Thread by @C_Stroop

This article about the profound influence of Virginia economist James McGill Buchanan (an intellectual descendant of John C. Calhoun) on ascendant American oligarchy is chilling. We’re already quite far down this destructive path.

ineteconomics.org/perspectives/b…

#SundayMorning #Resist

Buchanan’s extremely, self-servingly dark view of human nature, which “justified” his rejection of any search for the public good through politics, is a hallmark of authoritarianism. This is why Christian nationalism and oligarchy dovetail so comfortably.

https://twitter.com/c_stroop/status/843104289816043520?s=21

Advocates for utopias, which in attempts at implementation always trend to authoritarianism, share a rejection of politics, a desire to be free from politics, even from freedom as most understand it. Libertarianism and theocracy are conservative utopias. #EmptyThePews #Resist

Of course, utopian ideology occurs on the Left and the Right. Key to utopian thinking is the rejection democratic politics in pursuit of the common good. This is what Buchanan, who defined politics as the public pursuit of naked self-interest, pushed, and what Reagan mainstreamed

In other words, the erosion of belief in democracy itself has occurred in America most prominently on the Right through Reaganite rhetoric defining government as the problem rather than solution. In theocratic speak, the rhetoric is of making the state or welfare into an idol.

For more on the weaponizing of theocratic/Christian nationalist rhetoric of idolatry against social welfare, see this thread:

https://twitter.com/c_stroop/status/820059877859016705?s=21

#Exvangelical #EmptyThePews #Resist #SundayMorning

Of course, non-partisan research has long since pointed us to the asymmetric nature of American polarization, coming primarily from the Right. Even the ever civil and “centrist” to a (frankly glaring) fault @TheAtlantic has to admit it:

theatlantic.com/politics/archi…

This is why the influence campaigns of Putinist Russia, an authoritarian state that seeks to undermine democracy, rule of law, and human rights globally, are most successful in the US on the Right. The affinity of Western conservatives for Christian Russians has a long history.

My published academic and policy research goes some way toward unpacking that history. If you want to do a deeper dive, here are some policy long reads you can start with:

politicalresearch.org/author/c-stroo…

Putin’s Russia has been successfully claiming the mantle of international leadership in the aggressive pursuit of “traditional values” for some time. Theocracy and kleptocracy often go hand-in-hand, and America too is becoming “one kleptocracy under God”:

https://twitter.com/c_stroop/status/874042336107540482?s=21

If you learn and benefit from threads like these and can afford to do so, please consider funding my work via Patreon at the $5 level or more. If you can’t afford to, please don’t pledge. It’s not like I’m a church 😈

patreon.com/cstroop

#Exvangelical #EmptyThePews #Resist