thenation--2020-12-15--Tribal Territories Have the Right to Protect Their People Against the Pandemic

The ongoing struggle for racial justice .
The future for immigrant families .
The health and well-being of all Americans .
The very fate of our fragile planet .
The United States faces a crossroads in 2020 .
Seeking out the stories flying under the national radar , The Nation and Magnum Foundation are partnering on What ’ s At Stake , a series of photo essays from across the country through the lenses of independent imagemakers .
Follow the whole series here .
This installment was produced with support from the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.1 heyenne iver eservation , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ checkpoints were already a point of contention between the tribe and the state.2 As a sovereign Lakota nation , the Cheyenne River Reservation is entitled to control who enters its territory .
When the coronavirus pandemic reached across the Great Plains earlier this year , it acted quickly .
Since April , the tribal leadership of Cheyenne River has allowed only residents , essential workers , and commercial vehicles to enter the reservation .
Set up on all roads with access to the reservation , the checkpoints were one of several actions taken @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the virus and to protect their people , culture , and rights .
But South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem—who has refused to enforce a mask mandate , restrict gatherings in bars , restaurants , and churches , or institute a stay-at-home order—ordered the barriers removed.3 The tribe has so far rejected Noem ’ s demand , and as I talked to friends and conducted interviews here in late October , what I heard over and over was the deeply rooted knowledge that the local , state , and federal governments are not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ moreover , will support regulations that harm the people of Cheyenne River.4 The threat of the virus to an already high-risk population with an eight-bed hospital facility and roughly 12,000 residents was tremendous .
To prepare , the tribe converted a college dormitory into a makeshift hospital with 30 beds .
Then , the Bureau of Indian Affairs changed the locks and wouldn ’ t hand over the keys .
Tribal Chairman Harold Frazier said to me , “ I told the BIA ever since you people killed Sitting Bull , your mission @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us down.
” Frazier believes the decision to change the locks goes all the way to Trump , via the desk of Noem .
“ Growing up , my teachings told me when there is sickness near you , be humble , try not to fight , be strong , say prayers , and be a good person , ” said Frazier .
“ History shows us that prayer will get us through .
That ’ s why it ’ s important to keep our prayers strong.
” 5 Compounding the difficulties for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ non-Native people own and live on land on the reservation , and many of them have been less likely to avoid travel , to wear masks , and in general follow health guidelines to prevent the spread of the virus.6 This wasn ’ t my first trip to Cheyenne River .
I met activists Danny Grassrope and Joseph White Eyes in 2016 during the uprising against the Dakota Access Pipeline near the Standing Rock Reservation .
I ’ ve visited Grassrope and White Eyes many times in the years since .
They ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ friends , and shared their lives with me .
This story wouldn ’ t have been possible without the doors they opened , their hospitality , and their trust .
On this particular trip , White Eyes drove me to a remote checkpoint during a snowstorm—at night—then sat in the truck with me for over two hours while I scanned the darkness for headlights , waiting for cars to approach the barrier .
Grassrope cooked dinners and together with White Eyes led me to Mona Grindstone , Tami Hale , and Joyce Edwards @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their homes and histories.7 What struck me about Cheyenne River ’ s response to the pandemic was that leaders recognized early on that they were responsible for the lives of the people , and they would do everything in their power to prevent unnecessary death .
The Lakota people have dealt with novel viruses before .
Upon the arrival of Europeans in the Americas , Native Americans suffered unimaginable levels of death from flu , smallpox , and measles .
Since then , many Native American tribes have gone to extraordinary lengths to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ message I received when talking to people here was clear : The tribe must protect itself at all costs , because no one else will.8 Staffing the checkpoints is hard work .
South Dakota ’ s winters are brutal , and some drivers are angry that they can ’ t access the reservation .
Still , hundreds of people stepped forward to be deputized as special health and safety officers , and they have been running the checkpoints for over nine months .
Remi Bald Eagle , the intergovernmental affairs coordinator for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have to do what we can with what we have .
And what we have is strong , resilient and beautifully humorous people who are willing to lay down their lives and stand on our borders and stand outside quarantine homes and sit in our stores and do the work necessary to help keep this virus from spreading.
” 9 In the early months of the pandemic , even as South Dakota ’ s Covid-19 caseload climbed , the virus didn ’ t make significant inroads into the Cheyenne River Reservation .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spiked on the reservation and the tribe enacted the highest level of its Covid-19 response plan .
Two weeks ago , the seven-day test-positivity rate on the reservation climbed to 12.9 percent .
Bald Eagle explained it to me this way : “ The tendrils of arrogance and egotism are still strapped to us from the American government .
Non-tribal-members who live on the reservation feel like they shouldn ’ t be subject to silly things like science or common sense .
Non-members are not wearing masks .
That ’ s why we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ re getting now.
” 10 The tribe ’ s response to the pandemic , said community organizer Marcella Gilbert , “ is more than an expression of sovereignty .
It ’ s a way of life and the future of our people .
Our ancestors…gave their lives and their lifeways and their languages and their families and their children so we can at least say we have treaty obligations , we have water rights , we ’ re a sovereign nation .
This land holds everything that we are.
” 11

The ongoing struggle for racial justice. The future for immigrant families. The health and well-being of all Americans. The very fate of our fragile planet. The United States faces a crossroads in 2020. Seeking out the stories flying under the national radar, The Nation and Magnum Foundation are partnering on What’s At Stake, a series of photo essays from across the country through the lenses of independent imagemakers. Follow the whole series here. This installment was produced with support from the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.1
C heyenne R iver R eservation, S.D. —By the time I visited, the checkpoints were already a point of contention between the tribe and the state.2
As a sovereign Lakota nation, the Cheyenne River Reservation is entitled to control who enters its territory. When the coronavirus pandemic reached across the Great Plains earlier this year, it acted quickly. Since April, the tribal leadership of Cheyenne River has allowed only residents, essential workers, and commercial vehicles to enter the reservation. Set up on all roads with access to the reservation, the checkpoints were one of several actions taken by the tribe to prevent the spread of the virus and to protect their people, culture, and rights. But South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem—who has refused to enforce a mask mandate, restrict gatherings in bars, restaurants, and churches, or institute a stay-at-home order—ordered the barriers removed.3
The tribe has so far rejected Noem’s demand, and as I talked to friends and conducted interviews here in late October, what I heard over and over was the deeply rooted knowledge that the local, state, and federal governments are not going to help the tribe, and moreover, will support regulations that harm the people of Cheyenne River.4
The threat of the virus to an already high-risk population with an eight-bed hospital facility and roughly 12,000 residents was tremendous. To prepare, the tribe converted a college dormitory into a makeshift hospital with 30 beds. Then, the Bureau of Indian Affairs changed the locks and wouldn’t hand over the keys. Tribal Chairman Harold Frazier said to me, “I told the BIA ever since you people killed Sitting Bull, your mission has been to control us and keep us down.” Frazier believes the decision to change the locks goes all the way to Trump, via the desk of Noem. “Growing up, my teachings told me when there is sickness near you, be humble, try not to fight, be strong, say prayers, and be a good person,” said Frazier. “History shows us that prayer will get us through. That’s why it’s important to keep our prayers strong.”5
Compounding the difficulties for tribal leadership is the fact that many non-Native people own and live on land on the reservation, and many of them have been less likely to avoid travel, to wear masks, and in general follow health guidelines to prevent the spread of the virus.6
This wasn’t my first trip to Cheyenne River. I met activists Danny Grassrope and Joseph White Eyes in 2016 during the uprising against the Dakota Access Pipeline near the Standing Rock Reservation. I’ve visited Grassrope and White Eyes many times in the years since. They’ve introduced me to their families and friends, and shared their lives with me. This story wouldn’t have been possible without the doors they opened, their hospitality, and their trust. On this particular trip, White Eyes drove me to a remote checkpoint during a snowstorm—at night—then sat in the truck with me for over two hours while I scanned the darkness for headlights, waiting for cars to approach the barrier. Grassrope cooked dinners and together with White Eyes led me to Mona Grindstone, Tami Hale, and Joyce Edwards, three women who invited me into their homes and histories.7
What struck me about Cheyenne River’s response to the pandemic was that leaders recognized early on that they were responsible for the lives of the people, and they would do everything in their power to prevent unnecessary death. The Lakota people have dealt with novel viruses before. Upon the arrival of Europeans in the Americas, Native Americans suffered unimaginable levels of death from flu, smallpox, and measles. Since then, many Native American tribes have gone to extraordinary lengths to protect their people from disease. The message I received when talking to people here was clear: The tribe must protect itself at all costs, because no one else will.8
Staffing the checkpoints is hard work. South Dakota’s winters are brutal, and some drivers are angry that they can’t access the reservation. Still, hundreds of people stepped forward to be deputized as special health and safety officers, and they have been running the checkpoints for over nine months. Remi Bald Eagle, the intergovernmental affairs coordinator for the tribe, told me, “We have to do what we can with what we have. And what we have is strong, resilient and beautifully humorous people who are willing to lay down their lives and stand on our borders and stand outside quarantine homes and sit in our stores and do the work necessary to help keep this virus from spreading.”9
In the early months of the pandemic, even as South Dakota’s Covid-19 caseload climbed, the virus didn’t make significant inroads into the Cheyenne River Reservation. But in November, positive cases and deaths spiked on the reservation and the tribe enacted the highest level of its Covid-19 response plan. Two weeks ago, the seven-day test-positivity rate on the reservation climbed to 12.9 percent. Bald Eagle explained it to me this way: “The tendrils of arrogance and egotism are still strapped to us from the American government. Non-tribal-members who live on the reservation feel like they shouldn’t be subject to silly things like science or common sense. Non-members are not wearing masks. That’s why we’re getting the cases we’re getting now.”10
The tribe’s response to the pandemic, said community organizer Marcella Gilbert, “is more than an expression of sovereignty. It’s a way of life and the future of our people. Our ancestors…gave their lives and their lifeways and their languages and their families and their children so we can at least say we have treaty obligations, we have water rights, we’re a sovereign nation. This land holds everything that we are.”11


Trump and Pardons

The power to pardon is something he likes .
It makes him feel king-like and strong .
It ’ s @ @ @ @ @ cronies include So many who ’ ve done something wrong .

This article appears in the December 28, 2020/January 4, 2021 issue.
The power to pardon is something he likes.
It makes him feel king-like and strong.
It’s lucky his kids and his cronies include
So many who’ve done something wrong.


thenation--2020-12-15--Letters From the December 28, 2020/January 4, 2021, Issue

Re “ Fallujah ’ s Children ” by Laura Gottesdiener [ November 16/23 ] : Iraq has been in a state of never-ending war since 1990 ( or 1980 , if one includes the Iran-Iraq War ) , suffering from all the attending , well-documented dire consequences , including a seriously degraded , toxic environment .
There are books and articles too numerous to mention on this topic , including Barry Sanders ’ s The Green Zone ( 2009 ) .
In The Great War for Civilisation ( 2005 ) , Robert Fisk wrote , “ There was one final @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people , however , a foul cocktail in which both our gunfire and our sanctions played an intimate , horrific role , one that would contaminate Iraqis for years to come , perhaps for generations… .
It manifested itself in abscesses , in massive tumours , in gangrene , internal bleeding and child mastectomies and shrunken heads and deformities and thousands of tiny graves.
” Given this history , why focus on one city and why call the suffering in Fallujah “ the greatest medical mystery of the Iraq War ” ?
Everyone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ war is not healthy for children and other living things .
We know that , but those in power and in powerful positions , including in the media , choose to ignore it .
There is no mystery , and alas , the suffering is not limited to children in one city in Iraq .
Re “ Unpack the Court ” [ D.D .
Guttenplan , November 16/23 ] : There are two potential problems in the Constitution that the founders were aware of—the domination of the majority over a minority and , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a minority over the majority .
We are living with the latter problem because of the rise of the corporate and hyperwealthy class .
The corporate-friendly Supreme Court , including the liberal justices , is an obstacle to democratic progress .
In addition , let ’ s stop the liberal obsession with vetting justices solely on their views on abortion .
We should examine their corporate philosophies as well .
Before Amy Coney Barrett ’ s arrival , four of the eight justices were products of Harvard , and four were from Yale @ @ @ @ @ @ @ talent elsewhere .
As well as the emperor , it is vital that we also see that the Supreme Court is without clothes .
Re Mike Davis ’ s “ Fire in the Anthropocene ” [ November 2/9 ] , on California ’ s blazes and the other consequences of climate change : Beautifully , achingly , terrifyingly written .
I had been unaware the Cima Dome burned .
I drove through it a year ago , and it was so lovely , I could not stop taking photographs .
As long as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ California , the environment ( the biome , the water resources , the land itself ) will be a burnt sacrifice .
Robert Borneman

This article appears in the December 28, 2020/January 4, 2021 issue.
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No Great Mystery
Re “Fallujah’s Children” by Laura Gottesdiener [November 16/23]: Iraq has been in a state of never-ending war since 1990 (or 1980, if one includes the Iran-Iraq War), suffering from all the attending, well-documented dire consequences, including a seriously degraded, toxic environment. There are books and articles too numerous to mention on this topic, including Barry Sanders’s The Green Zone (2009). In The Great War for Civilisation (2005), Robert Fisk wrote, “There was one final scourge to be visited upon the Iraqi people, however, a foul cocktail in which both our gunfire and our sanctions played an intimate, horrific role, one that would contaminate Iraqis for years to come, perhaps for generations…. It manifested itself in abscesses, in massive tumours, in gangrene, internal bleeding and child mastectomies and shrunken heads and deformities and thousands of tiny graves.”
Given this history, why focus on one city and why call the suffering in Fallujah “the greatest medical mystery of the Iraq War”? Everyone knows and common sense tells us that war is not healthy for children and other living things. We know that, but those in power and in powerful positions, including in the media, choose to ignore it. There is no mystery, and alas, the suffering is not limited to children in one city in Iraq.
Claudia Lefko
Supreme Obstacle
Re “Unpack the Court” [D.D. Guttenplan, November 16/23]: There are two potential problems in the Constitution that the founders were aware of—the domination of the majority over a minority and, even more dangerous, the domination of a minority over the majority. We are living with the latter problem because of the rise of the corporate and hyperwealthy class. The corporate-friendly Supreme Court, including the liberal justices, is an obstacle to democratic progress.
In addition, let’s stop the liberal obsession with vetting justices solely on their views on abortion. We should examine their corporate philosophies as well. Before Amy Coney Barrett’s arrival, four of the eight justices were products of Harvard, and four were from Yale. Surely we can find expert legal talent elsewhere. Current Issue View our current issue
As well as the emperor, it is vital that we also see that the Supreme Court is without clothes.
Victor Sciamarelli
Paradise Lost
Re Mike Davis’s “Fire in the Anthropocene” [November 2/9], on California’s blazes and the other consequences of climate change: Beautifully, achingly, terrifyingly written. I had been unaware the Cima Dome burned. I drove through it a year ago, and it was so lovely, I could not stop taking photographs. As long as the population continues to increase in Southern California, the environment (the biome, the water resources, the land itself) will be a burnt sacrifice.
Robert Borneman


thenation--2020-12-15--Theodor Adorno and the Crises of Liberalism

On April 6 , 1967 , Theodor W. Adorno accepted an invitation from the Association of Socialist Students at the University of Vienna to deliver a lecture on “ aspects of the new right-wing extremism.
” The topic held a special urgency : The National Democratic Party , a recently founded neofascist group in West Germany , was surging in popularity and would soon surpass the official 5 percent threshold needed to secure representation in seven of Germany ’ s 11 regional parliaments .
In Europe after World War II , Adorno was highly esteemed not only for his philosophical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ analysis of the fascist tendencies that still survived in the so-called liberal democratic orders of the capitalist West , and the students and socialist activists gathered in Vienna were eager to hear his thoughts .
Aspects of the New Right-Wing Extremism The lecture , though brief , addressed the specific instances of a neofascist resurgence in postwar West Germany .
And it spoke to the general question of what fascism is and how we should think about challenges to liberal democracy that come from the extreme right .
Liberal democracies , Adorno argued @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they are riven with contradictions and vulnerable to systemic abuse , and their stated ideals are so frequently violated in practice that they awaken resentment , opposition , and a yearning for extrasystemic solutions .
Those who defend democracy must confront the persistent inequalities that breed this resentment and that prevent democracy from becoming what it claims to be .
Newly transcribed from a tape recording and now published in an English translation under the title Aspects of the New Right-Wing Extremism , the lecture reminds us of Adorno ’ s political engagement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also serve as a corrective to the popular misconception of Adorno as a philosopher of unrelieved darkness and negativity who took refuge in what Georg Lukács scornfully described as the “ Grand Hotel Abyss.
” After his years of exile in the United States and his return to Frankfurt , Adorno dedicated himself not just to philosophy but to the rebuilding of the Federal Republic of Germany as well , and he spoke frequently , in person and on the radio , exhorting his audiences to embrace the democratic ideals of self-criticism , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not blind to the resurgence of authoritarian movements across the globe , the earlier spasm of neofascist enthusiasm in mid- ’ 60s West Germany may serve as a sobering confirmation of Adorno ’ s claim that fascist movements are not exceptional to liberal democracy but rather are internal and structural signs of its failure .
This insight—we might even call it the essential theme in the Frankfurt School ’ s dialectical assessment of fascism—is easily misunderstood , and not just by conservative apologists who enable the forces now threatening democracy .
Some critics @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fascism as an enduring threat but confine it to an irrelevant past , dismissing fears of its resurgence as a symptom of liberal hysteria .
Anyone who has read Adorno will know that this misses the mark .
Reading his lecture during the current era of neofascist revival can help us appreciate the enduring power of his claims .
Of the many misrepresentations about Adorno that circulate among critics on the left and cranks on the right , perhaps the most persistent is the notion that he was a man of great wealth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ artifacts of high modernism and had little patience or aptitude for practical politics .
The actual story is more complicated .
Born in 1903 in Frankfurt , Adorno grew up in a middle-class household .
His father , a wine merchant of Jewish descent , was well-off but hardly rich , and young Teddie received a serious education in music from his mother and his aunt , both accomplished musicians .
But he was also drawn to modern philosophy and social thought—the classics ( Kant and Hegel ) and the works of rebels @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Freud ) —which he read in what became his characteristic style , playing them off one another and exposing their contradictions , until what was once settled doctrine became an endless dialectic .
After gymnasium , Adorno attended the University of Frankfurt , where he plunged into philosophy and wrote on Husserlian phenomenology and psychoanalysis .
It was there that he met Max Horkheimer , who would soon assume the directorship of the Institute for Social Research ( the so-called Frankfurt School ) , and fell in with a circle of left-wing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Benjamin , who inspired Adorno to sharpen the blade of his criticism , applying it ruthlessly to the details of capitalism and modern life .
Adorno ’ s first book , a study of Kierkegaard , bore such a close resemblance in style and method to Benjamin ’ s notoriously difficult study of German Baroque drama that the historian Gershom Scholem , a mutual acquaintance , called it a kind of plagiarism .
Adorno was hardly a political activist , but he was instinctively critical of the interwar years ’ liberal politics , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a congenial home in the Institute for Social Research , which was playfully known among the students in Frankfurt as Café Marx .
There they framed even their most abstractly philosophical insights in the context of concrete problems in history and society , and no matter how far they strayed from the Marxist or neo-Marxist agenda of the institute ’ s founders , a dialectical understanding of the relation between philosophy and lived experience remained a constant theme in their work .
Forced into exile in 1933 , Adorno and many of his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as an object of cultural and sociological inquiry .
Critical theory , in fact , emerged from this crucible .
Adorno and other members of the institute struggled to explain how fascism took hold , how it appealed to diverse constituencies in democratic elections , and how , once in power , it transformed the state .
Though Adorno seldom descended from philosophical to institutional analysis , he shared with his colleagues a conviction that fascism was not just a German problem but a human one , a pathology that threatened all modern @ @ @ @ @ @ @ multidisciplinary tools that combined political science , sociology , and even psychology .
These efforts carried the risk that in their use of such a method , fascism would lose its specificity , becoming inflated into a universal affliction with few distinguishing marks of time or place .
In their best work , however , Adorno and his colleagues kept their focus on what he called “ micrological ” criticism , sustaining a dialectic between the general and the particular .
This emphasis on the particular is immediately evident once we shift our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dialectic of Enlightenment , written by Adorno and Horkheimer , to more empirical work such as the studies of Nazism by Franz Neumann and Otto Kirchheimer , members of the Frankfurt School whose names too often pass without mention today but whose works were once central to the institute ’ s anti-fascist program .
Nor should we neglect exercises in social psychology like The Authoritarian Personality and Group Experiment , in which Adorno and his fellow researchers marshaled quantitative and qualitative data to develop a comprehensive understanding of the potential for fascism in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the psyche but never failing to note that authoritarianism is not reducible to individual psychology but ultimately reflects the objective conditions of modern society .
The famous F-scale , introduced in 1950 , was designed as a measure for broad trends—such as conventionalism , rigidity , and hostility to imagination—that promised to explain why modern subjects might feel drawn to fascism or possess few of the critical resources necessary to resist it .
Reading The Authoritarian Personality and Group Experiment today , one is struck by the wealth of empirical detail , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in specific political institutions but also in the most commonplace features of everyday life .
Fascism , the studies argued , is not a sublime evil or a pathology for which there is a simple remedy .
It is something far more unsettling : a latent but pervasive feature of bourgeois modernity .
With this broadened definition , one could hardly take comfort in the defeat of fascism at the war ’ s end .
In that 1959 lecture , Adorno made this point explicit : “ The past that one would like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” For Adorno , fascism ’ s deeper persistence was undeniable .
Hundreds and even thousands of former Nazi Party officials had succeeded in avoiding scrutiny for their wartime conduct and continued their careers in the Federal Republic of Germany without interruption .
But fascism was also , in his words , born from “ the general situation of society.
” Liberal democracy contained in itself a drive toward standardization , powered by the commodity form , that reduced objects as well as human subjects to items for exchange .
Stripped of their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mass that loathed the very thought of resistance and was primed for submission .
Fascism could never be addressed or defeated if it was seen merely as liberalism ’ s other , an exotic pathogen that had come from the outside .
It was composed not of rare elements but of the base metals that are the building materials of our common world .
In a 1959 lecture , Adorno declared , “ I consider the survival of National Socialism within democracy to be potentially more menacing than the survival of fascist tendencies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as something internal , not alien , to liberal democracy may also reflect Adorno ’ s history .
Even before the rise of Hitler and the Nazis , he was conscious of the latent violence that courses through the veins of bourgeois society , and in later years he was not embarrassed to invoke even the most casual memories as evidence .
In his postwar collection of aphorisms , Minima Moralia , he recalled the schoolyard bullies of his childhood , writing , “ The five patriots who set upon a single schoolfellow @ @ @ @ @ @ @ complained to the teacher , defamed him as a traitor to the class—are they not the same as those who tortured prisoners to refute claims by foreigners that prisoners were tortured ?
” The suggestion may sound forced , but only if one clings to the illusion that Nazism was all high politics without roots in everyday conduct .
Having witnessed the Nazis ’ rise , Adorno harbored no such illusions ; well before the Nazi seizure of power , he was in the grips of an “ unconscious fear ” that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ did come .
With the Nazis in power , the new laws of the Third Reich forced Adorno into exile .
First he attempted to restart his career at Oxford , then he abandoned this effort and joined Horkheimer and other colleagues from the institute in the United States .
His parents managed to survive only by slender odds .
Remaining in Germany after their son had taken up residence in New York , they were arrested during the wave of persecution that followed Kristallnacht , the state-sponsored pogrom against Jewish businesses and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sustained a serious injury to his eye , and the offices of the family firm were ransacked and confiscated ; Jewish property could simply be claimed by the state .
Eventually his parents were released , though the experience left them shaken .
They escaped via Cuba to the United States , but the specter of fascism continued to haunt the entire family .
Such experiences impressed Adorno with a visceral sense that fascism is not simply a political form but also a species of regression , a violent descent into archaic modes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only by appealing to the categories of anthropology and psychoanalysis .
Prompted by Freud ’ s essay “ Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego , ” he came to believe that human groups display an instinctive resistance to change and a longing for authority .
The group , Freud wrote , “ wants to be ruled and oppressed , ” and it looks to its heroes not for enlightenment but for “ strength , or even violence.
” From psychoanalysis , Adorno also took the crucial lesson that the cathexis between @ @ @ @ @ @ @ libidinal , not rational , and any attempt to explain mass politics purely in institutional terms or as an expression of rational self-interest will miss the underlying factors that make authoritarianism an enduring temptation .
The analysis of fascism as a persistent threat within liberal democracy is a recurrent theme in Adorno ’ s work .
This is true of The Authoritarian Personality and Group Experiment and in the public lectures he delivered after his return to Germany .
He was deeply troubled by the emergence of neofascist organizations like the National Democratic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his view , a sign that the spirit of the old fascism had never been truly vanquished .
He was equally troubled by the fact that the public did not show much interest in committing itself to the difficult process of “ working through the past.
” In his speeches , if not in his published philosophy , he addressed such concerns with clarity and moral urgency .
The 1967 lecture on the new right-wing extremism is only one modest and rather brief specimen of this work , but it deftly encapsulates his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ defeated but resides in the everyday facets of both social structure and personal conduct and must always be combated anew .
In that lecture , Adorno warned against taking a merely “ contemplative ” view of the recent events , as if politics were a series of natural phenomena , “ like whirlwinds or meteorological disasters.
” Adopting such a stance , he said , was already a sign of resignation , as if one could do away with oneself as a political subject .
“ How these things will continue , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” he declared , “ that ultimately lies in our hands.
” In the spring of 1967 , few on the left could feel optimistic about the prospects for real democracy in West Germany .
Since its founding in 1949 , it had remained in the grips of the Christian Democratic Union and Konrad Adenauer , a staunch conservative who was 73 years old when he became the nation ’ s chancellor .
He was succeeded by another CDU politician , Ludwig Erhard , who was replaced in 1966 by his colleague @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coalition government with the recently reorganized Social Democratic Party .
The SPD ’ s resurgence might have seemed like a glimpse of light .
But in 1966 and ‘ 67 , West Germany suffered its first major setback when a recession punctured its famous “ economic miracle.
” Unemployment climbed to at least half a million people by early 1967 , and the once marginal National Democratic Party began to grow , its membership surging by 1968 .
The NPD was by no means the first far-right party to appear in West Germany @ @ @ @ @ @ @ group of avowed neo-Nazis , was founded after the war but banned in 1952 ; the German Reich Party and related groups appeared in its wake , but by the mid- ’ 60s the Reich Party had dissolved .
The NPD , however , drew many of its leaders and members from the older groups and posed a far greater threat .
Adolf von Thadden , a prominent nobleman who was an active Nazi during the war , held the party ’ s reins of power , even if he was not at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ struggles , he gained control in 1967 .
In local meetings and when assured that the national media would not take notice , the NPD railed against “ international Judaism and the Jewish press , ” insisting that the Third Reich had committed no crimes against humanity .
They claimed that Nazism had been supported by “ the best German elements ” and that it was now the NPD ’ s mission to redeem the people from their national humiliation and make Germany great again .
In 1966 the party gained entry into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Hessen and Bavaria , and it appeared poised to win inclusion in many others across West Germany .
For Adorno , the NPD manifested some of the tendencies he examined in his earlier work on fascism and authoritarianism , and he took note of its appearance in a global context , where the distinctions of national identity were losing their political relevance .
Animated by a “ pathic ” nationalism in an age of great-power blocs , parties like the NPD would “ take on their demonic , their genuinely destructive character @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them of substance.
” Paradoxically , this element of unreality may be the most distinctive feature of fascism : It evacuates politics of its content and reduces it to the mere circulation of propaganda .
The old fascism and the new are alike in their ingenious use of propaganda without a higher purpose , as if the only aim were the perfection of mass psychology for its own sake .
“ There was never a truly , fully developed theory in fascism , ” Adorno said ; instead , it stripped politics of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sheer power and “ unconditional domination.
” Such considerations helped explain why fascist movements exhibit such flexibility in ideology , or what Adorno called “ conceptless praxis.
” Emerging from a conformist society that had enfeebled the capacity for resistance , fascism was less a distinctive political form than a radicalization of what modern society was already becoming : cold , repressive , thoughtless .
Fascism , for Adorno , was therefore not an excrescence that could be simply removed from an otherwise healthy organism .
Adorno was not indifferent , of course @ @ @ @ @ @ @ may be drawn to right-wing extremism for psychological reasons .
Every society , he admitted , has its residue of “ incorrigibles.
” But a mass movement is not made of them alone : It consists of ordinary men and women who are no more irrational than the world they inhabit .
If their politics are irrational , this is only because they make explicit the systemic irrationality of the social whole .
The proponents of centrist liberalism will insist that fascism be expunged so that democracy can carry on just as before @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not a full-fledged reality that fascism has damaged ; it is an ideal that is yet to be realized and that , as long as it betrays its promise , will continue to spawn movements of resentment and paranoid rebellion .
Some of Adorno ’ s critics—and even some of his admirers—persisted in thinking of him as a radical pessimist who disparaged the ideals of the Enlightenment and felt that progress itself was a myth .
But he was far more dialectical in his thinking : He wanted to overcome the false ideology @ @ @ @ @ @ @ come to light .
No matter how far he may have traveled from the explanatory orthodoxies of neo-Marxism , he recognized that democracy remained merely formal in its modern expression and not concrete .
The systems that now boast of themselves as democratic will never be adequate to their stated ideal , he insisted , as long as they are premised on irrationality and exclusion .
Few lines by Adorno serve as a better summation of his concept of fascist movements than his 1967 claim that they are “ the wounds , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this day , has not yet lived up to its own concept.
” Readers of Adorno ’ s lecture today can not help but recognize in his warnings a reflection of the current global situation .
In Germany a neofascist resurgence has once again taken root with Alternative für Deutschland , a far-right and anti-immigrant movement that in 2017 secured 94 seats in the Bundestag to become the body ’ s third-largest party .
Across Europe and around the rest of the world , this trend in neofascist or authoritarian politics is now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ India , Brazil , Russia , Hungary , Poland , and the United States ) .
The extravagant notion that the past is utterly past—that its alterity inhibits us from drawing any analogies across differences of time and space—will hold us in its grip only if we see history as broken into islands , each one obeying laws entirely its own .
Although Adorno warned against “ schematic analogies , ” he also knew that the image of the past as a foreign country is in error .
As historians of American racism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ continuities between the past and the present than apologists would care to admit .
( Nor should we forget that the Nazis drew instruction from racist policies in the United States . )
Fascism , too , casts a long shadow and can not be consigned to the past , especially when it rears its head once again .
Well after Adorno ’ s death in 1969 , conservative historians in Germany voiced the complaint that the left would not cease reminding contemporaries of the nation ’ s crimes .
In the words @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was “ the past that will not pass away.
” The philosopher Jürgen Habermas , who had been Adorno ’ s student , intervened in this historians ’ controversy , insisting that continuity and comparison must serve as instruments of criticism , not apologetics .
To be sure , nothing ever occurs precisely as it did before ; resemblance does not preclude difference .
But any similarities should alert us to the fact that beneath the superficial markers of historical transformation , things have not changed as much as they should .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ present , and much like statues in public parks , they loom darkly over public consciousness .
Citizens in Germany ( or most of them , anyway ) eventually learned that memorials to fascism could serve critical rather than apologetic ends , as reminders that it must never be permitted to return .
As Alternative für Deutschland claws its way to the center of parliamentary politics , this lesson has once again assumed a new urgency .
It is no different in the United States , where too many statues to the past @ @ @ @ @ @ @ racism of our own time .
The past , indeed , does not pass away .

This article appears in the December 28, 2020/January 4, 2021 issue.
On April 6, 1967, Theodor W. Adorno accepted an invitation from the Association of Socialist Students at the University of Vienna to deliver a lecture on “aspects of the new right-wing extremism.” The topic held a special urgency: The National Democratic Party, a recently founded neofascist group in West Germany, was surging in popularity and would soon surpass the official 5 percent threshold needed to secure representation in seven of Germany’s 11 regional parliaments. In Europe after World War II, Adorno was highly esteemed not only for his philosophical and cultural writings but also for his analysis of the fascist tendencies that still survived in the so-called liberal democratic orders of the capitalist West, and the students and socialist activists gathered in Vienna were eager to hear his thoughts. Books in Review Aspects of the New Right-Wing Extremism By Theodor W. Adorno; Wieland Hoban, trans. Buy this book
The lecture, though brief, addressed the specific instances of a neofascist resurgence in postwar West Germany. And it spoke to the general question of what fascism is and how we should think about challenges to liberal democracy that come from the extreme right. Liberal democracies, Adorno argued, are by their nature fragile; they are riven with contradictions and vulnerable to systemic abuse, and their stated ideals are so frequently violated in practice that they awaken resentment, opposition, and a yearning for extrasystemic solutions. Those who defend democracy must confront the persistent inequalities that breed this resentment and that prevent democracy from becoming what it claims to be.
Newly transcribed from a tape recording and now published in an English translation under the title Aspects of the New Right-Wing Extremism, the lecture reminds us of Adorno’s political engagement into the late 1960s. It should also serve as a corrective to the popular misconception of Adorno as a philosopher of unrelieved darkness and negativity who took refuge in what Georg Lukács scornfully described as the “Grand Hotel Abyss.” After his years of exile in the United States and his return to Frankfurt, Adorno dedicated himself not just to philosophy but to the rebuilding of the Federal Republic of Germany as well, and he spoke frequently, in person and on the radio, exhorting his audiences to embrace the democratic ideals of self-criticism, education, and enlightenment.
For those not blind to the resurgence of authoritarian movements across the globe, the earlier spasm of neofascist enthusiasm in mid-’60s West Germany may serve as a sobering confirmation of Adorno’s claim that fascist movements are not exceptional to liberal democracy but rather are internal and structural signs of its failure. This insight—we might even call it the essential theme in the Frankfurt School’s dialectical assessment of fascism—is easily misunderstood, and not just by conservative apologists who enable the forces now threatening democracy. Some critics on the left are unwilling to see fascism as an enduring threat but confine it to an irrelevant past, dismissing fears of its resurgence as a symptom of liberal hysteria. Anyone who has read Adorno will know that this misses the mark. Reading his lecture during the current era of neofascist revival can help us appreciate the enduring power of his claims.
Of the many misrepresentations about Adorno that circulate among critics on the left and cranks on the right, perhaps the most persistent is the notion that he was a man of great wealth who preferred to luxuriate in the esoteric artifacts of high modernism and had little patience or aptitude for practical politics. The actual story is more complicated. Born in 1903 in Frankfurt, Adorno grew up in a middle-class household. His father, a wine merchant of Jewish descent, was well-off but hardly rich, and young Teddie received a serious education in music from his mother and his aunt, both accomplished musicians. But he was also drawn to modern philosophy and social thought—the classics (Kant and Hegel) and the works of rebels (Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud)—which he read in what became his characteristic style, playing them off one another and exposing their contradictions, until what was once settled doctrine became an endless dialectic. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. Manny Maung Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. Manny Maung
After gymnasium, Adorno attended the University of Frankfurt, where he plunged into philosophy and wrote on Husserlian phenomenology and psychoanalysis. It was there that he met Max Horkheimer, who would soon assume the directorship of the Institute for Social Research (the so-called Frankfurt School), and fell in with a circle of left-wing intellectuals and social critics that included Walter Benjamin, who inspired Adorno to sharpen the blade of his criticism, applying it ruthlessly to the details of capitalism and modern life. Adorno’s first book, a study of Kierkegaard, bore such a close resemblance in style and method to Benjamin’s notoriously difficult study of German Baroque drama that the historian Gershom Scholem, a mutual acquaintance, called it a kind of plagiarism.
Adorno was hardly a political activist, but he was instinctively critical of the interwar years’ liberal politics, and he and his like-minded colleagues found a congenial home in the Institute for Social Research, which was playfully known among the students in Frankfurt as Café Marx. There they framed even their most abstractly philosophical insights in the context of concrete problems in history and society, and no matter how far they strayed from the Marxist or neo-Marxist agenda of the institute’s founders, a dialectical understanding of the relation between philosophy and lived experience remained a constant theme in their work. Current Issue View our current issue
Forced into exile in 1933, Adorno and many of his Frankfurt School colleagues became preoccupied with fascism as an object of cultural and sociological inquiry. Critical theory, in fact, emerged from this crucible. Adorno and other members of the institute struggled to explain how fascism took hold, how it appealed to diverse constituencies in democratic elections, and how, once in power, it transformed the state. Though Adorno seldom descended from philosophical to institutional analysis, he shared with his colleagues a conviction that fascism was not just a German problem but a human one, a pathology that threatened all modern societies and could be explained only with multidisciplinary tools that combined political science, sociology, and even psychology. These efforts carried the risk that in their use of such a method, fascism would lose its specificity, becoming inflated into a universal affliction with few distinguishing marks of time or place. In their best work, however, Adorno and his colleagues kept their focus on what he called “micrological” criticism, sustaining a dialectic between the general and the particular.
This emphasis on the particular is immediately evident once we shift our attention from soaring, speculative classics like Dialectic of Enlightenment, written by Adorno and Horkheimer, to more empirical work such as the studies of Nazism by Franz Neumann and Otto Kirchheimer, members of the Frankfurt School whose names too often pass without mention today but whose works were once central to the institute’s anti-fascist program. Nor should we neglect exercises in social psychology like The Authoritarian Personality and Group Experiment, in which Adorno and his fellow researchers marshaled quantitative and qualitative data to develop a comprehensive understanding of the potential for fascism in a democratic citizenry, delving deep into the psyche but never failing to note that authoritarianism is not reducible to individual psychology but ultimately reflects the objective conditions of modern society. The famous F-scale, introduced in 1950, was designed as a measure for broad trends—such as conventionalism, rigidity, and hostility to imagination—that promised to explain why modern subjects might feel drawn to fascism or possess few of the critical resources necessary to resist it.
Reading The Authoritarian Personality and Group Experiment today, one is struck by the wealth of empirical detail, the readiness to discern authoritarian tendencies not only in specific political institutions but also in the most commonplace features of everyday life. Fascism, the studies argued, is not a sublime evil or a pathology for which there is a simple remedy. It is something far more unsettling: a latent but pervasive feature of bourgeois modernity. With this broadened definition, one could hardly take comfort in the defeat of fascism at the war’s end. In that 1959 lecture, Adorno made this point explicit: “The past that one would like to evade is still very much alive.”
For Adorno, fascism’s deeper persistence was undeniable. Hundreds and even thousands of former Nazi Party officials had succeeded in avoiding scrutiny for their wartime conduct and continued their careers in the Federal Republic of Germany without interruption. But fascism was also, in his words, born from “the general situation of society.” Liberal democracy contained in itself a drive toward standardization, powered by the commodity form, that reduced objects as well as human subjects to items for exchange. Stripped of their differences, individuals dwindled into an unreflective mass that loathed the very thought of resistance and was primed for submission. Fascism could never be addressed or defeated if it was seen merely as liberalism’s other, an exotic pathogen that had come from the outside. It was composed not of rare elements but of the base metals that are the building materials of our common world. In a 1959 lecture, Adorno declared, “I consider the survival of National Socialism within democracy to be potentially more menacing than the survival of fascist tendencies against democracy.”
This understanding of fascism as something internal, not alien, to liberal democracy may also reflect Adorno’s history. Even before the rise of Hitler and the Nazis, he was conscious of the latent violence that courses through the veins of bourgeois society, and in later years he was not embarrassed to invoke even the most casual memories as evidence. In his postwar collection of aphorisms, Minima Moralia, he recalled the schoolyard bullies of his childhood, writing, “The five patriots who set upon a single schoolfellow, thrashed him and, when he complained to the teacher, defamed him as a traitor to the class—are they not the same as those who tortured prisoners to refute claims by foreigners that prisoners were tortured?” The suggestion may sound forced, but only if one clings to the illusion that Nazism was all high politics without roots in everyday conduct. Having witnessed the Nazis’ rise, Adorno harbored no such illusions; well before the Nazi seizure of power, he was in the grips of an “unconscious fear” that the future would bring catastrophe.
And catastrophe did come. With the Nazis in power, the new laws of the Third Reich forced Adorno into exile. First he attempted to restart his career at Oxford, then he abandoned this effort and joined Horkheimer and other colleagues from the institute in the United States. His parents managed to survive only by slender odds. Remaining in Germany after their son had taken up residence in New York, they were arrested during the wave of persecution that followed Kristallnacht, the state-sponsored pogrom against Jewish businesses and homes. His father was beaten and sustained a serious injury to his eye, and the offices of the family firm were ransacked and confiscated; Jewish property could simply be claimed by the state. Eventually his parents were released, though the experience left them shaken. They escaped via Cuba to the United States, but the specter of fascism continued to haunt the entire family.
Such experiences impressed Adorno with a visceral sense that fascism is not simply a political form but also a species of regression, a violent descent into archaic modes of collective behavior that could be understood only by appealing to the categories of anthropology and psychoanalysis. Prompted by Freud’s essay “Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego,” he came to believe that human groups display an instinctive resistance to change and a longing for authority. The group, Freud wrote, “wants to be ruled and oppressed,” and it looks to its heroes not for enlightenment but for “strength, or even violence.” From psychoanalysis, Adorno also took the crucial lesson that the cathexis between a group and its leader is primarily libidinal, not rational, and any attempt to explain mass politics purely in institutional terms or as an expression of rational self-interest will miss the underlying factors that make authoritarianism an enduring temptation.
The analysis of fascism as a persistent threat within liberal democracy is a recurrent theme in Adorno’s work. This is true of The Authoritarian Personality and Group Experiment and in the public lectures he delivered after his return to Germany. He was deeply troubled by the emergence of neofascist organizations like the National Democratic Party, as it was, in his view, a sign that the spirit of the old fascism had never been truly vanquished. He was equally troubled by the fact that the public did not show much interest in committing itself to the difficult process of “working through the past.” In his speeches, if not in his published philosophy, he addressed such concerns with clarity and moral urgency. The 1967 lecture on the new right-wing extremism is only one modest and rather brief specimen of this work, but it deftly encapsulates his general view that fascism was never really defeated but resides in the everyday facets of both social structure and personal conduct and must always be combated anew.
In that lecture, Adorno warned against taking a merely “contemplative” view of the recent events, as if politics were a series of natural phenomena, “like whirlwinds or meteorological disasters.” Adopting such a stance, he said, was already a sign of resignation, as if one could do away with oneself as a political subject. “How these things will continue, and the responsibility for how they will continue,” he declared, “that ultimately lies in our hands.”
In the spring of 1967, few on the left could feel optimistic about the prospects for real democracy in West Germany. Since its founding in 1949, it had remained in the grips of the Christian Democratic Union and Konrad Adenauer, a staunch conservative who was 73 years old when he became the nation’s chancellor. He was succeeded by another CDU politician, Ludwig Erhard, who was replaced in 1966 by his colleague Kurt Georg Kiesinger, who formed a coalition government with the recently reorganized Social Democratic Party.
The SPD’s resurgence might have seemed like a glimpse of light. But in 1966 and ‘67, West Germany suffered its first major setback when a recession punctured its famous “economic miracle.” Unemployment climbed to at least half a million people by early 1967, and the once marginal National Democratic Party began to grow, its membership surging by 1968.
The NPD was by no means the first far-right party to appear in West Germany. The Socialist Reich Party, a group of avowed neo-Nazis, was founded after the war but banned in 1952; the German Reich Party and related groups appeared in its wake, but by the mid-’60s the Reich Party had dissolved. The NPD, however, drew many of its leaders and members from the older groups and posed a far greater threat. Adolf von Thadden, a prominent nobleman who was an active Nazi during the war, held the party’s reins of power, even if he was not at first its titular head; after internal struggles, he gained control in 1967. In local meetings and when assured that the national media would not take notice, the NPD railed against “international Judaism and the Jewish press,” insisting that the Third Reich had committed no crimes against humanity. They claimed that Nazism had been supported by “the best German elements” and that it was now the NPD’s mission to redeem the people from their national humiliation and make Germany great again. In 1966 the party gained entry into the Landtags, or regional parliaments, in Hessen and Bavaria, and it appeared poised to win inclusion in many others across West Germany.
For Adorno, the NPD manifested some of the tendencies he examined in his earlier work on fascism and authoritarianism, and he took note of its appearance in a global context, where the distinctions of national identity were losing their political relevance. Animated by a “pathic” nationalism in an age of great-power blocs, parties like the NPD would “take on their demonic, their genuinely destructive character precisely when the objective situation has deprived them of substance.” Paradoxically, this element of unreality may be the most distinctive feature of fascism: It evacuates politics of its content and reduces it to the mere circulation of propaganda. The old fascism and the new are alike in their ingenious use of propaganda without a higher purpose, as if the only aim were the perfection of mass psychology for its own sake. “There was never a truly, fully developed theory in fascism,” Adorno said; instead, it stripped politics of any higher sense, reducing it to sheer power and “unconditional domination.”
Such considerations helped explain why fascist movements exhibit such flexibility in ideology, or what Adorno called “conceptless praxis.” Emerging from a conformist society that had enfeebled the capacity for resistance, fascism was less a distinctive political form than a radicalization of what modern society was already becoming: cold, repressive, thoughtless. Fascism, for Adorno, was therefore not an excrescence that could be simply removed from an otherwise healthy organism.
Adorno was not indifferent, of course, to the fact that some individuals may be drawn to right-wing extremism for psychological reasons. Every society, he admitted, has its residue of “incorrigibles.” But a mass movement is not made of them alone: It consists of ordinary men and women who are no more irrational than the world they inhabit. If their politics are irrational, this is only because they make explicit the systemic irrationality of the social whole.
The proponents of centrist liberalism will insist that fascism be expunged so that democracy can carry on just as before. But for Adorno, democracy is not a full-fledged reality that fascism has damaged; it is an ideal that is yet to be realized and that, as long as it betrays its promise, will continue to spawn movements of resentment and paranoid rebellion. Some of Adorno’s critics—and even some of his admirers—persisted in thinking of him as a radical pessimist who disparaged the ideals of the Enlightenment and felt that progress itself was a myth. But he was far more dialectical in his thinking: He wanted to overcome the false ideology of progress so that its truth could come to light. No matter how far he may have traveled from the explanatory orthodoxies of neo-Marxism, he recognized that democracy remained merely formal in its modern expression and not concrete. The systems that now boast of themselves as democratic will never be adequate to their stated ideal, he insisted, as long as they are premised on irrationality and exclusion. Few lines by Adorno serve as a better summation of his concept of fascist movements than his 1967 claim that they are “the wounds, the scars of a democracy that, to this day, has not yet lived up to its own concept.”
Readers of Adorno’s lecture today cannot help but recognize in his warnings a reflection of the current global situation. In Germany a neofascist resurgence has once again taken root with Alternative für Deutschland, a far-right and anti-immigrant movement that in 2017 secured 94 seats in the Bundestag to become the body’s third-largest party. Across Europe and around the rest of the world, this trend in neofascist or authoritarian politics is now ascendant (in Turkey, Israel, India, Brazil, Russia, Hungary, Poland, and the United States). The extravagant notion that the past is utterly past—that its alterity inhibits us from drawing any analogies across differences of time and space—will hold us in its grip only if we see history as broken into islands, each one obeying laws entirely its own.
Although Adorno warned against “schematic analogies,” he also knew that the image of the past as a foreign country is in error. As historians of American racism have long shown, there are more continuities between the past and the present than apologists would care to admit. (Nor should we forget that the Nazis drew instruction from racist policies in the United States.) Fascism, too, casts a long shadow and cannot be consigned to the past, especially when it rears its head once again. Well after Adorno’s death in 1969, conservative historians in Germany voiced the complaint that the left would not cease reminding contemporaries of the nation’s crimes. In the words of the historian Ernst Nolte, Nazism was “the past that will not pass away.” The philosopher Jürgen Habermas, who had been Adorno’s student, intervened in this historians’ controversy, insisting that continuity and comparison must serve as instruments of criticism, not apologetics.
To be sure, nothing ever occurs precisely as it did before; resemblance does not preclude difference. But any similarities should alert us to the fact that beneath the superficial markers of historical transformation, things have not changed as much as they should. The shadows of the past stretch into the present, and much like statues in public parks, they loom darkly over public consciousness. Citizens in Germany (or most of them, anyway) eventually learned that memorials to fascism could serve critical rather than apologetic ends, as reminders that it must never be permitted to return. As Alternative für Deutschland claws its way to the center of parliamentary politics, this lesson has once again assumed a new urgency. It is no different in the United States, where too many statues to the past seem to confirm rather than criticize the racism of our own time. The past, indeed, does not pass away.


thenation--2020-12-12--People Are Taking the Wrong Lesson From Trump’s Failed Coup

Donald Trump was soundly defeated in his reelection campaign , and , at last , Republicans might be forced to take notice .
The mountain of frivolous lawsuits by Trump ’ s legal team has been defeated .
The Supreme Court rejected a last ditch effort by Texas to bait the court into overturning the election results in four critical states .
Even the judges Trump appointed specifically in the hope that they ’ d help him steal the election have basically responded to the President with “ new phone , who dis ?
” Now , electors have formally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ President of the United States .
At last , it seems , the nightmare is ending .
Trump tried to steal the election—and he failed .
He will be removed from office at noon on January 20 , 2021 , just as the Constitution requires .
We won .
But what exactly does that mean ?
Unfortunately , some people are taking the wrong lesson from Trump ’ s defeat .
In recent weeks I ’ ve seen some pundits crow that things did not fall apart , the center held : Our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ force of Trumpism deployed against them .
David Lauter , the senior Washington correspondent for the Los Angeles Times , tweeted , “ So far , predictions of catastrophe have fallen flat : No violence , no huge lines , no big problems with USPS nor mass numbers of voters with ballot errors .
No efforts by GOP legislatures to interfere .
Just Rudy [ Giuliani ] with hair dye dripping on his face .
Whimper , not bang.
” Brad Heath from Reuters wrote , “ The basic gears and sprockets of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ resilient .
Trump has attempted some pretty wild moves to subvert the election he just lost , but so far each and every one of them has failed.
” But that analysis appears overly sanguine .
Trump failed to steal the election because he and his legal team are incompetent criminals , not because our democratic institutions defeated him .
Saying that our democracy proved resilient against Republican attempts at subversion is like saying the fences at Jurassic Park proved resilient against raptors .
Yes , technically Trump kept getting zapped on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But his willingness to try—and the willingness of large swaths of the Republican Party to help him—shows that if the guardrails give way for even a moment , Republicans will break out and start eating the votes of Black people .
This election witnessed new and destructive attempts by the GOP to win : Instead of merely trying to suppress the votes of Black people , the party tried to nullify those votes altogether .
In predominately Black city after predominately Black city , Republicans urged courts , state boards of elections @ @ @ @ @ @ @ away ballots cast by legitimately registered voters on the basis of “ voter fraud.
” They offered no evidence for these allegations but expected officials to throw out literally hundreds of thousands of votes anyway .
And it almost worked .
In Michigan , for instance , the two GOP members of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers , William Hartmann and Monica Palmer , initially refused to certify the results in their county , which includes Detroit .
Palmer indicated she ’ d be willing to certify results everywhere in her jurisdiction @ @ @ @ @ @ @ city .
Even the four-member Board of State Canvassers didn ’ t vote unanimously to certify Michigan ’ s results .
One of the two Republicans abstained over “ concerns ” with election fraud—concerns that , again , were not substantiated by any evidence .
Once it became clear that the certification gambit would fail , Trump invited the state ’ s top two GOP legislators to the White House in an apparent attempt to intimidate or bribe them into sending a slate of Trump supporters to the Electoral College .
The legislators @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they had caved , would other Republican-led legislatures have followed suit ?
Biden won Michigan by over 150,000 votes .
What would be happening there now if he had won the state by only 11,000 votes—which is about the margin by which Trump defeated Hillary Clinton there in 2016 ?
By how much are Democrats now required to win elections to make Republicans acknowledge the obvious results ?
Meanwhile , as similar charades played out in other states , vanishingly few national Republican officials acknowledged Biden ’ s victory , instead choosing to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ overturn the election .
Some went even further .
Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is being investigated for ethics violations because he allegedly tried to pressure a Georgia official into throwing out some counties ’ absentee ballots , the majority of which were for Biden .
Unfortunately , we now know that at least 126 Republicans in Congress are every bit as partisan and craven as Senator Graham .
That ’ s how many of them joined Texas ’ s lawsuit to overturn the election .
These Republicans seamlessly moved from “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ legal options ” to “ we should throw out the votes of every swing state that Biden won , ” as if nobody would notice the difference .
But we noticed , we saw that at least 126 Republican members of Congress are more committed to partisan victory than basic democracy .
We should never forget that .
This election revealed an entire network of functionaries who were captured and corrupted by Trump and were willing to help him steal the election .
Who knew that the postmaster general could be turned into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have thought that the head of the General Services Administration was such a weak and craven partisan ?
How many officials would Trump have fired if they stood in his way , as he did with cybersecurity chief Chris Krebs after he dared to tell people that the election was secure ?
The Trump legal team is so incompetent and the courts have been so consistent in rejecting his campaign ’ s amateur-hour lawsuits that people may be tempted to think that the courts , at least , will reject similar threats to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wouldn ’ t be so sure .
The next phase of the Republican project to own our electoral system is now clear .
Having seen the obstacles to throwing out the votes of Black people , conservative law professors and their Federalist Society coconspirators can be expected to start cranking out legal justifications to do just that .
Remember , 15 years ago , nobody would have thought that the Supreme Court would eviscerate the Voting Rights Act .
The provision requiring historically racist states and counties to receive clearance before changing their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 390 votes in the House and signed by President George W. Bush in 2006 .
But just seven years later , Chief Justice John Roberts destroyed that provision as part of the right ’ s long-term effort to suppress the votes of Black people .
Who knows what conservative courts might be willing to do in future elections ?
I do not think the institutions held during this election ; I think Trump just got whupped beyond the point that the corrupted institutions could save him .
Next time , we might not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jackson ’ s character says in Jurassic Park , right before he cuts the power to the fences , “ Hold on to your butts.
” Later in the movie , Jackson is eaten .

This article appears in the December 28, 2020/January 4, 2021 issue.
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Donald Trump was soundly defeated in his reelection campaign, and, at last, Republicans might be forced to take notice. The mountain of frivolous lawsuits by Trump’s legal team has been defeated. The Supreme Court rejected a last ditch effort by Texas to bait the court into overturning the election results in four critical states. Even the judges Trump appointed specifically in the hope that they’d help him steal the election have basically responded to the President with “new phone, who dis?” Now, electors have formally voted for Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States.
At last, it seems, the nightmare is ending. Trump tried to steal the election—and he failed. He will be removed from office at noon on January 20, 2021, just as the Constitution requires. We won. Looking for last-minute holiday gifts with a conscience? Check out The Nation Shop and help support The Nation’s journalism while you complete your list.
But what exactly does that mean?
Unfortunately, some people are taking the wrong lesson from Trump’s defeat. In recent weeks I’ve seen some pundits crow that things did not fall apart, the center held: Our institutions proved able to resist the full force of Trumpism deployed against them. David Lauter, the senior Washington correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, tweeted, “So far, predictions of catastrophe have fallen flat: No violence, no huge lines, no big problems with USPS nor mass numbers of voters with ballot errors. No efforts by GOP legislatures to interfere. Just Rudy [Giuliani] with hair dye dripping on his face. Whimper, not bang.” Brad Heath from Reuters wrote, “The basic gears and sprockets of our democracy have so far proved pretty resilient. Trump has attempted some pretty wild moves to subvert the election he just lost, but so far each and every one of them has failed.”
But that analysis appears overly sanguine. Trump failed to steal the election because he and his legal team are incompetent criminals, not because our democratic institutions defeated him. Saying that our democracy proved resilient against Republican attempts at subversion is like saying the fences at Jurassic Park proved resilient against raptors. Yes, technically Trump kept getting zapped on the electrified fence that is the federal judiciary. But his willingness to try—and the willingness of large swaths of the Republican Party to help him—shows that if the guardrails give way for even a moment, Republicans will break out and start eating the votes of Black people.
This election witnessed new and destructive attempts by the GOP to win: Instead of merely trying to suppress the votes of Black people, the party tried to nullify those votes altogether. In predominately Black city after predominately Black city, Republicans urged courts, state boards of elections, and secretaries of state to throw away ballots cast by legitimately registered voters on the basis of “voter fraud.” They offered no evidence for these allegations but expected officials to throw out literally hundreds of thousands of votes anyway. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. Manny Maung Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. Manny Maung
And it almost worked. In Michigan, for instance, the two GOP members of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers, William Hartmann and Monica Palmer, initially refused to certify the results in their county, which includes Detroit. Palmer indicated she’d be willing to certify results everywhere in her jurisdiction except for precincts in that predominately Black city. Even the four-member Board of State Canvassers didn’t vote unanimously to certify Michigan’s results. One of the two Republicans abstained over “concerns” with election fraud—concerns that, again, were not substantiated by any evidence. Current Issue View our current issue
Once it became clear that the certification gambit would fail, Trump invited the state’s top two GOP legislators to the White House in an apparent attempt to intimidate or bribe them into sending a slate of Trump supporters to the Electoral College. The legislators balked at the idea. But if they had caved, would other Republican-led legislatures have followed suit?
Biden won Michigan by over 150,000 votes. What would be happening there now if he had won the state by only 11,000 votes—which is about the margin by which Trump defeated Hillary Clinton there in 2016? By how much are Democrats now required to win elections to make Republicans acknowledge the obvious results?
Meanwhile, as similar charades played out in other states, vanishingly few national Republican officials acknowledged Biden’s victory, instead choosing to support Trump’s baseless lawsuits to overturn the election. Some went even further. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is being investigated for ethics violations because he allegedly tried to pressure a Georgia official into throwing out some counties’ absentee ballots, the majority of which were for Biden.
Unfortunately, we now know that at least 126 Republicans in Congress are every bit as partisan and craven as Senator Graham. That’s how many of them joined Texas’s lawsuit to overturn the election. These Republicans seamlessly moved from “Trump has every right to pursue his legal options” to “we should throw out the votes of every swing state that Biden won,” as if nobody would notice the difference. But we noticed, we saw that at least 126 Republican members of Congress are more committed to partisan victory than basic democracy. We should never forget that.
This election revealed an entire network of functionaries who were captured and corrupted by Trump and were willing to help him steal the election. Who knew that the postmaster general could be turned into a weapon against democracy? Who would have thought that the head of the General Services Administration was such a weak and craven partisan? How many officials would Trump have fired if they stood in his way, as he did with cybersecurity chief Chris Krebs after he dared to tell people that the election was secure?
The Trump legal team is so incompetent and the courts have been so consistent in rejecting his campaign’s amateur-hour lawsuits that people may be tempted to think that the courts, at least, will reject similar threats to democracy in future elections. But I wouldn’t be so sure. The next phase of the Republican project to own our electoral system is now clear. Having seen the obstacles to throwing out the votes of Black people, conservative law professors and their Federalist Society coconspirators can be expected to start cranking out legal justifications to do just that.
Remember, 15 years ago, nobody would have thought that the Supreme Court would eviscerate the Voting Rights Act. The provision requiring historically racist states and counties to receive clearance before changing their election laws was reauthorized by Congress with 390 votes in the House and signed by President George W. Bush in 2006. But just seven years later, Chief Justice John Roberts destroyed that provision as part of the right’s long-term effort to suppress the votes of Black people. Who knows what conservative courts might be willing to do in future elections?
I do not think the institutions held during this election; I think Trump just got whupped beyond the point that the corrupted institutions could save him. Next time, we might not be so lucky. As Samuel L. Jackson’s character says in Jurassic Park, right before he cuts the power to the fences, “Hold on to your butts.”
Later in the movie, Jackson is eaten.


thenation--2020-12-15--Bye-Bye, Bill Barr: Trump’s Roy Cohn Impersonator Resigns

There is no way in hell I will count outgoing Attorney General Bill Barr among the people who stood up to Donald Trump .
I ’ d put voter-suppressing Georgia Governor Brian Kemp way ahead , given the Georgia fracas , and I am on the record as not a Kemp fan .
But Barr , amazingly , did submit his resignation Tuesday , and that tells us a lot .
First , it tells us what we already know : Trump lost the presidency , decisively , and nobody has a way to reverse that .
Not Trump , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also reminds us Barr is a sycophant : In his resignation letter , he praised Trump for “ the many successes and unprecedented achievements you have delivered for the American people.
” Time for Optimism , or More Despair ?
We Still Don ’ t Know .
The 300,000 Americans dead of Covid thank you both .
Apparently , Trump grew impatient with Barr ’ s acknowledging the truth : There was no evidence of significant fraud in the election .
Apparently , that ended Barr ’ s career .
I ’ d @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but I ’ m not sad , at all .
The truth is , Barr is an extremist Catholic conservative who hitched his career and his vision to the success of this anti-Christian , amoral fool .
And , sadly ( for most of the country ) , he got a lot of what he bargained for , mainly in the three ultraconservative Supreme Court Justices and the 200-plus lower-court justices Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell hath wrought .
But Barr is not solely in the McConnell mold .
He ’ s a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his entirely unhinged rant at the University of Notre Dame here .
“ Virtually every measure of social pathology continues to gain ground , ” he complained .
“ Along with the wreckage of the family , we are seeing record levels of depression and mental illness , dispirited young people , soaring suicide rates , increasing numbers of alienated young males , an increase in senseless violence and the deadly drug epidemic.
” He accused the government , with no evidence , of blocking the “ passing on of the faith ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he called a “ monstrous invasion of religious liberty.
” Barr and others saw the odious , anti-Christian Trump as the way to reach their goals , especially in the courts .
It confused us for too long .
We believed in their religiosity .
We held these things separate .
They were not .
Meanwhile , he absolved Trump of even the slight whiff of scandal from the Mueller investigation , wrongly .
He marched into twilight to clear peaceful demonstrators with pepper spray and rubber bullets to let Trump hold a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
As Jay Samuelson put it in The Daily Beast : There are so many , many people to hate in the Trump administration .
I still think my first choice is racist Stephen Miller .
But it might ultimately be Barr , because he purports to be a man of God when he is actually a man of utter cruelty .

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Sign up for our Wine Club today. Did you know you can support The Nation by drinking wine?
There is no way in hell I will count outgoing Attorney General Bill Barr among the people who stood up to Donald Trump. I’d put voter-suppressing Georgia Governor Brian Kemp way ahead, given the Georgia fracas, and I am on the record as not a Kemp fan.
But Barr, amazingly, did submit his resignation Tuesday, and that tells us a lot.
First, it tells us what we already know: Trump lost the presidency, decisively, and nobody has a way to reverse that. Not Trump, not Kemp, not Barr.
It also reminds us Barr is a sycophant: In his resignation letter, he praised Trump for “the many successes and unprecedented achievements you have delivered for the American people.” Related Article Time for Optimism, or More Despair? We Still Don’t Know. Joan Walsh
The 300,000 Americans dead of Covid thank you both.
Apparently, Trump grew impatient with Barr’s acknowledging the truth: There was no evidence of significant fraud in the election. Apparently, that ended Barr’s career. I’d like to feel sad about that, but I’m not sad, at all.
The truth is, Barr is an extremist Catholic conservative who hitched his career and his vision to the success of this anti-Christian, amoral fool. And, sadly (for most of the country), he got a lot of what he bargained for, mainly in the three ultraconservative Supreme Court Justices and the 200-plus lower-court justices Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell hath wrought. Current Issue View our current issue
But Barr is not solely in the McConnell mold. He’s a terrifying religious ideologue. I wrote about his entirely unhinged rant at the University of Notre Dame here. “Virtually every measure of social pathology continues to gain ground,” he complained. “Along with the wreckage of the family, we are seeing record levels of depression and mental illness, dispirited young people, soaring suicide rates, increasing numbers of alienated young males, an increase in senseless violence and the deadly drug epidemic.” He accused the government, with no evidence, of blocking the “passing on of the faith” from parents to their children, which he called a “monstrous invasion of religious liberty.”
Barr and others saw the odious, anti-Christian Trump as the way to reach their goals, especially in the courts. It confused us for too long. We believed in their religiosity. We held these things separate. They were not.
Meanwhile, he absolved Trump of even the slight whiff of scandal from the Mueller investigation, wrongly. He marched into twilight to clear peaceful demonstrators with pepper spray and rubber bullets to let Trump hold a Bible upside down at a national monument.
As Jay Samuelson put it in The Daily Beast:
And when, finally, Trump’s jig was up, Barr quit dancing and left the building. All the work that Barr could do had been done; he knew Trump’s was now a lost cause. And he knew that he could exit, with a modicum of grace, knowing that he had helped restore God’s law in America. When you put it that way, it all seems worth it.
There are so many, many people to hate in the Trump administration. I still think my first choice is racist Stephen Miller. But it might ultimately be Barr, because he purports to be a man of God when he is actually a man of utter cruelty.