Notices by Thomas Zimmer (tzimmer_history@mastodon.social), page 3

I am not even talking about straight-up rightwing propaganda. I mean the pervasive tendency in the mainstream political discourse and in polite society to look for ways to sanitize what is happening, to come up with ways to make it seem “respectable” or “reasonable” or “normal.”

But the thing is: When the guy who rose to political prominence as the birther-in-chief took over the GOP as he was raging against the first Black president, and when he was re-elected after the most aggressively racist major-party campaign in modern history, that was mostly what it looked like.

We need to trust our eyes.

Nazi salutes, racist purges, an ambush on the Ukrainian president by a far-right regime. If what we see aligns with what we know and is also in line with an established track record, our default assumption should be that what is happening is actually what it looks like.

In every single interview I’ve done since Friday, I have been asked some version of: “But couldn’t this perhaps somehow *not* be what it looks like if we stipulate that Trump and Vance are not who they have repeatedly proven they are?”

I really wish we could stop doing this.

What is the AfD?

Founded in 2013, the AfD quickly evolved from what was initially mainstream-rightwing-to-reactionary territory into a far-right party that fully rejects liberal democracy and is undoubtedly the political home of Germany’s rightwing extremists.

Finally, both Musk and Vance seem completely oblivious to the aggressive anti-American sentiment on the German far right. To much of the AfD, obsessed with the idea of regaining former national glory, America is an evil empire that treats Germany as “a slave.”

On immigration, the AfD is most closely aligned with the America First nativist wing of the MAGA coalition. That means it pursues a different vision than the rightwing tech lords, who aren’t any less racist, but maintain they should have unfettered access to cheap labor from across the world.

But there are some revealing tensions and contradictions in the Musk/MAGA-AfD relationship. The AfD, for instance, does not share the reactionary modernism of the tech right - it instead rages against “windmills of shame.” Trump agrees, but Musk certainly does not.

In many ways the AfD is the German version of the fully Trumpified Republican Party: A far-right coalition that unites different shades of radical reaction and “counter-revolutionary” extremism. No surprise, in that sense, that MAGA has been trying to interfere to boost the AfD.

How are these frictions being integrated on the far right? By a shared sense of being under siege from “the Left,” by which they mean any attempt to level or even constrain hierarchies of race, gender, and wealth. This anti-“Left” sentiment defines the political identity of the far right.

Sunday reading: One week ago, the far right emerged from the German election stronger than it has ever been since 1945.
 
I wrote about the relationship between MAGA and the AfD and what to make of the transnational alliance of extremists.
 
This week’s piece:
 
https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/maga-the-german-far-right-and-the

What to make of the results of the German election?

On the one hand: About three quarters of the voting public stuck with democratic parties.

On the other: The AfD got 20.8 percent of the vote - by far the strongest result the far right has achieved in Germany since the fall of the Nazi regime.

This turned out to be the longest piece I’ve ever written for the newsletter.

But please note: I do provide audio versions (read by me, not AI - for better or worse!) to make these long pieces a little more accessible and digestible.

MAGA, the German Far Right, and the Transnational Assault on Democracy:

https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/maga-the-german-far-right-and-the

MAGA, the German Far Right, and the Transnational Assault on Democracy

A reflection on the German far right, Elon Musk’s interference in the German election, and why the MAGA-AfD alliance isn’t nearly as irresistible as they want us to believe.

New piece:

https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/maga-the-german-far-right-and-the

A full-on purge of the military leadership, targeting women and people of color.

This perfectly captures where we are: An escalating authoritarian takeover of the state, combined with an aggressive program to re-segregate the spheres of influence and power and restore complete white male dominance.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/21/politics/trump-fires-top-us-general-cq-brown/index.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=blueskyCNN&utm_content=2025-02-22T02%3A49%3A13

“He who saves his Country does not violate any law,” Donald Trump said yesterday.

Two possible reactions:

1) Continue on the trajectory that got us here in the first place by discarding this as “just Trump being Trump”

2) Grapple in earnest with the fact that Trump asserts dictatorial power as the providential leader tasked with saving the nation.

This is acutely dangerous.

Last night, the Senate confirmed Russell Vought.

I wrote a long profile of him: He’s one of the architects of Project 2025, an avowed Christian nationalist, and a radical ideologue of the “post-constitutional” Right.

Some thoughts on a man who is at war with pluralistic democracy:

🧵

https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/meet-the-ideologue-of-the-post-constitutional

And there it is: Russell Vought is confirmed.
 
I wrote a long profile of him, his worldview, his political project: He’s one of the architects of Project 2025, an avowed Christian nationalist, and a radical ideologue of the “post-constitutional” Right.
 
He is at war with pluralistic democracy.
 
https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/meet-the-ideologue-of-the-post-constitutional

We are not witnessing a presidential transition enacting policy changes. The Trumpists are seeking to remake the political order itself by redefining the rules of how power is being wielded, of who gets to wield power and who gets to control it. They want regime change.

MAGA Feeding Frenzy Has Caused a Constitutional Crisis
 
The assault is coming from different angles: Project 2025. The feudal tech barons. The America First nativists. It’s not a single master plan – it’s comprehensive chaos.

Some thoughts from my new piece:

🧵

https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/maga-feeding-frenzy-has-caused-a