Transforming insecurity into fealty

The article It’s Not Socialism–It’s National Socialism by Liz Anderson (Crooked Timber) discusses how buying 10% of Intel does not a socialist make.

“When National Socialists speak of “the people,” they never mean, as social democrats do, all the people, but rather the “real” people, the ethno-racial-sexual-religious group that they identify with the nation, to the exclusion of all other citizens and denizens of the state.

“OtheringTrump, of course, checks all 3 National Socialist boxes. It’s no secret that his “real” people are white Christian heterosexual patriarchs. And that nobody else matters. That exclusionary message is what bonds his base to him. As Trump once said in a campaign speech, “the only important thing is the unification of the people—because the other people don’t mean anything.” And like all fascists, his promise to them is to restore them to their former supreme position in the nation.”

This is the appeal for so many people: they don’t feel secure enough in their lives—either because of real desperation or because of a desperation imbued by a predatory society farming them for consumption and growth—they accept the embarrassingly simplistic zero-sum framing of society, and therefore quickly have no compunction against plunder—as long it’s at least one degree removed from their actions and, therefore, plausibly deniable—and they have no compunction against othering vast swathes of people that they don’t know, rounding them down to vermin that can be extinguished without causing a single ripple in their moral calm or sense of superiority.