Finished Goliath’s Curse by Luke Kemp and now hopping between Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, Whitehead’s Process and Reality and The Satanic Verses by Rushdie.

Civilization collapse will hit hardest on communities who haven’t localized their production of basic necessities like food. The financial backers behind Trump adhere to the Dark Enlightenment philosophy, with the goals of dismantling democracy, balkanizing America and establishing a patchwork of technomonarchy city-states from the ashes of destruction. The dismantlement phase is complete, now begins another phase of their philosophy, the scapegoating of Trump and replacing him with their Chosen One.

Here is a quote from the dark enlightenment to get people an idea of what these people have planned:

Civilization, as a process, is indistinguishable from diminishing time-preference (or declining concern for the present in comparison to the future). Democracy, which both in theory and evident historical fact accentuates time-preference to the point of convulsive feeding-frenzy, is thus as close to a precise negation of civilization as anything could be, short of instantaneous social collapse into murderous barbarism or zombie apocalypse (which it eventually leads to). As the democratic virus burns through society, painstakingly accumulated habits and attitudes of forward-thinking, prudential, human and industrial investment, are replaced by a sterile, orgiastic consumerism, financial incontinence, and a ‘reality television’ political circus. Tomorrow might belong to the other team, so it’s best to eat it all now.

The Dark Enlightenment, Nick Land

His reluctance to devolve power, his lack of loyalty towards his most zealous followers, his readiness to chop and change policies, his preference for mediocrities and sycophants over men of natural ability, and, most of all, his increasing tendency to believe his own rhetoric about the state of the nation ensured that the new state was never going to be a meritocracy

Nature of Fascism, R Griffin

This is in reference to Mussolini, but it’s a valid description of Trump as well.

That’s typically the case between theory and practice. His writing carved out exemptions to justify totalitarianism in certain instances, defeating the entire purpose of his warnings against it. That said, the analysis of totalitarianism is accurate, the chapters on why the worst get on top and the end of truth are relevant to today’s political climate.

The word “truth” itself ceases to have its old meaning. It describes no longer something to be found, with the individual conscience as the sole arbiter of whether in any particular instance the evidence (or the standing of those proclaiming it) warrants a belief; it becomes something to be laid down by authority, something which has to be believed in the interest of the unity of the organized effort and which may have to be altered as the exigencies of this organized effort require it.

The Road to Serfdom, F. A. Hayek

It’s over the top and stupid because he’s using crowd psychology, it’s language tailored to elicit an emotional response based on irrational fear and anger. The “truth” is delegated from above, it’s true because the “authority” says it’s true. The intent of this type of rhetoric is to mobilize supporters to commit violence.

Since fascism’s mythic power is automatically sapped by the renewed ascendancy of the private over the public sphere of life which ensues once political stability and relative social harmony are restored, it can only maintain its momentum and cohesion by continually precipitating events which seemed to fulfil the promise of permanent revolution, of continuing palingenesis.

Though it may seek through agitation and propaganda to develop into an ‘irresistible’ mass movement, fascism must always in the last analysis be imposed by an elite in the name of a national community yet to be realized, and whose realization, even once the movement is installed in power, will initially (and in practice indefinitely) involve reeducation, propaganda and social control on a massive scale.

Since only a minority of the population can be temperamentally susceptible to converting spontaneously to fascism or becoming the new breed of homo fascistus, and since even at the height of its popularity, no modern regime can enjoy total support, the thorough-going ideological coordination of the national community could never come about ‘naturally’. A grotesque parody of it has to be enacted through the extensive use of propaganda and terror.

Nature of Fascism, R Griffin.

Overall, we rate The Daily Boulder Left Biased and Questionable based on a lack of transparency, poor sourcing, promotion of propaganda, and failed fact checks.

Media Bias / Fact Check

The means of action of the leaders. Affirmation, repetition, contagion

When, however, it is proposed to imbue the mind of a crowd with ideas and beliefs—with modern social theories, for instance—the leaders have recourse to different expedients. The principal of them are three in number and clearly defined — affirmation, repetition, and contagion. Their action is somewhat slow, but its effects, once produced, are very lasting.

Affirmation pure and simple, kept free of all reasoning and all proof, is one of the surest means of making an idea enter the mind of crowds.

Affirmation, however, has no real influence unless it be constantly repeated, and so far as possible in the same terms.

When an affirmation has been sufficiently repeated and there is unanimity in this repetition … what is called a current of opinion is formed and the powerful mechanism of contagion intervenes. Ideas, sentiments, emotions, and beliefs possess in crowds a contagious power as intense as that of microbes.

The Crowd, Gustave Le Bon

“Influencer” is just the propaganda term for propagandist.

Oh… a joke, yes, ha ha.

That speaks more to your ideological fantasy than anything else.

In the chapter “The Rise of Factions,” Walter describes how aspiring autocrats cultivated racial and ethnic resentments that culminated in brutal ethnic violence in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda. In “The Dark Consequence of Losing Status,” she describes how a sudden change in the power of a specific ethnic group can be more inflammatory than a sustained structural imbalance.

https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2022/10/13/review-walter-jacobs-civil-war-243912/

Reading Luke Kemp’s Goliath’s Curse has a statement referencing Barbara Walter’s How Civil Wars Start And How to Stop Them: A dominant ethnic group losing status within a country is the single best predictor of civil war today.

The introduction may be confusing but it wasn’t advocating for eugenics, the movie intro can be viewed as dumb people raise their kids to be dumb, not that intelligence was passed down genetically. And you are correct, religion and power need uneducated people to maintain hegemony.

After repetitive exposure to this propaganda (repetition priming), the people were beginning to believe and stand up for what each respective government had been flashing before their eyes, without them even knowing it.

https://sites.psu.edu/psych256sp18003/2018/03/04/h/

The fact of being exposed to propaganda and misinformation, repeatedly and continuously, has a psychological affect over time.

The individual must not be allowed to recover, to collect himself, to remain untouched by propaganda during any relatively long period, for propaganda is not the touch of the magic wand. It is based on slow, constant impregnation. It creates convictions and compliance through imperceptible influences that are effective only by continuous repetition. It must create a complete environment for the individual, one from which he never emerges.

Propaganda, Jacques Ellul

Republican rhetoric follows Le Bon’s The Crowd method: Affirmation, Repetition and Contagion.

First they espouse an idea or belief (ex. Radical Left are violent animals). The crowd accepts these statements as true, regardless of reality.

Then blast it on repeat through every medium so it becomes internalized in their minds.

Finally, the contagion phase, where the crowd is spurned to action, whether it is getting out to vote, storming the capital or going door to door murdering “The Enemy Within.”

It’s not difficult to see what the fascist intent is behind the extreme violent rhetoric.

deleted by creator

deleted by creator