maco
boosted
But more poignantly for me, a cog in the Silicon Valley machine, is how Big Tech royally screwed itself by completely misunderstanding what motivates the core of the right wing. They thought they could endear themselves to the right by debasing themselves before Trump and kissing his ring, but the right wing aren’t buying any of it. They remember that only a year ago, Big Tech was all into deplatforming them and cozying up to “diversity” and left-wing ideas—ideas that are diametrically opposed to their view of Western Civilization; and now Big Tech claims they’re part of the right wing? Yeah, right.
The right wants to see Big Tech burn. And ironically, now so does the left, because Big Tech’s prostration and capitulation before Trump has thoroughly disgusted those fighting for progressive values.
Trump is the only person holding Big Tech and the right wing together. And when Trump is gone—and he will be gone—Big Tech will find itself without anyone on their side.
/end
The podcast ends with Nguyen noting how everyone at the Charlie Kirk memorial left when Trump started talking (he was the final speaker). The conservatives were there to hear what Erika had to say, and her “forgiveness” of her husband’s killer brought the event to such a religious fervor—a perfect example of the best of “Western Civilization”—that when Trump began disagreeing with Erika and vowed retribution, the crowd tuned him out and headed for their cars.
The right’s disengagement and disappointment with Trump, and their hate for Big Tech (which Trump supports), may mean that this is the end of Trump’s power, and we may start to see support for him begin to wane. That doesn’t mean that Project 2025 comes to an end, but it may mean that its finest orator may have lost his silver tongue.
…
Framing the conservative movement as being motivated by a desire to preserve “Western Civilization” clarifies so much of right-wing rhetoric: their eugenicist depiction of a healthy white family happily tending to a suburban paradise; the cries of “Jews will not replace us”; the obsession with eradicating neurodivergence and non-gender-normative identities; the hatred for immigration allowing foreigners bringing their culture into the country; the rejection of visible signs of modernity; the book-banning—these are all acts of attempting to purify and protect a specific *mental image* of “Western Civilization”.
…
Interestingly, the primacy of Western Civilization in the conservative mind means that their deal with Donald Trump isn’t as strong as those on the left think it is. Conservatives are *using* Trump as much as Trump is leading and cowering them. Though politicos fear Trump’s retaliation, increasingly, the conservative public at large do not. According to Nguyen, they are growing to accept that Trump is a lame duck, a deceptive partner who’s only there to “do business”, and not actually interested in furthering their cause. They are now beginning to constrain him.
Nguyen points out that Elon’s ejection from the White House was largely a MAGA action *against* Trump, who couldn’t care less who ran what as long as he made a buck. DOGE’s attempt to colonize the Copyright Office was halted by MAGA (see AI and copyright above), and Elon’s nominee for NASA was similarly nuked by MAGA on philosophical grounds. The latter action was likely the last straw for Elon.
…
A great framing device I learned: the intellectual core of the #conservative movement—the ideas behind Project 2025—is not racism, xenophobia, or Christianity; but a commitment to the abstract concept of “Western Civilization”: a platonic ideal of a pure state built on morals, free from the corrupting influence of post-Machiavellian relativism. To achieve this ideal, the applications of racism, eugenics, nationalism, xenophobia, and religious fervor are put in place; the latter are only *methods* through which the former ideal is put into practice. That was tremendously clarifying to me.
Project 2025, and the folks at the Claremont Institute use lofty language to write odes to Western Civilization, without sullying themselves by directly using the dirty language of racism and xenophobia, leaving it to the implementors to figure out the details. That way, they can adopt and discard different bigotries as one fails and another succeeds, all while maintaining a coherent narrative thread.
Framing the conservative movement as being motivated by a desire to preserve “Western Civilization” clarifies so much of right-wing rhetoric: their eugenicist depiction of a healthy white family happily tending to a suburban paradise; the cries of “Jews will not replace us”; the obsession with eradicating neurodivergence and non-gender-normative identities; the hatred for immigration allowing foreigners bringing their culture into the country; the rejection of visible signs of modernity; the book-banning—these are all acts of attempting to purify and protect a specific *mental image* of “Western Civilization”.
…
A great framing device I learned: the intellectual core of the #conservative movement—the ideas behind Project 2025—is not racism, xenophobia, or Christianity; but a commitment to the abstract concept of “Western Civilization”: a platonic ideal of a pure state built on morals, free from the corrupting influence of post-Machiavellian relativism. To achieve this ideal, the applications of racism, eugenics, nationalism, xenophobia, and religious fervor are put in place; the latter are only *methods* through which the former ideal is put into practice. That was tremendously clarifying to me.
Project 2025, and the folks at the Claremont Institute use lofty language to write odes to Western Civilization, without sullying themselves by directly using the dirty language of racism and xenophobia, leaving it to the implementors to figure out the details. That way, they can adopt and discard different bigotries as one fails and another succeeds, all while maintaining a coherent narrative thread.
The biggest surprise (to me) from this conversation is that there is a growing and likely *irreparable* rift between the core right-wing intelligentsia and Big Tech, and much of it driven by #AI.
Those on the right are still reeling from having their media outlets “cancelled” and deplatformed by Big Tech over the last five years, only to learn that Big Tech is now training AI on their material, which can potentially jeopardize their monetization. That puts right-wing pundits on the same team as small-time creators whose works are being stolen by Big Tech. Strange bedfellows indeed.
According to Nguyen, conservatives are so deeply distrustful of Big Tech that they now make it a priority to own their entire tech stack—something that the left can probably learn from—and not ever depend on the good graces of AWS or Meta ever again. Truth Social is built on such vertical integration. Now that the right has their tech stack, they no longer need Big Tech, and a divorce is underway.
…
Paris Marx’s interview of Tina Nguyen on the Tech Won’t Save Us podcast was so chock full of goodies, so dense with novel (to me) insight, and so engaging, that it gnawed on my brain even after several listens. If you have an hour, please give it a listen. https://techwontsave.us/episode/296_the_growing_divide_between_maga_and_big_tech_w_tina_nguyen
Tina Nguyen is a prolific writer at The Verge, but she started out working with Tucker Carlson at the Daily Caller, so she has unique insights into the inner workings of the right-wing media and power structure.
…
maco
and 1 other
boosted
#CoryDoctorow @pluralistic on fire in this blog post: https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/26/sole-and-despotic-dominion/#then-they-came-for-me
A concise definition of #conservatism: "There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
With lots of examples from (tech) corporate and MAGA conservatism. "The Flu Klux Klan wants to ban you from wearing a mask for health reasons, but they will defend to the death the right of ICE brownshirts to run around in gaiters and Oakleys as they kidnap our neighbors off the streets."
Conservatism underpins #fascism. Therefore "we should treat every attempt to pull any of these scams as an inch (or a yard, or a mile) down the road to fascist collapse."
#CoryDoctorow @pluralistic on fire in this blog post: https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/26/sole-and-despotic-dominion/#then-they-came-for-me
A concise definition of #conservatism: "There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
With lots of examples from (tech) corporate and MAGA conservatism. "The Flu Klux Klan wants to ban you from wearing a mask for health reasons, but they will defend to the death the right of ICE brownshirts to run around in gaiters and Oakleys as they kidnap our neighbors off the streets."
Conservatism underpins #fascism. Therefore "we should treat every attempt to pull any of these scams as an inch (or a yard, or a mile) down the road to fascist collapse."
The untrammeled greed of the founders of Philz Coffee -- and the financial looters who are buying the company -- is exceeded only by their pure contempt for the employees whose shares in the company are being vaporized.
How can this be legal? Because "capitalism" rules.
https://missionlocal.org/2025/07/philz-coffee-private-equity-sell/
@dangillmor ”There must be in-groups who the law protects but does not bind, and out-groups who the law binds but does not not protect.”
-Frank Wilhoit
-Frank Wilhoit
This is the only true rule of conservatism.
And it was made in the context of pointing out that we have no other politics than #conservatism left.
All parties today protect the wealthy at the price of hurting the non-wealthy. Only different flavours of implementing #wilhoitslaw remain in power.
This needs to change.