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In the era of President Donald J. Trump, a strange warped reality has enveloped us into a world of terrifying executive orders, fictive events touted as fact and a flow of scandals that just dont seem to stop. The first few weeks of the administration have been both exhausting and horrifying for all of us who are subject to U.S. governmentprocesses, like the court system, being challenged by an administration simply in favor of legitimizing its own power and voice. The processes that sanctify and solidify the U.S. secular, liberal hegemony are being penetrated by an alt-right. The alt-right consolidation of power is not a visible movement that people can pinpoint on the streets. While its no longer in the form of a KKK rally, the alt-right has consolidated its power through what seems convincingly similar to a passive revolution.

In Neo-Gramscian terms, Cihan Ziya Tugal, an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, classifies the passive revolution as an incorporation of revolutionary movements (the alt-right) in existing systems (U.S. liberal democracy). This transformation mainly consisted of bourgeois empowerment without popular participation and economic loss of privilege for the aristocracy without its total extinction." A passive revolution is distinct because in this case, the conservative right from the Tea Party to the pro-life movement have expanded their networks in civil society. The proliferation of organizations and social networks that regulate everyday life, or civil society, has generated the means for a formidable and politically organized base. Trumps process of delegitimization of the liberal order made up of institutions, to which people consent, exercises a reinforcement of his own domination. If we consider civil society as an arena of organizational networks that can be mobilized by political society and ultimately the state, the president's close ties with alt-right organizers, like Bannon, engenders the links between civil society and the state. His rise to power elicits an unlinking of liberal forces and the state and relinks the state with the alt-right political movement, is in line with the traits of a passive revolution. Trump's presidency has affirmed the conservative right as a whole, particularly in its efforts for generating and supporting organizations that regulate American's relationships with the economy, society and the state, all in-line with conservative thought. What this entails is a difficult environment for access to abortions and contraceptives, and the expansion of undocumented peoples rights, among other civil liberties.

The passive revolution is not yet complete though we see the process of it unfolding before our eyes. The left must not only learn how to better read the signals and headlines of the minutebut read it in unison. With every "so-called judge" comment or executive order that circumvents Congress follows the political impetus for establishing an alt-right hegemony. In interpreting Trumps rise to power as a state that is day by day becoming more entrenched in the alt-right power bloc, those who oppose must find the common ground to fight its messaging. The mass protests in airports and on the streets becomeincreasingly necessary. Shows like "Saturday Night Live" (SNL) have become an increasingly important stage that not only undermines the administrations authority through skits and humorbut on a certain level displays its horror. "SNL" has been able to cut through and represent the absurdity of the administration in a way that the mainstream media has failed in communicating to the public. In our increasingly dystopian reality, the inverse result has manifested in comedians providing a more apt critique of current politics than the "so called" critics in the newsroom.

The "so called" prefix that renders the institution or position in question as fake requires the overwhelming response provoked, whichcalls into question the "so-called" presidents authority. I am not unable to admit that the alt-right is indeed a well-organized political movement with clear messaging, unity and social activity in its base. What they are able to do that is so extremely fundamental for the left to appropriate is the movements convincing promise to offer those living in precarity with a vision for a better future. The movement is not made up of one class of people, but Trump was able to mobilize the movement to its current height of influence by outlining a class struggle and offering the impoverished what the left failed to deliver to people in 2008. On the left, we must find a way to focus on an uplifting class message, one that can unify and offer an alternative to the fascism served daily. Perhaps this is in the form of organizing to reinvigorate the labor movement in solidarity with a myriad of race, sexuality and documented status issues, or perhaps it requires something new. Whatever this possibility entails, it is clear that it needs to happen faster than the alt-rights not-so-passive passive revolution.

Meryem Uzumcu is a School of Arts and Sciences senior majoring in planning and public policy, Middle Eastern studies and womens and gender studies. Her column, Fahrenheit 250, runs on alternate Tuesdays.

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UZUMCU: Alt-right's passive revolution is upon us - RU Daily Targum

Former Collingwood star Dane Swan: more comfortable with a Sherrin in his hand than he is in the company of Steve Price and alligators. Photograph: Michael Dodge/Getty Images

Those who derived a measure of schadenfreude from Collingwoods bumpy transition between the coaching reigns of Mick Malthouse and Nathan Buckley might also have appreciated the recent appearances on the Ten networks Im a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here (Sun-Thurs, 7:30pm) of Pies premiership star Dane Swan. If not, weve been watching it so you dont have to.

Free of the draconian strictures of professional sport, last week the former midfield ace sat blind-folded with two alligators snapping at his heels. The metaphorical properties of Swans time in the jungle have dwindled since, but last week we were genuinely absorbed by his role of go-between as radio shock jock Steve Price and the prone, slightly incomprehensible American actor Tom Arnold debated the topic of same sex marriage. There is a sentence you didnt expect to read in 2017.

Who would not vote for gay marriage? asked an exasperated Swan, somehow not knocked off his stride by Prices concerted effort to loosen the belt on his trousers at the precise moment the serious debate kicked off. I couldnt give a hoot. Its their lives, not anyone elses business. Its ridiculous in this day and age that two people cant get married to each other.

Swan spent so long bringing Australian rules football into disrepute that its hard not to find this unfolding scenario somewhat miraculous; somehow Ten have actually brought the footy hellraiser into repute. How the rest of us are meant to cope with the loss of one of lifes iron-clad certainties is anyones guess, but you suppose itll involve dung beetles or rhinoceros faeces. It always does on Im a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here.

With no bare skin left for tattoos, nor a football to kick about, Swans first foray into reality TV has mostly left him to sit and think possibly not his natural habitat and weve been impressed by the results. Perhaps the key to his newfound appeal, as opposed to the football panel shows in which his sarcastic shtick came across a bit charmless, is relative; hes literally sitting in a pile of dirt with a bunch of z-list celebrities who are just far more desperate and deranged than the millionaire footballer.

Thankfully, Tom Arnold and his ever-twitching mug were the first of the bunch voted off. Thatll happen when you hate even more stuff than Steve Price does. Elsewhere, and as ever with this show, the definition of celebrity has been given a far greater stretch than either of Swans hamstrings at any point of his former career.

The Brownlow medallist is the current favourite to win as per the success of sporting entrants Brendan Fevola and Freddie Flintoff in previous years. Next best bets: one-time Water Rats actor Jay Lagaaia and former Im-not-quite-sure-what Kris Smith. If you have the faintest idea who Smith is, even greater shame on you than me.

One thing we hope is that Im a Celebrity keeps providing some of the better sports-related headlines of the year. Our favourite so far: Dane Swan unsurprisingly is not well versed on alt-right politics, as told by the Daily Mail. Perhaps he was worried it was a reference to some new and incomprehensible zone defence system.

The poor bloke couldnt have looked more baffled as third man up in a contest between Price and Tziporah Malkah (formerly known as Kate Fisher). I was sittin on the edge of that log like Steve the Stooge, Swan later explained. I had no idea what they were talking about.

But ignorance can be bliss. Malkahs appraisal of the far-right political movement: They say things that everybody else is thinking. Like Pauline Hanson in a way. So youll see what Im getting at when I tell you, honest-to-god, Swan is the most likeable person on screen at all times. They said 2016 couldnt be topped as a year of sporting miracles. Were no longer so sure.

Sticking with, err, footy, tonight on Fox Footy (7:30pm), the AFL pre-season treadmill fires into action as Swans former Collingwood team-mates take on Essendon in the opening encounter of the AFL pre-season.

Renamed the JLT community series this year, its likely to answer time-old debates like: What is Scott Pendlebury doing with his hair this year? and Who is this new rookie lister on whom I will project all the frustrations of my life? Its a bit of a step down from Lady Gaga jumping off a stadium roof to Colin Garland taking the kick-outs on Casey Fields, but well be watching regardless.

Meanwhile, the A-League season is hurtling towards a rather one-sided finish. Last week Sydney FC sprinted away with a 3-0 win over Wellington to stretch their undefeated run to 19 games and this Saturday, in their Sydney derby against the Wanderers at ANZ Stadium (Fox Sports, 7:50pm), the Sky Blues task is unlikely to be much more onerous, with only two points separating their opponents from ninth-placed Central Coast Mariners.

One thing were not dead keen on is this idea of calling Graham Arnolds side The Invincibles, a moniker synonymous in Australia with Don Bradmans 1948 Ashes winners. Unless one of Arnolds men reveals himself an exponent of deck quoits to rival Loxton, Hassett or Lindwall, we think they can get their own label. Australian football has created a sub-committee for everything else, so there may as well be one for nicknames.

Rounding out the major sporting action on both Friday and Sunday, Australias cricketers play the first two of their three T20Is against Sri Lanka (Nine, 7:30pm), a slightly awkward scenario given the country is also about to undertake a Test tour of India. Overlapping commitments call for makeshift line-ups. Unlike Im a Celebrity, the misfortune here is when youre voted in.

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The box seat: Dane Swan's alt-right education and Sydney FC's Invincibles - The Guardian

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

The alt-right has apparently lost another battle. The alt-right is the racially preoccupied group that champions the cause of white nationalism. This time it was Yale University that beat them back.

There at Yale on Saturday President Peter Salovey and his colleagues on the Yale Corp. that is, the Yale board of trustees decided to rename John C. Calhoun College, a residential college named for the 19th century political theorist and statesman, the Grace Murray Hopper College. The reason for this name change is that Calhoun, a champion of Southern sectionalism and minority rights (as defined by him), has become known as a white supremacist by those who wear pussy hats or dress in black or participate in the nations current climate of rage. These malcontents also consider Woodrow Wilson, the 28th president of the United States, a white supremacist. And by the way, both men were white supremacists. They were other things, too. For instance, one was a Unitarian, though there is no record of his ever practicing aerobics, and the other was a Presbyterian. Doubtless Wilsons day of judgment at Princeton, where he was president, will come. Princeton named a whole school for him.

The Yale decision reversed a decision its leaders made last April when, braving demonstrators and gangs of historical illiterates, they decided to keep Calhouns name on the residential colleges building. Then President Salovey said rather perceptively that renaming the building could have the opposite effect of the one intended, because removing Calhouns name obscures the legacy of slavery rather than addressing it. Now the name of Hopper will replace it, and the historical record Calhoun represented will be a fading memory. Some day, thanks to the raging mob of ignoramuses, the history of slavery, of a tragic civil war, and the arguments of a brilliant but wrongheaded South Carolinian will be no more. New generations of wrongheaded theorists and proponents of romantic causes will replace Calhoun as they arise from the ether. Those who oppose them, much as the abolitionists and unionists opposed Calhoun, will not have his example to admonish against. It will be more difficult to objectify their warnings.

So on second thought, maybe the alt-right was not defeated at old Yale last week. Maybe their argument for fragmenting America into racially divided groups will be made easier by erasing the name of Calhoun from buildings and with it, erasing the lessons that can be learned from his example. Calhoun was, it should be added, a great man. He served as a representative and senator from South Carolina, the United States secretary of war, secretary of state, and seventh vice president. He is also generally accepted as one of the countrys greatest political theorists, though on slavery he was wrong. He argued for sectionalism, agrarianism, minority rights and free trade. Many good things, but he was wrong on other things, as Abraham Lincoln and thousands of casualties in our Civil War have attested.

Right now, Calhouns principle of nullification is being toyed with in California. These Californians are taking the first steps on the road to what Calhoun never lived long enough to see civil war. Today we who oppose nullification as we would have in the 1850s can point to Calhouns legacy of nullification as a legacy with consequences.

By the way, Calhoun was not the only defender of racial division in the country during his day. Americans from both north and south supported it, and even in the north slavery was practiced. Benjamin Franklin, whose name will adorn a new residential college at old Yale, owned slaves, as did Elihu Yale, the fellow for whom the whole university was named. Moreover, Elihu was a much more severe slave owner than the relatively humane Calhoun. Woodrow Wilson never owned slaves, though he readmitted racial segregation in our government and was, by all accounts, a staunch racist. He was also a Democratic icon.

Sometimes history is more complicated than the gals in the pussy hats and the guys dressed in black would ever dream it could be. And actually, who cares if they ever learn history or anything from their courses in anger management and rape prevention. But it is unfortunate that students at Yale or, of course, at Princeton will depart these ivied halls with only a superficial grasp of Herodotus or Gibbons or Henry Adams discipline. They might very well someday be condemned to relive the errors of our past.

R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. is editor in chief of The American Spectator. He is author of The Death of Liberalism, published by Thomas Nelson Inc.

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History's lessons unlearned - Washington Times

Theres a brand new podcast angling to be the go-to source for the white nationalist alt-right.

And like the broader alt-right movement, the three hosts of the Reactionary Report podcast lament what they see as the decline of whites in America, take aim at immigrants, blacks and Muslims and take special pleasure toying with anti-Semitic tropes.

Were going to be your new go to podcast for the alt-right, one host said on their inaugural episode. The pre-recoded intro to the podcast announces: Broadcasting from the right side of history.

In the most recent upload, a host known as Prince Hubris recounted a recent trip to New York, calling it Jew York, and described the city as not a good place which was full of non-whites. Hubris admired the subway system calling it a tram but felt uneasy.

The downside was feeling like the only white person in America, he said. The metropolitan areas have been taken from us.

The Reactionary Report, launched at the end of January, is the latest of a handful of alt-right podcasts that act as mouthpieces for the energized white nationalist movement. Recent subjects for discussion on Reactionary Report have included milk nationalism, Stephen Bannon, Donald Trumps Muslim ban and the constant stream of victories pouring fourth from the Trumpian Empire.

Alongside Prince Hubris, the other two hosts are known as Jared Tyler and Hetzer, who is sometimes also called the Hebrew heckler.

Prince Hubris is a member of Identity Evropa, a white nationalist group that conducts campus outreach and was recently in New York City to hold an anti-immigrant rally in Times Square and disrupt Trump protest art project in Queens

If the Reactionary Report hopes to become the go-to podcast for the alt-right, they will face stiff competition. The Daily Shoah, which helped popularize the anti-Semitic echoes meme triple parenthesis, ((()))), which signal Jews or perceive Jewish influence is likely the most popular alt-right podcast, though the podcast suffered a blow recently when it was revealed that one host had a Jewish wife.

Email Sam Kestenbaum at kestenbaum@forward.com and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum

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New White Nationalist Podcast Aims To Serve 'Alt-Right,' Anti-Semites - Forward

Media Matters for America

Russian Media And The American Alt-Right Movement Converge On Messaging Over Gen. Mike Flynn's Resignation Media Matters for America RT Reports Highlight Alt-Right Conspiracy Theorist Cernovich And WND Contributor Maloof Calling Flynn Resignation A US Establishment Coup And A Victory For Mainstream Media & Democrats. Russian state-owned outlet RT published two articles ... and more »

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Russian Media And The American Alt-Right Movement Converge On Messaging Over Gen. Mike Flynn's Resignation - Media Matters for America