Are We Heading into the Era of "Disaster Nationalism"? (w/ Richard Seymour)

This episode originally aired on October 29, 2024. Get new podcasts early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairsRight!

Richard Seymour is one of the most learned and provocative leftist writers in the world. He has written books on subjects ranging from social media (The Twittering Machine) to British Labour politics (Corbyn: The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics) to liberal apologists for imperialism (The Liberal Defense of Murder) to the career of Christopher Hitchens (Unhitched). On whatever he writes about, Seymour is well-read and thoughtful, posing challenging ideas in elegantly-crafted prose. Today he joins to talk to us about "disaster nationalism," the apocalyptic brand of right-wing politics that Seymour says is on the ascent, and threatens to destroy liberal civilization as we know it. It's not necessarily an encouraging conversation, but Seymour encourages us to look honestly at the dark trends in right-wing politics in our time, and to be cognizant of the extent of the threat we face. Helping us understand what the right believes and what it might be capable of, Seymour's warnings could not be more timely as we get closer and closer to an election that might see Donald Trump returned to power.

"Reaction always thrives on the prospect of annihilation. ‘American carnage’, ‘white genocide’, ‘death panels’, ‘invasion’, ‘great replacement’, ‘Islamisation’, ‘treason’, ‘cultural marxists’, ‘scum’, ‘communism’. The erosion and  threatened destruction of worlds of power resembling, from its ideological purview, civilisational collapse, defeat, devastation. With which it is both appalled and enthralled... Amid the decomposition of the old party system, the legacy media, and associated forms of public authority, political forces organising around the nation and its enemies have won the major battles of the last decade. What is more, incumbency has been incredibly forgiving of their failures, their political gains proving far less fragile than those of the Left... The phrase ‘disaster nationalism’ implies something disastrous, or exploitative of disaster, or in elective affinity with disaster, or opaquely drawn to, or hurtling toward, or yearning for disaster. It is all of this." — Richard Seymour