Author | Lightnews

Eliot Sumner

@eliotsumner.bsky.social

980 followers 1.9K following 59 posts

"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." -James Baldwin

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Eliot Sumner @eliotsumner.bsky.social · 13d

3/3 Reaffirming the ideology shifts this from plausible to implausible deniability. The "denial" (and attacking the journalist) isn't meant to be believed; it's an assertion of power & contempt for accountability.

My essay decodes the playbook. It's strategy, not just memes write.as/eliot-sumner...

The Official Digital Authoritarian Aesthetic: Traditionalist Ideals in a Futurist Code

When Vice President JD Vance recently defended racist texts from a Republican group chat, he didn't engage with the content. Instead, he ...

write.as

Reposted by Eliot Sumner

Paul Bernal @paulbernal.bsky.social · 1d

It was never really just about immigration. It was always about racism.

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Juan Escalante @juansaaa.com · 2d

The mural features a masked ICE agent, in a Dodgers hat, escorting a handcuffed Fernando Valenzuela, the iconic Dodgers pitcher.

Below the painting, a vinyl sticker on the wall declares: “I LOVE THE #DODGERS. But I Love My Community More! Community Over Profit.”

#WorldSeries

Boyle Heights art shows Valenzuela arrested by ICE in Dodgers cap

At Distrito Catorce in Boyle Heights, a new painting replaces a beloved Dodgers tribute, capturing the disappointment and activism of longtime fans in response to the team’s silence on immigration rai...

boyleheightsbeat.com

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Larry Glickman @larryglickman.bsky.social · 2d

I find this distraction discourse unhelpful. Trump's video was appalling and significant and should be analyzed and denounced, and part of the work of politics is to turn it into a major controversy in its own right, as a symbol of Trump's autocratic disdain for the people.

Acyn @acyn.bsky.social · 2d

Obama: The weird videos of a U.S. President with a crown on his head flying a fighter jet and dumping poop on protesting citizens… All of that is designed to distract you from the fact that your situation has not gotten better.

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 2d

genuinely crazy-making how much the national press is indifferent to the verifiable fact that jd vance is buddy buddy with internet nazis, and the degree to which this is almost certainly a form of solidarity among people with a similar institution pedigree

Microplastics Sommelier @leastactionhero.bsky.social · 2d

mainstream media report on jd vance’s twitter mutuals, challenge level: impossible

Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 2d

He has already chosen, what the fuck are we doing here
www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 3d

How people think authoritarian governments work: they're hacking your phones, watching your every move with facial recognition cameras, men in black come and grab you at night.

How they actually work: someone like Laura Loomer tweets about you, men in black come and grab you in the night.

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onion person @junlper.beer · 4d

the DHS socials are staffed by actual nazis designed to make posts that appeal to nazis, they want genuine believers in a white state. there is not a single ICE agent that “is just following orders”, they’re all buying into an intentionally fascistic project

Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 4d

hey guys are we ever going to talk about what's happening with DHS on social media

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Eliot Sumner @eliotsumner.bsky.social · 3d

Yes, and his post was the entire ethnonationalist strategy in miniature: the fashwave aesthetic, the Globalist slur, and the 'just a joke' defense, all converging at once. See my pinned post

Reposted by Eliot Sumner

Zack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp.bsky.social · 3d

Kevin Roberts' defense of Nick Fuentes is a watershed moment: the right has officially declared open, unabashed Hitlerism to be an acceptable position in their coalition

www.vox.com/politics/466...

The GOP’s top think tank just defended an open Nazi

Reasonable people can disagree about whether Hitler was good, says the Heritage Foundation.

www.vox.com

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GHOULLIKEHELLMACHINE @golikehellmachine.com · 3d

the whole plan for operation midway in chicago was to frighten and terrorize people, and the administration hasn't considered what can happen when people decide they're more angry than they are afraid

Alex Harrison @alexhairysun.bsky.social · 3d

Video taken by Jay Shefsky at 12:20 p.m. after the crash happened, Oakton Street/Asbury Avenue in Evanston, IL

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Eliot Sumner @eliotsumner.bsky.social · 3d

4/4 Vance’s remark activates the foundational American colonial myth.

He uses the invented savage to justify his exclusionary politics. This mindset frames the world as a battle where enemies must be purged.

It is a defense of empire.

Eliot Sumner @eliotsumner.bsky.social · 3d

3/4 Vance groups "child sacrifice" and "brothels" to create a single, generalized moral monster. This is a racialized lie.

He invents the perfect "savage" (Pearce) to justify the "regeneration" (Slotkin). The lie sanctions the violence.

The generalization sanitizes colonialism.

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Eliot Sumner @eliotsumner.bsky.social · 3d

2/4 Vance calls this conquest an "accomplishment." This is Slotkin's thesis: Regeneration Through Violence.

The American myth claims civilization is born from a violent, purifying act against the savage. Vance recasts cultural destruction as redemptive moral necessity. Violence is the point.

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Eliot Sumner @eliotsumner.bsky.social · 3d

🧵 1/4 Vance's "child sacrifice" comment is colonial myth.

It’s Pearce’s Savagism. A monolithic evil "savage" is invented out of diverse cultures. This negative image justifies the conquering Christian civilization.

The 'savage' is created only to justify the conqueror.

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Eliot Sumner @eliotsumner.bsky.social · 3d

3/3 This is the critic's trap in action. It's an obvious signal to a political in-group, masquerading as a joke to dismiss criticism as humorless.

My essay explains where this strategy comes from, how it works, and what its goal is: write.as/eliot-sumner...

The Official Digital Authoritarian Aesthetic: Traditionalist Ideals in a Futurist Code

When Vice President JD Vance recently defended racist texts from a Republican group chat, he didn't engage with the content. Instead, he ...

write.as

Eliot Sumner @eliotsumner.bsky.social · 3d

2/3 Let's break it down using the playbook:

The Aesthetic: Pure fashwave/glitch art, designed to be menacing.

The Message: "CAN YOU HEAR THE SCREAMING"—overt political terror.

The Shield: "Happy Halloween!" is the plausible deniability that lets him dismiss it as a joke.

Eliot Sumner @eliotsumner.bsky.social · 3d

🧵 1/3 The Vice President just posted this for Halloween.

This isn't just a "weird meme." It is a perfect, textbook example of the "Official Digital Authoritarian Aesthetic" I decoded in my essay.

The aesthetic, the tactic, the actor. It's all there.

Ron Filipkowski @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 3d

Posted by the perpetually online full-time social media troll who holds the title of Vice President of the United States.

Reposted by Eliot Sumner

Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 3d

This is a longstanding, thoroughly disproven lie.

Vance is carving out a little niche for himself as the guy who tells vicious, racist lies about non-white people to massage the egos of white nationalists. And the *specific* lies he tells reveal he’s well versed in white nationalist propaganda.

Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 4d

Speaking at the Univ of Mississippi in Oxford, Vice President JD Vance claimed that when settlers arrived in the New World, they “found widespread child sacrifice,” adding that “Christian civilization ended the practice.”

JD Vance talks Israel, abortion, AI and immigration at Ole Miss Turning Point rally

Thousands packed Ole Miss’ pavilion as Vice President JD Vance took unscripted questions on faith, policy and Trump-era politics.

www.clarionledger.com

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Gillian Brockell @gbrockell.bsky.social · 4d

Everyone knows that there was a “reverse Underground Railroad” too, right? That there were gangs hunting down Black people — some self-emancipated, some born free, didn’t matter — and dragging them to a slave state? That it wasn’t just Solomon Northup, it was tens of thousands of people? Because ⬇️

dell cameron @dell.bsky.social · 4d

NEW: ICE is planning to build a shadow deportation network in Texas. A proposal outlines a 24/7 transport operation run by armed contractors—turning Texas into the logistical backbone of an industrialized deportation machine.

My latest @wired.com: www.wired.com/story/ice-is...

Early planning documents reviewed by WIRED describe a statewide transport grid designed for steady detainee transfers across Texas, with ICE estimating each trip to average 100 miles. Every county would have its own small, around-the-clock team of contractors collecting immigrants from local authorities deputized by ICE. It is a subtle transfer of the physical custody process into the hands of a private security firm—authorized to carry firearms and perform transport duties “in any and all local, county, state, and ICE locations.”

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Kat Abughazaleh @katmabu.bsky.social · 4d

I’m the first congressional candidate to be indicted under the second Trump administration.

But if things keep going the way they are, I won’t be the last.

That’s why I need to fight these charges with everything we’ve got. Help us do that here: katforillinois.com/legal

Defend Kat Against Unjust Charges

Show your support with a contribution.

katforillinois.com

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Eliot Sumner @eliotsumner.bsky.social · 4d

I don’t see anything in your article about DHS social media, which is what he was highlighting. I don’t recall this degree of overt fascist messaging from them in 2020; he’s right that not enough people are aware of this

Reposted by Eliot Sumner

Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 4d

hey guys are we ever going to talk about what's happening with DHS on social media

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Eliot Sumner @eliotsumner.bsky.social · 4d

I wrote an essay about it recently; check out my pinned post for the link

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Eliot Sumner @eliotsumner.bsky.social · 5d

So the CCP rigged a massive election just to spend a few grand on a costume piece fake crown? That sounds like a deeply inefficient conspiracy.

Eliot Sumner @eliotsumner.bsky.social · 5d

It’s an obvious joke. The joke is that he’s the only one who doesn’t get the joke

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Eliot Sumner @eliotsumner.bsky.social · 5d

They are trolling him in a way that he can’t get mad about it. He has to pretend it’s sincere

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