- JD Vance blurbs a book that says progressives are subhuman;
- Trump is hostile toward women and non-white people who are not sufficiently deferential to he who is destined to rule;
- Trump blusters about bitcoin, about which he has no idea.
NY Times, Michelle Goldberg, Opinion, 5 Aug 2024: JD Vance Just Blurbed a Book Arguing That Progressives Are Subhuman
The book is Unhumans: The Secret History of Communist Revolutions (and How to Crush Them), by Jack Posobiec and Joshua Lisec, and ostensibly, as the title indicates, it’s about communist revolutions.
Goldberg:
In a normal political environment, there would be little need to pay attention to a new book by the far-right provocateur Jack Posobiec, who is probably best known for promoting the conspiracy theory that Democrats ran a satanic child abuse ring beneath a popular Washington pizzeria. But “Unhumans,” an anti-democratic screed that Posobiec co-wrote with the professional ghostwriter Joshua Lisec, comes with endorsements from some of the most influential people in Republican politics, including, most significantly, vice-presidential candidate JD Vance.
The word “fascist” gets thrown around a lot in politics, but it’s hard to find a more apt one for “Unhumans,” which came out last month. The book argues that leftists don’t deserve the status of human beings — that they are, as the title says, unhumans — and that they are waging a shadow war against all that is good and decent, which will end in apocalyptic slaughter if they are not stopped. “As they are opposed to humanity itself, they place themselves outside of the category completely, in an entirely new misery-driven subdivision, the unhuman,” write Posobiec and Lisec.
It’s easy to read this as a cri de coeur from a conservative tribalist who is deeply suspicious of larger communities — of which communist ones are surely the greatest horror of them all — that would dilute into nonexistence the traditions of the tribe. Of “all that is good and decent.” To be drowned by so many “others.”
As they tell it, modern progressivism is just the latest incarnation of an ancient evil dating back to the late Roman Republic and continuing through the French Revolution and Communism to today. Often, they write, “great men of means” are required to crush this scourge. The contempt for democracy in “Unhumans” is not subtle. “Our study of history has brought us to this conclusion: Democracy has never worked to protect innocents from the unhumans,” write Posobiec and Lisec.
One of their book’s heroes is the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, who overthrew the democratic Second Spanish Republic in the country’s 1930s civil war. The authors call him a “great man of history” and compare him to George Washington. They quote him on what doesn’t work against the unhuman threat: “We do not believe in government through the voting booth. The Spanish national will was never freely expressed through the ballot box.”
Maybe Vance didn’t actually read the book before blurbing it, Goldberg suggests. But Vance is well-known for suggesting a clean sweep of government bureaucracy, should Trump win, and “replace them with our people.”
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More about ‘othering’.
Salon, Chauncey DeVega, 6 Aug 2024: The familiar traits that trigger Trump’s toxic rage against Kamala Harris, subtitled “Trump has a large amount of animus and hostility towards women and non-white people who he views as not compliant”
Don’t make Donald Trump angry. You won’t like him when he’s angry. Fascinated by violence, the former president has threatened imprisonment and death on his political “enemies” and others who he believes have wronged him. He is increasingly channeling Adolf Hitler and the Nazis with promises and threats to purify the blood of the nation by eliminating the human “vermin” once he takes power in 2025 and becomes America’s first dictator.
Trump’s many negative personality traits are exacerbated by his authoritarianism and social dominance orientation, and what appears to be a hypermanic personality, egomania, and God complex. Trump is a charismatic leader and de facto political cult leader who gives his followers permission to engage in the worst of human behavior. Trump’s followers are attracted to him because of his negative behavior and personality and not despite it.
Donald Trump is especially hostile to (if not hates) anyone who dares to disagree with him, tell him “no”, oppose him, or otherwise not give him the validation and narcissistic fuel he desperately craves.
…
Trump’s hostility is not universal and equal: he has repeatedly shown himself to be a racist, a white supremacist, and a misogynist.As such, Donald Trump has a large amount of animus and general hostility towards women and non-white people who he views as not being suitably compliant, validating, and deferent.
Essence of the racist, and the fascist. People should know their place, which is beneath those who deserve to rule.
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I keep wondering how people can listen to this man. Because they’re as stupid as he is? (I’ll confess, *I* don’t understand how bitcoin works (I haven’t tried), but I wouldn’t pretend that I do.)
Boing Boing, Ellsworth Toohey, 2 Aug 2024: “Intellectually very high level”: Watch Trump’s hilarious attempt to understand Bitcoin
This week, he appeared on Fox Business to further flaunt his expertise. In the video clip posted to Xitter by Aaron Rupar, the host asked him, “What about crypto? You spoke at that crypto conference last weekend, and you said that you’d like crypto to have a more prominent space in America. How will —”
Before she could finish her question, Trump cut her off. “You have to understand about crypto. Crypto is a very interesting thing, very high level in certain ways, intellectually very high level.” Trump has little patience for people who aren’t at the same intellectually very high level that he is. He likes to remind people that he had a cousin or uncle who went to MIT, which makes him an expert in all matters of math, science, and technology. All he had to do was hear the word “bitcoin” and he instantly knew more about it than Satoshi Nakamoto.
Trump warned, “But if we don’t do it, China is going to do it. China is going to do it anyway. But if we don’t do it, China is doing it. China is already doing it.” That’s interesting, considering that China has outlawed cryptocurrency mining, calling it an “obsolete industry.” Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are heavily regulated in China.
He also thinks Bitcoin is a bottomless money source he can tap into without doing any work, much like Trump University. “Who knows,” he said, “maybe we’ll pay off our 35 trillion dollars, hand them a little crypto check, right? We’ll hand them a little Bitcoin and wipe out our 35 trillion dollars.”
There’s more.
