The Carnivalesque

everything you wanted to know about MAGA but was afraid to ask Mikhail Bakhtin

If you have followed the Discussion Reading Group conversations here you will know we have identified film noir as a “Leftist” genre, which as much as it shines a dark light on corruption at the highest level of society, also eviscerates the liberal savior narrative. We have discussed the way in which the protagonist of the noir, hard bitten as cynical as he is (and it is mostly he’s here), is actually not cynical enough given the violence and betrayal and the deception he encounters in the world. The women who play the femme fatale become caught in the vise of male power — as in Chinatown and Black Coal, Thin Ice. and the half broken male protagonist is unable to rescue them.

So below the paywall, I’m going to talk a bit about the MAGA carnival. I was on the Bad Faith recently talking with Briahna Joy Gray and some people just got so mad at us for not being in the Harris fold, that it confirmed something else we have been discussing here — liberal authoritarianism. It uses every weapon at its disposal to silence its critics: BJG’s critics are furious that she is not a Harris fan and that she does not conform to their world view. They resorted to calling us fascists on line. I want to respond, “I’m rubber and you’re glue,” but I’m holding back.