We need to de-groyperify our government.
Groypers and racists run the government. What are we supposed to do about that?
Governor Mario Cuomo’s political maxim―“You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose”―has fallen on some hard times. Notwithstanding Trump’s unique talent for aphorisms (there are many such cases), he and the “bad hombres” in his administration campaign in racist doggerel and govern in social media screed. They’re deathly allergic to the kind of propriety expected of the holders of high office. The only veneer this gang of disreputable thugs cares for is gold leaf―gilded, ideally, around Trump’s new ballroom.
Trump’s dominance fuels and is fueled by an upswell of a cohort of chronically online, mostly male, and antisemitic white supremacists whom we now call “groypers.” The term originates with followers of Nick Fuentes, a fascist firebrand who thinks Republicans have been too soft with their power (and too close to Israel): “My problem with Trump is that he is not Hitler.” But “groypers” and “groyperification” can now broadly be applied to describe contemporary white supremacist upswells which metastasized online and have since broken containment. They raided the halls of power on January 6, 2021, then received desk assignments there last year. Even President Trump can no longer simply disavow them when they exceed his disregard for propriety. The United States increasingly appears a government of the groypers, by the groypers, for the groypers.
Our latest issue seeks to make sense of what we’re supposed to do about groypers. Not only will they remain in power for a while longer, but―both online and “afk”―they are driving the cynical, irony-poisoned discursive culture that we’re reacting to and fighting against. Our latest issue seeks to make sense of what we’re supposed to do about this fact.
Our three writers tackle this admittedly challenging question in highly divergent ways. Djezson kid exhorts Democrats to “de-groyperify” government immediately upon reclaiming power―and to signal their no-tolerance policy well in advance. Susa explains how, in the meantime, states can craft online user rights laws to protect citizens from groyper cyberbullying. Finally, the candle of arras explores how our political feelings bleed into our interpersonal relationships and how to harness those feelings more productively. We effete woke soylibs cannot afford to be complacent: We must make better social and political commitments today, drive harm reduction tomorrow, and, of course, win our next elections to lock these sleazebags out of power.
Groypers and racists run the government. What are we supposed to do about that?
I. djezson kid
There has been so much gaslighting about the January 6th insurrection that it is truly hard to remember what the moment felt like. But I don’t forget. I remember the broad outrage and disbelief. I remember Republicans from Mitch McConnell to Ted Cruz to Chip Roy to Marco Rubio to Kevin McCarthy condemning the insurrection and President Trump’s encouragement of it. I remember how Americans across the political spectrum expressed near-universal disgust and a desire to see President Trump impeached.
And I remember how Democrats waited. The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives waited a week to impeach. Then, Democrats waited more than two weeks after assuming Senate control to conduct the impeachment trial. With public opinion already re-calcifying along party lines, the impeachment vote failed. Then, Democrats waited again. Merrick Garland waited nearly a year to ramp up the DOJ’s criminal investigation into President Trump. Slowly―and then, all of a sudden―any attempt to hold Donald Trump accountable for the worst attack on American democracy since the Civil War seemed like a partisan attack on a political foe. With that victimhood narrative as a backdrop, Donald Trump was elected to a second-term in office, and he installed groypers, racists, and fascists into the highest ranks of his administration.
Why waste time going into this? Because, if Democrats take back the presidency in 2028, they cannot wait. They need to send a message to the groypers running our government―and, more broadly, to the American people―that every illegal, anti-democratic action taken in the name of the American people will have consequences. All the plundering, the profiteering, the data-stealing, the human rights abuses, the illegal wars, the flagrant ethical violations, the racist tweets pumping out white supremacist propaganda―when Democrats take power, anyone and everyone officially engaged in any of it must be brought to justice. Those who perpetrated these injustices, and everyone else who enabled them, need to get the message: this shit won’t ever fly again.
On Day One, we need to de-groyperify our government to make it so deeply shameful to have been an official member of the Trump-Vance regime that former officials are afraid to admit their involvement. If we miss that moment, or skip that step, we will be condemning ourselves to the same fate Democrats faced after January 6th: pursuing a fine, even commendable policy agenda that in no way turns back the tide of American fascism.
We cannot rebuild democracy and state capacity in the face of a deeply cynical public by going straight to technical fixes (as marshmallow fluff argued in these pages a few weeks ago). We need to follow Peter Magyar’s example. Only then will Americans even start to regain trust in government―that it works for all of us, and not just for the elites. And only when that happens can we move forward.
So what can we do now? Right now groypers, racists, and fascists do run the government. There is no time machine or secret procedural maneuver that can change that. We must engage in harm reduction, do everything we can to win in 2028, and plan for the moment we take power. And, when we do, we cannot waste a moment to seek accountability.
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II. Susa
The groypers and racists running the US government do little to curb cyberbullying and online harassment—probably because they are the cyberbullies. When they’re not busy accosting people or doxxing them, they harass political opponents, journalists, children, and even the Pope online. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance have permitted, even incited, harassment campaigns against their critics. President Trump’s targeting has become so repeated, odious, and impactful that one researcher coined the term “presidential cyberbullying” to describe the level of harm that can occur when someone is harassed by the President of the United States.
Our rights as internet users are at the mercy of bullies in the White House. What does a robust framework for user rights, emphasizing user safety, autonomy, and privacy, look like?
The European Union offers a potential model: Its Digital Services Act (DSA) not only guarantees EU users the right to report unlawful content and demand action from platforms, but requires reasonable transparency from tech companies about their content moderation practices. This is exemplified by the EU’s infamous annual Transparency Report. Though agonizing to compile, many tech workers agree that this report is a critical pillar for effective tech regulation and digital democracy. DSA is an imperfect but thoughtful start to strengthening digital rights for EU citizens. There’s a reason why it’s often considered the global gold standard.
But American regulators should not seek to create a replica of the EU’s DSA as their remedy. Enduring differences between Americans and Europeans’ interpretations of how “illegal speech” like hate speech ought to be handled makes the DSA template unappealing to most US regulators. Additionally, the current political climate is not conducive to good-faith lawmaking that a behemoth internet regulation requires. 1Polarized environments are hostile to the nuance, negotiations, and expertise needed to draft a comprehensive federal online safety law. Having racist bullies in the White House who thrive off online conflict certainly does not help.
In the absence of federal action that can protect US user rights (from their own politicians), state governments can still create wide-reaching online safety acts rooted in user rights. This is for two key reasons:
First, federal online safety laws are almost solely interested in children and tech-facilitated gender-based violence. The US’s four federal online safety laws almost exclusively focus on children’s rights (COPPA, KOSA), sex trafficking (FOSTA-SESTA), and non-consensual intimate image abuse (TAKE IT DOWN Act); the latter two combat sexual crimes that disproportionately impact women and girls. However, these laws aren’t centered on user rights: COPPA and KOSA, for instance, focus less on protecting impacted users (children), and more on strengthening protection-via-authority (e.g., increasing parental controls).
Second, there is already precedent for state governments to design and implement user rights regulations. The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) of 2018 guarantees a bevy of rights, such as a user’s right to delete personal information collected from them. Even if the CCPA isn’t explicitly framed as an “online safety” law, it demonstrates state governments’ will and capacity to address user rights issues outside of child safety and sexual crimes.
User rights in the digital age are human rights. If advocates are serious about introducing a comprehensive and user-centered online safety bill, they should consider state governments as the most viable starting points. As new harms emerge and their consequences compound, we cannot in good conscience look to the current cyberbullying administration for guidance.
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III. the candle of arras
Despite the obsessive commentary of culture desks across the world (online most of all), I have thought about right-wing men’s influencer Clavicular for a grand total of probably five minutes. For all of critics’ genuinely fascinating insights into his dysphoric ideal of contemporary masculinity and his violent adherence to commodity fetishism, as a social media personality, he remains functionally unreal to me—a guy who gamed an algorithm just so I can get mad at him.
Culture wars are not unimportant, or even uninteresting. But they risk equating personal passions with political urgency. Of course, there is no separating the personal from the political; we are interpellated by political systems—schools, workplaces, government institutions, social norms—that remain outside our own control. But, just as people are never just individuals, they are also not the social and political groups that they identify with. Our relationships are historically situated not only in that they are informed by sociocultural conditions,2 but also in that people will always meet each other in infinitesimally particular circumstances.
The goal is not to extricate the personal from the political, but to recognize the contradiction between political rectitude and relational complexity. Politics is founded upon relations between political actors; it is, therefore, prone to all the problems of personal relationships: projection, misinterpretation, ressentiment. Much of our politics―the fascism, the white supremacy, the groypers―is deserving of our hate. But I wonder how productive it is to channel these emotional currents into parasocial relationships, as opposed to personal ones. When political discourse is dominated by the cathexis3 of obviously despicable targets, the libidinal satisfaction of dunking on one’s foes can take the place of actually working towards progressive futures.
Talking shit about the president performs a completely different psychic function than talking politics with your family. For many people, it’s not exactly true that social media is not real life, but the relationship between them is negotiable. Do I want to be in society with Clavicular? Do I care about him? No. What I care about—the only means by which he may extend any influence over me—are the beliefs, actions, and behaviors of the people I do interact with in my life: perhaps my brother, my friend, the person who holds the elevator door open. But these relationships are always going to be particular, inflected by the painful contradictions of personal feeling; they will never be a space for the pure political righteousness that I can easily espouse towards a men’s rights influencer.4
That’s hard, and less satisfying. But interpersonal conflict is how people work out their ideals, how they practice their beliefs. That these people can speak back to you—that they can change you—is for the better. Hating Elon Musk and recognizing his beliefs as foolish and hypocritical hasn’t prevented him from ruining the world, but maybe organizing tech workers and convincing your parents not to generate ChatGPT poetry will. In the end, as in couples therapy, you have to answer the question: Do you want to stay mad, or do you want to stay together?
Our next issue will be published on June 24.
If you have thoughts, please respond below or send us a letter to the editor at caravanserai.forum [at] gmail [dot] com.
For instance, Rep. Jim Jordan’s continued insistence that tech companies deliberately target right-wing voices has thoroughly politicized conversation about content moderation and online harm reduction in Congress.
That right-wing influencers contribute to.
The investment of psychic significance into a person, object, or idea.
This tension between the personal and the political lies at the heart of Vivian Gornick’s wonderful book, The Romance of American Communism, which reads the history of American communist politics in the United States through a psychoanalytic and affective lens. As one of her interviewees tells her, “The Party was down on Freud, but in the Bronx, we said, ‘Yeah, yeah, but your mother’s important anyway.’”