Odds & Ends: Call For Subscriber Mailbag Questions and What I'm Keeping An Eye On

Happy NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Day for all who observe. As a Hoosier this is easily one of my favorite times of year and I cannot recommend it highly enough. Even if you aren’t into sports, this is a pageant of human emotion and high drama, not to mention the inclusion of these brackets that add tension into every single game. It’s a perfect, perfect event. If you’re so interested, my own bracket (which is already in danger of being marred in the very first game) is below:

Though I’ll be spending the next few days more or less immobilized in front of the unfolding madness, I’m going to post a big, MEGA-SIZED mailbag this weekend for subscribers. I’ve got a backlog of questions that you’ve been emailing me for the past few weeks and I fully intend to answer them.

I want to go ahead and open up the mailbag to everyone and just get into it with this one. Topics so far include follow-ups from reading THE MIDNIGHT KINGDOM: A HISTORY OF POWER, PARANOIA, AND THE COMING CRISIS, the relationship between white supremacy and Christian Nationalism, the church’s melding with the Roman Empire, and alternate history/reality questions. We’re also going to get into some long, long term prognostication, organizing tips and structures, and more.

You can reply to this post or you can email me at jysexton@gmail.com. I love these things, and one of the reasons why is because the suggestions of topics sometimes gets me onto topics and threads I wouldn’t otherwise get into, and it opens up new lines of thought and dialogue. Which is something I want and desperately need to do, especially as we take this information that we’ve been compiling and work on spreading it and acting upon it in order to fight back against these threats.

I’ll take questions this Saturday at 6pm eastern. Get yours in when you have the chance.

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Things I’m Keeping An Eye On

Right now I’m working on prepping for the Weekender Episode of The Muckrake Podcast. When it comes to getting these episodes ready there’s sometimes a little mixing and matching of topics. We cover current events, obviously, as they transpire, and attempt to put them into a larger historical and theoretical context, but oftentimes we’ll also get into developing trends in order to prepare people for trajectories going forward, which is something that a lot of our media is either unwilling or incapable of doing.

We’re in a strange period right now. We all know that. But it’s important to remember that we’re currently residing in the pre-2024 space where forces are gathering for the coming race. Not to mention, the democratic/global crisis I’ve been warning about is still in the nascent stages, meaning there are warning signals galore, but we have yet to reach the absolutely-no-one-can-deny-any-longer-what’s-going-on level of chaos, despite the fact that, as predicted, we’re seeing a prioritization of child labor and more and more attacks on history and education. I wanted to go ahead and highlight a couple of things I’m keeping an eye on in terms of previewing things that will be a lot more important in the coming weeks, months, and years.

1. The Blossoming Cold War and the Drawing of Lines

It appears that Xi Xinping is planning a trip to Russia in the near future, a visit that comes on the heels of a recent diplomatic coup in which China brokered a normalization of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia. That deal was conspicuous in that it involved China taking the lead, but also in the Saudi’s cooperation. Considering Saudi Arabia’s longterm relationship with the U.S., it was a particularly spiteful poke in the eye.

Recently the developing Cold War between the U.S. and China has entered a new rhetorical tit-for-tat that saw saw both nations taking overt shots at one another in speeches and declaration following the ridiculous showdown over the spy balloon.

Mutually Beneficial Terror: A New Cold War is Brewing

Xi’s visit to Russia is another symbol of the relationship between Russia and China, a bond that is both obvious and somewhat guarded. Following dictator Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine, the American-led global order reacted with economic punishments, but China was quick to create a bypass and bring Russia even closer into its orbit. What is developing now is a counter-hegemonic structure wherein China, as a competing superpower, is setting up the pieces to challenge American political and economic domination.

If Xi does make it to Russia it will be a clear sign that, as the second year of the Ukrainian War begins, the partnership remains. And, considering the growing tension and war of words, it will be fascinating to see if the rhetoric emerging from this meeting will reflect an escalation or a cooling of tensions. My guess is the former as this burgeoning Cold War is both mutually beneficial to China and the United States but also, as conditions continue to deteriorate, more likely in general.

As I discussed on Tuesday’s episode of The Muckrake Podcast, it’s starting to feel a lot like the incubation period that precedes conflicts like The Great War.

2. The Whole French Mess

The debate in France over raising the retirement age from 62 to 64 has created a political firestorm of late. Debate alone led to passionate protest and unrest, leading to a stalemate as the upper chamber of Parliament adopted the motion and the lower chamber seemed split.

French president Emmanuel Macron couldn’t leave the measure to chance, so early Thursday he invoked a special constitutional power to bypass Parliament altogether. Obviously Macron would have liked to have avoided this unpopular solution, but now the issue would either be settled or require a vote of no confidence that would see the Left and the Far Right unite for common cause and dismiss the government.

I’ve been watching this issue develop in France since it was first proposed for a variety of reasons. To begin, France has long been held as a far more progressive country in terms of entitlements, often because the population is democratically active and fills the streets. The nation has benefited in the post-World War II environment, but, as I keep warning, the neoliberal project has reached a point in which these unpopular and brutal measures are going to be required should it move forward.

Macron has been a fascinating figure in all of this. He is a quintessential neoliberal leader who has built his platform on putting a human face on the inhuman nature of all this, all while consistently doing the bidding of the wealth class. Here, the mask has slipped and we can see, plain and simple, the brutal authoritarianism that lies behind the veneer and is consistently at play in the operation of this system.

It’s strange to watch the process play out. In order for Macron’s play to be undone, white nationalist Marine Le Pen and National Rally would have to partner with their sworn enemies in the leftists. I have doubts as to whether this is possible, but it’s also telling that this is happening in France, where the illusion that this was impossible was strong until…well, it wasn’t anymore.

Here, in the United States, we seem fated to a similar situation. Whether it’s with the debt ceiling negotiations or otherwise, the neoliberal machine is going to require rollbacks of social programs like social security and Medicare and probably the raising of the retirement age and, possibly, some incredible work requirements. And, what’s even more troubling, is that America lacks France’s organizing structures and popular opposition.

There is the hope that, if the matter were to be pressed, those structures could be created in overt opposition and strengthened through that fight. But it would be better and more advantageous to build them prior to the conflict and enter the arena more prepared.

As always, we are reaching a time of choosing. And it’s time to prepare.

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A reminder to check out Episode 4 of THE MIDNIGHT KINGDOM LECTURE SERIES: A New Empire.

This is the story of how we were put on this path and how neoliberalism was implemented as the successor to the New Deal Consensus, creating a world of austerity, exploitation, and creating the current crisis we’re trying to dig ourselves out of.

And if you haven’t picked up your copy of THE MIDNIGHT KINGDOM: A HISTORY OF POWER, PARANOIA, AND THE COMING CRISIS, you should remedy that sometime soon.

Oh, and don’t forget to get those questions in before Saturday afternoon.