Russell Vought will be a key figure in the regime, as competent as he is radical. He’s one of the architects of Project 2025, an avowed Christian nationalist, and an ideologue of the “post-constitutional” Right.
He is at war with pluralistic democracy.
A key question: Why is this guy so angry?
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https://mastodon.social/@tzimmer_history/113908494346903557
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Key to understanding Vought’s worldview is the idea that the constitutional order - and with it the “natural” order itself - has been destroyed: The revolution has already happened, “the Left” won. Therefore, conservatives categorically err when they try to preserve what is no more.
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Power now lies with a “permanent ruling class” of leftist elites who control all major institutions of American life and especially the “woke and weaponized” agencies of the state. In order to defeat them, conservatives must become “radical constitutionalists” - and take radical action.
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While Vought traces the “leftwing revolution” back a hundred years, to the progressive era, there is no question that the election of Barack Obama was a radicalizing moment for him and many key thinkers on the radical Right - as were the multiracial protests in the summer of 2020.
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What he is railing against is a profound shift in culture, status… He is obsessed with the idea that all major institutions are controlled by a leftist “ruling elite” - but “elite” isn’t defined socio-economically or by political power, it means something like: getting to define “real America.”
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Vought is convinced to be fighting a noble war to defend and preserve “real America” - which is a society defined by white Christian patriarchal dominance, one in which people like Vought demand the right to have their own image reflected back at them in the public sphere.
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The “globalist,” leftwing “elite” has quickly emerged as the new consensus enemy against the Trumpist Right will rage incessantly. Donald Trump and Clarence Thomas? Not “ruling elite.” Anyone who adheres to “woke,” leftist ideology? Definitely.
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Vought’s view of his place in conservative history is revealing. He sees himself in the tradition of Whittaker Chambers and Pat Buchanan: A religious conservative staunchly opposed to all “leftism” - and an “America First” ethno-nationalist populist calling for radical “culture war.”
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The Right today is dominated by people like Vought who are convinced there is nothing left to conserve – that our moment requires not “conservatism,” but a radical “counter-revolution.”
They have never been so close to power as they are now. And they are determined to use it.
https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/meet-the-ideologue-of-the-post-constitutional
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@tzimmer_history Americans elected a Black President and the right wing literally lost its mind and became a terrorist group.
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@Nonya_Bidniss @tzimmer_history
Plenty in the GOP were terrorists long before Obama's campaign.
I think Nixon's "war on drugs" and Bush 2's "war on terror" are too big to ignore.
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@tzimmer_history
"Elite" to these people simply means the diverse reality of everyone else who is not white, male, christofascist ...or has money and is willing to back them.
But your point is exactly right, this is entirely a reaction to losing exclusive power.
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@tzimmer_history They seem to use English but OMG that does not mean what they think it means.
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