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Trumpism won’t save Middle America Peanut the squirrel was its first martyr

Elon Musk won't bring the jobs back. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

Elon Musk won't bring the jobs back. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images


November 9, 2024   7 mins

Grey squirrels don’t command much love, here in the 51st state. When Brits make memes about them, it’s usually a visual shorthand for strong views on immigration. But in their native North America they’re firmly associated with Disney princesses, and hence part of the pantheon of anthropomorphic cuteness.

So when New York State killed Peanut the celebrity squirrel, there was uproar. This bushy tale became a lightning-rod for Right-wing resentments about safetyism, women in politics, and uneven application of the law. But what makes Peanut a note-perfect metaphor for the electoral crunch moment now under way is none of these things: it’s the porno plot twist.

For anyone less terminally online, a recap: Peanut was a squirrel, orphaned as a kit and raised by Mark Longo, 34 — whose videos made Peanut a social media star. Then, on 31 October, Longo’s home was raided following an anonymous complaint. Armed agents impounded Peanut and a raccoon named Fred — then, in a decision Longo called “surreal”, euthanised Peanut and Fred, reportedly “to check for rabies”.

All hell broke loose. Peanut was reincarnated overnight, as the face of protest against over-mighty, impersonal and callous bureaucracy. Elon Musk weighed in; a torrent of memes has depicted Peanut as George Floyd, as a ghost animal on Donald Trump’s shoulder, or even as a replacement for the Republican Party’s elephant logo. Then, just as abruptly as the memes began, they halted again. For it transpired that as well as working as an engineer Longo was also what’s politely known as an “adult content creator”, who used Peanut’s social media platform to direct viewers to his considerably more NSFW “Squirrel Daddy” content on OnlyFans.

Yes, this is all happening several thousand miles away from me, and officially in a different country. But as its enemies are forever pointing out, “The West” is de facto the American Empire, and Britain one of its protectorates. In other words: this is also our election, and who occupies the White House is intensely relevant to us. We just don’t get to vote.

If a nutty story about a pet squirrel tells us anything about electoral contests on the scale of the United States, it’s that you can forget policy-based campaigns. With 161 million registered voters, all you can really contest is vibes. And in its sheer virality, Peanut’s martyrdom offers insight into one of those clusters of vibes. Meanwhile, the circumstances of his original celebrity hint, far more darkly, at why those grievances may remain unsatisfied — even if, as now looks likely, Trump will soon be back in the White House.

“With 161 million registered voters, all you can really contest is vibes.”

The Peanut moment crystallised two interconnected features of Trump’s 2024 campaign. First, the rise to prominence of people, views, and aesthetics from an extremely online Right that, back in 2016, was a subculture without institutional power. Love it or hate it, this tilt was reflected in the choice of J.D. Vance, a man who drops Right-wing meme allusions in mainstream press interviews, as Trump’s running-mate. And, secondly and relatedly, Trump’s principal 2024 backer: Elon Musk. Musk’s 2022 purchase of the website formerly known as Twitter, his adoption, re-platforming, and mainstreaming of e-Right aesthetics and talking-points, and his all-in backing of the Trump campaign in turn stand metonymically for a broader Right-wing shift in political allegiance among tech bros.

The Democrats’ pivot away from a historically laissez-faire approach to a determination to regulate Big Tech likely plays a part in this tilt. But so, too, does ideology — and especially the single-mindedness and practical focus required to found new enterprises. Among devotees, this “founder” ethos is almost cartoonishly personalistic, propounding a high-tech version of Great Man Theory.

The positive vibe on offer, then, is one of dynamism, innovation, growth, and agency, all symbolised by Elon Musk’s SpaceX achievements and aspiration to colonise Mars. Its advocates contrast this with a perceived Left-wing preference for collectivism, over-regulation, and safety-obsessed mediocrity. Is this a fair depiction of Trump’s enemies?

Supporters of regulation might point out that in its absence, powerful individuals can do great things — also ride roughshod over everyone else. But alongside such practical and — dare I say it — populist caution, there is also a sensibility at work among the anti-Trumpers. Some at least are clearly as repelled by heroic, masculine individualism as Musk and Trump fans are attracted.

This, then, is the other basket of vibes on offer: that of a polity more comfortable than its Trumpian opponents with ordinary life, proceduralism, and diffuse accountability. The recent, evident ability of Joe Biden’s administration to continue on autopilot, despite a cognitive decline in its elected leader so visible it could eventually no longer be kept out of the press, offers an illustration of both the strengths and weaknesses of such a system. The clear inference is that the system itself is what’s governing, and who nominally heads it is less important.

For those to whom this represents “Our Democracy” it’s obviously good: overall a more stable, consistent, and equitable system. Its opponents, meanwhile, crystallised their distaste for this order in the martyrdom of Peanut: a cluster of objections more commonly conveyed by two online Right-wing terms: “the longhouse”, and “anarcho-tyranny”. The former borrows a metaphor from those anthropologists who describe early human societies as matriarchal, and living communally in village “longhouses”. In contemporary usage, this figurative “longhouse” is a bad thing: a negation of individuality, masculinity and ambition. It’s associated with women, with bureaucracy, with smallness of vision and stifling constraints on anything risky or heroic. For “longhouse” disrespecters, the fact that both Peanut’s alleged snitch (though she denies it) and the head of the agency that killed him are both women was viewed as emblematic of this pernicious state of affairs.

More generally, the “longhouse” also alludes to the perceived way bureaucracy has metastasised into what one Right-wing critic calls a “total state”: shorthand for critiques of managerialism stretching back to James Burnham in 1941 and centring on the deadening effect of such orders on innovation and agency. As one commentator put it, in a post mourning Peanut’s death: “Like Gulliver, we are held down by thousands of tiny threads, a net of laws and regulations, all of them enacted ‘for our safety’.” And the poignancy of Peanut’s tragic martyrdom to this state of affairs was intensified by a second feature of the same critique. Namely: that the problem with this total state is that it’s not actually total. Rather, its resources are asymmetrically applied: a condition the late paleoconservative Sam Francis called “anarcho-tyranny”.

Francis is a risky figure to cite, having been expelled from polite conservative circles some decades ago for forbidden opinions on race. More recently, though, he’s been hailed — albeit controversially — as having anticipated the ideological core of Trumpism. Anarcho-tyranny, in Francis’s formulation, describes a political order in which armed dictatorship coexists with lawlessness. It’s widely used online to denote an order that represses society’s law-abiding members, while ignoring favoured and often far more antisocial castes.

Francis first used it to describe efforts to impose gun control on ordinary Americans, while armed drug gangs roamed the streets; the term has also recently been applied to the case of Daniel Penny, a former soldier who restrained a schizophrenic man on the New York subway after he threatened other passengers, only to end up on trial for manslaughter when the man died. Penny, whose trial is ongoing, has become a byword for Right-wing frustration at a perceived official policy of punishing public-spirited action, while turning a blind eye to antisocial behaviour. Now Peanut, too, has been framed as its victim: Marc Andreessen, a noted Silicon Valley Trump supporter, denounced Peanut’s death as textbook anarcho-tyranny.

And even with Trump in the White House, my hunch is that Sam Francis would be at least partially disappointed — for either way, the war on Middle America that he so deplored may be unstoppable at this point. In Francis’s 1991 memoir, he described how “Middle American groups” suffer “exploitation at the hands of the dominant elites” via methods including “hypertaxation”, the replacement of manufacturing with services, “the managed destruction of Middle American norms and institutions” and — centrally — “the regimentation of Middle Americans under the federal leviathan”.

It’s not hard to see the Trumpian grievances there in outline. On the X remodelled since 2022 as Musk’s personal Trump megaphone, video montages now circulate collating a sugar-rush of Middle American highlights in support of his candidacy: a kind of Adderall paleoconservatism, all Nascar, “forgotten men and women”, McDonalds, WWE, and loathing of “globalists”. Amid that mood, the now-notorious MAGA catchphrase taps directly into the fear and loathing engendered by that middle-class decline already observed by Francis in the Nineties, widely credited for contributing to Trump’s victory in 2016, and furiously evident in 2024.

But watching election fever peak from across the pond, amid Britain’s even grimmer crucible of war on the middle class, I can’t shake the feeling that despite Trump fever, nothing is going to deliver quite the longed-for restoration of 20th-century middle-class life and mores. The Democrats smear its memory as fake news, or even white supremacy; and even the faction now powering Trumpism is less aligned with its bourgeois values than with a more patrician Right-wing progressivism. And while this is distinctly more upbeat about the future than its enemies, it’s more characterised by libertarian tech-optimism, acceptance of inequality, and disdain for bourgeois mores than anything which could easily be termed “traditional”, let alone “conservative”.

Nor are Trumpist policies likely to be much more oriented toward Middle America. Will he bring back the manufacturing jobs? Perhaps the factories might re-shore, but chances are the work will be much more automated, meaning Middle America won’t see its 20th-century jobs return. And while the personalistic Trump/Musk approach might free the talented few to soar, and might even reduce the flow of illegal migration, early indications are that it will also create still brisker headwinds against — for example — the dull work of challenging the monopoly capitalism that’s a major contributor to the downward pressure on Middle America.

In sum, and at the risk of stating the obvious: neither side is going to bring back the 20th century. And nowhere could we find this more vividly illustrated than in the story of Mark Longo and Peanut the squirrel. In the bourgeois 20th-century culture that now survives mainly in social media video reels, Longo might have made a decent living as an engineer. Only his neighbours would have known he had a pet squirrel. In the 21st century, he made better money instrumentalising this cute relationship, and the wholesome, practical visual aesthetic of his IRL job as engineer, to promote pornographic content.

Longo is only one of some two million Americans selling such material. I don’t think there is any reversing so far-reaching a moral, economic, and technological shift. Nor is there any reversing the rest of the digital revolution. In its wake, tradesmen now tame squirrels and make porn, and the future is (maybe) brain implants, robot dogs, and space colonies. Middle America has, it seems, rejected egalitarianism, anarcho-tyranny, and “power without responsibility” under the Democrats’ swarm regime, in favour of a (SpaceX) rocket-powered Trumpian future. The world had better strap in.


Mary Harrington is a contributing editor at UnHerd.

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J Bryant
J Bryant
1 month ago

Great article with Mary Harrington on form. It’s old times again on Unherd.

Katharine Eyre
Katharine Eyre
1 month ago
Reply to  J Bryant

Yes – I just wish she’d stop mentioning in every article how she’s online so much. We know. And to be honest, she’s preaching to the converted because the people that read and comment on her articles must spend a sizeable chunk of their lives on the internet aswell.

Carlos Danger
Carlos Danger
1 month ago

Not to mention that Mark Longo’s porn is gay porn, which he describes as “kinky”, that uses the word “squirrel” in a metaphoric way that in my innocence I’m not conversant with. But the porn did not feature the now-dead P’Nut, apparently. And Mark Longo’s German wife Daniela has her own OnlyFans site.

The Longos did well well with their porn, claiming that they made $800,000 in one month that allowed them to buy their 350-acre farm in southern New York that they moved to six months ago. It’s unclear how their finances are faring now, though. Mark Longo implies that they are not doing well.

I don’t think the fate of poor P’Nut will last long in people’s memories, and poor Fred the raccoon is already a forgotten footnote. Nor do I see any lessons to be taken from them, other than if you move to New York with illicit wildlife you should be aware that they are strict.

This raid apparently came after the Longos had been warned, and the warrantfor their seizure had been signed off by four department heads and a judge. When you flout the law by showing your illegal pet to millions of people around the world on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to advertise your porn business, expect a knock on the door.

I too think the results of this election (I predict a Kamala Harris victory) won’t change much. But I do think the president does make a difference. Joe Biden has been just a figurehead, and the results he has achieved (or actually, not achieved) reflect that.

Joe Biden should have been active in the Ukraine mess and the Middle East mess. He should have been an honest broker, bringing both sides together. Like Donald Trump did, and would do again. But Joe Biden was missing on action. And Kamala Harris will be just as bad, if not worse.

It’s like the CEO in a public company. I was general counsel of a public company that changed CEOs during my tenure. The change was not a monumental one, but still it mattered. A lot.

William Amos
William Amos
1 month ago
Reply to  Carlos Danger

Where would Trump stand though. on Squirrell porn, even theoretically?
That, it strikes me, is the pertinent question for his ‘conservative’ backers.

Norfolk Sceptic
Norfolk Sceptic
1 month ago
Reply to  William Amos

I thought squirrels always hid their nuts.

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
1 month ago
Reply to  Carlos Danger

When you flout the law by showing your illegal pet to millions of people around the world on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to advertise your porn business, expect a knock on the door.
Go back and read that sentence again. See if something, anything, within it strikes you as unbecoming of an allegedly free society. It was a squirrel, not a loose tiger.

Thomas Wagner
Thomas Wagner
1 month ago
Reply to  Alex Lekas

And P’Nut was killed, along with Fred, to “check for rabies” — after living inside for four years. That’s the action of a rabid bureaucracy, not a rational organization. They’d go out and kill every wild squirrel and raccoon with shotguns — if it weren’t so much work.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 month ago
Reply to  Carlos Danger

The comment didn’t age well.

Stu N
Stu N
1 month ago
Reply to  Carlos Danger

“Illicit wildlife”. Read your post again and reflect, Carlos, you’re a clever man, but the above makes you look like part of the problem. Petty bureaucracy before freedom is never a good thing.

Tom Lewis
Tom Lewis
1 month ago

Mary for President.
There are SO many fantastic people out there, how the hell did we get to the point where the only options on offer come polling day are several kinds of awful, which ever side, if any, they claim to represent ?

Dylan B
Dylan B
1 month ago

I don’t know what I think of Trump. On the one hand he is ridiculous. The perma tan. The hair. The ridiculous long red tie. The frankly bizarre but often funny quotes.

And then on the other hand there is that part that genuinely interests me. The drain the swamp part. The why are we doing it this way part?

Maybe it will take a ridiculous man, with some interesting allies (RFK, Tulsi and Elon) to turn America around. Maybe.

Katharine Eyre
Katharine Eyre
1 month ago
Reply to  Dylan B

Tell me about it. I like to think of myself as a reasonably modern, well-educated woman who can take care of herself and with an aversion to primitive “me, Tarzan – you, Jane” behaviour.
And YET – I can’t help but be impressed by Trump’s ability to come within a hair’s breadth of death and get right up and pump the air with his fist. And now, likely win the election.
I don’t think it’s the masculinity that impresses me so much as the sheer defiance and the resilience of the guy. The latter of which we softy westerners could certainly do with more of.

Brett H
Brett H
1 month ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

Yes, this is not about masculinity or any aspects of gender but about powerful personalities that make things happen in this world, so many of them being American. For a long time we’ve had nothing like this and for a few generations it’s truly a shock and a challenge to their thinking that you might actually be allowed to have a personality that is yours and to develop it further as you choose.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 month ago
Reply to  Brett H

Why didn’t Trump make America great again during his first term? Can someone tell me one thing Trump did for the working class?

Brett H
Brett H
1 month ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Not really relevant to my comment.

Cathy Carron
Cathy Carron
1 month ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Under Trump, the bottom two income classes experienced greater wage increases and more employment opportunities than did higher-income folks. Just listen to them talk in interviews – they knew Trump made a difference in their lives. When Biden took power and spent and extra trillion or so on his laughingly misnamed, ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ – to pay off many of their NGOs and political constituencies (EVEN after Trump had already addressed Covid costs for the most part..) – inflation soared to historical heights really damaging the lives of the lower classes especially who live on slimmer margins. To make matters worse, Biden opened the southern border to millions, many of who were illiterate or badly educated – these were no tech bros – who began to compete with the American lower classes for jobs further compounding their ability to survive. The Harris / Biden Administration was completely tone-deaf to these Americans. This regime had to be taken down and the American people at large realized it.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 month ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Hmmm…despite spending a tragic amount of time defending himself from false charges and impeachment, he managed to get fuel prices down, inflation down, taxes down, employment rates way up, and historic real income gains for American workers of all demographics.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 month ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

He didn’t send their children to war. He was the first president in decades to actually shrink the wage gap between rich and poor.

Victoria Cooper
Victoria Cooper
1 month ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Your comment suggests that helping the working class was equal to making America great again. I think there is more to it than that.

Clare Knight
Clare Knight
28 days ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Well said!! That’s exactly what I always think when he yells that.

Michael Layman
Michael Layman
28 days ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Pre-COVID and Democrat fueled anarchy, his approval ratings were higher than Biden ever attained.

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
1 month ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

 “I like to think of myself as a reasonably modern, well-educated woman who can take care of herself and with an aversion to primitive “me, Tarzan – you, Jane” behaviour.”
That is your first mistake

Sawfish
Sawfish
1 month ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

“…the sheer defiance and the resilience of the guy.”
Yes, that’s it, exactly. It has the appeal of the heroic–not helpless–underdog. Promethean, not Ghandian.
…and as you say, this will to fight was crystalized and displayed in its authenticity in the moments after he was shot at.

Carlos Danger
Carlos Danger
1 month ago
Reply to  Dylan B

In 1966 management expert Peter Drucker wrote a book called The Effective Executive. It’s a good book, with insight. (Though a little boring and dated in places.) One insight in particular stands out for me. “Strong people have strong weaknesses.” He points out that some people in judging executive ability focus on weaknesses rather than strengths. But that’s wrong.
Instead of trying to find an executive with no real weaknesses, Peter Drucker said, look at strengths. If you choose a person without weaknesses, they will be mediocre at best and incompetent at worst. Where there are peaks there are valleys. Choose for strengths, and look past the weaknesses.
Looked at that way, Donald Trump does very well. He has his weaknesses, and they are strong weaknesses, but his strengths are tremendous, a lifetime of accomplishments. Kamala Harris, on the other hand, has few weaknesses, but few strengths either. A list of her accomplishments, other than winning elections, is empty.

Jerry Carroll
Jerry Carroll
1 month ago
Reply to  Carlos Danger

WillieBrown could add a thing or two to her list of accomplishments.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 month ago
Reply to  Carlos Danger

Great comment.

Victoria Cooper
Victoria Cooper
1 month ago
Reply to  Carlos Danger

Reminds me of a time I used to watch “lads” break in race horses. Some were meek, some fought like crazy. The lads said they were the future winners.

RA Znayder
RA Znayder
1 month ago
Reply to  Dylan B

Maybe. But of course we can look at his first term. How much did he do for Middle America back then? And Elon? How likely is it that he has ulterior motives? Perhaps they all do. After all, these people are as distant from working people as you can possibly get. And I also think that people in the Rust Belt know all this. They are not stupid but they are out of options because the left turned their backs on them.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 month ago
Reply to  RA Znayder

I don’t think Elon has any ulterior motives – at least any that are mercenary. He already has more money than anyone could spend in several lifetimes. He strikes me as being genuinely concerned for the well-being of democracy and the freedom of speech upon which it depends.

Don Lightband
Don Lightband
1 month ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

Oh yeah? Tell it to the paedos! Musk has X’d all of them out, willy nilly. Democracy with a catch

Andrew F
Andrew F
1 month ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

Maybe.
What about his links to China?
His car business is based on idiocy of net zero.
West doesn’t need electric cars and Musk business would be eaten alive by Chinese subsidised electric car exports.
Valuation of Tesla is a joke.
I live in West London.
Majority of people able to afford EVs switched from Tesla to EVs from Porsche and Audi.
So Tesla business is eaten from both ends by competitors.

Michael Layman
Michael Layman
28 days ago
Reply to  Andrew F

Too bad you didn’t buy TSLA 6 months ago. You would have doubled your investment.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 month ago
Reply to  RA Znayder

I don’t get this argument at all. The entire premise of the free market is basically people pursuing their self interest. Self interest is not a bad thing. It only becomes a bad if people pursue their self interest knowing it will hurt others.

Elon is definitely self interested. Twitter is likely dead under a Harris regime. On the bright side, his self interest will save free speech.

RA Znayder
RA Znayder
1 month ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

Well, I genuinely don’t know what Musk wants. Saving free speech is nice PR and I’m willing to believe that is something he truly believes in to some degree. However, he might have many other motivations as well, it is a bit naive to just take all the rhetoric at face value. We will see.
I’m not sure what free markets have to do with anything either. There is no free market nor has there ever been. The whole reason why many oligarchs are cozying up to political parties is precisely because they don’t like the free market and want a crony system instead. Of course they will preach the gospel of market discipline but certainly after 2008 it should be clear the game is rigged, and not in the interest of the working and middle classes. In the end, many of the ultra-wealthy are basically on central bank welfare. Not precisely libertarian.

Jerry Carroll
Jerry Carroll
1 month ago
Reply to  Dylan B

If you don’t know what to think about Trump, why are you offering a dithering opinion?

Dylan B
Dylan B
1 month ago
Reply to  Jerry Carroll

If I’m offering a dithering opinion it is because I genuinely can’t figure out if I admire or loathe the man.
He’s funny one minute. He’s crass and obnoxious the next. He’s car crash of a politician. You can’t take your eyes of him.
The sentiment that he embodies (to me at any rate) is “why are we doing things like this? Is there another way?”.
Now that might be just how he appears to me. But if RFK, Tulsi, Vance and Musk are onboard then it strikes me that other people might be feeling the same way.
Alternatively it might be a complete lie. Who knows.

Victoria Cooper
Victoria Cooper
1 month ago
Reply to  Dylan B

The trick is not to judge him as a person, but as a President.

Michael Layman
Michael Layman
28 days ago
Reply to  Dylan B

Pay attention to actions, not words. The next four years will be very different than his first presidency. He was severely handicapped as an outsider.
I noticed a decided change listening to him speak this year. I heard none of the crassness though still outspoken.

Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
1 month ago
Reply to  Jerry Carroll

Maybe it’s more interesting to hear from Dylan than the Trump fanboys who are so prominent on here! Nobody so far has even engaged with Mary Harrington’s main points, but that’s so typical – the Democrats are totalitarian, socialist, woke tyrants etc etc. Trump is a hero. Name calling, hagiography, conspiracy theories, not a great deal of analysis

Harrington on the other hand looks behind this and examines the structural changes behind the (important) social and political surface.

B Emery
B Emery
1 month ago
Reply to  Andrew Fisher

‘Harrington on the other hand looks behind this and examines the structural changes behind the (important) social and political surface’

Are you sure about that. Because I’m pretty sure what I just read was complete drivel.

‘But what makes Peanut a note-perfect metaphor for the electoral crunch moment now under way is none of these things: it’s the porno plot twist.’

I never got why this is the perfect metaphor, if anybody else understands that please explain.

.’ First, the rise to prominence of people, views, and aesthetics from an extremely online Right that, back in 2016, was a subculture without institutional power.’

‘and talking-points, and his all-in backing of the Trump campaign in turn stand metonymically for a broader Right-wing shift in political allegiance among tech bros.’

So p nut the squirrel is apparently some kind of metaphor for the rise of the online right, despite the fact he belongs to an animal rescuing prn star – surely normally an animal rescuing prn star would be classed as more of a libertarian/ left wing type. What does p nut have to do with the online right. Like at all.
Just because there was a torrent of memes and stupid sh*t on the Internet does not then make said squirrel a metaphor for anything.

Then there is something about middle America being badly off and ignored, nobody really cares about this, they are surely one of the world’s least persecuted people, Trump said he would help working class people. The very definition of being middle class surely means you aren’t actually struggling that much. Surely it makes sense to help people on low wages/ working class instead when inflation is high and the world’s a bit crazy. Why trump is bad for saying he will help the working class is not explained.

Frankly my teeth hurt from trying to chew this word salad.

‘In its wake, tradesmen now tame squirrels and make porn, and the future is (maybe) brain implants, robot dogs, and space colonies’

We reach a conclusion. But the author has forgotten that actually p nut is really famous because actually, not many tradesmen do that.
It isn’t exactly an occupation you come across very often is it.
So the conclusion is also complete tosh.
The idea that tradesmen are being forced into some kind of world where prn is the only option, and that a rescue squirrel belonging to a prn star is somehow a metaphor for the online right is frankly the most hilarious and ridiculous thing I’ve read for a while.

Pedro the Exile
Pedro the Exile
1 month ago
Reply to  B Emery

Glad it wasn’t just me who raed this as a load of polysyllabic tosh

Jerry Carroll
Jerry Carroll
1 month ago
Reply to  B Emery

These journalistic deadlines imposed on Harrington are damaging to what I think is a pretty good mind. She is better than these frequent effusions.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 month ago
Reply to  B Emery

I usually don’t read her stuff. I skipped straight to the comments this time.,

B Emery
B Emery
1 month ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

Give it a try. I’m not an academic so perhaps it is me that is missing something about these metaphors.
Is anyone brave enough to have a go at explaining why the prno plot twist makes p nut a perfect metaphor?

Kerry Davie
Kerry Davie
1 month ago
Reply to  B Emery

Yep, it was complete drivel. The only saving graces of Harrington’s article are in the comments section.

tug ordie
tug ordie
29 days ago
Reply to  B Emery

I really like Harrington, and this essay follows downstream of her previous extensive writing both for UnHerd and her book (Feminism Against Progress). Her concern about “brain implants” and other techno-optimism is well tempered and she has a debate video from the UnHerd club where she argues convincingly against transhumanism. These sentiments peek out in this essay but are not fully explained.
I think her overall thrust here is well taken, that middle america is looking screwed no matter who’s in charge. You can get a slow suffocating death in the longhouse (and I guarantee she’s read it, but this explanation should still be linked in the piece above: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2023/02/what-is-the-longhouse) or a possibly more uneven style of decay with Trumpian individualism taking up the zeitgeist, but we cannot truly RETVRN.
This is why I think Musk actually IS important. If we colonize mars, and develop the technology to create space stations and thus unending worlds, it truly will allow for unlimited human exploration, growth, and potential. There can be endless experiments in human living. There will be interesting, needed work for literally everyone. We need that bright future to strive toward

Dylan B
Dylan B
1 month ago
Reply to  Andrew Fisher

I wonder if it’s his off the cuff, sometimes funny and sometimes absurd comments that engage people.

Bizarrely for man who is branded a liar so often, the honesty of saying the first thing that comes into his head out loud is oddly endearing. Accessible even.

There’s a humanity on display that is missing in most politicians. A ‘one of us’ as opposed to a ‘one of them’ quality.

I don’t know what it is. But he is fascinating in a way that the current crop of democrats aren’t.

Cathy Carron
Cathy Carron
1 month ago
Reply to  Dylan B

Trump thinks outside the box. Creativity is an important quality that escapes career politicians.

Katharine Eyre
Katharine Eyre
1 month ago

I think Trump will go down in history as an Andrew Jackson figure: a highly controversial, highly masculine figure who polarises the electorate and reforms the political landscape for years to come.
According to the White House website:
As national politics polarized around Jackson and his opposition, two parties grew out of the old Republican Party–the Democratic Republicans, or Democrats, adhering to Jackson; and the National Republicans, or Whigs, opposing him.
Who knows what will now happen to the two parties. It’s turbulent, but exciting to watch.
Also a word on the high-powered masculinity of the Tech Bros and how anti-Trumpers are repelled by it. Let’s ask: how did it come to be that the Tech Bros came to be such a thing, and that they are “bros” and not “sistaz” or whatever?
I look at Elon Musk and co and don’t see threatening masculinity as such, but a dominant characteristic which I think is still more widespread among men than women and which drives them to success (and notoriety): more powerful egos, burning ambition to achieve, affinity for risk, more likely to look at insane things and go “yeah, I can do that”.
I’m not saying that women don’t have these traits, many do – it’s just that, at this point in the female emancipation story – women are still held back by certain stereotypes that they have to wrestle with. I think – in 20-30 years time, tech will be more female.
And the final point to this: don’t feel threatened by the masculinity of the tech bros and criticise them for it. Do more to empower women and help them develop the characteristics which are critical to this kind of success and influence.

Carlos Danger
Carlos Danger
1 month ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

I’ve worked in Silicon Valley as a lawyer for many years now. It is male-dominated, that’s for sure. But there are some women who do well at the highest ranks here. One person who showed she had what it takes to build a company from nothing into a strong unicorn was Elizabeth Holmes. And look where her efforts got her. She’s sitting in a federal prison in Texas when she should be leading a company.

Katharine Eyre
Katharine Eyre
1 month ago
Reply to  Carlos Danger

Elizabeth Holmes was a monumental fraud, I don’t think she’s a suitable role model. For anyone.
The lesson from that drama (as well as the Wirecard fraud) is how even well-educated, experienced people can be led down the garden path if there’s a lot of money to be made.

Peter B
Peter B
1 month ago
Reply to  Carlos Danger

I agree with you on so much CD. But this I cannot take seriously.
She had a fair trial.
She brought it all on herself. And harmed and defrauded countless others. She is not the victim here.

0 01
0 01
29 days ago
Reply to  Carlos Danger

I don’t know what you’re obsession is with Elizabeth Holmes is about, you have said on several occasions that she yourself is some kind of good example of a businesswoman. I don’t know if you’re some kind of troll, a bot, or just some kind of crank with a Para social social obsession.

Caradog Wiliams
Caradog Wiliams
1 month ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

Whatever you say, you clearly have a problem with masculinity. We are all here on UnHerd today because of masculinity/femininity; without it there can be no people.

Lancashire Lad
Lancashire Lad
1 month ago

Maybe she just has a problem with “mansplaining”.

Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
1 month ago

No, without MEN and WOMEN, there can be no people. That is not the same point.

Peter B
Peter B
1 month ago

At the risk of mansplaining and offending Katharine by appearing to reply for her, I don’t read her comment that way at all.
I suspect she’s partly saying that women need to learn a bit from what’s made the men successful in Silicon Valley. I’ve spent a lot of time in tech and some of it in Silicon Valley and I’m not taking issue with anything she says. She’s not asking for positive discrimination here (where I would disagree). Just saying that it will take time, encouragement and some cultural adjustments for women to become a larger part of the tech world.

B Emery
B Emery
1 month ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

how did it come to be that the Tech Bros came to be such a thing, and that they are “bros” and not “sistaz” or whatever?

Because they are men?

‘And the final point to this: don’t feel threatened by the masculinity of the tech bros and criticise them for it. Do more to empower women and help them develop the characteristics which are critical to this kind of success and influence.’

Who are these people that feel threatened by the masculinity of all people – the tech bros. Seriously. Of all the masculine archetypes you could have chosen you picked one of the least masculine – these guys do computers. They aren’t exactly selling spartan frickin warrior vibes are they.
What are we supposed to do? Encourage women to behave more like tech bros? Why? So they can be empowered with what exactly?
What is stopping women from progressing in these fields already? Absolutely nothing I don’t think, women havent been chained to the sink for quite some time, they let us out to school a fair while back. We are even allowed to go to university and vote. That’s been allowed for a while too.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/allysonkapin/2019/02/20/50-women-led-startups-who-are-crushing-tech/

Ladies that already work in the land if tech. Without embracing being a tech bro. Or having to behave like a man.

‘I look at Elon Musk and co and don’t see threatening masculinity as such, but a dominant characteristic which I think is still more widespread among men than women and which drives them to success (and notoriety): more powerful egos, burning ambition to achieve, affinity for risk, more likely to look at insane things and go “’

So you don’t see’ threatening masculinity’ but you see ego, ambition and insane risk taking. You then advise womem to embrace these characteristics.
I don’t think you understand the people you are talking about very well at all.

Claire Grey
Claire Grey
1 month ago

As a small c conservative I have no wish to “bring back the 20th century”, and I seriously doubt whether any other c conservative does either. As far as I am aware the West has, on the whole, always managed to maintain an equilibrium between the forces of technological progress and social traditions which serve humanity well.
Technological progress and the coming thing are inevitable, but they need to be tempered by all that we have learnt and created for ourselves in the past that is good, which, in my view, is conservatism at it’s best.

I am not American but, for what it is worth, I think Trump is probably the leader required right now. Harris would have been just a puppet.

laurence scaduto
laurence scaduto
1 month ago
Reply to  Claire Grey

You’re right. Nobody is really trying to “bring back the 20th century”.
But the world is so full of stuff these days, the question remains: “Why aren’t we making more of it?”

Corrie Mooney
Corrie Mooney
1 month ago
Reply to  Claire Grey

I fear you are wrong. The technological progress that we are now seeing isn’t. Social traditions are fading before our eyes. Trump may change the messaging that makes it seem like our traditions are coming back and are safe, but they’re dying all the same. Maybe that’s the best we can hope for.

Douglas Redmayne
Douglas Redmayne
1 month ago

Unregulated ” big tech” means AGI and the full automation of labour will happen faster because regulation and free speech guardrails add cost and inhibit progress. Many Trump voters will be rendered permanently unemployed but older Democrat voters with pensions ( and I) will at least get robot servants and self driving cars.

RA Znayder
RA Znayder
1 month ago

In theory automation and, more importantly, more efficient ways of using energy for production should improve standards of living as long as that wealth is shared or trickling down. A danger is that this last part doesn’t happen.
However, I think a more realistic danger is that they can actually not deliver and the boom will appear to be a speculative financial.com 2.0 bubble. And then we still don’t have an industrial base that can actually produce something.

Carlos Danger
Carlos Danger
1 month ago

There may be some changes coming due to artificial intelligence, but the idea that the government is perceptive enough to regulate the industry is silly. Government has an important but limited role in our economy. It needs to stick to tha limited role, and not meddle in what it cannot understand.

AC Harper
AC Harper
1 month ago

In my opinion “diffuse accountability” eventually becomes so diffuse that no accountability exists. Why do we elect leaders who have no accountability? Politicians who kick the can further down the road, or into the long grass, are not doing anything.
Arguably the USA election was a call for greatness vs a call for further diffusion of accountability. With a Trump win (both in electoral college votes and the popular vote), Republicans winning the Senate and probably the House it would appear that the “diffuse accountability” mindset has failed.

Dennis Roberts
Dennis Roberts
1 month ago
Reply to  AC Harper

‘In my opinion “diffuse accountability” eventually becomes so diffuse that no accountability exists.’

I like that phrase. This is exactly why the managerial class has made the UK public sector so ineffective.

Peter B
Peter B
1 month ago
Reply to  AC Harper

Glad you mentioned accountability as it strikes me that this may be why Trump won. Simply because he’s someone who’s prepared to be accountable. Rather than trying to avoid difficult decisions and answering questions, he’s prepared to try stuff, even if it fails. And sometimes face the consequences (though he often tries to deny them).
People talk a lot about authenticity. It’s hard to know just how authentic Trump is sometimes. But he’s actually prepared to stick his neck out and take some risks. The thing that marked this election for me was when he called Kamala Harris’ bluff about working at McDonalds and rolled his sleeves up and went to actually work there. It could have all gone horribly wrong (only one customer at the drive through needed to tear him off a strip to create some bad press – or Harris might have produced solid proof that she did work there). But people actually seemed to like him.
Right now, it seems that the Americans want action and not words. I’ve given up taking Trump’s words literally (I seriously doubt any great trade tariffs will actually be applied. And Hillary’s still freely walking the streets). Instead, I think the bluster is largely about projecting him as a man prepared to do things. And quite radical things if needed. And reducing the need to do radical things by talking seriously about potential actions.

Steve Gwynne
Steve Gwynne
1 month ago
Reply to  AC Harper

Diffuse accountability ☺️
Nice one, I like that.

Dillon Eliassen
Dillon Eliassen
1 month ago

“But as its enemies are forever pointing out, “The West” is de facto the American Empire, and Britain one of its protectorates. In other words: this is also our election, and who occupies the White House is intensely relevant to us. We just don’t get to vote.”
You Brits are lucky we Americans ain’t into taxation without representation.

martin ordody
martin ordody
1 month ago

Can’t agree with anything. Just to predict what under Trump will not work is wrong. Maybe the better analysis would check what under the Democrats went wrong and what he should do to correct.

Will D. Mann
Will D. Mann
1 month ago

Regardless of whether or not Trump’s policies will be good for America, his isolationism, Tariffs, promises to withdraw climate change agreements, NATO and “end the war in Ukraine” will have huge impact on the rest of the world, including us in the UK.

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
1 month ago
Reply to  Will D. Mann

You do recall that Trump was president once before, right? And that none of the alleged horrible things we could expect came to pass.

Carlos Danger
Carlos Danger
1 month ago
Reply to  Will D. Mann

Isolationism? Donald Trump was one of the most engaged presidents in world affairs that the US has ever had. He puts America first, but not by isolating her.

Victor James
Victor James
1 month ago

Typical Mary article. Subtle mocking of the ‘right’, but restrained and respectful language for the ‘left’.

Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
1 month ago
Reply to  Victor James

I don’t particularly see this, but some on the Right are pretty crazy, are they not? And they appear so, to many of us. The Left however more ideological and tend to be more out of touch with ordinary people in a more fundamental way

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 month ago
Reply to  Andrew Fisher

Right… fluorescent colored hair, voluntary masectomies, gender by declaration….all normal…

Mustard Clementine
Mustard Clementine
1 month ago

Neither Trump, nor any Western populist, truly cares to restore the middle class. They have simply been able to take advantage of the fact that not enough in opposition to them seem to think it necessary to meaningfully address declining living standards. They clearly don’t even need to deliver on any of their promises, for this trick to keep working. Simply saying you notice things people notice – even when you’ve had years in power already to suggest you won’t actually do anything meaningful about them, either – is apparently enough when the other side still leans much too far towards a “don’t believe your own eyes” bent.

Sigh.

Carlos Danger
Carlos Danger
1 month ago

I think both parties want to restore the middle class. The trick is, how?

Chipoko
Chipoko
1 month ago

“Middle American groups” suffer “exploitation at the hands of the dominant elites” via methods including “hypertaxation”, the replacement of manufacturing with services, “the managed destruction of Middle American norms and institutions” and — centrally — “the regimentation of Middle Americans under the federal leviathan”.
Very well articulated!

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 month ago

For all his faults Trump has done something that the world needed doing: he’s created a new coalition of working people that crosses the class and racial barriers that his opponents have worked so hard to erect. That’s a good thing.

Thomas Wagner
Thomas Wagner
1 month ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

Trump’s victory stands on the rubble of “intersectionality.”
And that’s a good thing.

RA Znayder
RA Znayder
1 month ago

In my opinion the problem is not so much that people want the 20th century but precisely that we cannot really get out of the 20th century. You see it in the rherotic: accusations of being a communist or a fascist like it’s the 30s. All of it seems like weak rehearsal of the 20th century but actually far less serious, it’s mostly memes and rhetoric while things never change that much.
It is the broken promises of the 20th century. We think we live in an age of technological wonders but many people seem to miss that in the 20th century we actually believed we would be much more advanced by now. We mostly did things in the virtual world, as Mark Fisher said: the 21st century is the 20th century in HD. Not to mentioned the stagnant or regressing standards of living.
Will a deregulated libertarian tech world give us those dreams finally? It sounds a lot like the promises of the 80s but this is when the stagnation really started. If anything we need something entirely new.

Norfolk Sceptic
Norfolk Sceptic
1 month ago
Reply to  RA Znayder

Too many treat Technology as magic, with no reason to think the process through to completion, or any of the consequences, preferring to outsource responsibility due to a lack of knowledge.

Underlying this is the ignorance in the Sciences, Engineering, Business, Manufacturing and Distribution involved before the magic occurs. And even I nearly forgot the necessary supply of raw materials, from the sourcing of food, fuel and metals, without which, there wouldn’t be much left of civilization.

Terry M
Terry M
1 month ago

With 161 million registered voters, all you can really contest is vibes.
Mary completely misses the mark. This election was about issues – immigration, inflation, abortion, war, Israel, Iran – that were often confused with and by memes; Mary only saw the memes. Kamala et al were hoping that’s all the people saw because that’s all she had. Eventually enough people were exposed to her shallow, vapid, shifting views and inability to articulate a position on anything, and went to Trump.

Bret Larson
Bret Larson
1 month ago
Reply to  Terry M

Yup, trump had some Harris didn’t. Trump also mediated his brand and added team. All Harris had was brand.

Quite impressive.

Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
1 month ago
Reply to  Terry M

What opinion evidence do you have for this claim? Immigration, yes. Abortion? A pro Democrat issue. Iran? Israel. What about Ukraine? What do you mean?

laurence scaduto
laurence scaduto
1 month ago
Reply to  Andrew Fisher

Abortion is now a States’ rights issue; close to the hearts of many Americans who just want to be left alone, without interference from coastal types.
Ukraine has become just another forever war. Nobody wants that. Except the Dems.
And concerning the Mid-East you just haven’t been watching enough old Westerns.
After what Hamas and friends did Israel ought to be allowed some space for revenge. If things get out of hand the sheriff, the burgers and the women of the town will put an end to it. We haven’t reached that point yet. It’s all in the script.
I reluctantly agree with Terry M. Mary missed some of the subtleties of the American mind.

Andrew F
Andrew F
1 month ago
Reply to  Terry M

Exactly.
I was talking about election yesterday in London craft beer bar.
Some Americans (all registered Democrats) and usual uk woke crowd of NHS, civil service and quangos.
What I found quite hilarious was their idea that Kamala lost because she didn’t have enough time to present her strength to American voters.
When I pointed out that Kamala was part of Democrat plot to deceive American voters about Biden mental state, they just denied it claiming she was change candidate.
You can not be helped if you suffer from TDS.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 month ago
Reply to  Andrew F

Your post has many positives. One is the implication that for someone to suffer from TDS some underlying vulnerabilities must exist.

Kerry Davie
Kerry Davie
1 month ago
Reply to  Andrew F

She had plenty of time to demonstrate that she is a vacuous fake and a fraud, absolutely bereft of any of the skills and talents that being an even half-way decent POTUS requires. Any more time and that would only have become even more obvious.

William Amos
William Amos
1 month ago

“Francis is a risky figure to cite, having been expelled from polite conservative circles some decades ago for forbidden opinions on race”

That is a trifle misleading. At least insofar as the words ‘polite’ and ‘forbidden opinions’ seem to suggest that Sam Francis was a victim of baseless snobbery or prissy bien-pensant pearl clutching.
In reality, by the time he was fired from the Washington Times in 1995, Mr Francis was a vigorous and convinced exponent of State Racialism and actual American White Nationalism. Not the CNN stuff, but the genuine article. The Occidental Quarterly, which he edited declared as its stated purpose the defense of “the cultural, ethnic, and racial interests of Western European peoples” 
He declared widely and repeatedly against burgeoning ‘miscegination’ and ‘race mixing’ in all its forms in the modern United States and argued instead for a racially homogenous nation built upon White European racial solidarity to the exclusion of non-white races.
He was not excluded on the basis of insinuation or tale-bearing evasion but weighed and found wanting on on these, the opinions he expressed so candidly and forthrightly to his dying day.

Nick Gilbert
Nick Gilbert
1 month ago

” In sum ” ….followed by yet another 200 words . Turgid and Hilary-like in its attitude to the sensibilities of 300 plus Americans.

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
1 month ago

The political legacy of Donald Trump has and will have less to do with the man himself and more to do with the incompetence and malfeasance of the professional politicians who made him possible. In a healthy, well-functioning republic, there would be no place for such a candidate and such a candidate would see no reason to run. Why would he? If things are going well, the businessman can keep focusing on business. But things are NOT going well and everyone knows it. That so many fought and will keep fighting to preserve that status quo is a problem.

Sawfish
Sawfish
1 month ago
Reply to  Alex Lekas

I have a personal theory that Obama’s presidency is what made Trump *possible*. There was a sort of disdainful, elitist, and patronizing message that emanated from his administration and gradually wore away at the initial optimism of his presidency represented.
At least that’s how I felt after voting for him in 2008. FWIW, I have not voted for the office of US presidency since.

Michael Cazaly
Michael Cazaly
1 month ago
Reply to  Sawfish

Now that is a very interesting point!

Certainly Obama started with a “man for the people” aura (not “man of the people”, strangely enough…he was too patrician for that…) but swiftly became a “man for the elite people” whilst still getting the votes of those who thought he would benefit “ordinary people”.

It was a good manoeuvre, presumably not his alone.

laurence scaduto
laurence scaduto
1 month ago
Reply to  Sawfish

I remember some real animosity between the two of them. Obama said some very insulting things about Trump.

Bret Larson
Bret Larson
1 month ago
Reply to  Alex Lekas

Not quite sure about that. The dream team behind trump and the stories how they got there is the story in my opinion.

Peter B
Peter B
1 month ago
Reply to  Alex Lekas

Bang on.
But perhaps you forgot the media. Remember, he’s the man that first brought “fake news” to widespread attention (of course, he can hand it out just as well as he can take it). There was certainly plenty of fake news on display over the past few weeks. The “expert” BBC coverage of the US election explaining it to all us little people was little else.

Paul Rodolf
Paul Rodolf
1 month ago

“For those to whom this represents “Our Democracy” it’s obviously good: overall a more stable, consistent, and equitable system.”
This is not true in any sense.

ChilblainEdwardOlmos
ChilblainEdwardOlmos
1 month ago
Reply to  Paul Rodolf

“Our Bureaucracy”

steve eaton
steve eaton
23 days ago
Reply to  Paul Rodolf

I have to disagree with this. Mary is not claiming that the present state is in fact,”obviously good: overall a more stable, consistent, and equitable system.”
But instead, she is saying that in the eyes of those to whom the present system is affectionately known as “Our Democracy”, meaning Progressive Democrats, the present system is seen as a very good system.
It’s not that the belief is true, but it is a fact that the Progressive left has gone a long way towards establishing what they believe is a perfect nation. All that was missing was a purge of all those holding opposing views and they were making real progress on that front as well.
Mary’s statement is true, even if the beliefs that it references aren’t.

Unwoke S
Unwoke S
1 month ago

“…a perceived Left-wing preference for collectivism, over-regulation, and safety-obsessed mediocrity. Is this a fair depiction of Trump’s enemies?” Yes, Mary.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 month ago

Once I see an author consistently using the terms “right wing and radical right” I stop reading. Please stop using these meaningless terms.

j watson
j watson
1 month ago

One silver lining is that there can now be no excuses. He has the Senate, the House and the Supreme ct. Let’s see what the Grifter who thought nothing of any workers affected by his business deals now does for Middle America when there is no longer anything much in it for him. He has what he wanted now from them. The veil will be pulled back and they’ll find he’s as much the self serving elite Billionaire as the rest of those they are angry about. Author senses that too.
But the thing you can say about Trump is that he didn’t understate their grievances even if he’s absolutely no intention, or sufficient self discipline, to properly tackle them. That was his political genius. Whereas the Democrats, as incumbents, inevitably had to.

Jerry Carroll
Jerry Carroll
1 month ago

You’re trying to do too much with too little, Mary. I’m quitting UnHerd because of the quiet takeover by wooly academics who can spin out long tracts of nonsense an hour after getting the go-ahead. Before taking this job, you should have spent a goodly time being exposed to the wide world beyond the library stacks.

Steve Gwynne
Steve Gwynne
1 month ago

Homeostasis – Autopeisis
Equality – Common Sense
Cosmopolitan – Communitarian
Federal – State
Global – National
Technocracy – Democracy

I think the many paradoxes highlighted by Mary in this piece points to two world views.

The first being a Progressive world system and the second being the continuance and strengthening of the Westphalian system of resilient nation states.

The first seeks universalist woke conformity through the lens of oppressor and oppressed in order to position Progressive elites as the divine equalisers of global genetic diversity. However because they are unable to provide rational solutions to how global genetic egalitarianism would work in practice, they resort to ideological bigotry and facile name calling.

The second seeks national sustainability, resilience and sufficiency to the extent it can exist within the context of technological innovation and growing resource scarcity.

However instead of equalising genetic diversity, the second system mediates genetic diversity within the context of common sense and law and order which allows for greater communitarian subsidiarity by which people can meditate their daily lives.

Another problem with the equalising system compared to the mediating one exists at the hyper local whereby equalising is experienced as power over and intimidating and mediating is experienced as power with and facilitating.

In other words, the former manifests itself as a hierarchical Progressive Panopticon based on the premise that all are equal but some are more equal than others whereas the latter manifests itself as a hierarchical Conservative Feudalism in which corporate elites are facilitated by the State to innovate and sustain technologies which create a reasonable standard of living for commoners.

Perhaps the reason why the Democrats lost is because Trump was challenging from the position of a Feudal King Mediator who wants to facilitate innovation with peace whereas Harris was positioning herself as a Woke Queen Equaliser who wants to enforce equity with war which provided glimpses of the diffuse accountability of the Woke Panopticon System compared to the constitutional accountability of the Trad Feudal System ☺️

0 0
0 0
1 month ago

Americans have voted to leave the Western ‘rules based order’ and join the multi polar world. Where they’re entitled to demand their government looks after them. Whether it’s able to or not is another matter of course, but it sure shakes up the world order.

M To the Tea
M To the Tea
1 month ago

The only thing Trump will do is ‘shed light on’ what we call “politics” today – take off the veil of ignorance. “If” there’s ever been a capitalist manipulating the state to mislead the population through a media mirror, mirror on the wall, Trump will break through that mirror, as any narcissist would, to get to the heart of things! This time, however, it’s real, and he’ll get burned in the process. Yet he’ll leave a legacy as the man who inspired capitalists to build their country first (MAGA) —a contradiction, yes, but possible with someone like Trump!
If China can do it, we can do better and bigger and greater! (though their revolution is relatively much younger than ours so maybe we should really just ask how did they do it?)
It is techno state – voting will become a temperature take to see if the populations are satisfied to avoid instability – a new way of governing. State and finance make a deal with the devil – you and I -watching from the distance! dreaming yes! but doable also yes!

steve eaton
steve eaton
23 days ago
Reply to  M To the Tea

What you describe is Fascism. I do not believe that Trump is a Fascist even as described in such a roundabout manner as you have. Though I do agree that we are seeing a metamorphosis from a Democratic Republic to Techno-Fascist system. However it is not coming with Trump. It is coming despite Trump. It is the project of Gates, Bezos, and the rest of the Tech-elites who confuse their ability to make money with deserving to command the world.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 month ago

The little guy’s name was P’nut, not Peanut.

George K
George K
1 month ago

As they say, conservatives are always fighting the lost war. But hopefully they’ll be able to recover some sanity to allow for something new to come out. new ideas, new understanding, new vision that are more aligned with the new tech and political realities. Republicans’ nostalgia for the imaginary golden age is endearingly naive but they could at least to start the new realignment with reality on more reasonable terms

Ardath Blauvelt
Ardath Blauvelt
1 month ago

An excellent essay, but the bottom line is really fairly simple: first, Americans are not, and never have been, collectivists, and every attempt to force fit them into a bundle, fails. Second, being individualistic, they reject being managed by hired hands who holds them in contempt. Third, they are not stupid. They are fully aware of a changing world, in fact they are part of those changes. They merely demand the American right to manage those changes themselves.

All the brilliance supposedly gathering somewhere in elite circles all came from the middle class where creativity, innovation and ambition is born. The elites fear their own roots, and so they should.

And, get over the whole men v women paradigm. That’s so old, worn out and long dead. The energy and initiative the world needs now, comes from both. There’s no time left in our challenging and changing world for whining, whinging and hand wringing.

Managing is over rated.

Peter Stephenson
Peter Stephenson
1 month ago

Mary has written some corkers. But what is this? It is overwritten, wreathed in private word associations. Telegraphic, ungenerous, possibly nonsense, but who knows? You can do better. You don’t have to copy Charles Moore, but study his style, even if you resolve to do different.

Andrew F
Andrew F
1 month ago

I lost interest in this article when Marry came up with “Twitter being Trump megaphone” nonsense.
So when X under previous ownership was censoring non approved views, shadow banning posts and posters, promoting covid “official” lies it was all fine?
Did she follow Twitter Files story?
Disgusting examples of censorship galore.
That is the reality of woke regime.
It can not allow open discussion of it idiotic world view because even primary school kids would laugh at it if presented with alternative narrative.
Instead of having fed woke poison by lefty parasites.
That is problem Trump and West faces.
Till lefty, woke parasites are eliminated from education and MSM, there is little chance of any meaningful change.

Ned Ewart
Ned Ewart
1 month ago

It seems to me that this election is not all about Donald Trump. This is about a coalition of voters, including traditional Democrats (many traditional Republicans actually voted Democrat), legal immigrants, blacks awakening to the fact that dependency on the government has been and continues to be extremely damaging to the black community, independents, and the formerly apathetic who have believed that their vote had no power. Contrary to what one might believe reading the mostly dishonest media, there is a broadly held American narrative. These are the people who actually believe that America, for all her flaws, brings something very special and valuable to the human experience and it is truly worth preserving. Americans who are informed by sources other than the legacy media see that the corruption of valued American institutions like the Justice Department, prosecutors, and judges is that which is truly destructive of our democracy, that DEI hiring leads to incompetence, that affirmative action degrades those it claims to help, that the legacy media is so corrupt that truth is no longer discernible by those relying on it for information, that open borders create chaos and is unjustly harmful to those living with the consequences, that making policing extremely difficult and the job undesirable is counter-productive, that allowing biological males to compete against women in sports and invade women’s institutions is extremely concerning to fathers who believe that protecting their daughters is responsible parenting, that absolute distain for those not aligned with you politically is presumptuous and arrogant, that telling those suffering economically that they just don’t appreciate how good things are, and the list goes on, is a loser. The Democrat Party has become the party of the elites and their policies harmful to many Americans. Their unwillingness to afford human dignity and be willing to listen to more than half of Americans is what lead to their demise, not love for Trump as many Democrats seem to think.

steve eaton
steve eaton
23 days ago
Reply to  Ned Ewart

This the truth. Many of my work friends and social acquaintances being Progressives, seem so confused as to how anyone even remotely sentient could vote for Trump. They point to his obvious Narcissism, his crass behavior, combative rhetoric, and lying, among many other faults real and imagined. The conclusion that they always come to is that the Trump voters are evil and stupid.
I answer that the simple and accurate view is that even the enthusiastic Trump voters see his character flaws and Narcissism, and they are no more stupid and evil than they themselves are… I tell them that what they should be asking is, how bad must their Progressive system under Biden and Harris be to inspire a majority of people in the country to prefer a man like like Trump.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 month ago

When one hears pundits call Trump “extreme right”, one knows that the pundit, at best, is having a bad day and can’t find something original to write about.

John Croteau
John Croteau
1 month ago

Love you, Mary, but this article is a great example of why Trump won such broad support across many demographics.
Americans are simple people. Dating back to King George and his Parliament, they reject the imposition of regulations and controls from patriarchal — and now matriarchal — institutions that think they know what’s best for everyone. The Democrat Machine — and its Deep State — failed almost everyone in every respect the last four years — inflation, immigration, censorship, political lawfare, public health, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Hamas, etc., etc., etc. Complete and utter disaster.
The over educated elite were taken down by a populist who was willing to literally risk his life to break their stranglehold. The overturn is clearly evident as the popular vote and both chambers of Congress went in Trump’s favor. People are finally free to express their support without public disdain. This will only snowball as the legacy media fades to oblivion.
Trump’s policies may or may not work on all fronts, but the evidence from his first term speaks volumes despite traitorous acts of resistance within our Intelligence community. Before COVID, the economy was flourishing, wages were rising, unemployment was at all-time lows, and there were no new wars with peace through strength. Abraham Accords.
The man is imperfect, as we all are. His movement will outlive him. History will judge Trump favorably. Like Washington who shed the yokes of Britain, Lincoln who broken the bonds of slavery, and Kennedy who saved the world from nuclear devastation, Trump will be credited with fending off woke, Marxist and corrupt Corporate threats to the great American experiment.
THAT is why true blue Democrats like RFK, Tulsi Gabbard, Elon Musk, and Joe Rogan joined the movement. Not policy. Principles.

Kerry Davie
Kerry Davie
1 month ago

Harrington, don’t give up your day job.

Victoria Cooper
Victoria Cooper
1 month ago

Maybe we can’t go back to the twentieth century, maybe technology will change everything (and make immigration redundant) but for now I am happy with the demolition of the neo marxist woke domination which is less about caring and sharing and more to do with money and power. There will be an inevitable backlash of pro masculinity/right wingness, but the over feminisation/infantilisation of culture created that vacuum. The pendulum will soon start to be less extreme as it will be propelled by the increasing cognition of the people.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 month ago

I was curious to know what Sam Francis’s ‘forbidden opinions on race’ are, as Harrington euphemistically puts it. So I went looking. He is a genuine white nationalist. Why not just say so, and let people draw their own conclusions on the way in which those views should colour his other views?

Michael Layman
Michael Layman
28 days ago

Peanut died in vain Squirrels, mice and small rodents do not transmit rabies to humans. Other New York politics are at play here.