Aaron Ross Powell on Nostr: Welcome to my first newsletter of 2024. Things might look a little different. I used ...
Welcome to my first newsletter of 2024. Things might look a little different. I used the holidays to move my website from Substack to WordPress. It’s a transition I’ve planned for a while. WordPress gives me a lot more flexibility, and, unlike Substack, WordPress is open source and can be hosted in places that don’t chose to monetize hate speech.
I’ve written about how associating with good people is necessarily for leading an ethical life, and that also entails, to the extent possible, disassociating from unethical people. Because I view Substack’s leadership as unethical, and because moving off their platform is relatively costless, I could not in good conscience continue to send them 10% of my earnings from paid subscribers.
What does this mean for you as a subscriber to my newsletter? Not much. If you were a free subscriber on Substack, you’re still a subscriber here. If you were a paid supporter (thank you!), your subscription is being moved from Substack to the new system at Memberful, and there’s nothing you need to do.
(If you’d like to become a supporter of my work–and get early access to my essays and podcasts–you can learn more here. Use the code “Goodbye2023” for 30% off.)
That said, I am mixing things up a bit. While I’m still writing essays and recording podcasts, instead of emailing you every time something new comes out, I’m going to try an old school, actual newsletter approach. Every week (that’s the goal), I’ll send you an email with links to everything new I’ve published, along with a bit of commentary.
This’ll will contribute less to your no-doubt-overwhelmed inbox, allow me to get back into short-form blogging without flooding you with emails, and provide an opportunity for me to give quick thoughts on interesting stuff I’ve read, what I’m working on, etc. I hope you like it. If you have suggestions on how you’d like to see me use this refined newsletter in the coming year, I’ve opened comments to everyone.In Early Access
Right now in early access for supporters, I’ve got my conversation with the thoughtful–and intimidatingly erudite–Tom Palmer about the ideological origins of the contemporary far-right, and how quite a lot of their ideas can be traced back to the fascist and proto-fascist philosophies of the early 20th century. Get access to it here, with a 7 day free trial.Some Thoughts on a New Year
I am, on the whole, rather optimistic about 2024. Yes, we’ve got a pretty important election that, if it goes the wrong way, could–and I think this is the only clear-eyed and reasonable take on the matter–mean the effective end of American democracy, our basic system of liberalism replaced by what is pretty obviously a fascist movement. There’s really no other serious way to characterize what Trump and Trumpism represent, and it’s critical, between now and November, that we don’t shy away from recognizing that fascism, even if it means uncomfortable conversations with people who, through either ignorance or corrupt values, support it.
That said, this is a bullet we are quite likely to dodge. While it’s always possible for Trump to win the next election, he’d need something of a miracle. He’s unpopular, the thick of his campaign (and the conspiratorial and culture war rhetoric that will inevitably be the center of it) will remind people why those don’t like him, the economy is booming, and, anyway, he’ll probably have a felony conviction or two. (And that’s if he’s even on the ballot. My money is on the Supreme Court finding a way to avoid kicking him off, but you never know.) Think of it this way: Trump lost in 2020 because a bunch of suburban white women voters turned against him. Has anything changed between then and now, or is anything likely to change over the next year, to bring them around to him again? (The prospect of a national abortion ban if the GOP gains control of the government sure isn’t going to help his chances.)
And if he loses, or if he can’t run, that’ll not just end the risk of him becoming America’s autocrat. It’ll also take a lot of the wind out of the sails of right-wing populism and the cultural far-right. People who run as mini-Trumps don’t tend to perform well electorally, because a lot of his appeal, to the Americans who find him and his ideas appealing, is about Trump. It turns out, thankfully, that fascist politics themselves are rather repulsive to most Americans, as are reactionary social and cultural preferences. Ours is, imperfectly, a liberal society. Trump’s charisma, as some mischaracterize it, carried the day in 2016, but the potential inheritors of his movement don’t just fail to achieve his “engaging” personality, but for the most part have a remarkable degree of anti-charisma. As I’ve argued elsewhere, being a far-right reactionary isn’t so much a philosophy as it is a set of preferences and attitudes, and those preferences and attitudes tend to be concentrated among rather unlikable people.
So as not to turn this newsletter isn’t an essay, I’ll touch on just one more reason to think the world is getting better: It turns out that the right’s culture war isn’t popular. What looked like an electoral wave of wretched people with wretched ideas getting on school boards and then banning books offensive to their nonsense ideology–while going out of their way to inflict cruelty on LGBT kids–wasn’t so much about Americans actually liking the right’s obsession with genitals as it was parents upset about school closures. Now that school are open, and the threat of pandemic related closings behind us, Americans are reasserting their social liberalism. It hasn’t been perfect, and not as fast or thorough as I’d like, but the trend is in an encouraging direction. In the end, social liberalism wins out because it is more humane, ethical, inspiring, and conducive to the sort of society most of us want to live in.
With that, let’s close out this first issue of my reinvisioned newsletter. I hope you find happiness in 2024 and I look forward to sharing and talking with you over this new year.
https://aaronrosspowell.com/newsletter/a-new-year-and-a-new-home/
#cultureWar #liberalism #rightWing #trumpism
I’ve written about how associating with good people is necessarily for leading an ethical life, and that also entails, to the extent possible, disassociating from unethical people. Because I view Substack’s leadership as unethical, and because moving off their platform is relatively costless, I could not in good conscience continue to send them 10% of my earnings from paid subscribers.
What does this mean for you as a subscriber to my newsletter? Not much. If you were a free subscriber on Substack, you’re still a subscriber here. If you were a paid supporter (thank you!), your subscription is being moved from Substack to the new system at Memberful, and there’s nothing you need to do.
(If you’d like to become a supporter of my work–and get early access to my essays and podcasts–you can learn more here. Use the code “Goodbye2023” for 30% off.)
That said, I am mixing things up a bit. While I’m still writing essays and recording podcasts, instead of emailing you every time something new comes out, I’m going to try an old school, actual newsletter approach. Every week (that’s the goal), I’ll send you an email with links to everything new I’ve published, along with a bit of commentary.
This’ll will contribute less to your no-doubt-overwhelmed inbox, allow me to get back into short-form blogging without flooding you with emails, and provide an opportunity for me to give quick thoughts on interesting stuff I’ve read, what I’m working on, etc. I hope you like it. If you have suggestions on how you’d like to see me use this refined newsletter in the coming year, I’ve opened comments to everyone.In Early Access
Right now in early access for supporters, I’ve got my conversation with the thoughtful–and intimidatingly erudite–Tom Palmer about the ideological origins of the contemporary far-right, and how quite a lot of their ideas can be traced back to the fascist and proto-fascist philosophies of the early 20th century. Get access to it here, with a 7 day free trial.Some Thoughts on a New Year
I am, on the whole, rather optimistic about 2024. Yes, we’ve got a pretty important election that, if it goes the wrong way, could–and I think this is the only clear-eyed and reasonable take on the matter–mean the effective end of American democracy, our basic system of liberalism replaced by what is pretty obviously a fascist movement. There’s really no other serious way to characterize what Trump and Trumpism represent, and it’s critical, between now and November, that we don’t shy away from recognizing that fascism, even if it means uncomfortable conversations with people who, through either ignorance or corrupt values, support it.
That said, this is a bullet we are quite likely to dodge. While it’s always possible for Trump to win the next election, he’d need something of a miracle. He’s unpopular, the thick of his campaign (and the conspiratorial and culture war rhetoric that will inevitably be the center of it) will remind people why those don’t like him, the economy is booming, and, anyway, he’ll probably have a felony conviction or two. (And that’s if he’s even on the ballot. My money is on the Supreme Court finding a way to avoid kicking him off, but you never know.) Think of it this way: Trump lost in 2020 because a bunch of suburban white women voters turned against him. Has anything changed between then and now, or is anything likely to change over the next year, to bring them around to him again? (The prospect of a national abortion ban if the GOP gains control of the government sure isn’t going to help his chances.)
And if he loses, or if he can’t run, that’ll not just end the risk of him becoming America’s autocrat. It’ll also take a lot of the wind out of the sails of right-wing populism and the cultural far-right. People who run as mini-Trumps don’t tend to perform well electorally, because a lot of his appeal, to the Americans who find him and his ideas appealing, is about Trump. It turns out, thankfully, that fascist politics themselves are rather repulsive to most Americans, as are reactionary social and cultural preferences. Ours is, imperfectly, a liberal society. Trump’s charisma, as some mischaracterize it, carried the day in 2016, but the potential inheritors of his movement don’t just fail to achieve his “engaging” personality, but for the most part have a remarkable degree of anti-charisma. As I’ve argued elsewhere, being a far-right reactionary isn’t so much a philosophy as it is a set of preferences and attitudes, and those preferences and attitudes tend to be concentrated among rather unlikable people.
So as not to turn this newsletter isn’t an essay, I’ll touch on just one more reason to think the world is getting better: It turns out that the right’s culture war isn’t popular. What looked like an electoral wave of wretched people with wretched ideas getting on school boards and then banning books offensive to their nonsense ideology–while going out of their way to inflict cruelty on LGBT kids–wasn’t so much about Americans actually liking the right’s obsession with genitals as it was parents upset about school closures. Now that school are open, and the threat of pandemic related closings behind us, Americans are reasserting their social liberalism. It hasn’t been perfect, and not as fast or thorough as I’d like, but the trend is in an encouraging direction. In the end, social liberalism wins out because it is more humane, ethical, inspiring, and conducive to the sort of society most of us want to live in.
With that, let’s close out this first issue of my reinvisioned newsletter. I hope you find happiness in 2024 and I look forward to sharing and talking with you over this new year.
https://aaronrosspowell.com/newsletter/a-new-year-and-a-new-home/
#cultureWar #liberalism #rightWing #trumpism