive power of forgiveness on both side of the color line.

"Christian" forgiveness supposedly uplifts black people, would it not do the same for white folks too?

The Specter of Black Revenge and Retaliation: 20 Years Before Vester Flanagan There was Colin Ferguson

The killing of two reporters in Virginia by Vester Flanagan is a tragedy. It is also political catnip and profoundly arousing for white supremacists and those other conservatives who are desperately obsessed with "anti-white" "hate crimes". The White Victimology Alex Jones conspiracy industry must be very excited by Vester Flanagan's killing of two white people.

The White Right decries phantom "anti-white" crime less than they hope that said events occur: the Right-wing hate media are the real "racism chasers", shoveling coal into the White Victimology Rube Goldberg machine.

Supposed anti-white hate crimes committed by black people in the United States are unbelievably rare events.

Colin Ferguson killed six people and wounded 19 on a Long Island Railroad commuter train in 1993.

Omar Thornton, acting in apparent retaliation for the racist abuse he suffered at a Hartford, Connecticut area beer distributor, shot and killed eight people in 2010.

A blue moon is quite literally order of magnitudes more common than the once every decade moment when a black American channels the hate that hate produces from living in a white racist society, committing an act of revenge and vengeance against a white person.

As Cornel West said in his much circulated speech on "niggerization", black folks have produced no terrorist organization that specifically targets white people for violence and revenge.

Some months ago, I had a great conversation with author Leonce Gaiter on The Chauncey DeVega Show about the idea of black revenge--and its absence in the United States. In the aftermath of Vester Flanagan's killing of Alison Parker and Adam Ward, I would like to return to the topic.

Why are events such as Flanagan's shooting of two white people in supposed retaliation for the white racial terrorist Dylann Roof's murder spree at a historic African-American church so infrequent?

What makes one group of people produce retaliatory violence against individuals and groups perceived to be part of an oppressive establishment, while another group does not pursue such an option?

Is it because of political culture and a belief in the legitimacy of the State? Limited options? "Superior" morality and ethics?

Or has the United State government through Cointelpro and a vast internal security apparatus just been amazingly adept at silencing those rare black and brown folks who would seek revenge against white people?

A Conversation With Historian and Writer Walidah Imarisha About the Color Line, Race, and the Pacific Northwest

Walidah Imarisha is the guest on this week's episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show.

Walidah is an activist, writer, and historian whose work focuses on the history of black Americans in the Pacific Northwest, the power of speculative fiction, and how storytelling, organizing, and dreaming are essential tools for social change work.

I discovered her work on the website Gizmodo as referenced in a story about black migration to the Northwest. While there may not have been black folks in the game Oregon Trail, there most certainly were black Americans in every part of the United States and its territories.

Walidah's work is so exciting because she exposes that important "hidden history", while also using it to discuss the realities of white supremacy and racism in supposedly white "liberal" communities today.

In this episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show, Walidah and Chauncey talk about race, history, and migration; have some ghetto nerd sci-fi mind meld moments; laugh about "Black Peoples Employment Month", and reflect on Imarisha's various experiences with presenting the truth and reality of so-called white liberal America at museums, schools, and other venues.

Walidah Imarish is the real deal--smart, quick, funny, and insightful. This was a fun and rich conversation at the virtual bar known as The Chauncey DeVega Show.

In this episode of the podcast, Chauncey also shares some stories about his journey back to Connecticut last week, ponders the eccentricities of aging parents, the realities of "dry begging", opens up his hands to try to cobble together some monies to fix his mother's washing machine, and talks about last weekend's WWE Summerslam event while also sharing a story about (quite literally) almost bumping into the great George Lucas at a local movie theater for the second time.

This episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show can be downloaded from Libsyn and also listened to here. It can also be "watched" on Youtube.

The Chauncey DeVega Show is available on Itunes and at Stitcher as well. Please update your Itunes and other information so that you continue to "subscribe" to the show.

He is Fit to Lead: An Exclusive Interview with Donald Trump About the Power of His Appeal, "Black Lives Matter", and Illegal Immigration

The INN (Indomitable News Network) works hard to bring you, our readers, the stories and information that you cannot find anywhere else. In the 8 years since our founding, we have had the good fortune to bring you candid interviews with such public figures as Herman Cain, Jesse Jackson and Pat Buchanan. Some of our greatest coups have involved exclusive interviews with such personalities as Glenn Beck's ill-fated Blackboard. And of course, the one and only Brother X-Squared made his Internet debut with INN. 

INN has scored a coup, a conversation with the most dynamic, popular, and dangerous man in American politics today, the one and only Republican 2016 presidential candidate and current primary front-runner Mr. Donald Trump.

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INN: Why should the American people elect you to be President?

Trump: I am the best there was, the best there is, and the best there ever will be. Period. I am the man of the hour! I have the power! The American people are simply acknowledging the obvious.

INN: Why did you kick Jorge Ramos, the reporter from Univision, out of your press conference yesterday?

Trump: Do you know what respect is? Do you have any manners? Don’t you understand that when you are in the company of greatness that you need to act accordingly? He is not a credit to his people. The good Spanish speaking people all over the world love me. They are used to respecting royalty. Like Cortes, Queen Isabella, the Incas and Aztecs, Hispanics understand power and strength. Who else can stand up to men like Putin or Iran? Me that’s who.

If you are going to be in America learn to speak English. We don’t need your anchor babies dragging down this great ship of state, the greatest country on Earth, the amazing U. S. of A!

INN: What are some specifics regarding how you would fix America’s immigration problems?

Trump: First of all. They are illegal aliens. They don’t belong here. This is my yard. This is America’s yard. You don’t step foot in my home uninvited. A man has a castle. He defends it. Protecting this great country is no different. I would build a wall, then a moat, then put soldiers on the other side with guns. If you somehow survive that gauntlet of pain I will be there waiting. All those illegals from Mexico and other hellholes in South America will have to fight me. I will beat the hell out of them personally and send them back to whatever place they came from. Once I deal with those illegals we won’t have any anchor baby problems because those Mexicans and other illegals will be so damn afraid of me when I am President that they will crawl back up into their mother’s wombs.

INN: What of ISIS? China’s economy? Their trade imbalance with the United States? Currency manipulation?

Trump: Our country is run by a bunch of idiots. These problems are simple. The Chinese are taking food of our plates and money out of our pockets. They are a devious group of people. I understand how to beat them. ISIS is devious too. They know how to manipulate and intimate the weak effete sissies who are in the White House and the State Department. I will teach all of America’s enemies about pain. I will teach respect. I will teach them about fear. It is that simple.

INN: Why do so many people support you? You are getting thousands, tens of thousands of people at your events?

Trump: Millions actually. Get it right. I am the hottest thing going today. Period. Everywhere I go, I am loved. I can’t even walk down the street without being mobbed. I fly in a helicopter so that the people have someone to look up to. The people of America, the smart people and not the weak losers who support Obama and the Democrats, and the so-called Republicans who dare to step on the stage with me…God I am surprised those cuckold pansy weak wristed Republicans like Jeb Bush and Rubio and Walker, can even breathe near me. My greatness and the applause of the people just takes the air out of a room. Feel my arm. Don’t you feel that? The steel! Look at my chest. See that, those are the muscles of a man who is fit to lead.

Look at me, my watches, my cars, my buildings, who wouldn’t want to be me. Haters, jealous. I have the 25 pounds of gold on my wrist and around my waist.

The American people have good taste. That is why they love me.

INN: Some among the media and in the public feel that you are too extreme to be President of the United States?

Trump: Extreme! I am not extreme! They just want blood. They want to see people suffer. They want to see me, Donald Trump, go to the extreme against Hillary, or whatever other loser who should get back into the kitchen or to their fainting couch, instead of daring to step up against me. I am a humanitarian. I am not hardcore. I am a nice person. People love me.

The other people running for office? They aren’t tested like I am. I have succeeded in every endeavor I have put my mind to. If they push me, if the media like Fox News—who are traitors by the way, I made them rich and famous not the other way around—want me to be extreme I will offer them redemption through violence. You can put that in your pipe and smoke it.

INN: Let me push you a bit harder on that.

Trump: Be careful.

INN: What about your exchanges with Megyn Kelly? Your habit of calling women names? Are you a sexist? Women are half of the American public. If you keep insulting them, how can you win?

Trump: Women love me. Ask all of the women who I have made rich. I don’t hate women. I think women are strong. Women love an alpha male, the big dog in the yard, the man with the 10 pound cohones and grapefruits. Those hags and heifers, mules actually, are just jealous of real women who know what it is like to be with a real man. Those women and those sissy men who complain about the fact that I tell the truth need to swap roles. Put the men in the dresses where they belong! Those women who complain about me telling the truth are just jealous. They want to be with me. They want Donald Trump on their arm and in their bed. The men who hate on me are jealous too. They just want to be me. Funny thing there is no way they can measure up, not using the metric system, Arab numerals, Roman numerals, or anything else!

INN: At some of your rallies people have chanted white supremacist slogans, the other day two of your supporters attacked a homeless man who they thought was an “illegal alien”. What are your thoughts on this?

Trump: I am electric. The people are feeling my energy. It is a wave. They are riding its crescendos. When water boils you may get burned! If someone isn’t strong enough or tough enough to get out of the way whatever happens is all their fault anyway. If you can’t stand the heat you best get out of the kitchen. If you can’t stand up and fight like a man don’t complain when you get steamrolled.

INN: A final question. What are your thoughts on the “Black Lives Matter” movement?

Trump: Never heard of them. They sound like a bunch of losers to me anyway. I only deal with the best. The top of the pile. Those who have paid their dues to get to the mountaintop. I sit on top of the throne at the highest level. Low level players? If someone tried to take the mic from me like those “cry baby boo hoo the cops are mean to me loser coward mouth breathing haters that want handouts instead of earning everything in life" like I did, I would stretch them out, tie them up like a pretzel, and make them beg for mercy. They would be begging and pleading for someone’s life to matter. Their own.

Politics is Professional Wrestling: America's Greatest "Heel" Donald Trump Versus Univision

Again, Donald Trump has demonstrated how he is a student of professional wrestling. In an earlier essay, I extensively detailed the heel (villain) role that Trump is playing . There was a passage that was edited out of the essay when it ran at Salon, one that is especially fitting given Donald Trump's promo against Univision earlier today. 

[Trump's press conference and stump speech was a clinic in how to get "heat" from an audience. Trump satisfied and moved his supporters; he created anger and rage among his detractors. This is the definition of a perfect wrestling promo.]

I originally included this wonderful description of the modus operandi of the professional wrestling
heel from the book Time Heels: Cheating, Stealing, Spandex and the Most Villainous Moments in the History of Pro Wrestling:

We the heels do not need permission to execute our plans. We decide who, we decide when and there is no guarantee that we will either show up at the match or stay to the end. 

It is our prerogative to demand championship opportunities and we cost others theirs in favour of our own.

The truth is, we can do whatever we want. We are not constrained by rules and regulations. Sympathy and morality are for the weak-willed. There are rules in the world of heels of course but never forget that winning is everything! 

Did you honestly think we were your friend or ally? You are online in the spotlight because we say so. Your sole purpose is to serve the great good: our own. 

Heels are arrogant, self-serving, self-involved, cocky, bold, conniving, calculating and treacherous. 

We will strive to annihilate all competition to ensure victory through careful planning and sometimes, even destruction. There can be only one…better us than them.

We can also be made to appear weak in the face of danger. Often we run away when the odds look impossible but never forget that the objective is to win therefore we will live on to fight another day when the conditions will suit our agenda, not yours.

The ideal way to bring down a heel is to have a champion who through force of will, persistence, and righteousness of cause outlasts, outsmarts, and eventually vanquishes them. The heel should also be brought down in part because of their cowardice and other character defects. Fox News made Donald Trump. But, he has chosen to "go into business" for himself, disobeying his masters.

Who in the Republican Party will remove Donald Trump from the spotlight? Or will he, as some heels do, simply choose to walk away when the challenges become to great, all the while giving a big middle finger to the fans simply because he can?

Politics is Professional Wrestling: Why Did Cornel West go on Fox News to Talk About Black Lives Matter?

The school year began yesterday. I am a bit tired and in need of a nap. I was wondering, as you all likely have some thoughts on the matter, why in the hell does Cornel West go on Fox News?

Moreover, why does Cornel West dignify the blonde haired authoritarian Goebbel's white Right dream fantasy that is Megyn Kelly by wasting his time in a discussion of the "black lives matter" movement with her?

And why doesn't Cornel West quickly dispose of the foolishness offered by reactionary white supremacist mouth-breathers in their dishonest yammerings about "black on black crime"?

Cornel West is a highly trained philosopher would could destroy the Fox News white Right on first principles, i.e. why are white American movement conservatives acting like they care about black people's safety and security when their ideology is motivated by anti-black and brown sentiment and policy? Where is all of this concern about black people's safety when white conservatives instinctively defend white on black police violence and thuggery?

Politics is professional wrestling. Cornel, like the other workers, is just playing a role it seems. Disappointing. Or am I wrong?

A Political Nagilum: Donald Trump's First 100 Days in Office, the Stock Market has a "Correction", and America's Slide Toward Authoritarianism

How was your Monday? Are any other folks including hundred dollaraires like me feeling a bit grumpy as their retirement and other funds took more than a minor hit this week and last?

[Alternatively, are any of you laughing all the way to the bank as you swooped into the global stock market and found some bargains? If so, I hate you.]

There were two great bits of writing and pundit-speculation-entertainment that I would like to share to begin the week.

Donald Trump's run as America's favorite "heel" continues unabated. Financial insecurity, a public that is angry at government for being ineffective--all the while the people they are turning to on the White Right are the very same folks who broke the government to begin with--toxic religion, Christian fundamentalism, the surveillance society, neoliberalism, and a pleasure/distraction machine that is unequaled in human history, are a perfect storm for fascist authoritarianism.

Donald Trump ascendance is the stuff of a bad speculative fiction story. He is not Philip K. Dick's Man in the High Castle. Trump is a 1980s professional wrestler turned President of the United States in the movie Idiocracy.

What would a hypothetical Donald Trump tenure as POTUS would look like? On the Media has a wonderful and disturbing retrospective on Trump's imagined first term in the Oval Office.

In his new essay at CounterPunch, Henry Giroux turns a critical eye to the Right-wing performance art turned quasi normal politics in the America of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. As we simultaneously mock the human zoo that is the Republican Party's 2016 field of prospective presidential candidates, one should never forget that they are shadows of Platonic forms, reflections, and a valence for the rot in our collective political and social culture.

Giroux, as he did when he sat in at the virtual bar known as The Chauncey DeVega Show, reminds us that authoritarianism evolves, changes, and takes many forms.

Giroux offers a great synthesis of this dynamic here:

Historical conjunctures produce different forms of authoritarianism, though they all share a hatred for democracy, dissent, and human rights. It is too easy to believe in a simplistic binary logic that strictly categorizes a country as either authoritarian or democratic and leaves no room for entertaining the possibility of a mixture of both systems. American politics today suggests a more updated if not different form of authoritarianism or what some have called the curse of totalitarianism. In this context, it is worth remembering what Huey Long said in response to the question of whether America could ever become fascist: “Yes, but we will call it anti-fascist.” Long’s reply indicates that fascism is not an ideological apparatus frozen in a particular historical period, but as Arendt suggested a complex and often shifting theoretical and political register for understanding how democracy can be subverted, if not destroyed, from within. 

The notion of soft fascism was articulated in 1985 in Bertram Gross’s book, Friendly Fascism, in which he argued that if fascism came to the United States it would not embody the same characteristics associated with fascist forms in the historical past. There would be no Nuremberg rallies, doctrines of racial superiority, government-sanctioned book burnings, death camps, genocidal purges, or the abrogation of the constitution. In short, fascism would not take the form of an ideological grid from the past simply downloaded onto another country under different historical conditions. Gross believed that fascism was an ongoing danger and had the ability to become relevant under new conditions, taking on familiar forms of thought that resonate with nativist traditions, experiences, and political relations. Similarly, in his Anatomy of Fascism, Robert O. Paxton argued that the texture of American fascism would not mimic traditional European forms but would be rooted in the language, symbols, and culture of everyday life.

Is America on the cusp of an authoritarian regime that has adopted itself to the political culture and society of the United States?

Has a political version of Star Trek: The Next Generation's Nagilum malevolent space entity gobbled up the American people?   

"The Ritual": White America Does Not Forgive, Why Should Black People Always Be Expected To?

On the one-year anniversary of the death of a 18-year-old black teenager named Michael Brown by a (now confessed racist) white police officer named Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, Brown’s mother, Lezley McSpadden, was asked if she forgave Darren Wilson for his cruel and wanton act of legal murder. She told Al Jazeera that she will “never forgive” Darren Wilson and that “he’s evil, his acts were devilish.”

Her response is unusual. Its candor is refreshing. Lezley McSpadden’s truth-telling reveals the full humanity and emotions of black folks, and by doing so defies the norms which demand that when Black Americans suffer they do so stoically, and always in such a way where forgiveness for racist violence is a given, an unearned expectation of White America.

The expectation that black people will always and immediately forgive the violence done to them by the State, or individual white people, is a bizarre and sick American ritual.

The necropolis of black bodies in the Age of Obama provides many examples of the ritual.

Less than a month after her son Samuel Dubose was executed by a thug cop, his mother, Audrey Dubose was asked during a press conference, if she forgave Ray Tensing. She answered “I can forgive him. I can forgive anybody. God forgave us."

After Dylann Roof massacred nine black Americans in a Charleston, South Carolina church their families were asked to forgive the white racist terrorist.

Rituals reinforce social norms, values, and beliefs. Rituals can empower some groups and individuals; rituals can also serve to weaken and oppress others.

The ritual of immediate and expected black forgiveness for the historic and contemporary suffering visited upon the black community by White America reflects the complexities of the color line.

Sharing Some Comments and Thoughts on "Why The Ritual of Black Forgiveness For White Violence Must End"

I have a new piece at Alternet. There, I tried to share my thoughts on The Ritual of black forgiveness for white racist violence, indignity, and anti-black terrorism. We have talked about The Ritual here on several occasions. Your thoughts and insights are so very important to me as I try to work through my own ideas.

[It is nice to be missed. I will be posting the "delayed due to travel" installment of what should have been yesterday's installment of The Chauncey DeVega Show on either Monday or Tuesday. My apologies. It is worth the wait.]

I have my virtual bottle of bleach and ammonia ready to throw at the Right-wing sewer dwellers and trough urinal cake eaters who like to publicly expose themselves whenever there is some truth-telling offered about politics, justice, race, and the Common Good. I stand by my observation that most comments online--especially by Right-wing trolls--are further evidence of a decline in the reading and comprehension standards of America's public school.

But, there are also great comments and insights (like those offered by the friends and readers of ChaunceyDeVega.com) to be found online.

Of the many useless and dunderheaded comments on my new Alternet essay, there are three smart observations/stories that stand out as worthy of further discussion and consideration.

Goodbye Mr. Reaves: Back in Chicago from Visiting New Haven and Pondering the Closing of My Childhood Barbershop

I am back in Chicago after traveling home to Connecticut for a week-long visit.

I now need to reset, get back into my routine, catch up on some writing, and enjoy the final weekend before school begins anew.

[As a bureaucratic matter, I am making my best effort to post this week's installment of The Chauncey DeVega Show with guest Walidah Imarisha later this evening. I apologize for the delay.]

When I return to Connecticut, I am always happy to see my mother--even while her eccentricities are really starting to annoy me, older folks are allowed such illogical quirks--and I am reminded that "home", however defined, is increasingly about the people and friends still there as opposed to physical landmarks and businesses that may now be shuttered and closed. In all, I had a good time (I also put some work in on the outline of the first 12 issues for my graphic novel/series that I will be pitching to some folks in the next few weeks). I also went to the cemetery where my father is buried. I am not morbid. I also do not believe that you can effectively communicate with a person's corpse. But rituals give us power.

[During said visit to the local in the ground body depository, I was reminded that my father is a trickster because I am damn sure the grave marker is not where it was originally put ten years ago. I also went to my grandfather's tombstone--which I was unaware of until a year ago. He is buried next to a member of the Carnegie family. Talk about an ironic outcome.]

And yes, New Haven pizza still reigns supreme over nearly everyone...bonus points if you get the reference.

New Haven, Connecticut is not the downtown of my childhood. Like so many other college or university locales, Yale has gobbled up and robbed it of its personality. Standardization somehow brings comfort to the little snowflakes who are afraid that the place where they will go to college or university will somehow be different from where they grew up. The horror!

But even in the midst of change I dared to hope that the black barbershop, one of the leading and most important historic institutions in the African-American public sphere/counter public, would stand as a redoubt.

This was also a source of disappointment.

Politics is Professional Wrestling: Donald Trump is the Greatest "Heel" in American Politics Today

The first thing you should know about me is that I am an unapologetic fan of professional wrestling — of its outsize characters and operatic storylines, of its physical feats of strength and skill that even the biggest cynic, if they were honest, would have to grudgingly respect. While the sport’s biggest stage, that of World Wrestling Entertainment, is often puerile and retrograde in its presentation, even that entertainment powerhouse is capable of staging moments of transcendent spectacle.

I’m not alone in these affections, either: Donald Trump, the current Republican primary frontrunner, bomb thrower and nativist iconoclast, is an avid fan and student of pro wrestling, and a close friend and business associate of Vince McMahon, the owner and CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment.

(Any familiarity with McMahon’s paleolithic politics render these facts completely unsurprising.)

Trump’s casinos have played host to two of the biggest events in WWE history, Wrestlemanias IV & V. He’s a member of the WWE Hall of Fame. He even went so far as to perform at Wrestlemania 23, appearing ringside for a match dubbed — wait for it — “The Battle of the Billionaires.”

Of course, most Americans are probably now most likely to associate Trump with his maddening and ridiculous, yet unexpectedly ascendant, campaign for president. And yet, believe it or not, his time spent in the world of professional wrestling is invaluable for understanding the path he has cut through the GOP primary field — because the playbook employed by Trump over the past several months bears an uncanny resemblance to the storytelling and character-building stratagem of professional wrestling. One could even be forgiven for concluding that Trump is directly calling on his knowledge and love of the performance art to create one of the most captivating — and entertaining — political stories of recent vintage.

To understand why, we first need to establish a few key concepts.

Matters of Escalation: Reflecting on Black Lives Matter and A. Philip Randolph

I would like to thank the kind folks who shared insights and resources about the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. You have been a great aid as I work to refine my thinking on BLM's strategy, tactics, and role in shaping public opinion.

[I would also like to thank those of you who shared some suggested songs for a soundtrack to accompany one of the future-iconic images from the protests in Ferguson, Missouri against that community's (and the United States') racist, as well as anti-poor and working class, police and criminal justice debt peonage system.]

With the passing of Julian Bond, my thoughts on the Black Lives Matter movement (and social movements in an era of neoliberal surveillance and plutocracy) are still very much in flux. Social movement theory has evolved and grown past traditional understandings of mass mobilization to include concerns about "lifestyle" politics, symbolic action, new technologies, and how justice claims by the enfranchised and those folks otherwise included in the polity (and who may be "privileged" in other ways) complicate how we think about social change and power.

Black Lives Matter is a story of change and how a new generation of young lions is fighting back against injustice along the color line; yet, many of their goals are very traditional and solidly within the long Black Freedom Struggle. Politics is once again a story of continuity and change.

While the political opportunity structure and arrangements of power relative to the Racial State were very different during Jim and Jane Crow World War 2 America, as I continue to contemplate BLM's strategies and tactics, I keep returning to A. Philip Randolph and his proposed march on Washington to force Roosevelt to desegregate the arms industries.

If you have not read A. Philip Randolph's letter to Walter White, please do so, it is a precious and wonderful reminder that those people "who make history"--and I hate that lazy phrase, but cliches persist because they are often the best way to describe a given sentiment--are in many ways "regular folks" (the tone of the letter is authentic, serious but relaxed talk between colleagues and friends) just like you and me.

I am also very fond of Randolph's observation that:

At the banquet table of nature, there are no reserved seats. You get what you can take, and you keep what you can hold. If you can’t take anything, you won’t get anything, and if you can’t hold anything, you won’t keep anything. And you can’t take anything without organization.

By implication, is BLM's decentralized nature a strength, weakness, or somehow contingent on the circumstance?

Is BLM too quick to use public disruptions and pressure to pressure Bernie Sanders and others to shift their talking points (and perhaps even stated policy goals when/if they are elected to higher office), when some behind the scenes pressure and the threat of public action and embarrassment could perhaps accomplish even more in the long term?

Moreover, once those politicians most susceptible to Black Lives Matter's strategy of protest and disruption make themselves immune to the latter's actions, to where does BLM escalate? Have they shown their hand too soon?

A Soundtrack for a Black Child Standing Against Police Thuggery in Ferguson

Time decides if a photo is iconic. The image of a young black child facing down police thuggery in Ferguson, Missouri will, I hope, be elevated to such a status. The photo is a type of mediated image; the eyes, always the eyes for me, tell the true story, much more so than any abstract or technical discussion of semiotics and the politics of meaning.

President Barack Obama recently shared a public version of his soundtrack for the summer. This list seems to capture the feelings of a president who happens to be black, in the twilight of his term, and contemplating his successes, disappointments, and understanding of how America's history, as a white supremacist society, grown from the contradictions of slavery and freedom, whose culture is black and brown, mated with the thrown off human surplus of Europe, built on bloodied land stolen from First Nations peoples, as well as the labor of the Asian, can simultaneously love and loathe the idea and fact of its first Black President of the United States.

If you were to make a soundtrack that channels the feelings evoked by the image of a young black child facing down thug cops in Ferguson, what would you include?

Ben Carson, Cornel West, Michael Brown and the Myth of Black Forgiveness, Passivity, and Happy, Spiritual Singing, Negroes

One of America's greatest cultural lies and rituals is the myth of black forgiveness for the racial violence done against black folks by the State and/or individual white people.

The Ritual lacks justice: it is not recuperative, redistributive, or restorative. The Ritual is phony and empty. But, it is part of the glue and salve that helps to cohere American society lest the weight of the unequal debits of gain and plunder through violence and exploitation along the color line tear from one another, the whole democratic project thus falling down.

There are many acts in The Ritual; it is unending.

Black conservatives are human chaff and totems that white racists on the Right use to excuse-make for their white supremacist beliefs. As such, Republican primary season presidential candidate Ben Carson's role is to tell White America what they want to hear about black people. He is the human puppet and voice box in a black conservative See 'N Say toy. Carson contributed to The Ritual this week where he reaffirmed the myth of the happy passive spiritual singing negro, and his belief that rapscallion trouble-making black "radicals" are at the root of what ails Black America:

A Conversation with David T. Friendly about the New Documentary "Sneakerheadz" and Steve Scheier on Diversity and Leadership

This week's episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show features two firsts.

David Friendly is the director and producer of the new documentary on sneaker culture known as "Sneakerheadz". David is the first Best Motion Picture of the Year Oscar-nominated guest--for his work on the great movie Little Miss Sunshine--to sit down at the virtual bar and salon known as The Chauncey DeVega Show. David Friendly is also the first person to spend some time chatting with Chauncey DeVega who has won a BAFTA for Best Film.

Steve Scheier is the author of the new book Do More Good. Better. He is the first organizational consultant with expert and practical advice on "diversity", "leadership", and "the workplace" to be a conversation partner on The Chauncey DeVega Show.

This is a good and informative episode.

Chauncey and David talk about being a "closer" in the film business, the art and politics of sneaker culture, how making a documentary is different from working in other genres, and how sneaker culture is a type of social history.

In the next segment, Chauncey and Steve talk about a wide range of topics. How does a person navigate the corporate and not for profit worlds? How do questions of leadership, identity, and decision-making interact and complicate one another?

Steve and Chauncey also explore such topics as privilege, consulting, communication styles, and remaining positive and productive in the face of the challenging realities of the contemporary workplace where one may be afraid of truth-telling? What about finding a mentor? Surviving a toxic work environment?

During this episode of The Chauncey Devega Show, Chauncey also works through his mental confusion as caused by the Chicago heat, reflects on being slurred by a drunk woman at the local tap, is upset about ign't "Serial", talks about Donald Trump and pro wrestling, and shares the biological science that drives his addiction to high fructose corn syrup.

This episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show can be downloaded from Libsyn and also listened to here. It can also be "watched" on Youtube.

The Chauncey DeVega Show is available on Itunes and at Stitcher as well. Please update your Itunes and other information so that you continue to "subscribe" to the show.

Please Teach Me Something: What Are Your Thoughts on Bernie Sanders and the Black Lives Matter Movement?

I have recently been asked by more than one media outlet for my thoughts about Bernie Sanders and the Black Lives Matter movement. Save for comments during my last guest appearance on Ring of Fire TV, I have told folks that I am still formulating my thoughts on what is a very complicated and important matter.

One of the ways that a person can get some shine from the chattering classes is to have a spirited and heartfelt opinion on every issue. This makes for great entertainment. But, it does not contribute to a healthy American public discourse. I believe in showing my work. As such, when I am still working out my thoughts or am confused about a topic, I try to reach out to good and smart folks who likely know more--and have done more thinking on it--than me.

To that end, I am very curious about how you, the kind friends and patrons of our online salon, feel about Bernie Sanders' handling of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. Moreover, am I alone in my concerns and worries that while BLM gains strength from its flexibility, decentralized nature, and ability to use social media, that those strengths can also be weaknesses in terms of infiltration, agent provocateurs, and misdirection by those who seek to discredit Black Lives Matter and their broader human rights project?

Here are some essays and other pieces that I have been perusing in my effort to develop a more cohesive opinion about BLM, Bernie Sanders, and other related matters.

We Need a New "Deacons for Defense": White Anti-Government Racist "Oath Keeper" Militias Intimidate Black Americans in Ferguson...Police Do Nothing

This is our America.

White Right-wing anti-government militias are allowed to intimidate Americans exercising their civil rights in Ferguson to protest.

Police do nothing.

We need a new Deacons for Defense folks. There are more than enough black American veterans who are legally allowed to open carry who could mirror and confront the Oath Keepers. We have more than enough white brothers and sisters on the right side of history who could do the same.

Black America has a long and proud martial tradition; we should run towards this history and not from it.

Rights are not restricted and limited to white, Right-wing, thugs and goons.

If black Americans were armed and exercising their civil rights to open carry the Ferguson police would respond with lethal force.

Moreover, if Ferguson is in a "state of emergency" why are white Oath Keeper anti-gov't racist militia types allowed to be in the area with loaded assault rifles and other weapons.

Where is the F.B.I.? Where is the State Police? Where is the A.T.F.?

Creeping and present fascism.

Is this 1885 or 2015? And even more surreal, a black man is President of the United States and a black woman is the Attorney General.

Never forget the proud martial tradition of Black American armed self-defense and great men such as Robert F. Williams.

Where are the new "negroes with guns?"

Beyond "Cuckservative": The Right-wing's Racial Castration Anxieties and President Obama's "BBC'"

Humans are social beings. Humans invented politics in order to manage conflict and decide how resources should be distributed in society. It is almost inevitable then that politics would become a stage on to which we project some of the most basic — and base — parts of the self.

In a recent article at Salon, Joan Walsh did an excellent job in navigating the political effluence that is the American right’s newborn obsession with “cuckservatives.”

There, she noted how:

“Cuckservative” started showing up in my Twitter mentions last week, after I suggested Donald Trump supporters might not be the brightest bulbs. As I clicked around, I came to a shocking conclusion: I’ve been uncharacteristically downplaying the amount of racism and misogyny powering the right today. The spread of the epithet “cuckservative” is a sign that the crudest psycho-sexual insecurity animates the far right.

“Cuckservative,” you see, is short for a cuckolded conservative. It’s not about a Republican whose wife is cheating on him, but one whose country is being taken away from him, and who’s too cowardly to do anything about it.

OK, that’s gross and sexist enough already, but there’s more. It apparently comes from a kind of pornography known as “cuck,” in which a white husband, either in shame or lust, watches his wife be taken by a black man. Lewis explains it this way: “A cuckservative is, therefore, a race traitor.”

White supremacists have reinforced the racial intent of the “cuckservative” narrative. To that end, Walsh quotes one of their more prominent voices, Richard Spencer:

“The #cuckservative meme doesn’t make any sense without race. It’s all about race…What’s powerful about #cuckservative is that it is call for a racially conscious politics—and not the kind of shot-gun spray muckraking that Johnson specializes in.”

But, as Walsh explains, usage the word hasn’t been limited to white nationalist circles:

Rush Limbaugh helped spread the term to the mainstream when he praised Trump like this: “If Trump were your average, ordinary, cuckolded Republican, he would have apologized by now, and he would have begged for forgiveness, and he would have gone away.”

At present, “cuckservative” is just one more signal of how the contemporary Republican Party and movement conservatism have become a carnival-like human zoo fueled by the talk-radio echo chamber, one where extremism is now mainstream, and the politically adolescent and immature obsessions of “men’s rights” victimologists — with their “alpha males” and “cuckolding” anxieties — are considered reasonable and respectable points of view.

Getting Called a 'Satanic Faggot' While Processing the Titanic Federal Reserve Sinking Conspiracy Theory and Learning About the Great Studio Musicians Known as 'The Wrecking Crew'

As is our habit and tradition, do consider this a semi-open thread to share those matters of public and private concern that you find compelling or interesting.

I appreciate a good insult. I am a student of Elliot Offen.

I prefer a sharp dig and observation about a person's character, beliefs, and behavior as opposed to physical traits (folks can't choose the bodies they were born into). I give points for creativity, quickness, and the existential pain caused by the verbal barb. The insult should also be based on some fundamental truth about the target of one's ire.

This is none of those things.

Friday evening, I took my regular evening sojourn to the local watering hole. I am unsure if it is because of my striking good looks, Adonis-like physique, or enlarged head like the Talosians from Star Trek, but strangers love to ask me questions, and thus interject themselves into my semi-private conversations with others.

[My alternate hypothesis is that I have some type of icon over my head like the avatars in The Sims computer game, and we are all being played by some master user.]

Somehow, a young black woman who is supposedly studying for a degree in social work thought me to be a good resource for her insights about "the black community", racism, and police violence. She asked, "what can black people do to change their lives and situation?" I should not have answered. I also could not resist. This is one of my many character flaws.

Semi-open Thread: A Guest Post from Werner Herzog's Bear and What are Your Thoughts on the Republican Party's First Right-wing Sewer Dweller C.H.U.D. 2016 Debate?

I tried to watch Thursday night's Republican human zoo freak show urinal cake eater sewer dweller debate on Fox "News".

I could not sit through the show. Thus, I decided to go to the Japanese BBQ spot, then go down the street to my local hangout for their as rare as the dodo bird 2 dollar martini night. I was more interested in the mud duck and humanzee action than in consuming libations. I was not disappointed.

My friend Werner Herzog's Bear--he who is the proprietor of the great blog "Notes From the Ironbound"--has much more stamina than I do in regards to these matters. He is smart people; all of you should frequent his site; I defer to his observations about last night's clown car Republican Party debate.

What are your thoughts about the first car accident demolition derby human freak show Fox News Republican hug fest? Beautiful ugly? Or ugly beautiful?

****

Plenty of half-wit shysters are throwing their half-baked hot takes out into cyberspace tonight, so I figured, why not me?

I actually managed to finish watching the whole damn thing, with much aid from beer and tequila.  That was the only way to swim against the tide of bullshit while keeping my sanity intact.  Plenty of other people will be talking about who "won," but that's not my concern here.  Instead, I'd like to get into what the debate says more broadly about the Republican party.

In the first place, it shows the centrality of Fox News to the GOP, to the point that by cutting off the debate at ten according to their own criteria, Fox was allowed to essentially be the gatekeeper in this election.  Watching the debate it was also obvious that Trump was getting questions not about the issues, but about himself, questions obviously intended to undermine him.  Fox seems desperate, like the GOP leadership, to make him just go away.

The debate also illustrated quite a bit about the Republican party line, and the positions one must hold to be a contender for the Republican presidential nomination.  Here, in no particular order, are the policy positions that seemed universally supported by the candidates:

• Lowering taxes
• Increasing deficit spending
• Reducing the deficit (evidently by magic if taxes are cut and defense increased)
• Slashing the social safety net
• Limiting immigration
• Denying the existence of structural racism
• Banning abortion
• Starting new wars in the Middle East
• Letting Israel dictate American foreign policy
• Refusing to back the nuclear deal with Iran

In addition to these basic notions, several candidates called for a flat tax, border wall, and elimination of the Common Core.  Gay marriage dropped off a bit, replaced by the "religious persecution" dog whistle, which implies that not allowing Christians to discriminate against gay people is some kind of oppression against Christians.  There actually weren't a lot of points of friction, apart from everyone other than Trump going after him.  The biggest came between Chris Christie and Rand Paul over government surveillance.

It is also obvious after this debate that the Republican party needs Ben Carson as a cover for deflecting charges of racism.  Carson himself attacked the very notion that racism exists in this country, allowing Republicans to say that a Bonafide Black Person backs them up.  Carson was the only candidate asked about "race relations," which seemed to make the intentions of the debate organizers pretty obvious.  (Or just expose them as racists.)  Scott Walker got a question about police brutality, but completely deflected it.  There was no real discussion of racist policing, a burning issue in this country for the past year.  That silence is telling indeed.

Another thing I noticed was that the Republican party is dancing on a volcano, as far as religion is concerned.  The question at the end about whether candidates had talked to God was pretty ridiculous, but some of the answers were downright scary.  Scott Walker talked about being washed in the blood of the lamb in a way that would make anyone who's not an evangelical Protestant nervous about having him as president.  Many candidates, like Cruz, also sounded the alarm about "religious persecution" which is a neat trick to avoid being direct about their homophobia, but still made him sound like someone suspicious of those who don't hold his beliefs.

Last, but not least, the debate has raised the profile of John Kasich, who had barely made it in.  Unlike the likes of Cruz, Paul, Trump, et al, Kasich actually seems like a serious man.  I go to thinking about this, and realized that this might a long con by the Republicans who are putting out a bunch of loonies so that a candidate who still follows their limiting and damaging ideology gets elected because he looks sane by comparison.  Kasich, despite not being a nutter, has still gone after labor and abortion rights in an aggressive fashion.  He also distinguished himself by discussing attending a gay wedding he'd recently attended, unaware of the irony that if it was up to him, that wedding never would have actually happened.  Despite this hypocrisy, Kasich's star has risen because he looks like a gem compared to the turds he's surrounded by.

A Conversation With Sean McFate on Mercenaries, Private Armies, and the Future of War

Sean McFate is the guest on this week's episode of the podcast known as The Chauncey DeVega Show.

Sean is an expert on international and military affairs. He is also the author of the book The Modern Mercenary: Private Armies and What They Mean for World Order. Sean McFate is also a very fun, smart, and insightful conversation partner as he and Chauncey DeVega dialogue about the present/future of warfare, the old/new rise of mercenaries, popular culture, foreign affairs, and the changing same that is war across the centuries.

This episode was great fun. How often does one get to ask an expert on military affairs about the movie Predator, and which military branch (or not) did Arnold Schwarzenegger's group of commandos belong to?

In this week's installment of The Chauncey DeVega Show, Chauncey also talks about his apparently quite upsetting and controversial recent essay on toxic white masculinity, gets too excited by his Shasta root beer soda, talks about the White Right's human freak show obsession with "cuckservatives", and gives some advice to a sad soul on Reddit who is apparently in distress about his cuckolding predilections and obsessions.

This very full of goodness episode also includes an update about the ign't cluster in Chauncey DeVega's neighborhood, and the Sherlock Holmes-like mystery that has developed during these last few weeks.

The Chauncey DeVega Show is available on Itunes and at Stitcher as well. Please update your Itunes and other information so that you continue to "subscribe" to the show.

This episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show with Sean McFate can also be "watched" on the official Youtube channel. It can be downloaded from Libsyn here.

Thank You: How 'Rowdy' Roddy Piper and 'They Live' Taught Us to Stand Up and Fight Back Against the Right-Wing Neoliberal Nightmare

Legendary professional wrestler “Rowdy” Roddy Piper passed away on Friday, July 31, 2015. He succumbed to a heart attack in his Hollywood, California home. Born, Roderick George Toombs, Piper was 61-years-old.

Roddy Piper is best known for his work with the (then) World Wrestling Federation during the 1980s and feuds with Hulk Hogan, Mr. T, and Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka. While he is a member of the WWE’s Hall of Fame, I would dare to suggest that in the future it is far more likely that Roddy Piper will be remembered for starring in the 1988 cult classic film They Live.

The plot of John Carpenter’s They Live is deceptively simple. Roddy Piper’s character, a semi-homeless day laborer named “Nada” (Spanish for “nothing”) discovers a pair of sunglasses which allow him to identify the extraterrestrials that have infiltrated the Earth’s populace. The aliens are part of the global (intergalactic) power elite, a group that has been stealing the Earth’s resources, buying off its leaders, and exploiting the masses for their own personal gain. Piper’s character quickly encounters “Frank” (played by actor Keith David), and together they join the resistance movement in order to bring down the alien overlords.

As I discussed with author Jonathan Lethem several months ago, They Live is a genius film that embraces the culture of disreputability—it is genre entertainment, based on an obscure short story, a professional wrestler is the main character, and the heroes of the movie are an interracial group of homeless, working class, and poor people.

They Live, for all of its b-movie auteur sensibilities, is a scathing indictment of the Reagan 1980s, the culture of cruelty and austerity, wealth inequality, the plutocrats, the corporate media, classism, racism, and greed.

As such, They Live is also an essential film for this socio-political moment: it has much to teach the American people as they struggle to make sense of wanton police brutality against people of color and the poor in the new Gilded Age, an era of toxic white masculinity, and perverse reactionary Right-wing politics.

They Live’s central theme is how people can learn to see reality more clearly. 

An Online Safari: When Toxic White Masculinity Talks Back on Youtube

My recent open letter to White America about the perils of toxic white masculinity has caused some upset. I have apparently broken some unstated rule in American public discourse. "There is no such as fight club!" has apparently been replaced with "there is no such thing as white masculinity!"

Moreover, there is especially no such thing as toxic white masculinity.

The open sewer that is the Right-wing media and their thrall trolls who pollute and muck up the comment sections of many websites has provided much entertainment in response to my piece on toxic white masculinity. Writing online is a type of anthropological fieldwork: those who are enraged and upset by some basic truth-telling about toxic white masculinity are providing wonderful examples for study.

This response on the Right-wing trough urinal known as Red State is typical:

On the liberal sites, and increasingly on conservative sites like Breitbart, I am finding a preponderance of click-bait such as this horrific piece on Salon titled “Dear White America: Your toxic masculinity is killing you.” I linked to it out of a sense of journalistic accuracy but I implore you not to click and read this clearly trolling fragment of flotsam floating down the storm drain of Salon’s liberal sewer. 

There’s no point to this open letter other than to present a racist view of America that would make David Duke blush with embarrassment, where “White America” is filled with brainwashed, testosterone-overdosed rednecks who blindly follow the GOP (which, from its author’s point of view, is the effluent of Hell). The only point is to induce people to click on the post to read it, and either cheerily agree with it or violently disagree. A post like that has no middle ground, and no call to action or thoughtfulness other than if you’re white, you must agree that you are trash.

We have a great opportunity when someone who is angry about your online work records a Youtube video where they attempt to read and respond to it. I am not "punching down". No, this clip by "Jim Doug" is a wonderful and rare chance to hear the white racial frame and white fragility attempt to process reality through the white racial paranoiac gaze.

Jim Doug's video is instructive. It is much of what scholars and those others who study whiteness, white privilege, and systems of racialized power write about in the abstract, but rarely have a chance (except for social psychologists) to hear in process from a given white individual. As Jim Doug reads Dear White America: Toxic White Masculinity is Killing You, you can quite literally hear the gears turning in his mind as he misunderstands and misinterprets the words and concepts in front of him in order to default to the dominant white victimology frame.

This Youtube video is a type of safari, it is one that is very helpful and illuminating for those of us who want to understand the power of white racial ideologies in what is supposed to be a "colorblind" age.