JD Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate, is a newcomer on the political scene, and as such, a lot of people don’t know very much about his ideas. That’s concerning because Vance identifies with a reactionary far-right tradition that is explicitly and fundamentally at odds with American democracy.
Donald Trump, by contrast, has no core ideology and no core beliefs. His main goal at all times and all places is to advance his own personal interests, and that is literally it.
Vance isn’t like that. He comes from an authoritarian, reactionary tradition that explicitly rejects conservatism, liberalism, and democracy. Trump wants absolute power, and Vance wants him to have it to destroy what he believes to be a decadent and corrupt American society.
On today’s episode, we’re going to be talking about some of the core ideas of this very old tradition (it both predates and includes fascism) and why it is very, very concerning, regardless of the outcome of the presidential election.
Our guest on today’s episode is Matt McManus, he is the author of a book called The Political Right and Equality: Turning Back The Tide of Egalitarian Modernity, and a lecturer in political science at the University of Michigan.
TIMECODES
00:00 -- Introduction
02:36 -- Conservatism vs. reactionism, a critical distinction
06:52 -- Why many political and media professionals often cannot distinguish between conservatism and reactionism
11:35 -- Cold War militarism stymied reactionary activism within the Republican party
19:19 -- How neoconservatives prepared Republicans for Trump’s extremism
24:13 -- Opposing “decadence” unites right-of-center philosophies
27:59 -- Redefining “elites” from economic powers to cultural leaders is central to reactionism
36:16 -- Why nihilism collapses into totalitarianism
43:23 -- Anti-intellectualism and right-wing philosophy
50:44 -- The paradoxes of rights and left-wing intellectualisms
58:09 -- JD Vance's many connections to explicitly anti-democracy thinkers
01:04:32 -- The strange cases of atheist and Jewish Christian nationalists
01:10:39 -- As the right embraces authoritarianism, the left can reclaim freedom
01:19:29 -- The rise of the Nietzschean right
01:23:54 -- The debate on Nietzsche's influence on the left and right
01:27:09 -- Conclusion and final thoughts
MEMBERSHIP BENEFITS
This is a free episode of Theory of Change, but in order to keep the show sustainable, the full audio, video, and transcript for some episodes are available to subscribers only. The deep conversations we bring you about politics, religion, technology, and media take great time and care to produce. Your subscriptions make Theory of Change possible and we’re very grateful for your help.
Please join today to get full access!
Substack:
https://theoryofchange.show/
Patreon:
/ discoverflux
If you would like to support the show but don’t want to subscribe, you can also send one-time donations via PayPal:
https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/theor...
If you're not able to support financially, please help us by subscribing and/or leaving a nice review on Apple Podcasts. Doing this helps other people find Theory of Change and our great guests.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
ABOUT THE SHOW
Theory of Change is hosted by Matthew Sheffield about larger trends and intersections of politics, religion, media, and technology. It's part of the Flux Community, a new content network of podcasters and writers. Please visit us at flux.community to learn more and to tell us about what you're doing. We're constantly growing and learning from the great people we meet.
Get access to all the Flux podcasts, including our comedy news panel show, Doomscroll, and our culture and identity discussion, So This Just Happened: https://linktr.ee/discoverflux
Theory of Change on Twitter: / theorychange
Theory of Change on YouTube: / @theoryofchangepodcast
Matthew Sheffield on Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@mattsheffield
Matthew Sheffield on Twitter: / mattsheffield
Информация по комментариям в разработке