POLITICS
Trumpism
Steve Bannon is the architect of the grievance machine that exists at the heart of Trumpism today. During the infamous Gamergate affair of 2014 it was Bannon, then-executive chairman of Breitbart News, who recognized that the online harassment campaigns against women and progressives being utilized by disaffected young gamers could be used as a weapon of populist political warfare. And, ho, what a weapon it’s been.
The incongruous claims Trumpism makes are the same ones at the center of every issue Bannon’s machine of grievance has fixated on since Gamergate: that what’s being advocated for is the protection of–and return to–traditional, commonsense values.
In practice, though, the actions taken to achieve this goal never seem to align with the stated mission. Gamergate was about protecting the sanctity of video game culture, which in practice became a virulently misogynistic harassment campaign targeting women gamers and anyone willing to speak up for them.
Today, it’s all of American culture that needs to be protected from the insidiousness of progressive values. In practice this has taken the form of an ongoing campaign of widespread, targeted attacks on social institutions and norms, and a complete disavowal of any information that doesn’t correspond with a constantly shifting narrative claiming the protection of amorphous ‘values’.
This is, at least in part, the result of a pattern of neoconservative thought that has informed American policy for decades. The ends have already been determined by those who need to know, and the means by which to achieve them are so unquestionably important that the words and actions employed by these righteous protectors are irrelevant. Myths have been built on more.
It turns out, though, it’s not about protecting a given set of values–it never was. It’s the identity attached to those supposed values that actually receives righteous protection. Democracy is dying by a thousand such cuts.
This methodology is, in part, responsible for the post-truth era we live in today, which allows Trump’s flock to support him because he’ll keep us out of wars, but also to unquestioningly continue supporting him–and now, apparently, the American military-industrial complex–after he’s mired us in a dangerous and destabilizing conflict of choice and attrition in the Middle East.
About M. I. Reynolds
M. I. Reynolds is an independent journalist, storyteller, and tech enthusiast committed to uncovering the Truth. Reynolds highlights working-class stories at the intersection of labor, politics, history, community, technology, and the arts. He entered the world of investigative community journalism after discovering that his great-grandfather, Virdie Reynolds, helped build, lead, and inspire the southern community of Fairhope, Alabama during the 1920s. His goal is to carry on the family legacy and inspire new generations of working class people through concise, intelligent storytelling.