Memes for Zombies

Destroying civilization one stupid meme at a time.

The first thing a man will do for his ideals is lie. —Joseph Schumpeter

To apply reason, truth, and history to every stupid meme that comes your way is to tilt at windmills. Yet generations of zombie hordes are being educated by their smartphones. Or is it that their smartphones are turning them into zombies?

Take this illustrative example:

It’s stunning to realize just how much ignorance (or willful distortion) can be packed into a single image.

But let’s unpack it.

First, it's unclear whether Jon Cooper created this or is merely sharing it. But Mr. Cooper signals his approval, including the idea that, in his own infected mind, matters are “simple really.”

But to what does “it“ refer? And is “it” simple in terms of its supposed moral clarity? Historical accuracy? Rhetorical vagueness?

I suspect Mr. Cooper relies on vagueness at least. One can only surmise Mr. Cooper approves of the meme, perhaps because he knows the credulous hordes on Bluesky will fill in all the blanks with their biases and untutored narratives.

But honestly, this is indeed “Fascism for Dummies.”

Here’s why.

Hitler Was Not a Fascist, Exactly

Giovanni Gentile is the intellectual progenitor of Fascism. His work inspired Benito Mussolini, who adopted Gentile’s philosophy and implemented it as a strongman.

Here is Gentile’s most concise definition of the doctrine:

Anti-individualistic, the Fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal will of man as a historic entity. It is opposed to classical liberalism which arose as a reaction to absolutism and exhausted its historical function when the State became the expression of the conscience and will of the people. Liberalism denied the State in the name of the individual; Fascism reasserts the rights of the State as expressing the real essence of the individual.

This is clearly Hegelian: Absolutism —> <— Liberalism ~ Fascism.

There is nothing in Gentile’s work about racial purity or the Jews being a problem. And it wasn’t until late in Mussolini’s reign that he ever spoke disapprovingly of other races, likely to align more closely with Hitler.

Mussolini said, “Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”

Fascism was and is a program of economic nationalism, which sought to revive the spirit of Roman imperialism.

By contrast, national socialism was, as the name indicates, nationalism plus socialism with a heaping helping of racial purity.

Here’s Hitler:

We chose to call ourselves National Socialists. We are not Internationalists. Our Socialism is national. We demand the fulfillment of the just demands of the productive classes by the state on the basis of race solidarity. To us state and race are one.

Of course, there are overlapping features of Nazism and Fascism, such as nationalism. Both stop short of Marxism, where the worker is meant to seize the means of production. Nazism and Fascism sought to direct private industry to the state authorities’ ends.

But it is somewhat inaccurate to refer to Hitler as a Fascist, or a “Fa” in this case, just as it would be inaccurate to refer to Mussolini as a Nazi, or a “Na.” One might credibly argue that Nazism is a species of the genus fascism (lower case), especially given that the early opposition to the Nazis, Antifaschistische Aktion, was responding to specific conditions in Germany.

Still, making Hitler the face of Fa is a propagandistic sleight of hand designed to give Fa the face of ultimate evil and Antifa the face of ultimate good.

And that’s where matters get really problematic for Jon Cooper and his meme.

FDR was Pretty Damn Fascist

I realize this is going to rub up against America’s prevailing civil mythology, you know, the kind of things you read in your social studies book as a kid.

But we have to be honest.

First, let’s pay attention to FDR’s own words:

I am much interested and deeply impressed by what [Mussolini] has accomplished and by his evidenced honest purpose of restoring Italy.

And,

I don’t mind telling you in confidence that I am keeping in fairly close touch with that admirable Italian gentleman.

This admiration was mutual, as Mussolini wrote in praise of Roosevelt’s New Deal reforms:

Reminiscent of Fascism is the principle that the state no longer leaves the economy to its own devices. … Without question, the mood accompanying this sea change resembles that of Fascism.

Of course, less than a decade later, FDR would end up, grudgingly, in a war against the man he once admired.

But the war, and only the war, would make FDR “Anti-fa” in an adversarial sense compared to Mussolini. But Mussolini is not pictured in Jon Cooper’s meme. Even though Mussolini was the true Fascist, and FDR was fascist-lite, their opposition grew out of war alignments more than ideological opposition.

But a meme’s a meme.

What’s sadder still, though perhaps unavoidable: America’s war effort meant that the United States created a military-industrial complex that can only reasonably be described as Corporatist (aka fascist), “because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”

I will pass over the inconvenient truths that the Roosevelt Administration not only turned away Jews fleeing Nazism, but also put Japanese Americans in internment camps.

But that ain’t all.

Antifa is (and was) Anarcho-Communist

The black-clad agitators in balaclavas with their Molotov cocktails bear little resemblance to FDR. To the extent that these nihilists have a coherent philosophy, it would be more like syndicalism, which is a form of anarcho-communism. Historically, Antifa,

• Supported revolutionary Marxism-Leninism

• Opposed fascism, nazism, and social democracy

• Was bent on establishing a communist society

So, one wonders what Mr. Cooper is doing with this meme.

Is he trying to portray violent rioters more favorably through the civil mythology of FDR? Or is he trying to put everything in the world into a simple binary of Fa/Antifa so that anyone who opposes Antifa should be considered evil?

Sure, FDR ended up in a coalition with the Soviets during WWII. And it is also true that Rex Tugwell and others in the *brain trust* admired the Soviets, too. But FDR was not a communist or a syndicalist. Nor would Antifasciste Aktion have approved of FDR’s economic model, which was much closer to fascism.

So, yes, we can agree that FDR found himself in a war with fascists. But prior to entering the war, FDR admired Mussolini and employed fascist-corporatist means during the New Deal. Then, after the war, he presided over an unprecedented restructuring of the US economy that, under any credible definition—i.e., state-directed corporations—is fascist.

This is what war does to economies.

But what does meme war do to society?

Zombification

Is there any wonder that people shout the F-word at just about anything these days? A zombie army is being educated, inculcated, and indoctrinated through their smartphones.

I had the misfortune of encountering Jon Cooper’s meme on Facebook, which I rarely visit anymore, because it seems to be filled with this sort of thing. Most unwisely, I objected to the meme in someone’s comments, only to have the zombie army attack me.

One guy even threatened me:

“You are talking out your ass about something you don’t know a goddamn thing about. Shut the fuck up, before someone like me makes you shut up for good.”

For good. I see.

So when the media handmaidens were talking about how partisan talking points could be “stochastic terrorist,” they were not only telling the truth, they were revealing their strategy.

They know that zombie memetics works.

1. Simplify the intricate, complex world and its history through the use of blurring and distortion.

2. Be a memetic Manichaean, making the relevant teams ultimate Evil vs. Good.

3. Make yourself and the zombies on team Good, of course. Everyone else is on team Evil.

4. Imply that whenever you can take out ultimate Evil, take the shot, but never say so out loud. (If you could have gotten Hitler, would you have?)

A small subset of stochastic terror cells will become activated. After all, Antifa is the ultimate Good. It’s simple, really.

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After finishing 95 percent of this article, I realized I had no idea who Jon Cooper is. So I looked him up. His bio reads.

Democratic strategist. Formerly Long Island Campaign Chair for Barack Obama; Majority Leader of the Suffolk County Legislature. Gay dad of five terrific kids. Writer and producer of echoesoftheunknownpodcast.com. Coffee addict. New York/Florida.

Cooper has more than half a million followers.