Thomas ZimmerSep 19, 2024

The Right is committed to an idea of America as a white Christian homeland. They are determined to purge the nation and radically redraw the boundaries of the body politic.

Inciting a pogrom in Springfield, Ohio is part of that project.

Some thoughts from my new piece:

🧵1/
 
https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/blood-and-soil

Blood and Soil

The Right is committed to an idea of America as a white Christian homeland. They are determined to purge the nation and radically redraw the boundaries of the body politic.

Democracy Americana
Show threadThomas ZimmerSep 19, 2024
I wrote about the Right’s defining political project: A blood-and-soil nationalism that is fundamentally incompatible with multiracial, pluralistic democracy. It has come to dominate the Republican Party, and the elevation of J.D. Vance captures this perfectly. 2/
Show threadThomas ZimmerSep 19, 2024
There is a direct line from J.D. Vance’s “homeland” speech at the Republican Convention – an open embrace of blood-and-soil nationalism – to what is happening in Springfield, Ohio, where Trump and Vance are trying to incite a pogrom. 3/
Show threadThomas Zimmer

Three moments from the Republican Convention.

One: On the final day, Hulk Hogan promised only Trump could “straighten this country out, for all the real Americans.” That was the key theme in Hogan’s speech – “real America.” He repeated the term seven times. 4/

Sep 19, 2024 at 1:11pmIvory for iOS
Show threadThomas ZimmerSep 19, 2024
Two: What, to J.D. Vance, is America? “America is not just an idea,” he declared: “It is a group of people with a shared history and a common future. It is, in short, a nation.” America is the “homeland,” and those who are bound to it by ancestry and blood decide who gets to belong. 5/
Show threadThomas ZimmerSep 19, 2024
Three: While Vance reveled in his love for the homeland, he was greeted by delegates waving hundreds of “Mass Deportation Now!” signs. Those were official signs, printed and handed out by the RNC – a message enthusiastically embraced by those on the Convention floor. 6/
Show threadThomas ZimmerSep 19, 2024
Those three moments captured the Right’s defining project. The “homeland” Vance talked about, that’s “real America.” Hogan’s “real Americans” are those who belong here because of their ties to the land. And they have a right to purge the “homeland”: Mass Deportation Now. 7/
Show threadThomas ZimmerSep 19, 2024
What we saw at the Republican Convention was a party devoted to an ethno-religious understanding of America as a land defined by white Christian patriarchal dominance – the self-presentation of a political movement committed to blood-and-soil nationalism. 8/
Show threadThomas ZimmerSep 19, 2024
The political conflict is shaped by the struggle between two different definitions of America: A credal nation, at least aspirationally committed to egalitarian, pluralistic ideas – vs the conception of America as a land in which wealthy white Christians deserve to dominate. 9/
Show threadThomas ZimmerSep 19, 2024
This struggle is playing out across politics, society, and culture. It is not a coincidence that the “history wars” have escalated in recent years. America is “a group of people with a shared history,” J.D. Vance declared – but who gets to tell that story? 10/
Show threadThomas ZimmerSep 19, 2024
The Right is determined to (re-)entrench the prerogative of a white Christian elite to dictate the national story, past and present – and to purge from the curricula, the libraries, the minds of young people anyone and anything daring to object and deviate. 11/
Show threadThomas ZimmerSep 19, 2024
Crucially, the Right’s desire to purge is not confined to the national story. They also dream of cleansing the nation from anyone they believe does not belong. For the homeland to be safe for “real Americans,” the enemy within must be purged too. 12/
Show threadThomas ZimmerSep 19, 2024
The central promise of Trump’s election campaign is to conduct an unprecedented mass deportation of tens of millions. Their plans are not confined to undocumented people, they don’t care about legal status. They aim at radically redrawing the boundaries of the body politic. 13/
Show threadThomas ZimmerSep 19, 2024
What is happening in Springfield, Ohio is not merely a distraction from the Right’s plutocratic agenda, it’s not just a campaign tactic. This is the manifestation of the Right’s defining political project. And a preview of what is to come if they get back to power. 14/
Show threadThomas ZimmerSep 19, 2024

A party committed to blood-and-soil nationalism. Its leaders are trying to incite a pogrom.

And mere weeks before the election, the presidential race is essentially tied.
 
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https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/blood-and-soil

Blood and Soil

The Right is committed to an idea of America as a white Christian homeland. They are determined to purge the nation and radically redraw the boundaries of the body politic.

Democracy Americana
Show threadArena Cops 🇺🇦✌Sep 19, 2024
@tzimmer_history How much is everyone holding one of those truth-denying signs getting paid? 🤔
Show threadlolonurseSep 19, 2024
@tzimmer_history
It scares them that America is becoming more colorful in many ways.
Show threadNicole ParsonsSep 19, 2024

@tzimmer_history

Trump also wants to reward his donors, the private prison industry.
https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-investigations/private-prison-behemoth-is-first-corporation-to-max-out-to-trump/

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/private-prisons-profiting-trump-administration/

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/trumps-first-year-has-been-private-prison-industrys-best

https://www.thinkmarkets.com/eu/market-news/sentenced-to-success/

Mass detention centers become labor camps.

Prison labor churns out billions of dollars of goods & services a year & pays a pittance for labor.

"...incarcerated workers provide at least $9 billion in services to the prison system and produce more than $2 billion in goods."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_States

Private prison behemoth is first corporation to max out to Trump - CREW | Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington

The private prison behemoth GEO Group became the first corporation whose PAC maxed out to former President Donald Trump’s campaign in late February.

CREW | Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
Show threadlolonurseSep 19, 2024
@tzimmer_history
🤮
Show threadlolonurseSep 19, 2024
@tzimmer_history
It would be really, really hard to tell any form of that story without African slaves, Chinese indentured laborers, millions of Mexicans who lived, ranched & farmed here long before their lands & properties "became" American...
Show threadlolonurseSep 19, 2024
@tzimmer_history
Maybe it's time for the real native Americans to start threatening to deport all the "blood and soil nationalists".
Show threadlolonurseSep 19, 2024
@tzimmer_history
hmm... couldn't one argue that African Americans have real ties to "the land"?
Show threadlolonurseSep 19, 2024
@tzimmer_history
This is wrong & delusional in many ways. He may be more dangerous than TFG, bc he's an Ivy League lawyer who is also nuts.
Show threadoldguycrustySep 19, 2024

@lolonurse @tzimmer_history

I think the 'real' plan of the MAGA leadership - is to get TFG elected POTUS - then pull a 25A - because even they know he is NuckingFutz, demented, unmanageble, etc. Vance would then be their willing and competent puppet.

Show threadlolonurseSep 20, 2024
@oldguycrusty @tzimmer_history
That thought had occurred to me. It's terrifying.