'Red Caesarism' is rightwing code - and some Republicans are listening

[SomewhereInTheMiddle]

From The Guardian - Sun 1 Oct 2023

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/01/red-caesar-authoritarianism-republicans-extreme-right

In June, the rightwing academic Kevin Slack published a book-length polemic claiming that ideas that had emerged from what he called the radical left were now so dominant that the US republic its founders envisioned was effectively at an end.

Slack, a politics professor at the conservative Hillsdale College in Michigan, made conspiratorial and extreme arguments now common on the antidemocratic right, that “transgenderism, anti-white racism, censorship, cronyism … are now the policies of an entire cosmopolitan class that includes much of the entrenched bureaucracy, the military, the media, and government-sponsored corporations”.

In a discussion of possible responses to this conspiracy theory, he wrote that the “New Right now often discusses a Red Caesar, by which it means a leader whose post-Constitutional rule will restore the strength of his people”.

For the last three years, parts of the American right have advocated a theory called Caesarism as an authoritarian solution to the claimed collapse of the US republic in conference rooms, podcasts and the house organs of the extreme right, especially those associated with the Claremont Institute thinktank.

Though on the surface this discussion might seem esoteric, experts who track extremism in the US say that due to their influence on the Republican party, the rightwing intellectuals who espouse these ideas about the attractions of autocracy present a profound threat to American democracy.

Their calls for a “red Caesar” are now only growing louder as Donald Trump, whose supporters attempted to violently halt the election of Joe Biden in 2020, has assumed dominant frontrunner status in the 2024 Republican nomination race. Trump, who also faces multiple criminal indictments, has spoken openly of attacking the free press in the US and having little regard for American constitutional norms should he win the White House again...

A disturbing but enlightening look at some way-out-there thinking that leads merrily down the road to treason and civil war.

I had been seeing a lot of headlines about a resurgence in interest in Roman history. I did not read any of them because I have always been interested in that period. This article has me thinking that the mentioned rise in profile of the Romans may have a more sinister political meaning that I formerly gave it.

More support for the idea that our republic is at risk.

[CurtEastPoint]

1. JFC could these people be any more insane?

[Kid Berwyn]

2. Gen. Smedley Butler was chosen to ride the white horse in 1933.

Bastards didn’t like FDR…

THE BUSINESS PLOT TO OVERTHROW ROOSEVELT

In the summer of 1933, shortly after Roosevelt's "First 100 Days," America's richest businessmen were in a panic. It was clear that Roosevelt intended to conduct a massive redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor. Roosevelt had to be stopped at all costs.

The answer was a military coup. It was to be secretly financed and organized by leading officers of the Morgan and Du Pont empires. This included some of America's richest and most famous names of the time:

Irenee Du Pont - Right-wing chemical industrialist and founder of the American Liberty League, the organization assigned to execute the plot.

Grayson Murphy - Director of Goodyear, Bethlehem Steel and a group of J.P. Morgan banks.

William Doyle - Former state commander of the American Legion and a central plotter of the coup.

John Davis - Former Democratic presidential candidate and a senior attorney for J.P. Morgan.

Al Smith - Roosevelt's bitter political foe from New York. Smith was a former governor of New York and a codirector of the American Liberty League.

John J. Raskob - A high-ranking Du Pont officer and a former chairman of the Democratic Party. In later decades, Raskob would become a "Knight of Malta," a Roman Catholic Religious Order with a high percentage of CIA spies, including CIA Directors William Casey, William Colby and John McCone.

Robert Clark - One of Wall Street's richest bankers and stockbrokers.

Gerald MacGuire - Bond salesman for Clark, and a former commander of the Connecticut American Legion. MacGuire was the key recruiter to General Butler.

The plotters attempted to recruit General Smedley Butler to lead the coup. They selected him because he was a war hero who was popular with the troops. The plotters felt his good reputation was important to make the troops feel confident that they were doing the right thing by overthrowing a democratically elected president. However, this was a mistake: Butler was popular with the troops because he identified with them. That is, he was a man of the people, not the elite. When the plotters approached General Butler with their proposal to lead the coup, he pretended to go along with the plan at first, secretly deciding to betray it to Congress at the right moment.

What the businessmen proposed was dramatic: they wanted General Butler to deliver an ultimatum to Roosevelt. Roosevelt would pretend to become sick and incapacitated from his polio, and allow a newly created cabinet officer, a "Secretary of General Affairs," to run things in his stead. The secretary, of course, would be carrying out the orders of Wall Street. If Roosevelt refused, then General Butler would force him out with an army of 500,000 war veterans from the American Legion. But MacGuire assured Butler the cover story would work:

"You know the American people will swallow that. We have got the newspapers. We will start a campaign that the President's health is failing. Everyone can tell that by looking at him, and the dumb American people will fall for it in a second…"

The businessmen also promised that money was no object: Clark told Butler that he would spend half his $60 million fortune to save the other half.

Continues…

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/Coup.htm

The rich think they own the planet and all that is on, in, around, and near it — and to them that includes the US Government.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007tbs0

Muckrock also rocks…

https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2017/aug/29/smedley-butler-fbi/

[3Hotdogs]

3. They left out Pappy-pappy, Prescott Bush.

After the plot was exposed, there were a couple of articles in NY Times. Then the affair disappeared off the pages of any newspaper.

[Farmer-Rick]

4. Yeah, Newsweek has one of those nuts as their

Opinion column editor. They are everywhere like cockroaches.

If any of them acted on logic instead of emotionalism stirred up by the filthy-rich oligarchs and Putin, they would wonder why democracy is not good enough for them anymore. They would wonder why our founding fathers didn't just give us another king since to them democracy is not sustainable. Do they think a dictator would make life easier for the average person? Dictators or Caesars never make it easier for the middle class, they just help out the filthy-rich.

Bunch of very stupid, greedy people leading a bunch of easily manipulated stooges.I bet since Putin has all our secrets, he's behind this right wing nutttery too.

[docgee]

5. Right-wing academic? Is there such a thing?

I mean, besides the a-holes that know their purpose is screwing up the world.

[SomewhereInTheMiddle]

6. I work in academia...

...there are indeed right-wing professors and staff members. Even right-wing students. They are probably more common in the many middle-American small state and private universities than the large flagship state schools and the Ivy League and near-Ivys.

I taught at a state school in Michigan and had a friend who taught at Hillsdale. I even visited the campus when our two schools faced each other on the gridiron. Eventually my friend left for saner pastures.

Hillsdale is a small private college known for not accepting any federal funds, so they are not subject to most federal rules. I later taught at a military college as was surprised to find the Hillsdale president on the board of advisors.

I have known colleges that had a religious faith test as part of the interview process and others with significant military connections, all of which were more conservative on average than even the large state university in Texas I attended.

I have also taught at a Catholic college in the northeast that was significantly more liberal than I would have expected from a church-affiliated school.

Sometimes you have to look more deeply to determine the political flavor of a school.

[docgee]

8. Thanks for the response, though

It was mostly of a joke, although this guy obviously started out with a result and formed his philosophy to match.

Also, I find it hard to believe people that express those kinds of views are at the top of the heap. intellectually.

[Martin68]

7. They want to "restore the strength of the people?" If they did that they'd lose all power, as

evidenced by their efforts to block the people's votes with gerrymandering, voter suppression, and election fraud. Not to mention an armed insurrection against the United States congress while in session to carry out their sacred duty to approve the results of a presidential election. "Restore the strength of the People" my ass!

[SergeStorms]

9. They mean that.....

totally in a physical sense. Revolution. Guns, guns, and more guns. Public executions. That type of "strength", the only type of strength they acknowledge.

They certainly don't mean mental strength, or ballot box strength. They see that as weak.

[Martin68]

10. They also are referring to the power of their own rather small base, not the American people in

general.