2025/04/07 by Cassius Adair · 2 voices
Social Sciences · #Italian Fascism and Post-war Society
paper · doi:10.1093/ccc/tcaf013
openalex publication_date 2025/04/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Abstract The slogan that the Trump campaign used in the 2024 US presidential election to tie rival Kamala Harris to trans activists in its television ads—“Kamala is for They/Them, Trump is for You”—makes no sense. It's grammatically incoherent, it melds non-binary people and trans women into one generic out-group, and it argues that Kamala Harris was somehow a champion for trans people when in fact many of Harris's strongest critics on the left were (and are) trans. But these ads weren't designed to make sense. Instead, they operate within a fascist mode of address that aims to elicit not meaning but sensation: to frighten, to confuse, and then to reorient those affective responses towards fealty to a protective leader. This article thinks through the operations of these media attacks, considers the distinction between transgender illiberalism and fascist illiberalism, and speculates on how trans cultural production might best answer the ascendant fascist aesthetics of nonsense and sensation.