January 25, 2021

"All that has happened is there was a peaceful transition of power from Trump to a career politician, in Joe Biden, who has done far more violence than Trump has..."

"... because he’s been … a politician for decades. We didn’t topple anything. All we did was replace one figurehead with another, we’ve done nothing about the institution. It’s not about the leader, it’s about the institutions and the structures and the systems of capitalism and white supremacy that we reside under that are the main forces of domination here."


NBC also copies this quote from an article by Ta-Nehisi Coates: "Trumpism did not begin with Trump. ... To Trump, whiteness is neither notional nor symbolic but it is the very core of his power. In this, Trump is not singular." NBC goes on to summarize what Coates wrote next: "He added that presidents before Trump 'carried whiteness like an ancestral talisman.'" 

I clicked through to Coates's January 21st article (it's in the Atlantic), and I can see why NBC shied away from quoting the full sentence. It's: "But whereas his forebears carried whiteness like an ancestral talisman, Trump cracked the glowing amulet open, releasing its eldritch energies."

"Eldritch" is a Scottish word that means — according to the OED — "Weird, ghostly, unnatural, frightful, hideous." I had to look it up, though it sounds familiar, because of the book title, "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch."
On Mars, the harsh climate could make any colonist turn to drugs to escape a dead-end existence. Especially when the drug is Can-D, which translates its users into the idyllic world of a Barbie-esque character named Perky Pat. When the mysterious Palmer Eldritch arrives with a new drug called Chew-Z, he offers a more addictive experience, one that might bring the user closer to God. But in a world where everyone is tripping, no promises can be taken at face value.

That world where everyone is tripping might make more sense than Coates's notion of Trump's cracked-open glowing amulet. But Briond's position is easy to understand, and I give it my "Biden attacked from the left" tag.

47 comments:

YoungHegelian said...

But whereas his forebears carried whiteness like an ancestral talisman, Trump cracked the glowing amulet open, releasing its eldritch energies."

If you had been a comic-book nerd as a girl, you would know what "eldritch" meant from reading Dr. Strange comics.

tcrosse said...

H.P. Lovecraft used "eldritch" a lot.

Sebastian said...

"Joe Biden, who has done far more violence than Trump has..."

True, dat. But a few months too late.

Anyway, did Trump ever even bring up whiteness at all? Did he regret making the economy work best for blacks and raise the relative income of ordinary workers pre-Covid?

You'd almost think Coates et al. are a bunch of effing race baiters.

YoungHegelian said...

It’s not about the leader, it’s about the institutions and the structures and the systems of capitalism and white supremacy that we reside under that are the main forces of domination here.

I've often commented here on the ideological minutiae of the postmodern Left, and I take quite an interest in the history of ideology in general. I have to say, as much as the Post-Marxist Left loves to bellyache about Capitalism, I see no intrinsic ideological reasons within it to see Capitalism as intrinsically flawed or any more likely to produce racism or be produced by capitalism than socialism.

At least with classical Marxism, it was easy to understand what was the problem with Capitalism. Not so with Identity politics, in my always humble opinion.

Tommy Duncan said...

"To Trump, whiteness is neither notional nor symbolic but it is the very core of his power. In this, Trump is not singular."

Anyone know what that means?

rcocean said...

I doubt Tennessee Coats' knowledge of Trump or White America. He lives in Paris and is worth $millions. Pretty good for a man who writes gibberish. But do the "smart people" "The Literary Elite" really care anymore? I doubt it. He pushes the party line and he's black. So that's all that matters.

Just an old country lawyer said...

The demand for white supremacists seems to be exceeding the available supply. Keep up the race huckstering and you will surely create more.

rcocean said...

Maybe Tennessee Coats can talk about the "White Privilege" that save Alshi Babbitt from being murdered and forgotten, while Mitt Romney still cries over George Floyd. Maybe Tennessee Coats can send Babbitt's family a few dollars. He has $millions$

chuck said...

"Eldritch" is a Scottish word

That's pretty d*mn white right there.

rcocean said...

"Anyone know what that means?"

It means, my white buddies who control the culture and media will pay me to write any kind of gibberish as long as I hate Trump and White people (not them, the OTHER White people).

pacwest said...

The Dems are going to need to start a war somewhere as cover for implementation of their harmful social policies. Most likely before the military occupation of the Capitol ends and Harris takes over. As above, Biden is going to be a scapegoat for a lot of Dem missteps. At least he *President for a Day!*

What the CCP is doing over Taiwan right now is a stark difference from the initial Trump first days. Wonder why, - not really.

BUMBLE BEE said...

From reading Tennessee Groats little ditty, I'd assume his pages always stick together.
FAAAAAAABUlous.

rhhardin said...

It's easy to refute. Use Derb's quick analysis of white supremacy and things called white supremacy to make them say what they mean by it. An extension of an essay by John McWhorter.

Who Is a White Supremacist?

Once they have to specify, the claim falls apart.

Fernandinande said...

institutions and the structures and the systems of capitalism and white supremacy

They're against freedom.

Who was that imaginary guy who fought windmills? These guys fight against imaginary glowing amulets and ancestral talismans.

Iman said...

Teh-Skeezy Coates is a race hustler. In anticipation of internecine warfare between the two factions, I’m buying ConAgra stock, with Orville Redenbacher in mind.

rhhardin said...

They don't seem interested in black inferiority, which would be an equivalent term.

Black inferiority rages everywhere, often hidden.

It doesn't seem to support the outrage they're looking for.

Jokah Macpherson said...

There’s always more work to be done.

n.n said...

Trump was our first Orange-American President, all-American: Pro-Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

That said, diversity [dogma], not limited to racism, so-called "identity politics", that denies individual dignity, individual conscience, intrinsic value, normalizes color blocs, color quotas, and affirmative discrimination, breeds adversity and exclusion is a progressive condition. Semantic games. Conceptual corruption. Conflation of logical domains. Lose your Pro-Choice quasi-religion.

Diversity of individuals, minority of one. #HateLovesAbortion

n.n said...

Black inferiority rages everywhere, often hidden.

Inferiority or complex? One step forward, two steps backward.

Kay said...

I imagined a Lovecraftian eldritch in Coates‘ passage.

Three Stigmata is one of the best Dick novels, and from today’s vantage point the drugs in the novel can easily be seen as a metaphor for our current online reality.

Churchy LaFemme: said...

This much I knew before my insistent questioning led my uncle to show me the notes which finally embarked us both on our hideous investigation. In my childhood the shunned house was vacant, with barren, gnarled and terrible old trees, long, queerly pale grass and nightmarishly misshapen weeds in the high terraced yard where birds never lingered. We boys used to overrun the place, and I can still recall my youthful terror not only at the morbid strangeness of this sinister vegetation, but at the eldritch atmosphere and odor of the dilapidated house, whose unlocked front door was often entered in quest of shudders. The small-paned windows were largely broken, and a nameless air of desolation hung round the precarious panelling, shaky interior shutters, peeling wall-paper, falling plaster, rickety staircases, and such fragments of battered furniture as still remained. The dust and cobwebs added their touch of the fearful; and brave indeed was the boy who would voluntarily ascend the ladder to the attic, a vast raftered length lighted only by small blinking windows in the gable ends, and filled with a massed wreckage of chests, chairs, and spinning-wheels which infinite years of deposit had shrouded and festooned into monstrous and hellish shapes.

Renee said...

They all use the same language. "Prada Employee of the Month," Amanda Gorman aka the Biden's Poet Laureate from February 1,2018.

“I am very honest in saying that that type of conception of poetry is actually rooted in white supremacy,” Gorman says. “The personal is political. The fact that you have the luxury as a white male to write all your poems about being lost in the woods, that you don’t have to interrogate race and gender, is a political statement in and of itself."

She thought she was too good for her Harvard peers,

"“There’s the Amanda Gorman on campus, then there’s the Amanda Gorman who’s off,” she explains, telling me she isn’t too involved in the Harvard poetry scene largely because she doesn’t have the time. The Leverett sophomore is constantly on the move, traveling across the nation to attend conferences and poetry readings. (This past week, while other students shopped classes, Gorman traveled to New York City to speak at Revlon’s Live Boldly campaign launch.)"

She was going to New York BeautyCon and Milan's Fashion Week.

"amandascgorman
Verified
Fabulous time reading poetry at the @revlon #liveboldly campaign launch, featuring brilliant, bold, beautiful ambassadors @theashleygraham @adwoaaboah @imaanhammam @raquel_zimmermann @gal_gadot How do you #liveboldly ? 💋💃🏿 Special thx to our host @beautycon @nleoriginals *Beauty tip for this super red carpet look 💄: The @revlon Super Lustrous Lipsticks makes a great eye gloss as well. Add some on the lid with a winged effect and finish it off with a dab of your favorite shade from the Color Charge palette near the eye-duct for a burst of color! #beauty #revlon #style
156w"



She was on the Prada's payroll according to Teen Vouge and claims you don't have be poor and suffering to be a poet.

"This season one of the most exciting new figures on the fashion scene was Amanda Gorman, the 20-year-old Harvard junior who serves as the Inaugural Youth Poet Laureate of the United States. A rising figure in the world of poetry, the Los Angeles native is the first to hold the prestigious title, which recognizes both her literary talent and her position as a community leader. Gorman, who has done everything from appear in ads for Helmut Lang" "There’s this idea of the poor, suffering poet, and I try to exhibit that the poet can be stylish, too,” shared Gorman via email from Madrid, where she’s studying abroad, “[and show] that in no way detracts from their poetry.”

Gorman was nothing but a Prada advertisement on the day of Biden's inauguration.

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/2/1/amanda-gorman-scrutling/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BebNp3aFx04/?hl=en
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/prada-amanda-gorman-recycled-nylon-bags
https://www.vogue.com/article/amanda-gorman-prada-accessory

Renee said...

Amanda Gorman like Coates have major publishing deals. The narrative seems to be coming from the publishers themselves. Gorman has had a book deal since 2019, and she has a children's book coming out this year.

Old and slow said...

The Three Stigmata... was the first thing that popped into head as well. Great word.

At what point does the collective left, nominally woke crowd of bobo's in paradise wake up and say to themselves "What the fuck? This so called White Supremacy shit is bananas!"

walter said...

If they're not happy about Team Joementia, they ain't Black.

Interested Bystander said...

From what little I read of the lead in to the article, the Dems can't impeach the former president because he's not president anymore. And the Chief Justice can't preside because there's nothing in the constitution about impeaching a former official so some other guy, Leaky Leahy, is going to stand in. Sounds like our joke of a government is making this stuff up as they go along. Let's hope the Supreme Court at least will chime in and rule this thing the phony baloney BS thing it is. Geez.

Rabel said...

Which would be more frightening if it came walking down the street in your direction - Fran Lebowitz or Cthulhu?

Lawrence Person said...

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch is indeed one of Philip K. Dick's best novels.

And speaking of Eldritch, both it, and the works of H.P. Lovecraft are available in editions from the Library of America, giving both the imprimatur of literature.

YoungHegelian said...

@LP,

the works of H.P. Lovecraft are available in editions from the Library of America, giving both the imprimatur of literature.

Oh, sure, the LoA editions have the imprimatur of literature. But, do they have the nihil obstat, too?

Do they? Huh,huh?

Kay said...

Rabel said...
Which would be more frightening if it came walking down the street in your direction - Fran Lebowitz or Cthulhu?
1/25/21, 7:54 PM


Cthulhu in shorts.

Balfegor said...

Some commentators are twisting themselves into ever more intricate knots because they started with the axiom "white supremacy" and they need to postulate ever more complex epicycles -- White "adjacent" Asians to explain Asians outperforming Whites, "multiracial Whiteness" to explain increasing Black/Hispanic and decreasing White support for Trump, etc. -- just to preserve the White-supremacy-centric model of the universe.

Reducing it all to the eldritch power of Whiteness has the advantage of cutting through all that increasingly nonsensical ratiocination and laying bare the essentially mystical basis for the belief in White supremacy.

mccullough said...

The Atlantic serves White Supremacy.

Ta-Nahesi serves the Atlantic.

The fake Nat Turners grift.

Achilles said...

pacwest said...

The Dems are going to need to start a war somewhere as cover for implementation of their harmful social policies. Most likely before the military occupation of the Capitol ends and Harris takes over. As above, Biden is going to be a scapegoat for a lot of Dem missteps. At least he *President for a Day!*

What the CCP is doing over Taiwan right now is a stark difference from the initial Trump first days. Wonder why, - not really.



Biden already invaded Syria last week.

bgates said...

To Trump, whiteness is neither notional nor symbolic but it is the very core of his power

Change nothing about Trump and Coates but have their races switched at birth, and Coates would be a substitute junior high school teacher hoping someday he'd catch his big break and become a stringer for the Baltimore Sun.

Black Trump would be a world famous billionaire and two term President of the United States.

Roughcoat said...

Conan the Barbarian seem constantly at daggers drawn with eldritch wizards and other evil entities.

Churchy LaFemme: said...

Conan the Barbarian seem constantly at daggers drawn with eldritch wizards and other evil entities.

Robert E. Howard & HP Lovecraft were pen-pals.

Joe Smith said...

God save us from this affirmative action idiot...

His father being a Black Panther tells you all you need to know.

And he went to Howard University (and didn't graduate) because of course he did.

I guess he hadn't figured out the grift yet on how to bully his way into Harvard with an 1,270 SAT score like Hogg...

But he is the pet of white, guilty liberals and that pays pretty well, so good for him.

PB said...

Coates writes fiction.

Chris N said...

A white guy writing constantly about postmodern race identity, Historical Oppression and comic books might be taken as a bit intellectually amateurish at the Atlantic. Maybe not a regular.

A black guy with the same cred, however, and we got ourselves a diamond in the ghetto rough. Throw in some native talent, a will to write and a polyamarous, itinerant Black Panther father, and we’re cooking with Soul. Maybe down that alleyway, emerging from the mist, is not another thuggish ‘Jaquan’ looking for my wallet, but a powerful and mystic Black to whom all the smart White folks should respect.

I think Coates is right to retreat to Paris a la Josephine Baker and James Baldwin, and right to retreat into the Postmodern Self where the other postmoderns disappear when the thinking gets tough. That French culture, nihilism and American expat culture might seem like a warm and welcome bath.

I too might be tempted to reaffirm my prejudices if deep down I realized I was still doin’ the ol soft shoe for Whitey.

Chris N said...

Take out the ‘to’

Sternhammer said...

Coates was a big Dungeons and Dragons guy as a teen. The second D & D rule booklet was titled "Eldritch Wizardry." The influence of magical thinking is all throughout Coates' work. Like the mysterious "miasma of whiteness" that he believes controls black folks and makes them commit so many murders.

In sum, Coates is an idiot.

But the demand for black intellectuals is so high that even a buffoon like Coates gets worshipped. I should say the demand for radical leftist black intellectuals. Obviously there are brilliant people like Thomas Sowell, Glenn Lowry and John McWhorter, but they don't fulfill the submissive fantasies of rich white liberals like Coates does.

Skippy Tisdale said...

NBC also copies this quote from an article by Ta-Nehisi Coates

I put more credence in a quote from the Port-O-San Man. At least he provides a valuable service.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-V0OqUMoRP4

Michael said...

So, who is the most over-rated public intellectual in the United States: Ta-Nehisi Coates or Neil deGrasse Tyson? Close call.

Skippy Tisdale said...

They don't seem interested in black inferiority, which would be an equivalent term.

I was just thinking about that last night, but in the context of Africa and colonialism. It was because someone pulled out the old trope that the reason that Africa is so fucked up was because of European colonialism. If so, doesn't that clearly imply that European culture was culturally superior to African culture?

To me that's tough to argue against. It would be as silly as asserting that the Yanomami tribe's culture is superior to the European Union's.

Skippy Tisdale said...

But the demand for black intellectuals is so high that even a buffoon like Coates gets worshipped.

There are plenty of black individuals, they just lack media standing.

Lurker21 said...

"Trumpism did not begin with Trump. ... To Trump, whiteness is neither notional nor symbolic but it is the very core of his power. In this, Trump is not singular."

Critical race theory plus superhero movies are a recipe for destroying the universe as we know it, but that's all our children know nowadays.

"But whereas his forebears carried whiteness like an ancestral talisman, Trump cracked the glowing amulet open, releasing its eldritch energies."

Nice trick. I think Eldritch Cleaver did that for Blackness. Fat lot of good it did him in the end.

Unknown said...

As a proud member of the White Supremacist Alliance for Peace, I strongly recommend we follow the Supreme Law of the Land, the US Constitution.

POCs welcome.