Did someone cut you off in traffic? Are kids being annoying? Did a coworker misread your email? Maybe some sex wasn't as fun as you wanted? Don't worry! Pick 1 (one) source of horrible brainrot to allege as the reason society in general, but mainly some person you don't like in particular, is in decline:
lead in disposable vapes
internet pornography
artificial sweeteners
long covid
smartphones
too many vaccines
microplastics
short-format video
Ignore the complex causalities of health and risk and substitute just-so explanations for the supposed neurological deficiency of your chosen outgroup! Limited time only before the social media outrage cycle moves on! Ascribe an etiology for their clearly broken brains today!!
How neoliberals fell in love with “human nature”—the glue that still unites the divergent factions of the new right.
The strain of the neoliberal movement that crystallized in the 1990s out of these ideas marked the rise of a new fusionism. While the original fusionism of the 1950s and 1960s melded libertarianism and religious traditionalism in the style of William F. Buckley and the National Review, the new fusionism defended neoliberal policies through arguments borrowed from cognitive, behavioral, and evolutionary psychology and in some cases genetics, genomics, and biological anthropology. The phenomenon was apparent as early as 1987 to conservative historian Paul Gottfried. Whereas older conservatives may have used a language of religion to back up claims about human differences, Gottfried noted that they had begun to use disciplines like sociobiology in order to “biologicize” ethics, in the words of E.O. Wilson.
Contrary to claims that recent years have seen a decisive repudiation of neoliberalism by right-wing populists, it is this strange new coalition that underlies in part the ascent of today’s global right. In its ranks we can count not only a host of bit players—the likes of Murray Rothbard, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, and Peter Brimelow—but some of the right’s ringleaders: Steve Bannon, Peter Thiel, and Elon Musk. (Gottfried, for his part, has been a “reluctant mentor” to Unite the Right’s keynote white nationalist in Charlottesville, Richard Spencer.) In many ways, ideas like Murray’s are the glue holding the whole edifice together. Over the past two decades, the self-avowed libertarian’s melding of genetic pronouncements with bootstrapping family-values talk has served as the bridge spanning divergent factions of the racialist right, from its IQ-obsessed, DEI-hating Silicon Valley wing to its white nationalist fringes.
In other words, this new right does not really reject globalism but advances a new strain of it—one that accepts an international division of labor while tightening controls on certain kinds of migration. It assigns intelligence averages to countries in a way that collectivizes and renders innate the concept of “human capital.” It appeals to values and traditions that cannot be captured statistically, shading into a language of national essences and national character. The fix it finds in race, culture, and nation is but the most recent iteration of a pro-market philosophy based not on the idea that we are all the same but that we are in a fundamental, and perhaps permanent way, different.
Republican legislators, in coordinated talks between state governments, are now talking openly about the “endgame” to ban trans medical care for everyone
They reference familiar justifications: neuroessentialist pseudoscience that the prefrontal cortex doesn’t stop maturing until 24; but also that all trans care is self-harm (“mutilation”) and cannot be consented to; and that doctors push hormones and suppressants on patients and lie about how efficacious they are (when essentially all the trans people I know can provide personal testimonials to the opposite).
They discuss openly how starting with under-18 bans was strategic. Some excerpts:
Shriver: “If we are going to stop this for anyone under 18, why not apply it for anyone over 18? It's harmful across the board and that's something we need to take into consideration in terms of the endgame."
Click: "That's a very smart thought there. I think what we know legislatively is we have to take small bites.”
Schriver:” I'm not saying anything in the way of dismissing what you're saying about children and puberty blockers, that's all very valid and necessary, I'm just saying moreover in addition to that, we have to be looking at the endgame simultaneously, maybe even using that to move the window to say that this isn't just wrong 0-18, it's wrong for everyone and we shouldn't be allowing that to happen."
I’ve included full quotations below from their Twitter spaces discussion, which was automatically posted and discovered by Erin In The Morning. Later in the discussion they seem to realize they should be discussing this offline. It’s hateful stuff.
Rep Schriver: "In terms of endgame, why are we allowing these practice for anyone? If we are going to stop this for anyone under 18, why not apply it for anyone over 18? It's harmful across the board and that's something we need to take into consideration in terms of the endgame."
Click: "That's a very smart thought there. I think what we know legislatively is we have to take small bites. I think that what we can say is that for minors, they are not capable of giving informed consent... We already regulate what minors can do. They cannot sign contracts, buy cigarettes, consume alcohol, they can’t get a tattoo without their parents. We already have rules concerning that. For minors the prefrontal cortex is not developed, in fact that's really not developed until the age of 24. I think there's something to be said for adults being able to weigh the pros and the cons. One of the things the governor did, he made several mistakes, but he actually put in some things I had to negotiate out. One of them is getting the data, there's no requirements to get the data. I had that in there, it got negotiated out... The other thing is planned parenthoods, they pass out hormones like candy, he's put a stop to that. That's one of the places a lot of adults will go. There's also Euphoria and Plume, where you can get your letters and hormones through an app. We need to slow down the game."
Rep Schriver: "When it comes to consenting... consenting to mutilation, consenting to self harm, consenting to killing yourself. There are a few people wanting adults to be able to consent to killing themselves legally like they do in Canada. When it comes to adults, I'm not saying anything in the way of dismissing what you're saying about children and puberty blockers, that's all very valid and necessary, I'm just saying moreover in addition to that, we have to be looking at the endgame simultaneously, maybe even using that to move the window to say that this isn't just wrong 0-18, it's wrong for everyone and we shouldn't be allowing that to happen."
Rep Click: "Reuters asked me one time when they said, do you feel bad because all of these states that are now blocking the procedures for children are having to close down their gender clinics and now adults can't get care? And I said no, I don't feel bad. We have to take one bite at a time, do it incrementally. When you put everything into one pot, it's going to be harder for you to get any legislation across the finish line."
Prisha Mosley: "I did want to say that I've kind of been waiting for a state or a representative or anyone to be brave enough to address that. I just wanted to throw out this is the angle I would go at it. It's easier to handle the kids because of how we handle consent. However, I also think people in grave mental distress or who are mentally ill cannot consent. Also telling a suicidal person either take this treatment or die by your own hands, you can't consent to that. And even take that away, you cannot consent to a lie. Most of these doctors are straight up lying about the effects and saying it'll magically cure every bad feelings you've ever had and that you can magically change sex"
