This post is inspired by a thread of toots by Daniel Keys Moran, which talks about the connection between oligarchy and fascism.
Political ideology and greed are not independent.
People accept an ideology because they believe it serves their interests. More importantly, people with power push ideologies—which they might not particularly believe—that serve their own interests, not those of the ones being influenced.
Of course, the latter don’t realize they’re being played for suckers. They think they’re clever. They think they’re winners. They’re convinced that they’ve signed on to the winning team and are willing to wear the t-shirt and shout the slogans. Go team!
Traditional politics conceives of interests in a rather sophisticated manner, one that accounts for both personal and societal goals, and the need to balance them.
Populism maximizes its appeal by bypassing all that complexity and instead pandering directly to your basest desires. It promises to shower you with unearned wealth and privilege while depriving your “undeserving” perceived enemies of either. It promises victory in conquest. Go team!
I say all this because, in the case of scum like George Santos, people notice that he’s a grifter and decide that means he’s not really committed to the ideology he sells. This is false.
His commitment is based on grift, and the ideology was always something he sold, not bought. The more committed he is to grift, the more committed he is to being a proponent of the ideology that benefits him. In his case, the benefit comes not so much from the ideology itself as from being a salesman who gets commissions and perks; an influencer.
I’m not saying that the oligarchs who finance fascism are themselves free of bigotry. Not at all. I am saying that the bigotry they sell is meant to be consumed by suckers, and any analysis of whether they’re true believers is a waste of time.
As Mother Teresa showed us, those who harbor serious doubts about their beliefs are the ones who double down on them and act more like true believers than the true true believers do. The cosplay fascists Sieg-Heil all the louder and show their enemies even less mercy, because they have something to prove.
So, did Hitler really hate Jews or was it something he latched onto to enrich himself and attain a position of power? Who the fuck cares? He killed tens of millions! We’re not here to psychoanalyze monsters, just to slay them. Go team.
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