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Derek Barris
Foreign. I have to decide which of the dozen seemingly impossible things the Trump administration is doing to consider. The news cycle is relentless and feels overwhelming. This is intentional. The sheer volume is designed to disarm and instill a sense of powerlessness, and that's one thing none of us can afford right now. What to pay attention to then. I try to monitor as much as I can, to at least keep myself informed of what's possibly coming down the pipe. The amount of legal, questionably legal, and blatantly illegal maneuvers are not designed to implement everything. But it's very much meant to move the goalposts as far as possible. So what's questionably legal passes by without much friction, and maybe they'll even slip by a few illegal things as well. The possible becomes probable. We just have to ensure that nothing ever feels inevitable. And I know, I know it's not like I'm not feeling that way. What scares me, though, is the number of friends I have who just don't want to hear about any of it. They want to tune out at the moment when we all really need to be tuned in. And I understand that impulse. This shit has been going on for years and years, and it seems to be never ending. That, too, is part of the design. How much of it anyone can take is part of what I want to meditate on today. Or at least how we handle ourselves with the unique worldview that we each hold during this time. And most importantly, how do we fight back? Derek I'm Derek Barris, and you're listening to a Conspirituality Bonus episode. If you're hearing this on the main feed and you're not subscribed to our Patreon and you have the means to do so, we'd really love your support. I'm going to meditate on the ideas I just expressed by sharing a few excerpts from a recent conversation between New York Times columnist Ezra Klein and his guest, James Pogue. Pogue is an essayist and journalist, as well as contributing editor to Harper's Magazine. I've read his pieces on militia groups in the past, and his book Chosen Country, Rebellion in the west, which is about militia groups, has been on my list for a while. I've always been fascinated by fringe groups of all sorts, but since moving to Oregon, where a number of them are based, I've become more personally invested in understanding them. What I want to pull from this conversation is a bit different. Pogue was assigned to cover JD Vance back in 2021 for the American Conservative, where he wrote a rather critical piece of Vance and to which Vance replied that he wanted to stay in touch with Pogue. So the following year he covered Vance, Curtis Yarvin and Blake Masters for Vanity Fair. Julian and I have covered Curtis Yarvin quite a bit and without getting too deep into it, he is I'm going to put Philosopher in quotes here. He has been very influential on the modern right wing movement and I'll link to both of the articles in Show Notes. I really recommend reading them. Let me share two tidbits from the Vanity Fair article. And keep in mind this was written in 2022 with some of the reporting done the previous year. Quote the way conservatives can actually win in America, Yarvin has argued, is for a Caesar like figure to take power back from this devolved oligarchy and replace it with a monarch regime run like a startup. As early as 2012, he proposed the acronym RAGE Retire All Government Employees as a shorthand for a first step in the overthrow of the American regime. Sound kind of familiar with what's going on right now? All right, here's another one. Quote I think Trump is going to run again in 2024, Vance said. I think that what Trump should do if I was giving him one piece of advice Fire every single mid level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state. Replace them with our people and when the courts stop you, Vance went on stand before the country and say Vance quoted Andrew Jackson giving a challenge to the entire constitutional order. The Chief justice has made his ruling, now let him enforce it. This is a description essentially of a coup. That was Pogue. Now what I found interesting and instructive from Pogue's conversation with Ezra Klein is his explanation of the competing frameworks for reality between left and right in America and how the media ecosystems we use have played a role in first leveling the playing field and then tipping the scale in a rightward direction. Their talk made me think about my own biases, but also about my framework for understanding reality, my own worldview. That's what I took away from their discussion. No one has a monopoly on reality. I might, and I do disagree with other worldviews, but mine isn't right by default. In fact, no one has that right, which makes everything happening at this moment a fight. As Pogue points out, people left of center, from liberals to leftists, haven't always understood the game that's being played. I think it's about time we do, because I don't think we have a choice anymore. You've been listening to a conspirituality Bonus Episode Sample to continue listening, please head over to patreon.com conspirituality where you can access all of our main feed episodes ad free, as well as four years of bonus content that we've been producing. You can also subscribe to our bonus episodes via Apple subscriptions. As independent media creators, we really appreciate your support.