The Faustian Bargain of "Othering”
First, They Came For The Others - Then They Came For You
Picture a group of people cheering as arsonists torch their neighbour’s house, smugly believing that the flames will never reach their own. This is the delusion of those who enable oppression for perceived safety or superiority. The reality is that fire spreads. And history shows that those who make deals with power always end up on its path.
Darren Beattie, a conservative journalist has built a career on promoting controversial ideas about race and U.S. foreign policy priorities. His tenure as a White House speechwriter, in the first Trump administration ended abruptly when it emerged that he had spoken at a conference attended by white nationalists. Following his dismissal, he launched Revolver News, a right-wing media outlet known for amplifying false claims about the 2020 election and the January 6 Capitol attack.
Now, Beattie holds a powerful position in the second Trump administration. As acting Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, he is responsible for overseeing America's public diplomacy outreach and messaging to counter terrorism and violent extremism.
Apart from the incident that caused him to lose his White House speech-writing job, Beattie has made numerous inflammatory comments on X. Just four months ago, on October 4, 2024, he wrote:
“Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work. Unfortunately, our entire national ideology is predicated on coddling the feelings of women and minorities, and demoralizing competent white men.”
Why Privilege Is a Paper Shield
White women who support fascists believing that “They’ll go after ‘the others,’ and things would be better for me,” they now discover one crucial fact: oppression expands. Collaborate with anti-abortion crusaders, and you’ll soon find yourself in a Handmaid’s Tale reboot where your miscarriage becomes a crime scene.
To the white man thinking, “I’ll be fine – I check all the boxes”: fascism devours its “model citizens” too. You might share a skin tone with the powerful, but when the economy collapses or protests erupt, you’ll discover how thin that shield of protection is. Moderate Republicans learned this the hard way.
The Monster Always Devours Its Own
Fascism thrives on selective amnesia. Power structures built on exclusion operate on a logic of ever-narrowing circles of loyalty and purity. The problem is that the definition of loyalty constantly shifts. The result? Even early supporters eventually become enemies of the state when perceived as insufficiently committed, ideologically impure, or simply inconvenient. Just remember Stalin’s Purges in the 1930s-40s, Mussolini’s Italy in the 1920s-40s, and Mao’s Cultural Revolution in China from 1966-76. If you think these systems are distant and irrelevant, think again.
Fascism is the world’s worst game of Whac-A-Mole. You smash one marginalised group, and another pops up – until you realise the mallet’s swinging toward you. It’s like handing a bully your lunch to avoid being punched, only to realise he’s still hungry – and your dessert is next.
As Bertolt Brecht once warned, “The womb that spawned the monster is always the first to be devoured.” This is history’s irony—its own form of poetic justice.
This article is free to read, but if you found it useful, please consider subscribing or making a small donation at my Buy Me A Coffee page below. It really helps me to keep doing this.