A lot of people dismissively mocking this tweet but it's worth pausing to recognize its Marxist roots.

This "thinking" traces back to Critical Theory, The Frankfurt School, Theodor Adorno & ultimately Antonio Gramsci.

The Frankfurt School employed a technique called Critical Theory – a social theory oriented toward critiquing and changing society as a whole.
The point of the theory is to criticize every traditional social institution – and to specifically avoid offering any alternatives – as a means to breaking down Western Culture.
Theodor Adorno wrote the influential book The Authoritarian Personality which argued that anyone who defended traditional culture was a Fascist.

Sound familiar?
Antonio Gramsci was a Marxist theorist and a founding member of the Communist Party of Italy who created the Theory of Cultural Hegemony. And Counter Hegemony.

Gramsci felt that in order to change society, the entire value systems of Societal Institutions must be overturned.
Change the way institutions work – change the family, church, school – change social norms and beliefs.

This would require the introduction of an entirely new set of values and beliefs – a new morality.

It would also be slow. Gramsci embraced gradualism.
Gramsci advocated evolution over revolution

He targeted several specific societal areas as a means to promote his quiet revolution.

One primary target was schools. Gramsci was opposed to the vocational schools springing up in Italy.

Another was the family.
Gramsci looked to the US and noted that a true Marxist “uprising of the workers” would never be successful there.

It would first require an undermining of culture, morality and norms.

Gramsci also felt it would require community organizers.
Gramsci’s ideas came to the US not through his own person – Gramsci died in confinement after being jailed by Mussolini – but through the Frankfurt School.

A simplistic take of a complex topic but it is Twitter.

Always worth seeing the history that lies behind these "hot takes"
Quick side note.

The phrase “A long march through the institutions” sums up Gramsci's approach, but was actually coined in 1967 by Rudi Dutschke, a German student leader, in reference to Gramsci’s philosophy of Cultural Hegemony - or Cultural Marxism.

More from Jeff Carlson

1) Lots of politicians talking about the "Sanctity" & "Strength" of our "Institutions".

While failing to acknowledge that for a huge swath of Americans, that faith in those same Institutions has been impaired or destroyed.


2) President Trump didn't create this lack of faith. Nor the anger and distrust.

It has long been there, brewing and gathering strength. Precisely because of actions from those same Institutions.

The reactions from the Media & DC to Trump's term solidified those beliefs.

3) We just learned that the IC downplayed the role of China in the election for political purposes.

"Some of our career people, even CIA management, were politicizing China

4) The intentional distractions from China through a laughable focus on false claims of Russian-Collusion did irreparable harm to our country.

To date there has been one conviction for an institutional attempt to impair - even bring down - President Trump's administration.

5) Justice delayed is justice foregone.

Why is it that Justice seems to so lean heavily in one direction?

And why do people pervasively believe the Institutions protect their own?
This issue was repeatedly highlighted bu Judge Totenberg:

Dominion’s system “does not produce a voter-verifiable paper ballot or a paper ballot marked with the voter’s choices in a format readable by the voter because the votes are tabulated solely from the unreadable QR code.”


Judge also found that Dominion's QR codes are NOT encrypted:

“Evidence plainly contradicts any contention that the QR codes or digital signatures are encrypted,”

This was “ultimately conceded by Mr. Cobb and expressly acknowledged later by Dr. Coomer during his testimony.”

Judge Totenberg said there was “demonstrable evidence” that the implementation of Dominion’s systems by Georgia placed voters at an “imminent risk of deprivation of their fundamental right to cast an effective vote,” which she defined as a “vote that is accurately counted.”

Judge Totenberg found that Dominion Systems inherently could not be audited.

She noted that auditors are severely limited and “can only determine whether the BMD printout was tabulated accurately, not whether the election outcome is correct.“

Totenberg stated in her ruling that a BMD printout “is not trustworthy” and the application of an Risk-Limiting audit (RLA) to an election that used BMD printouts “does not yield a true risk-limiting audit.”

Georgia used RLAs to claim no fraud...

More from For later read

The common understanding of propaganda is that it is intended to brainwash the masses. Supposedly, people get exposed to the same message repeatedly and over time come to believe in whatever nonsense authoritarians want them to believe /1

And yet authoritarians often broadcast silly, unpersuasive propaganda.

Political scientist Haifeng Huang writes that the purpose of propaganda is not to brainwash people, but to instill fear in them /2


When people are bombarded with propaganda everywhere they look, they are reminded of the strength of the regime.

The vast amount of resources authoritarians spend to display their message in every corner of the public square is a costly demonstration of their power /3

In fact, the overt silliness of authoritarian propaganda is part of the point. Propaganda is designed to be silly so that people can instantly recognize it when they see it


Propaganda is intended to instill fear in people, not brainwash them.

The message is: You might not believe in pro-regime values or attitudes. But we will make sure you are too frightened to do anything about it.
I’ve been frustrated by the tweets I’ve seen of this as a Canadian. Because the facts are being misrepresented.

We’re not under some sort of major persecution. That’s not what this is. A thread. 1/8


This church was fined for breaking health orders in Dec. They continued to break them. So the pastor was arrested and released on conditions of... you guessed it, not breaking health orders. And then they broke the health orders. 2/8

So then he was arrested and told he couldn’t hold church services in person if he was to be released. He refused. He’s still in custody.

Here is my frustration as a Christian in Canada:

1. They were able to gather, with some conditions. They didn’t like those. 3/8

2. He is not actually unable to preach. He is just unable to hold church services because they broke the conditions given by the public health office in Alberta. He says he can’t in good conscience do that, so they are keeping him in jail (because he will break the law). 4/8

3. This is the 1st article of The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: “guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.” 5/8

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