Daily Archives: November 2, 2023

At a cheap card table in a South Market loft, Craig Newmark sat with friend and fellow web enthusiast Anthony Batt, mulling over what to call his newest web venture. It was the 1990s in San Francisco, when rent was affordable and the internet relatively new. Newmark, a round-faced software engineer, had just launched an email list that alerted his friends to local events in the city. In keeping with his tendency to take things literally, he floated San Francisco Events as a top contender for its name.

Batt was getting impatient; the list already had an unofficial name used by its recipients. Just call it Craigslist, he told his friend. And so it was.

Nearly three decades later, the mailing list has morphed into one of the most popular classified advertisement websites in the U.S., with a presence in more than 70 countries. Despite making a killing off its success, Newmark refused to monetize the site except through a handful of minimal revenue streams. He still retains a sense of frugality unique among his fellow tech entrepreneursbesides multiple streaming service subscriptions and a modest collection of Simpsons figurines, his largest luxuries include hiring a plant sitter when hes out of town.

A self-described nerd, Newmark has the requisite thick-rimmed glasses and affinity for science fiction. But the Craigslist founder is more likely to be found discussing the ideals of democracy than toying with Perl. Hes explored a varied range of political philosophies, ethical frameworks and social codes over the years, but his passions have stayed centered on how to safeguard the U.S. and its citizens against misinformation and harassment. Since retiring from Craigslist in 2018, he has become a crusader for cybersecurity protections, trustworthy journalism and veteran support.

Now, at 70, hes preparing for his next stage in life by giving away his sizable fortune. His donations to date havent been insignificant by any means. But its time to get serious, according to Newmark. My big mission, simply stated, is to help and protect the people who help and protect our country, he told Observer.

Newmarks initial interest in philosophical concepts was shaped during his childhood in Morristown, New Jersey, where he grew up in a lower middle-class Jewish household. His mother was a housekeeper. His father, an unsuccessful salesman of both meat and later insurance, died of lung cancer shortly after Newmark turned 13. I may have had a normal childhood with friends until my fathers death, said Newmark, who only recently considered how that loss may have catalyzed subsequent social dysfunction.

He grew isolated, getting into fights with other children in middle school, and was labeled a troubled child. Sent to the school psychiatrist, Newmark endured a series of ineffective talking sessions, failed attempts to interest the sixth grader in birdwatching and chess, and a marginally successful trip to Newark Airport in his counselors VW Bug to watch jets take off.

It didnt help that he was resolutely nerdyhe wore pocket protectors unironically and was a member of the debate team. And Newmark wasnt afraid to be pedantic. He called jocks Neanderthals and once attempted to report a gym teacher for abuse after being ordered to run laps, according to Mark Hashizume, a classmate at Morristown High School. Newmarks slight intellectual arrogance during this time was likely a sort of defensive mechanism, according to his old friend.

Newmark and Hashizume became fascinated by Ayn Rand and Objectivism, joining a school group the latter jokingly called The Selfish Cluba reference to the theory of selfish rationalism. With copies of Rands pamphlets and subscriptions to the libertarian Reason magazine, we would just hang out in the classroom and talk about philosophy and exchange ideas, Hashizume told Observer. Newmark once made a pilgrimage to the city to meet Murray Rothbard, a protege and eventual opponent of Rands. But the dalliance with libertarianism didnt last too long. Contact with the real world in any form has a tendency to get rid of delusions, said Newmark.

Something that stuck with him, however, were his Sunday school lessons. To this day, Newmark refers to the teachings of Mr. and Mrs. Levin, a Lithuanian couple who survived the Holocaust, as his ethical guidepost. Their mantras of treat people like you want to be treated and know when enough is enough were reinforced by the lyrics of Leonard Cohen, who Newmark came across in 1988 when he found a recording of Various Positions. That tape is a big part of the liturgy that affects me, he said.

After graduating from Case Western Reserve University, he worked for IBM as a programmer in Boca Raton, Detroit and Pittsburgh for 17 years. Newmark was still dealing with social challenges, often told by colleagues to pick his battles more carefully. I would correct people if they made relatively minor technical mistakes, and sometimes I would correct them in front of others, he said. His favorite manager told Newmark his sense of humor was his only saving grace and that he had a lot of room to grow. He was right, said Newmark, adding that he now realizes he lacked a basic understanding of social etiquette.

In the early 90s, Newmark left IBM behind for a position with Charles Schwab in San Francisco and found himself immersed in a community connected by the early roots of the Internet. It was a relatively nascent concept and one ripe with possibilities. Craig and I were both really excited to be at this birthplace of the web, said Batt, who met Newmark on The Well, one of the earliest online message boards, where the two bonded over their excitement for the newly invented World Wide Web.

At the time, computer enthusiasts were a small community, one that was optimistic about how technology could change society, Batt told Observer. He and Newmark attended get-togethers in Victorian apartments across San Francisco, parties where people gathered around computers to look at web pages and discuss articles from the recently launched Wired magazine. Excitement over the unexplored possibilities took on an almost religious fervor. We were evangelizing the web in a way that was earnest, said Batt. People approached the emerging digital domain with an emphasis on tikkun olam, according to Newmark, referring to a Hebrew term that translates to repairing the world.

Newmark also attended the Berkeley Cybersalon, a monthly gathering started by media consultant Sylvia Paull. More than 100 people would cram into Paulls house to discuss the impact technology had on some aspect of our society, whether it was education, music, literacy, security, she told Observer. Paull described Newmark as a straightforward personality who uses humor to soothe otherwise blunt remarks. If he sees a contradiction or someone aggrandizing their accomplishments, hell undercut what they say in a witty way, she said, to make them laugh, while realizing theyre showing off or falsifying something.

Newmark initially created Craiglist to aid friends in San Francisco looking for events, places to stay or available jobs. He was adding new people to the list constantly. He was just so friggin diligent, said Batt. It grew in popularity, and the listserv became a website in 1996. By the end of the following year, the website was getting around one million page views per month.

Fans of the site urged Newmark to stop running it with volunteers and turn it into a real company. I would go to events and VCs and bankers wanted to throw billions at me if I would do the usual Silicon Valley thing and monetize heavily, said Newmark. But he decided to monetize minimally, charging for a select portion of posts like job openings and broker apartment advertisements, because making money was his second priority. The first was still making the world a better place. Craigslist onboarded Americans in the tens of millions onto the Internet. Thats a good thing.

Craigslist was officially a private for-profit company in 1999, with Newmark as CEO. But that didnt last long. By the end of the year, people helped me to understand that as a manager, I suck, said Newmark. To do a good job of this stuff, you have to have charisma, or what I understand the kids call rizzIm using that in the broad sense, not the romantic sense, he said. Whatever charisma is, Im kind of charisma negative.

Newmark often self-deprecates in this manner, occasionally with a wry smile. He is very discreet; he doesnt like public attention, said Paull of her longtime friend. She recalled visiting him during Craigslists early days in his shabby office in a house out in the Avenues of San Francisco, where he introduced her to Jim Buckmaster, the computer programmer Newmark hired as CEO in 2000. This is the person who really runs the place, not me. I just handle customer service, he told her.

It wasnt a jokeafter ceding power, Newmark did take a customer service role at Craigslist, which he held for more than a dozen years. I liked the continual sense I was getting that Craigslist mattered, that it helped people with real life, he said of the job. But I saw things that I will never unsee. Hed created one of the worlds most popular websites, where users sold everything from motorcycle parts to cactus plants. However, the site also became a platform for prostitution. In 2010, more than a dozen attorneys general wrote an open letter to the company requesting its adult services section be taken down to prevent instances of sex trafficking. Later that year, the section was permanently closed.

Despite receiving public backlash for its perceived inaction, Craigslist had actually been quietly working on related issues with law enforcement agencies. In 2015, Newmark accepted an award from the FBI for the websites collaboration in preventing human trafficking. It had been offered five years prior, according to Newmark, who said he regrets not accepting it earlier to diffuse misinformation. Lets just say there were some mental health issues. Im still suffering from some traumatic stress, he said. The stress of running something large and public that interacts with thousands of people every day was real.

Craigslist also faced accusations that it played a role in the decline of newspapers by taking away lucrative revenue from traditional classified advertisements. At a 2005 convention for the American Society of Newspaper Editors, panelists displayed a photo of Newmark while discussing the industrys crisis, and he was labeled a newspaper villain as recently as 2018. For years I was waiting for someone to look at the actual numbers, he said, pointing to findings from Danish analyst Thomas Baekdal that suggest websites like Craigslist had no measurable impact on the newspaper industry.

Newmark officially left Craigslist five years ago, but his focus on revolutionizing society has only become more spirited. Through Craig Newmark Philanthropies, he has channeled millions of dollars to organizations working to promote trustworthy journalism, strengthen cyber civil defense and raise up veterans. The company needed my help less and less, and I became progressively useless, he said. I found I could do more, and more good, for people by focusing on philanthropy.

This wasnt a surprise to old friends like Paull, who recalled Newmarks enduring interest in keeping scammers off Craigslist and his longstanding passion for upholding democratic ideals. He could have been a lawyer, hes really a constitutionalist, she said.

Newmarks philanthropic engagement with journalism was largely inspired by lessons he learned in history and civics in high school. I was taught that a trustworthy press is the immune system of democracy, he said. I could see an immune system not working, and I decided I needed to play a role. He reached out to industry leaders like Jeff Jarvis to figure out what that role could look like. Newmark was particularly interested in how to regain public trust and fend off disinformation through good journalism, according to Jarvis, a professor at the City University of New Yorks Graduate School of Journalism. Trust is the new black was one of his lines, he told Observer.

After Jarvis introduced Newmark to the schools then-dean, Sara Bartlett, the Craigslist founder gave the program a $20 million donation. In an homage to Newmarks nerdy roots, the 2018 endowment was celebrated with promotional materials like plastic pocket protectors emblazoned with the schools new name: The Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. Hes since funded numerous media publications like the Markup and the Guardian, in addition to giving multi-million-dollar gifts to the journalism schools at Columbia and Howard University.

On the cybersecurity side, Newmark has kept an eye on the field since the 1970s when he became interested in natural language processing, a branch of artificial intelligence. Ive been paying intermittent attention through the decades, until the point where I finally got seriously involved, he said. In 2017, Newmark began to hear about information related warfare originating from our adversaries overseas in conversations with veterans, journalists and occasionally law enforcement. It took a while, but it finally registered that we were a country at war, and that everyone needed to play a part, maybe in proportion to their ability to help.

Newmark has funded numerous organizations combating ransomware operations and educating civilians in cybersecurity literacy. Its a big deal, because ransomware destabilizes businesses here in the U.S., which is a matter of national security, he said. And beyond that, ransomware gangs, lets say in Russia or North Korea, appear to be a part of the way they attack our country and how they financially support themselves.

Meanwhile, veterans issues have struck a chord with Newmark since high school, when he witnessed returning service members being verbally mistreated. I was completely naive back then about politics, but I could see that this was really unfair, he said. In 2013, he was named a consultant, or nerd-in-residence, at the Department of Veteran Affairs.

Its no coincidence that much of Newmarks giving has a patriotic bent. He evolves to meet the needs of the moment, but all keeping in the through line of citizen security, Vivian Schiller, director of the nonprofit Aspen Institute and Newmarks former philanthropic advisor, told Observer. Newmark, who refers to himself as an Eisenhower baby and a nerd, 1950s style, says he grew up during a time when patriotism was the norm. Now, a lot of people who use that word lets say theres room for improvement. But he still believes in the conceptmost of his philanthropy efforts focus not only on protecting people but specifically American citizens. First, we need to protect the Republic, he said.

The one outlier in Newmarks philanthropy is pigeon rescue, toward which he estimates hes donated upwards of $50,000. He fell in love with the birds back in the 1980s and today regularly places food and water out for local pigeons in the garden of his Manhattan home. A frequent visitor nicknamed Ghost Faced Killer is a regular presence on Newmarks social media profiles. Normally pigeons mate for life and are monogamous, however weve observed Ghost Faced with at least several different ladies, he said, There are a lot of pigeons visiting these days which share some of his distinctive plumage.

Ghost Faced is the favorite of both Newmark and his wife, Eileen Whelpley. The two married in 2012, putting an end to the Craigslist founders difficult, and at times literally painful, dating life. In the 1970s, after taking a ballet and jazz class to meet women, Newmark suffered a hernia, passing out when told hed need surgery.

Despite Newmark being a major philanthropist, the total sum of his fortune has long been shrouded in mystery. Hes never publicly revealed his net worth, which Bloomberg in 2020 estimated at $1.3 billion. I want to keep the focus on giving nearly all my money away to worthy causes, not how much Ive made, said Newmark. I wish everyone who has been as fortunate as I have been would do the same.

Looking at Craigslists finances doesnt offer much clarity, as the privately-owned company doesnt disclose its revenue numbers. But regardless of the exact figure, Newmarks giving makes it clear that his wealth is substantialearlier this year, he pledged $100 million each to both cybersecurity initiatives and veteran support. Theres more to come, according to Newmark, who plans to give away virtually everything hes earned during his lifetime. His next gift might be directed toward the Craig Newmark School of Journalism, which the philanthropist hopes to someday make tuition-free. The more I share power and money, the more effectively I can fulfill my mission, he said.

Reaching personal milestones has also reinvigorated his democratic ideals. Hitting 70 and facing some recent health issues reminded me that I have a limited amount of time to be effective, said Newmark, who recently underwent minor heart surgery. A nerds got to do what a nerds got to do. Normal people arent getting the job done.

See more here:

Craig Newmark Retired from Craigslist. Now He Wants to Save ... - Observer

Jeff Sharlet has spent two decades covering the intersection of extreme Christian nationalism and the far-right. In his new book,Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War, he gives snapshots of a country rapidly devolving into a Christian fascism state. He captures the rage, the despair, the dislocation, the alienation, the aesthetic of violence, and the magical thinking that are the foundations of all fascist movementsforces that are now coalescing around the Trump-led Republican Party. The bizarre conspiracy theories and buffoonish quality of many who lead and embrace this movement, such as Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert, make the use American fascists easy to ridicule and dismiss. But Sharlet implores us to take them seriously as an existential threat to what is left of our anemic democracy.Jeff SharletjoinsThe Chris Hedges Reportto discuss his new book and the rising tide of Christofascism threatening our democracy.

Studio Production: David Hebden, Adam Coley, Cameron Granadino Post-Production: Adam Coley

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Speaker 1:

(singing)

Chris Hedges:

Jeff Sharlet has spent two decades covering the intersection of extreme Christian nationalism, what I have defined as Christian fascism, and the far right. In his new book, Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War, he gives us snapshots of a country rapidly devolving into a Christianized fascist state. He captures the rage, the despair, the dislocation, the alienation, and the aesthetic of violence as well as the magical thinking that are the hallmarks of all fascist movements, a fascist movement that is coalesced around the Trump-led Republican Party.

The bizarre conspiracy theories and buffoonish qualities of many who lead and embrace this movement such as Republican representative Lauren Boebert make the term American fascism easy to ridicule and dismiss, but Sharlet implores us to take these Christian fascists seriously as an existential threat to what is left of our anemic democracy.

Joining me to discuss his new book is Jeff Sharlet. So, Jeff, Im going to have to skip your first chapter, which is gorgeous. Everyone has to buy the book and read it on Harry Belafonte. Just really moving and beautifully written. Of course, Belafonte being this amazing figure. The book is really snapshots from around the country. I find your insights into Trump supporters extremely prescient. I think because of your experience covering the Christian right, those I called Christian fascists over a decade ago in my book, and I think you do use the word fascist now in a way that perhaps you didnt then.

But I just want to begin with because you make a distinction between Trumps first run and his second run that I found particularly fascinating. His first run drawn from Norman Vincent Peales the Prosperity Gospel. I think Norman Vincent Peale married him and Ivana Trump. For those who dont know, this is the very well-known, unfortunately, Presbyterian, Im Presbyterian preacher, who argued that if you are right with God, you would be blessed in material ways, extremely popular, especially with the rich like the Rockefellers.

But lets begin with the evolution, because the evolution I thought was really sharp and of course, very frightening. But lets talk about the first Trump and his congregants. I think you in one point even may even call it the Church of Trump and whats happened the second time around and where were moving.

Jeff Sharlet:

Yeah, I think from the first rally I went to was an early 2016 in Youngstown, Ohio, which is, of course, a town just absolutely destroyed, a steel town just decimated and there was a big crowd as the airplane hangar. And the first thing I noticed and would realize was a staple was while the press, which was all penned up, they all agreed to stay in a little metal cage basically so that they can be used as like a prop in Trumps passion play was twiddling their thumbs. He was introduced by one of the most right-wing preachers Id ever heard, just a local preacher, but a very, very militant guy. And Ive heard a lot of right-wing preachers.

And in fact that this was a staple of this and it was a sort of a combination of that kind of wrath of God. But also, at this particular, or I think it was at this No, it was a different rally. Black preacher who often introduced him would say, I dont see Black, I dont see white. The only color I see is green.

And I would listen to the people around me talking about while they waited for his plane, Trump Force One to come in. Remember, this is not a president. Hes coming in his own presence and we talk about all the gold with it. The plane was literally heavy with gold. And I realized that what was happening here was this appeal to the prosperity gospel.

When Trump says, Were going to win so much youre going to get tired of winning. He wasnt saying that, Im just like you. He was saying like prosperity gospel preachers always do. Look at my blessings. Look at my airplane, my riches, my beautiful suit. I am obviously more blessed than you. But by falling behind me, falling into my wake, you can partake that blessing, too.

And you raised Norman Vincent Peale, who he referred to as his preacher, we make a lot of Trumps irreligiosity, but of course, I think were confusing religiosity with piety. Hes certainly impious. But he grew up really fascinated by Billy Graham on television as a charismatic figure and Norman Vincent Peale, the power of positive thinking. He described Norman Vincent Peale as part of his holy trinity of mentors his father, Fred, from when he learned toughness, Roy Cohn, the legendary Red Scare warrior from whom he learned cunning.

And Norman Vincent Peale, you could argue from whom he learned bullshit that the point is the sale. Norman Vincent Peale boiled the gospel down to a salesmans manual. And he carried that forth. And thats what was happening in 2016, I think was really was he was saying, Vote for me and youll get a piece of the riches. Youre going to get some of the gold. Youre playing, too, will be heavy with this precious cargo.

Chris Hedges:

In that sense, he really replicates the role of a mega preacher completely who is idolized, who cant be questioned on the root to physical prosperity. But the second time Trump runs, which you also cover, you say the whole landscape has changed in a much darker way. How did it change?

Jeff Sharlet:

Well, by 2020, of course, were into the pandemic. Youre going to win so much you get tired of winning, we cant really go with that. There was the aborted slogan tag, Keep American great, but MAGA just worked so well that he stuck with that. But it was darker in the sense of he had been using conspiracy theories.

And I think whats fascinating with that kind of narrative world that he was creating, was winking at, hes a little bit like a drug dealer who starts using his own supply. And I write in the book of a particular interview with Laura Ingraham in, I think it was in 2019 actually, no, the summer of 2020 and talking Laura Ingraham is doing what the right-wing press did for him, which was always to kind of take his words, broadcast them, but also channel them into some kind of reason.

And he was resisting it, sitting on the edge of his chair, leaning forward, looking very uneasy, talking about dark forces, men in black uniforms circling in the plains above him right now. Hes using the present tense. And you could see Laura Ingraham trying to reel him back saying, By dark forces, you must mean Obamas people. And hes like, No, no, I mean people. You dont know who they are. I cant tell you the name.

And hes no longer winking at the conspiracy theories hes trafficked in. I think hes sort of fallen into the abyss. And that kind of conspiracy thought was so definitive of the rallies I would go to where theres always a lot of blood and gore in the rhetoric of a Trump rally. And thats been one of the failings of the press and not really addressing that. They would just ignore those stories.

But now, he would go on at length about decapitations and disembowelment and bad ombres as he put it, creeping in through windows. Lots of this sort of horrible horror movie kind of rape fantasies and things that he knew that he couldnt even tell you about. And it struck me as a kind of modernized Americanized bastardized gnostic gospel, Gnosticism. And I know that youve read deeply in this literature.

But just to boil it down in the simplest sense, an idea that theres an elect or a small group initiates who have secret knowledge and whats on the surface isnt real. And in fact the actual God you see isnt real. Theres a deeper power behind that. And of course, Gnosticism even has its own variation of the deep state, the bureaucracy that gets in the way of the truth. I dont think Trump actually believed QAnon, but he believed in this kind of Gnosticism, this secret knowledge that you obtained not through rationalism but through a kind of mystic connection. And of course, this starts to sound a lot like fascism, which it is.

Chris Hedges:

Gnosticism is the heretical or was the early church to find it as a radical, these various gospels that could get very fantastic, but it was based on secret knowledge and initiants had this secret knowledge that others didnt have. I think youre dead on when you describe this as a kind of form of modern Gnosticism.

And just to go back the earlier iteration of Trump is that he would say these outrageous things, particularly to the press you write about this, who are kind of caged off and he would call in essence for violence against the press or they should be But then say it was just a joke. But he doesnt do that in the second time around. It changes.

Jeff Sharlet:

No. He still does it. Its the joking not joking method and he still does it. And I think we encounter it all the time and a lot of our colleagues in the press are like Charlie Brown trying to kick that football, but Lucy keeps holding and they just keep going up in the air every time. I mean, even the second time around, there was a rally in Hershey, Pennsylvania, so-called sweetest place on Earth, where the streetlights are actually shaped like Hersheys kisses. And it was a very violent speech, but none of that was reported. The takeaway was he says, Four more years, maybe eight more years, 12 more years. Oh, Im joking. Or maybe Im not.

I think when you compare them before to a megachurch preacher, I think for a lot of secular folks, theres an imagination of these preachers as pious and proper as opposed to the reality. And I think you make this very good point of the mini cults of personality that a megachurch preacher can create in his own ecosystem in which outrageousness, lies, winks, funniness, hypocrisies, all that becomes a part of the performance and it becomes in a way sort of sacralized so that if Trump says one thing at one rally and then kind of contradicts himself at the next, and that happens and people will hear it.

Youd meet people whod gone to 50, 60, 100 rallies. They were like deadheads traveling around the country. Theres all kinds of little sex and cults that have their own ideas about what happens at the rally that travel around. They would hear those differences and yet they would not hear it as evidence of falsehood, but as evidence of truth. They would say, Theres something deep here. This is a signal. This is an invitation for me to consider.

And I think now this is really hard for anyone who after Trump to really reckon with is to say theyre experiencing that as a kind of intellectually stimulating encounter. Theyre being asked to participate in meaning-making as they understand it. Meaning-making that is submissive to the great man, the great leader, but they are not passive receivers. They experience themselves as more engaged than they do otherwise in politics. That is in no way, I dont want anyone to hear that as like saying, Oh, youre saying that Trump has something of value? No, no. The meaning that hes making is horrific, but it is a collective project.

Chris Hedges:

Well, Hannah Arendt makes this point that its not about truth or reality or consistency. Its about catering to the emotional needs of the moment. So, you can completely contradict what you said even the day before, as long as youre catering to those emotional needs. Were going to get into fascism, which of course I agree with you. I think it is the right word and I think people have to begin to use it. But first I want to talk about, I know this again was extremely thoughtful. You talk about the call, the snake and the bullet, so explain.

Jeff Sharlet:

So, one of the things again that I feel like you hear this phrase sometimes, pundits use this, theyll say something [inaudible 00:14:11], theyll say, Its just theater. And I always get very confused by that as a person who loves the arts. What do you mean just theater? Theater is powerful. Theater, theres no such thing as just theater. Its theater. And yes, Trump did theater, he did performance, and yet so often, these bits, these skits that he would do, sometimes thered be comedy skits. Hed do multiple voices moving around the stage.

And the first campaign, three that would show up pretty reliably where the call, the snake and the bullet. And the call was he would do both sides of a phone call with a company that he was just going to call when he becomes president, This is how were going to handle sending jobs overseas. Hell just call them up and he would play out the whole phone call and the crowded cheering because hes telling off the boss just the way they wish they could.

The snake, he takes actually a song originally written by a Black civil rights activist. Its a little poem and he would take it out and very sort of elaborately unfold the paper, although he didnt need it, he had it memorized. And its about inviting a snake in a woman who picks up a snake who cries for help. She picks up the snake and the snake bites her and the snake scolds her and says, You knew what I was.

To him, this is a metaphor for what is happening by immigrants coming to the United States. We let immigrants in and then they bite us. And that would always be accompanied with a kind of litany of martyrs. He would name these individuals, usually white individuals who had been killed by undocumented people of color and a fair number of people in the crowd knew those names. Although I think we talk about it later, I think the age of martyrs really came post January 6th.

But then the bullet, the bullet is just an astonishing piece of work. Hes talking about the Muslims and they chop off heads and hes imitating chopping off the heads and hes imitating putting people in cages and lighting them on fire. But hes got a solution, General Black Jack Pershing in the Philippines in the 19th century.

Now, the history here is its not history. This didnt happen, but what he says happened, and he acts it out, he plays it out is that he had 50 Muslim rebels, prisoners of war. And he takes 50 bullets and he dips them in blood and Trump mimes it out, swishing it around in pig blood, pig blood. Theyre going to shoot the Muslims with pig blood soaked bullets and then he shoots 49 of the prisoners kills them. Trump acts it out. The crowd is cheering. Theyre ecstatic. And its not righteous violence. Its ecstatic lustful violence. Its pleasure.

And you say, Caters to the emotional needs. I think thats one of the really key things is he works across a lot of emotions that politicians dont normally address. He leads one bullet and he gives it to the last prisoner and he says, Take that back to your people and tell them that thats what Ill do.

And this was a whole performance and the crowd would like it so much. Hed say, You want to hear it again? And theyd say, Yes, and he would perform it again. And the press meanwhile would be sitting there saying, Well, lets see, did he say anything about policy or did he indicate anything about appointments and so on, because theyre dismissing all that as just theater. Thats not just theater. That is the substance of Trumpism.

Chris Hedges:

I want to ask about martyrs. You write quite a bit. In fact, you go kind of in search of the history of Babbitt, who was killed on January 6th. Talk a little bit about Elias Canetti in Crowds and Power, writes about the importance of martyrs to a new movement like Hassell was to the Nazi party.

And you were writing about how they reinvented her, particularly I think she was in her 30s, but then her age keeps dropping I think until shes 16. But that also Canetti said that these martyrs, its a fictional narrative. They have to be the most innocent, the most pure, and that these movements need that these martyrs to essentially initiate their followers into these campaigns of violence. Talk about that and then I want to begin to talk about Christian fascism.

Jeff Sharlet:

Yeah, I think thats well put. I think if we understand Trumpism theologically, we can see the first campaign as the prosperity gospel, the second as the gnostic gospel. And what were in now, and I would argue since January 6th, were in the age of martyrs. And thats a big step as you said, for initiating people into that kind of violence.

I think Trump had been trying to cultivate that beforehand, but none of these victims of undocumented people were just well known enough to work. And then on January 6th, Ashli Babbitt, this 30 something year old white woman, blonde hair, southern California, military veteran wearing a Trump flag like a cape and an American flag backpack tries to lead a charge through a broken window. And they would famously say she was unarmed, she was not. Theres the evidence photo of her knife on my cover of the book. She was very clearly there for combat and her own writing and what she understood she was going to do to storm the capitol.

And we see the hands of a police officer, a Capitol Hill police officer shooter. And theyre the hands of a Black man. And as soon as I saw that, I said, Well, thats one of the oldest stories in American history. Thats the lynching story. A Black man who kills an innocent white woman. Thats the story of Birth of a Nation, first movie ever screened in the White House, 1915, white woman fleeing a Black man who leaps to her death. And thus, the heroes who in the movie literally are the Ku Klux Klan, who ride in to action.

And so, it starts happening that day and Id had one idea for the book, but on January 6th I sort of had to throw out a lot of stuff and make room because I said, Im going to watch this martyr to myth in form and in action and we start to see flags, the Black flag, a white silhouette of Ashli, a drop of red on her neck where the white woman has been killed. Actually, she was shot in the shoulder. Proud boys give these out as challenge coins. Who shot Ashli Babbitt? Trump finally starts using, even though he knows. He knew who shot Ashli Babbitt, but the idea was everyone who is his enemy shot Ashli Babbitt. And so, she becomes a martyr.

And I like what you say very much about initiating into violence. Now, I think of one man who was arrested. I think his name is Garret Miller. And hes kind of a comic story when the FBI show up at his house, hes wearing a T-shirt that has a picture of the capitol on January. It says, January 6th, I was there. And it just seems like a doofus. But what they were arresting him for was he had been planning online a vengeance killing for Ashli, who he imagined as a little girl. And they always sort of, not only would they say she was younger than she was, theyd say she was smaller than she was.

The same time, she did double duty because she was a military veteran. So, shes therefore the stabbed in the back, which is an old fascist ploy, too. They were stabbed in the back. We would righteously win. But traitors in our midst, a cop mowed her down. I dont think shes the end stage martyr of Trump. I think theres a way in which you can understand her and him understanding her as keeping the cross warm until he can hoist himself up there, which he now has, which is what we saw on display in the courtroom.

Chris Hedges:

Well, he hasnt done it. Weve done it for him.

Jeff Sharlet:

Thats true. Thats true. He knew we would do it. Yeah.

Chris Hedges:

Its a terrible conundrum because he should have been charged for all sorts of crimes probably from the first day of his presidency under the emolument clause. But as you point out, it plays completely into his own martyrdom or his own sense of martyrdom and the sense of martyrdom of his supporters. So, we watch now in the trial in New York, its just a big campaign event.

Jeff Sharlet:

Yeah, I think, was it the eve of which of the indictments? I cant remember. Its now become so regular. Once you go to a Trump rally, its a little bit like Hotel California. You can never leave. You can never get off the email list, the text list. You can cancel as much as you want. Theyll keep coming five, 10 a day.

But the eve of the first or second indictment, he sends this fundraising email and says, Dear friend, this may be the last time Im able to write to you. And its got this air of, Its a noble thing I do, and I couldnt help but think of Some listeners will remember from their high school reading a Tale of Two Cities and Sydney Carton bravely going off to [inaudible 00:23:58]. Its a Christ move, right? He emphasizes that, right? Im the only thing standing between them and you. Theyre doing this to me because theyre coming after you. I mean, yeah, he got a slow pitch and he knew how to hit it.

Chris Hedges:

I want to talk about fascism. I think both you and I feel that thats an appropriate word to describe this movement. Trump has embraced what I would call the fascistic ideology of the Christian nationalists or the Christian right. But of course, its face doesnt look like past iterations of fascism. Fascism always cloaks itself in national symbols, of venerated national symbols and venerated national mythology.

And one of the things that, and you point this out in the book, Im just going to read a little passage, because of course it cant embrace the race purity that was very much part of particularly of German fascism. You write, The purification project of the old fascism has also been proved too extreme to be practical for a nation in which the rightest ascendancy can contend for the loyalty of a third of Latinx voters. This time, white supremacy welcomes all. Or, at least, a sufficient veneer of all to reassure its more timid adherents that border walls and Muslim bans and kung flu and Black crime and replacement theory somehow do not add up to the dreaded r-word, which anyway these days, in the new authoritarian imagination, only happens in reverse, against white people.

So, lets begin to talk about what this new fascism looks like. I certainly saw its genesis within Christian fascism, the Christian right, but the full-blown flower of fascism in Trump does have differences with the traditional Christian right. You know the Christian right very well. And your book, The Family is a great work on it. So, Ill let you go from there.

Jeff Sharlet:

Well, first, I want to give you credit for that early book, American Fascist. And around the same time I was writing The Family, theres actually a chapter in the family called the F word. The F word is fascism. Im writing about this. The Family is this kind of very elite Christian nationalist group based in Washington but international and they hold something called the National Prayer Breakfast. On the surface, theyre quite banal. Within, theyre quite extreme.

And in the post World War II years, they actually went around and recruited former Nazi war criminals, senior war criminals. So, thats about as close to fascism as you can get. But what they would say to those guys is essentially, you have to switch out your loyalty to the frere and give it over to the father. And I argue then, and I was wrong, and I write this in the new book, I was wrong to argue against the word fascism. I wasnt saying its not as bad. I said, theres more than one kind of baton in the sun.

But I said fundamentalism I thought then was a kind of break on fascism because in American Christian right, Christian national and whatever you want to call it, they werent ever going to go for that cult of personality. They wouldnt switch out Jesus. And I think you rightly argued, no, the cult of personality was there and every significant church around the pastor that they adopted that kind of power and Trumps move was to consolidate it nationally.

And to strip away some of the respectability politics that still lingered around it. The idea of American political life has always been noble, but now we have the open celebration of violence. You go to a Trump rally in 16 or 20 or now, and as you say, theres that moment where he points to the press and the pen and he says, Theyre the enemy of the people. Theyre scum. And the whole crowd turns around and they fly bulk birds in the air and theyre screaming and theyre having this pleasure thinking about the violence theyre going to commit.

Very first Trump rally I went to, one of the very first people I met there, nice old sort of hippie grandparent couple, a lot of turquoise jewelry and nice people and theyre talking. And then Gene, the husband says, I want to get a hold of a protester and beat the crap out of him so I can get on TV.

And his wife looks at him as if I think shes going to rebuke him, this is too much. She says, Oh, Gene. And she sort of melts into him and then she leans over to me and uses language I dont think she used often like this. Shes whispering because she knew she was being naughty and smiling and she was speaking about Hillary Clinton and she says, Dont she look like shed been rode hard and put up wet.

And that combination, I think of it as theres a great German historian of the right, Annika Brockschmidt. We did a discussion about this, about militant eroticism. This idea of violence as a kind of sexual pleasure, a kind of lust, a kind of authenticity and truth. You know you want to do it. You know you want to hit them.

Trump says, Wait. One of the things he says, You know you want to hit him and I want you to hit them. Itll feel good. I think this changes things. I think, too, its worth talking about. I know youve thought a lot about this, that fascism in 2023 is not fascism in 1936. America is not Germany and that was a regime. This is still right now a movement. It doesnt have anywhere near full control, but its mutating and its changing rapidly, and thats one of the things.

Another historian Id refer people to is Anthea Butler, great short book called White Evangelical Racism. Shes a church historian. And she writes about the promise of whiteness and the promise of the whiteness and the way it can seduce even Black folks into thinking, I can be part of this power.

And every time I go to some far right event, whether its a Trump rally or a militia meeting, I come back and my nice liberal friends. They just assumed that it was all white and it never is. And I try and tell them. Theres a church, a militia church in Omaha, Nebraska in the book, more diverse than any church around here where I live in Vermont, about a third people of color and a full on civil war church.

They look forward to civil war. They are armed. They are ready. Bring it on. They are fairly openly white supremacists. They preach relentlessly against Black Lives Matter as a metaphor for Blackness itself. And yet, theyve drawn in. Fascism has gravity. Fascism has power. And if we recognize it as such, it shouldnt be that surprising to us that this iteration in America in 2023 is not quite the same racial purity project as happened in Germany 1933.

Chris Hedges:

I think you made the point that its defined more by feelings or the embrace of what they describe as white victimization. So, as long as you embrace that, it doesnt matter what color you are.

Jeff Sharlet:

Yeah. And in fact, actually in the martyr role that Trump uses of people killed by undocumented folks, he often talks about a young, very promising Black football player. And in a sense, bringing this guy in under the umbrella of whiteness. But this is the same guy whos telling a story. He likes to tell a story of this is sort of the twisted rape fantasy that I spoke of.

Imagine youre a traveling salesman, he says. And youre thinking, Traveling salesman? Is there such a thing who goes around knocking on doors selling Bibles anymore. But imagine youre traveling salesman in your way and your pretty blonde wife is at home asleep and a bad ombre comes up and he opens a window and he crawls in.

And the crowd is just, theyre thrilling to it the way you do to a horror movie, but its charged with a perverse sexuality, which is the rape of the white woman, which is a fantasy being twisted into the mind, I think, of white supremacy, and yet hes making that available to a broader sense.

Im not going to go out there and argue the absurd that Trump is ever going to win any significant or hes going to win a significant number of Black votes. Hes not going to win the majority. He doesnt need to. And I feel a lot of liberals are leaning on this idea that diversity will save us. And Ive been hearing that as long as Ive been hearing that the young will save us. Ive been hearing that since I was young, 30 some years ago.

Theres this sort of passivity. Were waiting for Godot to come and solve the situation as opposed to embracing a radical politics of organizing and real vital democracy that we have to do ourselves. Every one of us.

Chris Hedges:

I just want to throw in there that of course, especially in the south, all through slavery, reconstruction, Jim Crow, the women who were raped were Black. Mary Chesnut in her diary, even writes about visiting plantations where there were some two dozen mulatto children because of course the chief slaveholder was raping the Black women. I mean, that gets into the paranoid style of American politics.

Lets talk about civil war. Ive covered civil wars. I think in some ways from my perspective, its even more frightening. Its less a civil war because its not like Weimar Germany where you had armed communist militias battling brown shirts in the streets. Its more the uninterrupted rise of heavily armed fascist, proto-fascists, Trump supporters with small arsenals in their homes and those who dont have any violent counterpart.

Jeff Sharlet:

Yeah. Youve covered civil wars. I accidentally, as a younger person, stumbled through one in Algeria. And I know that this is not that. And I am aware of the risk of hyperbole using this phrase I use in my subtitle, Scenes from a Slow Civil War. A slow civil war, and its my way of thinking about it.

In 2021, what I started noticing was academic historians who are very cautious, rightly so. They understand the history moves slowly. Im married to an academic historian. I understand this and I think its the right way. Starting to say, Oh, some of the conditions of an actual civil war here. And that language had always been there mostly on the fringe of the right, but now, it was moving as a rhetorical ploy more centrally. And I started thinking about the ways, how could we understand slow civil war as a kind of an institutionalization of violence.

I think the laws, for instance, I write about this in the book. I was in Wisconsin when Roe fell, which became the only blue state in which abortion was completely outlawed. It reverted to 1849 law. And you would hear these stories in the press of a woman who nearly bled out or bled out or something else went horrible happened because she couldnt get access to reproductive care. And as journalists, we know for every story like that we hear, theres a lot that dont go reported.

And I said, theres a way in which more harm now is being done than all the abortion clinic bombers. Its very easy to see an abortion clinic bomber. And there was a lot more of that than people realize as a kind of at least a desire to spark civil war. And yet here it is. And I thought of the ways that you have these armed militias, these groups of men who line up outside school libraries and churches and bars having drag shows and so on.

And theres been a few shots fired, not many. And so, people can say, Well, come on now. Nothings really happening. And Im like, Well, this is like were striking matches and flicking them into dry grass and so far, the flames havent caught and so we think everythings fine. How many times can you line up a group of men with guns.

To what you say though about there not being this counterforce like in Weimar, Germany. I mean, there is a scene in the book where in Sacramento had a rally for Ashli Babbitt. Antifa and Proud Boys show up to battle and they kind of all know each other and its a kind of a ridiculous fight, although I wouldnt have wanted to have one of those blows land on me.

But Im a nonviolent person, but Im also an all hands on deck person. I think anyone who says, Heres how we beat fascism, we dont know yet because we havent done it. We havent done it yet. So, Im like, Wherever you feel called, do that. That said, I do hear on the left this idea of the John Brown Gun Club and these right-wingers think theyre the only ones with guns. Im a gun owner myself. Theres 400 million guns in civilian hands in the United States, and all you need to do is drive it outside your blue bubble to understand very quickly the disparity of those guns.

The rest is here:

Is the US turning into a Christofascist state? - The Real News Network

In the late 1980s, John Heffernan created the two most desirable Grand Tourers of the time with the Aston Martin V8 Virage and Bentley Continental R. As both cars become modern classics, we met the automotive designer to learn more about the development of his game-changing signature cars.

Designers can go a lifetime without penning a whole car. However, in the late 1980s, one man found himself in the unique position of doing not just one, but two landmark cars for two different marquesat the same time. Standing before us now is the final upshot of that effort: the Aston Martin Vantage V550 and Bentley Continental T, cars that marked the zenith of their kind. On a bright autumn day at the Duke of London in Brentford,Classic Drivercaught up with their designer, John Heffernan.

Heffernans career began in England with the GM Vauxhall division, where he was part of the design team, and then to America, where he worked for GM Pontiac. However, because GM Opel was taking over all design responsibility, the divided atmosphere pushed him to join Audi in 1977. This was the moment the Audi 100 under development moved the brand upmarket. Heffernan notes that working at Audigot me ready for going freelance: more respect was shown for designers from engineers, and there wasnt the same hostility [as GM]. The design of the Audi 100 was not the only thing he influenced: an intern he oversaw, Peter Schreyer, would go on to become Chief Design Officer of Kia Motors.The temptation of a career in Germany was compounded when Heffernan was invited to interview for the head design role at BMW, a position that would ultimately go to a young American named Chris Bangle.Despite this promising trajectory, for personal reasons Heffernan moved back to theUK which then seemed 50 years behind the times.London looked terrible then, strike-ridden and in turmoil.

The 1980s marked a turning point for both Heffernan and the UK, leading to a partnership with Ken Greenley. Ken and I were very different designers: he was more American; I was influenced by European design and German rationalism. Wed balance each other out. While working at the Royal College of Art, Greenley received an unexpected call from Victor Gauntlett, CEO of Aston Martin and de facto product director: Id been working freelance on trucks and industrial design products as well as the Bentley P90 at the time and Ken phoned me to tell me that Victor had said Youve done a Panther and a Bentley,I think youre ready to do an Aston Martin.

Standing in front of the cars now, it is hard to imagine the alternative paths each might have taken. The Bentley Continental started life as a Rolls-Royce convertible to replace the Corniche. As for the Virage, Heffernan reveals his model of a bright red sports car. My proposal originally had pop-up headlamps, but theengineers didnt wantthat. Kens proposal was a fastback - which Victor thought would make a nice Corvette. The late Peter Horbury, then working at Mike Gibbs Associates (MGA), also made a good proposal. Victor already said he wanted me to do it. He said: You know the one I want to win, I know its a bit Ferrari-ish, but I think its interesting. Thus Heffernan's proposal went to a full scale model.

The first job was at the front endto incorporate conventional headlamps.They left it up to me to source the headlamps says Heffernan.Potential donors included an Audi200and, more improbably, a Porsche 959. Unsurprisingly, the Audi was selected. The Vantage presented another challenge in finding lights that would create a clean break from the Virage. Heffernan did not have to look far to find the perfect solution: Aston Martin then owned Zagato, who had done the Alfa SZ. We couldnt have done our own headlamps, which would have cost too much, so we used the same lights as the SZ. Aston just paid Triplex for the glass cover.The deeply-drawn bodyside of the V550 belies Heffernans inherent understanding of what could be produced. The sole flourish is a blister in the sill to increase downforce. Audi had 4000 hours of wind-tunnel testing for the 100; we had a day at Southampton University. First tests were not promising, zero lift was hard to achieve. That the V600 Vantage ultimately hit 198mph at Nardo without flipping over is some indication of the forces at work.

Pointing now above the rear wheel, Heffernan comments I wanted more muscle here, to add 10mm on the shoulder, but we had run out of modelling time before presenting to the CEO. I still think about it.Inside the car, Heffernan casts his eye over the interior, noting the pristine headliner, and pauses at the wood inlays. I wanted these to be machined metal, but Victor insisted on wood. He maintained that his customers wanted wood. And regrets? The airbag steering wheel is awful. We were using Ford parts, so this steering wheel is one of theirs. In 1993, the year the Vantage was launched, Aston Martin would formally join Fords Premier Automotive Group.

Parked side-by-side, it is hard not to be distracted by the Bentleys grille flashing in the late-September sun, opposite the black radiator of the Aston. This was not a question of budget; we could afford to do one in chrome, but I really wanted this stealth look. Beside the immaculate Bentley, the Vantage seems ready for a brawl. It is perhaps this contrast that most impresses: in a period when Italian design houses were selling similar shapes for different clients, Heffernans hand is all but absent. We werent Italdesign, where you buy into a certain look. We did a lot of research into each brand to try and continue the look In doing so, the Vantage and Continental each possess a clarity of purpose, offering a reminder that a designers role is more often as a conduit for characteristics other than their own. That said, Heffernan doesnt hesitate to name the Maserati Ghibli and De Tomaso Mangusta as favourites.

Our gaze strays to the front wing of the Bentley and to the meticulous surfaces. Ken and I shared the clay. The themes we did on each side were the same, but the differences were in the section Most noticeably, where Heffernans proposal had a negative section above the feature-line, Ken worked with his modeller to add extra muscle. The theme worked, and Greenley continued to develop the bodyside and some of the front, where the single-piece headlamps of the thwarted Corniche were replaced by twin lamps which had become a Bentley brand feature. Meanwhile, Heffernan continued on the roof and back of the car: We tried doing black surrounds on the glass before settling on stainless steel, and integrated the spoiler as the engineers wanted lower drag. The sales director Tom Purves told us there had been criticism that the Silver Spirit looked like a New York taxi, so I wanted these vertical rear lights. Beneath, a transom-like boot-lid constrains the cars prodigious length.

Contrary to Aston Martins in-house design, we did the Bentley away from the main studio in Crewe.They wanted an external team, soPark Warddonated a side-building to the fabulous factory, a 1930s firestation in London they kitted out as a design studio. However, the scale of the Bentley proved challenging: We could stand only 3ft from car. To quote Bill Mitchell (GM's legendary design boss)It was like playing a trombone in a bathroom.Wed do one week on the Bentley, then another on the Aston Martin and Panther Solo 2. The team in Crewe developed the interior, whileMulliner would go on to shorten the wheelbase and widen the track for the Continental T parked here.

The Bentley Continental R was unveiled at the 1991 GenevaMotor Show, where it shared the spotlight with the Mercedes-Benz W140 S-Class. Hans-Harald Hanson was an ex-RCA student and worked in the studio they had opened down in Italy. He really disparaged the Bentley, then he took me over to the Mercedes and said This is the future. He had a point, but he was annoyed we got a lot of press that day. Five years later, the launch of the Continental T would make it the most expensive car in the world, its 250,000 price-point unmatched in the Volkswagen era. On seeing it at its launch, Heffernan recalls Victor Gauntlett exclaiming: You didnt tell me you guys were doing this at the same time!

Thirty years on, how does it feel to see both cars reunited again? When I see the two cars together, I feel proud that Ken and I did our bit to ensure the ongoing history of both companies. Aston was on its knees at the time and some within Rolls-Royce Vickers wanted to put the Bentley brand out to rest. It was worth all our efforts to see both marques looking healthy again under their new owners. The other feeling I have is that both cars have weathered the 30 odd-years rather well.Asked which he prefers, Heffernan reflects: The Vantage is closer to my heart. It was the chance to do something different.

Text: Robert Forrest / Photos: Tom Shaxson for Classic Driver

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Designer John Heffernan reinvented Aston Martin and Bentley with ... - Classic Driver