New York Magazine - USA (2019-11-11)

november11–24, 2019 | newyork 57

OnlyOldPeople

WillSmokePot

You’ll Go to the

Barber at Three

in the Morning

to Get the Best

Haircut Prices

ThereWillBeArmed

ResistanceontheLeft

AROUNDFOURINTHEMORNINGonJuly13,

a 69-year-oldanarchist namedWillemVan

Spronsen at tackedthe busesoutside the

Northwest Detention Centerin Tacoma,

Washington.Armedwitha homemade“ghost”

AR-15andthrowingMolotovcocktails,Van

Spronsen,before beingshotandkilledby

police,at temptedtodisablethefleetofvehicles

thatcartsundocumentedimmigrantstothe

holdingfacility. “I’ma blackandwhitethinker,”

VanSpronsenwroteina finalcommuniqué.

“Detentioncampsare anabomination.I’mnot

standingby. I reallyshouldn’t havetosay any

morethanthis.”

Onsomelevel,it wasa logicalresponsetothe

intensifyingrhetoricemergingfromtheleft

aboutthepresident’s cruelimmigrationpoli-

cies.Asthepublicfocuseditsattentiononthe

conditionsatbordercampsthissummer, his-

toricalcomparisonsbetweenAmericaandfas-

cist statesspreadonline,many ofthemfrom

bonafidehistorians.Theradicalslogan“Abolish

ICE”wentnationalasa consensusprogressive

demand,andinJune,RepresentativeAlexan-

driaOcasio-Cortezbridgedtheleftandthe

mainstreamwhenshecomparedtheICEdeten-

tioncentersto“concentrationcamps.”

ForallthemillionsofAmericanswhohave

calledDonaldTrumpa fascist, theWashington

anarchist isoneofthevery fewtoact onthat

beliefina proportionalway, whichhasmadehim

complicatedtocondemn.Whena far-rightout-

let calledonAOCandRepresentativeIlhan

OmartodisavowVanSpronsen’s attack,neither

did,eventhough,astheprovocateursfromRebel

Mediapointedout,it wouldhavebeeneasy.

Perhapsif VanSpronsenhadattackeda true

governmentfacility, more-respectableleftists

would have distanced themselves, but Northwest

Detention is a private, for-profit center, one of

the largest in the country, and Van Spronsen is

nearer to the political mainstream than any left-

ist with a gun has been since Angela Davis went

to a pawnshop.

Publications have speculated that a Trump

defeat could lead to spurts of violence, whether

it’s the president refusing to abandon the office

or his disappointed supporters lashing out. What

about the alternative: What if Trump pulls it off,

one way or another? With the electoral pressure

valve closed for four more years, most progres-

sives wouldn’t follow Van Spronsen’s example,

but there’s a good chance some would. If they did,

we could date the sequence back to the summer

of 2019, when an American first took up arms

against the Trump regime. —MALCOLM HARRIS

Facebook Will

Be This Century’s

Lockheed

IN JULY, Peter Thiel, the dark lord of Silicon

Valley neo-reaction, bizarrely accused Google of

making “the seemingly treasonous decision to

work with the Chinese military and not with the

U.S. military.” It was strange to hear bellicose,

nationalistic language from a man who’s dispar-

aged democracy and attempted to fund the

establishmentofindependentnewcountries

through “seasteading,”butitmadebusiness

sense for a guyheavilyinvestedindefensecon-

tractors like AndurilandPalantir.Thiel’sclaim

that AI is “a military technology”isn’t just a shot

at Facebook’slargestAmericanrival,Google,but

also an attempttopainta corporatetechnologi-

cal concern as a national security threat—and

create a lucrative and empowering alliance

between the American military and tech compa-

nies competing against Chinese rivals. Thiel and

the CEOs he advises see, amid rising tensions

with China, an opportunity to establish them-

selves as the Boeing or Lockheed of a 21st-cen-

tury military-technological complex, fed by para-

noia and resurgent nationalism. Thiel’s previous

major investment, Facebook, might set its sights

even higher: It’s already something of a private

intelligence agency, so why not forge closer ties

with the U.S. government and establish itself as

an arm of American state power, battling back

against the Chinese autocracy Mark Zuckerberg

has suddenly become so concerned about? Or

perhaps we should think of it the other way

around: Chinese academic Zheng Han has

described the Chinese government as a “holding

company” for its technological development. If

Facebook makes itself useful, maybe someday

the U.S. government will become something like

a holding company for Facebook. —MAX READ

JUL 08

Study shows
teen marijuana
use drops in
states where
the drug is
legal.

JUL 09

Movie
theaters
across the
country host
“Discount
Tuesdays.”

JUL 13

Anarchist
attacks
Tacoma
detention
center.

JUL 14

Speaking at

the National

Conservatism

Conference,

Peter Thiel

says the

government

should probe

Google.