> white supremacist groups he is developing tech for.
So your argument is that an intelligent, erudite black Jew is siding with white supremacists against people of color?
I don’t know, but I think that explanation doesn’t compute. I would wager that the lens through which he looks at the world is different than your racist one and I think some curiosity would pay off.
I've long thought the racism-everywhere lens is too simplistic and useless. But with how the Trump regime's policies are all generally incompetent and harmful to our country, yet there is still so much full-throated support based around things like deputizing fundamentalist militias to round up minorities and send them to concentration camps, it's starting to look pretty on point.
And sure, there are many rationalizations like most of the targets are "illegals" or whatever. But if the people espousing these justifications weren't racist, their instinct would instead be to think "hey these blatant violations of the Constitution could easily happen to my own family" rather than to other the citizens inevitably getting swept up as an outgroup (eg "app says so").
I was naive enough to believe at first that the MAGA movement was actually about the surface issues they claim to be concerned about, but in continually trying to be understanding and steelman their positions, and in also personally knowing and interacting with a lot of these people, those positions just don't hold water, especially as they have gained power and have largely stopped putting any effort into maintaining a non-racist facade. The only coherent explanation for MAGA is that of white nationalist authoritarianism, fueled by fear of losing protected race-based social status[1].
In fact, I don't think really anyone is really confused by that anymore, the only people claiming otherwise are people that personally identify as white supremacists, that see it as in their best interests to try to protect the political momentum of their movement by trying to maintain the facade of not being racist- a strategy they adopted after major losses way back during the civil rights movement in the USA. There may be a small number of people that just don't follow the news and don't know what is happening, but they aren't out defending anything online in their free time.
I with you on being naive. I internalized hard what I thought were conservative values trying to understand why the senseless Iraq war happened. Even personally thought in right "libertarian" terms coming in from ancap via cpunks. (reading Unqualified Reservations brought me back from that. Thank you Yarvin, for helping me to see the truth of the matter!)
I still never got when red tribe people would say things like "Look what's going on in California", and I'd respond in agreement with actual experience, but still never managed to connect. In retrospect I guess those were merely coded invitations to start openly bashing Hispanics, made doubly ridiculous as they're the native race of that area.
I do keep trying to appeal to purported conservative values, as the maggot movement basically fails every coherent single statement of them I've found. So maybe the naivety hasn't gone away, sigh.
his company (eagerly) enables the work ICE is doing to disappear people off the street, the genocide perpetuated by the IDF against the Palestinian populace, among other atrocities and in general is pretty open about keeping “Wesrern supremacy” via state backed violence. white nationalist or not there’s a ton else he and his company needs to answer for
He said Palantir could power the West to its obvious innate superiority.[1]
“The unfortunate thing, either in business or politics, is that many of one's adversaries and antagonists will never respond to anything but strength—that crude form of power that does not ask for but which requires compliance and deference. And so strength we have built.”
“As Samuel Huntington has written, the rise of the West was not made possible ‘by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion ... but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence.’
“He continued: ‘Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.’”[2]
do you think he is wrong when he says that the West's superiority primarily comes from power, rather than ideas or value or religion?
I actually think that the West's superiority is due to a multitude of factors (not just raw power), but I can see how the CEO of a company on their investor call would emphasize the thing that their company brings to the table. Palantir, as far as I know, is not in the business of religion, for example.
I actually agree that racial hatred is likely not the the lens he personally sees the world through, the article and my parent comment make it clear that his motivations come from an authoritarian personality that will excuse almost anything for a strong leader- but racism is absolutely the lens MAGA sees the world through, and his worldview does justify working with and enabling them. There is a long history of minorities supporting racist authoritarian movements when it will make them money or offer some perceived protection: freemen slave catchers in the antebellum south, free black people working for the confederate army. The Association of German National Jews and The German Vanguard were Jewish pro-NAZI groups. In this case, the hate is mostly targeted at hispanic and middle eastern people, so he might feel safe (for now), but it is a dangerous association, because once they feel they've eliminated the "threat" from those groups, they will go after others.
During the civil rights movement in the USA, the white supremacist terrorists rebranded themselves as caring about other non-race based issues for plausible deniability when they started to lose widespread political support, with terms like law and order, immigration, and states rights, but it was only ever the thinnest of pretenses because it was still the same people doing the same things. If you're familiar with MAGA supporters, or have seen the numerous leaked private text scandals from MAGA leaders, you will know they are openly racist and racial hate motivated in private among each other, and only put on the pretense of other issues in public forums. They're not just labeled Nazis and racists by their political opponents, but proudly use those terms to describe themselves in private. You can see with the Trump administration, e.g. firing judges willing to hear legitimate asylum cases from people with brown skin, while actively supporting asylum cases from white people in South Africa- while claiming their actions are about enforcing immigration law. The thin pretense of other concerns falls apart immediately upon inspection, but they are hoping enough people don't inspect too hard, that they can retain political power.
So your argument is that an intelligent, erudite black Jew is siding with white supremacists against people of color?
I don’t know, but I think that explanation doesn’t compute. I would wager that the lens through which he looks at the world is different than your racist one and I think some curiosity would pay off.