Notices by Thomas Zimmer (tzimmer_history@mastodon.social), page 4

Even as a best-case scenario, it will be a long, sustained struggle to move the country forward towards the kind of stable, truly egalitarian democracy it has never yet been. But if Trump is not defeated, things will get worse. Much worse. 11/

Trump is the fascistic leader of a rightwing coalition that unites all shades of reaction and is entirely dominated by extremism. Should Trump emerge victorious from the election, America will not become a fascist dictatorship overnight. But the Trumpist Right will try. 10/

At the same time, the status of these extremist forces within the Right has changed. They have moved to the power centers of conservative politics, and as a result, the Right has radicalized dramatically – something the superficial institutional continuity of the GOP helps obscure. 9/

Donald Trump, American Fascist
 
Trumpism is what a specifically American, twenty-first century version of fascism looks like. And in November, fascism is on the ballot.
 
Some thoughts from my new piece:
 
🧵1/
 
https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/donald-trump-american-fascist

This situation is acutely dangerous, because it means that for the foreseeable future, the fate of democracy - not merely in an abstract, formalistic way, but with all the fundamental rights and respect for pluralism by which it should be defined - is on the ballot in every single election.
https://mastodon.social/@tzimmer_history/113272196658840533

ICYMI on the weekend: I wrote about how Project 2025 broke through the noise and became a toxic brand.
 
There is an important lesson here about how to cover and discuss the radicalizing Right.
 
Some thoughts from my new piece:
 
🧵1/
 
https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/how-project-2025-became-toxic-and

The NYT sees a “fault line”…

Well, yes, the fault line is between those who believe these are personal decisions and the ethno-nationalists in charge of the GOP who fundamentally reject the idea of privacy and instead insist women accept their duty to bear children in service of the “homeland.”

You can read his type of “news analysis” in today’s NYT and come away thinking we’re just looking at the same-old conflict between “liberals prioritizing a right to privacy” vs “conservatives caring about the nuclear family.”

But that completely obscures the extremism on the Right.

Three moments from the Republican Convention.

One: On the final day, Hulk Hogan promised only Trump could “straighten this country out, for all the real Americans.” That was the key theme in Hogan’s speech – “real America.” He repeated the term seven times. 4/

There is a direct line from J.D. Vance’s “homeland” speech at the Republican Convention – an open embrace of blood-and-soil nationalism – to what is happening in Springfield, Ohio, where Trump and Vance are trying to incite a pogrom. 3/

I wrote about the Right’s defining political project: A blood-and-soil nationalism that is fundamentally incompatible with multiracial, pluralistic democracy. It has come to dominate the Republican Party, and the elevation of J.D. Vance captures this perfectly. 2/

The Right is committed to an idea of America as a white Christian homeland. They are determined to purge the nation and radically redraw the boundaries of the body politic.

Inciting a pogrom in Springfield, Ohio is part of that project.

Some thoughts from my new piece:

🧵1/
 
https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/blood-and-soil

What we saw at the Republican Convention was a party devoted to an ethno-religious understanding of America as a land defined by white Christian patriarchal dominance – the self-presentation of a political movement committed to blood-and-soil nationalism. 8/

Those three moments captured the Right’s defining project. The “homeland” Vance talked about, that’s “real America.” Hogan’s “real Americans” are those who belong here because of their ties to the land. And they have a right to purge the “homeland”: Mass Deportation Now. 7/

Three: While Vance reveled in his love for the homeland, he was greeted by delegates waving hundreds of “Mass Deportation Now!” signs. Those were official signs, printed and handed out by the RNC – a message enthusiastically embraced by those on the Convention floor. 6/

Two: What, to J.D. Vance, is America? “America is not just an idea,” he declared: “It is a group of people with a shared history and a common future. It is, in short, a nation.” America is the “homeland,” and those who are bound to it by ancestry and blood decide who gets to belong. 5/

The Right is determined to (re-)entrench the prerogative of a white Christian elite to dictate the national story, past and present – and to purge from the curricula, the libraries, the minds of young people anyone and anything daring to object and deviate. 11/

This struggle is playing out across politics, society, and culture. It is not a coincidence that the “history wars” have escalated in recent years. America is “a group of people with a shared history,” J.D. Vance declared – but who gets to tell that story? 10/

The political conflict is shaped by the struggle between two different definitions of America: A credal nation, at least aspirationally committed to egalitarian, pluralistic ideas – vs the conception of America as a land in which wealthy white Christians deserve to dominate. 9/

What is happening in Springfield, Ohio is not merely a distraction from the Right’s plutocratic agenda, it’s not just a campaign tactic. This is the manifestation of the Right’s defining political project. And a preview of what is to come if they get back to power. 14/