Toby Buckle

a woman with a pearl necklace is standing in a room with the words weak feeble written on the bottom . ALT: a woman with a pearl necklace is standing in a room with the words weak feeble written on the bottom .

a 3,000 word essay?

& yes, it's fun this is out the same day as my longest article to date

bsky.app/profile/adam...

& yeah, i agree obviously - that's just like good writing

my only quibble is i'm not sure that's a new social media thing, haven't you always needed to hold a readers attention?

everyone seems to hate the headline (bsky is the readers' site), but tbf the article doesn't say *don't* write long form, it says if you're going to, you need to have good command of your material, clear structure, & guide the reader through it

why do people keep tagging me in this?

it's all just very, very tone deaf

does everyone follow the minutia of policy? no

but the broad narrative of 'lost to the left, moved further to the right' is something people are picking up on i think

i'm a bit more bullish than last time that this will be sustained - my feeling is the by election result had cut-through

& no one was convinced by labour's attack on the greens & them doubling down on a hard right anti-immigrant agenda is so not getting it

greens tie labour again in the average

It Wasn't Fascism All Along Conservatism was a distinct ideology but it is dead and it is not coming back.

This has honestly been one of my favorite reads this week, and something I think a *lot* of ya'll could do with right now.

www.liberalcurrents.com/it-wasnt-fas...

It Wasn't Fascism All Along Conservatism was a distinct ideology but it is dead and it is not coming back.

For fascists, "Wealth, infrastructure, and technology are useful things to have for wiping out large sections of your own population, but if poverty is the cost of racial purity they’ll make that trade every time." www.liberalcurrents.com/it-wasnt-fas...

"Conservatism is not merely dead, fascism has paraded the body around, peeled off its face, and is wearing it as a mask for its own amusement as it does a demented little dance."

It Wasn't Fascism All Along Conservatism was a distinct ideology but it is dead and it is not coming back.

This from @liberalcurrents.com was one of the best takes I’ve read all year. An ideological skeleton key. Don’t let the length scare you, it’s a banger and every word counts www.liberalcurrents.com/it-wasnt-fas...

a man in a dark room with the words he can 't keep getting away with this Alt: a man in a dark room with the words he can 't keep getting away with this

The editors whenever Toby doubles his last previous word count max and yet gets lots of readers

It Wasn't Fascism All Along Conservatism was a distinct ideology but it is dead and it is not coming back.

"Fascists just don’t care about economics. To them, it’s entirely secondary to the project of racial domination. They can sound vaguely ‘populist’ and anti-corporate at times, ruthlessly capitalist at others. But in reality they’re neither."

that's a good piont, i agree & self-concously try to avoid dehumanising language like that, but it's just so ubiquitous it gets in your head & you end up saying it without thinking

note to self for the future

You cannot compromise with bigotry - Nicholas Mitchell Podcast Episode · Political Philosophy Podcast · 6 March · 1h 9m

I could listen to @nicholasemitchell.bsky.social all day. This is such an affirming take. Thank you Toby Buckle for another fab pod. 💕 @polphilpod.bsky.social

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/p...

In February, I got to sit down with Toby Buckle for a conversation about bigotry and why any compromise with bigots is a step towards bigotry.

Check it out!

male insecurity is why noticing very obvious facts was dismissed as hysterical

newrepublic.com/article/2042...

You cannot compromise with bigotry - Nicholas Mitchell What is bigotry, how should we think about it, and why a strategy of appeasement will never work.

if you try to appease bigots, they'll think you're weak & push you further

new interview with @nicholasemitchell.bsky.social

www.politicalphilosophypodcast.com/bigotry

For real this is the best thing I’ve read on differentiating conservatism from fascism, why that difference matters & why “conservatives” by and large had no trouble becoming fascists.

It Wasn't Fascism All Along Conservatism was a distinct ideology but it is dead and it is not coming back.

"Conservatism is not merely dead, fascism has paraded the body around, peeled off its face, and is wearing it as a mask for its own amusement as it does a demented little dance." www.liberalcurrents.com/it-wasnt-fas...

Highly recommend, this is great, necessary conversation

lots of new content out today

You cannot compromise with bigotry - Nicholas Mitchell What is bigotry, how should we think about it, and why a strategy of appeasement will never work.

if you try to appease bigots, they'll think you're weak & push you further

new interview with @nicholasemitchell.bsky.social

www.politicalphilosophypodcast.com/bigotry

It Wasn't Fascism All Along Conservatism was a distinct ideology but it is dead and it is not coming back.

"Crying about the loss of the middle ground is already becoming cliche, dated, and frankly a little embarrassing"

my latest for @liberalcurrents.com

www.liberalcurrents.com/it-wasnt-fas...

with all that said, where you place the exact dividing lines between ideologies is tricky &, ultimately, always a judgement call

this is what makes sense to me - these are my reasons, hopefully they make sense to you too

there's not some scientific answer here, though

Even by a Strict Definition, Elon Musk Is a Fascist He is weaponizing Tolkien to promote violence by ‘hard men’ against Asian immigrants

like, the trump movement is fascist, reform are fascist, elon musk is a fascist

i'm not a shrinking violet on this one

www.theunpopulist.net/p/even-by-a-...

& i say this as someone often criticised by centrists for using the f-word too aggressively

i mean, you *can* have a bifurcated worldview in which everything other than your specific brand of socialism is fascism, that's a schema

i just don't know what analytic work that does, or where it gets you