“A common criticism of Volodymyr Zelensky’s disastrous Friday performance in the Oval Office is that he failed to read the room,” notes Michael Goodman in Saturday’s The New York Post. “Actually, the Ukrainian president did read a room—but it was the wrong room.” Indeed. “Before meeting Trump,” Goodwin writes, “Zelensky met with anti-Trump Democrats who advised him to reject the terms of the mineral deal the president was offering, according to Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.).”
Goodwin quotes Murphy: “Just finished a meeting with President Zelensky here in Washington. He confirmed that the Ukrainian people will not support a fake peace agreement where Putin gets everything he wants and there are no security arrangements for Ukraine.” But the warmongers in Washington are not the only one desperate to prevent peace. “Unfortunately for [Zelensky], there is an audience egging him on. Beyond Washington Dems, the European Union’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, wrote on social media that ‘the free world needs a new leader. It’s up to us, Europeans, to take this challenge. We stand by Ukraine.’”
Goodwin ends his essay with the matter succinctly put: “Sure, Europe stands by Ukraine—and will continue to stand by as it gets carved up by Putin’s war machine.”
Remember when the warmongers sent UK prime minister Boris Johnson to Ukraine to scuttle the peace deal being negotiated by Zelensky and Russia? In April 2022, Johnson played a key role in scuttling a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. During a visit to Kyiv, Johnson urged Zelensky to reject any agreement, promising him that the West would provide military support instead (this was during the Istanbul peace talks). After Johnson’s visit, the negotiations collapsed, and the war escalated. Who sent Johnson on this mission? The transnationalists with the military-industrial complex with NATO wrapped around them.
The warmongers in Congress did the same thing, February 28, 2025. The Europeans and American neoconservatives will do whatever they can to keep the war going. Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions more will die, but that’s not important to the transnationalists and the military-industrial complex. A one-world corporate state is the end they seek. Millions of lives are worth this end to these psychopaths.
From Dave Fleischer’s The Mechanical Monsters (1941)
All these progressives with Ukrainian flags in their profiles and their posts attacking Trump and Vance for seeking peace in Eastern Europe—they stand with the War Pigs. Like those robots in that old Fleischer Superman cartoon, the signal goes out from the villainous mastermind, their antennae sparkle, and they turn zombie-like from one thing to the next. Masks. Vaccines. Black Lives Matter. Trans rights. Palestine. Ukraine. And continually: Trump is a Nazi. Musk is a Nazi. Rinse and repeat—the brainwashing cycle.
The villain from Fleischer’s The Mechanical Monsters (1941)
Have you even seen that cartoon? The Mechanical Monsters (1941). In the flick, the villainous mastermind creates a fleet of towering, humanoid robots to carry out daring heists across the city. The villain controls the monsters remotely from his secret laboratory, allowing him to rob banks and jewelry stores without ever leaving his lair. At one point, the villain sends out a command signal, and the antennae on the robots’ heads begin to spark and flicker as they receive his orders. In perfect synchronization, they march into action, crashing through buildings and vaults to seize piles of loot. Smash and grab in Art Deco. Only Superman can stop them.
Remember MK-ULTRA? The Cold War CIA mind-control project? The project’s primary goal was to develop methods of controlling human behavior. The CIA funded programs overseen by Sidney Gottlieb (hired by Allen Dulles, director of the CIA—mastermind of Bay of Pigs and controlled the Warren Commission in the wake of JFK’s assassination). MK-ULTRA conducted experiments on people in collaboration with hospitals, research institutions, and universities. One of the goals was creating individuals who could be remotely controlled, akin to “zombies.” Experiments aimed to alter or erase memories, implant false information, and create individuals who could be programmed to perform tasks without conscious awareness. Due to its secretive nature, participants were unaware they were subjects of government experimentation.
Just saying. (Look up Operation Mockingbird.)
For those who aren’t zombies, ask yourselves why are you supporting Ukraine? I told readers of this blog a few days after the conflict started who these people are and the goals of NATO and the US deep state in regime change and provoking war with Russia (History and Sides-Taking in the Russo-Ukrainian War). This is neoconservative warmongering (i.e., Cold War progressivism), which has a long history of working with rightwing authoritarian elements around the world (see, also War Hawks and the Ugly American: The Origins of Bush’s Middle East Policy). Russians are right to look at history and wonder why the West is so obsessed with their country. Americans would do well to ask themselves the same question.
During the Great Northern War, King Charles XII of Sweden invaded Russia. He was decisively defeated at the Battle of Poltava in 1709. After Charles was defeated at Poltava, he fled to the Ottoman Empire where he tried to persuade the Ottomans to declare war on Russia. He was rebuffed. (Rumor has it that Chuck was fragged at siege of Fredriksten Fortress there in Halden, Norway.) But that’s not the end of the West’s obsession with Russia. Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Russia during the Patriotic War, suffering a catastrophic defeat in the end, presaged by his pyrrhic victory at the Battle of Borodino (Moscow) in 1812. Britain, France, and the Ottoman Empire invaded Crimea during the Crimean War against the Russian Empire (1853–1856). During World War I, Germany invaded the Russian Empire and occupied significant territory in the west. Britain, France, the United States, Japan, and other countries intervened in the Russian Civil War, supporting counterrevolutionary forces (1918–1922). Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa in 1941, the largest invasion of Russia in history, but was ultimately defeated by the Soviet Union in 1945.
And now Ukraine—a proxy for war on Russia. The West wanted this war. Obama and Biden and NATO countries created the context and provoked Russia by pushing NATO ever eastward, betraying guarantees the West made to Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. Neo-Nazis, with the help of the CIA, harassed Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the Donbas. When Putin told you there were Nazis, he wasn’t lying. In 2014, the USA overthrew the president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych. The American taxpayer spent billions of dollars on the project—not just the CIA, but USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy. The US installed a puppet government, handpicked by the neoconservatives in the White House.
“Under Obama and Biden? What? That didn’t happen!” Yes, it did. Neoconservatism originates in the Democratic Party. You didn’t know that? Ever hear of Scoop Jackson? Ever hear of Victoria Nuland? No? You should investigate things. Or do people even bother to study history to find out whether a Ukrainian flag in their social media profile is the right symbol with which to virtue signal? Monkey see monkey do? It’s zombie politics (see Zombie Politics: the Corporatist Ideology of Antiracism).
I’d suggest the pro-Ukraine progressives with their blue and yellow flags go throw their own bodies at the Russians on Ukraine’s front lines, but I think walking back WWIII is probably the better option. That’s what Trump and Vance are trying to do: prevent WWIII. Whether they know it or not, those who make this about either supporting Ukraine or being a Putin puppet want war. Trump Derangement Syndrome is a big part of the driver.
There’s another option—and it’s the best option: secure a peace treaty that makes concessions to Russia and provides security guarantees with Ukraine in exchange for mineral rights that allow us to get back all the billions our psychopathic overlords spent on this folly. Make Ukraine and the Europeans pay for it. Either that or quit the damn thing and watch Russia steamroll Ukraine. The question reasonable people must ask themselves after confronting the truth (if they can even admit it afterwards) is which of the beds they made for themselves are the softest to lie down in. Do they really want to keep feeding Ukrainians to the war machine? Let me put this another way: do they have a conscience? Or are they like the psychopaths driving this conflict?
Seeing so many Americans choose Ukraine over America and peace disgusts me, frankly. These are the same people who run down America all day long. You’ve seen it. They’re constantly self-flagellating: “We’re white supremacists!” “We’re colonialists!” “We’re imperialists!” “Trump’s a fascist!” Is Trump invading Russia? Does he desire to continue exploiting Ukraine as a proxy to make war with Russia? Or is he trying to make peace? Fascist? Really?
Ukrainian soldier, as shown on German television. in 2014
The image of the Ukraine soldier is not an incidental hand gesture. And there’s plenty more helmets (and tattoos and insignia) where that one comes from. (Look up Azov Battalion while you’re looking into it.) That those who decry fascism resemble the fascists they decry is a feature of the zombie politics that have infected so many American and European brains.
An official language? “That’s not inclusive! That’s ‘language as oppression.’ It’s ‘linguistic white supremacy!’” No, it’s maximally inclusive—and it’s not racist at all. A common language fosters inclusivity by ensuring that everyone can communicate effectively, sharing the same meanings and usages to convey thoughts with accuracy and precision. Don’t know English? Want to live in America? Learn English.
There is nothing unusual about a nation having an official language. Does Sweden have an official language? Yes, it does—Swedish. Norway? Norwegian. Denmark? Danish. France? French. Germany? German. These and many other nations have official languages. Ukraine? Ukrainian. Moreover, approximately thirty American states already recognize English as their official language. Now, it will be all fifty states. Today, President Donald Trump signed an executive order making English the official language of the Untied States.
The United States was founded by Englishmen. The Founders spoke English. The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are all conveyed in the English language.
Having an official language will aid in the necessary process of assimilating foreign populations into American culture and law, which is rooted in English common law. Assimilation or integration—same thing—is not a bad thing. It’s a good thing. It sustains the shared attitudes and values necessary for maintaining the legal and normative framework that defines the American Republic and the American Creed.
Cultural pluralism, today known as “multiculturalism,” has always been a bad idea. However, because multiculturalists have gained control of our sense-making institutions, generations have been indoctrinated to believe that assimilation is nativist (as if this were inherently bad) and racist. Racist? We are a multiracial country with a colorblind Constitution. Moreover, race is not culture. To think otherwise is racist—it assumes that culture is a product of race, a biological construct.
This morning, I reviewed statements from writing departments across America’s university system. These statements are truly bizarre. I knew the situation was bad, but I did not realize the full extent of it. Writing departments have been overtaken by the crackpot ideas found in the work of identitarian demagogues such as Ibram X. Kendi. MSU Denver, decrying “linguistic white supremacy,” calls on its faculty to “reject standard American English.” The University of Maryland declares, “Discriminatory and Unconstitutional: English Only in US.”
Over on X, many people were shocked to learn that English is not the official language of the nation. They simply assumed it was. Now, it will be. Will progressive groups sue the administration to try and stop this? Probably. That will be interesting to see—and revealing.
We are only a little over a month into Trump’s common-sense presidency, and the multiculturalists and progressive ideologues are panicking because American orthodoxy is being pressed into the institutions they thought they had permanently captured. This is what populist-nationalism looks like. If you follow the best polls, you must know that this movement is here to stay.
Rasmussen reports today that more Americans approve of the job Trump is doing than don’t (Trump is holding at 50 percent). As seen in the Harvard poll shared in a recent essay on Freedom and Reason, large majorities support the President’s agenda. The polls used by legacy media are biased, but most Americans have grown wise to the deception. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for some others.
I am seeing on legacy and social media hysteria being whipped up about Trump assuming dictatorial powers in the United States and establishing a totalitarian fascist state. I don’t see it I see the opposite), but supposing this was his ambition, could fascism happen here in America?
First, here’s an example of the hysteria:
Jeff Jarvis, a professor at Stony Brook University just said on CNN that we are in the "middle of a totalitarian fascist coup."
In both Italy and Germany’s parliamentary systems during the rise of fascism, the head of government (Prime Minister in Italy, Chancellor in Germany) could not unilaterally dissolve parliament. However, the structure of these systems allowed leaders like Mussolini and Hitler to consolidate power and effectively control the dissolution process. Once Mussolini was appointed Prime Minister in 1922, through the Acerbo Law (1923) and later changes, he manipulated elections to ensure his Fascist Party dominated parliament. By 1925, Mussolini had effectively sidelined the legislature, making it a rubber-stamp body for his dictatorship. In Weimar Germany, the Chancellor did not have the direct power to dissolve the parliament. However, under Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution, the President (Paul von Hindenburg at the time) had the authority to rule by emergency decree and dissolve the parliament. Article 48 was exploited by Hitler after he was appointed Chancellor in 1933 to establish a totalitarian state.
The US system does not allow the President to dissolve Congress. Even in emergencies, the President cannot bypass or dismiss the legislative branch, ensuring that executive power remains checked. Indeed, the structure of the US government, rooted in the Constitution, federalism, and the separation of powers, offers several protective mechanisms against the rise of fascism or authoritarian rule. These safeguards prevent the centralization of power in a single leader, and make it difficult for one party to establish hegemony over the nation, helping ensure that democratic institutions remain resilient even in times of crisis.
Unlike Italy and Germany, where parliamentary systems allowed authoritarian leaders to consolidate power quickly, the US government distributes authority among three coequal branches: executive, legislative, and judicial. Each branch can check the actions of the others, making it difficult for any one branch to dominate. Congress, particularly the Senate, can act as a roadblock against executive overreach, and the judiciary serves as a check on unconstitutional actions, preserving democratic republican governance. Moreover, the US benefits from a fixed presidential term system, which prevents indefinite rule by one leader. Unlike parliamentary systems where governments can fall and be replaced rapidly, US presidents serve fixed four-year terms, ensuring stability and regular electoral transitions.
The Bill of Rights safeguards individual liberties, including freedom of speech, press, and assembly—rights, albeit much less robust in Italy and Germany than in the United States, that those authoritarian regimes quickly suppressed. A strong, independent judiciary, especially the Supreme Court, ensures that these rights are upheld against government overreach. Federalism further reinforces these protections by decentralizing power between the national and state governments. This division makes it more difficult for an authoritarian movement to take full control, as states maintain legal and political authority separate from the federal government. Elections, law enforcement, and policy implementation are largely handled at the state level, creating multiple layers of governance that prevent rapid, sweeping changes to the system. Moreover, the military’s subordination to civilian leadership also serves as a crucial barrier to authoritarianism. The US Constitution ensures that the armed forces remain under civilian control, reducing the risk of military-backed takeovers.
Thus, unlike the fragile democracies of interwar period Italy and Germany, the US benefits from long-established democratic-republican traditions and an active civil society. So, while no system is entirely immune to political extremism, the US Constitution and governmental framework make an authoritarian takeover significantly more difficult.
Sheldon Wolin, author of Democracy, Inc.
However, totalitarianism can be achieved another way, and this is the way Trump’s actions are circumventing—just in the nick of time. I have written before about Sheldon Wolin and his concept of “inverted totalitarianism,” which contrasts with classical totalitarianism as seen in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Instead of a single leader or party openly seizing absolute power, Wolin argues inverted totalitarianism emerges more subtly within democratic structures, where bureaucratic and corporate interests dominate governance without direct oppression.
One of the key mechanisms of inverted totalitarianism is the administrative state—a sprawling, unelected bureaucracy that controls much of the policy-making process. While traditional totalitarian regimes rely on direct state control over the economy and society (with corporate power at the state’s back), inverted totalitarianism functions through a highly specialized and opaque network of agencies and departments, regulatory bodies, and technocratic decision-makers. These institutions, though ostensibly part of a democratic government, operate independently of public oversight, making it difficult for citizens to hold them accountable. Policies are driven less by electoral mandates and more by entrenched bureaucratic structures that serve elite interests.
A defining feature of the phenomenon in American history after the Civil War is the corporate-state arrangement, where large corporations exert significant influence over government decision-making. Corporations shape policies through campaign financing, lobbying, and regulatory capture, ensuring that the state primarily serves their interests rather than those of the public. Moreover, the structure of the administrative states reflects the social logic of corporate power. This dynamic leads to what Wolin calls “managed democracy,” where elections continue to exist, but political outcomes are largely controlled by elite financial and corporate forces.
This has been know for many years. In 2014, in “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens,” published in Perspectives on Politics, Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page showed found: “Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism.”
Ultimately, inverted totalitarianism erodes genuine democratic participation by replacing public engagement with media manipulation, passive consumerism, and technocratic governance. Citizens are not openly repressed but are instead politically disengaged, distracted by spectacle, and conditioned to accept decisions made by elite institutions. This is what Antonio Gramsci called “ideological hegemony.” This creates a system where effective authoritarian control is exercised through administrative and economic dominance rather than overt coercion, making resistance more difficult and less obvious.
This is the style of totalitarianism sought by the Democratic Party, and for years the Republican Party, as well. The reason Democrats and progressives are fomenting hysteria is that Trump’s agenda of deconstructing the administrative threatens the elaboration of the inverted totalitarianism they seek and have substantially established, as everybody is finding out in real time. As noted at the outset, Trump is thus doing the opposite of establishing a fascist dictatorship; he is accomplishing this by dismantling the administrative state and the technocratic apparatus—that is big, intrusive, and paternalistic government. With DOGE, Trump is bringing back transparency to government, exposing waste, fraud, and abuse by federal agencies and departments.
Deconstructing the administrative state involves raising consciousness about the ideology that has captured technocratic apparatus. Who constitutes the permanent political class in the federal government? What is their party affiliation? The above chart documenting contributions to political parties by American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) is provided by Open Secrets, an independent and nonprofit group whose mission is to provide information on the role of money in American politics. Who is AFGE? According to their website, “AFGE proudly represents 800,000 federal and D.C. government workers across the United States and the world. Members of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) can be found in almost every federal agency and every function of government.”
Federal workers are represented by other employee unions, as well. For example, the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) represents around 150,000 employees across 34 federal agencies, including the IRS, Customs and Border Protection, and the Securities and Exchange Commission. According to Open Secrets, in 2021-2022, almost 99 percent of NTEU political contributions went to House Democrats. During that same period over 93 percent of contributions made by NTEU were to Senate Democrats. As of January 2025, the federal government employed approximately three million civilian workers. Although the majority of federal employees work outside of Washington DC, federal employees constitute over 43 percent of the District of Columbia’s workforce. The District is overwhelming progressive Democrat.
It might make sense to increase compensation for Congress and senior government employees to reduce the forcing function for corruption, as the latter might be as much as 1000 times more expensive to the public
I urge you to follow @DataRepublican on X. Watch the interview above to get a taste of what she does. This is her website: DataRepublican. She has a Substack, as well. The work of DataRepublican shows that corruption in the federal government is enormous. It’s a rigged system, and the rigging will be further exposed by DOGE, which has already exposed a great deal of it. DataRepublican documents that members of Congress pass laws that enrich their families. They depend on the administrative state to push out these appropriations to themselves via non-governmental organizations (NGOs). It’s a massive money laundering scheme. And it’s your money. The elite is terrified at the unraveling of the scheme, which is a key part of inverted totalitarianism. This panic is what lies behind the manufacture of hysteria.
The efforts by the administrative state and the Democratic Party (Trump has fundamentally changed the Republican Party) are contrary to the will of the people. A recent poll by Harvard CAPS-Harris finds that the majority of the country backs Trump’s agenda. Below are selected items. In addition to these items, 60 percent of those surveyed support direct US negotiations with Russia to end the war in Ukraine. The people are taking back their government thanks to the populist-nationalist movement. The movement is spreading to Europe, as well, where, for example in Germany, the Eurosceptic Alternative for Germany placed second in the 2025 election, exceeding twenty percent of the electorate.
As most of you know, I am a sociologist. I teach subject courses in one of my areas of specialization (criminology), but I also teach foundational social science courses—social theory and research methods. In the later, I begin the semester by reviewing the inventory of cognitive errors and fallacies in logic and argumentation. One important sociological concept (central to symbolic interactionism, social constructionism, and related approaches) is what we call the “Thomas theorem.” The Thomas theorem bears on a serious problem in science: confirmation bias.
The Thomas theorem and confirmation bias both relate to the way perception shapes reality, but they operate in different ways. The Thomas theorem states that “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences,” emphasizing how (inter)subjective interpretations of reality influence responses. The concept highlights the power of belief in shaping behavior and social dynamics. Confirmation bias is the tendency to seek, interpret, and remember information in a way that confirms preexisting beliefs, often leading to distorted reasoning and resistance to evidence that disconfirms prior belief.
While the Thomas theorem focuses on how subjective definitions of reality create real-world effects (what sociologists sometimes refer to a “societal reaction”), confirmation bias explains how individuals reinforce their existing perspectives, potentially leading to self-fulfilling prophecies that align with the Thomas theorem’s premise.
When conservatives make an ambiguous gesture that resembles a Nazi salute, those who already associate conservatism (and liberalism) with authoritarianism or extremism (itself a false association) often define the action as intentional, leading to real political and social consequences such as public backlash or deplatforming.
We are seeing this error play out routinely these days. Elon Musk, and more recently Steve Bannon, are only the latest causalities of progressive panic (remember what the authoritarians did to Laura Ingram in 2016?). In contrast, when a progressive makes a similar gesture, it is not interpreted in the same way, because progressives are generally not perceived as having Nazi sympathies. Nobody interpreted AOC’s recent gestures resembling the salute as indicating Nazi sympathies. Everybody knows AOC is not a Nazi.
AOC and the incidental hand gesture
This difference in interpretation is reinforced by confirmation bias, which causes people to selectively perceive and remember information that aligns with their existing beliefs. Because progressives believe Bannon is a Nazi, his incidental gestures confirm prior belief.
For the record, Bannon is a democratic republican with classical liberal commitments (albeit held in tandem with his Christian faith). His heroes are George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. On the anniversaries of key battles in the European theater in which American forces defeated those of the Nazis, the War Room becomes special commemorative programs in which Nazis are portrayed as one of the greatest existential threats to free and open societies. But for those who see conservatism as inherently linked to extremism, these facts are eclipsed by bias. Progressives are thus more likely to view an ambiguous gesture by a conservative as intentional. (They are also prone to believe that condemnations of Nazi sympathies are made to hide Nazi sympathies. “That’s what they want you to think.”)
It’s important to note that, for many progressives, the facts I provided regarding Bannon’s politics and content on the War Room are unknown to them. They have never bothered to find out what Bannon believes. They never watch the War Room.
Steve Bannon and the War Room
The War Room is on four hours every weekday (split into a morning and afternoon show) and two hours on Saturday morning. I have watched or listened to thousands of hours of the War Room since the winter of 2020 (it’s a graduate seminar in international political economy). I have also listened to many of Bannon’s speeches. I have been criticized for this, in fact. “Who would listen to a Nazi?” For some, listening to Bannon is what turned me into a right-winger (which I am not). Those who think Bannon is a Nazi either ignore disconfirmatory evidence or practice what I have called “cerebral hygiene.”
As for the latter, self-imposed ignorance (with assistance from those who shame people for watching the War Room), is a mix of what is called “poisoning the well” and “begging the question” (or circular reasoning). Poisoning the well occurs when a person preemptively dismisses a perspective by labeling it as bad or evil, stopping himself from engaging with its actual content.
This type of thinking is circular because the man assumes the perspective is wrong without examining it, thus reinforcing belief without questioning. As such, this is a form of thought-stopping or dogmatism, where rigid beliefs prevent critical self-examination. As a result, the person abstains from learning about the perspective not because of its content, but because of an a priori assumption that it is inherently bad and therefore should not be watched.
George Orwell called this “crimestop” in Nineteen Eighty-Four. Here’s how he put it: “Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc [Ingsoc is the socialist government of Airstrip One, a fictional city in Orwell’s dystopian nightmare world], and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity.” This is the practice of cerebral hygiene.
While there are conservatives who practice cerebral hygiene, the problem is far worse among progressives. By Leagues. Indeed, a lot of conservatives engage with progressive content—which is hard to avoid because progressivism is hegemonic in academia, culture, and media—and criticize that content based on its ideas and advocacies.
Libs of TikTok is a good example of an information center for conservatives (but hardly the only one). Libs of TikTok is run by Chaya Raichik. The account, which started on Twitter, amplifies content from social media platforms, often content focusing on LGBTQ+ issues, education, and progressive politics. (Last spring, when I was accused of transphobia and racism, part of the case against me was my practice of sharing Libs of TikTok videos on X, which is ironic since it’s progressive content; you’d think they appreciate others amplifying their ideas.) Raichik does not usually critique the content but more often simply shares progressive content so that the public is exposed to that worldview. Libs of TikTok thus builds mutual knowledge.
Chaya Raichik of Libs of TikTok
Meanwhile, progressives want censorship of conservative content and urge the deplatforming of those who provide it. Unlike Libs of TikTok and similar content, which conservatives push out on social media, progressives don’t want to see—and they don’t want others to see—conservative (or liberal) content (and really they don’t want others to see their content since it’s so cracked).
One obvious exception is showing images and video clips of prominent conservatives and liberals making incidental gestures that progressives portray and interpret as indicating Nazi sympathies. It’s a tick with them.
In this way, the progressive reflex mirrors the Islamic reflex. While media hailing from the Islamic point of view spreads cartoons depicting Jews as demonic (antisemitism is rampant in the Islamic world), Muslims don’t tolerate cartoons in which Muhammad is cast in an unfavorable light. Muslims take to the streets to protest books, cartoons, and documentaries critical of Islam and mocking (even simply depicting) their prophet, sometimes resorting to violence against those who produce this content. Some European governments join in, punishing those critical of Islam. (Islamization is not merely the zealot’s desire.)
Remember Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical magazine with a long history of publishing controversial content, particularly caricatures of religious figures, including the Muhammad? Recall that, in 2015, Muslims attacked its offices in Paris, killing a dozen people, including cartoonists and editors. The attack was in response to the magazine’s publication of caricatures of Muhammad. Despite the attack, Charlie Hebdo continued publishing and reaffirmed its commitment to free speech. Yet you won’t see their cartoons carried in mainstream media on either side of the Atlantic. Even an academic book on the topic did not publish the cartoons at issue. The reader had to imagine them. Charitably, this is self-censorship (although I think the motivation is even darker than this).
Charlie Hebdo content
Or recall Theo van Gogh, the Dutch filmmaker who was assassinated in 2004 by a Muslim for his film Submission, which criticized the treatment of women in Islam. The filmmaker was shot and stabbed on an Amsterdam street, the killer leaving a note threatening others, including the film’s scriptwriter, Ayaan Hirsi Ali. These are only the more extreme expressions of the desire to suppress content critical of ideology. (In an act of bravery, I gave a talk on clerical fascism in a sociology of religion session at a professional conference several years ago. The anxiety in the room was palpable. After I finished, there were no questions. I, too, was nervous.)
Progressives are notorious for engaging in and promoting the practice of deplatforming, doxing, and censoring content critical of Critical Race Theory (CRT), DEI, transgender ideology, vaccine skepticism, etc., justifying these actions as necessary to combat harmful rhetoric, hate speech, and misinformation. They use doxing—the public release of private information—to intimidate individuals with opposing views (this how we learned that Chaya Raichik was behind Libs of TikTok). (The more extreme form of this is swatting, which involves calling the police to falsely report violence occurring at the address where an enemy resides).
Deplatforming involves removing individuals or groups from academic institutions (I have been a casualty of this on more than one occasion), employment, and social media to limit their influence. Censorship can take the form of content moderation, demonetization, or outright bans on platforms that view certain ideas as violating community guidelines (before Musk bought Twitter, its internal Trust and Safety group kicked the president of the United States off the platform). These are the desires of authoritarians.
As with acts of Islamic terrorism, and state action punishing Islam’s critics, these progressive tactics suppress free expression, create and entrench ideological echo chambers, and prevent open debate on complex issues. Progressives maintain that restricting what they judge to be harmful speech helps protect marginalized communities and prevents the spread of misinformation. In fact, what they seek is the entrenchment of progressive dogma by excluding content that delegitimizes progressive ideology. Resist it while you can.
“[I]f we are uncritical we shall always find what we want: we shall look for, and find, confirmations, and we shall look away from, and not see, whatever might be dangerous to our pet theories. In this way it is only too easy to obtain what appears to be overwhelming evidence in favor of a theory which, if approached critically, would have been refuted. In order to make the method of selection by elimination work, and to ensure that only the fittest theories survive, their struggle for life must be made severe for them.” —Karl Popper, The Poverty of Historicism
On February 14, Vice President JD Vance delivered a speech at the Munich Security Conference sharply critical of European nations for their restrictions on free speech and association (I have appended video of the speech to the bottom of this essay). He highlighted instances such as Sweden convicting a Christian activist for burning a Quran, and the European Union threatening to shut down social media during times of civil unrest the moment its censors spot what they judge to be “hateful content.” Vance argued that these actions undermine democratic values and warned that the US might reconsider its support for countries that do not uphold fundamental freedoms. (See my recent essay covering the conference here: Vance and Zelensky at the Munich Security Conference: Two Visions of a Future Order of Things. See also The Emperor is Naked: The Problems of Mutual Knowledge and Free Feelings.)
Two days later, CBS’s 60 Minutes aired a segment featuring German prosecutors discussing the country’s stringent laws on online speech (I have appended video of the interview to the bottom of this essay). The interview highlighted that, in Germany, public insults and the dissemination of false information online are criminal offenses, with authorities arguing that such measures are necessary to protect democracy and maintain civil discourse. This approach contrasts sharply with the United States, where the First Amendment safeguards a broader spectrum of speech, including expressions considered hateful or offensive, not trusting such designations to an office of the commissar. By confirming the truth of Vance’s speech, CBS underscored the differences between the two nations regarding the boundaries of free speech and the role of government in regulating online content.
Three German officials defending Germany’s initiation of a nationwide crackdown on offensive speech during an interview on CBS’s 60 Minutes. CBS’s Sharyn Alfonsi clearly demonstrated her bias contrasting how the US allows “hate-filled or toxic” speech to Germany “trying to bring some civility to the worldwide web.”
The defense of free conscience, speech, association, and assembly is not merely a philosophical commitment to natural rights (a point I have frequently emphasized in previous essays on Freedom and Reason); it is a practical necessity for the pursuit of truth. Science, the most reliable method for understanding reality, depends on open inquiry, unfettered debate, and competition of ideas. It cannot function in an environment where authorities dictate acceptable thought, speech, or association. Any law or policy that restricts these freedoms does not just infringe on individual rights—it undermines the very process by which knowledge advances. When authorities suppress dissenting views, however mistaken they may seem at the time, they stymie the correction of error, the refinement of theories (explanations, predictions), and the discovery of new truths.
In Germany, hate speech laws at the federal level prohibit incitement to hatred against protected groups, including trans identifying individuals, while defamation (Section 186 StGB) and insult (Section 185 StGB) laws can apply to cases of “deadnaming” and “misgendering” or if deemed deliberately harmful. Scientifically, gender identity has the same ontological status as angels or thetans; punishing a person for deliberately using the appropriate pronoun is thus an act of suppressing accurate language for the sake of an ideology. The law wraps itself in moral language about forbidding intentional affronts to personal dignity, but in doing so, it elevates ideology over science. Defenders of the laws will clarify that deadnaming and misgendering are not blanket criminal offenses; they fall under existing legal provisions if used maliciously. But that’s the problem: how does one insisting upon accurate language avoid the appearance of malice given the assumptions upon which the law is grounded? We should put the matter bluntly: In Germany, one is not allowed to be a bigot—and the German state will define what counts as bigotry.
This is an intolerable situation. A society that punishes certain thoughts, forbids discussions on certain topics, or compels individuals to adopt a doctrine does not merely limit personal liberty; it criminalizes the tolerance necessary for intellectual progress and rational action. The history of science and philosophy testifies to the power of controversy—today’s heresies often become tomorrow’s orthodoxies—and this transformation only happens when dissent and heterodoxy are allowed. When institutions impose ideological conformity, they do not just silence individuals; they sabotage the mechanisms that allow truth to emerge from error. And some truths will hurt some feelings. Free expression and association are not merely moral goods—they form the foundation upon which all genuine knowledge rests.
As a libertarian, I regard the suppression of speech, thought, and association as markers of the authoritarian condition—a situation that is incompatible with both freedom and reason. While we are obliged to tolerate arguments, conversations, and opinions, including those favorable to or advocating for authoritarianism, we must not tolerate or abide by laws and policies that suppress either libertarian or authoritarian viewpoints. To do so would be to accept the very premise that authority may dictate what is permissible to think or express.
Karl Popper
I want to take care here to differentiate my stance from that of Karl Popper and his paradox of tolerance thesis. My argument is that we should tolerate all ideas in open discourse but refuse to comply with laws that make genuine tolerance impossible. The proper response to authoritarian controls on speech is not submission but resistance—precisely because the preservation of an open society depends on our dissent. Popper’s paradox, outlined in his 1945 The Open Society and Its Enemies, argues that unlimited tolerance leads to the destruction of tolerance itself. Specifically, he contends that a tolerant society must be willing to defend itself against intolerant forces that, if left unchecked, would suppress tolerance altogether. He asserts that while all ideas should be debated in an open society, if intolerant ideologies seek to abolish debate through force or coercion, they should not be tolerated. Popper’s defenders will object that he does not argue for suppressing mere advocacy of authoritarian ideas; rather, he warns against tolerating those who would use force to eliminate freedom. To my ears this sounds like a distinction without a difference.
My critique of Popper’s argument is thus: If a society claims the authority to suppress “intolerant” views, the next question becomes: Who decides what is an intolerant view? If the answer is the state, then we empower precisely the kind of authority that suppresses free speech and open discourse under the guise of protecting tolerance. Popper’s argument is therefore paradoxically authoritarian itself—by advocating for the suppression of certain ideas, he effectively grants a governing body the power to determine which ideas are too dangerous to be expressed. This favors some speech over others, and that judgment falls to those whose ideology determines what speech is favorable and what speech is not.
This logic manifests in contemporary German law, where the government criminalizes certain forms of speech, including Holocaust denial, Nazi symbolism, and offensive speech deemed harmful to public order. While Germany justifies these laws as necessary to prevent extremism and protect democracy, they nonetheless rest on the assumption that the state can and should regulate discourse to prevent certain ideas from gaining traction. The result is a legal framework where authorities punish people not just for direct incitement to violence (which is not protected speech even in the United States) but for expressing opinions the state deems dangerous—an approach fundamentally at odds not only with a strict libertarian defense of free speech but also with the very freedom required for a legal and institutional framework for the conduct of science and other knowledge production.
Thus, from a libertarian standpoint, any attempt to police speech—even speech advocating authoritarianism—is itself authoritarian. The principle of free speech only holds if it applies to all viewpoints, including those some find abhorrent. Once the state begins deciding which ideas are too intolerant to be tolerated, it assumes precisely the kind of power that libertarians argue should not exist. My argument goes beyond Popper’s paradox: I am not merely calling for resistance to authoritarian policies; I am rejecting the very legitimacy of the state’s role in adjudicating which ideas may be expressed at all. The state in a free and open society must defend free speech and assembly; otherwise, it is an authoritarian state, and society is no longer free and open.
I recognize that critics will argue that libertarianism is itself an ideological framework with assumptions about the state’s proper role in society. My point is not that libertarianism is a singular truth, but rather that it affirms the singular truth that authoritarianism negates free and open society. You cannot simultaneously proclaim support for a free and open society, on the one hand, and then, on the other, restrict arguments, ideas, opinions, and assembly. Several principles undergird the libertarian position, such as non-aggression and individual sovereignty, which constitute the necessary preconditions for a free society, but the paradox I am identifying is incontrovertible.
History abounds with examples of how laws and policies suppressing speech hinder scientific and intellectual progress. I have often pointed to the suppression of Galileo’s heliocentrism by the Catholic Church and how that delayed scientific progress. In that case, restrictions on speech aimed to entrench religious dogma. Another example, particularly relevant given Germany’s restrictive attitude towards speech and association, is how the Nazi regime weaponized speech restrictions to consolidate power and eliminate dissent. After rising to power in 1933, the Nazis swiftly enacted laws criminalizing criticism of the state, which they used to suspend civil liberties, for example, the Editors’ Law of 1933 forbade non-Aryans from working in journalism.
The Reich Press Chamber, operating under the German Propaganda Ministry, took command of the Reich Association of the German Press, the professional body governing journalism in Nazi Germany. With the implementation of the Editors Law, the association maintained strict records of journalists deemed “racially pure,” systematically barring Jews and individuals married to Jews from the profession. To practice journalism, all editors and reporters were required to register with the Reich Press Chamber and adhere to the ministry’s directives. Officials demanded absolute compliance, dictated content, and enforced censorship. Paragraph 14 of the law explicitly prohibited editors from publishing any material that could be perceived as undermining the strength of the Reich, either domestically or internationally.
The strict control over journalism under the Reich Press Chamber and the Nazi Propaganda Ministry enabled medical atrocities to continue without widespread public knowledge or dissent. By monopolizing the press, the regime suppressed reports of unethical human experiments, euthanasia programs, and other crimes against humanity, while propaganda justified what was known about these actions as necessary for national health and racial purity. The exclusion of oppositional journalists ensured that dissenting voices were silenced, and instilling fear in those who remained, knowing that they risked severe punishment for disobedience. With the press fully controlled and access to international reporting restricted, most Germans had no access to independent accounts of the horrors occurring in concentration camps, hospitals, and psychiatric institutions. Even those who suspected wrongdoing had little means to confirm or share their concerns. As a result, the regime’s control over journalism directly facilitated medical crimes such as the T4 euthanasia program, allowing large-scale atrocities to continue in secrecy with minimal risk of exposure or resistance.
By controlling speech, the Nazis ensured that dissenting voices—whether from intellectuals, ordinary citizens, or political opponents—remained silent, preventing any meaningful resistance from forming. This censorship did not protect society; rather it created an environment where propaganda thrived unchallenged, reinforcing dangerous myths and justifying atrocities. By the time overt acts of persecution escalated, from the Nuremberg Laws to the Holocaust, public discourse had become so tightly controlled that opposition was nearly impossible.
Given this historical context, how can the contemporary German state rationally defend its speech codes while acknowledging the dangers of authoritarianism—all in the name of defending democracy? One might object that contemporary German law in this area is not as severe as German law under the Nazis, but the objection is beside the point. If restrictions on speech helped enable one of history’s most repressive regimes, why should we believe that similar restrictions (and the similarity is growing stronger over time) will prevent rather than facilitate authoritarian control? After all, contemporary restrictions are themselves markers of authoritarianism! The burden of proof lies with those who claim that suppressing speech is necessary for a free society. What proof could possibly justify negating civil liberties? History clearly demonstrates the opposite.
I recently ranted on Facebook about the Swedish Parliament having voted in favor of sending its eighteenth and to date largest military support package to Ukraine. “Between this and mass immigration Sweden is drowning in the deep waters of misplaced humanitarianism,” I said. “I always held Sweden in very high regard,” I continued. “When I was a young man it was for me (and many others) a model society, enlightened and democratic. My heart aches over the developments there over the last several years. Indeed, most of Europe has been captured and corrupted by transnational corporate power. My country helped liberate Europe from war and authoritarianism. More than a hundred thousand Americans died in action in the European theater during WWII. I truly hate to see this.”
A government-appointed commission has ruled that Sweden can send criminals to serve their sentences in prisons in other countries. The ruling comes as the country struggles to handle an influx of new inmates arising from the wave of crime brought about by Sweden’s lax borders. Source.
In this essay, I want to expand on what I mean by “misplaced humanitarianism.” Some of those who claim to embody humanitarianism are driven by the egotistical need to signal virtue. Virtue signaling leads to many harmful things, as we saw during the pandemic with parents subjecting their children to mRNA gene therapy. We see this also with parents captured by gender ideology who misgender their children. Virtue signaling is mostly a problem on the woke progressive left. However, there are thoughtful people who pursue humanitarianism for its own sake but have nonetheless come to fetishize immigrants to the detriment of their fellow countrymen.
In the latter case, one find well-meaning people who don’t take into account the impact mass immigration has on the citizens of their own country. Their fellow countrymen also have aspirations and needs, and true humanitarianism would extend to them, as well. Indeed, it would prioritize them for reasons I will come to. Humanitarianism is the ethical commitment to promoting human welfare and reducing the suffering of people. But it must also respect national sovereignty, territorial borders, and cultural integrity. Advocates for open borders do so in the name of compassion, but open borders harm the people its advocates claim to help and harms their fellow citizens, particularly the most vulnerable members of society. One’s fellow citizens also deserve compassion and consideration.
One of the things missing from their argument is why a nation opens its borders or fails to deport those who are in the country illegally. They assign to all immigrants the status of refugee, when in fact the vast majority of illegal and legal immigrants are not fleeing oppression but seeking opportunity and relief from the conditions of their home country. Most immigrants come to the US primarily to improve their life chances rather than fleeing persecution. Refugees and asylum seekers constitute a small percentage of immigrants compared to those migrating for education, family reunification, or work.
Economic migration is the largest category, with many immigrants, particularly from Asia and Latin America, seeking better living standards, expansive social welfare systems, higher wages, and jobs. This includes both legal immigrants on employment-based visas and illegal aliens crossing the border. Family reunification is another driver of immigration, as a significant portion of legal immigrants receive green cards through family sponsorship by US citizens or permanent residents (a practice that needs to be significantly curtailed). Additionally, some immigrants arrive for educational reasons, coming on student visas to study at US universities, while others enter through investor visas or other special programs.
As for refugees and asylum seekers, the US government admits a limited number of such persons each year. Many asylum seekers face lengthy legal processes, as they should; coached on how to present their cases as if they were authentic asylees, many are in fact undeserving of that status. The point is that, while humanitarian migration is real and important, the majority of immigrants come for reasons other than escaping persecution, including those who seek asylum. In the cases of economic migrants, those overstaying their visas, or those seeking the superior social welfare systems the US has developed over many decades, humanitarianism doesn’t apply. It is therefore misplaced. It is also misplaced when applied to those who falsely claim refugee status.
What many people either don’t know or resist recognizing are the pull factors that incentivize migration. I am not blaming people for wanting to come to the United States. We’re a great nation (one does not often see even the poorest people in the US trying to escape to other countries). It’s understandable that those living in poor countries would seek to enter the United States given its standard of living. But what those who defend open borders need to know is that corporations promote weak immigration laws and seek lax enforcement of those laws do so for the sake of profit. Capitalism is a system of labor exploitation, in which the value produced by labor is appropriated by the capitalist and then realized in various markets as profit. This is the dynamic of capitalist accumulation, and it motivates corporations to push for open border policies.
Capitalists seek higher rates of surplus value, that is value relative to variable capital, i.e., wages, competition, and benefits, to increase the potential for profit generation. Maximizing surplus value production is pursued in two basic ways: absolute surplus value and relative surplus value. Absolute surplus value is generated by extending the working day beyond the necessary labor time required to reproduce workers’ wages, often accompanied by efforts to reduce wages. This strategy is pursued in labor-intensive sectors. Offshoring production to regions with lower labor costs serves as another strategy to maximize surplus value by reducing wage expenditures. Relative surplus value, on the other hand, is created by increasing productivity through technological advancements or efficiency improvements, such as automation and mechanization, reducing the necessary labor time while keeping wages constant, thereby expanding surplus labor within the same working hours.
Immigration functions as a mechanism to lower variable capital costs, aligning with the same globalization strategy that underpins offshoring. By allowing capitalists access to pools of migrant labor willing to work for lower wages, employers can suppress overall labor costs and increase surplus value without relocating production. This is particularly evident in labor-intensive industries such as agriculture, construction, and low-wage service sectors, where an influx of immigrant workers creates downward pressure on wages and weakens labor bargaining power. Just as offshoring enables firms to exploit lower labor costs abroad, domestic labor markets are similarly restructured through immigration policies that supply a steady flow of cheap labor. In both cases, capital seeks to minimize labor expenses while maximizing profitability, demonstrating the flexibility of capital accumulation strategies in response to shifting economic and political conditions. Another way of putting this is that globalization is a strategy for the super-exploitation of labor that is external and internal neocolonialism.
Immigration pursued for such purposes is not humanitarianism; indeed, calling this humanitarianism is propaganda organized to conceal the exploitative means of globalization, i.e., serving the interests of corporations that exploit cheap labor. The propaganda causes many good people to fail to recognize the suffering of those populations for which they otherwise express sympathy. For example, the practice of driving down wages for working-class Americans disproportionately harm black and brown communities. It increases economic insecurity, strains public services, and undermines job opportunities for those already struggling. A policy that benefits corporate elites while impoverishing American workers cannot be called humanitarian. One can easily show that, while corporations may be legal persons, they are a person with the personality profile of a psychopath (using diagnostic criteria from various manuals organized by the psychiatric industry—motivated purely by self-interest, with no regard for the social consequences of their actions. A truly humanitarian approach rejects economic models that treat human beings as expendable labor, especially when it prioritizes non-citizens over the struggling citizens of a country.
The consequences of globalization are uncontroversial. To be sure, over the last fifty years, poverty and inequality in the US have evolved in complex ways. However, while absolute poverty has declined due to economic growth (albeit slowing), social programs (vastly expanded), and technological advancements, inequality has worsened significantly. Income distribution has become increasingly skewed, with the wealthiest Americans capturing a growing share of economic gains while wages for much of the working have stagnated (adjusted for inflation). Despite rising productivity, real wages have not kept pace, meaning that most workers have seen little benefit from overall economic expansion. This expansion is the result of globalization, which is pursued in an attempt to reverse the falling rate of profit. In fact, globalization is a major reason why the profit rate is falling.
Wealth inequality has followed a similar trajectory, as asset accumulation—especially through stocks and real estate—has overwhelmingly benefited the capitalist and the upper-echelon of the professional managerial classes, widening the gap between the rich and the rest of society. At the same time, the erosion of unions and policies favoring capital over labor have further exacerbated disparities. The erosion of unions is a result of globalization (union density in the private sector is now under six percent). So, while material conditions for many have improved in terms of technology and access to goods, the relative divide between economic classes has become more pronounced, making upward mobility increasingly difficult for those at the bottom. And when we turn to the dependent populations of the ghettos maintained by progressive politicians and policymakers we see extreme poverty and neighborhood disorganization. As a result, crime and violence are overwhelming a problem of black- and brown-majority communities.
Growing inequality weakens a democratic republic, and a strong nation-state based on this principle is necessary for true humanitarian efforts. Wealth concentration is associated with the concentration of power and influence. Without popular power, law and policy increasingly favors the rich and power. The rule of law, national security, and cultural integrity, when these represent the popular will, ensure that humanitarian policies do not lead to exploitation or social disorganization. Mass immigration is rooted in exploitation and associated with social disorganization.
The US Constitution establishes the people as sovereign and guarantees fundamental rights such as freedom of conscience, speech, association, privacy, and self-defense—all without regard to race, I hasten to add. But these rights are only preserved and realized within a stable, functioning nation that defends the cultural integrity necessary to equip the working class to marshal the power they have to resist the concentrated power associated with capitalist accumulation. That popular power is found in solidarity. Without cultural integrity, the shared values and principles that sustain our secular system of democratic-republicanism are undermined. A nation that abandons its cultural foundations in the name of unrestricted immigration risks losing the very framework that protects liberty and promotes justice for its citizens and those legally residing in the country. We see the consequences of social disorganization not just in the United States, but across Europe.
A truly compassionate and responsible approach to humanitarianism must do the following: It must respect borders and national laws. Aid and relief should be delivered in a way that complements, rather than disrupts, a country’s cultural fabric and the social structures that promote opportunity. It must preserve national sovereignty and cultural integrity. A true humanitarianism strengthens nations rather than erases national distinctions. A strong, sovereign state is far better equipped to help both its own people and others in crisis. Multiculturalism is a tactic to undermine cultural integrity and disorganize the nation for the sake of globalization. A true humanitarianism must therefore prioritize orderly and legal immigration. Refugee and immigration policies should be lawful, structured, and sustainable, ensuring that host nations can integrate newcomers without harming their own citizens. That means manageable numbers at a gradual pace. Immigration policy must take particular care not to harm the vulnerable within the nation.
Humanitarianism is an ethical and moral practice. Because the people are sovereign, a nation’s first moral duty is to its people, particularly the poor and working class, who are most impacted by globalization. A nationalism adequate to human thriving must promote self-sufficiency and social stability. Instead of fostering dependency, humanitarian efforts should empower struggling communities—both domestically and abroad—to build stable, self-sustaining societies. The emphasis must be on the citizen since this is the raison d’être of the modern nation-state. The nation-state is one of great advancements of humanity. National borders are the sine qua non for a safe, stable, and sovereign nation-state.
It follows from this that humanitarianism should never be used as a pretext to weaken the nation-state or exploit vulnerable people for economic gain, since this negates the ethnical and moral core of the practice. True humanitarian policies must balance compassion with responsibility, ensuring that helping others does not come at the cost of a nation’s own citizens, stability, or cultural identity. A strong, secure, and self-sufficient nation is not only better for its own people but also more capable of providing meaningful aid to others—on its own terms, without being coerced into crises that threaten its survival.
Humanitarianism and national sovereignty are therefore not opposing forces; they are complementary. A nation that preserves its strength, security, and cultural integrity is one that can best extend real, sustainable aid to those in need—both at home and abroad. Nationalism is not a bad thing. It has been portrayed as bad because nationalism is a problem for globalists who seek a borderless world, the governance of which will be delegated to the transnational corporations and world banks. Will this world protect Americans’ rights to free conscience, free speech, free press, freedom of association, freedom to assemble, the right to privacy, the right to keep and bear arms, and all the other rights guaranteed to us by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights? Not if there are no longer any nations, formally or effectively.
This is what I mean by misplaced humanitarianism. Those who defend open borders and oppose immigration restrictions and mass deportations, for whatever reason, mis-specify humanitarianism in the context of the modern nation-state. They fail to recognize that it has only been with the rise of the modern nation-state that organized humanitarianism on a grand scale has become possible. If we allow globalists to co-opt the rhetoric of humanitarianism to pursue corporate ends, then we will undermine our capacity to be effective humanitarians. We will be left only with its rhetoric. This is why I tell people that, without a valid theory of how the world works under global capitalism, one may find themselves advocating for law and policy that in reality works at cross-purposes with the ends they actually seek.
It can help readers to understand all this by considering that the United States is our home. When we scale the importance of home down to the household it is obvious that, while one may wish to help out others, the household can only help so many. It is destructive to a household to stretch its finances thin. Moreover, it is destructive to allow people into one’s home who disrupt the life of his family or make members of the household unsafe. This is why protection of home from intruders is an inherent right. It is why there are walls and doors and windows that lock. It is why we have right to keep and bear arms. At a certain point, if charity is pursued at the expense of thriving and security, it becomes a pathological thing. In the same way, misplaced humanitarianism endangers our national home.
There is another matter those who defend open borders should consider. The reader might ask himself whether those who seek to flee their countries due to difficult conditions should instead stay and work toward making their homeland more adequate to safety and human thriving. A good citizen is a patriot; he cares about his country and his fellow countrymen and wants to see his country thrive. Doesn’t the patriot have a responsibility to his family, his community, and future generations? When individuals abandon their country, particularly those with ambition, education, and skills, they take with them the resources that could drive change and improve their country. The departure of the good among the population weakens their national home, betrays their countrymen, depriving it of the energy, innovation, and leadership necessary for progress. If those who desire a better life channel their efforts into reform rather than escape, they can transform the conditions that once seemed insurmountable.
Leaving one’s country risks perpetuating a cycle in which problems remain unsolved because those who could fight for solutions choose to start over elsewhere. While fleeing may offer personal relief, it does not address the structural issues that compel people to leave in the first place. These we call the “push factors.” Change does not come easily, but history has shown that movements for economic reform, justice, and political freedom are led by the good among a population who refuse to abandon their homeland to tyrants. The fight to improve one’s own country may be difficult and slow, but it is the only way to build a lasting foundation for future prosperity, rather than merely seeking refuge elsewhere. As for the bad among them, we don’t want them here.
Finally, to bring the essay back to the brief rant shared at the start, Sweden has experienced a significant rise in gang-related crime and violence in recent years, particularly in the form of shootings and bombings. Rape has also become a very serious problem in Sweden. The surge in crime and violence has been driven by conflicts between rival gangs involved in drug trafficking and other illicit activities, and these are associated with immigrant-dominated suburbs in major cities such as Göteborg, Malmö, and Stockholm. This situation developed from Sweden’s misplaced humanitarianism, ramped up during the migrant crisis of 2014. While Sweden was once considered one of Europe’s safest countries, it has become on the worst-affected nations in the region in terms of serious crime and violence.
The Swedish government has acknowledged the severity of the crisis. Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson (of the Moderate Party) has called the crime and violence there a “systemic threat” to the country. Efforts to combat the problem have included stricter penalties for gang-related offenses, more aggressive policing, and discussions about implementing surveillance and intelligence-gathering measures. Swedish academics, policymakers, and politicians advocate long-term solutions, such as broader social reforms, including better integration policies, education initiatives, and economic opportunities for marginalized communities. However, this neglects the reality that people are culture-bearers, which means they bring with them their culture, and some cultures are resistant to integrating with the host culture. This problem is compounded by multiculturalists who rationalize their resistance. Indeed, pseudo-humanitarians in Sweden defend the presence of incompatible cultures by making nationalists in Sweden out of be a greater systemic threat than those from such foreign cultures. On the contrary, the nationalists are Sweden’s saviors.
One of the objections I frequently encounter is that immigrants commit fewer crimes than citizens. But this claim ignores two key facts. First, immigrants who are in the United States illegally are criminals. You may hear the objection that illegally crossing the border is only a civil violation. This is a falsehood. If a person overstays his visas, then it’s a civil penalty. But if persons cross the border without authorization violate 8 U.S.C. § 1325 or § 1326, thus committing a criminal offense. Second, if one takes any time to examine crime statistics, they will soon learn that the identity of many of those who perpetrate the most serious crimes—aggravated assault, burglary, murder, rape, and robbery—is unknown or not specified. And while defenders of open borders in the United States may be able to obscure the identity of perpetrators because of the nation’s diversity, the experience of Sweden and other ethnically homogenous European countries definitively demonstrates that crime is mostly, or at least disproportionately, perpetrated by those who have migrated to those countries from African, Arabic, and Eastern European countries.
Misplaced humanitarianism, whether driven by the desire to virtue signal or by rigid ideological commitments, ultimately places the well-being of their fellow citizens at risk in the pursuit of open-border policies. While compassion and aid for those in need are noble aspirations, policies that prioritize non-citizens without regard for economic stability, national security, and social cohesion undermine the very foundations of a functioning and just society. A government’s foremost duty is to its own people, ensuring their safety, prosperity, and cultural integrity. When this duty is cast aside in favor of unchecked immigration, it is the average citizen who bears the consequences—economic and social strain, rising crime and disorder, and cultural disintegration. A valid humanitarianism strikes a balance between empathy and pragmatism, recognizing that sustainable and morally-appropriate generosity is only possible when a nation safeguards its own stability and puts its own people first.
Both Democrats and Republicans have played significant roles in integrating China into the global economy. However, the Democratic Party has played the principal role in developing and implementing laws and policies promoting economic interdependence—with help from the neoliberal-minded Republicans.
It was under President Bill Clinton that the US granted China Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) in 2000, paving the way for China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) the next year. PNTR accelerated offshoring and economic integration, undermining the standing of American workers and weakening national security. Under his presidency, George W. Bush deepened the economic ties that Democrats had forged under Clinton. As explained in a recent essay on Freedom and Reason, this ilk of Republicans are globalists who align with the progressive transnationalist project to integrate China into the global economy.
As US Senator, Biden played a key role in developing policies that facilitated China’s integration into the global economy, including its accession to the WTO. Biden was fond of bragging about how close he was to Chinese dictator Xi Jinping. As President, during the 2024 campaign, in response to Trump’s criticism of reliance on Chinese commodities, Biden shifted toward a more protectionist stance, implementing tariffs on Chinese goods. For instance, in May 2024, his administration imposed a 100 percent tariff on Chinese electric vehicles. But, as with his election-year change on open borders (largely fake at any rate), had Harris been elected, Democrats would have switched back to their longterm goal of enabling the rise of China.
For those who may not know, China is a totalitarian corporate state that not only oppresses the Chinese—the Laobaixing or “old hundred names”—but other ethnic groups, seen in the internment of Uyghurs in concentration camps and the practice of harvesting organs from prisoners and the Falun Gong (the Uyghurs and the Falun Gong are religious minorities in China). As Americans are beginning to find out (why were they kept in the dark about this?) Chinese companies have gained significant influence over the operations and infrastructure of the Panama Canal. And they are very interested in Greenland. In fact, they’re interested in everything.
The handover of the Panama Canal from the US to Panama occurred at the end of 1999. This was under the terms of the Torrijos-Carter Treaty signed in 1977, which saw Carter selling the canal to Panama for one dollar. Since then, China has expanded its economic presence in Panama, particularly through state-linked companies, e.g., Hutchison Whampoa, a Hong Kong-based firm that operates major ports at both ends of the canal. While the Panama Canal itself is not officially part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Panama joined the BRI in 2017, after establishing diplomatic ties with Beijing and cutting ties with Taiwan, thus effectively putting the canal under Chinese control. Since then, China has invested heavily in infrastructure projects in the country, including ports and logistics hubs. China is using economic leverage in our hemisphere to gain strategic influence over one of the world’s most critical maritime assets.
President Donald Trump has recently taken actions to counter China’s influence in Panama. In early 2025, he demanded that Panama return control of the Panama Canal to the United States, citing concerns over Chinese involvement in the canal’s operations. Corporate-state media depicted Trump’s move as an instantiation of his authoritarian personality. However, the pressure Trump exerted led Panama to announce its withdrawal from BRI in February 2025. Moreover, citing national security concerns, Trump is scrutinizing CK Hutchison. These actions are part of a broader strategy by the Trump administration to curb Chinese investment in and influence over strategic global infrastructure.
The corporate-state media has also depicted Trump’s interest in Greenland as an expression of authoritarian desire. What the propagandists do not explain (why would they?) is that China has shown significant interest in Greenland due to potential Arctic shipping lanes, rare earth minerals, and strategic location (i.e., in close proximity to North America and Europe). Chinese companies have attempted to invest in mining projects, particularly for lithium and uranium, which are crucial for global supply chains.
Trump’s interest in Greenland is not a new thing. In 2018, during Trump’s first term, a Chinese state-owned company tried to build three airports in Greenland, raising security concerns in Denmark and the US, which ultimately pressured Greenland to reject the deal. Wary of China’s influence in the Arctic, Trump proposed buying Greenland from Denmark in 2019, though the idea was dismissed by Danish officials. Trump is right to be concerned. China has continued to pursue economic and political influence in Greenland by establishing scientific research stations (i.e., military installations) and infrastructure investments as part of its broader Polar Silk Road initiative, an extension of BRI aimed at increasing China’s presence in the Arctic. Greenland is moreover strategic with respect to Russia. (See Monroe Doctrine 2.0)
Why would the Democratic Party, which claims to represent labor (really public employee unions), aggressively pursue law and policy that makes the United States ever more dependent on China? Why would it promote policy that offshores American manufacturing and other production to China, where commodities are produced under conditions aptly described as slave labor? Why would Democrats, and aligned neoliberals in the Republican Paty (who are thankfully becoming a rare breed in the era of MAGA), undermine the national security of the United States by promoting economic development that allows China to elaborate and modernize its military capabilities?
How is it that progressives still believe Democrats have the interests of workers in mind or concern themselves with the national security threat posed by a totalitarian corporate state with a population comprising nearly twenty percent of the world’s population with a expanding capacity for war-making? Why would a significant proportion of the US populace continue believing that legacy news reporting is telling them truth about what is occurring and what Trump is doing about it?
There has really been only one voice over the last decade who has told Americans the truth about China: Donald Trump. His plan—and this is why he’s putting the spotlight on our hemisphere—is to re-shore and near-shore industry, provide jobs for American workers, and cheaper products manufactured in this hemisphere, thus weakening China’s ability to wage economic and kinetic war on the West.
The Democrats present Russia as the great threat to US security while, along with European elites, antagonize that state by pushing NATO up against its borders (see History and Sides-Taking in the Russo-Ukrainian War; Is War With Russia Inevitable?). They wish to keep alive the Cold War. But the real threat resides the People’s Republic of China and the Islamic Republic of Iran. In the latter, the emerging consensus is that China is the only power that can challenge the “Great Satan.” For its part, China is ramping up investments in Iran, and not only in the energy sector. China seeks a strong presence in Iran, not only in its competition with India (whom Trump is pulling closer), but to counter the West.
Dr. Deborah Birx is trying to save her soul by admitting what I told everyone in the spring of 2020: that the mRNA shot is not a vaccine, that it does not provide immunity from the coronavirus, and that it does not prevent the spread of disease. (I wrote many essays on this topic, so I won’t list them here, but they follow in rather rapid succession from the first, which I published on March 27, 2020: Viruses, Agendas, and Moral Panics.)
Donald Trump and Deborah Birx
Doctors jabbed children with a drug that at best should have been used on those at risk for serious disease, Birx now says. Moreover, she admits, even those at risk could have avoided the jab with early treatment. Why were they denied early treatment? Because effective treatments like Ivermectin (you know, “horse paste”) would deny Big Pharma the emergency use authorization it needed to carry out a massive medical experiment on human populations.
Coronavirus is a cold virus. It’s not harmful to children—or to the vast majority of healthy adults. Most of us had a coronavirus as children. On Freedom and Reason, again way back in 2020, I showed how the media was lying to public by systematically confusing case fatality rate (CFR) vs. infection fatality rate (IFR), among other lies. You don’t have to be a virologist or a doctor to know things like this. You need only to understand basic science and mathematics—and the reality that corporate state media is a vast propaganda apparatus.
Yet I know smart people who couldn’t wait to get their children jabbed—and snap and share pictures on social media to signal their virtue, while describing skeptics as “mouth-breathers.” Want to guess what party the virtue-signalers belong to? Now we have a generation of young people who are carrying in their body a time bomb.
Yes, Trump was president. He fucked up. He was part of Operation Warp Speed, a public–private partnership initiated by the US government to accelerate the development, manufacture, and distribution of the mRNA shot. Operation Warp Speed was in part funded by the CARES Act (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) passed by the US Congress in March 27, 2020—the same day I penned my first essay on the matter (as I was recovering from the first wave of the virus). CARES was an interagency program that included Big Pharma shills—HHS, CDC, FDA, NIH, BARDA—as well as Big Pharma itself. (Excited about Bobby Kennedy, Jr. cleaning up this mess as the new head of HHS.)
Do you know what other agency was part of the project? The Department of Defense. In fact, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) played a key role in the development of mRNA technologies used to develop the mRNA platform.
Birx was a core part of the Trump Administration team. So was Anthony Fauci, whom President Biden recently preemptively pardoned. What did Fauci do that was so bad that he needed a pardon? Look up EcoHealth Alliance. Trump’s pride won’t allow him to admit he was duped. But he was. A lot of people were. Not me. Not for a second. I knew too much.
There are two definitions or usages of the term “racism.” The first definition refers to an ideological belief system that asserts the existence of distinct racial categories and the inherent superiority of certain races over others. This perspective is rooted in the idea that race is a biologically fixed characteristic that determines capabilities, intelligence, and moral worth. Historically, this form of racism has justified discriminatory practices such as colonialism, segregation, and slavery. It often manifests in overt prejudice and explicit discriminatory policies that favor one racial group over another based on perceived innate differences.
The second usage of racism focuses on the structural and systemic inequalities that result in racial disparities, regardless of individual intent or belief in racial superiority. This understanding of racism considers historical and institutional factors that create and maintain unequal conditions for different racial groups. Examples include disparities in criminal justice outcomes, education, income, jobs, and wealth outcomes that disproportionately affect marginalized racial groups. Even in the absence of explicit racial animus, policies and practices that perpetuate these inequities are considered forms of systemic or structural racism. This broader definition shifts the focus from personal prejudice and explicit discriminatory law and policy to societal patterns that sustain racial injustice.
Using the first definition, a law or policy is considered racist if it is explicitly based on the belief that distinct racial categories exist and that some races are inherently superior or inferior to others. Such laws institutionalize the belief in racial hierarchies by granting privileges to one racial group while oppressing or disadvantaging another. For example, Jim Crow laws in the United States were racist because they were founded on the idea that white people were superior to black people, justifying legal segregation and denying black Americans equal rights. Similarly, apartheid in South Africa was a racist system because it legally enforced racial segregation and discrimination, privileging white South Africans over nonwhite populations. These policies are not merely associated with racial disparities; they are explicitly designed to uphold racial superiority and inferiority, making them fundamentally racist under this definition.
Using the second definition, which focuses on systemic inequalities and racial disparities, indeed, often taking these facts on their face as an explanation for them, urban areas in the United States exemplify how historical and institutional factors have created and sustained racial disparities. Many predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods in cities suffer from fewer economic opportunities, higher crime rates, limited access to healthcare, and underfunded schools. These conditions are not merely coincidental but are the result of public policies and social forces. Under this definition, these conditions are considered forms of systemic racism because they perpetuate racial disparities even without explicit racist intent, demonstrating how historical injustices and institutional structures contribute to ongoing inequality.
A truth that escapes a great many people is that most major urban areas in the United States are run by the Democratic Party, which has held political control in cities such as Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, and New York for decades. The governing philosophy in these cities aligns with progressive policies, emphasizing government intervention in the distribution of economic, educational and other resources. The people there are heavily dependent on progressive taxation, public assistance programs, and regulations aimed at maintaining the conditions of marginalized communities. High taxation, overbearing regulations, and over-reliance on government programs have stifled economic growth and opportunity. They have also promoted family disintegration. For example, the fathers of around eighty percent of black children in urban areas are not married to their mothers, and are often not present in their lives.
It is therefore important to ask why, if those living outside urban areas are not responsible for the conditions of cities because they do not control the policies or leadership that govern them, they are blamed for the conditions of black Americans and other impoverished racial minorities. Local governments in major urban centers make decisions on education, housing, regulations, and taxation, which directly shape the economic and social environment of these areas. Since rural and suburban residents have little to no influence over these city policies, they cannot be blamed for the ongoing issues in urban centers. Federal and state funding is often directed toward urban development initiatives (i.e., maintaining the conditions I have described), meaning that resources from taxpayers outside these cities are frequently allocated to address “urban challenges.” If city leadership continues implementing policies that fail to resolve issues such as crime, educational disparities, and poverty, the responsibility lies with those who enact and support these policies, not with people living in areas where different governance models are in place.
Map of counties in the 2024 Presidential Election
In most counties across the United States, the Republican Party and conservative and traditional liberal philosophy prevail. Rural and suburban areas tend to favor limited government intervention, lower taxes, and policies that prioritize individual responsibility and free-market solutions. These regions typically emphasize business-friendly regulations, local control over education, and a focus on traditional social values. This contrasts in governance philosophy between urban Democratic leadership and rural Republican leadership highlights the ideological divide in the country, with cities tending to support progressive policies.
I have emphasized in my writings that while culture and race are often conflated concepts, they are fallaciously so. This conflation functions to make those who criticize certain cultures appear to be making a racist argument. The effect is to make public conversations about the cause of racial disparities difficult, which serves the interests of those who benefit from maintaining the conditions that produce and reproduce dysfunctional culture. So to clarify, race is a socially constructed classification based on perceived physical characteristics such as ancestry and phenotypic characteristics. It is largely an external categorization that societies have historically used to group people, often with social and political implications.
Race has no inherent connection to attitudes, behavior, traditions, or values, as it is not a determinant of one’s abilities or worldview. Culture, on the other hand, refers to the shared beliefs, customs, language, practices, and values of a group of people. It is shaped by geography, history, religion, and social norms, rather than genetics or physical traits. Culture is learned and passed down through generations, influencing everything from cuisine to family structures to academic tenacity and work ethic. Crucially, while people of the same racial background may share some cultural elements due to historical and geographical factors, individuals from different racial groups can share the same culture.
Culture plays a significant role in explaining group differences and disparities by shaping attitudes, behaviors, social norms, and values that influence educational, economic, social outcomes. Different cultural traditions emphasize varying levels of emphasis on education, family structure (the integrity thereof), social cohesion, and work ethic, all of which can impact a group’s success in different societal contexts. For example, cultures that strongly prioritize formal education and intergenerational investment often see higher academic achievement and economic mobility. Similarly, cultural attitudes toward authority, community support networks, and risk-taking can affect economic decisions, entrepreneurship, and social mobility. Cultural differences help explain why different groups respond differently to similar educational outcomes and economic and social conditions, leading to variations in outcomes.
Thus, if racism is to blame for the conditions of black Americans in urban areas, the definition that applies is the second one—systemic or structural racism. This is the definition progressives and Democrats promote and portray as getting at the root causes of racial disparities. The first definition, which centers on explicit beliefs in racial superiority and inferiority, does not align with modern urban policies, as there are no current laws that openly promote racial hierarchy as Jim Crow laws once did. Instead, racial disparities in crime, education, and economic opportunity must be explained by the second definition, which attributes these differences to historical injustices and institutional policies that, even without explicit racist intent, sustain inequality. Since Democratic leadership has controlled urban policy for decades, systemic racism in these areas stems from the policies enacted under their governance rather than from outside influences.
This ties in to the problem of open borders and mass immigration, which Democrats promote. Open borders exacerbates economic challenges for working-class Americans, particularly for black and Hispanic citizens and legal residents, by increasing labor market competition in lower-wage sectors. The influx of cheap foreign labor results in a surplus of labor, which depresses wages and reduce job opportunities for these vulnerable groups, who already face systemic barriers in the workforce because of the effects of the policies I have identified. The economic pressures minorities face disproportionately affects those with limited education or skills. Furthermore, employers exploit the availability of a cheaper labor force to drive down wages and working conditions, ultimately harming the economic mobility of working-class Americans who are already struggling. The combination of these factors deepen racial disparities.
Everything progressive Democrats tell you about racism is designed to distract you from the fact that the definition of racism they embrace indicts them as the racists, not rural and suburban conservative and traditionally liberal Americans. Democrats blame white conservatives and traditional liberals for racism—as progressives define it—framing it as the enduring problem of “white supremacy.” But white supremacy is captured by the first definition, and the fact is that white supremacy is not really a problem anymore. Progressives confuse the public about who the racists are to maintain the conditions that benefit them.
The prevailing narrative is that Democrats are the champions of the poor and downtrodden, and that false narrative works because progressives have captured the administrative apparatus and the sense-making institutions of the nation. But we can easily decode the rhetoric: what they’re really talking about is the paternalistic relationship cosmopolitan elites established over decades that keeps black and Hispanic urban dwellers in impoverished inner-city neighborhoods, idle and dependent on public assistance. Democrats make Republicans out to be the party of racism to distract those under their control as to the real cause of their suffering and to stymie attempts to change the conditions that actually keep down blacks and Hispanics.
Recall Sheldon Wolin’s concept of managed democracy, presented in his landmark 2008 book Democracy, Inc. There, he describes a political system where democratic institutions exist in appearance but are in reality controlled and manipulated by corporate-state interests to maintain elite power and privilege. Wolin argues that this system suppresses genuine democratic engagement, reducing citizens to passive spectators—and transforms those who seek democratic means and ends as enemies. Inverted totalitarianism, the situation of managed democracy, contrasts with classical totalitarian regimes by lacking a charismatic leader and pseudo-nationalist rhetoric; it is instead a state of unfreedom secured by entrenched administrative and bureaucratic control. Inverted totalitarianism functions through the expansion of corporate state power, the suppression of democratic accountability, and the use of media and spectacle to pacify the public while maintaining the illusion of democracy.
JD Vance at Munich, February 14, 2025
US Vice-President, JD Vance, speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Friday, February 14, launched into brutal critique of the authoritarian character of the European superstate, calling out the leaders of its member states for suppressing free speech, failing to halt illegal migration, and thwarting the democratic desire of its respective citizens. Predictably, progressive Democrats were horrified. The Trump-Vance administration’s vision of popular democratic republican governance and its commitment to liberal values are antithetical to the Democrat’s vision of a global capitalist order governed by transnational corporations via elite-controlled administrative machinery and technocratic control. The thesis-antithesis dynamic in which the West finds itself is republicanism on the one hand, and empire on the other.
The idea of a German-dominated Europe, now a reality on the Eurasian landmass, is not new. During the Nazi era, the concept of a Greater Germanic Reich envisioned a centralized European superstate under German leadership, with big banks and corporations at its back, integrating neighboring countries into a political-economic system designed to serve expansionist and militaristic goals. In essence, German fascism sought a structured reordering of Europe under corporatist principles. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, German corporatism is today is being entrenched by transnational corporate actors. The Democratic Party, and coopted elements of the Republican Party, especially in the neoconservative agenda, a rebranded Cold War progressivism, now on the run, have for decades played a key role in that entrenchment.
A key part of Hitler’s vision was the creation of a pan-European military force, with Germany at the helm, to extend its reach eastward. This ambition materialized in Operation Barbarossa in 1941—the invasion of the Soviet Union—designed to extend corporatist-style capitalism into Eastern Europe. The idea was to transform the Eurasian landmass into a hierarchical order where Germany controlled economic, military, and political affairs. Today we see the German fascist vision materializing in a new form. NATO’s goal of allocating two percent of GDP to military spending, set in 2014, remained unmet by many European members for years. We now see significant progress in meeting that goal; members of the European superstate have increased their military budgets amid warmongering-engendered fears of new conflicts and growing uncertainty over the US’s commitment to global military leadership under Trump. Germany’s substantial investment in its military, known as the Sondervermögen, has propelled the country into the top five global spenders on military assets and readiness, according to data released this week by the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Readers should remember that the Nazi regime did not rise in a vacuum. The role of Western banks and corporations in supporting German and Italian fascism is well documented. Financial giants—including JPMorgan Chase and other major banking institutions—saw fascism as a strategic counter to the populist movements of the early twentieth century. Whether socialist, libertarian, or nationalist, these democratic forces were a threat to the immense financial and political power of capitalist elites. Rhetoric aside, the oligarchy portrayed democracy as a threat to economic stability, favoring a system in which an authoritarian corporate state would manage markets and suppress dissent. This was thus not merely about ideology but about the consolidation of a corporate-state alliance, replacing democratic accountability with centralized economic and political and technocratic control. The suppression of political opposition, censorship, and surveillance were all tools to entrench this new order.
Following World War II, many of these same corporate and financial interests played a key role in shaping the new European order. The formation of the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1957, which later evolved into the European Union (EU), was marketed as a peace project. However, its deeper function mirrored the Greater Germanic Reich vision—creating a centralized, technocratic superstate. Germany, through its economic dominance rather than direct military conquest, emerged as the controlling power within the EU. The European Central Bank (ECB), headquartered in Frankfurt, and the EU’s strict economic regulations have effectively bound weaker member states into a structure where Germany exerts disproportionate influence. German fascism regrouped and realized its dream by apparently different means. But it is the same nightmare.
In light of this history, it is no surprise that modern European leaders—now fully embedded in a corporatist paradigm—are reviving the idea of a pan-European military force, set to emerge from the moribund NATO alliance emplaced in 1949 to counter the now-defunct Soviet Union. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s recent call for such a force, amid an ongoing war with Russia, reflects the logical next step in the integrationist agenda. And where did he make this call? February 15 at the same Munich conference that hosted Vance the day before. The lukewarm reception of Vance by corporate state elites contrasted sharply with a standing ovation Zelensky received. Democrats today are busy on social media spinning Zelensky’s vision of a pan-European military establishment over against the Trump-Vance vision of a peaceful international order.
Just as in the 1930s and 1940s, the primary target of this militarization is Russia, the go-to boogeyman man of the West. And the strategic objective remains the same: eastward expansion, territorial and economic control over Eastern Europe, and the containment or dismantling of the Russian specter. Thus, the hostility expressed towards JD Vance’s speech criticizing the militaristic and technocratic policies of the European elite was entirely predictable, highlighting the divide between those who seek centralized control over the world’s populations and those advocating for national sovereignty and democratic governance. These two visions of the future order of things could not be clearer. Technocracy is not democracy no matter how often Democrats repeat their Orwellian euphemisms; breaking the back of legacy media by a liberated global social media network has made it difficult if not impossible for Democrats to fool most of the people all the time. Vance told European elites this much to their faces.
For a deeper understanding of this, readers may find helpful yesterday’s essay History as Ideology: The Myth that the Democrats Became the Party of Lincoln. There, I show how the Democratic Party has historically aligned with transnational capitalist interests, favoring corporate-state alliances and globalist policies. I explain how progressivism and transnationalism have consistently worked hand-in-hand to undermine national sovereignty in favor of a managed global order run by the transnational oligarchy. Conversely, the Republican Party, its underlying DNA populist and nationalist, remains the party of democratic republicanism. Indeed, today, under Donald Trump and JD Vance, the party is experiencing a return to and revitalization of its anti-corporate-state roots. That Democrats claim Lincoln is yet another instantiation of Orwellian inversion.
The centralization of power in Europe—whether through economic control, corporate influence, or military integration—has always carried the risk of expansionist conflict. The historical trajectory from the Greater Germanic Reich to the European Union demonstrates a continuity in corporatist ambition, repackaged under different ideological banners. The modern push for a pan-European military force under German leadership is therefore a dangerous step toward escalation, particularly in its confrontation with Russia, a confrontation the United States using previous administrations, involving deep state forces, provoked by capturing the Ukraine government to use as a proxy for its imperial desire. The fact that leaders across Europe applaud this trajectory while suppressing dissenting voices should be a cause for great concern and helping Americans and Europeans alike grasp the ends the power elite seek. If history has taught us anything, it is that technocratic empire inevitably leads to war, suppression of individual liberties, and the destruction of national sovereignty.
Zelensky at Munich, February 15, 2025
For his part, Zelensky is a willing agent of the power elite. Imposing martial law, Zelensky banned opposition parties, alleging ties to Russia, and seized their assets. Zelensky canceled elections, as well. It is no exaggeration to say that Ukraine has become an authoritarian state. Indeed, it is even a throwback to the classical totalitarian regime, replete with a charismatic leader and paramilitary shock troops. This is what elites in Munich stood for and applauded. In Zelensky, they have a leader who manifests imperial desire. In Vance, they saw a vision that, if manifested, negates that desire.
What was excusable as ignorance in the past is inexcusable now. The question is: Will people wake up before it’s too late? Will we have republican governments in an international order or a pan-European empire governed by the transnational corporation? Crucial to the awakening is keeping progressive Democrats away from power so they cannot undo the progress the populist forces have made, while at the same time supporting nationalist movements across the various European states.
This is the significance of Vance’s speech in Munich. And Zelensky’s speech provides the perfect contrast to raise awareness of the forces facing those who believe in democracy, liberty, and world peace. To be sure, changing the terms of the NATO alliance provides the European superstate their opportunity to establish a pan-European military apparatus with which to threaten Russia’s security. Or at least to pursue Cold War 2.0. But, facing a sovereign debt crisis thanks to the reckless spending by the progressive establishment, the United States can no longer afford to underwrite Europe’s security (which should start by securing borders and deporting the millions of aliens invaders that have illegally crossed them) by stuffing money we don’t have into the ravenous maw of the military-industrial complex. NATO long ago became a scheme to feed that beast—the same beast that frightens the people about the threat posed by Russia.
The corporatists and warmongers tell their populations that populist-nationalist politics represents fascism, but this is an Orwellian inversion designed by corporates elites, pushed out by their propagandists, to confuse the masses. They make Putin out to be Hitler because they don’t want the masses to see who the ghost of Hitler actually haunts. As Wolin told us, totalitarianism is today inverted, manipulating the masses through managed democracy. The reality is the opposite of what is projected. Corporate-state propaganda is a camera obscura. German fascism was never populist in character, anyway. Its character was always corporate capitalist and imperial, and what went under the name National Socialism was a capitalist cabal obsessed with suppressing popular democratic forces. German fascism did not seek a republican order, but instead empire—and empire is where civilizations go to die.
The suppression of speech critical of progressive and social democratic policies and the globalist agenda, and the popular political resistance that takes up this criticism, tells us that the corporatist-style arrangements that have marked the European superstate are well into their authoritarian phase. Vance spoke past the elites to tell the people that Trump is on their side. In so many words, Vance told the world that it is witnessing Fascism 2.0, that the menace of totalitarianism is no longer supposition, and that it’s populist-nationalism that can save the world from it.
freedom and reason 