Latest news with #neoconservatism
Gizmodo
23-07-2025
- Business
- Gizmodo
Palantir Goons Reportedly Want to Remake Hollywood Into a Libertarian Dream Factory
Rightwing forces in the U.S. have long coveted a key fixture of American liberalism's soft power: Hollywood. The 'dream factory' that deeply influences the ways Americans see themselves and the world around them has often been accused of (perhaps rightfully so) having a liberal bent. Now, it appears that a group with ties to America's military-industrial complex has a plan to take over Tinseltown and mold it in their own image. Semafor writes that a new production company with ties to a current and former executive at Peter Thiel's creepy defense contractor Palantir has its sights set on transforming the entertainment industry into a bastion of neo-conservatism. Founders Films (which sounds a lot like Thiel's Founders Fund, don't you think?) wants to 'co-finance projects, distribute films, and engage in brand partnerships,' Semafor writes. The company wants to produce projects that 'celebrate American military action, push for confrontation with China, and elevate heroes of the right from Rand to Elon Musk,' the outlet notes. Key figures raising money for the firm include Palantir chief technology officer Shyam Sankar, Christian Garrett (whose firm has invested with companies belonging to several MAGA figures, including Palantir, Musk's SpaceX, and Palmer Luckey's Anduril), and Ryan Podolsky, an early employee at Palantir, Semafor writes. The outlet cites a pitch deck for the new production company that gives a good snapshot of what the firm is envisioning for Hollywood's rightwing glow-up. 'The American Brand is broken. Hollywood is AWOL. Movies have become more ideological, more cautious, and less entertaining. Large segments of American and international viewers are underserved. Production costs have soared and sales are flagging,' the deck reportedly reads. The company has also said of its brand: 'Say yes to projects about American exceptionalism, name America's enemies, back artists unconditionally, take risk on novel IP.' Semafor further notes that the company appears to have an interest in telling stories that extol the virtues of America's 'special friend' in the Middle East, Israel: The company brands itself as explicitly pro-American, but many of the projects also celebrate Israel. Founders' proposed film slate also includes Roaring Lion, a movie about the recent attack against Iran, which depicts Israel as 'striving for nuclear non-proliferation and exercising its right of self-defense against a crazed regime intent on destroying it.' Gizmodo did not find a public contact for Founder's Films, but reached out to Palantir for comment. We will update this story when we hear back. Rightwing forces have long sought to demonize 'liberal' Hollywood, most recently by making the industry seem like a QAnon-style cabal of wealthy pedophiles. That said, the perception that Hollywood is a predominantly 'liberal' town is a fairly shallow one. It's worth noting that the industry has gone through many different eras, and that each of those eras was defined by a variety of political influences and postures. It would also be difficult to suggest that Hollywood has never made any nationalistic films or ones that are sympathetic to Israel. Early aughts Hollywood is littered with godawful pieces of filmmaking that reveled in Bush-era nationalism and brain-dead warmongering. In short, it's not like every movie that has come out since 1903 is The Battle of Algiers.
The Guardian
03-07-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
America is over neoliberalism and neoconservatism. Trump is not
The convergence of the US Senate's passage of Donald Trump's so-called 'big, beautiful bill' in domestic policy with his strike on Iran in foreign policy has finally resolved the meaning of his presidency. His place in history is now clear. His rise, like that of a reawakened left, indicated that America is ready to move on from its long era of neoliberalism and neoconservatism. In office, Trump has blocked the exits by doubling down on both. The first of those slurs, neoliberalism, refers to the commitment across the political spectrum to use government to protect markets and their hierarchies, rather than to moderate or undo them. The second, neoconservatism, is epitomized by a belligerent and militaristic foreign policy. The domestic policy bill now making its way through Congress, with its payoff to the rich and punishment of the poor, is a monument to neoliberalism, the Iran strike a revival of neoconservatism. Up to now, uncertainty about Trump's place in history has prevailed, in part because he has done little and dithered so much. From before he took office, apocalyptic premonition of the doom he might bring reigned supreme. Everyone assumed that the Trump era was going to be different, disagreeing only about the exact shape of the horror. On the right, some projected their hopes for transformation on the president, anticipating a different future, wishcasting without knowing whether (or when) their leader would side with them. Now, with his bill and his bombing, Trump has confirmed beyond any doubt that he is a man of a familiar past instead. Though the damage that neoliberalism and neoconservatism wrought helped make Trump's charlatanry a credible choice for millions, the man himself stands for the eternal return of those very same policies. Trump's appeal to the working class and more measured rhetoric about war from the start of his political career suggested that he might renege on these two dominant creeds from the beltway 'swamp'. He renewed them both instead. This is where Trump's ultimate significance so clearly lies: in continuity, not change. He busted a lot of norms from the first in 2017. Cries of abnormalcy and authoritarianism arose before there was evidence to back them – and evidence has accumulated through both terms. Charlottesville and January 6 in the first – intimations of deeper reservoirs of hate that could come out of American woodwork, with Trump coyly pandering to the mobs – were preludes to both mass and targeted immigration roundups in this term, reminiscent of classical fascism. Yet climactically, and when it mattered most, Trump has chosen to walk in lockstep with the dead consensus in domestic and foreign policy of the past half century – not merely among conservatives, but among many liberals. Americans do best when the rich do best of all, with the poor punished for crime and sloth: that has long been our outlook. And the country must go it alone with military force, in order to back our interests or principles or both, Americans have long presumed. Neoliberalism and neoconservatism each has more complexity than this – but, leaning into both, Trump has shown in recent weeks they are not much more complicated either. And if so, Trump is far more a politician of American continuity with the past 50 years than many originally feared (or hoped). The 'beautiful' domestic policy bill is one of the morally ugliest in American history. Making Trump's signature tax cuts from his first term permanent requires both draconian cuts to programs (Medicaid for the poor, worst of all) and piling up even more debt for future generations to figure out. It turns out that Ronald Reagan and the Democrats who followed him in lowering taxation and 'reforming' welfare (including by imposing work requirements, as this bill does) were not in another world from Trump. He is in theirs. Revealingly, the main trouble that Trump faced in getting the obscenity of a bill passed – and that he still faces in the House – is convincing Republicans who claim to hate deficit spending so much to rationalize even greater cuts to welfare. On the world stage, Trump has longed for the recognition of a Nobel peace prize. But the deals he thinks will deserve it have proved elusive. In Israel/Palestine, the ceasefire he helped force has broken down and the civilian toll has worsened. In Ukraine, the considerable distance between the warring parties has meant that Trump has not managed to either antagonize or lure either to come to terms. Unlike during his first four years, his Iran intervention means that, rather than bringing peace, exacerbating war is his foreign policy legacy for now. Squandering the inclinations of his base and outraging many more lukewarm supporters sick of foreign entanglements, it was a surprise that he acted with the reckless militarism that was once American common sense. He is no doubt open to any deals that come his way – apparently thinking that Canada or Greenland should clamor to be annexed. But it was foolish in response to the early rhetoric of his second term to expect Trump to revert to expansionist war by sending troops. But in sending B-2 bombers on so escalatory a mission to Iran, he clarified his support for war – incurring risks like no other presidents have taken. If the peace he wants to brag about doesn't materialize, he is not above a dose of coercive violence. Ironically, Trump's warlike turn meant that a long list of his neoconservative 'never Trump' scourges became 'sometimes Trump' supporters overnight. Where populist Republicans have had to grit their teeth and support a neoliberal bill – so much for the working-class party they promised – it was even more spectacular that neoconservatives overcame the hatred for Trump that had helped them launder their former reputations for catastrophic warmongering. With neocon scion Bill Kristol in the lead, after the Iran strike they fawned over the man whom they had spent years castigating as irresponsible, or malignant, or both. No wonder: Trump, far from acting as an isolationist or realist, was executing one of the longest-held and longest-denied neoconservative fantasies: that bombing Iran's nuclear program off the map would work, and might have the fringe benefit of causing the regime to fall. It remains a fantasy. But Trump's place in history is now defined by that fantasy more than by any other foreign policy choice he has made so far. Like in his first term, when he ordered the assassination in Iraq of Iranian general and terror master Qassem Suleimani in 2020, Trump's strike on Iran's nuclear facilities was illegal. But as the saying goes, Trump's escalatory and risky use of bunker-busting munitions to wipe Fordow and other sites off the map was worse than a crime; it was a mistake. At best, it elicited a face-saving attack from Iran so that it could come to the negotiating table with a nuclear program to continue in the future; at worst, it will prompt Iran to intensify its efforts to achieve the weapon. And while Israel has certainly set back Iran's regional designs and capacity for sponsoring terror, there are no signs the regime will relent in its policies. With hopes that he might stand for restraint shredded, it is likelier that a lackey will find a place on Mount Rushmore than that Trump will get the call from Oslo he badly wants. But like the politicians whose faces are already carved in the granite of South Dakota, Trump is a man of the past – and never more clearly than in recent weeks, as America continues to look for someone to liberate it from the zombie neoliberalism and neoconservatism that still define their disastrous present and president. Samuel Moyn is the Kent professor of law and history at Yale University, where he also serves as head of Grace Hopper College
The Guardian
03-07-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
America is over neoliberalism and neoconservatism. Trump is not
The convergence of the US Senate's passage of Donald Trump's so-called 'big, beautiful bill' in domestic policy with his strike on Iran in foreign policy has finally resolved the meaning of his presidency. His place in history is now clear. His rise, like that of a reawakened left, indicated that America is ready to move on from its long era of neoliberalism and neoconservatism. In office, Trump has blocked the exits by doubling down on both. The first of those slurs, neoliberalism, refers to the commitment across the political spectrum to use government to protect markets and their hierarchies, rather than to moderate or undo them. The second, neoconservatism, is epitomized by a belligerent and militaristic foreign policy. The domestic policy bill now making its way through Congress, with its payoff to the rich and punishment of the poor, is a monument to neoliberalism, the Iran strike a revival of neoconservatism. Up to now, uncertainty about Trump's place in history has prevailed, in part because he has done little and dithered so much. From before he took office, apocalyptic premonition of the doom he might bring reigned supreme. Everyone assumed that the Trump era was going to be different, disagreeing only about the exact shape of the horror. On the right, some projected their hopes for transformation on the president, anticipating a different future, wishcasting without knowing whether (or when) their leader would side with them. Now, with his bill and his bombing, Trump has confirmed beyond any doubt that he is a man of a familiar past instead. Though the damage that neoliberalism and neoconservatism wrought helped make Trump's charlatanry a credible choice for millions, the man himself stands for the eternal return of those very same policies. Trump's appeal to the working class and more measured rhetoric about war from the start of his political career suggested that he might renege on these two dominant creeds from the beltway 'swamp'. He renewed them both instead. This is where Trump's ultimate significance so clearly lies: in continuity, not change. He busted a lot of norms from the first in 2017. Cries of abnormalcy and authoritarianism arose before there was evidence to back them – and evidence has accumulated through both terms. Charlottesville and January 6 in the first – intimations of deeper reservoirs of hate that could come out of American woodwork, with Trump coyly pandering to the mobs – were preludes to both mass and targeted immigration roundups in this term, reminiscent of classical fascism. Yet climactically, and when it mattered most, Trump has chosen to walk in lockstep with the dead consensus in domestic and foreign policy of the past half century – not merely among conservatives, but among many liberals. Americans do best when the rich do best of all, with the poor punished for crime and sloth: that has long been our outlook. And the country must go it alone with military force, in order to back our interests or principles or both, Americans have long presumed. Neoliberalism and neoconservatism each has more complexity than this – but, leaning into both, Trump has shown in recent weeks they are not much more complicated either. And if so, Trump is far more a politician of American continuity with the past 50 years than many originally feared (or hoped). The 'beautiful' domestic policy bill is one of the morally ugliest in American history. Making Trump's signature tax cuts from his first term permanent requires both draconian cuts to programs (Medicaid for the poor, worst of all) and piling up even more debt for future generations to figure out. It turns out that Ronald Reagan and the Democrats who followed him in lowering taxation and 'reforming' welfare (including by imposing work requirements, as this bill does) were not in another world from Trump. He is in theirs. Revealingly, the main trouble that Trump faced in getting the obscenity of a bill passed – and that he still faces in the House – is convincing Republicans who claim to hate deficit spending so much to rationalize even greater cuts to welfare. On the world stage, Trump has longed for the recognition of a Nobel peace prize. But the deals he thinks will deserve it have proved elusive. In Israel/Palestine, the ceasefire he helped force has broken down and the civilian toll has worsened. In Ukraine, the considerable distance between the warring parties has meant that Trump has not managed to either antagonize or lure either to come to terms. Unlike during his first four years, his Iran intervention means that, rather than bringing peace, exacerbating war is his foreign policy legacy for now. Squandering the inclinations of his base and outraging many more lukewarm supporters sick of foreign entanglements, it was a surprise that he acted with the reckless militarism that was once American common sense. He is no doubt open to any deals that come his way – apparently thinking that Canada or Greenland should clamor to be annexed. But it was foolish in response to the early rhetoric of his second term to expect Trump to revert to expansionist war by sending troops. But in sending B-2 bombers on so escalatory a mission to Iran, he clarified his support for war – incurring risks like no other presidents have taken. If the peace he wants to brag about doesn't materialize, he is not above a dose of coercive violence. Ironically, Trump's warlike turn meant that a long list of his neoconservative 'never Trump' scourges became 'sometimes Trump' supporters overnight. Where populist Republicans have had to grit their teeth and support a neoliberal bill – so much for the working-class party they promised – it was even more spectacular that neoconservatives overcame the hatred for Trump that had helped them launder their former reputations for catastrophic warmongering. With neocon scion Bill Kristol in the lead, after the Iran strike they fawned over the man whom they had spent years castigating as irresponsible, or malignant, or both. No wonder: Trump, far from acting as an isolationist or realist, was executing one of the longest-held and longest-denied neoconservative fantasies: that bombing Iran's nuclear program off the map would work, and might have the fringe benefit of causing the regime to fall. It remains a fantasy. But Trump's place in history is now defined by that fantasy more than by any other foreign policy choice he has made so far. Like in his first term, when he ordered the assassination in Iraq of Iranian general and terror master Qassem Suleimani in 2020, Trump's strike on Iran's nuclear facilities was illegal. But as the saying goes, Trump's escalatory and risky use of bunker-busting munitions to wipe Fordow and other sites off the map was worse than a crime; it was a mistake. At best, it elicited a face-saving attack from Iran so that it could come to the negotiating table with a nuclear program to continue in the future; at worst, it will prompt Iran to intensify its efforts to achieve the weapon. And while Israel has certainly set back Iran's regional designs and capacity for sponsoring terror, there are no signs the regime will relent in its policies. With hopes that he might stand for restraint shredded, it is likelier that a lackey will find a place on Mount Rushmore than that Trump will get the call from Oslo he badly wants. But like the politicians whose faces are already carved in the granite of South Dakota, Trump is a man of the past – and never more clearly than in recent weeks, as America continues to look for someone to liberate it from the zombie neoliberalism and neoconservatism that still define their disastrous present and president. Samuel Moyn is the Kent professor of law and history at Yale University, where he also serves as head of Grace Hopper College
Wall Street Journal
30-06-2025
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
Trump Seeks to Remake the World
Five months into the most consequential foreign-policy presidency since Richard Nixon left the White House, Donald Trump's approach to the world is taking on a definitive shape. First and foremost, restraint isn't part of Mr. Trump's political method. He seeks to accumulate as much executive power as possible at home; he wants the same thing internationally. Far from limiting America's world role, Mr. Trump intends to place the country at the center of international affairs. What Alice Longworth said of her father, Theodore Roosevelt, is true of Mr. Trump, at least as far as his approach to international and domestic politics. He wants to be the corpse at every funeral, the bride at every wedding, and the baby at every christening. That doesn't mean he is a neoconservative or a liberal internationalist. The 47th president loathes crusades for democracy, despises multinational institutions, and treats international courts with the contempt he believes they deserve. While he genuinely hates war, Mr. Trump believes in pressing America's economic, technological and military advantages as far as he can in pursuit of an expansive vision of the national interest. His presidency is about the concentration of power for maximalist goals. His trade policy, whatever economists may say about it, has concentrated unprecedented power in his hands at home and abroad. At home, he can affect the profitability of almost every company in the U.S. by setting tariffs.
Yahoo
29-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Opinion - With Iran, President Trump faces his neocon moment
Donald Trump rose to the presidency on a promise to end America's 'forever wars' and avoid new military entanglements, particularly in the Middle East. He often blames global instability on former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama, but he reserves his harshest criticism for President George W. Bush and the neoconservative movement, which he accuses of dragging the U.S. into costly and endless Middle Eastern conflicts. Yet with his recent decision to order strikes against Iran, Trump tied himself to the very neoconservative vision he once derided. Rhetoric aside, Trump has now become the ultimate neocon. And if he hopes to succeed, he must see that vision through. The neoconservative doctrine — crystallized during the Bush administration — aimed to reshape the Middle East by removing authoritarian regimes, eliminating weapons of mass destruction, and ultimately securing regional peace through U.S. military power. The invasion of Iraq was the signature act of this strategy. Trump has repeatedly ridiculed that war as a mistake, yet by launching strikes against Iran, he has adopted the same logic: The use of force to achieve long-term strategic transformation in the region. To avoid the very 'forever war' he once promised to end, Trump must now follow through on the neocon playbook. That means embracing a strategic objective beyond limited airstrikes. Trump must work on forever eliminating Iran's ability to build a nuclear weapon, dismantling its theocratic regime and laying the groundwork for regional realignment — between Israel, Iran and the Arab Gulf states. It's a mistake to assume that Iran's current leadership is permanent. The shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, ruled for nearly four decades, and many believed his regime would last indefinitely — until it collapsed in 1979. The current Iranian Islamic Republic has now ruled for roughly the same length of time. Its longevity is no more guaranteed than the shah's. Recent Israeli — and now American — strikes on Iran have exposed serious vulnerabilities in the regime. By degrading its nuclear program and Israel demonstrating complete control over Iranian airspace, these attacks have shaken the foundations of Iran's power. Without the deterrent of a nuclear arsenal and with weakened internal confidence, the regime may be more fragile than at any point since 1979. If the Iranian regime were to fall — perhaps through an internal military coup, catalyzed by Trump's actions — the entire regional dynamic could shift. For decades, Iran has sought to dominate the region as the preeminent Shiite and Persian power, in opposition to the Sunni and Arab Gulf states led by Saudi Arabia. Israel, meanwhile, has viewed a nuclear-armed Iran as an existential threat. A post-theocratic Shiite Iran that prioritizes stability over ideological expansion could pursue peaceful coexistence with its Sunni Arab neighbors — and possibly reach a détente with Israel. Such a transformation could usher in an era of relative peace and stability in a region long defined by conflict. But this outcome is only possible if Trump commits to completing the strategy he has now initiated. Without that commitment, his strike on Iran merely risks escalating tensions without achieving meaningful change. A half-measure could backfire — provoking Iran into accelerating its nuclear ambitions and intensifying regional conflicts involving Israel and the Gulf states. This is the precise 'forever war' Trump vowed to avoid. Trump states he first ran against 'warmonger' Hillary Clinton, in part, for her support of the Iraq War, and he repeatedly lambasted Bush for what he called a 'stupid' decision to invade Iraq. But with his own decision to strike Iran, Trump now finds himself embracing the very framework he once mocked. The choice before him is stark: either follow through on the neocon vision he has inadvertently adopted or risk becoming the failed foreign policy leader he so often condemns. Charles K. Djou served in Congress from 2010-2011 and was a member of the House Armed Services Committee. He is an Afghanistan War Veteran. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
