“One of my teachers at Columbia was Joseph Brodsky…and he said ‘look,’ he said, ‘you Americans, you are so naïve. You think evil is going to come into your houses wearing big black boots. It doesn’t come like that. Look at the language. It begins in the language.'” – Marie Howe
In the latest example of his dangerous extremism, J.D. Vance has enthusiastically promoted a book that uses genocidal language to stoke hatred toward both liberals and progressives.
Unhumans, by right-wing conspiracy theorists Jack Posobiec and Joshua Lisec, offers a sinister thesis: Progressive-minded Americans are not humans. Instead, they are “communists.” In turn, the authors define communists as bloodthirsty “unhumans” hellbent on the destruction of civilization.
Right-wingers, they write, must stop these unhumans with a policy of “exact reciprocity.” This means doing exactly to these so-called unhumans what the authors claim the unhumans are planning to do to them.
The 283-page screed reads like an effort to incite a civil war. It strains to create a sense of urgent terror in its readers. On nearly every page, it demonizes and dehumanizes “the left”– a vaguely defined group that apparently includes journalists (“the unhuman-occupied media”) and people who believe in things like diversity, equity, social justice and the rule of law. The definition is so broad that it seems most Democrats would qualify as unhumans.
“You’ll notice throughout this book the persistent, perennial unhuman obsession with clichéd sociopolitical objectives like ‘fairness’ and ‘equality,'” the authors write. “I am equal to you, the have-nots always say to the haves.”
Apparently, any American concerned with equality and fairness also qualifies as unhuman. After all, the authors say, unhumans are everywhere:
You may already be a subject of unhumans. You are employed by unhumans. You are married to . . . you get it. You know. There’s nowhere for you to run or to hide.
Unhumans is a deranged and sloppy hate sermon. But J.D. Vance considers it an essential guide.
“In the past, communists marched in the streets waving red flags,” he wrote in a promotional blurb. “Today, they march through H.R., college campuses and courtrooms to wage lawfare against good, honest people. Jack Posobiec and Joshua Lisec reveal their plans and show us what to do to fight back.”
With these words, Vance endorses a dangerous new flavor of extremist hate.
The language of genocide
Unhumans is not a scholarly work. It is a twisted political incantation designed to inspire hatred and terror. It seeks to influence weak minds by framing the political stakes in horrifying and violent terms. It grooms Republicans for civil war and, quite possibly, something far worse.
The book roots its thesis in the language of genocide. It strips its targets of their humanity, framing them as evil monsters with an unquenchable thirst for murder and mayhem. The supposed motivation for this alleged villainy is never clearly stated. Apparently, it stems from a basic desire to create widespread unhappiness. The possibility of demonic possession is also raised.
Unhumans creates a stark “us” vs. “them” mentality. It then incites action against its targets. Writing in Current Affairs, Nathan J. Robinson described the book as “a fascist manifesto”:
It argues that the ‘Great Men of History’ should take their cues from homicidal dictators like Augusto Pinochet and Francisco Franco, reject reason and democracy, and ruthlessly annihilate the gangs of communist ‘unhumans’ who are currently threatening to destroy the United States.
Rebranding liberals and/or progressives as unhumans is the main goal of the book, and such dehumanizing language has often preceded genocidal behavior.
In Rwanda, the Hutus systematically stripped the Tutsis of their human identity by calling them “cockroaches” and “snakes” long before the massacres began. The Nazis did the same in Germany, depicting Jews as demons and vultures.
“Students of 20th century history will also recognize this pattern of dehumanizing language in the lead-up to the genocide committed by the Turks against Armenians, where Armenians were ‘dangerous microbes,'” wrote William A. Donohue, a communications professor at Michigan State University, in 2019. “During the the Holocaust, Germans described Jews as ‘Untermenschen,’ or subhumans.”
Name-calling is hardly a new trend in American politics. But the adoption of overtly genocidal language is a dangerous escalation. Creating an “out” group to persecute and punish is also a hallmark of fascism. And when you strip your opponents of their very humanity, you can justify any action taken against them.
“When we see people as less than human, as monsters, it feels less wrong to do horrible things to them,” wrote Robinson, who interviewed philosopher David Livingstone Smith, an expert on dehumanization. “This is a seemingly obvious point, but Smith argues that it’s not obvious, because perfectly normal, moral people don’t notice themselves doing it. Dehumanization is, Smith argues, one of the most dangerous tendencies there is, because of what it implicitly licenses.”
By endorsing Unhumans, J.D. Vance – who could soon be a heartbeat away from the presidency – explicitly promotes the tactic of dehumanization.
‘This is what they do’
Lisec, who co-authored the book, appears to be crumbling in the face of criticism. In a statement to Robinson, Lisec accused “non-conservative media” of twisting the book’s meaning. He falsely denied that Vance has endorsed the book. He also claimed that the book takes aim only at communists and “dehumanizers on the Far Left.”
“Nowhere does anyone call progressives unhuman,” said Lisec.
Such gaslighting is a common tactic on the far right. They deny what they are saying even as they plainly say it. Often, they add a conscious layer of irony or sarcasm to their ideas. This allows them to claim that their critics have simply misinterpreted a “joke.”
The Unhumans equation
Unhumans is devoid of humor. It uses a different mechanism to create a thin layer of pretend deniability:
It summarizes bloody revolutions of the past – the French Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, the Bolshevik Revolution, China’s Communist revolutions, etc. Simultaneously, it builds a false equation: Communists = liberals/progressives.
The book is one long, drawn-out syllogism: Communists talked about creating equality and improving society. Communists were bloodthirsty killers. Liberals talk about creating equality and improving society. Therefore, liberals/progressives are bloodthirsty communist killers. The authors drive home the point by repeating one short phrase: “This is what they do.”
Using guillotines to turn the streets of Paris into rivers of aristocrat blood? This is what they do. Killing millions of political enemies as the Soviets did? This is what they do. Stripping land and property away from citizens and then shipping them off to death camps? This is what they do. Using lawsuits to challenge discrimination, engaging in protests against police abuse or supporting immigrant rights? This is what they do. The phrase appears in the book at least 48 times, its constant repetition establishing the basic claim:
Communist = Liberal/Progressive = Unhuman.
In this way, the Starbucks-sipping, NPR-listening Biden voter who supports diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs and equal rights somehow becomes the moral equivalent of a Joseph Stalin or Pol Pot. The #MeToo movement and George Floyd protests become not-so-distant relatives of Soviet massacres and Khmer Rouge killing fields.
“Communist” has long been a scare word used by the far-right to attack everyone from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Kamala D. Harris (“Kamala is quite literally a communist,” declared Elon Musk as I was finishing this piece). But Unhumans escalates this tactic in a disturbing way. It suggests that millions of Americans are in danger of being massacred by sub-human monsters.
And it urges them to act accordingly.
This goes beyond mere speech. Unhumans is a speech act designed to convince right-wingers that their political opponents are a dangerous other species, one that poses a deadly threat.
‘Exact reciprocity’
Strangely, after ramping up the paranoia, hate and dehumanization to feverish levels, Unhumans suddenly appears to de-escalate. Having created a scenario in which civilization is threatened by holocaust-hungry unhumans … the authors offer an uncharacteristically toned-down solution.
They encourage readers to resist unhumans wherever they encounter them. They are urged to infiltrate organizations and work actively to thwart unhuman goals. They are implored separate themselves from unhumans, but also to engage in public ridicule and shame and lawsuits against them:
So mock the unhumans. Humiliate the unhumans. Ridicule the unhumans. Disgrace, debase, and deride the unhumans. Put the unhumans to shame. Tease and taunt and parody the unhumans. Scorn, scoff, and sneer.
The authors also implore “great men” (like Musk) to fund the fight against the unhuman threat. In fact, they lick Musk’s boots so often that I have to wonder whether he is already funding their efforts … or whether this screed is just one long pitch to him.
Early on, the authors state that the only solution for unhumans is to treat them with exact reciprocity. They specifically cite the “eye for an eye” doctrine of Hammurabi’s code. The violent implications seem clear. Logically speaking, exact reciprocity against an enemy depicted as a demonic murder machine would entail demonically murdering said enemy. Much of the book uses war metaphors to describe the necessary response, as in this section from its final pages:
In gray zone warfare, there is no distinction between civilian and combatant. You know this in theory. And now, we are asking you to accept it in practice. We are asking you to become a combatant. Because you already are.
But the authors hedge their language one paragraph later:
Everything we have said in this book will be twisted out of context by our unhuman enemies. This is what they do. They will of course leave out the part we’ll say next. We will say it anyway because it is the right thing to do.
Unhumans rob and kill. We do not. Illegal and harmful acts to further any political cause should be condemned totally. We do. Thus, all commentary of ours should be interpreted in the spirit of law and order.
This is an extremely weird – but also necessary – disclaimer. After all, most of the book terrifies readers into believing their lives are imminently at risk. Only on page 276 do they learn that ridicule and lawfare, rather than revolution and warfare, are the proper remedy for their demonic unhuman overlords.
Vance, Trump, Hitler
In an earlier era, Vance’s decision to blurb this book might have ended his political career. But his extremism is a feature, not a bug, of his political rise.
Last month, I wrote about his connection to Curtis Yarvin, an extremist who has suggested turning the underclass into “biodiesel” and who believes dictatorships should replace democracy. In April, I wrote about Balaji Srinivasan, the former chief technology officer of Coinbase who has called for Democrats (“Blues”) to be purged from San Francisco in a process he likens to “De-Nazification” or “De-Baathification.”
Vance has used these exact terms – De-Nazification and De-Baathification – to describe what should happen to the government under a second Trump administration. With Vance, Trump has tied his fate to a man who is part of an extremist authoritarian vanguard that deliberately uses the language of dehumanization, ethnic cleansing and genocide to describe its political beliefs.
Of course, Trump has been using such language for years.
“We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections,” he said last year. “They’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American Dream…Our threat is from within.”
How far would Trump-Vance go to destroy their opponents and seize power? Let’s not find out.
Before he decided to become Trump’s biggest supporter, Vance infamously compared him to Adolf Hitler. After reading Unhumans, I am left wondering whether he meant this as a compliment.
This article first appeared in The Nerd Reich
Art (50) Book Review (109) Books (112) Capitalism (65) China (77) Climate Emergency (97) Conservative Government (90) Conservative Party (45) COVID-19 (44) Economics (37) EcoSocialism (50) Elections (82) Europe (44) Fascism (54) Film (48) Film Review (61) France (68) Gaza (59) Imperialism (97) Israel (117) Italy (44) Keir Starmer (51) Labour Party (110) Long Read (42) Marxism (47) Palestine (139) pandemic (78) Protest (146) Russia (324) Solidarity (126) Statement (46) Trade Unionism (133) Ukraine (326) United States of America (124) War (360)