Alexander Karn
One can think of Trump's ICE raids and the program of mass deportation as a LAPSE into barbarism. The U.S. under MAGA has gone fascist.
One could also think of these assaults as a RETURN to colonialist origins, i.e., a continuation of longstanding programs and practices of cleansing, purification, and expropriation.
Perhaps we are seeing not a sudden departure from democracy, but a re-assertion of what Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz has called "the US state religion."
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
#Trumpism is the #US mutation of #Fascism
"The U.S. under MAGA has gone fascist."
I agree, which is why I wrote in my thread, "*The Clear Shape of Things To Come during #Trump's 2nd term in office*" in Nov. 2024,
"👉In short, this is a mostly legal coup..., the outcome can roughly be compared to the 1st #Reichstag election of 1933 in the #WeimarRepublic, but (rather skillfully in contrast, I must, alas, admit) ...without the mass bullying and violence:... '
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
#Trumpism is the #US mutation of #Fascism
(2/n)
"One could also think of these assaults as a RETURN to colonialist origins, i.e., a continuation of longstanding programs and practices of cleansing, purification, and expropriation."
While I can see quite some merit in that statement, it is solely an 🇺🇸 perspective.
In my initial opinion, I think there is strong evidence against this hypothesis from a global @HistoPol
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
perspective:
As I reviewed here briefly,
https://mastodon.social/@HistoPol/113909102745918325
...#Fascism, even though #Hitler got some inspirations from the #US' treatment of the indigenous people by the #Colonialists, e. g. the #ConcentrationCamps,
https://mastodon.social/@HistoPol/114420037623812500
...it has been a global phenomenon from the start.
Many of the countries in the 20th century were mother countries (DE, UK, FR, ES, Jap,...,) however the #US once @xankarn
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
were a colony in contrast.
The #UnitedStates have a built-in systemic error: they were built as a #SlaverNation:
https://mastodon.social/@HistoPol/110128712544929842
This error is engrained in virtually all #US institutions. One *could* even argue that the #SystemicRacism is an incurable, possibly even fatal flaw of the #AmericanExperiment.
Putting everything that happened since the Declaration of Independence on fast forward, the failed #Reconstruction, the #NewDeal, @xankarn
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
Rather, it seems to be the #Janus-faced dark side of #Democracy:
Both ancient #Democracies, #Athen's and #Rome's, were also strongly #Imperialist and, stretching the 19th century invention of the nation state a bit anachronisticly, they were also #Nationalist as their "country" came first.
However, what was utterly new in the #AmericanExperiment, IMO, was the concept stated in that much-quoted, holy #US document, the #DeclarationOfIndependence:
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
#Roman empire unusually inclusive? Or even a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic civilization? 👉None of that seems very likely.👈
"Romans did have their own ideas of race: their greatest poet Vergil once called his people “the toga-ed race,” the people who wear a toga. Roman poets and orators constantly ridiculed the strangeness of other peoples,..."
In the ancient #Democracies, #Race was not #Genetic, but #Cultural and could be appropriated:
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
single out skin colour, nor the kind of hair people had, nor the shape of their features, nor their height, nor any of the other physiological signs that mean so much (too much) to us."
"There are not many historical societies that we would consider egalitarian. Rome is certainly not one of them. The case of 👉Rome shows how arbitrary are the differences on which racist regimes are founded. Prejudice, cruelty, and discrimination were all central to Roman rule,👉 but @xankarn @HistoPol
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
what👉 we consider the most obvious markers of race hardly mattered to them...👈
[1]
"An empire of many colours? Race and imperialism in Ancient Rome"
https://blog.oup.com/2021/09/an-empire-of-many-colours-race-and-imperialism-in-ancient-rome/
So, 👉in essence, it can be argued, that the ancient and modern #Democracies all had #Racism thorougly engrained in the #Democratic fabric.👈
It is *not*, as #DunbarOrtiz claims, the #USStateReligion, it is not a #US creation.
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
colonists.
What is more, as with all societies, even the ancient #Democracy of #Athens had a #Racist, #Nationalist vein:
"A good deal of evidence from the classical age suggests that Athenians did consider their citizenship something very valuable. 👉It was, for example, only sparingly granted to foreigners,👈 particularly in the fifth century.²" (#Manville)
Then, how about that other great example of #Democracy, ancient #Rome? Wasn't it an inclusive society? Writes @xankarn @HistoPol
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
#GregWoolf (#UCLA) in his book [1]
"#Romans sometimes worried that you couldn’t tell enslaved and free people apart...
By the second century CE, many senators were descended from Gauls and Iberians, Carthaginians, Greeks, and Syrians—the very peoples Romans had conquered as they extended their empire. Many more were descended from the Italian peoples defeated even earlier..."
"...the 60 million-odd inhabitants of the empire certainly did not look alike..."
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
many regional villages and corporations were overshadowed by the development of an embryonic unity and evolving sense of self-definition across the Attic population...The potential for centralization 👉lay in the basic cultural similitude...👈"
By contrast, the cultural, physical, and genetic inhomogeneity even of the #colonist settlers of #NorthAmerica, excluding #Mexico, who came from many different, mostly #European, countries could not have been greater.
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
came with the common goal of "settling" the "New World," which had already been settled by waves of indigenous peoples from #Asia millenia earlier (#FirstAmericans/ #NativeAmerican.)
Most of
these peoples had marshalled a sustainable way of life (another contrast to the #Mayan people of #MesoAmerica, who seem to have pushed population density beyond that level
in several regions.)
The #European settlers who soon had a "stake-my-claim" mentality as a unifying factor, apart @xankarn @HistoPol
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
from being being religiously persecuted (e. g. the #Puritans,) or being economic #refugees (e. g. #PotatoeFamine,) soon began to see the #NativeAmericans as competitors for #Economic resources, in particular land for farming, mining, and construction.
If people had been honest, the just "gardeners" and "rangers" of the #GreatTurtle, as many peoples called their world,...
https://mastodon.social/@HistoPol/110461640486866769
...were in the very way of these land-devouring @xankarn
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
anticipated #NextCivilWar has already begun.
As a side note:
I attribute a lot of today's happenings to the fact that #US #Fascism was never really dealt with post-WWII. #AmericaFirst was only disbanded, but it's ideas continued in the American fabric.
(Ironically, US #Fascism is in great part the creation of the #Nazi chief spy, #Viereck:
https://mastodon.social/@HistoPol/112091382242661609
Podcast by #RachelMaddow:
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
"Perhaps we are seeing not a sudden departure from democracy, but a re-assertion of what Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz has called "the US state religion."
I can agree very much with that statement, but first it might make sense to give a bit more perspective, so more people can join in and share their thoughts.
#Historian #RoxanneDunbarOrtiz means by the #USStateReligion" the concept that encompasses the ideologies and narratives that underpin #AmericanNationalism and @xankarn @HistoPol
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
#Imperialism. She critiques how the #US has constructed a 👉national identity that often marginalizes Indigenous peoples and their histories."👈
Assuming the role of advocatus diaboli, I'd say, yes, of course.
From a systems theory point of you, all systems define boundaries. Certain aspects of its elements make them belong to the system, other characteristics makes elements an outsider.
#Citizenship, seen in this way, is a "sealed document" proving that the element @xankarn @HistoPol
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
fullfills the prerequisites of being a citizen, of belonging to the system called a (certain) nation state.
In his book, The Origins of Citizenship in Ancient #Athens. #Princeton University Press, 1990. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt7ztzsj. Accessed 1 July 2025,
#PhillipBrookManville states:
"By the seventh century the decentralized social mosaic of the earlier Dark Ages began to change. Slowly but perceptibly, 👉the individualistic ways of life within the @xankarn @HistoPol
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
and the #CivilRights legislations tried to remedy / alleviate some of these foundational errors, but #Trumpism needed but two presidencies and a high-jacked #SCOTUS to wash most of these gains in equality away. Further things are happening on a weekly basis.
I see quite some evidence to argue that the first #CivilWar never really ended, but simmered for decades mostly below the surface, comparable to the #ColdWar.
In fact, some people have already agreed with me, that the @xankarn @HistoPol
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
be self-evident, that 👉all👈 men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,..." (1776)
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript
The key word being "all," because even the famous #MagnaCarta only applied to noblemen, not all the kings subjects.
(And if you think of the, much abused, slogan often #FrenchRevolution, "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," that was not in use until 1790 😼)
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
https://frenchmoments.eu/national-motto-of-france/
From today's analysis, and backed by historic examples, that great innovation of the #AmericanRevolution just might be alien to and incompatible with the (historic) concept of #Democracy.
In fact, this would go a great way to explain why the #US have deteriorated into a #Racist #Plutocracy, possibly a #Dictatorship or #Tyranny.
If I were correct, that would be extremely sad for humanity
//
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
Thanks 🙏🙏
"#Canada has the same settler mentality."
I've learned that much from my interactions on Twitter, back in the day, and here.
That is why I wrote "North America" and excluded (only) #Mexico.
Even the pre-"Hispanic" aquisition culture and histories of FL and TX (Adams-Onís-Treaty of 1819, as well as CA's (Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 1821), S AZ + SW NM (Treaty of Mesilla, 1854), etc. etc.
were quite different (OFC, Spanish monarchy, but also colonialism)
@xankarn
SnowshadowII :maple:
Canada has the same settler mentality.
Agreeing with your logic re: the US.
Excellent thread!!
Mina
I agree: Not getting rid of slavery in the early years of the Republic is one of the two fundamental flaws that haunt this country until today, the other was turning a society that had just liberated itself from colonialism into a colonialising power itself.
Things that are not unlikely to happen if your founding myth is the arrival of religious fundamentalists in the promised land.
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
@mina
Also very true.
Also, looking into just how many religious zealots and fundamentalists did rise to political prominence in the pre -Civil War US would be an interesting topic for a US history thesis. 😼
@xankarn
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
#Histoiy #Histodons
@mina
Would be really interesting 2 know. In fact, I've seen relatively little quantitative analysis summarized by gripping texts about history.
I'm curious if that #BlueskyBridge is finally is a 2-way solution.
So far, I've only had #ZombieAccounts. No interaction whatsoever. Like old-time analogue TV.
There is #Econometrics, but is there #Histometrics?
Well, there seems to be, but it is something else 😅:
Mina
I reckon, Annika Brockschmidt @ardenthistorian.bsky.social has written entire books on that subject.
Alexander Karn
Great thread.
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
Thank you very much, Alexander.
I was, in fact hoping to hear from you, as you created the thread.
Praise from academia is hard to come by.
However, which thread 🧵 do you mean, yesterday's or the one from last Nov.?
I was inspired by your dialectic post. I wrote it in one go with few interruptions and the Madtodon-limited editing possibilities.
I did not mean to create a thread, but the ideas kept pouring from my digital feather 🪶.
Sorry about ending up highjacking your TL. 🙈
si_irini
💯
InternetDev-Anti-Communicant🍉
La France l'a rejoint depuis longtemps hélas.
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
@InternetDev
I unterstand your words, but fail to comprehend what you mean?
#France is ging down the same rabit hole with the FN, is that it?
InternetDev-Anti-Communicant🍉
L'oligarchie FR fait monter le RN et ses pseudos thèmes racistes, depuis des années parce que le partis racistes lui sert d'entonnoir
Quand le RN passe le premier tour, cela force une majorité d'électeurs, même ceux qui ne supporte pas celui qui est en face, à voter contre le RN et donc à faire du second tour, une obligation de sortir le RN et de valider celui que les médias ont assisté (souvent quelqu'un de droite)⬇️
InternetDev-Anti-Communicant🍉
et cela permet aussi qu'il n'y ait pas réellement de débat d'autant que le RN n'est même plus faussement souverainiste et il est souvent à la ramasse sur tous les sujets.
Bref faire monter le RN permet que les électeurs n'aient même pas à se poser de questions de fond.
InternetDev-Anti-Communicant🍉
Et la farce n'est tellement pas drôle qu'en 2017 (pour l'élection de Macron) celui-ci fit même campagne en allant draguer un allier d'extrême droite, Philippe De Viliers dans le parc d'Attraction qu'il a monté (une sorte de fantasme romançant l'histoire de France à la sauce monarchique).
De Viliers dont il paraît même que Macron entretient encore des discutions avec.
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
You habe a quite cynic but also quite astute perception of #French #Politics, @InternetDev! 😉
I did understand most of what you wrote. As your posts are about nuances, however, I'm going to repost the (slightly ameliorated,) automated English translation:
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
@HistoPol @xankarn
#FRpol #Elections
(1/n)
The FR oligarchy has been pushing the RN and its pseudo-racist themes for years, because 👉the racist party serves as a funnel.👈
When the RN gets through the first round, this👉 forces a majority of voters, even those who can't stand the party in front of them, to vote against the RN and thus make the second round an obligation to take out the RN and validate whoever the media have assisted (often someone on the right)⬇️
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
(2/n)
and it also means that there's no real debate, especially as the RN is no longer even falsely sovereignist and is often out of touch on every subject.
In short, boosting the RN means that voters don't even have to ask themselves any fundamental questions.
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
#FRpol #Elections
(3/3)
...And the farce is so unfunny that in 2017 (for #Macron's election) he even campaigned by going to pick up a far-right ally, #PhilippeDeViliers in the amusement park he set up (a kind of fantasy romanticizing #French history with a monarchical twist).
#DeViliers, with whom Macron is said to still be talking."
//
InternetDev-Anti-Communicant🍉
La traduction n'est pas juste.
Je ne dis pas que le RN aurait des thèmes "pseudo-racistes" mais c'est pire.
le RN ne se fixe que sur des thèmes racistes, et le pire, c'est que s'il peut le faire, c'est parce que les autres partis (de droite et quelques uns qui se prétendent de gauche) l'y aident depuis des années.
une exemple:
- Le retournement complet de la loi de 1905 sur la séparation de l’Église et de l’État ⬇️
InternetDev-Anti-Communicant🍉
Normalement, le fondement de la loi de 1905 c'était que l’État ignore totalement le fait religieux
1 - Pour que les citoyens soient libre de leur culte ou de ne pas en avoir
2 - le premier but de cette loi était surtout d'interdire le retour de la monarchie qui se prétend légitimée par sa descendance supposé avec dieu et qui avait repris le pouvoir après la révolution française de 1789 ⬇️
InternetDev-Anti-Communicant🍉
Hors, depuis que Nicolas est revenu au devant de la scène, couvert par Chirac dés 2002 sans que celui-ci ne l'avoue, Sarkozy d'un côté, et ses complices du camps d'en face (Hollande Valls et d'autres) n'ont cessé de tenter d'inverser l'esprit de la loi de 1905 (ne reconnaît aucun culte) pour viser de plus en plus les musulmans (l'inverse donc du principe de non reconnaissance des cultes par l'État)
⬇️
InternetDev-Anti-Communicant🍉
Et tout e qui arrive aujourd'hui, montre encore que cette interprétation fausse que l'Etat Français a commis contre la loi de 1905 , sert beaucoup le génocide actuel des Palestiniens.
Alors que le principe de laïcité (1905) ne devrait pas autoriser des élus français à reconnaître Israël en tant qu'"État Hébreu" (la France ne reconnaissant AUCUN culte depuis 1905)
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
(1/n)
You are very knowledgeable about FR pol.
I've re-read your post in FR and the automated translation. Apparently, this is one of the instances where nuances matter, so how would you like me to render, "L'oligarchie FR fait monter le RN et ses pseudos thèmes racistes,..".
From what you now wrote, and to my knowledge, I can agree with your views, can't I just drop the "pseudo-" or even say "always racist" theme?
OT:
I wrote a brief historical thread on the...
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
(2/n)
...history of #Democracy with regard to #Racism.
I'd be curious to know what's your viewpoint on this.)
//
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
#FRpol #SeparationOfChurchAndState
(3/n)
👉The History of #Democracy is Intertwined with #Racism 1): 👈
https://mastodon.social/@HistoPol/114779307115614518
1)
... and also #SocialStratification, but that is another issue.
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
#FRpol #Elections
#SeparationOfChurchAndState
(4/n)
(Continuation of semi-automated translation from above:)
"The translation is not precise enough.
I'm not saying that the RN would have "pseudo-racist" themes, but it's worse.
The RN only sticks to racist themes, and the worst thing is that if it can do so, it's because the other parties (on the right and some who claim to be on the left) have been helping it to do so for...
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
#FRpol #Elections
#SeparationOfChurchAndState
(5/n)
...years.
one example:
- The complete reversal of the 1905 law on the separation of Church and State:
Normally, the basis of the 1905 law was that the state should totally ignore religion.
1 - so that citizens would be free to worship or not to worship
2 - the primary aim of this law was to prohibit the return of the monarchy, which claimed to be legitimized by its supposed descent from God, and which had regained...
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
#FRpol #Elections
#SeparationOfChurchAndState
(6/n)
...power after the #FrenchRevolution of 1789.
However, since #Nicolas returned to the forefront of the stage, covered up by #Chirac as early as 2002 without his admitting it, #Sarkozy on the one hand, and his accomplices on the other (#Hollande #Valls and others) have not stopped trying to reverse the spirit of the 1905 law (which recognizes no religion) to target #Muslims more and more (the opposite of the principle of non-recognition of⬇️
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
#FRpol #Elections
#SeparationOfChurchAndState
(7/7)
...religions by the state).
And everything that's happening today shows once again that this misinterpretation of the 1905 law by the #French state serves the current genocide of the #Palestinians very well.
Whereas the principle of laïcité (1905) should not authorize French elected representatives to recognize #Israel as a "#Hebrew State" (#France has not recognized any religion since 1905)."
//
InternetDev-Anti-Communicant🍉
C'est un peu compliqué (l'ordre des mots compte)
Si j'avais dit
- "avec leurs thèmes pseudo-racistes'
Alors, là, j'aurais nié l'aspect racistes de leurs thèmes
hors, je dis:
- "ses pseudos thèmes racistes"
"pseudos" disqualifie "themes" ...
Ce que cela signifie, c'est que Leurs "themes" racistes de prédilections ne sont pas des thèmes recevalbles, mais des divesrion, des sortes de diversions très utiles à l'oligarchie qui n'a d'intérêt autre que celui de nous diviser
⬇️
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
Merci beaucoup pour ça. Très bien explique. 👍
J'ai compris.
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
After your clarification, I've no changed it to "... and its pseudo ☝️topics of #Racism☝️..."
I hope that's better.
InternetDev-Anti-Communicant🍉
Et dans ce genre de diversions racistes il n'y a pas, en France, que les partis officiellement qualifiés d'extrême droite, mais aussi de droite , du pseudo centre, et même de gauche (en réalité, des coucous de droite planqués à gauche)
Le racismes et réel en France et surtout dans les médias de masse qui ouvrent de plus en plus leurs portes à des tarés et leurs thèses de diversions.
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
"Le racismes et réel en France et surtout dans les médias de masse qui ouvrent de plus en plus leurs portes à des tarés et leurs thèses de diversions."
Mon dieux, c'est exactement ce sue c'est passé aux États-Unis!
Et, probablement, en Italie ou on a permis aux oligarchie du droit d'acheter des médias de masse, même qu'au Royaume-Uni (#Murdoch, #Berlusconi, etc.)
L'extrême-droit/les #Fascistes sont beaucoup plus mieux organiser qu'avant le 2nd Guerre Mondiale.
InternetDev-Anti-Communicant🍉
Hélas je l'ai aussi constaté. Et le pire c'est que, que se soit en Angleterre, en France ou aux USA, ils ont utilisé les mêmes techniques et procédés diffamatoires.
Le pire c'est qu'en France, cela a commencé vers 2009 alors qu'un PS (pseudo gauche) faisait des déclaration racistes et ségrégatoinniste contre les population Rroms et arabes.
J'ai même l'impréssion que la Frande a commencé avant tous les autres.
InternetDev-Anti-Communicant🍉
et quand vous parler d'astuce c'est intérressant ...
Parce que cela montre, ce que beaucoup de gens n'osent pas penser, c'est que l'astuce est beaucoup plus utile et utilisée par les partis politiques parce qu'elle leur permet de simuler des animausités d'apparence tout eb continuant de servir l'oligarchie qu'elle craint (et qui possède la majorité de la presse)
⬇️
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