The class composition of American proto-fascism

From John Ganz’s newsletter:

You can go down the list and check; SLSCO, CSI Aviation, and Barnard Construction all have a similar pattern: a regional, closely-held company that is “politically integrated,” so to speak.

If you’re familiar with the work of Melinda Cooper, this wouldn’t surprise you. In 2022, she wrote “the private, unincorporated, and family-based versus the corporate, publicly traded, and shareholder-owned” and that “[t]he family-based capitalism that stormed the White House along with Trump stretches from the smallest of family businesses to the most rambling of dynasties, and crucially depends on the alliance between the two.” Trump, of course, comes from this social class, whose business practices are “informal,” or, more blunty put, often downright criminal.

When you add in the presence of Thiel-backed firms like Anduril, you begin to get a picture of the Trump coalition’s material basis. It’s an alliance of this family-based regional scam capital and a reactionary fraction of the tech sector that focuses on defense and security. Then you add in ICE’s function as an employment program for the Trumpenproletarian mob and all the illiterate influencers and, voila, you have the class composition of actually-existing American fascism, which characteristically enough, is also a racket. It’s the mob from top to bottom.

https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/magas-peoples-capitalism?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=112019&post_id=186731108&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=hcf3&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

There was a paper in, I think, Monthly Review years ago which I’m struggling to find which looked at mid-range capital in American politics: those firms which are family owned, regionally dominant but largely invisible from a national perspective. It made the argument these are becoming increasingly central to the American right and what Ganz says here immediately made me think back to it.

I’d add in the more feral end of American finance (including Crypto capital, which I don’t think is the same thing politically as the tech-right, though there are overlaps) and elements of the white middle class afraid of falling for whom that fear has long since become racialised.

#capital #capitalism #fascism #JohnGanz #maga #trump

Pluralistic: Metabolizing the theory of "political capitalism" (06 Dec 2025)

https://web.brid.gy/r/https://pluralistic.net/2025/12/06/big-nascent-important/

finally getting to Pankaj Mishra’s The World After Gaza
https://pdbowman.studio/briefs/4-oct-2025-pankaj-mishra-john-ganz-genocides-nationhood-resistance-evolution/

#PankajMishra #TheWorldAfterGaza #JohnGanz #UnpopularFront #Shoah #Holocaust #Israel #Zionism #Palestine #Gaza #India #Hindutva #nationalism #liberation #genocide

>>First of all, the reference to the ADL is pretty weird. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but they are not exactly progressive these days. He could’ve said the “SPLC,” but didn’t. What they are is Jewish. Basically, this sounds like, “What these Jews call “extremists” I think are realer citizens.” <<

https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/jd-vances-anti-declaration

#JDVance #ADL #Antisemitism #BloodAndSoil #Citizenship #Clarmont #JohnGanz

Steelmanning Peter Thiel

“My friend John Ganz and I reformed our intermittent podcast this week to talk about New York Times columnist Ross Douthat’s interview with PayPal founder Peter Thiel. Among the topics covered…”

https://overcast.fm/+ABCdjP-5WDE
#PeterThiel #JohnGanz #MaxReed #RossDouthat

>>... the most typical character of the age is “the non-conformist conformist:” someone who says what everyone else says while flattering themselves that they are telling a bold truth that no else one has the courage to say. Well, it’s easy to be courageous in a crowd.<<

John Ganz is always worth reading.

https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/cynicism-and-authenticity

#JohnGanz #UnpopularFront #Cynicism #Authenticity #Arendt #Heidegger #Fascism

The ‘vibes shift’ as a preemptive declaration of hegemony

This from the consistently excellent John Ganz (highly recommend his book) captures something I’ve been struggling to articulate since Trump’s victory. Why has there been such a rush to frame this in hegemonic terms when there was a 1.5% difference in vote share between the two candidates? There’s clearly an elite recomposition underway, with tech capital taking the leadership role for the first time, which is starting to produce substantive outgrowths. Watching JD Vance’s speech I immediately found myself thinking about how Bush era leaders would have talked about issues relating to the oil industry:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64E9O1Gv99o

The richest people in the world with unprecedented control over the media and communications realign politically and then—coincidentally—there is a “big cultural shift.” Why? “Can’t say for sure, but probably has something to do with how annoying liberals are.” Come the fuck on. They are already putting pressure on the media to soften coverage. It’s not that things are just happening, they are doing things. And the media is already bending or being taken over by regime-friendly oligarchs. It’s not a mystery what’s going on—we can still read about it in the newspaper—so let’s not mystify ourselves.

https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/vibes-cartel

One last thought. What this insistence on a new order—the vibes—remind me of a lot was the hysterical run-up to the war against Iraq. The sense was created of an unstoppable momentum and there was relentless, insidious sidelining and castigation of critics and dissent. Even if people did not think they were warmongering, they helped the regime’s cause by attacking those who objected as fuddy-duddies, hopelessly out-of-date, and unfashionable. Obviously, we were in a New Era™ after 9/11. Obviously, the administration had the winds of history at its back. It wasn’t conservatives and right-wingers who did a lot of this work, but liberals who rationalized and justified what was a series of absurd lies and ultimately a catastrophe. This is what I was trying to get at when we were moving into a Vichy era: a lot of people are just going to go along to get along. But not all.

https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/vibes-cartel

#capitalism #digitalElites #hegemony #JDVance #JohnGanz #trump