Came across another good substack today on my internet travels:
original: https://dennisonwrites.substack.com/p/why-your-son-is-right-wing
archive: https://archive.is/6Idmx
We trapped these kids in an ideological straight jacket against which they were not allowed to resist. Against which resisting made them evil. Then we gasped in horror when they aged out of our stewardship and decided that, actually, they’d had rather enough of all that.
Not to be hyperbolic, but what we did to these guys was something like abuse. What we did to their childhoods was something like theft. And we would have no trouble - none at all - understanding that if it had been any other group on the receiving end. We caused them to come of age in a world that hated and blamed them, and that never missed an opportunity to remind them of just how much.
10 years. For 10 years, we did this.
We also ruthlessly punished any liberal voices that dared extend them comfort or encouragement. Thus ensuring that the only supportive voices they could hear from were the toxic ones who’d made “cancel-proof” edge-lording their whole brand.
I know this is a bit long, but I think it is very good.
that's their holy grail. every chance they get they try to replace common words with themselves, effectively gaslighting the world. for a recent example, look at their insistent use of "democracy" during the Biden administration.
Or their redefinition of racism, conflation of religion and race, redefinition of indigenous (this one is at least being fought hard currently), biological realities... the list is endless. All of them paired with appeals to authority as they get pushed by NGOs and other politically adjacent organisations. Perniciously peddled with a religious zeal and fervor. Couched in academic language to appear erudite and a result of balanced thought or consensus, with 15 pages of context and poor rationalisations to disarm and dissuade those that look beyond the phrase they've coined or the term they've redefined.
They have a serious issue with things like right wing populism because it is a direct competitor to what they do. They're reliant on being able to sway people with charisma and clout so that they don't look beyond the face of it. Any cursory look behind the curtain and the house of cards crumbles, so they fracture and expel those that peek. There's a not too dissimilar thing happening now with the current splitting on the right. That's whatever to be honest, just par for the course. Using it to clear the deck of rot and corruption to start building on a solid moral foundation again is what we should be using right wing populism for. MAGA won and, in their euphoria, everybody forgot the game is much larger and much longer than that one victory.