This content originally appeared on The Progressive — A voice for peace, social justice, and the common good and was authored by Michael Atkinson.

We speak with former Labor Secretary Robert Reich about the victory of Zohran Mamdani in the New York Democratic primary for New York mayor, the rise of Donald Trump, and the role of big money in politics. “This is the one thing that I agree with Donald Trump about: The economy is rigged — but it’s rigged against working-class people. And I think Mamdani understood that. He understood that people have got to want a change, but also they want affordability. They want an economy that is working for them.”

We also speak with him about his decades-long career as a teacher and The Last Class, a new documentary that follows Reich over his last semester at the University of California, Berkeley. The class, and much of Reich’s career, has focused on rising inequality and its impact on society. “Most Americans feel powerless,” says Reich. “This is a crisis right now.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Jean-Paul Sartre’s famous line, “Hell is other people,” from his play No Exit, written in Nazi-occupied France, captured a grievance that mirrored the era’s ideological clashes—fascism, communism, and isolationism, often overlapping and competing, fueling Stalin’s genocides, the Holocaust, and World War II. The solution to sharing society with others, it seemed, was elimination: kill them. 

This is why democracies rely on tolerance—you don’t have to like my existence, but you must let me exist in peace. Yet today’s tech oligarchs, having amassed unimaginable wealth, would rather invest billions in creating tech colonies and new religions to justify mass murder, enslavement, and C.E.O. king fiefdoms than address world hunger, provide free education, and strengthen social safety nets. Their vision isn’t coexistence—they’re building an anti-empathy billionaire bunker cult. 

Gil Durán, a San Francisco journalist and former editorial page editor of The Sacramento Bee and The San Francisco Examiner, has a front-row view of the rise of the broligarchs, analyzing their fascist justifications for cruelty in his popular newsletter, Nerd Reich. Durán spent over a decade in California politics, serving as chief communications strategist for Governor Jerry Brown, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and Attorney General Kamala Harris. His work has appeared in The New Republic, Esquire, and PBS. He co-founded Framelab, a newsletter on politics, language, and the brain, with Dr. George Lakoff. Most importantly we discuss: how do we defeat the Nerd Reich and the Vichy Democrats? 

This week’s bonus for our Patreon subscribers at the Truth-teller level and higher continues with Gil Durán of Nerd Reich, examining Democratic leaders as controlled opposition—public allies secretly serving the oligarchs.

Want to enjoy Gaslit Nation ad-free? Join our community of listeners for bonus shows, ad-free episodes, exclusive Q&A sessions, our group chat, invites to live events like our Monday political salons at 4pm ET over Zoom, and more! Sign up at Patreon.com/Gaslit!

Show Notes:

The Nerd Reich by Gil Durán https://www.thenerdreich.com/

FrameLab https://www.theframelab.org/

Trump on Charter Cities: https://www.donaldjtrump.com/agenda47/agenda47-a-new-quantum-leap-to-revolutionize-the-american-standard-of-living

One of Peter Thiel’s favorite book: The Sovereign Individual: How to Survive and Thrive During the Collapse of the Welfare State https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780684810072

Find a Tesla Takedown Protest near you: https://www.teslatakedown.com/

Download/print fliers made by Rise and Resist:

• https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NsdVaglj2-qbaUxPL-aXlPSSMbnjAPV-/view?usp=sharing

• https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rCUHIzHfJunm2fnZzdm2sMUWlRYeUtGg/view?usp=sharing

• https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MfkQlear-zAGgpkth6j_r85sSoXihilr/view?usp=sharing

• https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fXKCdNCrkPOL8nYI8I9WU7-DGIAGHSXb/view?usp=sharing

• https://drive.google.com/file/d/14oYKLO_vzVzEU1sxXSaH1kd_lZ1ylaOG/view?usp=sharing

Clip: Elon Musk realizes he might lose his empire: https://bsky.app/profile/internetceleb.bsky.social/post/3lk2rd73f422n

Robert Reich on Twitter: “When Trump was sworn in, Elon Musk's corporations were under more than 32 investigations conducted by at least 11 federal agencies. Most of the cases are now closed or likely to be closed soon, and the federal agencies are being defanged by DOGE. Funny how that works, huh?” https://x.com/RBReich/status/1898780869092884808

Andrea on Bluesky: “Start building a case for Trump and Musk to be arrested by the International Criminal Court” https://bsky.app/profile/andreachalupa.bsky.social/post/3lk47dkixgs2k

EVENTS AT GASLIT NATION:

• March 17 4pm ET – Dr. Lisa Corrigan joins our Gaslit Nation Salon to discuss America’s private prison crisis in an age of fascist scapegoating 

• March 31 4pm ET – Gaslit Nation Book Club: From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation, which informed revolts in Ukraine, the Arab Spring, Hong Kong, and beyond 

• NEW! April 7 4pm ET – Security Committee Presents at the Gaslit Nation Salon. Don’t miss it! 

• Indiana-based listeners launched a Signal group for others in the state to join, available on Patreon.

• Florida-based listeners are going strong meeting in person. Be sure to join their Signal group, available on Patreon.

• Have you taken Gaslit Nation’s HyperNormalization Survey Yet?

• Gaslit Nation Salons take place Mondays 4pm ET over Zoom and the first ~40 minutes are recorded and shared on Patreon.com/Gaslit for our community 

This content originally appeared on Gaslit Nation and was authored by Andrea Chalupa.

Context: In a recent historical post of mine, a kind subscriber named Elise commented: “If history is written by the victors, it gives one pause to think about who actually won the war to hide all this information.”

This inspired me to share the post below to expose even more of what is hidden by the “good guys.”

P.S. Fasten your seatbelts

It was at a February 1945 conference that State Department Political Advisor Laurence Duggan called for “An Economic Charter of the Americas,” loudly complaining that, “Latin Americans are convinced that the first beneficiaries of the development of a country’s resources should be the people of that country.”

From this patently unacceptable premise, the seeds of a 1954 coup were sown, and the U.S.-sponsored results include possibly irreversible environmental devastation and upwards of 200,000 civilians killed or “disappeared.”

With some 60 percent of the vote, Jacobo Arbenz was freely and fairly elected president of Guatemala in 1951. Prior to this, the country was ruled by Arbenz’s kindred spirit, President Juan Jose Arévalo — who won 86 percent of the vote.

Arévalo’s term had given his country a ten-year respite from military rule, during which time he provoked U.S. ire by daring to model his government after the Roosevelt New Deal. (More from Arévalo at the end of this post.)

Wishing to further transform his country, Arbenz’s modest reforms and his legalizing of the Communist Party were frowned upon in American business circles. The Arbenz government became the target of a well-funded U.S. public relations campaign.

Two years after Arbenz became president, Life magazine featured a piece on his “Red” land reforms, claiming that a nation just “two hours bombing time from the Panama Canal” was “openly and diligently toiling to create a Communist state.”

It matters little that the USSR didn’t even maintain diplomatic relations with Guatemala. After all, the Cold War was in full effect.

Ever on the lookout for that invaluable “pretext,” the U.S. business class scored a public relations coup when Arbenz expropriated some unused land controlled by United Fruit Company. His payment offer was predictably deemed inappropriate.

“If they gave a gold piece for every banana,” Secretary of State John Foster Dulles clarified, “the problem would still be Communist infiltration.”

For those unfamiliar with John Foster Dulles, he and his brother Allen guided Sullivan and Cromwell, the most powerful Wall Street law firm of the 1930s. The two brothers — who boycotted their own sister’s 1932 wedding because the groom was Jewish — served as the contacts for the company responsible for the gas in the Nazi gas chambers, I.G. Farben. 

During the pre-war period, the elder John Foster led off cables to his German clients with the salutation “Heil Hitler,” and he blithely dismissed the Nazi threat in 1935 in a piece he wrote for the Atlantic Monthly. In 1939, he told the Economic Club of New York, “We have to welcome and nurture the desire of the New Germany to find for her energies a new outlet.”    

As for Allen, he was named director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953. Dulles lasted in that position until 1961 when he was fired by President John F. Kennedy for his role in the Bay of Pigs invasion. But Dulles managed to re-emerge two years later as part of the [wait for it] Warren Commission. 

We now return to our regularly scheduled war crimes, courtesy of the Home of the Brave.

Led by Allen Dulles, the CIA put Operation Success into action. Here’s how Howard Zinn described what followed: “A legally elected government was overthrown by an invasion force of mercenaries trained by the CIA at military bases in Honduras and Nicaragua and supported by four American fighter planes flown by American pilots.”

Operation Success ushered in 40 years of repression, more than 200,000 deaths, and what’s been called “indisputably one of the most inhumane chapters of the 20th century.” These chapters, incidentally, could never have been written without permission from the United States and its surrogates — like Israel.

“The Israelis may be seen as American proxies in Honduras and Guatemala,” stated Israeli journalist, Yoav Karni in Yediot Ahronot. Also, Ha’aretz correspondent Gidon Samet has explained that the most important features of the US-Israeli strategic cooperation in the 1980s were not in the Middle East, but with Central America.

“The U.S. needs Israel in Africa and Latin America, among other reasons, because of the government’s difficulties in obtaining congressional authorization for its ambitious aid programs and naturally, for military actions,” Samet wrote on November 6, 1983, adding that America has “long been interested in using Israel as a pipeline for military and other aid” to Central America.

Earlier that same year, Yosef Priel reported in Davar that Latin America “has become the leading market for Israeli arms exports.” One illustrative example is, of course, Guatemala.

In 1981, shortly after Israel agreed to provide military aid to this oppressive regime, a Guatemalan officer had a feature article published in the army’s Staff College review.

In that article, the officer praised Adolf Hitler, National Socialism, and the Final Solution — quoting extensively from Mein Kampf and chalking up Hitler’s anti-Semitism to the “discovery” that communism was part of a “Jewish conspiracy.”

Despite such seemingly incompatible ideology, Israel’s estimated military assistance to Guatemala in 1982 was $90 million.

What type of policies did the Guatemalan government pursue with the help they received from a nation populated with thousands of Holocaust survivors? This question brings to mind an excerpt from Jennifer Harbury’s book, Bridge of Courage. One member of the Guatemalan resistance Harbury interviewed explained: “Don’t talk to me about Gandhi; he wouldn’t have survived a week here.”

Similar stories can be culled from countries throughout the region, but apparently have had little effect on the foreign policy of the U.S. or Israel. For example, when Israel faced an international arms embargo after the 1967 war, a plan to divert Belgian and Swiss arms to the Holy Land was implemented.

These weapons were supposedly destined for Bolivia where they would be transported by a company managed by none other than Klaus Barbie… as in “The Butcher of Lyon.”

Any moral reservations about such an arrangement are dismissed with a vague “national security” excuse that should sound familiar to any American. “The welfare of our people and the state supersedes all other considerations,” pronounced Michael Schur, director of Ta’as, the Israeli state military industry, in the August 23, 1983, Ha’aretz. “If the state has decided in favor of export, my conscience is clear.”

One Jewish figure that might be expected to find fault with such a policy was Elie Wiesel. An episode from mid-1985, documented by Yoav Karni in Ha’aretz, should put to rest any exalted expectations of the late moralist.

When Wiesel received a letter from a Nobel Prize laureate documenting Israel’s contributions to the atrocities in Guatemala, suggesting that he use his considerable influence to put a stop to Israel’s practice of arming neo-Nazis, Wiesel “sighed” and admitted that he did not reply to that particular letter.

“I usually answer at once,” he explained, “but what can I answer to him?”

One is left to only wonder how Wiesel’s silent sigh might have been received if it was in response to a letter not about Jewish complicity in the murder of Guatemalans but instead about the function of Auschwitz during the 1940s.

In closing, I ask you to deeply consider some words from the aforementioned former Guatemalan president, Juan Jose Arévalo. As he stepped down in 1951, Arévalo had this to say about the aftermath of a certain world war commonly described as “good”:

“The arms of the Third Reich were broken and conquered but in the ideological dialogue, the real winner was Hitler.”

Never forget: This is just some of what we’re still up against today.

Whenever you opt to trust any proclamation made by the government (or the bankers and corporations that own the government), you are committing self-sabotage by directly playing into their diabolical hands.

I don’t share this to add to the gloom and doom. It’s not meant to cause anyone to lose hope. Rather, I find it incredibly empowering to gain and raise awareness. The better we each comprehend the tactics of evil, the better equipped we are to resist its lies and manipulation.

Let’s all start keeping our guard up…

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Mickey Z..

In a Saturday speech to the Georgia GOP, Donald Trump characterized the entire American justice system as deployed to prevent him from winning the 2024 election. “These people don’t stop and they’re bad and we have to get rid of them. These criminals cannot be rewarded. They must be defeated.”

Trump is demanding once again that Americans choose sides. But in his deranged mind, this “final battle” is not just against his normal cast of ill-defined villains—Democrats, communists, socialists, Marxists, the “Deep State,” the FBI, and any Republican politician who dares cross him.It is between those who glorify him and those who detest him.

It will be a final battle over… himself.

“SEE YOU IN MIAMI ON TUESDAY!!!” he told his followers Friday night in a Truth Social post, referring to his arraignment today in Florida.

It was a chilling reminder of his December 19, 2020, tweet, “Be there, will be wild!”—which inspired extremist groups to disrupt the January 6 electoral vote certification. Calls are already circulating online for a gathering outside the federal courthouse in downtown Miami.

At the Georgia Republican Party convention on Friday night, Arizona Republican Kari Lake—who will go to Miami to “support” Trump—suggested violence. “If you want to get to President Trump, you’re going to have to go through me and you’re going to have to go through 75 million Americans just like me,” Lake exclaimed to roaring cheers and a standing ovation. “Most of us are card-carrying members of the NRA,” the National Rifle Association gun lobby. “That’s not a threat, that’s a public service announcement.”

Most Republicans in Congress are again siding with Trump rather than standing for the rule of law. A few are openly fomenting violence. Louisiana Rep. Clay Higgins tweeted, “This is a perimeter probe from the oppressors. Hold. rPOTUS [a reference to the real president of the United States] has this. Buckle up. 1/50K know your bridges. Rock steady calm. That is all,” suggesting guerilla warfare.

Most other prominent Republicans—even those seeking the Republican presidential nomination—are criticizing President Biden, Merrick Garland, and Special Counsel Jack Smith for “weaponizing” the Justice Department.

All this advances Trump’s goal of forcing Americans to choose sides over him.

Violence is possible, but there will be no civil war.

Nations don’t go to war over whether they like or hate specific leaders. They go to war over the ideologies, religions, racism, social classes, and/or economic policies these leaders represent.

But Trump represents nothing other than his own grievance with a system that refused him a second term and is now beginning to hold him accountable for violating the law.

In addition, the guardrails that protected American democracy after the 2020 election—the courts, state election officials, military, and Justice Department—are stronger than before Trump tested them the first time.

Many of those who stormed the Capitol have been tried and convicted. Election-denying candidates were largely defeated in the 2022 midterms. The courts have adamantly backed federal prosecutors.

Trump’s advocates are having difficulty defending the charges in the unsealed indictment—that Trump threatened America’s security by illegally holding (and in some cases sharing) documents concerning “United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack,” as well as sharing a “plan of attack” against Iran.

Many Republicans consider national security the highest and most sacred goal of the Republic. A large number have served in the armed forces.

Bill Barr, Trump’s own former attorney general, said on “Fox News Sunday”: “I was shocked by the degree of sensitivity of these documents and how many there were, frankly … If even half of it is true, then he’s toast. I mean, it’s a very detailed indictment, and it’s very, very damning. And this idea of presenting Trump as a victim here, a victim of a witch hunt, is ridiculous.”

None of this is cause for complacency. Trump is as dangerous as ever. He has inspired violence before, and he could do it again.

But I believe that many who supported him in 2020 are catching on to his lunacy.

Trump wants Americans to engage in a “final battle” over his own narcissistic cravings. Instead, he is likely to get a squalid and humiliating last act.

In These Times is a 501(c)3 organization and does not support or oppose candidates for public office.

A version of this story also appeared at Common Dreams.

This content originally appeared on In These Times and was authored by Robert Reich.

In a Saturday speech to the Georgia GOP, Donald Trump characterized the entire American justice system as deployed to prevent him from winning the 2024 election. “These people don’t stop and they’re bad and we have to get rid of them. These criminals cannot be rewarded. They must be defeated.”

Trump is demanding once again that Americans choose sides. But in his deranged mind, this “final battle” is not just against his normal cast of ill-defined villains—Democrats, communists, socialists, Marxists, the “Deep State,” the FBI, and any Republican politician who dares cross him.It is between those who glorify him and those who detest him.

It will be a final battle over… himself.

“SEE YOU IN MIAMI ON TUESDAY!!!” he told his followers Friday night in a Truth Social post, referring to his arraignment today in Florida.

It was a chilling reminder of his December 19, 2020, tweet, “Be there, will be wild!”—which inspired extremist groups to disrupt the January 6 electoral vote certification. Calls are already circulating online for a gathering outside the federal courthouse in downtown Miami.

At the Georgia Republican Party convention on Friday night, Arizona Republican Kari Lake—who will go to Miami to “support” Trump—suggested violence. “If you want to get to President Trump, you’re going to have to go through me and you’re going to have to go through 75 million Americans just like me,” Lake exclaimed to roaring cheers and a standing ovation. “Most of us are card-carrying members of the NRA,” the National Rifle Association gun lobby. “That’s not a threat, that’s a public service announcement.”

Most Republicans in Congress are again siding with Trump rather than standing for the rule of law. A few are openly fomenting violence. Louisiana Rep. Clay Higgins tweeted, “This is a perimeter probe from the oppressors. Hold. rPOTUS [a reference to the real president of the United States] has this. Buckle up. 1/50K know your bridges. Rock steady calm. That is all,” suggesting guerilla warfare.

Most other prominent Republicans—even those seeking the Republican presidential nomination—are criticizing President Biden, Merrick Garland, and Special Counsel Jack Smith for “weaponizing” the Justice Department.

All this advances Trump’s goal of forcing Americans to choose sides over him.

Violence is possible, but there will be no civil war.

Nations don’t go to war over whether they like or hate specific leaders. They go to war over the ideologies, religions, racism, social classes, and/or economic policies these leaders represent.

But Trump represents nothing other than his own grievance with a system that refused him a second term and is now beginning to hold him accountable for violating the law.

In addition, the guardrails that protected American democracy after the 2020 election—the courts, state election officials, military, and Justice Department—are stronger than before Trump tested them the first time.

Many of those who stormed the Capitol have been tried and convicted. Election-denying candidates were largely defeated in the 2022 midterms. The courts have adamantly backed federal prosecutors.

Trump’s advocates are having difficulty defending the charges in the unsealed indictment—that Trump threatened America’s security by illegally holding (and in some cases sharing) documents concerning “United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack,” as well as sharing a “plan of attack” against Iran.

Many Republicans consider national security the highest and most sacred goal of the Republic. A large number have served in the armed forces.

Bill Barr, Trump’s own former attorney general, said on “Fox News Sunday”: “I was shocked by the degree of sensitivity of these documents and how many there were, frankly … If even half of it is true, then he’s toast. I mean, it’s a very detailed indictment, and it’s very, very damning. And this idea of presenting Trump as a victim here, a victim of a witch hunt, is ridiculous.”

None of this is cause for complacency. Trump is as dangerous as ever. He has inspired violence before, and he could do it again.

But I believe that many who supported him in 2020 are catching on to his lunacy.

Trump wants Americans to engage in a “final battle” over his own narcissistic cravings. Instead, he is likely to get a squalid and humiliating last act.

In These Times is a 501(c)3 organization and does not support or oppose candidates for public office.

A version of this story also appeared at Common Dreams.

This content originally appeared on In These Times and was authored by Robert Reich.

Orientation

Dogmatisms as a process not content

What does it mean to think dogmatically about something? On the surface, dogmatism seems associated with religious beliefs. While most world religions can be dogmatic, this implies there is no dogmatism outside of religion. We know that is not true. Many people accuse socialists of being dogmatic. In fact, socialists accuse each other of the same thing. Instead of looking at dogmatism as connected to content, to a particular set of beliefs, suppose we treat dogmatism as a process that can be applied to any set of beliefs?  It is tempting to think that dogmatism would be more likely to be on the right-wing side of the political spectrum but moderates or leftist can be just as dogmatic. Here In Mordor, the neoliberal Democratic Party’s commitment to free market fundamentalism is a great example center-right dogmatist.

Interpersonal experience of talking to a dogmatists

When we think of arguing with a dogmatic person what is the experience like for us?  For one thing, the person we’re talking with is overly certain that they are right. Going back and forth with them is not perceived as a dialectical process whereby new knowledge is created. Rather, it is like a king of the hill battle with each trying to take down the other. Closely related to this overconfidence in argument is a dualistic way of posing the problems. You are either right or wrong. There is nothing in between. There is no middle ground, no messiness. Dogmatic thinkers are rigid in their structures.

This article will follow Judy J. Johnson’s book What’s So Wrong with Being Absolutely Right: The Dangerous Nature of Dogmatic Belief. Judy Johnson identifies fourteen characteristics of dogmatic thinking. Five include mental predispositions, four have to do with emotional disorders and the rest having to do with behavior. In Part II of this article, we will identify the causes of dogmatism, covering the fields of sociology, psychology, bio-evolutionary Darwinism and physiology.

Dogmatism and a Family of Resemblances

Working towards a brief definition, dogmatism is a characteristic that combines cognitive, emotional and behavioral characteristics that result in prejudicial closed-minded belief systems that are pronounced with rigid certainty. It is driven by a) emotional anxiety, b) cognitive narrowness, and c) energized behavior. However, It is true that in stressful situations most of us will have some of these features but not as a way of life.  In the average person fatigue, boredom, depression and illness might also produce dogmatism, but only temporarily. A dogmatist will claim to know things with certainty without evidence. A radical skeptic says we can know nothing unless it is certain. Neither dogmatists nor skeptics conduct open-minded inquiry. An open-minded person will say that while nothing is certain, some facts are closer to certainty than others.

Dogmatists are not the same as fanatics

According to Bob Altemeyer in his book Authoritarian Specter, dogmatists, fanatics and zealots are soulmates with some distinctions. He says that fanatics and zealots show excessive frenzied enthusiasm for beliefs that have an absurd or bizarre quality. While some dogmatists are likely to share some of these beliefs, most do not have the emotional extreme dimension of a fanatic or zealot. In general, fanatics occupy what has been called the lunatic fringe, while dogmatists appears relatively more moderate in their beliefs and they imply less dramatic action. Political or religious zealous dogmatists can move society in extraordinary directions. People championing religious beliefs had the highest zealot and highest DOG scores in Altemeyer’s research.

Critical thinking is not the opposite of dogmatic thinking

Johnson points out that although much has been written about how to promote critical thinking skills like inductive and deductive reasoning, abstract analysis, synthesis and evaluation of data, less attention has been given to the deeper psychological conditions that seriously impair one’s ability to think critically at all. Johnson point out that dogmatists can take a class in critical thinking, but if unmet sociological, psychological and biological needs are pushing them in dogmatic directions, their minds will not be sufficiently open to turn theory into practice beyond the class.

Dogmatic vs Openminded Thinking

Fourteen characteristics of dogmatic thinking

1. Intolerance of ambiguity: black and white, either/or thinking
2. Defense cognitive closure (having barbed wire around declarations)
3. Rigid certainty (cannot state the conditions for being proven wrong)
4. Compartmentalization: sealing off contradictory beliefs
5. Lack of self-reflectiveness: refusal to bend-back and analyze themselves
6. Belief associated with anxiety or fear (they underestimate their ability to cope)
7. Lack of a sense of humor to keep perspective
8. If humor is used, it is sarcasm at own or others’ expense
9. Belief associated with anger: oversensitivity to unintentional infringements
10. Excessive pessimism
11. Preoccupation with power and status
12. Glorification of in-group vilification of out-group
13. Authoritarian submission: excessive obedience and blind trust of authorities
14. Authoritarian aggression towards minorities
15. Arrogant, dismissive communication style

Openminded thinking

People who are open-mindedness have little need to change the beliefs and values of people who think differently, unless opposing beliefs directly threaten their own or others’ freedom. They confront the issue, not the person, rarely infer motives for an opponent’s stated beliefs or jump to conclusions when someone changes the topic. Johnson notes that dogmatism should not be confused with open-minded, passionate social activism which creates popular movements. Open-minded people speak out, they do not lash out.

They are willing to suspend judgment and admit they do not know. They explore multiple points of view and are less preoccupied with social conventions. Open-minded people are not easily manipulated by propaganda. They are less vulnerable to external reinforcements like flattery or bribery. Because they are self-reflective they can recognize when their personal needs shape, control, or distort information. When a truth seems to be discovered, their approach is conditional, probable, not absolute, and final. Cognitively flexible adults are more likely to have been raised by parents who enabled them to feel securely attached. Table A at the end of the article compares the fourteen characteristics of dogmatic thinking with my interpretation based on Judy Johnson’s description of what open-mindedness would look like.

Historical Background of Dogmatism Research

Little was written about dogmatism as a distinct personality disposition until the end of the Weimar Republic in Germany when Erich Fromm and Wilhelm Reich sought to understand why Germans were drawn to Hitler. In reaction to fascism in the 1930s, Adorno wrote The Authoritarian Personality in 1950. He was criticized because his scale only measured the authoritarian right-wingers.

Milton Rokeach is credited with the first attempt to correct the problems inherent in the F scale in his book The Open and Closed Mind (1960). His questionnaire was assumed to accurately measure dogmatism independently of ideological places on the political or religious spectrum. Rokeach is acknowledged to have made the first attempt to piece together the complex psychology of dogmatism, but his approach was limited to descriptions and measurement. He did not elaborate on the causal influences. Johnson notes Rokeach had nothing on physiological predispositions, or evolutionary predispositions. Neither did he account for early childhood development, parenting styles, social learning and how cultural institutions influence open vs closed thinking. His main contribution was that dogmatism is not merely a cognitive deficiency. How good is Rokeach’s research? It is not a valid, internally consistent measure of dogmatism. Why not? It lacks validity and reliability.

Altemeyer did extensive research into right wing authoritarianism in Enemies of Freedom: Understanding Right-Wing Authoritarianism (1988) and in the  Authoritarian Spector (1996). His research methods are very rigorous.

His definition calls dogmatism unjustified certainty, not as an unchangeable mind (Rokeach). His other questionnaires that are pertinent to dogmatisms include:

1. The Right wing authoritarian scale
2. Left wing authoritarian scale
3. The religious fundamentalism scale
4. Attitude towards homosexuality scale
5. Posse against radicals
6. Zealot scale

The most important criticism of Altemeyer’s work is that his scale does not tap the emotional and behavioral characteristics of dogmatism. It is limited to a measure of cognitive style.

We will now begin our review of the 14 characteristics of a dogmatic personality.

Five Cognitive Ingredients in Dogmatic Thought

The  Five Characteristics of Dogmatic Cognition are:

1. Intolerance of ambiguity (either/or thinking) due to anxiety
2. Defense cognitive closure
3. Rigid certainty – composure
4. Compartmentation (sealing off contradictory beliefs)
5. Lack of self-reflectiveness

Johnson claims  the tendency to simplify thought is the granddaddy of dogmatism and that accompanies all five cognitive characteristics. Each of the five characteristics fail to thoroughly acknowledge and investigate complicated issues. Conceptual complexity is the degree to which we can consider several dimensions of a problem or argument at once. This is called differentiation. The second element of cognitive complexity is recognizing commonalities among the components within those dimensions. This is called integration.

Intolerance of Ambiguity: Black and White Thinking

Central beliefs begin in childhood as bipolar generalizations about the external world, other people and oneself. Central beliefs also reflect worldviews that are initially derived from parents and expanded or modified by teachers, religious leaders, peer groups, cultural and political institutions, social myths and cultural rituals. But some adults (dogmatists) remain at the level of bipolar generalizations. For example, the borderline personality exhibits cognitive splitting in which the person splits abstract concepts into dichotomous polarized compartments. This is similar to the trait compartmentalization of dogmatism

The absent of a spectrum between dogmatic acceptance and cynicism

Our belief and disbelief systems consist of a spectrum stretching from deep commitment to moderate commitment to skepticism and ultimately to cynicism. Dogmatic people have greater gaps between their belief and disbelief in the middle of the spectrum. In the case of religion, Johnston says extreme dogmatist even reject related religious beliefs. She reports that when fundamentalists are away from home, they are not likely to attend services in the only Christian church available if the Church is a different denomination.Should questions arise about an entirely different religion, dogmatic believers would prefer to consult their own parishioners rather than read and discuss dissimilar tenants with authoritative sources for that religion.

Sudden vs gradual changes in belief

Old beliefs are replaced suddenly (not gradually) with an unquestioning embrace of new ones presented by dazzling, prestigious authority figures. Religious dogmatists avoid analyzing and synthesizing old beliefs and new beliefs.  When faced with doubt, they seek religious revivalists’ movements that offer a chance for a fresh beginning wherein the contradictions between the old and new beliefs are left to fester while being papered over by the new ideology.

Need for Certainty

While the human desire for clarity, predictability and safety during times of change and stress is normal, dogmatists transform these natural desires into dire necessities.

Dogmatic systems claims to absolute certainty are generally not evidence-based claims. For example, Karl Popper, one of the 20^th century’s most influential philosophers of science, writes that there are three criteria for scientific evidence:

1. It must be able to generate predictions
2. It must be capable of being tested and falsified
3. It must survive attempts at refutation

Dogmatic certainty does not feel compelled to make predictions, make claims falsifiable or respond to the refutation points of an adversary by modifying their original claim.

In their need for certainty, dogmatists have learned to suppress their anxious feelings behind rigid proclamations of absolute truth. For the dogmatist, not knowing is an embarrassment that must be concealed. As an antidote to fear, ignorance and powerlessness, dogmatism calms the mind.

Defensive Cognitive Closure

Defensive cognitive closure is like having barbed wire around a declaration and daring their adversity to climb over it. The use of “only” is a likely indicator. In science, when scientists say some social or psychological phenomenon is nothing but chemistry or physics, they are laying down the gauntlet. Humble admissions of hesitation or qualification or suspending judgments are seen as signs of stupidity. Sadly, this can apply to Marxists who refuse to stay current in anthropology and trot out the old anthropology of Marx and Engels that is 150 years old while refusing to incorporate new findings. They present the same stage theory of history over and over again. Failing to acknowledge how far they have fallen behind, they mask ignorance with cynicism about new theories or research findings.

Compartmentalization

Compartmentalization occurs when a person seals off beliefs that contradict the main networks of belief and keeps them from interacting with those main sets of beliefs. An easy example of this is a football fan who is loyal to his team no matter what because the team plays in the fan’s locality. Someone reminds him that the players on his football team and the owners are not from the same location as the fan. The fan acknowledges this, but never allows these facts to enter into the part of his mind that is loyal to his team. Evidence of non-local residence on the part of the players and the owners is isolated and quarantined. Johnson gives another example. Christians support war and the extralegal use of torture while refusing to acknowledge that these practices contradict their supposed support for universal rights.

Lack of Self-reflectiveness

Dogmatists are anti-psychologists. They are not curious about what might be going on in the minds of others and they are uninterested in their own internal life, whether it be thoughts, emotions, goals, drives and any contradictions that might exist between them. When they make a mistake and if they admit they were in the wrong, they do not think about their history of making mistakes and what they could do to correct them. They might say something like “what’s the point of mulling over regrets. What’s done is done”.

This same lack of insight applies to their perception of the minds of others.

Dogmatists will not understand why some people do not like them or try to avoid them. Chances are they will externalize the problem and blame their friend rather than look at the problem dialectically, as the result of both the other person and themselves. Dogmatists have poor listening and conversation skills yet demand attention. Johnson claims that lack of personal insight is a dogmatist’s greatest wound.

Four Emotional Characteristics of Dogmatic Thought

We now turn to the emotional dimensions of dogmatism. Unlike feelings, which are transient, emotions are more enduring. In part because dogmatic people are uninterested in their own minds they have little sense the power of their mind (whether interpretations, explanations of assumptions) has in controlling their emotions. Dogmatic people do not have emotions that come and go. Emotions are perceived as an alien force over which they have no control. For dogmatic people emotions have them. They say things like “once I get wound up in a heated discussion, I just can’t stop”.

Johnson claims that there are four emotional needs that dogmatists are trying to satisfy. The first is the need to know that things connected to perceived survival are relatively stable. Exploring subjects that are not immediately connected to that are perceived as a threat. Therefore, curiosity is looked down on or punished. The second need is to defend against anxiety. Johnson says domineering parents who impose arbitrary rules, who criticize, ridicule, threaten and inflict ruthless discipline and physical abuse leave the child feeling shameful and unwanted. A reaction formation emerges as a shield for anxiety. A wall of contrived certainty barricades the anxiety within.

The third need is for a stable social connection. Chronic doubts about status within groups interferes with the ability to engage in complex cognitive processing. Socially anxious people have difficulty starting and sustaining a quality discussion with others because they are preoccupied with how the other person is evaluating them. Lastly the dogmatist, like everyone, needs to feel a common dignity. However, instead of dignity coming from self-perception, dignity is sought after in groups. Because their status in groups is unstable, they are less likely to find dignity within them, except if it is a special kind of group, as we will see.

According to Johnson, the four emotional ingredients of dogmatism are:

1. Anxiety and fear
2. Lack of a sense of humor
3. Oversensitivity to unintended infringements which result in anger
4. Excessive pessimism and despair

Anxiety and Fear

Johnson argues that dogmatists are driven emotionally by fear and anxiety. Their dogmatism is designed to protect them against these emotions. They lack confidence that on their own they can cope with events that come their way. Because they cannot tolerate ambiguity, they catastrophize events that are mildly unpleasant as dangerous and worth armoring themselves against while arming themselves against others. Anxious people seem unable to clearly process events. Politically they are very susceptible to political authorities who pander to their fear. Instead of politicians being models of grounded optimism and calmness, we have fear-mongering melodramas. Leaders like Trump can potentially turn dogmatists into fascists.

Lack of a Sense of Humor

Having a sense of humor means you can step out of situations and see them in perspective. Humor allows for a break in being serious before returning to serious endeavors. Lack of humor (being humorless) means you are serious all the time. Being dead serious can wear a person out. As we will see in the section on dogmatic behavior, dogmatic people have status anxiety, so that humor at another person or at a group’s expense will be seized on. When they laugh at all, the dogmatist laughs at people, not with people.

Oversensitivity to Unintended Infringements Which Result in Anger

In part, because the dogmatist has status anxiety he is constantly unsure of how others are perceiving him. This is why he responds well to military life since there a person knows their rank and what is expected of them. But in civilian life relations between people are vague and the dogmatic person wants social relations to be crystal clear. Because they lack a sense of play and humor, they cannot imagine that vague behavior done to them was unintentional. Dogmatic people are likely to have bad cases of road rage. When someone cuts them off, they immediately take it personally. “They did that deliberately”. They do not easily think situationally. The person might be late for work, not paying attention for their exit, or having to rush to the hospital. For them, everything is personal and interpersonal. Dogmatists with guns are more likely to be trigger happy. “Nobody fucks with me”. They can’t give people the benefit of the doubt. To do so is the same as to showing weakness. Johnson says,

Those who are low self-monitors (self-reflectors) are often unaware of gestures and facial expressions that transition their words but may provide additional unintended meanings. Innocuous questions become red alerts to their adrenal glands. Simple inquiries are twisted into accusations. (227)

Excessive Pessimism and Despair

Lastly, dogmatists have a pessimistic view of human nature which includes themselves as well. Whenever the dogmatists examine things, their refrain is mostly, ”it has always been this way”. Dogmatists do not like change, and their hope is to make the present the past as soon as possible. There the present can be fit into the rigid categories the dogmatist has built for them.

Summing up, on an emotional level, the functions of dogmatic belief systems are the reduction of fear and anxiety, building up pride, status and smugness in groups, and protection against feeling joy or hope. If dogmatists feel these emotions, they fall further down when things don’t work out. The dogmatist would rather experience a steady, low-grade pessimism than roll with the ups and downs of life as an open-minded person might.

Five Behavioral Characteristics of Dogmatism

Dogmatism is not just what is going cognitively and emotionally. Dogmatism is also  about how people behave and act. The five behavioral characteristics of dogmatism are:

1. An arrogant, dismissive communication style
2. Preoccupation with power and status
3. Glorification of the in-group and vilification of the out-group
4. Dogmatic authoritarian submission to authorities
5. Dogmatic authoritarian aggression towards minorities

An arrogant, dismissive communication style

Although a dogmatist may not be very good at it, they will attempt to use pretentious, pompous language to impress or intimidate someone in discussions with others. Johnson says dogmatists have a hard time following and incorporating aspects of a discussion as they go. A spontaneous back-and-forth flow of conversation might mean the dogmatist’s failure to keep up without woodenly and awkwardly superimposing their beliefs into the conversation. Johnson says dogmatists have a short temper and machine-gun style of communication. They talk at others, not with them. They don’t listen carefully because they are getting ready to make their next point. She says disagreements elicit sighs, frowns and rolling eyes, a rigid body posture and a strident voice. This dismissive communication manner papers over individual and group fears of being exposed as inadequate, insignificant, wrong, ignorant or stupid. Built into dogmatism is a false pride that functions as a defense against being found out.

Preoccupation with power and status

Uncertainty in one’s place in the class, race or gender hierarchy leads to attempts to either stabilize one’s place, or move up in the hierarchy. Forms of behavior include emulation, keeping up with the Joneses, name-dropping or reifying official titles. Johnson reports that on being introduced to someone the dogmatist immediately wants to know the kind of work the person does, where they live, and what their race, ethnicity is. They are drawn to professions that reward them with visible displays of status, believing that uniforms and badges grant instant authority and respect. Up to a point this makes evolutionary sense as natural selection rewarded social learners who observed and copied the most successful individuals. However, since good people can have low status and bad people can have high status, getting answers to the dogmatists’ questions does not guarantee a predictable response. But for the dogmatist bent on labels, this can lead to prejudicial thoughts and/or discriminatory actions.

Johnson points out that dogmatists have a desperate need to achieve identity, the respect of others, the presence of self-esteem and dignity. A group that not only welcomes but panders to those whose self is inconsistent or fragmented with privileged status and instant dignity becomes powerfully appealing to brittle identities.

Glorification of the in-group and vilification of the out-group

Johnson writes that the size of the group membership alone sometimes gives the group legitimacy in the minds of anxious people. When a social system disintegrates to the extent that people lose their group identity and shared values, they become anxious and vulnerable to joining clearly structures groups that are hierarchically ordered. This seems to be the case if they suspect that by joining the group, they will abdicate personal responsibility for assessing the logic of group objectives. These are the circumstances in which the most despicable deeds occur. Authoritarian in-groups also involve being nationalist or even fascist.

Just as there is one and only one dogma and the rest are either false or evil, so too the group that shares the same dogma (the in-group) is good and any group outside of it is demonic. Everything is us vs them, never an expanding, evolving we.Those who are dogmatic cannot distinguish between the social authority and the qualities of the individual person. Either they think the information is true because they respect the authority or the information is false because they distrust the authority. They cannot seem to tolerate instances where an author they respect is wrong or lying or an authority they normally distrust could be telling the truth.

According to Bob Altemeyer in his book The Authoritarian Specter, authoritarianism means the principle of blind submission to authority, as opposed to individual autonomy in thinking and acting. He defines authoritarianism as the co-variation of three kinds of attitudes:

1. Authoritarian submission to established authorities
2. Authoritarian aggression against anyone the authorities target
3. Conventionalism adhered to by society and established by authorities

Dogmatic authoritarian submission to authorities

Albert Bandura spent the better part of his career in social psychology trying to understand the relationship between violence on television and its transition to real life. Bandura’s major concepts of observation and modelling lay emphasis on the influential power of role models who have three characteristics: they are attractive, appear to be an expert and they have power (perhaps political). But dogmatists are attracted to characters who do things that most people would consider immoral and they are not punished. This can apply to parents, peers, authority figures or prestigious people.

Self-efficacy is the individual’s belief that he or she can generate and coordinate the necessary thoughts, emotions, social skills and behaviors required to achieve their goals. Dogmatic authoritarian submission appeals to people who feel the lack self-efficacy. Hence, they are attracted to authorities who are successful at getting away with things that do not require the efficacy that dogmatists themselves lack.

Authoritarian submitters represent extremes of ingratiating loyalty. This can be seen in German soldiers following orders to kill six million Jews. “I was only following orders” they say. It can be seen in results like the Milgram experiment when many more people “went all the way” in shocking the participants than any psychologist had predicted. We find it in the behavior of all the followers of the cults of the 1970s to 1990s from the Peoples Temple to scientology to the Democratic Workers’ Party. Lastly, we can see it in the US soldiers’ treatment of the prisoners at Guantanamo.

Dogmatic authoritarian aggression towards minorities

Altemeyer found that high scorers view the world as a dangerous, fearful place. They felt threatened that racial diversity programs at work or in education might destabilize their identity. The typical things authoritarians will say is “some kids just need a good whuppin” or “Increased crime and drug use is caused by parents and educators who are too soft on discipline”. They might say, that immigrants are taking our jobs. Since dogmatists typically do not care or follow science or the scientific method, they might not be aware that race theory has been shown to be false. They might say these terrorists need to be taught a lesson, not understanding that most people in the world today think the United States is a terrorist state.

If you haven’t already done so, please see how the fourteen dogmatic characteristics of personality compare to a personality that is open-minded in Table A at the end of this article.

Coming Attractions

In part two, we will examine the causes that make the dogmatic personality the way they are. Economies can be expanding and prosperous or they can be contracting with tight labor markets. Which might produce a higher percentage of dogmatic people and why? Do dogmatic people cut across all social classes or are they more likely to be found in some classes more than others? How much might parenting styles impact the likelihood that people will become dogmatic? What about PTSD experiences such as witnessing death in wars, torture and rape? Is there any relationship between PTSD and dogmatism? What might that relationship be? The overwhelming number of people are religious, yet openminded people will not relate to their religion in a dogmatic way. What kind of religion will dogmatists be drawn to?

What can personality theory tell us about dogmatism? What might the theories of  Alfred Adler, Karen Horney and Erik Erikson tell us about the dogmatic personality? Cognitive psychologists have identified four levels of cognition: negative automatic thoughts, distorted cognitive interpretations, pessimistic explanatory styles and irrational assumptions. There is a definite relationship between these cognitive liabilities and dogmatism.

Lastly, is there anything biological involved in dogmatism? Is there a gene for dogmatism? In evolutionary theory human beings strive for both dominance and cooperation as well as for aggressiveness and sociality. How might dogmatism fit into this? Physiologically some people are predisposed to anxiety and others have an overly active amygdala. What might this have to do with dogmatism? As it turns out, lack of oxytocin and dopamine are connected to dogmatism, but how? Discover answers to all these questions in Part II.

Table A Dogmatic vs Openminded Thinking

The post The Dogmatic Personality first appeared on Dissident Voice.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Bruce Lerro.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Allen Forrest.

Like many of you, I watched parts of Vera Sharav’s new documentary series, Never Again is Now Global, this week. With its sharp focus on the Holocaust and Nazi tactics in general, I felt the need to reach back into some of my older research and remind readers who was supporting and enabling the rise of Hitler.

Spoiler alert: It is the same class of folks responsible for tyranny today.
 

What we’re taught about the years leading up to the Second World War involves alleged appeasement of the Third Reich, e.g. if only the Allies were stronger in their resolve, the Axis powers could have been stopped.

Perhaps the first step in challenging this so-called analysis would be to demonstrate that it wasn’t appeasement that took place prior to WWII. It was, in the best cases, indifference. More often, it was a collaboration based on economic greed and more than a little shared ideology.

The pursuit of profit long ago transcended national borders and national loyalty. In the decades before WWII, doing business with Hitler’s Germany or Mussolini’s Italy (or, as a proxy, Franco’s Spain) proved no more unsavory to the captains of industry than selling military hardware to Saudi Arabia does today. What’s a little repression when there are boatloads of money to be made?

In other words, when William E. Dodd, US ambassador to Germany during the 1930s, declared “a clique of US industrialists is working closely with the fascist regime[s] in Germany and Italy,” he wasn’t kidding.

“Many leaders of Wall Street and of the US foreign policy establishment had maintained close ties with their German counterparts since the 1920s, some having intermarried or shared investments,” says investigative reporter Christopher Simpson. “This went so far in the 1930s as the sale in New York of bonds whose proceeds helped finance the Aryanization of companies and real estate looted from German Jews. US investment in Germany accelerated rapidly after Hitler came to power.”

Such investment increased “by some 48.5 percent between 1929 and 1940, while declining sharply everywhere else in continental Europe.”

Among the US corporations that invested in Germany during the 1920s were Ford, General Motors, General Electric, Standard Oil, Texaco, International Harvester, ITT, and IBM — all of whom were more than happy to see the German labor movement and working-class parties smashed.

For many of these companies, operations in Germany continued during the war (even if it meant the use of concentration-camp slave labor) with overt US government support.

“Pilots were given instructions not to hit factories in Germany that were owned by US firms,” writes Michael Parenti. “Thus Cologne was almost leveled by Allied bombing but its Ford plant, providing military equipment for the Nazi army, was untouched; indeed, German civilians began using the plant as an air raid shelter.”

International Telegraph and Telephone (ITT) was founded by Sosthenes Behn, an unabashed supporter of the Führer even as the Luftwaffe was bombing civilians in London. ITT was responsible for creating the Nazi communications system, along with supplying vital parts for German bombs.

According to journalist Jonathan Vankin, “Behn allowed his company to cover for Nazi spies in South America, and one of ITT’s subsidiaries bought a hefty swath of stock in the airline company that built Nazi bombers.”

Behn himself met with Hitler in 1933 (the first American businessman to do so) and became a double agent of sorts. While reporting on the activities of German companies to the US government, Behn was also contributing money to Heinrich Himmler’s Schutzstaffel (SS) and recruiting Nazis onto ITT’s board.

In 1940, Behn entertained a close friend and high-ranking Nazi, Gerhard Westrick, in the United States to discuss a potential U.S.-German business alliance — precisely as Hitler’s blitzkrieg was overrunning most of Europe and Nazi atrocities were becoming known worldwide.

In early 1946, having relied on the Dulles brothers to survive his open flirtation with Nazi Germany, instead of facing prosecution for treason, Behn ended up collecting $27 million from the US government for “war damages inflicted on its German plants by Allied bombing.” He was in the perfect position to lobby President Truman concerning the newly formed Central Intelligence Group (CIG).

Meeting with the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral William D. Leahy, in the White House, Behn, as recorded in Leahy’s diary, generously offered for consideration “the possibility of utilizing the service of [ITT’s] personnel in American intelligence activities.”

In December 1933, Standard Oil of New York invested one million dollars in Germany for the making of gasoline from soft coal. Undeterred by the well-publicized events of the next decade, Standard Oil also honored its chemical contracts with I.G. Farben — a German chemical cartel that manufactured Zyklon-B, the poison gas used in the Nazi gas chambers — right up until 1942.

Other companies that traded with the Reich and, in some cases, directly aided the war machine, before and during this time, included the Chase Manhattan Bank, Davis Oil Company, DuPont, Bendix, Sperry Gyroscope, and the aforementioned General Motors GM top man William Knudsen called Nazi Germany “the miracle of the 20th century.”

On the governmental front, US Secretary of State Breckinridge Long curiously gave the Ford Motor Company permission to manufacture Nazi tanks while simultaneously restricting aid to German-Jewish refugees because the Neutrality Act of 1935 barred trade with belligerent countries.

Miraculously, this embargo did not include petroleum products and Mussolini’s Italy tripled its gasoline and oil imports in order to support its war effort while Texaco exploited this convenient loophole to cozy up to Spain’s resident fascist, Generalissimo Francisco Franco.

And then there was Sullivan and Cromwell, the most powerful Wall Street law firm of the 1930s.

 
John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles — the two brothers who guided the firm; the same two brothers who boycotted their own sister’s 1932 wedding because the groom was Jewish — served as the contacts for the company responsible for the gas in the Nazi gas chambers, I.G. Farben.

During the pre-war period, the elder John Foster led off cables to his German clients with the salutation “Heil Hitler,” and he blithely dismissed the Nazi threat in 1935 in a piece he wrote for the Atlantic Monthly. In 1939, he told the Economic Club of New York, “We have to welcome and nurture the desire of the New Germany to find for her energies a new outlet.”

“Hitler’s attacks on the Jews and his growing propensity for territorial expansion seem to have left Dulles unmoved,” writes historian Robert Edward Herzstein. “Twice a year, [Dulles] visited the Berlin office of the firm, located in the luxurious Esplanade Hotel.”

Ultimately, it was little brother Allen who actually got to meet the German dictator, and eventually smoothed over the blatant Nazi ties of ITT’s Sosthenes Behn.

“(Allen) Dulles was an originator of the idea that multinational corporations are instruments of U.S. foreign policy and therefore exempt from domestic laws,” Vankin writes. This idea later took root in U.S.-dominated institutions and agreements like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organization.

Leonard Mosley, the biographer of the Dulles brothers, defended Allen by evoking the never-fail, all-purpose alibi of anti-communism. The younger Dulles, Mosley claimed, “made his loathing of the Nazis plain, years before World War II…(it was) the Russians (who tried) to link his name with bankers who financed Hitler.”

However, in 1946, both brothers would play a major role in the founding of the United States intelligence community and the subsequent recruiting of Nazi war criminals.

One Third Reich supporter who never required a disclaimer was Henry Ford, the autocratic magnate who despised unions, tyrannized workers, and fired any employee caught driving a competitor’s model. Ford, an outspoken anti-Semite, believed that Jews corrupted gentiles with “syphilis, Hollywood, gambling, and jazz.” In 1918, he bought and ran a newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, which became an anti-Jewish forum.

“The New York Times reported in 1922 that there was a widespread rumor circulating in Berlin claiming that Henry Ford was financing Adolf Hitler’s nationalist and anti-Semitic movement in Munich,” write James and Suzanne Pool in their book Who Financed Hitler. “Novelist Upton Sinclair wrote in The Flivver King, a book about Ford, that the Nazis got forty thousand dollars from Ford to reprint anti-Jewish pamphlets in German translations, and that an additional $300,000 was later sent to Hitler through a grandson of the ex-Kaiser who acted as intermediary.”

An appreciative Adolf Hitler kept a large picture of the automobile pioneer beside his desk, explaining: “We look to Heinrich Ford as the leader of the growing Fascist movement in America.” Hitler hoped to support such a movement by offering to “import some shock troops to the U.S. to help [Ford] run for president.”

In 1938, on Henry Ford’s 75th birthday, he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Supreme Order of the German Eagle from the Führer himself. He was the first American (GM’s James Mooney would be second) and only the fourth person in the world to receive the highest decoration that could be given to any non-German citizen.

An earlier honoree was none other than a kindred spirit, Benito Mussolini.

 
Speaking of Mussolini, that particular blacksmith’s son also merited the attention of US businessmen and lawmakers alike. Il Duce (“the leader”), exploiting the fears of an anti-communist ruling class in Italy, installed himself as head of the single-party fascist state in 1925 after declaring three years earlier that, “either they will give us the government or we shall take it by descending on Rome” and “We stand for a new principle in the world. We stand for the sheer, categorical, definitive antithesis to the world of democracy.”

Putting this doctrine into action, Mussolini took aim at Italy’s powerful unions. The solution was to smash unions, political organizations, and civil liberties.  This included the destruction of labor halls, the shutting down of opposition newspapers, and unions and strikes were outlawed in both Italy and Germany. Union property and farm collectives were confiscated and handed over to rich private owners. Even child labor was reintroduced in Mussolini’s Italy.

Despite or perhaps because of the Blackshirts, the terror tactics, the smashing of democratic institutions, and the blatant fascist posturing, Mussolini received some rave reviews on both sides of the Atlantic.

“It is easy to mistake, in times of political turmoil, the words of a disciplinarian for those of a dictator. Mussolini is a severe disciplinarian, but no dictator,” wrote New York Times senior foreign correspondent, Walter Littlefield, in 1922.

Further serving the corporate roots of the US media, Littlefield went on to advise that “if the Italian people are wise, they will accept the Fascismo, and by accepting [they will] gain the power to regulate and control it.”  Six days earlier, an unsigned Times editorial observed that “in Italy as everywhere else, the great complaint against democracy is its inefficiency . . . Dr. Mussolini’s experiment will perhaps tell us something more about the possibilities of oligarchic administration.”

In January 1927, Winston Churchill wrote to Il Duce, gushing “if I had been an Italian, I am sure I would have been entirely with you from the beginning to the end of your victorious struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism.” Even after the advent of war, Churchill still found room in his heart for the Italian dictator, explaining to Parliament in 1940: “I do not deny that he is a very great man but he became a criminal when he attacked England.”

Other unabashed apologists for Dr. Mussolini included:

• Richard W. Child, former ambassador to Rome, stated in 1938: “it is absurd to say that Italy groans under discipline. Italy chortles with it! It is the victor! Time has shown that Mussolini is both wise and humane.”
• The House of Morgan loaned $100 million to the Italian government in the late 1920s and then reinvested it in Italy upon its repayment.
• Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, who, also in the late 1920s, renegotiated the Italian debt to the U.S. on terms more favorable by far than those obtained by Britain, France, or Belgium.
• Governor Philip F. La Follette of Wisconsin (considered presidential timber in the 1930s) kept an autographed photo of Il Duce on his wall.
• A 1934 Cole Porter song originally contained the lyrics, “You’re the tops, you’re Mussolini.” It was eventually changed to “the Mona Lisa.”
• As late as 1940, 80 percent of the Italian-language dailies in the U.S. were pro-Mussolini.

Finally, there was FDR himself who, well into the 1930s, was “deeply impressed” with Benito Mussolini and referred to the Italian ruler as that “admirable Italian gentleman.”

Despite Roosevelt’s positive assessment of the strongman of Italian fascism, there is evidence that some home-grown fascists may have cautiously explored the option of an American coup. I wrote about that here:

Post-Woke

When the upper echelons of the Parasite Class flex their power

Preface: Paul, a subscriber/regular commenter, recently mentioned Gen. Smedley Butler the other day and it inspired me to share an edited excerpt from my first book…

Read more

a month ago · 40 likes · 27 comments · Mickey Z.

As a certain “admirable Italian gentleman” once declared, “Fascism is corporatism.”

Despite committing atrocities, countless murderers, strong men, and dictators have received overt and covert support from the West in general and the US in particular… all in the name of profit and power.

Take-home message: When (accurately) comparing some current tactics to those used by the Nazis, never forget who supported those Nazis — and still do.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Mickey Z..

Indeed, it seems as if Team Biden had summoned up the ghost of Leni Reifenstahl to design the lurid look of the performance, with a technocratic shade of hell-fire Red being the dominant tone back-lighting Biden, a curious color choice for Team Blue.  One wonders how they missed this obvious visual association to Nazi rallies from the 1930s, or was this historical reference possibly intentional?  While condemning “MAGA Republicans” only a few days before as “semi-fascists,” Biden’s stage props projected a dystopian vision of what a Real Fascist leader might look like in 2022.

This was also a War Speech, as symbolized by the two Marines standing at attention behind Biden (sacred triangle?), giving the whole production a decidedly militaristic look.  But, who are “we” going to war against? Clearly, and repeatedly, Dark Lord Biden pointed at “MAGA Republicans” and their “extreme ideology” as threatening “our democracy,” suggesting that tough times may be ahead for those so identified.  Interestingly enough, Biden didn’t address external enemies, nor refer to Russia’s president Putin even once, although the United States continues to lavishly pump up its proxy Ukrainian forces with Weapons and Cash — oh, and maybe a mercenary or two…

Perhaps we can paraphrase the ideological substance of Biden’s rather furious speech thus:  “Folks, to save our Democracy, we’re transitioning, in a gender-fluid way, from Neo-liberalism to Neo-fascism.  Our pivot to neo-Fascism will stop the extremist ideology and political violence of the insurrectionist MAGA Republicans. Democracy…you know…The Thing!”

The most immediate and visceral reactions to Biden’s fascist-looking speech came primarily from voices on the Right, who were quick to note the Hitlerian iconography of the performance.  The irony, of course, is that Team Blue were quite blue-in-the-face for 4 years trying to paint Donald Trump as some kind of “new Hitler” figure; in fact, through the gratuitous grandstanding vehicle of the Jan 6 commission hearings, many on Dick-Liz Cheney’s side of the aisle still are — never mind that most of America has moved on.  But the more interesting and twisted take on Biden’s at the very least authoritarian-styled speech came from — Team Blue.

Apparently, some folks in BidenLand decided to re-purpose a “Dark Brandon” meme that popped-up on Social Media earlier this year.  “Dark Brandon” plays on an anti-Biden political chant –“Fuck Joe Biden!” — that emerged in sporting stadiums in September of 2021, then went “viral” after an NBC sports reporter, interviewing the winning NASCAR race car driver Brandon Brown at the Talledega Superspeedway in Alabama, translated the crowd’s chant as “Let’s Go Brandon!”  The discursively subversive chant “Let’s Go Brandon!”, with its comically coded message, had a bit of a fast and furiously funny run for a while, the way certain catch-phrases will.

One hesitates to say “American political discourse at its finest!”, but this episode does demonstrate a curious example of populist political sentiment crudely expressed crossing over into double-entendre with a bit of wit. Nevertheless, the Bidenites, not content to let this “chant” go the way of all fads, decided to re-appropriate it into a pro-Biden message, and thus was born the Marvel Comics version of the Dark Avenger Biden, with crazy laser eyes burning holes into whatever — presumably the “Let’s Go Brandon!” chanting crowd most of all…

One can surmise, then, that this “Dark Brandon” re-branding of Biden had a lot to do with the menacing, fascist aesthetic framing of Biden’s Philly speech.  Curiously, the kids at The Hill Rising and Breaking Points laughed off the notion that the eerie optics of Biden’s speech were anything but “right wing” talking points, as in: “Nothing to see here!”  As self-described “alternative media” sources, it seems like both shows’ analyses are becoming more and more attached to the “Blob” they claim to critique.  Basically, there is this weird fear going around of being seen as “right wing,” which Biden’s speech declared “extremist” in no uncertain terms.

This phenomenon was absolutely on display with the recent “Progressive Caucus” letter to president Biden mildly suggesting diplomacy with Russia over the Ukraine crisis, which appears to be in the next phase of escalation, possibly, but not probably, “nuclear.”  In the event, it only took 24 hours for the 30 Team Blue letter signers to rescind their meek message, disingenuously blaming the release of the “diplomacy letter” on “staffers,” as if these incompetent politicians can’t even control their own communications.

The primary rationale for the Caucus saying “Whoopsie!” was that they were afraid to be seen as endorsing a Republican suggestion that maybe, just hypothetically, we might slow down, or at least question, our overwhelming support for the corrupt Ukrainian regime of Vladimir Zelensky.  The “Squad,” it seems, is beyond useless at this point; perhaps the whole point of their “letter” was to scuttle any further talk of peace and diplomacy, just another political sabotage operation?  They’ve pledged allegiance to “Dixiecrat” Joe and, more importantly, “Mama Bear” Pelosi — not to mention the Military Industrial Complex.

Biden began his presidency talking about democracy versus authoritarianism as the great challenge we all face going forward.  And yet, in a significant public appearance, albeit quite domestically focused, he projected an unequivocally “authoritarian” image.  Certainly, the “civil war”-obsessed “Dark Biden” has swapped out the “Unvaccinated” for “MAGA Republicans” as objects of derision and demonization in this, his second year in office, just as “Blame Putin!” has been used to replace a failing Covid narrative in official rhetoric.  Trump himself was only mentioned once, but it is worth noting that this diabolical speech came on the jack-booted heels of the “unprecedented” FBI/DoJ raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.  Maybe the Democratic Party is trying to re-Brandon itself the “Banana Republican Party”?  The Mar-a-Lago raid, a colossal waste of taxpayer dollars under the skimpiest of legal pretexts (it’s too ironic that a former Epstein lawyer was the Magistrate who signed the warrant), can be framed as an act of “political violence” against a once-and-potential political opponent.  Not good optics for a so-called Democracy, but, hey, that’s what Authoritarians do!  One doesn’t have to be a “Trumper” to see that this was straight-up strong-arm politics, an abuse of both Federal Law enforcement and the Department of Justice.

Just to wrap this commentary up, I’ll note that the excessive and often flippant use of the term “fascist” to epithet anyone you disagree with politically (unless, of course, Communist “red” is your favorite shade of accusatory shade…) is more than a bit over-used.  It’s kind of a tired trope that ought to be retired unless something real is meant by its invocation.  However, the dark theatrics of Biden’s Philly speech unambiguously suggest that the designation of this historically shaded term, “fascist,” to describe Biden’s performance:  Well, if the jack-boot fits, so be it.  Maybe the Neo-Lib-Cons “in charge” were going for that effect:  Who knows?

Nevertheless, if only in dystopian style, its Riefenstahl-invoking Nazi aesthetic, Biden’s forked-tongue lashing suggests that we’re all in for some dark days ahead.  Like the CIA’s Washington Post outlet says, “Democracy dies in darkness.”  Biden’s speech, bathed in a Darkness of both staging and rhetoric, provides a clue where the real Darkness, perhaps, will be coming from…

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Todd Smith.

Former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich says President Biden must “push back as hard as he can” if Republicans take control of even one chamber in Congress following Tuesday’s midterm elections. He says the administration needs to be clear there is no compromise on the debt ceiling, which he expects a Republican-controlled Congress would challenge, potentially triggering a repeat of the political crisis in 2011 under former President Obama.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

So, the censorship of my latest book, The Rise of the New Normal Reich: Consent Factory Essays, Vol. III (2020-2021), continues. Amazon.com has now banned the book in three countries … Germany, Austria, and The Netherlands.

The pretext the Amazon Content Review Team has cited as grounds for banning the book is the semi-visible swastika on the cover. This pretext is clearly a pretext; i.e., a lie, as Amazon sells a number of other products displaying semi-visible swastikas in these markets.

For example, William Shirer’s books, or Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds, as depicted in the images above. Some of the swastika-displaying products Amazon offers in these markets display not merely semi-visible swastikas, but totally-visible swastikas on their packaging.

For example …

The Amazon Content Review Team’s pretext for banning the book is clearly a lie, and not even a convincing lie. But then Amazon doesn’t have to lie convincingly.

When you are an unaccountable supranational corporation founded and executive-chaired by Jeff Bezos, the second-richest person in the world, and a component of the US Intelligence Community, the “rule of law” does not apply to you. You do not have to justify your actions to any court of law or regulatory body, much less to some mid-list author whose income and reputation you are maliciously damaging.

Sure, there are constitutional protections against censorship and discrimination, and other laws that ostensibly forbid you from maliciously damaging the reputations and incomes of mid-list authors like me. For example:

Article 5 of the Grundgesetz (i.e., Germany’s constitution):

“Every person shall have the right freely to express and disseminate his opinions in speech, writing, and pictures and to inform himself without hindrance from generally accessible sources. Freedom of the press and freedom of reporting by means of broadcasts and films shall be guaranteed. There shall be no censorship.”

Article 3 of the Grundgesetz:

“No person shall be favoured or disfavoured because of sex, parentage, race, language, homeland and origin, faith or religious or political opinions.”

But these laws do not apply to you, not when you’re Amazon.com, because you know that: (a) the governments in question, i.e., the governments of Germany, Austria, and The Netherlands, condone your violations of their constitutions (which they have abrogated in any event under the pretext of a “public health emergency”) and might have even had something to do with them, i.e., your constitutional violations; and (b) lawyers will be too afraid of your wealth and power to challenge you in court.

Moreover, mainstream journalists will completely ignore your censorship of political literature that does not conform to the new official global-capitalist ideology, or they will “like” or retweet one of my tweets, and then rush back to covering whatever one of their colleagues tweeted about some other colleague’s tweet, and their colleagues’ responses to that tweet, i.e., the tweet about the original tweet, because they, i.e., the mainstream journalists, are also scared shitless of incurring your ire, and potentially getting their books banned by Amazon, and their incomes and reputations damaged, and getting fired by their literary agents, and so on.

Which means you can pretty much do whatever you want to anyone you want, which is a pretty sweet deal if you’re an immensely powerful supranational corporation that dominates book sales and distribution globally and is also an essential component of the global-capitalist Intelligence Community.

Which that is kind of the point of this piece. Yes, Amazon’s banning of my book will damage my book sales and reputation as an author, but I’ll survive. The point is, as I put it in a post I published yesterday, before Amazon advised me that they had banned the book in Austria and The Netherlands, in addition to Germany:

“What is important is that corporations like Amazon, Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. (which control our communication networks) do not have the slightest qualms about censoring information, banning books, suppressing facts, spreading disinformation, and generally behaving like Orwellian Thoughtpolice … and we are gradually becoming accustomed to it. It is becoming “normal,” boring even. I don’t know about you, but I am not OK with living in a world where Amazon and other unaccountable global corporations decide which books we are allowed to read, which films we are allowed to watch, which facts we are allowed to know about. And that is where we are headed, currently. We’re not going to arrive there suddenly, one day. We’re going to arrive there just like this … little step by little step, one little act of corporate censorship at a time.”

I don’t know how to fight this, exactly … not my book ban, the larger phenomenon. It probably has to start with mainstream journalists and lawyers taking on these global corporations. Relatively obscure little literary outlaws (like me) do not have the juice to do it.

So, if you happen to know any people like that …

Oh, and, for those of you who enjoy seeing how the ideological-sausage gets made, here, for the purpose of criticism and review, is my recent correspondence with the Amazon Content Review Team.

August 29, 2022 (4:35 PM)

Hello,

During our review process, we found that your book’s cover image contains content (i.e. Swastika, Reichsadler, Sowilō) that is in violation of our content guidelines for Germany and may infringe German law. As a result, we will not be offering the following book for sale in Germany:

The Rise of the New Normal Reich: Consent Factory Essays, Vol. III (2020-2021)
ASIN: B0B1VCK39P, 3982146429

You may reply to this message if you believe this decision has been made in error.

Our content guidelines are published on the Kindle Direct Publishing website: https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A2TOZW0SV7IR1U.

Best regards,

Amazon KDP

Content Review Team
Amazon Content Review Team

August 29, 2022 (5:18 PM)

Dear Amazon KDP Content Review Team,

German law is clear on the banned/permitted use of images of swastikas. See, e.g., this Deutsche Welle article …

• Swastikas and other banned symbols can displayed in Germany if they are used for “civic education, countering anti-constitutional activities, art and science, research and education, the coverage of historic and current events, or similar purposes,” according to the Criminal Code.

There are numerous examples of books, films, artworks, etc. containing swastikas for the above-cited purposes in Germany.

The cover artwork of my book (which has been on sale throughout the world since May 2022, and was an Amazon bestseller in several countries upon its release) clearly falls under such exceptional use under German law, therefore, there is no legal ground for Amazon to ban its sale or otherwise censor it.

Additionally, Amazon.de offers for sale other products bearing images of swastikas, e.g., William Shirer’s books, a Quentin Tarantino film, etc. Thus, your decision to ban my book can only be seen as arbitrary, rather than as the result of a consistent in-house policy.

Moreover, Amazon’s banning of my book violates Germany’s constitutional protection of freedom of expression as set forth in Article 5 of the Grundgesetz:

• Every person shall have the right freely to express and disseminate his opinions in speech, writing, and pictures and to inform himself without hindrance from generally accessible sources. Freedom of the press and freedom of reporting by means of broadcasts and films shall be guaranteed. There shall be no censorship.

I trust you have taken this decision based on your misunderstanding of German law and lack of awareness of the other books and products Amazon offers in Germany that also contain images of swastikas for the above-cited purposes, and not based on any political or ideological bias and/or intention to damage my income and reputation as an author. Thus, I assume you will immediately reverse this ban.

I look forward to your prompt reply.

Yours sincerely,
CJ Hopkins

August 30, 2022 (3:07 PM)

Hello,

Thank you for bringing this to our attention.

We need a little time to look into the problem.

We’ll reply and send you more information within 2-3 business days.

Thanks for your patience.

Content Review Team
Amazon Content Review Team

August 30, 2022 (6:24 PM)

Hello,

Thanks for your email.

We’ve reviewed your book “The Rise of the New Normal Reich: Consent Factory Essays, Vol. III (2020-2021)” (ASIN:B0B1VCK39P, 3982146429 ), and found that it is in violation of our content guidelines and we will not be offering this title for sale on Amazon.

We reserve the right to determine whether content provides a poor customer experience and remove that content from sale.

You can find our KDP content guidelines, here: https://kdp.amazon.com/help/topic/G200672390

Thanks for your understanding.

Best regards,
Amazon KDP

Content Review Team
Amazon Content Review Team

August 30, 2022 (6:39 PM)

Hi Amazon Content Review Team,

Could you please clarify:

(1) in which countries Amazon KDP has banned and/or is planning to ban the book;

(2) the nature of the “poor customer experience” you have cited, or which specific “content guidelines” the book violates?

I would note that the book has overwhelmingly positive reader reviews from readers all around the world, so I am unclear as to which customers are having a “poor experience.”

With kind regards,
CJ Hopkins

August 31, 2022 (9:38 AM)

Hello,

During our review process, we found that your book’s cover image contains content (i.e. Swastika) that is in violation of our content guidelines for Germany and may infringe German law.

As a result, we will not be offering the following book for sale in Germany, Netherlands and Austria:

“The Rise of the New Normal Reich: Consent > Factory
Essays, Vol. III (2020-2021)” (ASIN:B0B1VCK39P, 3982146429 )

Regarding the Paperback version “The Rise of the New Normal Reich: Consent > Factory Essays, Vol. III (2020-2021)” (ASIN: 3982146429) KDP Print availability may not always align with digital availability.

For European countries sales, in order for a KDP paperback title to be available in one European country, you must make the book(s) available in all European countries.

If your book(s) is not in the public domain, or you don’t have publishing rights in any one of those countries, then none of the European countries should be selected as territories.

For a list of European countries, visit Help: https://kdp.amazon.com/help/topic/G201834280

If you have additional questions, please reply to this email.

You may reply to this message if you believe this decision has been made in error.

Our content guidelines are published on the Kindle Direct Publishing website: https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A2TOZW0SV7IR1U.

Best regards,

Thanks for using Amazon KDP

Content Review Team
Amazon Content Review Team

August 31, 2022 (1:31 PM)

Dear Amazon Content Review Team,

Thank you very much for clarifying in which countries you have arbitrarily decided to ban my book, clearly for political/ideological reasons, as you offer several other products containing “content (i.e. Swastika)” that you falsely claim is “in violation of [y]our content guidelines for Germany and may infringe German law” (referenced in my previous email).

I especially appreciated your failure to address my explication of German law regarding the permitted use of swastikas for certain purposes, and your robotic repetition of the phrase “may infringe German law,” as if I had not explained it (i.e., German law) to you. That was a lovely touch. It radiates Faceless Unaccountable Power, which I assume was what you were going for, so kudos!

Your refusal to explain the nature of the “poor customer experience” that you claimed customers have experienced or might experience, after I demonstrated that your “German law” pretext was nonsense, and a lie, and which specific Amazon “content guidelines” the book violates, is also much appreciated. Again, it evokes that “You-Are-Dealing-With-A-Faceless-Orwellian-Machine” feeling, so … good job!

Thank you also for the gibberish about “publishing rights” in European countries, which has absolutely nothing to do with this matter.

I will be sure to update you regarding the results of your efforts to damage my income and reputation as an author in due course. Until then …

All best wishes and kindest personal regards,
CJ Hopkins

*****

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by C.J. Hopkins.

Former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich on Friday urged voters in Ohio's 11th Congressional District to cast their ballots for progressive firebrand Nina Turner, who is challenging Rep. Shontel Brown in the Democratic primary.

Reich—now a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley—said that "we have to elect" Turner "because we need people in Congress who will fight for working people instead of allowing corporations and billionaires to loot the economy."

He also shared a recorded conversation he had with the candidate about how "poverty is a policy choice." In the video, published earlier this week, Reich introduces Turner as "one of my favorite people in America."

Reich's remarks came as early in-person voting is already underway for the May 3 election.

The professor's tweet also came as U.S. President Joe Biden endorsed Brown, describing her as "a true partner in Congress." Brown—who beat Turner in a special election for the seat last year—said she was "thankful" for Biden's support and pledged that she would "continue to be a unifying leader in Congress" while working with the president to deliver for her district.

Journalist Walker Bragman tweeted that the president's move was a "very clear signal from the White House: If you like what Biden is doing and how he's approaching negotiations, vote Shontel Brown. If you think Biden needs to fight harder and do more, vote Nina Turner."

Earlier this month, as the Congressional Progressive Caucus controversially backed Brown, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) formally endorsed Turner—who supported his 2016 presidential run and served as a national co-chair for his 2020 campaign.

In response to Biden's decision Friday, Andrew Perez, a senior editor and reporter at The Lever, said that "for the Democratic Party establishment, there's nothing more unforgivable than supporting Bernie Sanders."

Others noted Friday that in July 2020—a few months after Sanders suspended his campaign—Turner made clear that she was not enthusiastic about voting for Biden, telling The Atlantic: "It's like saying to somebody, 'You have a bowl of shit in front of you, and all you've got to do is eat half of it instead of the whole thing.' It's still shit."

House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.)—who has endorsed Brown and is expected to stump for her in Ohio this weekend—referenced Turner's 2020 position on Friday.

"Shontel made it very clear that she was a Joe Biden supporter," Clyburn told The Hill. "And her opponent made it very clear that she was a Joe Biden opponent."

Biden's endorsement of Brown is notably only the second of this cycle.

David Dayen wrote Wednesday for The American Prospect that "Biden raised eyebrows over the weekend with his first endorsement of the 2022 election cycle, backing Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.), a corporate-friendly moderate who has opposed much of the White House's agenda, and who is facing a primary challenger running on the very administration priorities he has shunned."

Dayen noted that "Democrats in the district argue that Biden's endorsement of Schrader over his opponent, attorney and 2018 congressional candidate Jamie McLeod-Skinner, fits a pattern of the incumbent's support coming largely from the corporate and political establishment outside the state, rather than from voters and officials on the ground."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Jessica Corbett.

Former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich on Friday urged voters in Ohio's 11th Congressional District to cast their ballots for progressive firebrand Nina Turner, who is challenging Rep. Shontel Brown in the Democratic primary.

Reich—now a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley—said that "we have to elect" Turner "because we need people in Congress who will fight for working people instead of allowing corporations and billionaires to loot the economy."

He also shared a recorded conversation he had with the candidate about how "poverty is a policy choice." In the video, published earlier this week, Reich introduces Turner as "one of my favorite people in America."

Reich's remarks came as early in-person voting is already underway for the May 3 election.

The professor's tweet also came as U.S. President Joe Biden endorsed Brown, describing her as "a true partner in Congress." Brown—who beat Turner in a special election for the seat last year—said she was "thankful" for Biden's support and pledged that she would "continue to be a unifying leader in Congress" while working with the president to deliver for her district.

Journalist Walker Bragman tweeted that the president's move was a "very clear signal from the White House: If you like what Biden is doing and how he's approaching negotiations, vote Shontel Brown. If you think Biden needs to fight harder and do more, vote Nina Turner."

Earlier this month, as the Congressional Progressive Caucus controversially backed Brown, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) formally endorsed Turner—who supported his 2016 presidential run and served as a national co-chair for his 2020 campaign.

In response to Biden's decision Friday, Andrew Perez, a senior editor and reporter at The Lever, said that "for the Democratic Party establishment, there's nothing more unforgivable than supporting Bernie Sanders."

Others noted Friday that in July 2020—a few months after Sanders suspended his campaign—Turner made clear that she was not enthusiastic about voting for Biden, telling The Atlantic: "It's like saying to somebody, 'You have a bowl of shit in front of you, and all you've got to do is eat half of it instead of the whole thing.' It's still shit."

House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.)—who has endorsed Brown and is expected to stump for her in Ohio this weekend—referenced Turner's 2020 position on Friday.

"Shontel made it very clear that she was a Joe Biden supporter," Clyburn told The Hill. "And her opponent made it very clear that she was a Joe Biden opponent."

Biden's endorsement of Brown is notably only the second of this cycle.

David Dayen wrote Wednesday for The American Prospect that "Biden raised eyebrows over the weekend with his first endorsement of the 2022 election cycle, backing Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.), a corporate-friendly moderate who has opposed much of the White House's agenda, and who is facing a primary challenger running on the very administration priorities he has shunned."

Dayen noted that "Democrats in the district argue that Biden's endorsement of Schrader over his opponent, attorney and 2018 congressional candidate Jamie McLeod-Skinner, fits a pattern of the incumbent's support coming largely from the corporate and political establishment outside the state, rather than from voters and officials on the ground."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Jessica Corbett.

This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader Radio Hour and was authored by Ralph Nader Radio Hour.