Thinking About What Agency We Have
Scattered notes from Jeff Sharlet, Marci Shore, and Peter Pomerantsev remind us to keep living in truth
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It was weird but not unexpected that just a few hours after I published the report on Nazi martyr Horst Wessel, I observed that Elon Musk was already using the exact ‘fight or die’ language that the Nazis used to elevate Wessel’s myth.
Here is a screen shot where he referenced the language:
As I evidence, the anti-democracy forces have read the fascist manual.
I have been leaning on intellectual historian Marci Shore a great deal for emotional support. I believe it’s clear that the Trump-Putin merger is complete because the Trump administration has perfected its propaganda techniques.
They are clearly getting their marching orders from the Kremlin, which prioritizes information warfare. I told Shore how horrified I am to continually see more and more people I know go to the dark side. A former colleague in broadcast news, who I knew as a fierce warrior for the underdog and a bright intelligent light, is all in on MAGA — like, all in — and it’s heartbreaking to see her blind allegiance to really dangerous people.
I want to reach through cyberspace and virtually shake her and say, ‘WTF happened to you? You were my friend.’
Instead, I read a play Shore sent me written by Romanian-French author Eugene Ionesco called Rhinoceros. It shows how people get co-opted by fascist movements. She also told me it was turned into a film starring one of my favorite actors, Zero Mostel. Art is always comforting.
I have a brilliant interview with Peter Pomerantsev coming up this week in both print and podcast form. Many of you know he’s written some of my information warfare bibles:
In our interview, he said he would be careful making comparisons to 1930s Germany, but I wish Trump’s Reich Cabinet wouldn’t make it so damn easy for me.
Shore, who was the first to reach out and tell me she thought I was spot on with the Wessel-Kirk report, said ‘comparisons are always fraught, because no two moments are exactly alike, but they’re crucial hermeneutic devices.’ Please take time to read her brilliant report on that topic in Eurozine. As always she finds just the right poetry.
I can’t wait for you to listen to and read the Pomerantsev report. In this work, I get to interview a lot of my heroes.
And on that note, I’d like to offer this letter that Jeff Sharlet wrote me, in response to me sending him the Wessel report, where I quote his work around Ashli Babbitt from an interview RadPod did when The Undertow came out. Sharlet’s eloquence and passion is worn easily on his sleeve. His note was written before the arrest of Nick Fuentes acolyte, Tyler Robinson, for the murder of Charlie Kirk.
Thanks, Heidi. God, tho, I think it's even worse than that. Horst Wessel was a manufactured martyr, and Ashli was a crude fit. But “martyr” is a term with no value connotation, and Kirk is as clear a case of one as could be. The only thing that could make this situation fit more neatly into the narrative of itself fascist beliefs would be if the shooter turned out to be AOC with an assist from George Soros.
To me murder is murder, a simple point, and always wrong. But curse the name of whoever this fool actually was, an accelerationist in practice even if it turns out not in theory. What a sad situation that the “best” we can hope for is a deranged lunatic, further stigmatizing all those who genuinely struggle with mental illness.
I find the Reichstag speculation absurd — Kirk was very, very good at what he did. Even if there was conspiracy on that level, it'd make no sense to target him. But if in some hallucinatory Parallax View world that were the case, it'd be even worse. Lotta lefties saying we've already crossed the Rubicon. In fact, we haven't — we haven't even reached Kent State yet. We're headed there! May well get there and beyond! But so much submission now to the lie of inevitability, instead of thinking about what agency we have.
And the best we can hope for in short term is the power of inertia, which is indeed mighty. I think in fact it will likely prevail for the moment. But I think there's a non-negligible chance we get some stunning new steps from Trump today or in next few.—Jeff Sharlet, September 11, 2025
I am reading a book about the paranoid imagination of the Third Reich, and how Hitler’s conspiracies resulted in genocide. And it is worth noting that after the Reichstag burned, by the summer of 1933, 200,000 Nazi opponents had passed through the brutal regime of concentration camps. The Third Reich was built on the foundations of conspiracy. I’ll have the report for you as soon as I possibly can. It’s very important for this moment, as media continues to cite Russian propaganda QAnon superspreader Kash Patel at face value, without prefacing his quotes with how much he was paid by Russia and various autocrat cutouts. These are flim flam artists.
There is utility in that. If we can continue to live in truth, as Václav Havel taught us, we can knock down their depraved imaginary worlds.
But first, people must recommit to truth.
In addition, by predicting the moves of Trump’s propagandists, as I did with the Wessel report, it deflates their power.
Currently, Trump’s propagandists are attacking those who liken them to Nazis or monsters. They are cleverly using what Jason Stanley calls ‘undermining propaganda,’ which attempts to redirect the reality of words onto their perceived enemies.
I write about monsters, defectives who lack empathy. I see their playbook. I hope they seek help before destroying our beautiful world.
Keep living in truth.
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The pursuit of truths must be an endless quest much like we need oxygen to survive. Perform a litmus test upon your self respect, honor those sensibilities and practice courage.
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