I pretty much agree with the post, but wish to draw one distinction. There is an enormous difference between a paramilitary mob and something like ICE. The mob is disclaimable, even if controlled by government. The mob permits January 6-style tropes like: "We know they went a bit far, but you've got to understand their outrage." ICE means that every act of brutality is necessarily government-endorsed. The state is always expected to display virtue: a staple of state propaganda from every regime I know of. Mobs, not so much.
Or to take another angle on it, consider the Latin American colonels who were happy to drop people out of helicopters on the QT, but would never consider putting the death penalty on the books.
I think that Trump's failure to work by mob might be one of the fatal mistakes of his regime. It's much easier to resist knowing that court orders are still sorta complied with, wrongfully imprisoned people will be released, and that lynchings will come back to haunt the lynchers.
Great point. But also, ICE is taking on aspects of a mob and operating in much secrecy. They are pushing anonymity with masks. They are taking being recorded as a threat. Many of the reports of violence involve the officers removing people from public view before abusing them. They just nixed the state investigation in to the murder of Rene Good.
They are not operating ICE with the idea it should have clean hands, but rather creating the conditions for extremist officers to abuse citizens without any ability for citizens to retaliate.
Can go both ways. At least with ICE it is possible to quell the "suburban bourgeois discomfort" by pointing out that it's just Thin Blue Lines Doing Their Job, and the resistance is simply unlawful, insurrection even (time for the Insurrection Act). Whereas with paramilitaries/counter-paramilitaries it would just look like anarchy.
Good question. I think "mistake," but I'm not sure. Trump has certainly gone out of his way to create impunity with his pardons. But we have seen no patent acts of organization. Enrique Tarrio seems to have been lying low, for example. There is some private terrorism, but it seems to be of the stochastic nature.
The mob--unlike ICE--is easy to prosecute under state law. But this requires willing state government. Could Trump sic the mob on blue cities in red states? Governor Abbott of Texas seems quite happy to issue his own pardons. This would also further another fascist goal. Southern states have a tradition of independent local governments. (Historically, it was a Jim Crow thing.) They're trying to reverse it now, to stomp on their blue cities. Local mob riots might help with this program, if blue-city prosecutors attempt to enforce the rule of law.
Significant point. But someone, if not Trump himself, seems to recognize the value of fostering mob potential in parallel with ICE. Even after he pardoned the J6 criminals, he has continued to give clemency to people connected to groups like the Proud Boys and to servicemen convicted by military courts.
In 2024, before the election, I argued with someone on Substack that I feared Trump would use aggressive ICE tactics to stir up a backlash, which he would then use to declare an insurrection. I was told I have end stage TDS.
This really has little to do with John's essay, but I have a question (scroll to the bottom)
I met Tyler Cowen (inadvertently) at a concert of Hindustani classical music, so his polymathic schtick isn't entirely a bluff (I have, however, visited bad restaurants on his advice). I'm 64, but I left Silicon Valley in 2003, and its metastasis was hidden from me. I was busy struggling with the market for older engineers, and I had two children. I took a job at Palantir in 2008, not having any idea who these people were (meaning, I had literally no idea who Thiel, Lonsdale et al. were, nor had I any idea what Alex Karp would become, since at that point he was still doing the "I'm a fish out of water, with funny hair; I'd be reading Max Weber if they hadn't tricked me into doing this" schtick). I had never had enough job security to investigate a company's investors. I was happy to work at a startup, any startup. Let's say it didn't end well.
At my next software job, I was nonplussed at how many converts to Orthodoxy there were, how often there would be possible (i.e. vague) approving references to Thiel, Michael Anton, and so on. EVERYONE read Tyler Cowen's blog. At this point I thought, there has to be something wrong with it, if the wrong people presumptively read it. He's selling something.
I've seen enough of the technoliberarian argumentative sequence in Cowen: what's possible becomes necessary, what's necessary becomes moral, opposition to necessity is delusional or harmful, etc., to be suspicious. But seriously: can someone refer me to a "Tyler Cowen is full of it!" Substack? Because I would read that.
Kind of a surprise ending there John. Almost expected to see a kitten hanging from a tree branch by one paw.
At the risk of sounding defeatist I'm not quite sure where you see better times ahead. Perhaps because I'm nearly 72 and the height from which the country has fallen seems steeper I have a hard time seeing any green shoots. We've gone from the optimism and vigor of JFK and moon shots to the demented hallucinations of folks like RFK Jr and Trump to the murderous vigor of ICE. Not that everything went smoothly in the intervening sixty-five years but we all felt pretty confident - even with duck-and-cover - that the American civic religion presented a sturdy bulwark against the commies and the KKK. Apparently we were wrong.
It's quite a steep fall. I wish I could share your optimism but barring the VP and Cabinet invoking the 25th Amendment(fat chance) and then self-immolating I'm afraid we haven't landed yet.
Thanks for highlighting your first quote from Arendt:
"Imperialism must be considered the first stage in political rule of the bourgeoisie"
This is key. Prompts me to think of the East India Company 'freebooting' in India and only much later the British state being cornered into 'rationalizing' this anarchic quasi-state into the British Constitution somehow.
And Césaire noted the progression from imperialist dehumanization in "alien" foreign lands to similar treatment of "fellow Europeans" by National Socialism.
I'm not quite sure how one extrapolates from this, but the idea that bourgeois "might makes right" thinking -- initially just naïveté about other dimensions of political rule that aristocracies may understand more fully from longer experience -- can corrode government starting "from the outside".
Now the Network State movement want to create new "outsides" from which to further erode domestic governance.
Last night I was reading the NYT book review of Laura K. Field, Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right (Princeton, 2025) and thinking about it in context with your book. Got me wondering what a small bibliography of related books that can help understand this political moment and its history would look like. Given your existing knowledge of the literature and domain what books would you recommend?
I pretty much agree with the post, but wish to draw one distinction. There is an enormous difference between a paramilitary mob and something like ICE. The mob is disclaimable, even if controlled by government. The mob permits January 6-style tropes like: "We know they went a bit far, but you've got to understand their outrage." ICE means that every act of brutality is necessarily government-endorsed. The state is always expected to display virtue: a staple of state propaganda from every regime I know of. Mobs, not so much.
Or to take another angle on it, consider the Latin American colonels who were happy to drop people out of helicopters on the QT, but would never consider putting the death penalty on the books.
I think that Trump's failure to work by mob might be one of the fatal mistakes of his regime. It's much easier to resist knowing that court orders are still sorta complied with, wrongfully imprisoned people will be released, and that lynchings will come back to haunt the lynchers.
Great point. But also, ICE is taking on aspects of a mob and operating in much secrecy. They are pushing anonymity with masks. They are taking being recorded as a threat. Many of the reports of violence involve the officers removing people from public view before abusing them. They just nixed the state investigation in to the murder of Rene Good.
They are not operating ICE with the idea it should have clean hands, but rather creating the conditions for extremist officers to abuse citizens without any ability for citizens to retaliate.
Can go both ways. At least with ICE it is possible to quell the "suburban bourgeois discomfort" by pointing out that it's just Thin Blue Lines Doing Their Job, and the resistance is simply unlawful, insurrection even (time for the Insurrection Act). Whereas with paramilitaries/counter-paramilitaries it would just look like anarchy.
“I think that Trump's failure to work by mob might be one of the fatal mistakes of his regime. “
Is it a mistake on their part or an inability to do it?
Good question. I think "mistake," but I'm not sure. Trump has certainly gone out of his way to create impunity with his pardons. But we have seen no patent acts of organization. Enrique Tarrio seems to have been lying low, for example. There is some private terrorism, but it seems to be of the stochastic nature.
The mob--unlike ICE--is easy to prosecute under state law. But this requires willing state government. Could Trump sic the mob on blue cities in red states? Governor Abbott of Texas seems quite happy to issue his own pardons. This would also further another fascist goal. Southern states have a tradition of independent local governments. (Historically, it was a Jim Crow thing.) They're trying to reverse it now, to stomp on their blue cities. Local mob riots might help with this program, if blue-city prosecutors attempt to enforce the rule of law.
Significant point. But someone, if not Trump himself, seems to recognize the value of fostering mob potential in parallel with ICE. Even after he pardoned the J6 criminals, he has continued to give clemency to people connected to groups like the Proud Boys and to servicemen convicted by military courts.
Greenland is the huge raft that the Seasteading Institute has dreamed of. It figures that all these Randian "makers" would find it easier to steal one than make one: https://newrepublic.com/article/205102/oligarchs-pushing-conquest-greenland-trump
In 2024, before the election, I argued with someone on Substack that I feared Trump would use aggressive ICE tactics to stir up a backlash, which he would then use to declare an insurrection. I was told I have end stage TDS.
This really has little to do with John's essay, but I have a question (scroll to the bottom)
I met Tyler Cowen (inadvertently) at a concert of Hindustani classical music, so his polymathic schtick isn't entirely a bluff (I have, however, visited bad restaurants on his advice). I'm 64, but I left Silicon Valley in 2003, and its metastasis was hidden from me. I was busy struggling with the market for older engineers, and I had two children. I took a job at Palantir in 2008, not having any idea who these people were (meaning, I had literally no idea who Thiel, Lonsdale et al. were, nor had I any idea what Alex Karp would become, since at that point he was still doing the "I'm a fish out of water, with funny hair; I'd be reading Max Weber if they hadn't tricked me into doing this" schtick). I had never had enough job security to investigate a company's investors. I was happy to work at a startup, any startup. Let's say it didn't end well.
At my next software job, I was nonplussed at how many converts to Orthodoxy there were, how often there would be possible (i.e. vague) approving references to Thiel, Michael Anton, and so on. EVERYONE read Tyler Cowen's blog. At this point I thought, there has to be something wrong with it, if the wrong people presumptively read it. He's selling something.
I've seen enough of the technoliberarian argumentative sequence in Cowen: what's possible becomes necessary, what's necessary becomes moral, opposition to necessity is delusional or harmful, etc., to be suspicious. But seriously: can someone refer me to a "Tyler Cowen is full of it!" Substack? Because I would read that.
Kind of a surprise ending there John. Almost expected to see a kitten hanging from a tree branch by one paw.
At the risk of sounding defeatist I'm not quite sure where you see better times ahead. Perhaps because I'm nearly 72 and the height from which the country has fallen seems steeper I have a hard time seeing any green shoots. We've gone from the optimism and vigor of JFK and moon shots to the demented hallucinations of folks like RFK Jr and Trump to the murderous vigor of ICE. Not that everything went smoothly in the intervening sixty-five years but we all felt pretty confident - even with duck-and-cover - that the American civic religion presented a sturdy bulwark against the commies and the KKK. Apparently we were wrong.
It's quite a steep fall. I wish I could share your optimism but barring the VP and Cabinet invoking the 25th Amendment(fat chance) and then self-immolating I'm afraid we haven't landed yet.
Sorry you feel that way. Thinking of midterms.
Even that may prove problematic given Trump/Red state track record.
Yes, and would JD really be better? I think not.
The "self-immolating" part answers that.
But then we're looking at Mike Johnson so it's even bleaker than the best scenario.
Thanks for highlighting your first quote from Arendt:
"Imperialism must be considered the first stage in political rule of the bourgeoisie"
This is key. Prompts me to think of the East India Company 'freebooting' in India and only much later the British state being cornered into 'rationalizing' this anarchic quasi-state into the British Constitution somehow.
And Césaire noted the progression from imperialist dehumanization in "alien" foreign lands to similar treatment of "fellow Europeans" by National Socialism.
I'm not quite sure how one extrapolates from this, but the idea that bourgeois "might makes right" thinking -- initially just naïveté about other dimensions of political rule that aristocracies may understand more fully from longer experience -- can corrode government starting "from the outside".
Now the Network State movement want to create new "outsides" from which to further erode domestic governance.
Thank you for your intellectual and historical insights over this difficult period.
Last night I was reading the NYT book review of Laura K. Field, Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right (Princeton, 2025) and thinking about it in context with your book. Got me wondering what a small bibliography of related books that can help understand this political moment and its history would look like. Given your existing knowledge of the literature and domain what books would you recommend?
You might like https://joshuatait.substack.com. Tait's dissertation is especially worth a read;
https://cdr.lib.unc.edu/concern/dissertations/xd07h0191?locale=en
Tons of stuff out there going all the way back to the 50's.
Perfect. Thanks for the pointer.