All right. Trump's continued use of "invisible enemy" means we have to have a conversation about American conspiracy theories and how they're used to protect white male supremacy.

Here's what I learned researching my new book AMERICAN RULE.

1/ https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/611439/american-rule-by-jared-yates-sexton/

The first thing you have to understand about conspiracy theories and political manipulation in America is that they are explicitly projections of what white male supremacy does to protect its own power and are used to deflect from those manipulations.

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What you need to know is that the New World Order, Deep State, and Qanon conspiracy theories are all evolutions and retellings of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion conspiracy theory that posits that Jewish interests are attempting to control the world.

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But here's the thing. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion documents are actually forgeries and plagarisms of a play about how WHITE PEOPLE control the world through manipulations and lies.

It's all deflection and projection.

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Now, the anti-semetic protocols conspiracy theory was made most popular in America by automobile mogul Henry Ford, who was duped into believing the myth during WWI. He used his wealth and influence to peddle it throughout America and then the world.

Including...Germany.

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Henry Ford's pushing of anti-semetic propaganda was embraced by Hitler himself, who kept a portrait of Ford in his office and expressed repeatedly his desire for Ford to become a fuehrer in the United States, possibly with Hitler's help.

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Here's something we need to understand about Nazi Germany: the Jewish conspiracy myth of control by manipulation is exactly what Hitler wanted to do himself.

He used this myth as a means to justify his own anti-democratic, fascist manipulation. Which is what conspiracies do.

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White supremacist cultures which control society through manipulation and surreptitious means ALWAYS blame conspiracy theories for the necessity to do it, meaning they use myths and lies about conspiracies to hide their own conspiracies.

This has played out over and over.

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The jump from the Third Reich to American conspiracies doesn't end there. The idea of "shadowy influences" directing events and attacking institutions is a pillar of the American Right's philosophy and political/cultural strategy.

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Anyone who follows my work is aware of the Cult of the Shining City, the Right Wing, hypercapitalistic, alternate reality created by Neo-Confederate preacher Jerry Falwell and Ronald Reagan.

This cult is based, like all others, on poisonous paranoid conspiracies.

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In the case of the American Right, a mixture of white-identity evangelicals and hypcapitalistic idolatry, the myth is that the biblical Satan (often a stand-in for the anti-semetic figure) is manipulating minorities, the poor, and the rest of the world against America.

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This conspiracy theory comes together in what we now know as The New World Order. It gained its form as globalism shaped the world in the post-Cold War era and as the complexities of the market grew so complicated that it was nearly impossible to explain our economy.

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As market forces directed American lives and Americans felt more out of control, evangelicals were told that sinister, evil world forces were aligning against us even while Republicans directed a new global economy that hurt their own voters.

Again. It was misdirection

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Republicans used inherent anti-semetism and evangelical paranoia to craft the satanic New World Order conspiracy to deflect their own embrace and idolatry of free-market forces over the fates of people.

Pat Robertson was one of the main salesman in this effort.

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The New World Order conspiracy theory was this: America was God's chosen country and any economic problems or military problems or difficulties were caused by Satan, evil shadowy forces, manipulations by satanic leaders, and traitors. They were assaults on God.

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Here's the thing: in all of these conspiracies. Protocols, New World Order, Deep State, Qanon. The traitors are the same people.

"Globalists." Women. LGBTQ Americans. People of color. The poor.

Everyone besides white, wealthy men.

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This myth of the New World Order found purchase, and in large part because of the NRA, who used the paranoia to build an empire of fear and sell more and more guns.

They embraced militias dedicated to fighting the NWO, they pushed propaganda about infiltration.

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Seeing room to grow, Republicans began using the same language as the NRA and partnered with them on several initiatives built around NWO/conspiracy theory paranoia.

They chose to use this fear to build their base and deflect from their own economic policies.

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In short, the New World Order conspiracy theory is a simplification and deflection of the economics of globalism. It takes the blame from free market, exploitative ideas that are impossible to explain and projects them on shadowy cabals and satanic conspiracies.

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There are dangers of peddling this paranoia. Not only the explosion of guns, but white-identity militias and paramilitary groups that buy into the conspiracy theories, Republican manipulation, and NRA exploitation.

They are real. They are armed. And they are dangerous.

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Timothy McVeigh was one of the believers in these conspiracy theories. When he blew up the federal building, killing hundreds, he believed he was fighting the New World Order and was an active soldier in an invisible war for white supremacy.

That's the truth.

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More recently was Dylann Roof, who also believed he was a soldier in an invisible war and was lashing out against a conspiracy against whites.

So many of the mass shooters are lost in this reality and the death count grows and grows.

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Now.

With Trump, the "invisible enemy" garbage is about signaling that he's a warrior against a conspiracy. As he lays out, it's China, it's liberals, it's the media, it's everyone but him.

That's what's happening and what we're watching.

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When Trump says "invisible enemy," he's not just saying it on accident. It, like so much of his rhetoric, is a symbol that reinforces the idea of an invisible war where he must be trusted without question against conspiracies meant to destroy America.

It's more deflection.

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Again. When they talk about conspiracies, it's always forces that threaten patriarchal white supremacy.

Connect the dots.

It's about tapping into racist paranoia and fear among white voters, particularly the evangelical members of the Cult of the Shining City.

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Unfortunately, this is how authoritarians rule, by blaming conspiracies for their power grabs.

This is how Putin and Trump interconnect, how the fates of Russia and America intersect. The fables of white supremacy and the fears of it collapsing because of conspiracies.

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It is the battleplan of oligarchial criminals like Putin and Trump to use faux-populism tinged with conspiracy theories and white-identity fragility to marshal the very people they're killing and thieving from.

This is the blueprint. And it always has been.

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Conspiracy theories aren't just conspiracy theories.

They're windows into autocratic manipulation and what levers authoritarians use to control and subdue societies.

What we're watching now, in America, is the usage of fragile white supremacy to destroy our country.

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Postscript: the antidote to all of this is education, examination of our economy and the world order to understand what’s happening in order to counteract ignorance and projection, and the rejection of authoritarians who use conspiracy theories for their own benefit.

Post-postscript: When Trump blames an "invisible enemy," he's deflecting from everything he's done wrong, portraying himself as a general against a larger threat. Like other white supremacists, he's blaming his failures and betting his power on stoking inherent paranoia.