radical right

Watching the Shadows

MAGA-fascism and anti-Semitic pseudo-anti-anti-Semitism III

The Justice Department “Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism” has announced a national propaganda tour—as the DoJ is explicitly targeting anti-fascists for prosecution. The tour also comes as the question of Israel has emerged as the critical issue in the split within MAGA—with elements of the breakaway populist wing virtually gloating that the Israel Lobby’s support for the Trump-loyal pro-war wing will result in a backlash against Jews. Both wings of MAGA are equally reactionary, yet elements of the supposed “left” are already in a dangerous flirtation with the populist wing—and it is a Democratic congressional hopeful, Maureen Galindo of Texas, who is openly calling for mass detention of “Zionists” in repurposed ICE camps. An incipient Red-Brown alliance can be seen, fueled by the Trump regime’s ultra-cynical anti-Semitic pseudo-anti-anti-Semitism. In Episode 330 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg takes an unsparing look. (Image via frgdr Blog. Hebrew lettering in background spells names of places in Europe where Jews were exterminated.)

Planet Watch

Reversal for hard right in Hungary; Peru in the balance

The defeat of Hungary’s quasi-dictator Viktor Orbán in the recent elections has heartened progressive forces around the world—despite the fact that the victorious Péter Magyar is a creature of the center-right. A more stark contest is emerging in Peru, where the right-wing authoritarian presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori faces a run-off with a contender from the populist left, Roberto Sánchez, who has broad support from the traditionally excluded campesinos of the country’s Andean interior. (Photo: Wikipedia)

Southern Cone

Chile’s turn to the hard right

The rising wave of far-right populism has arrived in Chile with the victory in the presidential race of José Antonio Kast, an ultra-conservative who campaigned on fighting crime and carrying out mass deportations. Emulating Donald Trump, Kast exploited a backlash against migrants—especially Venezuelans—and pledged to build a separation wall on the border with Peru. His victory marks the country’s sharpest shift to the right since the restoration of democracy after the brutal dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet 30 years ago—an era and figure that Kast has openly admired. (Image: Nicolas Raymond via Flickr)

Watching the Shadows

Trump Corollary: spheres of influence, white supremacy

Donald Trump’s new National Security Strategy instates a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine. Like the Roosevelt Corollary of 1904, which was used to justify the “gunboat diplomacy” of that era, this new corollary openly calls for dividing the world into spheres of influence—with the Western Hemisphere assigned to the US. Russia is obviously pleased as punch over this, as it implicitly gives Moscow a free hand in Ukraine—and Putin will likely consider this an acceptable pay-off for his betrayal of Venezuela. However, China is less likely to surrender its massive investments and mega-projects in Latin America in exchange for a free hand to take over Taiwan. The document’s text on Europe is even more sinister, revealing a white supremacist agenda that looks not to Washington’s traditional allies to counter Russia, but to the continent’s Russian-backed far-right movements to counter Washington’s traditional allies. In Episode 308 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg exposes the NSS as a further step toward consolidation of a Fascist World Order. (Image: White House)

New York City

Podcast: fascism, socialism and the NYC mayoral race

In Episode 301 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg offers his anarchist annotation of the New York City mayoral candidates’ debate. He makes the case that the promise of “socialism” represented by Zohran Mamdani is (alas) not as real as the threat of fascism represented by Curtis Sliwa—or acquiescence to fascism represented Andrew Cuomo. Both Cuomo and Sliwa invoked the too real possibility of Trump attempting to abrogate New York’s municipal powers if Mamdani becomes mayor. However, this contingency could heighten the contradictions in a politically salubrious way—prompting the needed rupture between progressive-run localities and the illegitimate Trump regime. (Photo: Jim Naureckas/Flickr)

North America

Podcast: Better anti than fa, thank you II

Trump’s call at Quantico for the armed forces to use American cities as “training grounds” and fight the “enemy within” was quickly followed by militarized ICE raids in Chicago and mobilization of the National Guard. His National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), issued four days before the Quantico meeting with Pentagon brass, explicitly identifies “anti-fascism” as a threat that must be targeted with the full power of the state. In Episode 298 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg continues to deconstruct the propaganda and examine the apparatus being employed to impose a fascist order in the United States—and explore the prospects for resistance, and even non-cooperation within the rank-and-file of the federal forces. (Image: APE)

North America

Podcast: Better anti than fa, thank you

Trump’s executive order designating Antifa a “domestic terrorist organization” was quickly followed by a mobilization of federal troops to anarchist hotbed Portland and a highly unusual call for a gathering of military brass from around the world in Quantico—to take place the day before the government will be shut down if a Congressional deal is not reached. These evident preparations for mass repression, or even an auto-golpe and establishment of a Trump dictatorship, were conveniently followed by a sniper attack on an ICE facility in Dallas. In Episode 297 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg argues that Trump’s attempted criminalization of anti-fascism portends an imminent consolidation of fascist rule in the United States—and asks what we’re going to do about it. (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

Watching the Shadows

Podcast: Charlie Kirk = Calvo Sotelo?

Some are drawing an ominous analogy between Charlie Kirk and Horst Wessel, the early martyr of the Nazi cause. In Episode 296 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg offers a more ominous analogy still: to José Calvo Sotelo, the Spanish fascist leader whose assassination in 1936 provided the expedience for Generalissimo Franco’s coup d’etat that initiated the Spanish Civil War—and ultimately brought a decades-long dictatorship to Spain. Trump’s declaration of antifa as a “terrorist organization” since Kirk’s assassination is an open acknowledgement of his fascist intent. Fortunately, anti-fascist protesters are repudiating Kirk, and the wave of racist terror and anti-left reaction now being unleashed coast to coast. (Image mash-up: CounterVortex)

Watching the Shadows

Podcast: Charlie Kirk = Horst Wessel

Charlie Kirk was not just a “conservative” but a white supremacist who denigrated the advances of the Civil Rights era and sought to impose patriarchical subjugation of all but white men. Yet he was opposed as insufficiently “pro-white” by the so-called “Groyper Army” of Nick Fuentes. This raises the possibility that the anti-fascist rhetoric of Kirk’s accused shooter, Tyler Robinson, was actually fascist pseudo-anti-fascism. In any case, those who are making the analogy to the early martyr of the Nazi cause Horst Wessel are all too likely to be vindicated: Kirk’s death could similarly be exploited to consolidate fascist rule in the United States. In Episode 295 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg breaks it down. (Image mash-up: CounterVortex)

Watching the Shadows

MAGA-fascism and the dark side of 420

April 20 has become a national day of celebration for the hedonistic cannabis subculture, but it has also long been marked by the radical right and Nazi-nostalgists around the world for unsavory reasons. It now emerges that Trump’s Inauguration Day executive order declaring a state of emergency on the southern border also set a deadline of April 20 for a joint Pentagon-Homeland Security recommendation on whether to invoke the Insurrection Act. This has sparked much speculation that Trump will immediately do so, declaring martial law and consolidating a dictatorship… this weekend. How likely is this, and is the date a mere coincidence? In Episode 274 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg breaks it down. (Image: APE)

Palestine

Israel anti-Semitism confab embraces fascism —yes, really

The Zionist-fascist convergence under Bibi’s regime is getting too blatant even for the habitually pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League, whose leader stayed away from a supposed “International Conference on Combating Antisemitism” held in Jerusalem under the auspices of the Israeli government, headlining Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu—and also featuring several figures from the European and American xenophobic (and even anti-Semitic!) far right. (Image via frgdr Blog. Hebrew lettering in background spells names of places in Europe where Jews were exterminated.)

Africa