What do we worry more about: the far-right beliefs of trolls, or the coding skills of the trolls?

The split focus on Marco Elez and Elon Musk—are they Nazis, or hackers, or Nazi hackers?— highlight two prongs of emergent fascism. The ideological/aesthetic/psychological on one side, and the technocratic on the other. We can call them the manners and the machine.

First, Matthew unpacks a century-old thesis by an OG fascist that says totalitarian regimes take shape when both are working together, but that ultimately, the coup d’etat is about seizing control of the machine.

Then he rounds off with a rant about how easy it is liberal-centrist discourse about manners to distract from the reality of the machine. Why? It’s because in the absence of a clear analysis of how capital and power work—it’s in the sphere of manners—that liberals feel they have a fighting chance. But it’s also exactly where Musk and Elez and Vance and Trump can ignore them.

Show Notes

A Doomed Democracy | STANFORD magazine

The October Revolution - Introduction | Marx Memorial Library

Alexander Kerensky Dies Here at 89 - The New York Times

Curzio Malaparte | Italian Author, Journalist & Politician | Britannica

Reading the Eccentric Italian Writer Who Tried to Cover Up His Fascism ‹ Literary Hub

Curzio Malaparte: The Illusion of the Fascist Revolution

The Californian Ideology

The Californian Ideology Personified - Truthdig

Cyberlibertarianism: The Right-Wing Politics of Digital Technology on JSTOR

175: Diagonalism (w/William Callison and Quinn Slobodian) — Conspirituality

Opinion | Don’t Believe Him - The New York Times

Welcome to Neokayfabe — Abraham Josephine Riesman // Writer

40 Ways to Fight Fascists: Street-Legal Tactics for Community Activists — Spencer Sunshine

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She Was Missing a Chunk of Her Brain. It Didn’t Matter