Author Govert SchullerPosted on Categories Politics It is interesting to see how delusional and divided the far right is in the US.
First of all I consider the far right that faction of the conservative movement which is authoritarian. This is the faction composed of people who have become intolerant of certain social and cultural differences and tend to exaggerate dangers, both real and imagined. Many found in Donald Trump their strong man to restore law and order, kick out the illegals, protect the homeland and get the jobs back from parasitic foreign countries.[1]
These authoritarian conservatives are not the same as the moderate status quo conservatives who have been quite outspoken against Trump during the primaries, then became somewhat supportive or silent during the election, and now some of whom have regained their oppositional voice like Senator McCain. The other conservative faction is the libertarian one. Overall they were opposed to Trump as he did not seem to understand the US Constitution nor the libertarian concept of freedom. Libertarian Senator Rand Paul recently made an inside quip about the Trump cabinet: “Haven’t seen this many billionaires since I staked out Bilderbergs with Alex Jones”.[2] Both factions lost adherents to the authoritarian Trump as conservatives succumbed to his mendacious fear-mongering and empty boasts to set things straight again.
Besides moderate and libertarian conservative opposition to Trump it looks like that within the far right itself there are some recent voices expressing second thoughts about him. For example Aaron and Melissa Dykes, who used to work for the arch-conspiricist and ardent Trump supporter Alex Jones, created a video attacking Trump from the farther right as a tool of hidden forces which, through Trump’s cabinet picks, are promoting a ‘New World Order’, which “started under Bush, was continued by Obama, and now it has been exponentially ramped up by Trump”, especially by his national security team. Trump might not be totally aware of that and for support the Dykes repeat the now well-known quote by Steve Bannon that Trump is a “blunt instrument for us. I don’t know whether he really gets it or not.”[3]
The whole video is a sample of sloppy conspiricist thinking at its best. They pick up facts and perspectives which might by themselves be worthy of deeper investigation (even the conclusion has merit, see below), but then fit them in a far-fetched narrative in which, for example, Hillary Clinton played the willing role of a “villain”, making intentionally stupid mistakes like her “deplorables” comment to make Trump look more heroic in this “stage play that was our last election”.
The interesting aspect for me here is that the Dykes do come to a conclusion in their video which has certain merits and that is that it has some congruence with more thoughtful criticisms of both Trump and Clinton coming from the progressive and socialist left. All of them agree that Bush, Romney, Obama, Clinton and Trump are all part of an establishment which is shaped and driven by deeper political and economic forces which they hardly challenge or, if challenged, only do so verbally. Many politicians, social scientists, journalists and whistleblowers have seen different smaller and bigger parts of this complex and have given it different names like the military-industrial complex, the power elite, the oligarchy, the Deep State, etc. Nobody really knows how this complex functions and perpetuates itself, but I think it is far more fractious, diverse and improvisational than most conspiricists believe, especially the grand conspiricists who think all politics and history is one big theater enacting an already determined script like the Dykes seem to believe in.
Meanwhile one can move even further to the right and enter the anti-Semitic corner from which Alex Jones and the Dykes are criticized for covering up the Jewish component of the international power elite and therefore running “Kosher Approved Fake ‘Truth’ Sites” peddling in fantasies, phony narratives and implausible conspiracies.[4]
A more personal reason to bring this video into focus has to do with the criticism I received from long-time friends and acquaintances for my opposition to Trump as they assumed that I, as a (former) conspiracy theorist of very limited reputation, should have seen the great and unprecedented opportunity of Trump taking on ‘The Conspiracy’ and maybe delivering it a knock out blow. Some might not have known that I had shifted from a spiritualist libertarianism to an evolutionist progressivism, which transformed conspiricism into a more scientific critique of power relations. Nevertheless, even if I had abided with conspiricism, I would have seen early on that Trump was not a bona fide conspiracy theorist and that he was quite ignorant, except for his own real estate lobbying sphere, about the structure, composition and practices of exploitation and domination of the current US power elite. Trying to pass off Richard Haass, the president of the most internationalist and influential corporate elite think thank The Council on Foreign Relations–reviled by both the far left and far right–, as your favorite foreign policy advisor is an almost one-strike-out faux pas only a political novice could make. And by letting Bilderberg Steering Committee member and CIA-connected Peter Thiel on your transition team and then hire Skull & Bones (1985) member and foreclosure king Steven Mnuchin as treasury secretary you have already lost the game. Right wing conspiricist Glenn Beck–rooted in the works of whistleblower historian Carroll Quigley, former FBI agent W. Cleon Skousen and nephew Joel Skousen–saw also quickly Trump’s danger and called him a “narcissistic psychopath”, though he later turned around and supported Trump.
In short, I do share with conspiricists concerns about power and secrecy, but will investigate those phenomena guided by scientific principles rather than revelation, ideology, axiomatic conspiricism or wishful thinking.
As far as the video is concerned, I hope it will wake up conspiricist Trump supporters who then might consider to enter a temporary coalition with moderate conservatives and liberals to deal with the present and acute danger Trump poses through impeachment.
Originally posted on Facebook, February 18, 2017.
[1]. Schuller, Govert. “On Trump: Intolerance and Authoritarianism“. Alpheus. 20 Feb 2017. [Warning: Alpheus is an independent, critical website]
[2]. Watson, Steve. “Rand Paul Is Unhappy About Trump’s ‘Bilderberg’ Cabinet“. Infowars. 23 Dec 2016. [Warning: Infowars is a right wing, conspiricist fake news website]
[3]. Dykes, Aaron and Melissa. “Trump’s New World Order“. Truthstream Media. 5 Feb 2017. [Warning: Truthstream Media is a right wing, conspiricist website]
[4]. Rogers, Lee. “An Expose on Other Alex Jones-Style Kosher Approved Fake “Truth” Sites“. The Daily Slave. 28 Oct 2014. Reposted on The Daily Stormer. [Warning: The Daily Slave and The Daily Stormer are right wing, conspiricist websites]