Which of these best describes Trump today?

[liminalOyster]

Just curious.

I'll go with a solid #2 maybe #8 if I was stoned, but I don't really smoke pot.

[Belligerent Savant]

^^^^^^^
likewise.

[American Dream]

Can I order off the menu?

I'd say he is most significant for what he represents as a possible future- for the U.S., Europe and Former Soviet Union, for sure. This flavor of (populist) reactionary nationalism is a somewhat credible response to the Crisis of Capitalism- right now the experiment is on. It's horrible that so many marginalized and downpressed groups are suffering but that is not the central thrust of this experiment. I see this as a question of Capital and Social Control more than anything.

[liminalOyster]

I dunno about a single "crisis," popular trope though it is. Capitalism is a mode of permanent crisis, right? I really don't see a Trumpism experiment accelerating any more rapidly than its opposition

What I do see accelerating and what seems unique to me is that political subjectivity is increasingly about a process of making and defending strong truth claims categorically irreconcilable with their opposition. Like a stalled dialectic building up force. Whenever I'm trying to sus someone out, I'm zoned in on - ok, so what's your theory on the head of the octopus? Everybody is Bill Cooper now. There's practically no one left standing who doesn't believe they and their friends are at war with a cabal and existentially terrified that the grounds of truth are threatened. It's almost fun to watch, but not. I'll still be out for an Abolish ICE protest this week.

[American Dream]

Yeah I originally had it as "cris(es)" but changed the spelling to center the crisis of capital accumulation, which equals cutbacks, layoffs, roll-backs, social volatility etc. I don't mean to suggest that Trump has some sort of magic bullet economic solution that will be effective but rather that reactionary nationalism is a placebo increasingly offered as an alternative in various locales. Certainly the looming ecological crisis is a second crisis of Capital.

I'm not looking for the ultimate ante-chamber but I do think about the octopus sometimes. My latest hypothesis is that "The Company" drug conspiracy was much, much bigger than previously acknowledged and had a larger element that was spooky/paramilitary than is commonly accepted. I'm talking about a much larger ecology of cowboys, gangsters and friends than usually considered.

By the way, can Trump really be considered against the Deep State as some mainstream conspiracy discourse would have it, in any sort of meaningful sense?

[liminalOyster]

But aren't we seeing new forms of primitive accumulation? My not well thought through instinct is that mutable identity is the first bit of primitive accumulation for the singularity/AI futures.

It always seems necessary to vocalize my distaste for Trump on this board but his existence/ascension still feels like it has a *revelatory* quality. For instance, while I dont want to jump on the train of rightists and bernie die-hards this week crying out "but but Obama did it too," I'd be hard pressed to dispute that the diff in their immigration policy is particularly significant compared to its commonality. Which should lead to a much bigger historical/geographical discussion of the Americas and the setup for the crisis itself. So whereas people remained oblivious-complacent when racists policies were attached to a black maybe progressive figurehead, a small tweak of same policies attached to a clearly racist white bloat sack becomes a moral crisis. The reveal is more psychological - ie our attachment to symbolic royal figureheads is apparently very deep - than anything. But I find it is teaching me a great deal very quickly about how it all works.

Can you link to your Company dossier? Is it in the DD?

[American Dream]

Is it really primitive accumulation, or would deterritorialization be a more apt term?

I'd agree that the Trump regime brings opportunity for a glimpse beyond the narrow thinking promoted in the universe where PBS and Fox define the limits of acceptable thinking. I get more out of resources like these, personally:

https://libcom.org

https://www.versobooks.com/blogs

https://www.viewpointmag.com

https://godsandradicals.org

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/special/index


I haven't really developed much of anything concrete on "The Company" but my ruminations were inspired by Visupview's Goodfellas series.

But aren't we seeing new forms of primitive accumulation? My not well thought through instinct is that mutable identity is the first bit of primitive accumulation for the singularity/AI futures.

It always seems necessary to vocalize my distaste for Trump on this board but his existence/ascension still feels like it has a *revelatory* quality. For instance, while I dont want to jump on the train of rightists and bernie die-hards this week crying out "but but Obama did it too," I'd be hard pressed to dispute that the diff in their immigration policy is particularly significant compared to its commonality. Which should lead to a much bigger historical/geographical discussion of the Americas and the setup for the crisis itself. So whereas people remained oblivious-complacent when racists policies were attached to a black maybe progressive figurehead, a small tweak of same policies attached to a clearly racist white bloat sack becomes a moral crisis. The reveal is more psychological - ie our attachment to symbolic royal figureheads is apparently very deep - than anything. But I find it is teaching me a great deal very quickly about how it all works.

Can you link to your Company dossier? Is it in the DD?

[liminalOyster]

On point question. Primitive accumulation for a reason - proclaiming that the new mining of the human is a hard historical break and not just the continued flow of social morphology.

I like Libcom etc too. But mostly they're not talking about what most interests me. I don't think tropes like Red/Brown alliance and third positionist continue to hold up under scrutiny. The political sphere is now close to fully digitally mediated and its shape is too ambiguous to support those old figurations.

[American Dream]

I agree that we need more better theorization and appreciate the efforts of Matthew Lyons, Alexander Reid Ross et al., though we really could use much more effort in that direction.

That said, characters like Troy Southgate, Keith Preston or Boyd Rice will never a free pass.

[liminalOyster]

I agree that we need more better theorization and appreciate the efforts of Matthew Lyons, Alexander Reid Ross et al., though we really could use much more effort in that direction.

That said, characters like Troy Southgate, Keith Preston or Boyd Rice will never a free pass.

Wait, what - Boyd Rice? As in Non? Is he active in something lately?

[American Dream]

I don't follow him closely but neither he nor Michael Moynihan nor others of that ilk, should get a free pass.

[kelley]

it's difficult to say much beyond this represents the end of the cold war playing itself out on american soil after a brief neoliberal interregnum

and yes to the observation of what a complete digitalization of media might incur

the two phenomena are linked

[liminalOyster]

it's difficult to say much beyond this represents the end of the cold war playing itself out on american soil after a brief neoliberal interregnum

and yes to the observation of what a complete digitalization of media might incur

the two phenomena are linked

I think part of what's odd and under-remarked is the tension (in the space just before complete digitalization) between ostensible terror at the loss of verifiable Truth due to human passions, on the one hand, and the looming terror at colder machine judgment of human affairs and lives, on the other. In a way this seems to play out in the Cambridge Analytica scandal maybe.

[BenDhyan]

Interesting....David Lynch thinks Donal Trump may become a great President due to his taking on the establishment.

https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2018/06/david-lynch-trump-may-become-one-of-the-greatest-presidents-in-history

[American Dream]

I like Libcom etc too. But mostly they're not talking about what most interests me. I don't think tropes like Red/Brown alliance and third positionist continue to hold up under scrutiny. The political sphere is now close to fully digitally mediated and its shape is too ambiguous to support those old figurations.

My non-expert understanding is that "Red-Brown Alliance" points to something fairly specific, e.g. National Bolshevist type ideologies and proximate positions where old school (commie) anti-Imperialism is wedded to far Right praxis, that sort of thing, albeit in lighter and darker shades. Aleksandr Dugin starkly embodies this, though he goes beyond any narrow confines of the term.

Third Positionism connotes Nazi History to me. I prefer the term Post-Third Position Fascism for many of the varieties of entryist, crypto and/or "Neither Right Nor Left" positions we encounter today.