Dorothy Thompson's 1941 essay on Nazism is echoed in Talia Lavin's modern update exploring attraction to MAGA ideology. Lavin's piece discusses different personality types, using a dinner party metaphor to illustrate her points. Key figures like Mr. I, who values beauty over power, contrast with others drawn to authoritarianism. The discussion highlights the historic relationship between aesthetics and totalitarianism, noting how regimes like those of Hitler and Mussolini manipulated art for their ends, while also repressing dissenting voices. Ultimately, Lavin emphasizes the aesthetic component of contemporary politics, especially in Trumpism.
Those who haven't anything in them to tell them what they like and what they don't...go Nazi, Thompson wrote.
Lavins idea of Who Goes Maga highlights a disconnect between power and beauty, contrasting those drawn to aesthetics with authoritarian impulses.
Fascists and authoritarians are deeply aware of the ability of art to propagate ideas or oppose them.
Trumpism, too, has an aesthetic.
Collection
[
|
...
]