The title is a quote from Italian Antonio Gramsci, the Marxist theorist, ideologue, philosopher and journalist, has long been associated exclusively with communism and socialism. And yet his thoughts are showing up in the strange places….the far Right talking points…
The entire quote is….”Everyone is a bit of a Marxist….without being aware of it”
We see this in the presence of Gramsci’s theories and his phrases in speeches and publications.
Viktor Orban, Hungary’s authoritarian prime minister who studied Gramsci in the 1980s, rarely misses an opportunity to speak of the need to fight liberal-left ideas, parties and movements.
Elsewhere, Gramsci’s presence is more implicit. In the 900-page Mandate for Leadership, a document published by Project 2025 — the staffing and policy planning organization aimed at institutionalizing “Trumpism” — there’s no shortage of Gramsci talking points expressed in the inimitable style of the New Right in the United States.
Right-wing Gramsci adherents simplify and vulgarize Gramsci’s thought, reducing it to slogans and simple formulas. In doing so, they are doing what Gramsci expected right-wingers to do under democratic conditions — protect the capitalist status quo while framing “the left” as the cause of all manner of social, economic and geopolitical ills.
This should be another reason to read Gramsci.
The existential climate crisis aside, many of the problems that concerned Gramsci then are eerily similar to the problems that concern us today — a failing global economic system, multiplying military conflict, massive geopolitical shifts and the hollowing of representative political institutions.
A little more background may be helpful….
Gramsci undertook a series of historical and theoretical reflections on the conditions for revolution in modern states—such as Italy’s—where degrees of popular consent had been achieved. He employed the concept “hegemony” to describe a process of “intellectual and moral leadership” that embedded a ruling class across society. He rejected the economic determinism of classical Marxism in favor of a nuanced political analysis attuned to contingent variation in historical circumstance. Gramsci brought Marxism into dialogue with neo-idealist insights into practical subjectivity and he sketched a revolutionary strategy aimed at preparing a new collective identity.
Interesting how a group that hates ‘Marxists’ turns to them for their inspiration.
Really should not be a surprise since the Trumpites have been doing a Stalin-esque style of political purges to get the ‘proper’ people in places they need.
You should read Gramsci maybe you will learn something.Or not…you see one needs to be able to think to see the conflict and most of those supporters gave up thinking and let the ‘rulers’ do it for them.
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