Allan Siegel via nettime-l on Mon, 24 Mar 2025 10:17:08 +0100 (CET)


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Re: <nettime> At Doge, AI faith has fully fused with Christian Nationalism 

Hello,
What is here being labelled as Christian Nationalism is a misnomer; what it signifies is a white supremacist ideology that is embedded in the DNA of the culture and history of the USA. The 'Christian/Evangelical' elements are a moral veneer for the deep-rooted racist & misogynist elements that pre-date the Civil War and continuously appear throughout American History. The Scarlet Letter, The Crucible, It Can't Happen Here are various representations of this along with Jim Crow Laws (whose origins predate apartheid), the Yellow Peril, various anti-immigrant agitations, etc...
I would suggest that Obama represented a kind of 'tipping point' which facilitated, with other factors of course, the emergence of the Trumpist cabal. Not so much because of Obama's politics (which were basically mainstream Democrat) but because of the fact that he was African American: an anathema to the Trump base.
The Democrats have been unable to counter the ascendancy of this Neo-Fascist political block because they are stuck in a NeoLiberal whirlpool of political fantasies and slogans long past their sell-by date. They are not fighting against this onslaught because they have faint clues about what they should be fighting for.
I don't mean to be glib about this but simply wanted to add my two cents to the discussion. 

best
allan


On 24/03/2025 02:36, Steven Kurtz via nettime-l wrote:

Tech initiatives like to use Christian/occult codes to explain to people outside their specialization what they are doing while at the same time puffing themselves up.  The Human Genome Project did this quite well. Teachers do the same usually for more down-to-earth reasons. However, because there can be a common rhetoric or code sharing it doesn't mean there is any real relationship.

I just spent two years deep in the hole of US Christian nationalism (CN). The book is coming out soon, so allow me to report a few general observations on this subject.

Only on rare occasion have I ever heard them discuss digital technology in any abstract way. The rare occasions when it does come up concerns eradicating porn and information control (only in terms of censorship). On no occasion have I heard them discuss AI. They do not care. That is not the world they live in.

The CNs passionately hate (and "hate" may be too modest of a word) libertarians in general and Tech Bros (TBs) in particular as they are tools of, if not possessed by, Satan. The orange One, whom they must obey, has made room for these enemies of Christendom, so for now they must be tolerated. This does not mean the CNs are passive. They have surrounded Trump the best they can to keep their advice going in his ear, and the other factions' out. Surrounding Trump on a daily basis or near daily basis are:
Susie Wiles—White House Chief of Staff. Christian Nationalist accommodator (i.e., she believes most of the Christian Nationalist project). Supporter of DeSantis. Florida being the testing ground for many Christian nationalist policies.
Russ Vought—Office of Management and Budget He is the most dangerous of Trump’s enablers. Fanatically committed to Chistian Nationalism, he oversees everyday white house affairs. He knows how the system works. Contributor to Project 2025 and wrote many of the executive orders.
Charles Ezell—Acting Director, Office of Personnel Management. The man carrying out the DOGE firings. Christian nationalist.
Kristi Noem—Secretary of Homeland Security. Devoted Christian nationalist. The Godliest governor.
Doug Burgum—Secretary of the Interior (tries to hide it his Christian nationalist affiliations. Poses as a libertarian elite.)
Pam Bondi—Attorney General (She will prosecute whomever Trump says and will structure the Department of Justice as Trump wants it. The Jenna Ellis (Christian nationalist) of the new Trump administration. If not a Christian nationalist, she is a Christian devoted to her role as an accommodator. She will also make sure Trump cannot be held in criminal contempt by any court, and that he and his chosen are never charged with any crime.
Pete Hegseth—Secretary of Defense (The man has "Deus Vult" tattooed on him. Need I say more?)
Tom Homan—Border Czar. Christian nationalist. Contributor to Project 2025.

Against the CNs in office are the Bannon rank and file voters (many of whom are CNs). Bannon's and his populism are out. Musk And his Technocratic Republic friends are in Trump's good graces as long as the pay-off continues. What they are doing the CNs are mostly Ok with. The short-term outcomes both factions want mostly align. Why they want them couldn't be more different, as are the desired long-term outcomes.  The TBs aren't worried about the CNs as they seem to believe (I am out over my skis here)  their money makes them protected by the law, but in no way bound to it, so they are untouchable and may do as they please.  However, Trump will not always be around, and when that happens the TBs underestimate the CNs at their own peril. Finally, the dark horse is Scott Besset (Secretary of Treasury). CNs and TBs both hate him, of course for different reasons. He is where all the  eco-detox, threaten and attack your allies and trading partners with denying US market access and protection, and tariff ideas are coming from.

I said this on Nettime many years ago and I will say it again now for those interested in understanding the CNs—learn to speak Christian. They speak in code that requires training to understand. Second, throw categories of political economy and investigations to follow the money into the trash. That is not how they operate. Profit is not what motivates them. Angelic and demonic intervention, miracles, prophecy, possession, providence, dispensation (for the evangelicals), revelation, awakening, etc. is the world they live in and respond to.

Finally, they do not see themselves as cruel. They are doing what is necessary to spread the gospel and save souls. They are saving people from eternal cruelty. They love the end of USAID in sub-Saharan Africa, because they want to see disease and famine flourish in a time when there are the fewest charitable organizations to turn to other than the missionaries they are training and sending as fast as they can.

The CNs have the Supreme Court, control the Senate agenda (John Thune) and House agenda (Mike Johnson), have surrounded the president, and have their man in charge of the military (Pete Hegseth). The great irony is Trump is who is protecting the US from becoming a theocratic state, unfortunately it may be his legacy. They have been planning this coup for almost half a century. They do nothing just for the fun/cruelty of it.


________________________________
From: nettime-l<nettime-l-bounces@lists.nettime.org> on behalf of Felix Stalder via nettime-l<nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>
Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2025 8:32 AM
To:nettime-l@lists.nettime.org <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>
Cc: Felix Stalder<felix@openflows.com>
Subject: Re: <nettime> At Doge, AI faith has fully fused with Christian Nationalism



On 3/22/25 20:39, Brian Holmes via nettime-l wrote:

JDV does not (yet) say AI is God.

On 3/23/25 06:28, Louis Rawlins via nettime-l wrote:


Brian, totally with you on "not-yet-fused" but I'd say it's the
power of what people are being convinced of that matters.
Propaganda. Agit-prop. We're deep in that phase now.

I don't think this is Agitprop. Yes, there are the entertainers, like
Trump and Musk, the incompetent loyalists at the top of many federal
institutions, but this feeds well into a coordinated effort to dismantle
the federal government. Bannon called for a long time for the
destruction of the "administrative state". People are getting fired, and
the rest demoralized.

Then, of course, it depends on what fully-fused means. I think on the
ground, as a coalition of dismantlement, the difference is pretty
minimal. They seem quite united in the face of a common enemy, which
Adam Tooze recently identified as the "professional managerial class",
who not only provided the core of the Democratic Party, but also the
expertise within liberal institutions. From this perspective, the twin
attacks on federal institutions and universities makes a lot of sense.

There are also a lot of ideological, or at least vibey, connections
between right-wing tech-culture and Christian nationalism, ranging from
nativism/family values, incel/patriarchy, sea-steadying/self-sufficient
religious communities, social automation/authoritarianism, to
singularity/rupture. The list could probably go on and would need to
include white supremacy prominently.

There is a long argument about much of advanced technology being a form
of secular religion -- like when people asked astronauts if they had
seen god, or when tech-bros speak immortality through "hacking death".
And even if people like JDV do not call AI good, the only cultural model
we have for AGI is, well, god.

So, in terms of forming an agent capable of coherent destructive action,
I think these two forces are pretty well-aligned.

Whether they are fused enough to agree on a vision of re-construction, I
doubt, but perhaps this is not necessary, at least in the short- to
media term. You can already see how different groups are getting their
agendas satisfied in ways that seem to give each what they want (say,
access to military budgets), while not being too much bothered by what
the other gets (say, destruction of the Department of Education). Plus a
hefty dose of symbolic cruelty for rest, say, destruction of USAID and
deportation to El Salvador (these are, of course, not symbolic for the
people affected, on the contrary, but for the people perpetrating it, in
the sense that they are not affected by the consequences).


If that enough in the longer perspective, I doubt, but we don't know.
The carcass of the American state is large enough to have a lot of red
meat to keep the coalition together, and the filter bubbles are closed
enough to explain away when the inevitable negative consequences reach
the base, as you can already see with the outbreak of infectious
diseases due to low rates of vaccinations.




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