On this edition of Parallax Views, Jared Yates Sexton, host of The Muckrake Podcast and author of American Rule: How A Nation Conquered The World But Failed Its People, joins us to discuss his latest book The Midnight Kingdom: A History of Power, Paranoia, and the Coming Crisis. In The Midnight Kingdom Jared delves into the lies, paranoia, mythologies, and pursuit of power the undergirds the far-right movements that have become a worldwide concern in recent years due incident to the Jan 6th insurrection ...
On this edition of Parallax Views, Jared Yates Sexton, host of The Muckrake Podcast and author of American Rule: How A Nation Conquered The World But Failed Its People, joins us to discuss his latest book The Midnight Kingdom: A History of Power, Paranoia, and the Coming Crisis. In The Midnight Kingdom Jared delves into the lies, paranoia, mythologies, and pursuit of power the undergirds the far-right movements that have become a worldwide concern in recent years due incident to the Jan 6th insurrection in Washington, D.C. and the similar uprisings/riots that happened in Brazil after Lula de Silva defeated Jair Bolsonaro to once again become that country's President.
Among the topics discussed in this conversation:
- Conspiracies, real and imagined; the far-right wing, conspiracy theories, and the conspiratorial view of history
- What does the title The Midnight Kingdom refer to and how does it relate to the apocalyptic vision of the world presented by controversial Russian thinker Aleksander Dugin?
- The crisis of institutional power in America today that elements of both the right and left are recognizing; neoliberalism, the neoliberal consensus, hyper-capitalism, and inequality
- Jared's examination of cycles of history in The Midnight Kingdom and how it differs from, for example, right-wing operative Steve Bannon's preferred cycles of history theory known as "The Fourth Turning"
- How power protects itself in a society
- Paranoia as the basis for modern American society and conspiracy theories in modern American history
- Real conspiracies, journalist Sarah Kendzior's They Knew: How a Culture of Conspiracy Keeps America Complacent, and the World Economic Forum in Davos
- The destabilization of the middle class, the need for explanations for that destabilization, and how the right-wing offers that explanation through Grand Conspiracy Narratives
- The targeting of vulnerable communities by the right-wing's brand of conspiratorial thinking
- How ancient Rome ties into Jared's analysis in The Midnight Kingdom; imperial cults, social mythologies, and the fall of civilizations
- How the history of Christianity, apocalypticism, and narratives of power figures into Jared's analysis; how bastardized religion is utilized to promote war, imperialism, patriarchy, racism, wealth inequality and more; Christian nationalism and white nationalism; Jared's evangelical Christian upbringing
- People's desperation for meaning; the rise of evangelical Christianity as a political force in American life; atomization in neoliberal society and the rise of the far-right
- The Republican Party is not a homogenous movement; the emergence of an anti-neoliberal, reactionary right-wing; the left and the right have different criticisms of the neoliberal society and prescriptions for dealing with the problems of neoliberal society
- Operation Gladio and Operation Condor and the lack of a strong left in the U.S.
- The idea of homo economicus, the hollow existence neoliberalism provides, the dog-eat-dog world mentality of neoliberal society, and the reality TV series Survivor
- Christian nationalism, feudalistic ideas, hierarchical power, and theocratic control
- The individual, the atomized society, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher as the PR front for neoliberalism in the 1980s, the book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, and the destruction of labor unions and class solidarity
- Academia, specialized knowledge, and the working class's lack of access to that knowledge
- Marjorie Taylor Greene's rhetoric about "woke" corporations; the lack of understanding about what communism is, what Karl Marx wrote, and what neoliberalism is; the right's ideas about the natural right and natural order; feudalism and the concept of the "Great Chain of Being"; eugenics and social Darwinism
- Argument about "wokeism" and the problem of woke-washing by major corporations
- Tucker Carlson and illiberalism, neoliberalism and authoritarianism, Friedrich Hayek and neoliberalism; and how the right-wing protects the powerful
- The New Cold War between U.S. and China, American protectionism, the unraveling of globalization, and the end of "The End of History"
- Tackling the criticism that Jared's book is anti-religion; why he disagrees with that assessment; the weaponization and bastardization of religion by systems of power for purposes of control ;Catholic converts and the TradCath phenomena; the value of spirituality; Traditionalism and right-wing mythologies; Ancient Aliens, Erich Von Daniken's Chariots of the Gods, and racialism
- Explaining the rise of QAnon
- A discussion of the Brazilian uprisings and the Jan 6th riots after Donald Trump lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden; the funding of these uprisings/riots by right-wing billionaires; the Proud Boys, the Oathkeepers, and right-wing paramilitary groups; the QAnon shaman, MAGA, and the belief of the rioters that they were saving the government from a "deep state" coup; how people are primed into QAnon, MAGA, and similar movements; how people are animated by mythologies that make them the heroes of their own story
- Discussing the concept and idea of the deep state; technocracy and the administrative state; why Trump resonated with a portion of the American populace; authoritarianism and the desire to be part of something bigger than oneself
- The problem with blaming "hillbillies" for the rise of the far-right
- Pro wrestling, kayfabe, how WWE's "Montreal Screwjob" helps us understand the modern political moment, Hulk Hogan and the power of mythological storytelling, the pro wrestling-ification of television news and political media like Tucker Carlson, and political grifting
- The culture war over M&M's and the illusion of ideology and rebellion in consumerism
- Briefly discussing the movie Judas and the Black Messiah about Fred Hampton and the Black Panthers and its relevance
- The concept of freedom on the left and the right; the left's pro-freedom, liberatory narrative
- And more!
