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Nevilledog

(51,006 posts) Sun Jun 26, 2022, 12:09 AM Jun 2022

Jared Yates Sexton: The overruling of Roe and what the GOP/authoritarian movement wants

Link to tweet

Unrolled thread here (view here to see images)
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1540752938791972864.html

This is going to be a long thread, but an important one.

We need to talk about the overruling of Roe, what the GOP/authoritarian movement wants, and where we're heading.

Here's what I learned writing The Midnight Kingdom and studying all this.

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The Midnight Kingdom by Jared Yates Sexton: 9780593185230 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books
From the author of American Rule and the host of The Muckrake podcast, an ambitious account of the rise of “the West” in world history, and the ways that it has exported its most dangerous...
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/673035/the-midnight-kingdom-by-jared-yates-sexton/

We entered a new era yesterday, a regressive moment in which the progress of the 20th century was openly attacked and a planned deconstruction of all our progress was sprung into the open.

We have to understand the ideology and the circumstances behind this movement.

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It's not a coincidence that the lead up to the overturning of Roe has been preceded by Right Wing ideologues like Tucker Carlson talking about "white replacement theory."

A motivating factor in all of this is a persistent fear that white supremacy is in danger.

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Let's be clear about something.

America is in decline.

Politically and economically. The power structure that prioritizes concentrated wealth has created a cascading set of circumstances and our status is slipping. A lot of this is in reaction.

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COVID-19, Declining Birth Rates and International Migration Resulted in Historically Small Population Gains
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/12/us-population-grew-in-2021-slowest-rate-since-founding-of-the-nation.html

The Right's response to America's decline is sadly predictable.

Reactionary conspiracy theories and a return to patriarchal mythologies about "men under attack" and "cultural weakness and decay."

Their answer isn't to address the problem, but reinforce past hierarchies.

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There IS a problem with our system and it IS unsustainable.

Action has to be taken, but the Right has doubled-down on authoritarianism and giving birth to a new movement focused on a platform of nativism, white patriarchal control, and reindustrialization.

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We've seen much of this before.

Teddy Roosevelt himself was caught up in a movement terrified of "race suicide."

These reactionaries believed that abortion and contraception would destroy the white race and allow minorities to take over the world.

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A large portion of the political discourse revolved around the myth of "racial suicide," leading to a series of action to rein in developing rights of women and autonomy in order to stave off the ascent of other populations

Again. This was white supremacy through and through

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A good use of your time this weekend would be to familiarize yourself with the Comstock Act and the actions taken by government to prevent women from having access to reproductive choice.

Chances are we're going to see another round of these things soon.

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The solution then, as it would be throughout history and even now, was to address problems by reinforcing patriarchal power and using oppression to rein in any individual rights or resistance.

As we're about to see in the remainder of this thread, it's an obvious cycle.

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When capitalism begins to self-destruct, inevitably white supremacist movements grow based on a paranoia that any solution has to be predicated on maintaining white supremacist exploitation.

We don't like to talk about it, but many of the seeds of fascism were grown here.

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Our understanding of phenomena like Fascism and Nazism is largely based on conventional stories, but they were "solutions" to the problems of the system that relied on re-codifying exploitation through new "religions" of faith extolling white supremacy and labor.

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Fascist movements both created the appearance of a new religion while sanctifying "sacrifice."

They told men they should embrace patriarchy and the sacrifice of labor while women should embrace their roles in the kitchen and in the home.

*For The Good of the Nation*

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A quick look at Vichy France underscores this idea of reinforcing gender roles.

The French Right was ecstatic to welcome the Nazis and saw it as as a solution to "decadent culture" created by liberal progress.

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While we're talking about Vichy France and the French Right, we have to point out, again, that the same anti-Semitic, patriarchal, racist conspiracy theories animating their movement are the same stories currently animating America's reactionary right.

The exact same ones.

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Vichy France and the French fascists blamed liberalism and feminist progress for their "decline" and instituted a new regime totally focused on reinvigoration of "traditional roles" and preferred gender roles.

This is the cycle. Decline and blame progress and roll it back.

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We've seen it here in America, where the hard-fought gains of feminism and for women's rights has resulted in religious and political accusations of it "destroying the country" and "offending God."

This is a continued cycle and it's predictable where it's going.

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Since the emergence of feminist movements these patriarchal figures have continued decried them as dangerous and poisonous, claiming that any victory will literally destroy the country and its people.

It is about defending their power and their wealth at all costs.

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Our current problem can be traced back to the beginning of neoliberal free trade, which freed corporations to move their industry over borders in order to pay workers less and avoid the liberal state's regulations.

It was supposed to set America up to be beyond that work.

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Free trade resulted in industry moving elsewhere in search of lower costs and higher profits.

But as is the case with these trends, there's a boomerang effect. Those same companies are now desperate to profit from American labor, which creates a new problem and possibility.

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As America declines, it's going to reindustrialize. Or, at least, that's a distinct possibility as forwarded by the GOP and the Right.

The momentum is now on bringing those industries back BUT the only way to do that is to absolutely destroy regulations and education.

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One of the major ideas of the Right Wing National Conservative project is reindustrialization and a reestablishment of a patriarchal America where women have more children and are relegated to tending to the home and family.

If it sounds familiar, it should. We've seen this

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National Conservative candidates are calling for a new order where women stay at home and men work in factories.

This plan is predicated on getting rid of reproductive choice, instituting a religious orthodoxy for control, and changing almost everything about our labor.

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Christian Nationalism is going to be incredibly useful for the authoritarians.

It promotes subservience but also, like what fascists did, it sanctifies the sacrifice of exploitation and labor. It will give this political project a mythology that confirms it.

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Meanwhile, the Supreme Court, funded by the same wealthy donors who are funding National Conservatism and the continued attacks on democracy, will wind back the progress of the 20th century, including individual/labor rights and regulations

Creating a new labor situation

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Public education, which is under relentless attack, will eventually either be completely destroyed or turned into a prison-like system that specializes in indoctrination and functions almost exactly like a state-run prison

That part of the equation is already well under way

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And here's a hard truth: It's unlikely that corporations will allow a system where single-worker homes can function, which will probably mean a return to the era where the entire family labored 60 to 80 hours for pennies.

A return to child labor.

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In all of this, we have to be aware that it will be sanctified by new mythologies.

Christian Nationalism.

Conservative Nationalism.

An American "rebirth."

Probably as economic or literal war with China and other rivals.

The groundwork is there.

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At the end of the day, what we're looking at is a present system that is in crisis and desperate for alternatives.

What the Right is proposing is rewinding the clock, eradicating all the progress of the 20th century, and a return to open white supremacist hierarchies.

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Everything we know is in on the chopping block. Everything.

We must recognize what is happening, what trends it echoes, and meet it square on. This doesn't stop with Roe. It didn't even start there.

It is a massive project and we cannot let it come to fruition.

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