Varn Vlog
Abandon all hope ye who subscribe here. Varn Vlog is the pod of C. Derick Varn. We combine the conversation on philosophy, political economy, art, history, culture, anthropology, and geopolitics from a left-wing and culturally informed perspective. We approach the world from a historical lens with an eye for hard truths and structural analysis.
Varn Vlog
The Echoes of General Boulanger: When Leftists Flirt With Right-Wing Populism with Donald Parkinson
As normie conservatives casually throw around terms like "Bonapartist" to describe Trump's new administration, we've entered a peculiar moment where Marxist terminology has infiltrated mainstream political discourse—often without its theoretical underpinnings. This wide-ranging conversation explores the historical parallels between today's political landscape and 19th century France, when General Boulanger's right-wing populist movement tempted certain leftists into dangerous alliances. Donald Parkinson of Marxist Unity Group and Cosmonaut Magazine helps us clarify.
We dissect the contradictory coalition behind Trump's second administration: an unlikely alliance between traditional middle American constituencies and Silicon Valley tech oligarchs that has fundamentally altered the movement's character. This creates a uniquely modern version of Bonapartism, where executive power operates independently from other ruling class factions, but with enthusiastic backing from tech billionaires rather than reluctant acceptance from established elites.
The historical debate between Engels and Paul Lafargue proves remarkably relevant today. Engels vehemently opposed leftist alliances with Boulanger, insisting socialists must maintain political independence while defending democratic institutions against right-wing authoritarianism. Today's versions of this debate—from "MAGA communism" to various post-left tendencies—echo Lafargue's failed argument that riding right-wing populism would ultimately benefit socialism.
As liberal institutions prove remarkably fragile against authoritarianism and traditional left strategies seem inadequate, we face fundamental questions about political strategy. How can socialists build independent politics without becoming either appendages to liberalism or useful idiots for the right? What does defending democratic rights look like when the constitutional order itself is crumbling? And how do we understand class politics when traditional definitions no longer map neatly onto social reality?
This conversation offers essential historical context and strategic clarity for navigating our deteriorating political landscape—a moment when understanding the mistakes of the past might help us avoid repeating them.
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Hello and welcome to VARMVLOG, and today I am joined by a member of Marxist Unity Group. I think you're still on the editorial board of Cosmonaut.
Donald Parkinson :Yes, yes, you're also in Cosmonaut, magazine.
C. Derick Varn :Right, and you are on the editorial board of the Democratic Left as well, I believe.
Donald Parkinson :Yes.
C. Derick Varn :Yes, ok, so in the DSA.
Donald Parkinson :And what I get to talk about today.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, we do. Um, so just gonna. This is going to come out probably in the early spring, but we are in the heydays of of new Trump winter and the first three weeks of his new administration. And weird that normie conservatives and like zoomers are throwing around the word Bonapartist. So I don't know how much influence we Marxists have had on social media, but our terms are now being casually used by people who don't really know what they mean but there's been independent growth of interest in Bonaparte, in the right.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, well, I mean, I find it interesting in that. Well, how would I say, this Weird right-wing monarchism? I've normally found to be like Neo-Habsburg or Neo-Russian Tsar or something like that. But there does seem to be this idea and this new interest in Bonapartism, in so much that you can have all the fun of a monarchy and none of the baggage, right.
C. Derick Varn :Right, right, right, so you don't try to have a state or a saint take over, but you know what are you making of this? How much are you seeing? I mean because I've seen a lot more discussion of this in general, before we get into the specific Marxist debates we were going to talk about today.
Donald Parkinson :But well, I think you know, the word fascism has been thrown around and is being thrown around a lot to describe, um, what is happening with the trump administration.
Donald Parkinson :And first, you know, I think um, and I think that, um, I have my own thoughts on this, but a lot of people are kind of responding to that claim by, you know, it's actually Bonapartism is really like kind of more accurately like what we're seeing right now, and I think there are parallels to Bonapartism in a lot of ways.
Donald Parkinson :In a lot of ways, but there's definitely the fact that the executive is kind of becoming this independent force above the other you know parts of the ruling class, but at the same time there seems to be just a, an aspect of it that's just a peer takeover of the state by a specific faction of the ruling class to kind of create this patronage system that, um, all these kind of tech capitalists can kind of unite around to directly rule through the executive and, um, I I think, uh, with bona part, it seems like the ruling class kind of just accepts him as like a necessary evil to um, you know, restore order in the face of a potential working class revolt and out of the collapse of traditional democratic institutions, or, in this case, it seems like you know, the ruling class is always getting on board with this quite enthusiastically and really seeking to use Trump and the MAGA movement as a vessel for them to achieve certain interests.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, I mean, on one hand, I have been kind of like I've been actually surprised at how much the bourgeoisie has been out to lunch on this one. On the other hand, it clearly seems like a faction of the bourgeoisie the tech oligarchs have really asserted themselves in a major way, although in a way that actually renders Trump a lot more incoherent than he was the first time.
Donald Parkinson :It's an alliance between really the middle American kind of white middle American kind of white middle American rebels and the tech capitalists.
C. Derick Varn :Well, it's interesting in the sense that, right, middle American rebels, their geoeconomic base is basically Sunbelt production and what I call true petite bourgeois, as opposed to the Democratic Party, which is professionals, aka structural petite bourgeois. Right, you can see, people can use either one. Uh, we, I used to call them labor aristocracy. We had a discussion about that online. I, you actually. Yeah, maybe it's not helpful to call it labor aristocracy.
Donald Parkinson :Yeah, yeah, I mean whatever term you want to use for it. It's basically yeah, you're kind of the yuppies, basically.
C. Derick Varn :Unfortunately and I say unfortunately because this recent output has been, in my mind, craven Christian Parenti had the best discussion of the PMC, where he broke them down into categories and said look, most of them are actually some kind of wage worker. You might even consider them quasi proletarian eyes. But the liberal ones have some some indirect or sometimes even direct relationship to the state. Indirect or sometimes even direct relationship to the state. But that brings us to the tech oligarchs who are, by and large, their trillions are are tied into government contracts. I mean, like, why they're profitable is is rents and government contracts and backend infrastructure stuff. It is not actually the point of consumer service, nor any clear commodity. In fact, who the fuck has been making hardware other than NVIDIA for like the last decade?
C. Derick Varn :So there's this weird shift because normally in the Michael Lind kind of trump one view of the world you had the true petite bourgeois and the sunbelt declining productive areas against rentiers, financial capital and the big bourgeois. But a faction of the big bourgeois attached to the rentiers have changed sides and now it's like. I mean in this point it is like Bonapartism, in that the, the, the base doesn't actually make that much sense and it's already showing cracks. But we've been dealing with three weeks of, you know, from the time period that we're talking and probably several months by the time period this comes out of blitz from these people. So you know from the time period that we're talking and probably several months by the time period this comes out of blitz from these people. So you know, on one hand we get the seeming everything seems coherent because basically so much is happening, the the trump base doesn't have time to fight itself right, right, exactly like it's all happening so fast, the contradictions haven't really been able to work themselves through, which is it's interesting that you know the way.
Donald Parkinson :The blitz nature of it does kind of seem to be about like pushing through all these radical changes so fast that their own base can't oppose them, because I, you know, I don't think the the maga base necessarily wants to get rid of medicaid no, uh, they don't like the the worker pop.
C. Derick Varn :I mean it's interesting because bannon's from the worker populist side, but it's his sort of shock doctrine thing and I use that term advisedly because I actually think the gnome, the naomi crime description of this is not actually accurate or good, um, but I do think there is something to the fact that bannon thought we need a shock doctrine, but it's not really bannon's side consistently administering the shocks right.
Donald Parkinson :Bannon seems skeptical of the silicon valley guys. If anything, it seems. If anything, bannon is like less important than Trump's thing now. Now it's like Elon is really more important than Bannon and Ben's. You know mad about that right.
C. Derick Varn :So it's Bannon's strategy, but Elon's substance? Uh, I'm, you know, and I have a lot of right-wing friends, uh, living in Utah and I've heard a lot of theories but a lot of right-wingers are confused and kind of demoralized. I had one freak out to me yesterday when he was like what is this America first when we're going to take over Gaza? Right? No, absolutely. Trump just declared that we're going to mar Gaza, lago, the Gaza Strip, after ethnically cleansing, optimistically, two million, probably 1.6 to 1.8 million palestinians and I say optimistically because no one really knows how many palestinians died in the last war. The israelis are not giving us good numbers. Um, even trump seems to know that, because he seemed to say, oh, 1.6 million gazans need to be relocated. And I was like, is this a tacit admission that 800,000 people got killed in the last year?
Donald Parkinson :Yeah, and I mean a lot of the MAGA people don't like this. It's easy to say that I do think that MAGA is a Zionist movement. It is led by Zionists, but not everybody who's into MAGA. Because MAGA is a Zionist movement, it is led by Zionists but not everybody who's into MAGA, because MAGA has so many different interests, so many different factions are kind of part of it, and so you do have a lot of the classic paleocon right who are anti-Israel and are legitimately anti-Israel, like Pat Buchanan he did not like Zionism like anti-israel.
Donald Parkinson :Like pat buchanan, he did not like zionism. You know a lot of these uh, paleo cons who, um, you know, kind of you know, were visionaries for a lot of the maga ideas. They were not fans of zionism. I mean nick fuentes, you know, I mean he's obviously fringe, you know he does have some level of reach and he was kind of like, you know, at one point he was like the youth you know, kind of um leader of maga at one point until he kind of got, um, you know, pushed away from those circles.
Donald Parkinson :But he's been very um anti-trump because of all this and basically saying that like mag has been completely taken over by silicon valley oligarchs. And he even said that they're like using, they're saying that instead of actually going after the real deep state, they're outlying with the deep state and going after black women at the DMV working at the DMV as like the deep state. And it is interesting though there is a lot of genuine anger, if I'm right. But I think maga itself is very good at keeping people on board. Despite that, they're like kind of um qualms with aspects of it, because it's, yeah, part of it is the charismatic leadership of trump I'll make, yes, it relies so much on the charismatic leadership of a single individual to kind of balance out all these different things and keep everybody on board despite um all the contradictions right before we get to the marxist part.
C. Derick Varn :I do want to pick up on this, because this would this will make our historical analogies and why we care about talking about louis bonaparte, general balangay, blankie baboof, all that shit. Um, like, why, why is that coming up today? But I do think we have an incoherent coalition, um that we have a. We have a bourgeoisie that I, just frankly, don't understand. Um, at this point, I mean, I have been flirting with the idea that that bourgeois ownership is so structuralized that the big bourgeoisie now doesn't really even see itself as having a social mission anymore. Um, and so we have these tech oligarchs and these subcategories that really dominate. But if you look at where the real wealth is like, yes, elon Musk is the richest individual, but BlackRock is like five times larger than Elon Musk's over families and over different holdings, so you can't see the, you know, basically only the nouveau riche show up on Forbes.
Donald Parkinson :Yeah, it's just this increasing socialization of this wealth, basically, but within the framework of bourgeois ownership. Right, you know the framework of bourgeois ownership.
C. Derick Varn :Right, and so one thing that I think that this speaks to is that there is dissatisfaction in with with current inequality and stuff in such a major way that people who are not associated with the left can pick up on it, because the Biden has managed to do almost nothing about it, right, and this would be the third round of major liberals not really doing anything about it in our lifetime, even within their pathetic frameworks. So it stands to reason that some kind of right populism would emerge. We talked about the F word. You know my, my unpopular opinion is the F word.
C. Derick Varn :The fascism is a subset of Bonapartism anyway. Um, I think Bonapartism is like almost a liberal norm, and what we're seeing right now you can call it fascist or not there are elements that fit. There are elements that don't fit. What we're really arguing when we have that debate is what do we think are the most important elements of fascism? Not really what all they are of fascism, not really what all they are, and we've seen liberals use that as a motivating factor for a long time, and it does feel like that just won't work. Now, ironically, when we're in a more authoritarian phase of this Trump regime, the appeals to fascism have less rhetorical weight Because also, let's be honest liberals didn't really seem to believe it.
Donald Parkinson :Right, yeah, resistance liberalism was just such an utter political failure and travesty.
Donald Parkinson :You know, I mean I've seen people try to claim otherwise, but the fact is is that it rested so much on, first of all, a conspiracy theory that trump was like a putin like puppet when I was installed, through you know um election interference, but but also that in a way, they over inflated the threat and you know kind of the boy cried wolf aspect where they kind of um, they over inflated the threat in the most kind of um unserious aspects of trump, but they focused so much on the things that weren't really like a danger, like a lot of focuses on decorum and things like that.
Donald Parkinson :You know the way that they actually like handled trump and the way that they obviously invested on completely on like defending the existing institutions. That, um, you know kind of created so much discontent that gave trump appeal as well that you know it essentially weakened, uh you know, the ability for people to really actually resist this shit when it really did come back kicking way harder. But I think, uh, reading um the how draper on bulingay has and I think that's how you said it and um the influence or the um a dialogue between um angles and uh, paula Farg was really interesting to me and and um cause. I guess we should kind of talk about first who bullying gay is and why we fought them. We should kind of talk about angles, who Boulanger is and why we fought them. We should kind of talk about Angles' approach to him, for this episode.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, yeah, I think first let's get into. You're like Boulanger. We got into the two things what is Bonapartism and what is the dictatorship or the proletariat? I went on this rabbit hunt myself, uh, separately from this conversation. Um, because it's mentioned in one of hal draper's books on the on um, the dictatorship of the proletariat and what's not meant by it. Um, and well, it starts off in the from from marks to linen book. Then I went to volume three so I went through this this stage. So I went to to the marks and linen book and it's mentioned in a paragraph and not like, uh, um, draper doesn't explain it. So you go to the footnotes and it says look at volume 3. So I went into volume 3 and Draper kind of explains it. But I actually had to go to volume 4 to get all the context and the reason. Why is it?
Donald Parkinson :looks like the Lafargue family burnt Ingalls' letters yes that's what Draper claims is that there's a bunch of missing letters from Ingalls' letters. Yes, that's what Draper claims is that there's a bunch of missing letters from Ingalls, where he's really critical of.
C. Derick Varn :LeFarg I will say we don't know that, but what we do know.
C. Derick Varn :That was kind of where I was like I don't know, that seems a little You're kind of wish-casting, but nonetheless there was, we do have the laura marks lafargue letters, which do make it clear that ingles was criticizing paula farg to at least laura, but we don't know if he was doing it to paul. It does seem like a mixture of wish casting. The only thing I'll say is going through volume four, dripper actually does show you a letter that Paul sends back that seems to be responding to either a letter or a statement that we don't have. But that's the only hard evidence we have about the direct correspondence. But the correspondence with Laura Marks Lafargue is pretty clear. Ingalls was pissed off, right, right.
Donald Parkinson :So let's go into that. So what is? Ing was pissed off. So right, right. So let's go into that. But I mean let's go into.
C. Derick Varn :What is ingles so pissed off about? The question is for me, let's go back. And what is bonapartism? Um, bonapartism is really only mentioned in the brumaire and then in subsequent letters and becomes a big category afterwards. It's, it is interesting to try to figure out what separates Bonapartism from just general Caesarism, which is just you know, because it does seem to me that Spencer Leonard is right in his introductions to the two books he wrote on marx and imperialism and marx and bonapartism, that for marx, imperialism is the foreign policy of bonapartism, which is this degraded, our uh, conflictual liberalism and even the kind of normie bourgeois political scientist.
C. Derick Varn :I always look back to make sure, because this guy has two last names, it was Ryan Allen or Allen Ryan, but anyway says if you read Marx you kind of get two theories of the state. One theory is what you get when he's describing England, because the bourgeoisie is relatively in line with each other in England and it really is sort of like a smoothly running ruling committee of the bourgeoisie, whereas in France the ruling committee of the bourgeoisie is kind of at war with itself constantly, which leads to Louis Bonaparte coming to represent this kind of appeal to everyone and no one, particularly, according to marx, relying on the lumpenproletariat, and we get a couple different theories about what that is and marx actually I could go through them, but it's not so pertinent here but also the petite bourgeoisie. And then the bourgeoisie gets kind of accepted as a way to restore order, even though it's and the London proletariat is very key to the Bonapartist regime as well.
Donald Parkinson :But yeah, the way I kind of understand Bonapartism if I was going to just kind of summarize it really quickly it's a situation where, you know, in a kind of situation of social breakdown, where the proletariat is not able to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat but the bourgeoisie is not able to establish its own stable form of rule in a kind of bourgeois constitutional republic, and so as a result, a kind of third force arises and that kind of has a semi-autonomy from both of these classes. In the case of the classic Marx theory, it's really the peasantry that he sees Bonaparte resting upon. And then he sees Bonaparte as kind of mobilizing the lumpenproletariat and the petty bourgeois, you know, in order to secure power. And then the bourgeoisie eventually do come on board because they see Bonaparte as a means of restoring order and maintaining property rights against, you know, any kind of threat from the left. And so in a way, this is actually kind of used by Trotsky to kind of define Stalin as a kind of bone apart, and one of his, some of his earlier stuff on Stalinism actually kind of moves from that analysis.
Donald Parkinson :But there was some other left oppositionists who actually kind of moves from that analysis. But, um, there was um other left oppositionists who actually kind of had a similar theory that, um, you know, Stalinism. In a way, the rise of Stalin is kind of like a result of, like, the failure of the proletariat to secure a stable dictatorship, but also the failure of the bourgeoisie to like secure a stable dictatorship in response. So to secure a stable dictatorship in response. So the theory of Bonapartism. It's used a lot in Marxism and you see, people like Thalheimer, who was a right oppositionist in the common term, argue that fascism is a form of Bonapartism which I think is a pretty compelling theory and I think it does make a lot of sense.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, I was about to say the right opposition theory of fascism. Of the five theories of fascism I've found in, marxism seems to be the one that actually does make sense to me, whereas the other ones Like, okay, fascism is capital in the K. True, but that just doesn't tell you much. Right, right, fascism is a form of financial capitalism, as picked up by the 37.
Donald Parkinson :Yeah, the Mietra definition the most reactionary dictatorship, of the dictatorship of the most reactionary monopoly finance capitalist. He quite frankly kind of describes what's happening right now.
C. Derick Varn :I was about to say. I think it's true, for right now I actually think it's not a good description of Hitler or Mussolini. Right, the thing is, bonapartism and Marxism is a contested term and I think you and I would also say one of the hard things about dealing with Bonapartism is it's not entirely reactionary. From a marxist perspective would be somewhat progressive if, for only, for example, taking certain kinds of reforms, seriously cutting down against, uh, government bloat and waste, depending on the situation, there's all kinds of things that we might say it's not inherently solely bad. But that seems to lead people to argue that maybe there's something like a Marxist, bonapartist project so that we could adopt, like be a Marxist and not have like a dialectically sophisticated view of Bonapartism but just say, okay, we're just a jump on the Bonapartist train.
C. Derick Varn :And what Draper was spelling out, I think Bollingay is one of the clearest sections of this. But like A, that's hardly ever gone well for Marxists when they try to do that. And B, we've been tempted to do it our entire history, going back to Louis Bonaparte. But I think the most clear example that Draper thinks, at least in volumes 3 and 4 of Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution, for those of you who want to know what we're talking about seems to be the Bollingay and the French left, where there was an alliance between the Gideas, or the French Marxist who weren't and the Bliest, where a subsection of Gideas not Gidea himself, in a subsection of blankiest, decided to get on this kind of war. Populist general figure called general Boulanger, yeah.
Donald Parkinson :Well, Boulanger himself, he was involved in the uh, he was a big, he was kind of made a name for himself in the suppression of the paris commune right and then he um was able to um become a brigadier general and then um was a part of the, became a government minister and made a lot of reforms that were um popular with the military, including letting people have beards. I guess that was actually funny enough, which is funny how he kind of used culture war issues the kind of if you think about it like that kind of does sound like a kind of culture war issue 19th century culture war issue.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, yeah.
Donald Parkinson :But I thought that was funny how that was kind of like one of the examples of like the kind of things he would use to get people on his side, and so he kind of creates this kind of yeah, he's this populistic movement in a way of revanchism towards Germany, Like that was one of his big things, was he? You know, he wanted revanchism over the defeat and the Franco-Prussian war and so it was very much inflaming French chauvinism and, you know, trying to, you know, essentially, you know obviously get territory back from.
Donald Parkinson :Germany, but just generally, like you know, pursue a policy of rearmament and increasing the role of the military and but mixed with populist appeals to the working class. And that was, like you know, that was an anti-corruption, especially a lot of anti-elite, anti-corruption sentiment, and I think that was where the temptations from some of these Marxist and Blanquist towards the Boulanger movement came from.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, and so what we get in Draper? Is this really under-discussed example of what we?
Donald Parkinson :might call anachronistically a red-brown alliance, right, exactly, exactly.
Donald Parkinson :It is kind of the first red-brown alliance, you know, because and we'll get it I guess we can get into the kind of rationalizations and exact positions that were held.
Donald Parkinson :I think Draper does a really good job of going into those. But you do see, this Boulanger guy, because the Third Republic is formed in the blood of the Paris Commune, but nonetheless it is a republic, it's a compromised republic, it's, as Engels says, the empire without the emperor, but nonetheless there is a strong threat of royalist reaction, a lot of royalists who do want to completely scrap away with republican institutions entirely. And so, you know, you have a situation where Marxists in France are obviously not, or just socialists in general, communists in France we're obviously not happy with the republic that they have, but none, and and so, and in this rising figure of boulanger is very much he's feeding on resentment and dissatisfaction with this republic. And so there's this temptation that we can kind of um ride the heels of this movement to discredit the Republic to our own advantage. And so this is exactly like the MAGA communist argument, right?
C. Derick Varn :No, I mean, it's identical. It's also one of the first cases of what Lenin would call Taoism, where you take right-wing cultural issues that may be popular amongst certain elements are people adjacent to the working class and try to incorporate them in, even though you don't really believe in them, to build a broader coalition. And what I find really fascinating is, while marx doesn't use that terminology, it's clear that they're worried about it, um, pretty early on. I mean, one of the things that we have to deal with when we're reading marx and engels is a lot of the terminology that we use after the second international isn't developed yet. Yeah, so like certain things are described but we don't call them that. Like we're not saying talist in 1880, but but marx was clearly upset about it.
C. Derick Varn :I mean, I've also got my readings where, like you know, mark seems to be a very and I think draper is good on this, but I've also just read the letters like very hesitant to be like, um, we should join in governments with bourgeois forces, like, like as under ministers, unless we're. You know, there's a very clear like you can make alliances but don't join a government, you know a capitalist government, which is maintained until 1910 in the second international and after that they give that up. Once ebert comes up and yeah, fording gets finance minister, we give up on all those prohibitions, but it's maintained for a long time and that might never makes a lot about this, but, um, I think it's important to see that. You know there is basically a after-Bolenge-us attitude about some of the Gideas, particularly Marxist son-in-law, paul Lafargue, right right.
C. Derick Varn :Who seemed to perpetually piss Marx off. Yes, Every time I see Paul Lafargue mentioned.
Donald Parkinson :Ingalls are.
C. Derick Varn :Marxists Ingalls are Marxists are yelling at him yeah.
Donald Parkinson :So basically you have the position of the possibilists in the French Socialist Party or in the French Socialist movement, because I think the party is still kind of coalescing in this period and that's actually one of the factors that Draper brings into this as well. Why Engels was so interested in this issue was because he kind of saw getting this issue right as really important for coalescing the class independent socialist movement in France but nonetheless was not apathetic around the question of democracy in the Republic. And so you have the possibilists, who are basically, you know, the reformists, socialists, who basically very much want to just do an unconditional defense of the Third Republic and unite with the bourgeois liberals and the petty bourgeois radicals, and essentially the popular front strategy is essentially what the kind of populist possibilist strategy is, and that's their reaction.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, it was actually interesting to me because I always think of the popular front as an invention of the French Communist Party in 1936, later on picked up by the Soviet Comintern. But I actually was learning from doing this that like, oh, the reformists have tried the popular front many times before 1936. Like it's not even a new strategy, it's just not incorporated into Marxism until 1936.
Donald Parkinson :Right, or at least what we understand, is Orthodox Marxism, because Orthodox Marxism is basically forged in opposition to this strategy. You have the kind of the obvious reformist position. Then you have what we were saying, which is like the Boulanger Marxist or the Boulanger communist or whatever you want to call them, who Paul Lefargue is very kind of close to. There's other people who take it further than him, but his kind of position seems to be that we can't criticize Boulanger because that will make us look like we're siding with the radicals, which, in this case, radicals are basically like Republican liberals, and we can't um and and and essentially, and what we need to do is we need to kind of um, you know, try to uh, take advantage of the um discontent that, um, the bullying gay movement represents a discontent with the republic in this case, which is, you know, so we need to kind of. This kind of position is like well, there's, you know it's obviously a movement that's led by this like laughable grifter guy and you know he is a very laughable guy. It seems like, from what I've read, that he really wasn't like someone who could, a leader capable of actually rising to the occasion necessary, but nonetheless it's kind of like, but nonetheless, what he represents is real discontent and he'll basically like discredit the third republic and allow us to sweep in and win his followers over and take power. So we shouldn't put any kind of energy into trying to defend Republican institutions. Instead, we should try to like capitalize on this dissatisfaction with Republican institutions and kind of try to ride that to power.
Donald Parkinson :So, yeah, it's like a kind of after Boulanger and it's also a kind of like, because it kind of at the same time like what Draper says, but at the same time, like whenever, like Engels would accuse Paul Lefargue of like supporting Boulanger, he would deny it. No, no, I don't support Boulanger. I don't support Boulanger. I'm just saying that his movement represents a kind of populist uprising that we need to reach out to, which is exactly like how the MAGA communist types talk about Trump. They'll always be like no we're not saying we support Trump.
Donald Parkinson :We're just saying we support the MAGA movement, that Trump is merely co-opting. And you know you go to McDonald's for the burger, not for the clown, and Trump is just a clown, you know. So you know, and if you ever actually like criticize MAGA or criticize Trump, you know you're always accused of just being a Democrat.
C. Derick Varn :You know it's the same kind of dynamic, basically Right. I mean, I don't know, the MAGA chemists aren't even the only group has done that to me.
Donald Parkinson :There's another. It's not. They're not the ones who invented it. I mean, right, a lot of people were doing that kind of stuff like years before they were right.
C. Derick Varn :I mean, it's actually not like I've gone back and found it pretty early on and and often it's just interesting. One of the tells for me, for one of these groups, is when you point out unpopularity or when you're tailing liberal and or progressive and modern parlance forces, they will call you out, but when you are tailing right-wing forces, they will make excuses for it and there's really nothing like the standards are radically different and one of the things that it is clear that we know from Engels' letters to Laura Lafargue, marx's daughter daughter, is that the chauvinism of greater france was like a deal breaker for ingles. It's like we should never embrace that.
Donald Parkinson :yeah, no, you know, like in all the letters that we have available about this from angles, he's basically like yeah, this. Like how could you possibly like align yourself with this kind of greater france chauvinism? Like this is just ridiculous.
C. Derick Varn :Like this goes against all of our principles as as internationalists, you know right, which, which is interesting to me, because one of the things that I've seen from these kinds of groups is the well, mark says that we have to consolidate as nations before we have internationals, and he does say that in the manifesto right, right, um. But what is interesting is like, even if that's true, marks never endorses you, encouraging national chauvinism within your own country. Like ever, I I can't find a single instance where he says that's a good thing to do right, right.
Donald Parkinson :I mean you can find examples of chauvinism from marx and angles, but it's, you know, it's, it's not like a lot of times usually in their private letters right, no, no, no, yeah, I mean actual prescriptive political programs. You'll never find like any kind of like tactical endorsement of like any of that no, I mean, you get, you get stuff about the historical peoples.
C. Derick Varn :You get, you get some. There are some weird racial ideas in marx and engels. Let's be honest, um eric van rie's written about it relatively well. But I would tell people that even though that's true, it is amazing how much they do not want any of that informing their movement at all.
C. Derick Varn :So, like, even though they like, might think I mean, there's even reasons for that in their racial ideas. But even though they might think, like the Slobs are a non-historic people are like, the Irish are uppity or whatever are. You know, things that they say about the Mexicans aren't great either, but you, they don't want national chauvinism to be a defining point of the movement. A defining point of the movement and, from what I read from Van Rie, even their racial ideas. They think that, like, racial intermixing will actually solve a lot of the the quote racial problems. So any encouragement of national chauvinism would actually cut against that. So even when they are chauvinists, they're at least not the people who are like well, only you know, only hang out with your own kind. In fact, they seem to think like well, the, if the english like intermarried, maybe they wouldn't be so brain dead.
Donald Parkinson :Um, I mean yeah, no, there's all. There's all kinds of weird crank stuff you can find throughout marks and angles, but you know, it's not the stuff that you know people use to define historical materialism absolutely, and it's almost never.
C. Derick Varn :It almost never comes up um in political documents anti-chauvinism of angles is very clear in these letters is very much you know, and saying you can't align yourself with this just kind of bleeding chauvinism.
Donald Parkinson :But with a lot of these like leftists today were like soft on maga. To them it's almost like, oh look, you being so bothered by all this chauvinism is with a lot of these, like leftists today were like soft on maga. To them it's almost like, oh well, you being so bothered by all this chauvinism is just your own petty, bourgeois pmc leftism. I can't handle the true feelings of the working class, you know like well, this is one of the interesting things.
C. Derick Varn :I don't know who the fuck these people think. The working classes, yeah, um one, you know, the idea that there are no, that there are no trans people, are no queer people, are no people of color amongst the working class class is weird. But then, you know, some of these groups will define working class either in a way that is marxistly honest but problematic, which is just saying you know, none of this is the class in itself. It's class for itself. Okay, fine, but then why the fuck would we want to like tail? You know chauvinistic attitudes in the class.
C. Derick Varn :Now, if we're trying to build a class for itself, that doesn't make any sense, right? Um, the other thing you'll get is like the productivist mentality. But then there's weird breaks, because, you know, the most famous example is people who only believe in industrial workers count, which would only be, by the way, about 12 to 15 percent of the us population but then they'll add, like the petite bourgeoisie, as proletariats, but service workers don't count yeah, there's all kinds of bizarre ways to try to redefine the working class to only include jobs that they find masculine enough.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, which is interesting because, to be fair to our weird talus from the 19th century, they didn't have to do that, like they didn't have to break the definition of working class to make this stuff work. Right, you know, if anything, some things are still unsettled, like I will say. For example, reading the debates in the second international, thanks to scholar clive burroughs, I've discovered that like people really couldn't figure out what the fuck service workers were even in the uh the 1920s century, but um, but the reasons for that are different than our reasons.
C. Derick Varn :It wasn't cultural reasons, it was because they didn't have work half the year and we were trying to figure out if only the formal sector of the working class counted, only those who had formal employment. But then that's a problem if you know anything about the history of capitalism, because there is no formal employment till the end of the 19th century. Everything's informal. So it's like it's very hard to come up with hard definitions that we like today. I mean one of the things that trotskyists will sometimes do, for example that just so you know that I do pick on trots is try to come up with the distinction between class and caste.
C. Derick Varn :That doesn't exist in marx and if you read Lenin, it's not clearly there either, because Lenin says class is also legally defined, not just economically defined. So like this idea that there's like, well, there's caste, which is what is legally defined or socially defined, and there's class, which is only economic, that's not in Marx and Engels and it's not in Lenin either. That's not in Marx and Engels and it's not in Lenin either. That's a later development, Right, right, and this matters for trying to figure out who's a bonapartist, because if you don't know who the working class are, you also don't know who the lumpen and the petite bourgeoisie are.
C. Derick Varn :You know the bourgeois may be obvious, although in our case I would say, even that's not obvious, which is why the PMC thesis, I think, has so much purchase. You and I actually have come to an agreement that we both know what people mean when they say PMC. Right, we both think there is a thing they are describing that is real. That is real. What you and I, I think, agree on is like but it's not a coherent class, and every time you try to make it a coherent class, you end up with weird definitions that don't really make a lot of sense. They have nothing to do with how the term is broadly used.
Donald Parkinson :I think it speaks to just a deeper need for more theory on bureaucracy and Marxism, because I think a lot of PMC is basically the kind of deeper bureaucracy. But yeah, no, I think with these definitions of classes, I mean, you know, I think it's easy to get far too in the weeds about it, oh yeah.
C. Derick Varn :I don't think it's helpful to get you and I even though I think value theory is important you and I are both on the table of saying if the only thing you care about in Marxism is figuring out the precise form of the value theory, well then Marxism is not going to be interesting to 99.99.9% of the population, including right with marks, like the use of class analysis, is not so much to define where every single individual lies within any given class.
Donald Parkinson :But he's looking at individuals motion in society in aggregates.
Donald Parkinson :You know he's looking at people as acting as aggregates, and he's always very attentive to the fact that these classes aren't always acting as unified classes. Often it's fractions of classes acting in league with fractions of other classes, for example. And so I think, when looking at these definitions of class, I think you have to always be going between the abstract kind of definitions, structural definitions, but then returning, because he's looking at all these classes in motion and in interaction with each other and he's looking at how all these precise kind of class strata and class alliances create what's essentially a kind of novel political phenomenon.
C. Derick Varn :Well, yeah, and I actually think it's it becomes really important one of the. If you're the, read capital volume one to three, you would think there's like three classes Peasants, the bourgeois I think Petit Bourgeois I mentioned, but it's not really that worked out and the working class, and that's it. Read the political writings, you get something like, um, I think john elster, who's not the, I don't love his politics, but he did actually go through and count in all the marxist texts what kind of class formations you got. And if you include class formations and social categories, which are which is actually a a thing that emerges later to make sense of categories that Marxists use that don't have anything to do with political economy, what you get is like 16 classes mentioned or something, and I think you also get clearer politics and the implications of politics in the Brumaire than figuring anything out from. I don't think capital has that many political implications, to be frank.
Donald Parkinson :Capital literally ends at the very. It literally ends in the middle of trying to define class Right and that's where the book breaks off. In the manuscript, engels is like, yeah, I can't really edit the manuscript anymore.
C. Derick Varn :Right, we don't have. Engels gives up, marx doesn't come back to it, it breaks off right there. So we don't have a definition of class. I think there are reasons for that, actually, that are like, dialectically, marx never really figures out the exact line between the productive and the nonproductive eventually, exact line between the productive and the non-productive, eventually. And even his examples given, uh, the one I like to refer to, I think, is in capital volume to you, um, but he mentions teachers and he talks about how they're productive when they work for a private uh school, but when they work for the state they're unproductive. Because the only thing that's mentioned that productivity is dealing with is like whether or not it generates, right at surplus value, surplus value or it takes from surplus value. It doesn't have any social variance whatsoever and it's not about physically making commodities like that's the other thing no, no, it's very simple.
Donald Parkinson :Like um, if you hire a house cleaner, you personally you're. It's not productive labor, it's just an expense. But if you were to hire, if you were to start a company hiring out house cleaners and making a profit off of renting them out to other homes, then you would be. They would be productive laborers because they're producing surplus value and that's being realized as profit.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah.
Donald Parkinson :So that was always a fake debate. For me, I think it was always just clear that the people who are trying to argue that baristas aren't proles or whatever, because they're not productive or whatever, it's just bad faith.
C. Derick Varn :It's bad faith, although I think ironically it's not a new problem because of the debates around productivity and malism, and I think McNair is actually somewhat infamous for like going after the late Maoists for saying you guys just invent class categories when you have a social problem, right, like, so you come up with new class categories to make that work. But really you should just talk about the social problem. That's McNair and his critique of, but it brings it up in critique of miles and he also brings it up in his critique of katherine liu.
Donald Parkinson :Yeah, um it's like you think every bad political idea in the left is like due to the pmc, like influencing the left too much, but like perhaps there are just bad ideas in the left, who that should be like, critiqued on their own merits and not as, like you know, an infecting class ideology right?
C. Derick Varn :um, so I guess this brings us today, today. Why we wanted to talk about it back to where we started is like there are a bunch of Marxists who seem to think either from some kind of anti-systemic want, just for any action that seems to go against the status quo, or from some kind of left bonapartist want, or an acceleration. There's multiple logics that get you here, right? I think the weirder one that I'm not going to say who actually holds it, because I'll probably deny that they hold it anyway but is the argument that Marx and Engels thought that Bonapartism and imperialism was the same thing. I agree, by the way, about that Then maybe imperialism is good because it could spread bourgeois culture throughout the world, and then, once we take over bourgeois culture, we can flip the switch and turn the entire world communist. I think that's what they mean. So therefore, also supporting bonapartist figures in a liberal country would be good because it would be pro-imperial.
C. Derick Varn :Um, that's the weirdest form of this argument. I think I know who you're kind of. Um, yeah, you know exactly who I'm referencing. I'm just uh, I don't know that they actually believe that, but they have implied that argument so Well, I think okay.
Donald Parkinson :So there's a kind of I think let's go back to, you know, because you have people in the left since 2016 who have kind of been making arguments similar to the one Lafargue makes in regards to you have, um, you know, chris catrone infamously writes the why not trump article, where he kind of makes a similar argument that trump is like shaking up the status quo of bourgeois politics, and so it kind of represents you, right the three times even yeah, he's rewritten the essay multiple times but yeah, the first opening silo the argument you know as far as best.
Donald Parkinson :Yeah, correct me if I'm wrong, but the argument basically kind of comes down to like a similar kind of lafargian argument that like he's shaking up this corrupt um you know, republic and kind of um creating an opening for um you know, real socialists to kind of step in and build something alternative by disrupting the republic and disrupting this fake bourgeois liberal system that we live under.
C. Derick Varn :And then you remember the anti-politics people like Todd oh yeah, I still remember Todd Tezza being the most famous and became a notorious Trump apologist in 2020 and has seemingly gone away. He had a book that was supposed to come out from Verso that has also never come out.
Donald Parkinson :I think I came across him and I thought I saw him kind of pushing MAGA talking points. I do remember saw him kind of like pushing like.
C. Derick Varn :MAGA talking points, but um, yeah, I have I do remember there was kind of that crowd.
Donald Parkinson :you know you had Grant from Swampside chats and you know they ultimately left Swampside chats, I think, and you had Dr Tad and their whole thing about like, uh, trump represents this kind of like anti-political impulse. That, um, like anti-political impulse that is, you know, like I remember you know.
C. Derick Varn :And Ted had argued that about Islamicism priorly in the actually as well, which is interesting. Like he had argued that the Arab Spring was an anti-political force and that the Islamicist part of the Arab Spring was proof that it was anti-political, which is a weird reading. So it wasn't even the first time he'd done that.
Donald Parkinson :Go ahead did uh your um screen. Can you see me break up?
C. Derick Varn :yeah, I can see you. Yeah, um, so, yeah, I mean. So you had the spirit of the anti-political people, um, and, like I said, some of them were looking for other things that represented anti-political impulses islamicism, occupy, whatever but increasingly got the, the counter-systemic complacently seemed, towards the right. There's the, there's the third iteration of the post left.
Donald Parkinson :They also believe something similar to that right, right, yeah, you had the post-left um kind of the bernie fallout. You had a lot of people who, um, you got off the bernie train and got on the trump train because you know, they felt like um, they just got completely alienated with the left. They felt like, um, the left had completely folded out to the liberals. And you know, you're basically uh, the only way to oppose liberalism was now to basically join maga and join the culture war. You know you're basically uh, the only way to oppose liberalism was now to basically join maga and join the culture war of of maga. Basically, you know that was um and that that kind of feeds into the um, the peter teal back fake counterculture of dime square that they tried to kind of um astroturf into existence. And you know, you know, so you had that. And then most, you know, I think the most developed and like articulated, explicit form of it was basically like the MAGA communists.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, I think they're the people that we're really directly aiming at. The other people that are indirectly, or have plausible deniability or maybe they change depending on the situation. I mean, like, one of the things about the right not trump is is, you know, 70? Like? I actually found the first why not trump article to be kind of reasonable, but they got progressively less so. Uh, and there's what three of? I mean, if you don't include the why not greenland article, there's three of them. If you include the why not greenland article, there's four right, right.
Donald Parkinson :Yeah, I think what's interesting is there still is the plausible deniability the maga communists try to have, like they always try to say, like we never actually supported trump, like we never actually supported Trump, like we never actually supported Trump, it's just about the MAGA base, whereas, like you know, and then the Greenland article and the Katron article for Compact, like Katron still tries to do plausible deniability on that article and say I'm not really advocating for it, I'm just saying why not?
C. Derick Varn :Right, right.
C. Derick Varn :I'm just saying why not Right, right, I mean. Well, that's the thing. Like I actually found that article infuriating, not just because of what it argued, I actually found it infuriating because the first half and the second half directly contradict each other and they're not even presented as nuances. It's like they're presented as direct assertions and then direct assertions, which I get caveat, the first assertions to the point that they almost negate them, but not quite, and it's just like okay, what do you mean? And I know that Catron said on both Theory Underground and on Catron's own or Sublation Media or whatever he does over there. I listened to these clips. I didn't listen to the whole speech so I can't contextualize them, but it was part of the editing of the piece, took away some of the nuance and the humor and I'm like okay, fair, but it still seems like you're trying to have your cake and eat it too.
C. Derick Varn :We see this with the MAGA communists too.
Donald Parkinson :I mean, I don't really know what they entirely want, except to use slurs and have a Fordist social compact or something like well these people are playing with fire because, you know, associating yourself with Trump, it's like you want to associate with him to get on the populist bandwagon and and and get to get the good stuff, but at the same time, associating yourself with him, you're going to be associated with all the terrible things that he's going to do but you admit, are terrible things in many cases Like obviously the MAGA.
Donald Parkinson :Communists are all talking about how terrible it is that Trump, what he wants to do to Gaza obviously because they have to be pro-Palestine but at the same time they're talking about how we need to support RFK Jrbert and you know how, um, you know trump is. You know we need to. You know, uh, take control of maga for our own purposes, you know, take it away from elon musk. And there's this like organic, wholesome populist movement there that we can just kind of co-opt and that you know it's, it's, that's not just a kind of grift of these oligarchs like Trump and Elon Musk, but there is this kind of authentic working class movement there.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, basically they seem to think that, like the Bannon end of the payload, conservative end of the Trump world has some kind of authentic, world has some kind of authentic. I wouldn't even necessarily say that that's entirely untrue. As a person who was very attracted to that sort of politics in my early 20s as a kind of conservative anti-imperialist and a blue collar person, I definitely see that. But the thing was, is I realized that I was there's no denying, there is a working class. Maga contingent right some people do, there is no denying but, but yeah, it's it's.
C. Derick Varn :It would be bullshit. I think it's harder to deny now. People tried to in the first Trump administration. I think it's very hard to deny that now, and I think it's even hard to deny that in some level it's even multiracial in a way that really disturbs liberals.
Donald Parkinson :Right, right, I think it still is like a racist movement. I think it still is like a racist movement, but they made it in a way where, like, if you're Brown, if you're black, if you know, even if you're a Muslim, even like, you can have a place within the movement. You just have to like stay within that place and not get too uppity or whatever. Basically Right, it's like you can be black, you just have to like hate BLM and like never actually side with black people when they like stand up for their rights.
C. Derick Varn :You know yeah, and I find I mean I find this very um, let's say uh, weird, I mean, but I also do get this response to the liberal co-opting of radical talking points. And so I do think if we look back to the Bolingay situation we actually see something similar where there were liberal co-opting of possible-ist and even Gadea-ist talking points at that time period which made the Blanquist and the Gadeas talking points at that time period, which made the Blanqueist and the Gadea Bollinguea splitters like Lefargue more popular. In fact, one of the things that Draper critiques Gadea on is not going harder on the opposition Because they go harder on the opposition. Instead they tried harder on the opposition. Instead they tried to declare neutrality to bollingay. It seemed like lafargue flirting with it without fully going there was within the possibility of party doctrine and draper's like it doesn't seem like ingles, like that. We don't know what marx would have thought because he was dead by this point.
C. Derick Varn :Um, but I think it's interesting to look at some other things.
C. Derick Varn :You and I have both studied a whole lot of the second international and I didn't really realize how much that kind of thinking was popular in the second international because we tend to think of the socialist right in the second international, as kotsky and bernstein, but it wasn't um, they're the center, um, until lenin really moves the center.
C. Derick Varn :But the, the socialist right, was like ebert and then people like windermere and stuff arguing that like german imperialism would be good for socialism, like that was a real argument at in the second international. It wasn't the dominant position, but it was a serious position on the right wing of the, of the SPA day and in the second international, which led to some of the stuff that led up to the situation in world war one, and so I do think we can see this coming back over and over again and so like because you know, we don't just have to jump from bologna to 2013, we can see this there. I think we see it with also, you know, certain kinds of supporting of, like baphism or whatever, although I will say that it is slightly different from a marxist perspective to encourage nationalism in an imperialized country than it is to encourage nationalism in a core country and that distinction nationalism should always be seen as like a tactical thing and you should always like, remain like critical of nationalism, even in the third world world.
Donald Parkinson :So I think I think that's one thing I will add. But, um, no, you're absolutely right, I think one thing I will. Another kind of thing I will point to is the sorrellians and the kind of weird national syndicalists that arise in the second international. A lot of that crowd were very much in line with bernstein's critiques of orthodox marxism. Actually, they just kind of drew different political conclusions from those critiques but, um, they actually did converge with the kind of revisionist rejection of Orthodox Marxism in a lot of ways.
C. Derick Varn :Well, yes, Sorrell was a revisionist in the Bernsteinian sense actually, but instead of being a bland cosmopolitan, he decided to be a mythic anti-Site right. Um, uh, endorse linen and also, I mean he, we, we do sorel's. One of his last things is to kind of endorse mussolini. Um, yeah, so it's not. People like, oh, sorel never went there. I'm like, no, he did. He that he died shortly thereafter, but he went there. We also saw this in a lot of the former Espe de Italian socialists, like Robert Michel's, becoming Mussolini supporters. The left flank of the fascist was and I think ZF Sternhall makes this pretty clear and also talks about this later on in an Israeli context but he definitely spells it out in a European context that the left flank of fascism was pretty much the same people who were the right flank of social democracy. Like there's a strong overlap.
Donald Parkinson :Right, but it's interesting though, because some of them are kind of on the left wing of the party. Well, yeah, there's also for example, he's like a very much kind of like crypto-syndicalist, almost crypto-anarchist, like far left of the party, but embraces national chauvinism. He kind of sees national chauvinism as this way to mobilize people and break apart the kind of you know to break apart, the kind of you know To break apart the kind of Parliamentary stupor of Bourgeois society is kind of the way of thinking About it.
C. Derick Varn :I find this actually an important Point because One thing that you see weirdly and I don't want to say that the center is always Right, but like the left, communists produce, particularly their bordigas branch, but also some other kinds like left oppositionist socialism or barbarism a lot of people who join up with the right flank of social democracy. Eventually. Mussolini's a prime example, because he's the left flank of the maximalist faction of the Socialist Party, which is the left-wing faction. He's to the left of them, he's almost a syndicalist. Sometimes he even sounds like he agrees with Bortiga and the early communist um, but he something happens in world war one and he goes. He basically initially adopts an accelerationist position that we need to go into the war to destroy the italian state, and then in the middle of the war flips and decides no, the war is good and we need this kind of left imperialism, and then he just drops the left part, like yeah so there is a sort of like ultra, left, right, deviationist, weird hybrid mesh that happens um.
C. Derick Varn :Uh, the french negationist all came out of like situationist bordigas etc yeah, yeah, the first weird holocaust deniers yeah, it's funny, but it wasn't like at all related to anti-Zionism, really like why they became Holocaust deniers? No it was anti-popular frontism.
Donald Parkinson :Yeah.
C. Derick Varn :It was. I'm so mad at the popular front that the one thing that made it look justifiable, which is the, is the show and the Holocaust. We must deny, because we can't justify that there would ever have been any reason to take it seriously.
Donald Parkinson :That's yeah, that whole saga is absolutely fascinating, not going to lie to me. So she was kind of disturbing. But I mean, you know, and I don't want to, like you know, fall into the trap of kind of like Alexander B Ross thought where, like there's always this thread of the red brown Alliance. Kind of like Alexander B Ross thought where, like there's always this thread of the Red-Brown Alliance and we need to like constantly be like policing the left and like canceling people who we might, you know, see as like potentially like suspect, to this like type of thought you know and working with the feds.
Donald Parkinson :Yeah, that's, you know that's not the argument we're trying to make here.
Donald Parkinson :I think the argument that I think what Ang angles ends up kind of saying as an alternative to both lafargue and people even to his right and the populist is essentially he starts from the the basic position of you know, we're opposed to both parties, we're we're for class independence and that is gizde's um position as well.
Donald Parkinson :But he kind of differentiates from gizde's position because Guesde's position is kind of like this is just infighting between two camps of capitalists that we have no real truck with and this is not our concern. Essentially, I think Dreher kind of makes a point that this kind of lets Guesde tolerate the people who do want to support Boulanger within his camp, also maintaining unity with the people who obviously don't want to take that position. So kind of taking this position, this is just bourgeois infighting. This isn't our concern. In the end, regardless of who rules rules, the working class will be exploited and engel says no, no, you know this. It might sound similar to the correct kind of class independent position, but it assumes like apathy towards questions of the form of state and the form of republic and democracy. Essentially it's like we are not apathetic to the kind of democratic rights that the working class has and we do need to fight for our democratic rights, but we need to do so from an independent perspective.
Donald Parkinson :Right means I mean, it's not for alliances with the radicals but, um, you know, running our, our own opposition party. And I think, think Lafargue answers Angles by saying, oh, we did try this but it didn't work. And I think the funny is, like a tree for ads, like, yeah, the example that Lafargue gives is they like did this kind of like jokey, like campaign where they like nominated Boulanger's horse for president or something like that, like it's like no, no, that wasn't the serious, like attempt to actually do independent class politics? That was, you know, that's not what you know. And so, um, you know, and I think you know, obviously it's easier said than done to actually do what angles advocating. But I think angles does kind of make the point that like listen, you guys didn't actually try to do a truly independent position of proletarian struggle for democracy. You're simply throwing up your hands and saying that the struggle is irrelevant to you. Right, and fight against these attacks on democratic institutions to the extent they exist, without forming a, without sacrificing your independent position.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, I mean, one of the things I'm a big advocate for, it's actually one of the things that we might debate between ourselves is how extensively we should be separated from the Democrats. Debate between ourselves is how extensively we should be separated from the democrats, whereas I tend to have a very hard line and you have a hard line for the dsa.
C. Derick Varn :Um, yeah, relative to dsa right, yeah, uh, but I would say, where we both agree is independent socialist politics. Both that, but it's also not running an impossible third party campaign for an executive office first right you and I both agree because we're just like.
C. Derick Varn :Like you know, I don't. I don't have a problem with jill stein. If people want to vote for jill stein because expresses their conscience, go ahead, um, but there's no statistical way that that jill stein wins the presidency. There's no statistical way that the psl wins the presidency and there doesn't seem to be that much effect of these third party things on, say, um, I don't know shifting the Democratic Party, making a faction within the Democratic Party feel like they can spread the Democratic Party, like, if anything. There's this weird paradox today where I think something like 70% of the population believes we need third party representation and more. You, you know, you know better representation in politics, but also fewer and fewer people are willing to vote for it because all the third parties are jokes.
Donald Parkinson :Right, right, I would just add. I guess you know one thing you could kind of raise the angles of being like well, angles like, obviously, in a parliamentary context in 19th century France. You know, you know this is a viable strategy of, you know, forming an independent opposition and fighting for democracy without, you know, aligning with either you know camp or whatever. But you know, in the US, you know that's just not possible because we have a two-party system and so in the end we have, you know, it's just, it just doesn't work, the strategy just doesn't work in the US. So you have to figure this out. So well, yes, you just pointed out kind of why there is a truth to that, but you know, you still have to work to build something independent. Personally, I voted for PSL, which is you. I mean, I'm not the biggest fan of that organization. I can have some pretty harsh criticisms of psl, but I yeah, me and you it's either psl or jill stein.
C. Derick Varn :I think I went with um psl because I went with psl because no one could say I wouldn't vote for a woman of color. Um, as to Jill Stein, and also like I think, even though I don't love the PSL, I was like I think their positions are maybe sort of closer to mine, at least on Palestine. Although I didn't hate the, the green party this time either, I thought the, the, the vice presidential candidate, was actually somewhat impressive. But I also know math and I was like, okay, even if the Green Party won every single Muslim vote in the United States, they would only be halfway through their 5% threshold.
Donald Parkinson :And I'm just like so I don't really know what they're actually advocating for here, and I and I do know what the csl is advocating for so yeah, the challenges of building a third party in the us are just so massive and I mean, it's something I've obsessed over for years of my life. I've, you know, I've written about party building. I've, you know, I'm part of a pro party building caucus and dsa and I try to contribute to that as much as I can. You know so. But lately, man, I'm just, it is kind of, you know, I, I have to admit I am a bit demoralized lately, I mean possibly in a time where, um, that demoralization is probably more dangerous than ever. But like it's just the odds, yeah, I'm so insurmountable, but if you think about it, this is the kind of time period where you know a new party might become viable, you know so I mean yeah, I think the I mean I think we can just honestly say no one gives a shit about the Constitution anymore, and they're not even pretending to Right.
C. Derick Varn :So in some ways it's like well, if we're at that point, maybe it is easier, but I don't know, because it's also easier to suppress us.
Donald Parkinson :And one of the things that I talk about is like getting rid of the bourgeois rights we do have actually opens us up as targets relatively easily yes, yes and that is the biggest concern is, yeah, losing freedom of speech, losing, um, you know, right to a fair trial, things like that, you know yeah, and this expansion of emergency powers, which I will say is not unique to Trump.
C. Derick Varn :One of the things that worries me is and something that the broad left whatever the fuck that is has to like reconcile with is not holding the Obama administration accountable for not rolling back the war on terror accords, which really did do a damage to bourgeois proceduralism in a major way that unfortunately, since only libertarians seem to care about, fell out of the conversation on the left as soon as obama came to office, and then it was associated with obnoxious libertarians like you know, and people like alex jones, who may or may not be acting in good faith anyway. So we never held the. There was no real calling Obama out. Really, there were a few people I don't want to say nobody did but for not undoing the War on Terror Accords and and the patriot act and all that, and and now today, what we see is like emergency powers can be utilized to do pretty much whatever. Um, and I do think for me this means we are like.
C. Derick Varn :The imperial presidency is a thing that goes back to at least Roosevelt, teddy Roosevelt, but definitely accelerates after FDR. It gets institutionalized under Eisenhower and we've seen it grow until Nixon. There's a pushback under Nixon that's successful the Impoundment Acts, the Church Commissions, all those things in addition to impeaching Nixon. Then it gets amped up again under Reaganagan, so it doesn't stay down very long, um, and you see, it get pushed back against in the clinton administration, by the right actually, and then once bush comes to power, pretty much there's no pushback from any major force in american life.
C. Derick Varn :I mean, like I said, the libertarians kind of care, until they all gave up and became nationalists, except for like five of them yeah, um, the libertarians have all decided that crypto scams are more important than civil liberties right, uh, but I mean it is interesting because one of the things you can look at in this coalition and for people who think, for some people like oh Varn's coming down on Trump, he must have forgiven the Democrats no, the economists, I think said that Biden was Trumpism with a human face, and I think that's actually true, trumpism with a human face, and I think that's actually true.
C. Derick Varn :And what makes the current Trump so difficult to deal with is not only does that mean that it's hard to argue that the Democratic opposition was all that serious, but it also means that Trump can now pivot to the right of himself, because he can pretend he's pivoting to the right of Biden, and we are seeing that over and over. We're seeing him reverse policies that he actually started, that the biden administration rationalized and humanized, and now we're seeing, you know, being totally jettisoned by trump without dealing with the they came from um uh, so it's.
C. Derick Varn :It's an interesting situation, um, and I will admit that I was wrong and I thought that this would be a fairly normal still very bad and something you should oppose, but relatively normal right-wing presidency. Because of the bourgeois limitations on trump's power and with the tech oligarchs switching sides, that doesn't seem to be the case when I started really worrying about trump was when peter teal kind of started getting involved in this.
Donald Parkinson :And when elon started getting involved in this, it was really, like you know, at a certain point, like elon running for president, like what's going on here, like Elon really seems to like be the center of the Trump campaign. And you know I had a good friend, you know we were talking one day and he was just like man, I just don't think Trump can win with this Elon guy. You know, like is this just like who's going to vote for this? Like who likes Elon this much? Like all Trump does is like talk about Elon and show off Elon at his rallies and push the idea.
C. Derick Varn :You know like, everyone's going to hate Elon's cringe.
Donald Parkinson :You know, no one's going to vote for this and it's like I wouldn't be so sure. I wouldn't be so sure, and if he does win, it's going to be bad, Like it's going to be bad I always, you know, I didn't you know vote against.
C. Derick Varn :I didn't vote for Kamala, but I was worried about Trump winning. To be honest, yeah, well, it puts people like you and I in a real hard situation, because I think there's no way I can endorse the failure of the Democrats Exactly, the democrats, exactly. I want to be very clear that, but I can't endorse that. I also don't really have a viable third option, but I refuse to be like okay, well, somehow we're gonna pivot this in some 40 dimensional chess way to be good for us, because that that's what I hear is like oh, this creates opportunities for us, and I'm like anything can create opportunities for us. The answer is what are we going to do with them and what's?
C. Derick Varn :the likelihood of doing anything with them, and I'm not seeing a lot of the left response to Trump seems to be demoralization. And also, what do we do now that we can't rely on 50,000 people for a meaningless protest? Because the other thing that it's made clear is a lot of the habitats of the left from the 60s to about five years ago. They're exhausted, they don't really work and I mean, in that sense we are in a similar thing to like the late 19th and in that sense we are in a similar thing to like the late 19th century in that, you know, both the liberals and what we would now call the left were in embryonic form in the beginning of that, but they went through like two empires and three republics in France and like multiple situations in England, different relationships to whether or not they were going to be, how they were going to deal with the Liberal Party the Labour Party wasn't even completely in existence yet and also the United States at that time.
C. Derick Varn :You know, even though Ingalls was apt in pointing out that the land situation and the currency speculation situation meant that we really didn't have a left. He also thought we were still probably to the left of anything in Europe, which I think actually in that time period he was probably correct about. So it is. We're now in a situation where no one would argue that we're to the left of Europe. Europe was also increasingly less relevant. The European left is not in any better shape than the American left. In fact, it seems like it might be in worse shape, which is kind of hard to imagine.
C. Derick Varn :It's like how did you guys fuck up so bad that you went from we talk about America not having a real left where there is a left in Europe, to being like Europe might be in a worse situation than us, even places with relatively strong lefts. I've been following France, unbowed, and they were like even a few months ago the front popular was really dominant and their popularity has plummeted since macron hasn't gone away and it's really looking like barring another. A miracle that like we might be looking at le pen, um, the next formal election, and I have no idea what that means for the eu. Um, we're also seeing the, the, the christian democratic union in germany. It looks like they're going to come back to power.
C. Derick Varn :I have no idea what that means for the EU. We're also seeing the Christian Democratic Union in Germany. It looks like they're going to come back to power and they're going to shut out the AFD, which is now a much bigger player, but they're also going to co-opt the AFD's policies. So not a big difference there either. If you know, it'd be like if had a, a MAGA movement separate from the Republican movement. The Republican movement's like we must suppress the MAGA movement, but also we should adopt half their policies anyway. It would be very pretty much where we are in Europe, and so I don't want to have people to be hopeless. But I also think I think Ingalls is right that trying to like play off a figure like this is dumb, because you have to take responsibility for what they do, and in the case of General Bollingay it ended up no one had to deal with it because he blew his own head off.
Donald Parkinson :Yes, exactly, he committed suicide. Well, they tried to get him to do a clue, but he decides not to do it, basically Right, and then I think he ends up just kind of falling into irrelevancy and suiciding pretty quickly after that.
C. Derick Varn :Right, you know, which ends up like settling the situation, but the idea keeps on copying back up and I'm just like well, you know, I think we have to admit how hard it is what we're demanding, because I'm with you. We have to admit how hard it is what we're demanding, because I'm with you. I think a third party United States would actually require a significant rethinking of constitutional level election laws and that's going to be hard to do. That. You know, we do have a history of it in the United States Ross Perot is the most recent which was a real threat. But also, like there's 1919 when both the socialist party and the bull moose party were compared work, we're like breaking five percent of the vote, like, in fact, I think the bull moose party broke like 20 of the vote yeah we're huge so, yeah, I think the collapse of the wigs is really the biggest thing to be looking at, I think.
Donald Parkinson :I think right now, if there is a silver lining, if there is an opportunity, it's basically that the Democratic Party collapses and some kind of left-wing party can you know kind of start consolidating out of that.
C. Derick Varn :Well, here's a question Do we see the possibility of a center liberal, bonapartist figure emerging? Because one of the things that we didn't like if you were to look at the post george w bush republican party, we thought they were pretty much dead in the water and in civil war. And one of the things I'll say about the right is if trump is not there, the right is that civil war in itself. Trump is a figure who's all, who's like. Demagogic personhood is literally stopping like bannon and elon musk from like taking each other out I know you know like um, I can't imagine.
C. Derick Varn :the thing is, ob Obama was kind of the loser lame duck version of that. And I say loser lame duck not because Obama was actually a lame duck, it's because he lame ducked himself. He did not use his popularity for whatever reason.
Donald Parkinson :He could have been the savior of American liberalism. That was kind of how he was been the savior of american liberalism, you know. That was kind of that was. You know that this was, this was our. You know, the, the american liberal dream was going to be saved and obama was going to be its champion. He was going to resolve the contradictions and re-establish, um, you know, american greatness.
C. Derick Varn :You know I mean it's funny because we talk about the current realignment, but I try to like point people to the fact fact that we've kind of been in electoral chaos since the 70s and what really distorts that is the strength of the Reagan response, which was a bigger realignment than even Trump. If we're quite honest, reagan only had like a couple of percentage points more in his ruin. But, like when you win the electoral college vote and you control like what I think in the second term he controls, like 49 out of 50 states as far as like where they go in the electoral college, like we can't even imagine that now I can't. I there's literally nobody in American life that I think could do that.
C. Derick Varn :But Reagan is that Reagan, while he did a lot of damage to norms and whatnot, he didn't really do that much damage to, uh, the democratic constitution and the norms. But the small D there and the norms that emerged under him were mostly actually to preserve it. In some ways, what we learned from Trump is that they were just norms, like there was no enforcement of any of this. It was like norms and supreme court decisions, many of which weren't even that left wing, like what people are going about chevron deference and I'm showing that difference isn't even a left-wing ruling, um, but it does seem worrying to me that liberals literally don't seem to be able to imagine a political response that is not just relying more and more on the administrative state right, exactly that's.
Donald Parkinson :That's. The thing is, they've relied so much on constitutional legalism as their means of like protecting whatever democratic freedoms we do have from trump that, um, you know they've essentially left themselves powerless to actually do anything, when you know Trump actually realizes wait a second, like if I get enough tech oligarchs on my side and, you know, actually go for some kind of essentially a coup after getting elected. It's interesting how it's kind of like he gets elected into power but at the same time, like there is kind of like this Elon coup happening where he's taking over the, you know, the payment processing system of the entire federal government, but at the same, time it's like you can't do that.
Donald Parkinson :That's not constitutional, but it's like. Well, actually like, is there anything in the Constitution that says you can't do this?
C. Derick Varn :Like well, the thing is there was. They've kind of fucked it up. One of the things is, even cabinet positions were originally supposed to be appointed by Congress, but Congress abrogated that in the early 20th century, right, so when you actually look at this, liberals have been throwing their stuff behind the administrative state, mostly honestly, not even because they believed in the administrative state, but because they didn't want to take the electoral hit like um and this really. I think this really shows up when we get to the warren court, like even before trump, like we have basically a breakdown of norms in the late 60s and how do we get out of it? We're like supreme court fix it. And then we're like no one really puts together on the left that the right could just, you know, do that. And honestly, the only reason it didn't happen sooner is you kept on having right wing justice, have pains of conscience and like moving away from the right wing, like, like many of the quote, liberal justices were appointed by Reagan or Nixon. Liberal justices were appointed by reagan or nixon, so it's like. It's like well, but by the grace of constitutionalism, go you, I guess. But uh, that's over now it's completely over.
C. Derick Varn :I mean, we're basically relying and trump knows this on amy coney, barrett and gorsuch to make the decisions, because they're not particularly ironically, trump's own appointees are not his most loyalist faction, but we have no idea what they're going to do. Like I, I really I can't predict them. I really have a hard time predicting Gorsuch and Amy Tony Barrett. I have a. I have a little bit easier time of predicting your John Roberts, but even there it's not perfect. Retirement predicting john roberts, but even there it's not perfect. And then I'm like and by the time it gets to that point, most of this is going to be long done, and one thing that does point out is that the democrats belief in proceduralism has meant that they didn't do stuff that they could have probably done.
Donald Parkinson :Yeah, um, honestly, I don't understand why they didn't just put trump in jail and it's like well, like why take the swing in the courts?
C. Derick Varn :and then like not fast track it ever right, right that was what I was amazed by.
C. Derick Varn :I'm like like you're gonna. Like they've waited so long to do anything on these cases that basically the timer ran out on them. Yeah, it was the same thing that you saw with the obama administration's talk about the aca. Is they just kind of assumed that they were going to be in power forever? Right, it's just crazy to me, um. I mean and you know I'm not like, if you want to talk about delusional politicians um biden, thinking that he could have won this if they hadn't have, like, forced him out, is one of the most delusional things I like have ever even contemplated in history.
Donald Parkinson :There's one. There's one us presidential candidate who has beaten Donald Trump in an election. That was Joe Biden, you know so yeah, Weird extraordinary circumstances and yeah, that's the thing is that the yeah I mean, don't get me started on that Like just how disgusting that whole coverup was and how people defended him for so long when it was just so blatant.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, I mean, it was, it was something else. And I just remember, I remember last year watching that stupid uh um debate and going you set up the debate, you set up the rules and you can't even not sundown on camera, despite all that yeah, like his wife.
Donald Parkinson :oh my god, joe, you did so good, you answered every question.
C. Derick Varn :it's like just answering the questions was an accomplishment for him and and they knew that and they said it out loud they still thought everything was okay, yeah, but also you know the liberal talking points, like because I remember when Trump won I saw the normal liberal talking points, like they'd rather vote for no democracy than a black woman. I'm like that's just not gonna fly. Because also laurie uh well, excuse me, see, I screwed up and said laurie lightfoot because that's what I'm thinking about. But uh, harris is a lawyer lightfoot figure like a police candidate that was never super popular in even her home state. I like she barely won ag, even in a thoroughly blue region.
C. Derick Varn :Um, she's also prone to screw-ups and it seemed very clear that the democratic establishment knew that if they were going to get rid of biden, they didn't want to have um a contested legacy by getting rid of the, of the v, but also they knew that she wouldn't be able to stand up in a primary like I think they knew that. And so you know it's hard for me to to think like if you guys took trump I mean, you know this is where I want to come off on my big if you guys were so afraid of trump, then what you did as a ruling class doesn't really make a lot of sense. Like you didn't seem to take it all.
Donald Parkinson :Right, but what they did as a ruling class Was really kind of a response to Bernie, if you think about it.
Donald Parkinson :Like the Biden-Harris ticket Was the ruling class's answer To the?
Donald Parkinson :I guess you know the kind of. I guess you know, because of the Bonapartism analogy, you know you can kind of say, well, where's the working class revolt in this instance, like, where's that place? Well, you can say, you know, in a weak kind of you know um, compromised form, it existed in the bernie campaign in 2020 and in the um george floyd rebellion in 2020 you can say that it was kind of not a organized, coherent, coherent, you know proletarian, you know uprising, but you know you could kind of see the raw materials of which one, enough of which to kind of scare the ruling class into acting certain ways. And in this case, I think the Biden regime like I know that's the term that, like all the magas like to use, for it is the regime or the dissidents, but I guess that means that we're the dissidents now and they're the regime the kind of biden regime was created as a democratic party, like response to bernie right right and bernie capitulated, and I do think we should be mad about that.
C. Derick Varn :I mean, one of the things that I was actually surprised at I shouldn't have been, but I was was how not so much the squad but specifically Bernie and AOC, like look to be bending the knee at the wrong time, over and over.
Donald Parkinson :I know, I know. It's absolutely disgraceful.
C. Derick Varn :You know, like I mean, you know you didn't give Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar credit for at least not doing that, to leave an Ilham Omar credit for at least not doing that. And I also think one of the things that we can say about the rest of the squad is that and I don't say this as a criticism of the membership of the DSA, but the DSA electeds after that first round were not ready. Corey Bush and Jamal Bowman yes, apac had to throw stuff to destroy them. But I point out, the people apac didn't try to destroy ilhan omar and rashida to leave because they know it wouldn't work. So like they picked the weak ones and it was pretty clear that bowman was I mean, bowman was turning on his own constituency towards the end there.
C. Derick Varn :And it was also clear that Cori Bush had pissed off labor in a big way. When you're a labor candidate, that's a dumb idea, yeah, but this weird idea of like right laborism is crazy to me, because I'm in a state where we're about to lose collective bargaining rights for public sector workers. At least we've stalled it, we've kind of won day after day, but they keep on stalling it. To put the vote out, who knows?
C. Derick Varn :they're probably going to win it by the end of the legislative session.
C. Derick Varn :Luckily in our state that's only a month long, but we'll find out, um, but it seems to me yeah, it seems to me, though, also looking at what the southern states are doing even to private sector unions, and how hard they're making it to unionize in the south after there was one Amazon union victory, that this idea of like right wing labeler ism is pretty bullshit, unless you're a teamster. Yeah, like that seems to be the only union that seems to maybe benefit from the current situation, and I want to remind people this current bonaparte does look to be killing. You know the possibility of, through court action, killing the nclb entirely right, putting us back at um pre-new deal rules, which I would also say you know. As a person who doesn't like the nclb, you know if you guys were prepared, if the unions have been preparing for it for a decade, then maybe this wouldn't be a bad thing. But they haven't been, they're, they're totally gonna be.
Donald Parkinson :Maybe they could find like a more independent, some more anti-state unionism, but no, that's not the direction they've been heading. And no, the so rob amari types who, like, want a kind of like new deal corporatism, but with like maga cultural policies. They're not going to get what they want. They're not going to be happy like. All they're going to do is just be useful idiots for the oligarchs. In this case, the big old GD Vance said in an interview that he supports sectoral bargaining. I was like well, you know what? You're not going to get. This kind of corporatist situation. That's not what's going to happen. I think we both know that.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, not with Elon Musk and the tech oligarchs, because one thing the tech oligarchs have sufficiently done is made sure otherwise high-powered workers. Until relatively recently, thank you, ai didn't unionize, you know, for exactly the things that we're seeing now? Because the tech workers have not even had what, like the entertainment workers had to push back on overuse and abuse of ai, uh and I. We're also seeing that in education. I mean, we just saw the cal university system say they're going to be the first integrated public-private AI university system and I'm like, oh, my fucking God. So you know, if people think we're super sanguine on the Democrats, we're not, and I'm just saying like, now is the time for the stakes of the independence of the left to be clear. But the thing is I want to say, at least if we're following Marx and Engels, independence does not mean tailing the right to get away from liberals either. That is still tailing, it is still tacit bonapartism, it is still tailing.
Donald Parkinson :And it doesn't mean being apathetic about the state of the institutions in your country either.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, there are some. I get some left communists who are still fans of me on Twitter who are always like, well, nothing's changed at all. And I'm like, Right, what is your criterion for change? And I have to remember that apparently the only thing that meets that criterion for non-standard food for all politics for them is the word literally exploding.
Donald Parkinson :But like well, just look at what angle, says the lefarg he's like oh so you think that, you know, this is just an infighting between two camps of the bourgeoisie that has no real meaning? Well, do you think that, like for the german social democrats, that whether or not, like their party press is illegal has no real meaning whatsoever to them? That is merely just a kind of formal, judicial like detail that has no, like you know, connection to reality? Like, do you think that that's like not an issue that they care about? Like?
C. Derick Varn :yeah, I mean it's funny, because I we do hear these things like even the explicit suppression of the left not just of liberals but of the left is like well, but it doesn't really matter. And I'm like this is literally like arguing that the red scare didn't like kill the cp usa, like, like it was like. But actually, by you guys's argument, the CPUSA should have emerged stronger than they were in 1948 after the Red Scare. What do you want?
Donald Parkinson :Well, the true face of the bourgeois state has been revealed. People have seen the true dictatorship of the bourgeoisie in action. But the reality was it was just like anti-communism had a popular base in America. They were able to kind of, you know, use white chauvinism and just general nationalism to get people on board with anti-communism, while, as you know, appealing to liberal democratic sentiments as well to get people on board with anti-communism, while undermining those exact liberal rights at home as well to get people on board of anti-communism, while undermining those exact liberal rights at home.
C. Derick Varn :This is one thing. I think that, uh, we both might agree with danny besner on um, and I know you probably don't agree with danny on a lot, but that no, because he blocked me for some reason on.
Donald Parkinson :Please unblock me that's actually funny.
C. Derick Varn :Um, one thing I would say that I do agree with them on is that um cold war liberalism is the dominant rhetorical tactic of the democrats, to a point that it's actually made it difficult to deal with the current situation. And I'll give you yes, absolutely example that all that anti-russia shit and I'm not saying russia didn't do anything between 2015 and 2019, like I do think they did some stuff, I just don't think it mattered yeah, not, not as much as what israel did, and right, israel or europe, or even any government would have done under those circumstances.
Donald Parkinson :Like every government has intelligence agencies that use soft power to try to influence things to their advantage.
C. Derick Varn :The reason why we focus on the Russians is, I think, twofold. One is theirs is actually kind of crude compared to a lot of other groups, and two, I saw these weird resurrections on the liberal side of the aisle of like anti-soviet stuff. Yeah, the first trump administration, that was like pretending that like trump was like somehow a manifestation of communism or a secret marxist, leninist, and I'm like that's bizarre, but it does seem to be a legacy of cold war liberalism also in the sense that they don't recognize any difference between fascism and communism at all. Even if you think like certain communist regimes are bad, I don't pretend that they're the same thing as a fascist regime, right, even though, with maybe the exception of the Khmer Rouge, I don't know.
Donald Parkinson :Yeah, I was going to the Khmer Rouge. Yeah, Khmer Rouge. Even like what kind of communist guys like Sochesco? It's not exactly fascism. It's bad, but it's not exactly fascism.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, sochesco, the worst elements of Hoxha, when he banned beards or whatever. But in general, they're not exactly fascist, which isn't? Which? Also, if fascism wasn't the only thing we thought was bad, um, right, I do have my, my theory about the reason why we go to the f word so much is that it's the one time where radical liberals, anarchists uh, bourgeois nationalists, even in the center and communists were all on the same side for about two years. Right, which means everyone except for fascists can claim it as a heroic narrative, which is why we invoke it so much.
Donald Parkinson :Right. I mean everybody hates fascist. Everybody knows that. You know that a fascist is not like I mean. I mean that's kind of changing, you know. I think more and more people like on the right are not really so scared of fascism anymore.
C. Derick Varn :Have you read the Paul Godfrey book on fascism?
Donald Parkinson :Not yet.
C. Derick Varn :I suggest you do, because one of the things that he does is like basically fascism was bad, but it wasn't that. It was no worse than stalinism. Hitlerism was really bad, but fascism maybe was redeemable if it hadn't got so messed up in hitlerism right, right, yeah, that seems to be a common um thing.
Donald Parkinson :I actually hear a lot is like people kind of defending mussolini. But well, really the problem was leaning is that he teamed up with Hitler. But if you look up until then Mussolini wasn't really that bad. He kind of just kept the communists at bay, which is kind of what we need now with wokeness, right.
C. Derick Varn :And you also see that with people like, like I was, I was watching a video on Tolkien, cause I'm that kind of nerd and Tolkien is pretty good on. Race was not necessarily, I mean not great, but he, for example, opposed apartheid.
C. Derick Varn :So when I say pretty good for a conservative Catholic, he was pretty good on race yeah yeah, but he was a phalanx supporter and I was surprised when that was talked about on a video, how many right-wingers were openly like, well, we're not nazis, but the phalange was cool, yeah, like, oh boy, like we are now in and you know, not hitler, but mussolini and and franco, they're okay, and I'm like we're there. Wow, we're further down this pipeline than I thought yeah and it's like no.
Donald Parkinson :The problem with hitler is that he went after jews, who are actually a high iq people who can, um, yeah gone after some low iq plebs, like just the room, uh, the roma or something, that it would have been okay.
C. Derick Varn :I'm like.
Donald Parkinson :That's kind of the argument they make. To be honest, it seems like increasingly the far right is seeing anti-Semitism almost as like. Oh, that's like a pleb low IQ mentality, a true right-wing. Chad wants to get the Jews on their side because the Jews have high IQs and they're basically material.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, but this is interesting. Actually I was gonna like, since we're, we can kind of close this part and talk about the right currently. I find it interesting that the liberals responded to the easily defeated parts of the quote alt-right, which is like alt-right white nationalism that's actually mainly what they but they underestimated the neo-reactionary alt-right. They're in two ways. One, it flattered tech oligarchs, so like they have money. Yarvin's like I mean the fact that Yarvin isn't laughed out of the room but it gets like a sympathetic interview at the New York Times is actually telling that even for liberals that was safe. To one of the reasons why it's safe Is there like we're not white nationalists because we want to get rid of the low IQ Scotch Irish too, like it's like oh, so you're actually not white nationalists. For even more reactionary reasons yes, yes, like um.
Donald Parkinson :You know, I remember reading like hurtis yarvin back in like 2013, because I remember there were like there were like a few kind of like articles going around, like kind of vaguely left media websites being like there's this new kind of brewing weird fringe intellectual current but they have friends of power and silicon valley, peter teal, and you know it's dark enlightenment and it's you know, this guy minshis mold bug and he's curtis yarvin and he doesn't believe in the mic nick land spent a whole lot of time.
C. Derick Varn :Not nick land, excuse me, that's a fuck up. Mark fisher, former nick land associate uh, spent a whole lot of time arguing with mold bug. I think, partly because fisher was a former nick land associate, was trying to make it clear that he was distancing himself, which I also, ironically, think, made why you and I were hearing about so much about uh a neo reaction in like 2012, 2013 because, like mark, fisher was arguing with them right, right yeah um, I remember reading fang numina before it had come out that um nick land had turned right wing, right.
C. Derick Varn :But although I'll be honest with you, if you read fang numina by the last five or six essays, if you don't know that that guy's gonna be right wing, even though he's like there's a difference between me, and then I'm like no there's a pretty big continuity actually. Yeah, um, but, yeah, but they're the people who won, like the like, uh, like, richard spencer just became a racist bidenist, yeah, like um, richard spencer's hilarious.
C. Derick Varn :Now he's just like, just like going after maga guys, just like calling them like stupid like yeah, I mean it's fun watching him sometimes because I'm like it's like the mirror world, like I'm like this guy is attacking them but he's also just a racist, but he's a liberal, elitist racist. Yeah, um, I also remember some of the softer versions of that, uh, some of the like left nationalist people getting on the biden train for a while. Like angela nagle was a bidenist for a while. I don't know if she stayed one, but she was for the first two or three years, um, and I find this all very worrying because I'm like the neo reaction is actually more reactionary but, unlike white nationalism has some appeal to elites. And one of the things I will also say is we're in a weird situation, like the way we were with uh on the attacks of cat at the beginning of the biden administration.
C. Derick Varn :Crt is an objectively bad idea from my perspective, like if you see where abraham x kindy ended up, uh, where most of that stuff has ended up. Even on its its own, it wasn't ever a good thing, but we got backed into a corner by the right because they were using it to attack things that weren't CRT. So you either did the dumb thing that liberals did was like well, crt is just anti-racism, which it isn't. Or you did the thing like we have to defend CRT to defend anti-racism, or you were like me, like we have to figure out a way to do this, but without condoning CRT. But that's really hard and I think that's happened with DEI now because, like I do think there's some truth when people say DEI, they mean a lot more than DEI. I also think like we shouldn't be defending DEI.
Donald Parkinson :Yeah, the DEI programs are mostly just like. I mean, maybe not in all cases they were useless, but in most cases, probably 90%. You know it probably likeis had an effect and most of it's been bad.
C. Derick Varn :But like the corporate stuff. It was like just people having to do mandatory trainings.
Donald Parkinson :They resent yeah, but yeah, it's clear about the reaction to it is like just an all-out, like kind of racist, ravenkist, like attack on the legacy of the civil rights movement.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, I mean they're trying to. I mean there isn't an element who's like, okay, well, the civil rights movement failed, let's completely undo it. And while that isn't that directly said, I think that the fact that Trump went back to undo executive orders going back all the way to 1965, actually including things like, you know, the Equitable, the equitable employment act, which just applied federal law to administrative hiring in the federal government- yeah, no, I mean, uh, it's, it's, it's in the literature of the right at this point they've had very like um, that book, age of entitlement by christopher caldwell.
Donald Parkinson :That was like um book. I hear a lot of writers talking about that book and I've heard them talking about that book for a while and that book is very much kind of you know, makes a case against the Civil Rights Act as kind of like leading to like the current, like malaise in the eyes of the right.
Donald Parkinson :So I think, there definitely has been like the right has definitely been gearing up to like kind of go after the civil rights actors and I don't know how they're going to do it or what they're exactly they're going to do, because I don't you know how do you undo a constitutional amendment? Has that been done before?
C. Derick Varn :But here's the thing ultimately because I know neo Confederate literature being a form of being a Southerner and a former reactionary, I've been exposed to it they want to undo the 13th and 14th amendment. Yeah, that's really what they want to do. Going after birthright citizens is like a way to ship away at that. But if they would have their way, they do away with the 13th and 14th amendment, which also, I don't think people realize, would mean the bill of rights doesn't apply to the state legislatures at all, like the supremacy clause doesn't expand the bill of rights to go to state governments, because people don't know this. But before the Civil War you could have a state religion in a state and it was enforceable. It was only a federal government where it didn't apply. Or you could have what would be otherwise illegal laws about voting, because the voting was a state right.
Donald Parkinson :Right, right. That's the whole patchwork idea about these silicon valley capitalists.
C. Derick Varn :Have right and so like there is a real sense that they don't just want to undo even the civil rights movement, they want to undo the effects of the civil war, reconstruction. You know right, they, yeah, they, they want to.
Donald Parkinson :They want to finish our bot, second bourgeois revolution and I, I, yeah no, and I think um like uh, the going after the civil rights act at this point. Like you know, 10 years ago that was like a radical, far-right position. Now it's a lot more acceptable in the right wing and the real radical far-right position is like going all the way back to pre-civil war, where you have um city states where you can just like import, like um, you know, slave labor from dubai or something like that, you know right.
C. Derick Varn :I mean here's. Here's what I think people should like be thinking about. Um, yeah, I do think we have to look at how far the right has gone. Like our own mcintyre not related to the mcintyre I like happens to have a very similar name I think he wrote a very pernicious but actually kind of smart if pernicious I know who you're talking about and I hate that guy, but yeah, yeah, people like him are saying well, my point is like he has normalized near reactionary and italian elite and even outright fascist ideas.
C. Derick Varn :And he used to be yeah, he used to be just a standard Glenn Beck, ashneo conservative and now he quotes a Vola in a book that has mainstream right appeal. That is surprising. I'll also tell you something. I told someone the other day where people are like why don't you go after more normal right-wingers more often? And I'm like I should, I should, we should talk about Leo Strauss. But I'm like I'll be honest with you, even though I think Ebola is a weird, crazy, esoteric crank, it used to be only weirdos who listened to like the Farrell House press stuff, knew who he was, are in the radical traditionalist movement, which was also basically a fascist movement. You knew who he was. Today I see him cited on the conservative wikipedia on wikipedia not even on conservative peter on on on conservative wikipedia in a way that would have never happened 10 years ago. So the right has moved pretty far right and it's also abandoned its british slash american heritage to a large degree. They're not citing edmund burke anymore. They're not citing uh, even like rus Kirk anymore.
Donald Parkinson :They're citing Carl Smith, they're citing Aron McIntyre, they're citing Robert Michel, they're citing yeah, and people like James Lindsay who try to kind of keep that Anglo tradition, that kind of centrist, liberal, Anglo kind of mindset alive against wokeness or whatever.
C. Derick Varn :They're totally shut out of the trump administration apparently yeah, james lindsey is also completely going insane in response to that yeah, yeah oh yeah, like you guys actually are becoming fascists, right and it's it, I will be, I will be, you know, I know.
C. Derick Varn :So. Rob amari he's been nice to me privately. I don't, you know, for a conservative, I don't hate the man at all, but even he seems to be like taken aback by where some of this was going. And Then he, you know, then he felt heartened by the Trump administration's early Like we're going to be a workerist, whatever. And I'm like why would you believe that? One of the things about trump is is that it does illustrate something that's fascinating about bonapartism, which is willing disbelief in the obvious by groups who benefit from the fact that they don't want to be the person who gets knife laughed, but they, they know that somebody's probably going to. Yeah, um, because that's the thing about louis bonaparte is he turned on all the factions depending on where the wind blew. And that's another thing about trump he turns on all the factions depending on where the wind blew. In fact, if you're, if you're, in the beginning of a trump administration, I'm like there's like two percent chance you're going to be standing by the end.
Donald Parkinson :Um, you, know, but I wonder you know how I wonder if he's going to can't eat on or not. You know, I wonder if it maybe it'll be different this time and that maybe some of these people are going to like stick around and that's like he has a plan this time I have no idea, I think there's really no way we can know, because we don't really know the inner communications of these people.
Donald Parkinson :but you know, it is something I've been thinking. It's like maybe he's not just gonna do what he did last time and cycle through all these people. Maybe he really does have a kind of plan with Elon to stick it through and really create a new regime together.
C. Derick Varn :Well, here's one thing I can tell you that I'm seeing right now. Elon does the unpopular work, and even his popularity on the right is declining, but that means that Trump can stay white where he is. Let Elon do it, and you know who takes the blame Elon.
Donald Parkinson :Yeah, no, that's what. I've seen A lot of people say that, but you know, so it doesn't mean he's going to try.
C. Derick Varn :It doesn't mean he's going to try. It doesn't mean he's going to turn on him. In fact, that might be a reason to keep him around because Right, right, exactly, exactly, exactly.
C. Derick Varn :Because you should be like. Well, you know I mean, but I don't know I mean. But one of the things I'll tell you about following Republican Party politics for as long as I have is, like very rarely do factions get not betrayed. I mean, I even think about the, the, the george w bush administration. How many factions like came in and got screwed later on by the shifting winds, like as like as, uh, carl rove like and um, dick cheney lost a little bit of power in the last half of the second term. So many appointees got turned on and this and the other. So you know, one of the weird things I've always found about Democrats is they tend to be institutional loyalists to a fucking fault.
C. Derick Varn :But but with with Trump, I don't know. And I think you and I have to be right. There's a real possibility Elon doesn't go away. Trump, I don't know. I think you and I have to be right. There's a real possibility Elon doesn't go away. And when I point this out to people, I'm like, oh well, bannon, I'm like we've already seen Trump sideline Bannon multiple times he got sidelined in the first two years of the first Trump administration.
C. Derick Varn :He went from, oh my God, secret president Bannon to nobody and then somehow came back, which means that I just don't know where any of this leads, have you?
Donald Parkinson :read the Benjamin Tietelbaum book. I think it's War for Eternity or something like that it's about I haven't read it.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, it seems like a good. It seems like the Tittlebaum book seems like a good pickup on the Mark Cedric work on the radical traditionalist movement and the emergence of the new right, the new new right. And Tittlebaum actually seems to go into the details a lot more. Yeah, I know Even the.
Donald Parkinson :Bannon's attempt to win Dugan over to like an anti-china position, which is really interesting, which seemed to have worked, which is bizarre which also didn't work according to the book, and and like bannon felt like betrayed by dugan for like because he, bannon, had this thing where china was like kind of the ultimate, like mercantile, like power.
Donald Parkinson :It's like it goes into bannon's whole philosophy and how bannon kind of like created like a version of eevolean traditionalism that could like somehow work with like the american petite bourgeois like, because there is like a kind of a contradiction between, like ebola's, like hostility to like commercialism and the kind of like you know, yeoman, like independent, like small producer, like mentality of like the american, like, um, conservative, you know. So it kind of goes into how bannon kind of tried to like make his own like version of like a kind of traditionalist doctrine for america that would be like kind of pro, like populist, but also also elitist at the same time. But yeah, it's an interesting book. I think it does come off as Bannon is kind of like an independent actor with his own ambitions who tries to get what he can out of powerful people until he runs up against those limitations.
C. Derick Varn :Bannon is a serious right-wing thinker, whereas Trump is a demagogue. I'm not saying Trump is unintelligent, because that man has a reptile brain intelligence the likes of which I think we've actually rarely seen yes, he's not like a ideologue like Bannon, he doesn't have this worked out.
C. Derick Varn :Philosophy of traditionalist American conservative populism in fact he wouldn't work if he did. He wouldn't work as a Democratic figure if he actually had a clear ideology in the way that George W Bush did. But yeah, I mean, I think it leaves us in an interesting place. And you know, I was talking to sean of anti-fada and he's like, well, we shouldn't count the democrats out, like we just like we didn't count the republicans out, and I'm like maybe we shouldn't. But here's the thing the republicans were mad at the bush administration at the end of that term, but I, it does feel like even normie liberals are in some sense mad at the biden administration yes, happen.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, there's a lot of anger from normie liberals like, even though they'll try to put up the fence and even though sometimes they'll even try to blame third parties, they all kind of really know that their guy blew it, yeah, and and so it's like, and he blew it in a way that was like like if Trump wasn't the opposition, it would have been so glaringly fucking obvious that these people were incompetent. Like so it's, it's just, it's just wild and it does seem like just being able to go trump bad. Well, you can't do that anymore. We got him back. It's not like, that's not going to work as an argument and they seem totally lost, like you know, I like when, when trump started doing crazy stuff with the federal workforce, what did they go out and do? Like they're like well, he's defunding the police.
Donald Parkinson :You know like uh, you know the responses have been to like boycott, target for abandoning dei policies and shop at costco because they're maintaining dei policies and wear a mask to show that you're in solidarity with disabled people. And it's just the liberals have nothing. They have nothing. Yeah so it's, it's and that gives a huge opportunity for the left. I hope we don't squander it. We probably will. Maybe we won't.
C. Derick Varn :I don't know. I feel like too many of us are wedded to talism in various varieties and I think it shows up in this right-wing talism. We've been kind of critiquing with the discussion of the Bonapartists, but I think we also have to admit that, like god I don't mean to call someone out in your group out, but I was reading groundwork. They seem to have gone from staffers to italian futurist in like a day.
Donald Parkinson :so yeah, like yeah, you're talking about the crisis organizing thing.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, I was like oh my god, that's the funniest stuff ever.
Donald Parkinson :I just couldn't believe that. It's like move fast and break things like Sorelle.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, it's move fast and break things the liberal edition While we're living through the right doing that, I know I know, stop thinking and act.
Donald Parkinson :We need to act now. We need to think before we act. That's really the takeaway. I want Just think a little bit before you act, yeah.
C. Derick Varn :We're not saying this in the Zizek way where everything's always thinking and you never act, ever.
Donald Parkinson :Go to the protest, do what you can. We shouldn't abstain from protests and actions against this administration at all. Protest, like you know. Do what you can to you know. You know we shouldn't like abstain, you know. You know you know protests and actions against this administration at all. You know I think we need to be out there and we need to be, you know, fighting alongside normie liberals without surrendering our own politics. You know, yeah, but yeah, and it's devils into details about how you actually do that in practice. So I think in the next four years, if we have another election, we'll see. It will be an interesting exercise in actually taking up the advice that Engels gives to Lafargue.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, what I think. The question is like we've been burnt by the popular front, because the popular front really has been used by liberals to make sure we don't ever betray them.
Donald Parkinson :We made us captured, they essentially gave them veto power over us.
C. Derick Varn :Right, and I think that really showed up particularly strongly in the Palestine situation. And now we have, I mean and in a way that it's even made like Sam Cedar critical of the center of the democratic party, which is crazy. Like, um, uh, at the same time, um, you know, I, I I do wonder, like, how do you form a united front when you're also insisting that we are? We are actually anti-systemic, because one of the things I think that rightly has been criticized by the left is we've looked to be afraid of the, of the demolishment of the status quo.
Donald Parkinson :Right, exactly Like. Basically, biden was able to kind of co-opt, like the left that came out of Bernie, and make it look like a pro-system force, basically, and so, therefore, trump and MAGA were able to take up the anti-system energy and demolish the left with it.
C. Derick Varn :And, to be fair, it doesn't just seem to have been like. I want to say strategically, this is not an American exceptional problem. No, not at all. And podemos and the left, the left populist in general, when push came to shove, in almost all instances, even when they came in on very anti-center liberal or center like center socialist platforms, they all capitulated at a bad moment in almost every one of those situations. The exception is france and I kind of think it's because they haven't had the opportunity to um. I hope I'm wrong about that. I know I have some friends who are big france, unbowed fans who will yell at me, but, like um, I do sort of think like well, you know, mellow sean, and Sean has stood his ground but no one else has.
Donald Parkinson :I think Mel and Sean like I quite like Mel and Sean. He seems to have a bit more of a spine than a lot of these other left-wing leaders, so credit to him for not completely caving yet.
C. Derick Varn :I mean, yeah, I also think ultimately Corbin didn't end up having a spine, but he misgayed. He couldn't figure.
C. Derick Varn :I don't think he could figure out how to handle brexit yeah, that was um yeah, that's a huge one, and the other thing that he misgaged was his own goddamn party. Yeah, um, uh, I. I would also say I don't think his actual plan would have worked in England, because it seemed to be wanting your Imperial Industrial Corps without having an Imperial Industrial Corps anymore. But you know, we didn't get that far. Like there is a possible thing for like at least swinging big. Maybe he would have done something. I don't know, but I do find it weird. And when people are like lula and I'm like lula is more progressive than a lot of uh, more progressive in a left-wing sense and a lot of other candidates, and he's sincerely popular, he's the once in a generation politician but like the workers party in brazil has kind of sucked.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah no I mean.
Donald Parkinson :It's a very difficult situation there right now as well, where the left is increasingly being seen as the face of the system and all anti-systemic energy is going to the right and the left doesn't really know what to do.
C. Derick Varn :It's actually weirdly kind of where they ended up during the Rousseff period too, and it's just like it also does seem. And there's also the pink wave countries are not as copacetic with. I mean, the tensions between venezuela and brazil are well known, um uh. The tensions between guiana, which is a relatively left-wing country, and Venezuela are well-known but, like Malay, is weirdly still popular in Argentina, despite the fact that he, he turned the economy into a clown show.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, but he has cut inflation, which seems to have made him I mean that's the one thing I will say about Trump that that's interesting to me is I mean, he seems to be the tariff guy. It's always kind of been the tariff guy. He's already backed off this round of tariffs, though, after threatening them. But I'm like, what are you going to do? Because if he doesn't control inflation, he will lose the part of his base which is not maga, and we have to admit, yeah, that trump won popularly. Maga as a movement is not a popular movement as a whole I mean it's a mass movement, but it's not.
C. Derick Varn :It does not have majority support or even polarity support.
Donald Parkinson :So amalia was able to come into power because you know you had a bunch of non-maggot people who were just voting against the incumbent for economic reasons right um, which we can deal with, democrats being like, oh, they're racist.
C. Derick Varn :I'm like, yeah, but that that may. Maybe that's why the maggot corps is there, but that's not why they won um. Looking at this now, I I just don't know where you go with this exactly, but I do think it's interesting what's going to happen with. I mean, there are some things where the liberals have some actual good talking points that they're not seeming to capitulate on, which is like you were mad about the, the, the clinton emails, okay, and I'm also I I actually do think there was something to the ground that was in a market like I'm also fucking tired of that excuse, but me going like, okay, but like what elon musk is doing right now by unelectedly assuming federal pay systems and getting everyone's data, so uh, that that's on a scale like way larger.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, at the same point, like you and I are in a position to where I'm like I don't like our Constitution. I'm not one of these. We need to be a Constitution for his left, left wing thing, in fact, I think the Constitution is a fucking problem and I think everyone knows it, knows it, um, but uh, how do you?
Donald Parkinson :oppose the constitution when the constitution is just ignored in a way that doesn't help you? Yeah, no, it's a good question and I mean I'm interested to see how mug kind of deals with that question because I'm, like my position has always been like we can like defend, like certain rights that are in the constitution without like defending the constitution itself. Like we can defend free speech without, well, we'll still like saying we still need a new constitution, but to the extent like we have rights in this society, like we should defend them right.
C. Derick Varn :It's kind of like my response to the gerald horn versus quiz katron debate, which is I'm like you're both partially right there is a counter-revolutionary element to the american revolution. But I'm also not willing to throw the entire revolution under the bus or pretend like even the american song kalat just wanted in uh native lands and to hurt black people. I just I don't think the evidence is there for that. Um uh, and there's a good. There's one good book on it. I think it's the mini headed hydra. I can't remember who wrote it but yeah, by peter line bow.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, I think that one's actually fair. And everyone else is either like because, uh, american revolution good, american revolution counter-revolutionary yeah, no, I'm with you on this one, completely yeah like I don't think those helpful. That's helpful here, like uh, and I also think it does damage to your theory more than you let on. Because even like uh, horn doesn't want to throw the french revolution out and I'm like, well, if I use the same criterion that you're using for the american revolution on the french one, I throw the french one out too yeah, that's.
Donald Parkinson :The problem is, like you kind of also don't really get the french revolution, about the american revolution right, it's just especially.
C. Derick Varn :But yeah, I mean it's just.
Donald Parkinson :it's like American Revolution At least the Mormon folk especially.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, I mean, it's just, it's like trying to claim that the French Revolution had no settler content, and it's kind of like you just have to ignore history to say that.
Donald Parkinson :That is absolutely false, to say that it was no colonial aspect of the French Revolution.
C. Derick Varn :I think it was no colonial aspect of the French revolution yeah, I think it was more obviously divided than the, and I also think in the American revolution one of the things that even makes it more complicated it's the more conservative side, like Adams, that actually have the more anti-slavery sentiment, which is part of what makes this strange to argue yeah yeah, it's like you have adams on one side and then like tom pain on the other and they're the anti, they're like the abolitionists and then like the center of the liberal.
C. Derick Varn :You know, the liberal core of the constitutionists are all like slavers. So it's just like. It's not a great look, but I do think we have to be honest about history. But America is a real hard thing because one thing you and I both implied is all of left strategy, as understood from the internationals, was designed for European parliamentary systems, like they really weren't trying to. I mean, I don't even think they all understood the American congressional system. Even when I hear Marks and Ingalls talk about America sometimes I'm like.
Donald Parkinson :I don't think you realize how federated we are and how yeah it's frustrating because Marks and Ingalls on America will have some very insightful and interesting stuff, but then they'll just completely get everything wrong. Like listen, you don't actually understand how the system works.
C. Derick Varn :Right? Well, to be fair, I don't think most people understand how the?
C. Derick Varn :system works Like, not just. You know, most Americans don't, europeans today kind of don't. When I like try to explain election laws to Europeans, they just look at me like we're insane. I'm like I know, I know even our federal elections have 50 different sets of laws. I don't know what to tell you like, but yeah, it is, it is fun. Well, thank you for coming on, donald, where can people find your work? You're still doing stuff for Cosmonaut. I hear Cosmonaut is gearing up or what's going on there. Probably by the time this comes out, the new Cosmonaut website nearing up what's going on there.
Donald Parkinson :Probably, by the time this comes out, the new Cosmonaut website will have been relaunched. Oh, you're changing your design. Yeah, we have a whole relaunch coming out. We have some new merch coming out. I guess it's a soft relaunch, but yeah, so Cosmonaut magazine. Obviously, you can find me on Twitter at DonaldP1917, but obviously thanks for having me on. I always have a great time talking yeah, I like getting you guys on.
C. Derick Varn :I've become more and more sympathetic to Mugg as we get older. My only thing is you're in the DSA, which I'm trying every now, and then I'm like I can get over it.
C. Derick Varn :I can get over it and then, like groundwork, post something like no, I can't um well, it's completely independent for mug, so you don't have to worry about anything and that being like dsa related yeah I, I am gonna ask, I'm gonna tell you this I'm asking the mug central committee I gotta actually email them tonight to come on the show to tell me what they think we should be doing in response to the current situation, also, considering that the DSAs let's say internal contradictions have become more apparent to even people in the DSA and definitely to some people watching watchers and how you're going to orient around that, because I do think the DSA is going to see a member bump, not like they did in the first Trump administration, where they grew from like what like 20,000 to 90,000 very quickly.
C. Derick Varn :but, yeah, it does seem like there's new numbers, but I have no idea how these numbers cut because it's so hard to get where. In some ways, I'd normally assume, actually, that the anti-Trump numbers would cut towards the I won't use the term DSA, right, even though I think it's applicable, but the electoralists, the, the like democrat party, uh, loyalist or whatever yeah, I think a lot of those people like are mad at dsa and probably won't join, honestly, yeah, I, yeah, I mean, I think, I think, I mean honestly, I think the not just the dsa, but even the justice democrats have been sacrificed on that altar.
C. Derick Varn :So maybe it'll give people like some time to clarify. It's hard to know. I will say that in 2022,. I was surprised because I would have thought that it was the, the democratic party loyalists, who stayed in the DSA, but actually the the Biden administration seeming coming to power led a lot of them to like just become normal ngo types, and so they left the organization.
Donald Parkinson :So yeah, then when pal solidarity became like a liability, especially to a lot of those people you know oh yeah, that's a lot of those people left, i'm'm sure. Yeah, there were tons of public like I'm leaving DSA, like op-eds and stuff.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, well, the thing is okay. I don't want to get too much into DSA stuff and this is after the technical end of the show, but I did want to. Like I found it funny that you know, a lot of people are like, oh, there's tons of people leaving the DSA. And I looked at it I'm like, well, actually, the ton of people that left the DSA actually seemed to leave between 2020 and 2022, not between 2022 and 2024.
Donald Parkinson :Yeah, I think a lot of that was actually about Ukraine as well. Yeah, a lot of the more liberal types were mad that we didn't take like a more stridently pro-ukraine position. They were kind of like, well, maybe neutrality is, you know, the better. You should just get this war over with as soon as possible and take a more neutral stance yeah, I've had the very.
C. Derick Varn :Every now and then people get mad at me for not being more pro-Ukraine and I'm just like well, I'm not really pro-Russia. I do think they are the criminal instigators here, but I also understand why it happened. I think basically the West used the Ukraine as a bait and was going to sacrifice it.
Donald Parkinson :Exactly. I feel like I've never been pro-putin, but I'm like way more anti-putin lately than I have been um, yeah, I've noticed that.
C. Derick Varn :I've actually noticed our positions on putin getting closer to each other. Yeah, like, um, like I was, um, I mean I've never been an alex reed ross type, but I was really concerned about Putin and Dugan in 2015, 2016, 2017. Now I'm just like I don't know man. I think Dugan's actually kind of exhausted himself.
Donald Parkinson :Yeah, he's kind of a laughingstock now. The stuff he's saying is just like Even for him.
C. Derick Varn :all over the place, elon Musk is the new Caesar of the world revolution. For him all over the place. Elon Musk is the new Caesar of the world revolution, like I'm just like, how is this fitting with your thaliocracy versus land empire shit when?
Donald Parkinson :you're talking about? Like it's like dude, like this is supposed to be everything you were fighting against, like right.
C. Derick Varn :Like shouldn't you be mad that, like the forces that you hate just teamed up with your guy? Like it's just like, okay, he doesn't believe you and I've already indicated that we talked about dugan on the poon versus poon episode but like, yeah, he doesn't really seem to believe in much. Um, yeah, yeah, but anyway, people should check out Cosmonaut. I really enjoy it. I'll be covering more Cosmonaut articles here. On Radical Engagements, I have at least four propped up, including the ones that you guys did on Bordiga, because some of the stuff published in Cosmonaut actually got to some Bortiga material and history that I didn't even know and hadn't found in other places. So I want to give you guys that heads up and I wish Mug luck in their Battle of the DSA. I recently had a Red Star member on. I haven't had anyone formally come on to represent Red Star, but I tried. But I've had a Red Star member come on Sudip Bhattacharya.
Donald Parkinson :Yeah, I know him. We're on the editorial committee for DSA publications.
C. Derick Varn :Yep, and so I'll be having more of the DSA types. And if someone from Groundwork are, what's the other ones? I mean, I know there's all the trotiest ones to Reform and Revolution.
Donald Parkinson :They'd probably be down to have someone come on and talk about Trotsky.
C. Derick Varn :I like Reform and Revolution, I like the Communist Caucus, but they don't go on podcast.
Donald Parkinson :Yeah, they're very anti-podcast.
C. Derick Varn :I'm like it's weird to be grassroots and anti-media.
Donald Parkinson :Yeah, well, that's a whole. Other topic is left-wing media and how we're losing the media game.
C. Derick Varn :Oh well, I mean, the left-wing media, I think, has largely embarrassed itself by becoming grifts and we have lost the media game. Media game, yeah, but but uh, you know, I've been unpopular for talking about how, uh, too many podcasts that seem to be all over the place is actually not a good thing. Look at the libertarians. They used to dominate the podcast game. Now they don't exist.
Donald Parkinson :Um so, well, you know, we've both been doing what we do here, you know, for quite time. So I think our respective projects are probably going to stand, you know, the test of time.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, I was doing this when there was four of us or whatever, like yeah. But when I first entered podcasting because I'm about I think I'm about a decade older than you I'm not going to out your age, but I think I am um and uh when I first started doing podcasts, literally the only left podcasts were doug henwood's pacifica radio show against the grain, the pacifica radio show, this one podcast called seeing red radio.
C. Derick Varn :That wasn't around for very long. Doug lane's diet soap, part one, um, and I guess democracy now, and that was it like um, and that radically changed in the at the end after occupy and then really changed during the trump administration. Um, and we've seen some key shows come and go and come back like what Proles of the Roundtable, oh God. Yeah, that's my favorite one that I don't understand why it's popular. Deep Program's another that I don't listen to, but I hear a lot of people like it. I can't comment on it one way or the other.
Donald Parkinson :I know a lot of people who like it. It seems like it's pretty effective at reaching the non-already engaged converted, I guess.
C. Derick Varn :The left media game is bad. Right now it is, but we're still in it.
Donald Parkinson :We're not doing bad. I don't think I think you and I have both. It is, but we're still in it and we're not doing so.
C. Derick Varn :We're not doing bad. I don't think no. No, I think you and I have both. I weirdly like I grew a lot during the during the first years of the Biden administration. I'm kind of at the same thing, but I don't lose a lot of subscribers either, despite the fact that I say outlandish stuff and piss people off all the time. I say outlandish stuff and piss people off all the time, but one thing I say is, like, if you have an independent identity and people like, even if they disagree with you, but they, and even if they find you annoying and many people find me annoying yes, at least they, at least they know that you mean what you say and you're relatively consistent and you're relatively open to alternative points of view, even if you don't agree with them, and you will be like. That kind of stuff really matters.
C. Derick Varn :Um, I think the people who do the downstream from the from left punditry game, I think that shit doesn't go that well like um, and I think we've seen that in the free podcast. Like you and I have never been in the top 100 podcast, but we've seen the, with the exception of Chapa, which I still think is the most popular podcast on Patreon, or sometimes it's the second most, but it's either one or two. The downstream from Democrat left media punditry stuff has cut raw, has risen and fallen relatively quickly. Yeah, and I just think we should be careful with that, because now you know where I used to see like crystal ball or something in the top 20. Now it's like candace owens, joe rogan, more candace owens, jordan peterson. Yeah, sam harris is the most left-wing thing I saw in the top five and I'm like, oh God.
Donald Parkinson :Like you said, if you have an independent voice, you have interesting and compelling things to say that just come from a genuine belief. I think you will be able to outlast those ebbs and flows of left media popularity. You won't be in the top 10 or whatever. You're not going to become as popular as Joe Rogan. You'll be able to have a lasting impact, you'll be able to influence people.
C. Derick Varn :It's hard to become as popular as Joe Rogan, but also it helps to have started famous. Yes, I think we forget that Joe Rogan but also it helps to have started famous. Yes, I think we forget that Joe Rogan was famous for shit other than being a conspiracy theorist and a talk show host before those things came into being. But anyway, we're going to end. Thank you so much for coming on and, like I said, we'll have more, both Cosmo and I, among people in the future and take care. Thank you so much, yvonne.
