what this shows is that there is broad societal support for open fascism and it’s no longer taboo to identify as a fascist

Yup. The significance of this should not be understated. This is exactly what we saw happen in Ukraine where Nazi symbols and slogans were openly normalized and look where they are now. When fascists are no longer afraid to hide even their most overtly fascist aesthetics, you have a huge problem.

I think that’s a quite astute analysis. Thank you for elaborating.

I think that’s a wildly optimistic take on the likelihood of all of what you described to succeed. I just don’t think this strategy is as well thought out and rational as you assume it is, and it will probably run into serious problems as soon as the first contradictions (of which this strategy is chock-full) make themselves visible. But i guess we’ll see.

P.S. I also don’t think that you can conclude that just because something worked in the 19th century that it will also work today. Industry has changed a lot since then and has different requirements in terms of the kinds of skills needed. Which is why i think it is accurate to say that pauperized labor can’t drive reindustrialization because it will suffer from very low productivity and thus low international competitiveness. Unless the US stops both imports and exports and becomes totally inward focused, this strategy won’t work.

Yes to all of that. I think that is exactly what they plan, and that is exactly why reindustrialization won’t happen. You can’t reindustrialize with a pauperized, indebted, poorly educated population, particularly not while you also enact racist policies that cause reverse brain drain and shortages of skilled labor. The only question i have is whether they are really so dumb that they believe giving tax breaks to oligarchs and applying some tariffs is sufficient to bring industry back, or if the whole thing was conceived from the start as just another cynical scam.

reindustrialization

All i can say is, good luck with that. They’re gonna have a real tough time pulling that one off when at the same time you have

domestic acceleration of precarity

happening.

Reindustrialization takes rebuilding the human capital base, it takes investing into education, infrastructure, healthcare, housing…none of which are getting any better, in fact they’re only getting worse.

There is a fundamental contradiction here between the idea of bringing back industry while at the same time not wanting to do absolutely anything about the social and material conditions or the hyper-financialization of nearly every aspect of the economy that led to industry going away.

And the obsession of their base with ethnic nationalism and anti-immigration is only going to exacerbate the problem even further, as i think even Musk and the other oligarchs recognize who have spoken out against the MAGA base’s opposition to things like the H1B visa. They’ve built up this dumb anti-immigrant narrative and now they themselves have become trapped by it.

How long do you think it will be before we see articles in the liberal media saying Trump was a CCP sleeper agent all along?