On the promised land and its inhabitants – Ronald Brownstein in The Atlantic:

‘Polling by the Associated Press and the National Opinion Research Center has found that only about one in 11 Republicans expresses directly favorable views of white-nationalist groups such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers (whose leader, Stewart Rhodes, was convicted this week of seditious conspiracy for his role in the January 6 attack).
But a much larger slice of Republican partisans express views that might be called white-nationalist adjacent. In various polls, preponderant majorities of GOP voters have said that discrimination against white people is now as big a problem as bias against minorities, that Christianity in the U.S. is under assault, and that the growing number of immigrants threatens American values and traditions. About half of Republicans have expressed agreement in other polls with tenets of white nationalism, including the racist “replacement theory” that elites are importing immigrants to undermine the political power of native-born white people, the core Christian-nationalist belief that “God intended America to be a new promised land,” and the assertion that “the traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it.”’ (…)

‘Neumann, now the chief strategy officer of Moonshot, a company that combats online extremism, worries that organized far-right violence could still erupt if Trump ever faces a trial as a result of the various investigations targeting him. But she sees the possibility that the visibility and influence of the extreme right inside the GOP peaked with this fall’s converging events, especially the party’s disappointing election results. “I really do think this is, like, a 10-, 20-year process,” she told me, but “I have a slight hope that this sticks and that we move past it.”’

Read the article here.

Sitting out the extremists as if you are sitting out the rain. It’s a strategy, but it ignores the problem of liberalism, which I’m still willing to defend.

Once the state offered protection in exchange for obedience.

Somewhere in the 20th century, under the threat of communism and fascism, the state started offering prosperity in exchange for obedience and the absence of political extremism.

The modern state, the liberal state had privatized everything, religion, culture and extremism. Be as extreme as you want, but do it in your own living room, don’t break too many laws, and don’t let it become political.

In other words, there is a huge emptiness in the liberal state, as there is an emptiness in the secular state. The theocracy, look at Iran, has its own, particular gruesome emptiness. There are no easy solutions.

The emptiness of the liberal state is still the better emptiness we can get, but for those who can stand emptiness this argument is worthless.

The extreme right had understood, better than others that people long for meaning, and meaning means again the politicization of extremism.
Sexual perversity is boring. The citizens want something real, political perversity.