Identitarianism

THE rIGHT IS THE lEFT:

Building New Rafts: Trump’s Inheritance of the Legacy of the Left (Martin Jay, Salmagundi)

What, in addition to his seduction of a significant chunk of the working class, has Trump inherited from the playbook of the left in American political life? How has he and his right-wing populist movement refunctioned for their own purposes many of the traditional positions and attitudes that were once considered, grosso modo, “progressive?” What does this confusion of identities suggest for our conventional way of placing aggregated political formations along a linear spectrum? What does it portend for the future constellation of discrete positions that form, at least for a while, a shared platform or coherent ticket?

Painful as it is, we have to acknowledge the various ways in which the cards once dealt to a certain hand, and remained there for a long while, can later unexpectedly find their way into another. Let us begin with economic issues. At least ever since the Reagan administration, the bugaboo of the left has been neo-liberal globalization, which, broadly speaking, was accused of sacrificing domestic jobs in the pursuit of high corporate profits by investing abroad and profiting from cheap foreign labor. Neo-liberalism also meant fiscal austerity, the weakening of the welfare safety net, the undermining of unions, indiscriminate deregulation, the dissolution of barriers to free trade, and the marketization of as many social relations as possible. When the Democrats climbed, more or less, on board the neo-liberal express during the Clinton administration, it seemed as if both parties had placed their chips on a new international economic order run by plutocratic and technocratic elites beyond the control of democratic domestic politics. International organizations like the European Union, the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund gained autonomy from national electorates.

For a long time, the left fulminated against the sins of neo-liberalism and the dangers of unaccountable globalization, whether under Republican or Democratic administrations.3 From Reagan through the second Bush presidency, its cries of distress were met with scorn by staunchly conservative defenders of the sanctity of markets, smaller government, deregulation, balanced federal budgets and other neo-liberal shibboleths. During the past ten years, however, a curious erosion of the line between camps occurred. Signs were already there during the Brexit debate, when progressive voices urged the UK to leave the EU because, as an article in the leftist periodical Jacobin put it, “it provides an opportunity for a radical break with neo-liberalism.”4 Even after Brexit succeeded, Perry Anderson, UCLA historian and the esteemed editor of the New Left Review, continued his denunciation of the undemocratic nature of the European Union.5 Perhaps the most resonant symbolic expression of the converging of positions occurred when Steve Bannon unexpectedly reached out in 2017 to Robert Kuttner, the left-liberal editor of The American Prospect, to discuss their common hostility to China and talk strategy about promoting economic nationalism.

DEMAND MORE:

The Shutdown We Need: The fight should be for the Constitution (Robert Zubrin, Oct 10, 2025, The Cosmopolitan Globalist)

As a result of the election of Donald Trump, the rule of law has broken down in the United States. Thousands of convicted criminals who engaged in violence to support Trump’s efforts to prevent the certification of the 2020 election have been released. Those who prosecuted them have been fired and threatened with prosecution. Unidentified men, wearing masks and driving unmarked vehicles, are snatching immigrants—or alleged immigrants—off the streets and even from courts of law, then whisking them off without due process to hellhole prisons in foreign lands.

The FBI is raiding the homes of Trump’s critics, such as former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton. In some cases, his critics have faced outright terror tactics: Last February, for example, the January 6 thugs whom Trump released from jail threatened to bomb a conference in Washington, DC, where Bolton was speaking.

In the past several months, Trump has threatened to pull the broadcast licenses of two major television networks because their coverage was unfavorable to him. He has called for the White House to take over the Federal Reserve system. In direct violation of his oath of office, Trump refuses to enforce laws duly enacted by Congress, such as the TikTok ban.

Trump is undertaking further actions outside of his legal powers, including capriciously imposing or ending massive tariffs (a power assigned under the US Constitution to Congress), and deploying to unwilling states, putatively for law enforcement, the National Guard (usurping the power of state governments), and even US Army and Marine forces (outright illegal). […]

In short, since retaking office, Trump has mounted an all-out assault on Constitutional government, the rule of law, freedom of speech, free enterprise, free trade, American science, and the defense of the Free World. Compared to these issues, Obamacare is irrelevant. America was a free country before Obamacare, it was a free country after Obamacare, and it can remain free with or without Obamacare. It cannot remain free without its Constitution.

THE A-FRAME:

The populism horseshoe: A venerable political theory helps make sense of modern political attitudes (John Sides – October 8, 2025, Good Authority)

Why would we expect populist attitudes to be more prevalent at the ideological extremes? First, let’s define populism. Tamaki and Jung, building on other work, define it as “a thin-centered ideology that divides society into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups – ‘the pure people’ and ‘the corrupt elite’ – and argues for politics to be an expression of the general will of the people.”

The ideological extremes are thus expected to be more populist because of certain cognitive tendencies. The far left and far right often share an “us vs. them” view of the world – even if they define “us” and “them” differently. Both groups also tend to oversimplify the world, and hold on to their simplified views with confidence. They are cognitively “rigid.” And they are particularly hostile toward those they view as opponents.

On top of that, the far left and far right are both “people-centered” in their way. They distrust authorities and “elites.” Thus, they valorize “ordinary people” as the only reliable and worthy decision-makers.

ESCAPING THE TRUE BELIEVERS:

How I Got Pulled into Charlie Kirk’s Movement—and Why I Left: Turning Point USA gave me purpose. But it took years to unlearn the politics I once accepted without question (Caroline Stout, Wendy Kaur, Oct. 1, 2025, The Walrus)

You were in high school when you joined Turning Point USA. What made you want to get involved?

I was involved with my local Republican Party. At this point, Charlie was going around fundraising. He held a kind of recruitment meeting for young people interested in politics in Houston. That was the first time I met him, when he made his pitch for Turning Point. His refrain was: “We only focus on limited government and fiscal responsibility. That’s it. We don’t focus on social issues, because that divides us.” That was really digestible for me at the time, because I really wasn’t sure where I stood on some social issues. And it’s easy to get behind fiscal responsibility and limited government. So it seemed pretty innocuous to me. […]

How much responsibility do you think Kirk bears for the climate of fear and outrage that has reshaped American politics?

When MAGA started to take over, Kirk really leaned into its rise. He was very ambitious, and so there was a major shift in his rhetoric during the first Trump administration. Early on, he even gave an interview emphasizing the importance of viewing policy through a secular lens. But in recent years, his message became much more aligned with Christian nationalism. That evolution tracks closely with the broader rise of Christian nationalism in politics and with MAGA. I wouldn’t place all the blame on him, but the embrace of nationalist and fascist rhetoric—anti-immigration, xenophobia, and Christian nationalism—is something for which he does bear responsibility.

ALWAYS BET ON THE dEEP sTATE:

A Reagan-Appointed Judge Just Wrote a Blistering Anti-Trump Decision (Noah Lanard, 9/30/25, MoJo)

Young, who is 85 years old and was appointed to the bench four decades ago, begins by quoting a postcard he received on June 19 that reads: “TRUMP HAS PARDONS AND TANKS …. WHAT DO YOU HAVE?” Young replies in the ruling:

Dear Mr. or Ms. Anonymous,

Alone, I have nothing but my sense of duty. Together, We the People of the United States—you and me—have our magnificent Constitution. Here’s how that works out in a specific case—

The judge goes on to write that the case he is deciding is “perhaps the most important ever to fall within the jurisdiction of this district court.” He concludes that there was not an “ideological deportation policy” targeting pro-Palestine speech. Instead, there was something more sinister:

[T]he intent of the Secretaries was more invidious—to target a few for speaking out and then use the full rigor of the Immigration and Nationality Act (in ways it had never been used before) to have them publicly deported with the goal of tamping down pro-Palestinian student protests and terrorizing similarly situated non-citizen (and other) pro-Palestinians into silence because their views were unwelcome.

By defending that policy, Young writes, the president has violated his “sacred oath” to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” That Trump is “for all practical purposes, totally immune from any consequences for this conduct,” Young adds, citing the Supreme Court’s 2024 immunity decision, “does not relieve this Court of its duty to find the facts.”

CONSERVATISM SEEKS TO CONSERVE LIBERALISM:

The American New Right Looks Like the European Old Right: When conservatives reject constitutional limits on executive power and foment civil conflict, what exactly are they conserving? (Jack Nicastro and Phillip W. Magness, 9.26.2025, reason)

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Illustration featuring (left to right) Auron MacIntyre, Curtis Yarvin, Carl Schmitt, Yoram Hazony, and Darryl Cooper | The Auron Macintyre Show, Tucker Carlson / YouTube, Illustration by Adani Samat
(The Auron Macintyre Show, Tucker Carlson / YouTube, Illustration by Adani Samat)
There was a time when the American right was conservative: appreciative of inherited wisdom, skeptical of rationalism, wary of excessive government power, and against radical change. Exemplified by figures like William Buckley Jr. and Ronald Reagan, American conservatism is, in the words of The Dispatch’s Jonah Goldberg, a political philosophy that defends “the revolutionary ideals of classical liberalism.”

The New Right is not interested in defending these distinctively American ideals. Drawing instead on collectivist, nationalist, and even monarchist traditions from continental Europe, this New Right seeks to wield the tools of government to advance its own social, cultural, and religious priorities. For years, the New Right, by its own admission, has rejected the tenets of classical liberalism, including individual liberty, mutual toleration, and limited government. But, following the recent assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, the New Right has doubled down on its authoritarian tendencies by reviving the cultural teachings of Carl Schmitt, one of Nazi Germany’s chief legal minds.

Not only is the Right’s ideology anti-conservative and anti-American, it’s anti-Christian.

WHY THE rIGHT IS SO GEEFUL ABOUT HIS MURDER:

Charlie Kirk, Martyrdom, and America’s Authoritarian Apostles: The entanglement of fascist politics and Christian imagery is not new, and it is dangerously powerful (Adam Gurri, 25 Sep 2025, Liberal Currents)

Despite the obvious tensions between fascism and Christian virtues, the entanglement of fascist politics and Christian imagery is not new. It is dangerously powerful, especially in the contemporary context of an American Christianity in the grips of a right-wing identity crisis. I want to elaborate on the way MAGA has portrayed Kirk since his assassination and connect it to the warped, spiritually dessicated version of Christianity that undergirds Trumpism today. I hope to highlight how degraded our moral situation has become.

I have seen more than a few allusions to Horst Wessel in the days since Kirk’s killing. Wessel, a young Nazi and member of the SA, was murdered by members of the Communist Party of Germany in 1930. His death became a rallying point for Nazi Party, and they adopted a march for which he’d written lyrics as the party anthem.

The references are apt. Kirk is being valorized in service of a fascist project. But I want to turn in particular to the way historian Tom Holland examines Wessel’s martyrdom, in which he stresses the explicit Christ allegory, as an especially helpful point of comparison.

As Holland observes in his book Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World, Nazi leaders were quick to grasp the utility of Wessel’s death and to wield it to great effect. He writes how Josef Goebbels understood the Christian power in making Wessel a martyr, even as the Nazis despised much of what Christianity stood for. Goebbels went so far as to proclaim at Wessel’s funeral service that he would rise once again. Holland writes:

A shudder ran through the crowd, “As if God,” one of the mourners later recalled, “had made a decision and sent his holy breath upon the open grave and the flags, blessing the dead man and all who belonged to him.” One month later, Goebbels explicitly compared Wessel to Christ.

Since his killing, right-wing rhetoric around Kirk has become increasingly religious. In one hearing, Representative Troy Nehls of Texas declared “I would say if Charlie Kirk lived in Biblical times, he’d have been the 13th disciple.”

Hard to see Christ organizing Identitarian groups.