The Triumvirate of Horror
After 80 years of relative peace, three forces have once again turned us away from wisdom towards self interest — and there is no telling how many people will die as a result.
There is no sinister plot, no global cabal of hooded figures planning these events. It is nothing more than the interaction of multiple self-interests driving these three elements. Slowly, but with increasing acceleration, they are dragging us into the mouth of hell.
Let’s begin.
The natural tendency of governments towards fascism is not new. Let us consider the United States, because they are a clear case study. The USA has regularly oscillated between more moderate conservative forces and fervent, paranoid psychosis.
For every declaration of freedom, the US has had a counterbalance of fascist, dictatorial impulse. The Counter-Culture of the 1960s was set against the backdrop of McCarthyism, The Red Scare and The Lavender Scare. Civil Rights granted in 1968 sit in scales opposite the Tuskegee experiments on living human beings and the legacy of Jim Crow. The Moon Landings, one of humanity’s greatest achievements, was a dick-measuring contest between the USA and the USSR. The US has conducted numerous implementations of eugenics. They are the only nation, thus far, to have used nuclear weapons in war.
My point is neither that the USA is evil, nor that they are exceptional. My point is that the USA has always twisted in the space between freedom and autocracy. Every time America declares an inalienable right, its government will counter it with a Patriot Act, Guantanamo Bay and torture. Each exhortation of democracy is balanced against destroying democratic neighbours in favour of friendly dictators.
It is reasonable to ask why the US has never fallen into totalitarianism, even though it has come close many times and has had a difficult history divorcing itself and its inclinations from those of a totalitarian state.
America has always had the capacity for rational people to (eventually) correct its course. This is because the public can install new leaders, including judges and police officials. It is therefore possible to affect change in the USA and for Good People to steer it away from its more horrific desires. In fact, as a Federal Democracy across a great population, its founders believed that it would not be possible to organise a large enough group of voters to purposely affect elections purely because of the scale of the nation: a reasonable middle-ground would eventually be found.
One may then follow up that thought with another: what would it take for the USA to fall completely to fascism? What would be needed for Bad People to dismantle these balances and assume direct, indefinite and unchecked control of the country?
We know the answers to those questions — they are satisfied by washing the system with an army of indoctrinated true believers: poll workers, apparatchiks and civil servants who can be relied upon to deliver the correct answers in order for their rulers to assume power and remove the ability of anyone else to take it from them. That is how a democracy like the USA can transform itself from within into a dictatorship, wrapped in its previous democratic skin like Hungary.
This is the First Force. The desire for more political power amongst the politically powerful that leads them to remove limitations on their power. However this is not an easy thing for them to do: it is a huge effort to replace swathes of election machinery and to do so silently. It requires both money and control over how news is disseminated.
However, there is no shortage of bad actors in this world, who will follow you in whatever dance you lead and will make the otherwise impossible become possible, but they will expect a few coins along the way.
A Second Force is needed to secure such a fund.
I n the 1980s, Reagan and Thatcher achieved more than either had thought possible. They made the views and policies of Neo Liberalism mainstream: pushing out the more socialist views on welfare and taxation of the wealthy that had dominated after the Second World War.
Not only did the Neo Liberals make their views mainstream, they made them seem obvious. To even suggest something other than letting The Market decide what was possible became a sign of foolishness. What incompetent, uneducated or (worse yet) deluded politician would dare to suggest expanding the state? Or standing in the way of business?
The reasoning ran that, if it made money, it was worthwhile for its own sake. Indeed anything that was worth doing would be done by the Market. Anyone claiming that government was anything less than a problem to be removed would be mocked by their opponents.
Reagan summed this up in 1986 by saying:
The nine most terrifying words in the English language are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”.
I hope you will accept as an axiom that Capitalism is, by its nature, a game board whereby the best players win and everyone else loses.
It is undoubtedly possible to be a Capitalist and to believe that there are limits which must be imposed upon Capitalism: prevention of monopolies, laws to protect the natural environment from exploitation and legal protections to shield workers from bosses who have more power and influence than the people they employ.
However that doesn’t alter the fact that Capitalism rewards only The Winner. There is no second place, only bankruptcy. There isn’t a prize for making some money whilst also treating one’s workers well. A business either survives in the marketplace, or it does not.
I hope those statements stand alone without citations. They are surely self-evident. Capitalism may be practiced by people who behave well, but that behaviour is not needful to participate in Capitalism. Wealth is the only measure of Capitalist success.
In the 1980s, then, governments in the USA and UK unleashed the Free Market. It was seen as the panacea to all things: public transport, utilities, healthcare and a forever-booming economy driven by banking. All government had to do was get out of the way.
Unfortunately, Capitalism makes no guarantees about the quality of the character of its practitioners. Of two Capitalists, one who considers themselves “ethical” and another who is ruthless, the ruthless Capitalist will have more chances for wealth and to avoid failure. The Capitalist who believes theirself ethical will have a disadvantage against one who considers fines for awful behaviour as just a tax on their operations.
Thus, over time, one can see that a Capitalist system with minimal government oversight will yield a class of business barons who, having defeated their more ethical competition via means that their ethically-minded competitors would not sanction, now stand in control of large swathes of the mechanism of the country.
The influence of these Capitalists will be to improve their own lot: bigger profits, less taxation, less regulation. Fewer laws to govern their behaviour. Anything standing between the Capitalist and more than they currently have will be seen as an affront, a perversion of the accepted wisdom that The Market must be allowed to do as it chooses.
They will then spend their money on lobbying government: applying pressure to pass laws that further their own Capitalist interests. Indeed, Capitalists’ goals will not be that dissimilar from those of the fascist government: a powerful ruling force that answers to nobody and obeys only itself, concerned only with its own enrichment and fulfilling its own desires, common-person be damned.
One must now ask, if the fascist-leaning government and the Oligarch capitalist join forces, what would stop them from assuming outright tyrannical control of a state?
The answer is that the mechanisms of law and governance hinder them. Governments must still answer to their voters, and so they can never truly realise their darkest impulses to use their populace as perhaps they might want.
The voters must therefore be changed. For that, a method of delivering opinion-forming multimedia (directly to every constituent) would be surely a dose of jet fuel in the engine.
A Third and final Force is needed.
It would be foolish of me to imply that The Media, that conglomeration of print, screen and social media, has never worked only for the glory of their respective owners.
Rupert Murdoch differs from his forebears and contemporaries only in that he has accrued more wealth, and therefore influence. His newspapers regularly claim to influence democratic elections in favour of The Right political wing.
In a Capitalist state, The Media will inevitably be composed of private interests looking for wealth. This means all programming, including news and current affairs, must engage in airtime wars for the attention of viewers — either to fund streaming models or to maximise the reach and influence of advertisements for products to purchase. There is another facet to this, but I’ll say more later.
Those same media organisations are easy prey for the super-wealthy few created by unchecked Capitalism. Oligarchs, freed from any meaningful budgetary constraint and enabled by a willing political class to do whatever they wish, can found news organisations; buy newspapers, extend existing media influence or buy entire social networks.
Much like our self-described ethical Capitalist, it is possible that Messrs Murdoch, Bezos, Musk, Bloomberg, Forbes, Turner, Zuckerberg et al run their media ecosystems in pursuit of unbiased reporting of factual events augmented by opinion analysis from credible experts in relevant fields.
It is possible, but unlikely.
The Murdoch press, like Mr. Murdoch himself, is socially and politically aligned to The Right. X Corp has become a haven for both The Right and Extreme/Alt-Right. Bezos, Bloomberg and Forbes focus their reporting on business-friendly news and opinion in which private sector foibles are ignored in favour of promoting lower taxation and less legal oversight. Mark Zuckerberg continues to permit his platforms to be used for interference in what are supposed to be free, democratic ballots.
Indeed the only classically Right-wing opinion not generally held by these Oligarchs is that they have a mostly positive view of immigration. This can be seen as being consistent with their free market ideology: workers are there to be used, regardless of their origin.
Even instances where independent, state-funded media has been established, it finds itself increasingly cowed by pressures from government and in competition with Capitalist alternatives.
Consider the BBC.
The British Broadcasting Corporation is funded by “television licenses” paid by the public, and exists to provide an independently scrutinised media outlet that does not rely on the whims of Markets, Politicians or Oligarchs to educate and inform. Far from perfect, the BBC has been brought to heel several times by government over the last quarter-century with each instance reducing its efficacy.
In 2003, a highly suspicious death befell British weapons expert Dr. David Kelly. The BBC reporting of this was singled out for especial criticism by the Labour government under Tony Blair.
Numerous reports have chided the BBC for being, in no particular order, having a “liberal culture” because a television program promoted their Make Poverty History campaign; not reflecting enough anti-immigrant and anti-EU sentiment; and for politically correct virtue signalling in support of Black Lives Matter and LGBTQ rights (BBC guidelines for social media use, Section 3 “Expressions of Opinion on Social Media”).
These continuous, handwringing investigations into the BBCs supposed liberal bias has led to its current position, wherein very Right-Wing broadcasters are untouched whilst perceived Left-Wing broadcasters are punished and the BBC, in pursuit of a notion of balance that would be rejected by a six year old, announced it would happily platform a Flat Earth proponent against an actual specialist in the name of being unbiased.
It is difficult for an observer not to see the hobbling of the BBC, especially with regards to its political coverage, as part of both an extension of Government’s natural inclination to fascism and to better protect Oligarch interests.
Thus, buoyed by the Free Market and enabled by Government, Mass Media has been allowed to broadcast Oligarch-approved messaging into everyone’s home. From Fox News to Facebook, from our newspapers to our radio. It is genuinely hard to find news that is not directed to the end of a wealthy Capitalist.
I remind you again, because it bears repeating, that this is not a conspiracy amongst menacing figures from the shadows. It is just the interaction of Capitalism and self-interest both looking to accrue more power and wealth. No additional machinations or secret goals are needed. Occam’s Razor: do not overcomplicate unnecessarily.
Why is so much media Right-leaning? Not least of all because the views of the political right, especially lower taxation, are of great interest to the mega-wealthy. However there is another angle to consider.
The Media also indulge Right-wing content because it generates either engagement or outrage: both of which equate to eyes on ads and engagement, which equals money. For example: despite my clear political views, YouTube still regularly offers me videos of alt-right freaks rallying against “cultural marxism” or whatever today’s anti-Semitic synonym is. Even my work phone, an Android device, manages to drop news alerts from GB News once a day. Only GB News. Presumably because it’s paid-for advertising. Hard-right content makes money.
What then remains to be done to cement the Fascist and the Oligarch? Well, the restraints built into the democratic system must be removed, thus allowing the Fascist and Oligarch to rule as they choose forever. This is why we have been talking about mass media.
The Media, then, is employed to create a swell of public opinion against those restraints, institutions and balances that limit the power of the fascist and the oligarch. Friendly news networks breathlessly report the lying politician as though he were genuinely uncovering a scandal. Legions of susceptible soldiers, angry at the world created by the Politician and the Oligarch but told to blame migrants and minorities, threaten to overwhelm the machinery of elections. Fear of being seen as biased leads more ethical programmes to platform even the most ridiculous of lies without holding them to a basic standard of fact.
Now, the fascist is freed to redefine political boundaries to ensure the return of exactly one party: the Right-wing party, regardless of any inconvenient legitimate result returned by the people.
Groups known to vote against the Politician-cum-Fascist can be suppressed. Their right to vote put behind gates and roadblocks designed to deter them just enough to sway the election for the Right.
In short, whilst the Oligarch’s Media is convincing some people to overthrow the mechanisms of their democracy, a nascent Fascist is redrawing maps and stymying voters to install themselves in power. Both have the same end goal: Power Today, Power Tomorrow, Power Forever. When called on it, they will scream and clutch their pearls — “how could you think such a thing?” they will demand, and then punish accordingly.
Most of my links favour the USA in reporting, but these same measures are easy to find occurring in the UK and across Europe. Don’t take my word at face value: check for yourself.
These are those Three Forces I warned of at the outset: power-corrupted politicians, world-eating Capitalists and a media that dutifully directs our attention to the left hand whilst the right hand draws and removes the safety catch…
Our Triumvirate of Horror is three self-affirming forces that are enjoying more wealth and influence than any point in history.
The Fascist Politician, who wants more power, enables and is backed by the Oligarch, who wants more money, who owns News Outlets to sway public opinion toward the Fascist Politician. A kind of Charybdis, whereby each lap makes power and wealth the privilege of ever fewer people and the means to remove them become less — all while rushing ever faster towards the maw at the centre.
Not all the electorate of a country need be convinced by distractions about immigrants taking jobs, or Nazi-style rhetoric about invasions of refugees, or lies about Black Lives Matter starting riots, or sensational fabrications about toddlers getting gender confirming surgery. Only enough need to be swayed to allow the rules to change and thus guarantee the Fascist and the Oligarch rule for all time.
With a little gerrymandering, a little voter suppression and enough effort to make politics as distasteful as possible, a ‘Roy Cohn minded’ person could put together a winning voter bloc out of true-believers who would happily vote for Pol Pot if he wore their party’s rosette, crackpots who have been groomed by extremist media gibberish and just enough disaffected voices who think it would be fun to see the world burn.
The fascist’s party brings the unwavering loyal voters, the inside knowledge and the political contacts. Meanwhile, the Oligarch pays for media to reach the disaffected and encourages (or at least ignores) deranged fools circle-jerking themselves into outrage oblivion on X, 4Chan, Reddit and so on.
Between them, perhaps the Fascist has more demented ideologically-driven views than the Oligarch, perhaps they do not. Even as we speak Elon Musk has fallen through the event horizon of anti-Semitic fantasy. Just another repulsive view that we can mentally add to the ever-growing list of personality defects he proudly wears. Whether the Fascist is worse than the Oligarch is irrelevant: their behaviours lead to the same ends.
Consider, of course, that even if they don’t jump into politics directly, eventually the Oligarch will be powerful enough to just take what they want without the need to play a game of markets and dimes. They simply become the Fascist: a feudal lord who, through unimaginable wealth, rules with absolute power — an idea aspired to by many Oligarchs.
Indeed, some Capitalists foresee a country modelled on a “CEO” answering to a “board” as a great idea. Absolute power, no democracy, rigid hierarchal conditions based on perceptions of intelligence and rule by the mega-wealthy.
We would, then, become a people told how to live, how to behave and what we can and cannot do with ourselves. The fabulists, who invent enemies who enslave us through the use of vaccines and masks, seem blind to the legitimate threat of Serfdom that a few would impose upon us.
Imagine a life for yourself where your right to choose when or whether you have children is taken away. Where nobody has the right to enter marriage with their lover unless their lover meets criteria set by the Fascist. Where your role in society is permanently and forever chosen by “the gender you were assigned at birth”. Where you have no right to a grievance if you lose your job because you are Black and your boss is a racist. Where anybody can deny you service because “they don’t serve your kind”. A place where certain people aren’t allowed after nightfall. Where only some are allowed to vote to ensure the propagation of the status quo.
That mental image should be very vivid to us all, because portions of it are already here and, for some groups, have been here for a while.
It is a vision of a world where you live to serve the rich and powerful. You obey them and are daily given new instruction on how to behave by your television, mobile phone and radio.
A world, mind you, where those same rich and powerful (the Fascist and the Oligarch) do as they chose. Laws do not apply to them and, if they do and are inconvenient, they are changed because that power lies with them. Not you.
If you want to see this horror as it emerges over the crest of that distant hill, look no further than this preposterous fawning interview where the Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland slathers with delight at speaking to Elon Musk. The leader of a diminished yet still powerful country, with an outsized influence in world affairs, is dwarfed in scale by a weird narcissist who inherited an emerald mine.
The billionaires are already more powerful than our leaders, and once they are done with capitalism, they will happily pivot to totalitarianism along with the power-hungry politicians.
That life as a serf is close, far closer than it should be. The dawn of that world has already broken.
A note of hope can be found even in the most discordant dirge. Here is ours: tyrants have come and gone before. Systems much stronger, and more rigorously enforced than that which I see consolidating here, have fallen. Rights have been won back when they have been taken.
Ultimately, as Malcolm X observed, nobody can grant you your rights. Your right to live, love and exist as a human being is innate. Those rights are yours already, you just need to assume them. Human history is a catalogue of human rights being taken away by the powerful, and then forcibly taken back by the erstwhile powerless.
So protest. Demand change. Demand better. Stand up for the oppressed and poor. Argue for better. Never stop, because the wheel is always turning and the same battles for who we are as human beings will repeat until the end.
We can look to history and see the wheel always turning:
Nero killed himself. The Roman Empire collapsed. King John was brought to heel by the English baroney. Idi Amin was overthrown. The Congo won independence from Belgium. Neither god-like wealth, relative to the peasants, nor total power protected them.
Although it is dawning, this dystopia of Fascist Oligarchy insanity, eventually it, too, will fail. It’s just a question of how many more people will die before that happens and wisdom, fact and reason prevail.
“The plague you speak of has visited us once before. A wise man was able to contain it, but he wasn’t able to destroy it. Nobody had the power to do that. The only way to combat such madness is with wisdom. Sadly, no one person now has wisdom enough to contain the plague since it has spread. Much less destroy it.”
— The Transformers cartoon (1987) being eerily prescient.
Footnote: the images for this article are ridiculousness I created with AI and a little Photoshop. Use them as you like. AI sucks and should go away.
