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Why did Lula fail to rally Brazil? The far-right parties (be it Bolsonaros, AfD, Reform or Le Pen) are not ordinary political parties - they are politically organized crime networks. Meeting them with politics as usual does not work. Their networks and patrons have to be destroyed. Lula didn't.

A specialized force to scrutinize such network would be needed, along with radical transparency and anti-corruption laws. The wealthy patrons are often part of rent-seeking capital and depend on government contracts and favourable regulation. They must get neither. Anti-oligarch laws are needed.

Why did Lula fail to rally Brazil? The far-right parties (be it Bolsonaros, AfD, Reform or Le Pen) are not ordinary political parties - they are politically organized crime networks. Meeting them with politics as usual does not work. Their networks and patrons have to be destroyed. Lula didn't.

Individualizing responsibility for the problems of the world means that there is nobody to hold responsible, nobody to blame. That means the establishment politicians get all the blame. Oligarchs who have concentrated an unhealthy amount of wealth pay grifters to redirect the blame away from them.

Why did Lula fail to rally Brazil? The far-right parties (be it Bolsonaros, AfD, Reform or Le Pen) are not ordinary political parties - they are politically organized crime networks. Meeting them with politics as usual does not work. Their networks and patrons have to be destroyed. Lula didn't.

Their leaders are motivated by a lust for power and attention-seeking, while their supporters by anger and grievance. What they want is not rational, it cannot be sated by neither concessions nor mere material gains. Those who vote for them are the left-behind and ignored worst-off in society.

Saudi Arabia is the 8th biggest military spender on the planet. They invest in modern western gear, with barely any limits on what they can get their hands on. Their military is massive. And yet they are getting their asses kicked by Houthi tribesmen in flipflops. Why? Because it is a kleptocracy.

The Saudi regime has massive monetary reserves. But once a kleptocracy appears as weak on the outside as it is on the inside, its days will be numbered. Fidel Castro conquered Cuba with an army that was a tiny fraction of the Batista regime. Saudi Araba could fall the same way.

Saudi Arabia is the 8th biggest military spender on the planet. They invest in modern western gear, with barely any limits on what they can get their hands on. Their military is massive. And yet they are getting their asses kicked by Houthi tribesmen in flipflops. Why? Because it is a kleptocracy.

Kleptocracies look strong on the outside, but they are hollow on the inside. Everything inside has rotted away by corruption and nepotism. The Saudi military is disorganized by design because the Saudi rulers are more afraid of a coup from the inside than threats from the outside.

I've seen it argued that one should not prosecute Trump and Trumpists if they step down, or else future authoritarians will not relinquish power. This is extremely naive. The only reason they keep doing the evil things they do is because they think they can get away with it.

This danger remains especially if the plundered funds, taken-over media, rigged laws and stuffed institutions are allowed to remain. Amnesties should only be given to the top echelon in exchange for stepping down in a negotiation - and then everyone below them should be ruthlessly punished.

I've seen it argued that one should not prosecute Trump and Trumpists if they step down, or else future authoritarians will not relinquish power. This is extremely naive. The only reason they keep doing the evil things they do is because they think they can get away with it.

Elon Musk is promoting a movie that promotes Anders Behring Breivik style terror attacks. This is after he has been promoting race violence and riots in the UK. And doing nazi salutes. If this is not enough to kick off boycotts and divestments of his companies then what the hell is it going to take?

All governments exist between two extremes - the personalist despotism or the institutional rule of law. A personalist regime can last a long time, but it is not stable. It lacks the self-repair mechanisms that only independent institutions with balancing power can provide.

Too many people on the left still think of Chavez as something more than a tinpot dictator and kleptocrat because he cloaked himself and his regime in the drapings of socialism. But this was a lie. Kleptocrat regimes have no ideology, as this implies a movement doing theoretical development.

All governments exist between two extremes - the personalist despotism or the institutional rule of law. A personalist regime can last a long time, but it is not stable. It lacks the self-repair mechanisms that only independent institutions with balancing power can provide.

I predict “Standing up to Donald Trump didn’t work" is going to go into the history books along with "Peace in our time", except Chamberlain was trying to buy British rearmament time, while Angus King and his cowards-in-arms is buying Trump time to complete his $170 billion personal militia.

For a while now I've been trying to understand modern kleptocracies as something other and different than classical fascism. The old fascist regimes seemed so different than the modern grifter networks, but there were also clear similarities. So I took some weeks off to dive into it. A thread.

Richard Jevans: "one of the major and too often neglected factors holding the top ranks of the Nazi Party together was corruption: the receipt of massive gifts, huge increases in income, property and so on, that cemented the patronage relationship they had with Hitler in a relationship of clientage”

For a while now I've been trying to understand modern kleptocracies as something other and different than classical fascism. The old fascist regimes seemed so different than the modern grifter networks, but there were also clear similarities. So I took some weeks off to dive into it. A thread.

Götz Aly: "The Nazi leadership did not transform the majority of Germans into ideological fanatics ... Instead it succeeded in making them well-fed parasites. Vast numbers of Germans fell prey to the euphoria of a gold rush, certain that the future would be a time of unbridled prosperity."

For a while now I've been trying to understand modern kleptocracies as something other and different than classical fascism. The old fascist regimes seemed so different than the modern grifter networks, but there were also clear similarities. So I took some weeks off to dive into it. A thread.

Fascism should not be understood as an ideology. Any particular instance of fascism is just an arbitrary confabulation of its leaders, some crackpot theory they have decided to latch onto, that is not necessarily shared with any other instance. Fascism, I realized, is above all an economic movement.

For a while now I've been trying to understand modern kleptocracies as something other and different than classical fascism. The old fascist regimes seemed so different than the modern grifter networks, but there were also clear similarities. So I took some weeks off to dive into it. A thread.

I usually read the most while traveling. For me, sitting in an airport terminal, in a hotel lobby, or on a train is perfect for concentration. The journey took me as usual from country to country in rapid succession. Eventually I came to Moldova, where I was told of the great bank robbery of 2014.

A good article on how academics can be a key part of a restoration of democracy after an authoritarian takeover: donmoynihan.substack.com/p/how-social.... A key message here is that it cannot simply be seen as a rollback to the old ways, it must be a dramatic improvement over it.