Five Finger Death Punch: A Case Study in Performative Working Class Aesthetics

By Matt Nguyen-Ngo

A common sentiment on the left is that many American working-class whites, largely made up of reactionaries, undermine their own best interests by adopting right-wing politics. It’s not hard to determine why; through its influence over American culture and education over the course of history, the owner class has managed to redefine “capitalism as freedom” and “socialism as slavery.” Of course, determining the “how” is just as important as determining the “why.” This article seeks to uncover the methods by which the owner class manipulates culture and aesthetics to reinforce capitalist ideology in the American white working class, using the metal band Five Finger Death Punch as a case study.

What is Class?

With the language of class struggle becoming increasingly relevant in the political landscape of the United States, it becomes necessary to clarify the delineations between socioeconomic classes. The dominant concept of class in the US is the liberal one, which bases class distinctions largely on income level. This concept divides people into lower, middle, and upper income classes. If we are to define class in this way, then what are the cutoff points that differentiate these three classes from each other? At what amount of annual income would someone transition from “lower” to “middle” class in this framework? Any answer to this question is by definition arbitrary. On the other hand, in the context of class struggle described by Marx as the conflict between opposing economic interests of the bourgeoisie (owner class) and the proletariat (working class)[1], it makes infinitely more sense to construct class lines based not on one’s fluid income level, but instead on one’s concrete relationship to capital. This article rejects the liberal class framework in favor of the Marxian.

However, regardless of which economic measurements we base our class delineations upon, these lines won’t always match up with class identity as perceived by the general public. In any given culture, an individual’s class is perceived according to their aesthetic choices, such as clothing, speech, activities and affiliations. In the modern US, a “lower class” or “working class” person might wear camouflaged cargo pants and a sports jersey, or a tradesman’s uniform when on the job. A “middle class” or “upper class” person might wear slacks and a button-up shirt, or a business suit and watch instead. In late Victorian England, a politician might wear a frock coat and top hat to convey their sophistication to voters, or a tweed suit and cloth cap to break social conventions and show commonality with the average citizen.[2] Regardless of cultural context, class identification is a performance.

In the United States there is a recurring phenomenon where members of the owner class perform as members of the working class by adopting working-class aesthetics. This can take the form of politicians like Lindsey Graham wearing a cowboy hat to evoke the ranchers of the “Old West,” or New York real estate investor and US President Donald Trump using laypeople’s language to appeal to the rural white working class. It can take the form of wealthy capitalists electing to drive luxury pickup trucks that are never taken off a paved road, instead of a high-end sedan or exotic sports car. And, more salient to the subject of this article, it can take the form of a heavy metal band like Five Finger Death Punch – made up of reactionary capitalists – wearing the cultural markers of the American working class to relate to them as a fanbase. Like all aesthetic choices made by all people, these are all deliberate performances of group identity: in this case, a working-class identity that does not line up with material (economic) reality. By superficially identifying themselves with the working class, the “everyman,” these capitalists perform working-class aesthetics to create a false sense of solidarity with the proletariat, reinforcing the dominant ideology that grants them their power and influence.

Working-Class Performance

One of the most elucidating examples of this phenomenon, which I call “working-class performance,” is the work of celebrity Mike Rowe, made famous by his reality television show Dirty Jobs. As the host of Dirty Jobs, Rowe travels to different businesses around the United States putting himself in the shoes of their employees. He performs these unpleasant, menial jobs as a spectacle for more advantaged viewers to vicariously experience the struggles of the less fortunate. In one episode of Dirty Jobs, Rowe visits a pig farm in Las Vegas that turns food waste into slop to feed the pigs. Despite claiming to showcase the experiences of the “everyman,” the star of the show (other than Rowe himself) is the farm’s owner Robert Combs, who walks Rowe through the slop production process. Combs mentions an employee by name – a man named Jose – but no employees are ever shown on screen. This is a recurring theme in Dirty Jobs and other reality television shows like it. While they supposedly celebrate the working class as essential people who do the jobs “we” are unwilling to do, they actually “push the human beings whose labor they nominally valorize to the margins,” opting instead to tell the stories of capitalists through a “ventriloquized working class.”[3]

Despite his portrayal as an “everyman,” Mike Rowe has a net worth of $30 million largely made from television and being a company spokesman, appearing in high-profile advertisements for automobile and pharmaceutical companies.[4] In his advertisements for Ford’s F-150 pickup truck, Rowe (who has no real-life construction or automobile expertise) appears on a construction site amongst a backdrop of workers on the job, explaining why the F-150 is superior to other trucks and the working class viewer should buy it over the competition.[5] In other words, Rowe uses this working-class performance to sell you something.

So too does Five Finger Death Punch. Like Rowe, Five Finger Death Punch uses working-class performance to sell their audience something. This “something” can be music, concert tickets and merchandise of course, but I am referring to something more intangible. One of the most commercially successful American metal bands in the 21st Century, Five Finger Death Punch has carefully crafted their brand to appeal to millions of common Americans, predominantly conservative, white, working-class men. In this case study, I will deconstruct the band’s hyper-American “everyman” image to demonstrate how they sell the promise of the “American Dream,” ultimately serving the interests of capital. It is my hope that this will help illuminate the impact of working-class performance on American class relations and class consciousness.

Who is Five Finger Death Punch?

Five Finger Death Punch, or “5FDP,” is an American metal band based in Las Vegas, Nevada that hails from the groove metal, thrash, and arena rock traditions of bands like Pantera, Metallica, and W.A.S.P. With albums like 2009’s War is the Answer and 2011’s American Capitalist, 5FDP has deliberately created a provocative, hyper-American, hyper-capitalist image. In the words of their rhythm guitarist and marketing mastermind Zoltan Bathory:

“We [the band] like to press buttons. When everyone was on the streets with signs saying ‘war is not the answer,’ [in reference to the war in Iraq] we released War is the Answer. When Occupy Wall Street was going on and socialism was growing in America, we brought out American Capitalist. That’s all intentional.”[6]

Despite their exaggerated all-American image in the most stereotypical sense of the phrase, many of their members are immigrants – including Bathory. Bathory immigrated to the US from Hungary shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union, and loves to tell stories of how he arrived in the States with “a bag of clothes, a guitar, and a few bucks in my pocket,” with no English skills.[7] His is a familiar, tired story of dragging himself by his own bootstraps out of “grey communist squalor” to seize his own emancipation in “the freest and fairest political and economic system” of American free-market capitalism, enabling him to live a life of “unchecked excesses.”[8] It is a story that has been told time and time again by the families of exiled Cuban slaveowners and the like. It is a story that affirms the belief that the US is a golden place of unlimited opportunity for social mobility, and purports that those who do not get ahead are merely lazy and unworthy of success. After all, the story goes, if an immigrant like Bathory could do it, why can’t you? In addition to Bathory, the band’s longtime lead guitarist Jason Hook is Canadian, and Hook’s replacement Andy James hails from Norfolk, UK.

Of course, I do not deny that immigrants belong to their new countries just as much as the native born. However, why this exaggerated display of American uber-patriotism from a band that is 40% foreign-born? Speaking from personal experience as a member of the Vietnamese-American diaspora, I know that immigrants and/or minorities often perform exaggerated “Americanness” to fit in, to prove that one “belongs” in the country. Additionally, Bathory’s life story – no doubt curated for the metal news interviews – is the perfect origin story for a band that promotes “bootstraps” ideology and American jingoism so zealously.

Unsurprisingly, the band aggressively advocates for the US military and law enforcement. They believe these groups are exploited and underappreciated by an ungrateful public and unscrupulous government. This message is succinctly captured in the lyrics to “No One Gets Left Behind.”

Politicians banking in their greed

No idea on how to be all they can be

…

Play your war games with other people’s lives

It should be you on the front line

In another interview, Zoltan Bathory shows his disdain for how the public treats US soldiers, in his view.

“They’re [the soldiers] merely just doing their jobs… just like when the guys came back from Vietnam [after the end of the US-Vietnam War in 1975], they had to put up with all kinds of shit [from citizens].”[9]

Setting aside Bathory’s comments about public treatment of soldiers returning from Vietnam (which was hardly universal), and setting aside the American atrocities that would have provoked such animosity, 5FDP’s narrative that US soldiers are exploited is correct to a certain extent. US soldiers, often working-class men with limited economic options, are indeed sent to die by social elites who benefit from war. But 5FDP’s analysis is missing one critical element: the reason these elites are sending these soldiers to die. Politicians do not merely send soldiers to war for some nebulous, aimless greed. What are these politicians greedy for? Perhaps we can find our answer by asking the military arms and logistics companies that profit from American imperialism, and their political partners in Washington like Dick Cheney, former US Vice President and CEO of defense contractor Halliburton.[10] Indeed, despite seeming to rail against war profiteering in “No One Gets Left Behind,” 5FDP’s very next album is the aforementioned War is the Answer, which conveys the exact opposite message.

Despite their message that clearly advances the interests of capital, Five Finger Death Punch presents themselves as the quintessential American working-class band. Their image and music speak to the people who are often pejoratively labeled “rednecks”: the white, predominantly rural American working class.

Take, for example, their music video for “The Pride” off of American Capitalist, a list-form song that namedrops companies like Facebook and Coca Cola, in which vocalist Ivan Moody proclaims the band is “not selling out,” but “buying in.”[11] Moody is presumably “buying in” to capitalism itself, not just the specific companies he names in the song. The music video depicts the band playing in front of a wall of television screens, flashing an endless stream of advertisements that light up the stage. The band members all wear NASCAR-style jerseys proudly emblazoned with the logos of corporate sponsors. It is important to pay attention to the stylistic choices being made here, as well as the specific companies 5FDP chooses to advertise. NASCAR, or The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, is an auto sports organization that is commonly associated with American working-class whites. The companies flashing on the television screens include Monster Energy and Fox Racing, both brands with similar associations. This melding of working-class aesthetics with the valorization of capital jives will with the band’s political philosophy, which contends that its own commercial success is proof that capitalism provides freedom and prosperity. This image is crucial to the band’s success; if they were to simply sing songs praising capitalism and the military without adopting this “everyman” aesthetic, it’s doubtful their audience would relate to their music so powerfully.

Five Finger Death Punch’s Central Message

We can synthesize all that was previously discussed into one concise sentence: Five Finger Death Punch’s central narrative is that they – the band – started out just like you – the audience – so if they were able to achieve fame and fortune in the capitalist system, you can too. True American Capitalists, 5FDP is selling the “American Dream” itself.

This is nothing new in marketing. Take, for example, this 1990 advertisement for a perfume named Heaven Sent, depicting the fragrance user bathing in celebrity status, coddled by servers and paparazzi as she steps out of a limousine onto the red carpet.[12]

The woman is the winner of a sweepstakes in which the grand prize is a one-day celebrity experience. Instead of merely selling fragrance, the perfume company is quite literally selling upward mobility.[13] It is useful to note that this advertisement was published well after the “Great U-Turn” in the mid-1970’s which saw a dramatic increase in wealth inequality and decrease in social mobility that continues to this day.[14]

Like the Heaven Sent perfume advertisement, Five Finger Death Punch’s “The Pride” is selling the promise of upward mobility to their working-class audience in the only way that seems attainable in the modern age: celebrity status. By “buying in” to the American capitalist system, so the band promises, you too can live large like Five Finger Death Punch: the monster truck driving, Monster Energy chugging guys you can rock out with now, and have a beer with later.

This narrative is, of course, inaccurate. Like I previously discussed, the band’s beloved American capitalism does not provide the freedom and opportunity that they claim it does. If “social mobility” ever even existed at all for the vast majority of people, the “Great U-Turn” killed it a long time ago. This is to say nothing of the economic exploitation inherent to the owner-worker relationship that defines capitalism, as described in Marx’s Capital.[15] Additionally, while 5FDP is right to mistrust the US government, they do so for the wrong reasons. The US government sends soldiers to die in war on behalf of the capitalists that 5FDP spends so much time praising. Regardless of whether or not the band intends to do so, or is even aware that they’re doing it, 5FDP’s message ultimately serves the interests of capital and sows false consciousness among the working class.

Alternative Narratives

Since Five Finger Death Punch’s music appeals to so-called “rednecks,” it may be prudent to examine the origins of that word. The term “redneck” was coined to describe white coal miners during the West Virginia Mine War, who wore red bandanas around their necks to show their allegiance to the miners’ union.[16]

The West Virginia Mine War was an armed conflict that took place in the early 1920’s between striking miners and the mine “operators” (companies) that exploited their labor in the Appalachian coal mines, and controlled every aspect of their lives in the company towns. After the miners in the independent town of Matewan unionized, the coal companies retaliated by sending in the Baldwin-Felts, private mercenaries that violently cracked down on the strikers. The miners took up arms against these corporate mercenaries, culminating in the Battle of Blair Mountain. The miners called upon the US Federal Government for assistance, but were unpleasantly surprised when the federal troops took the companies’ side instead. It is an oft-forgotten, but crucial piece of American working class history that demonstrates how the state works on behalf of capital – not against it.[17]

So, the rural white working class indeed has a history of resisting oppression and authoritarianism. But it is not the nebulous, aimless authoritarianism that Five Finger Death Punch describes in their music video “Living the Dream,” which argues that mask mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic are a slippery slope to tyranny.[18] It is actually capitalist authoritarianism, and government oppression on behalf of capital. Five Finger Death Punch’s narrative is a distortion of history that was expertly crafted by the capitalists before them, making the working class complicit in its own subjugation.

Conclusion

If socialists are to create class consciousness among American working-class whites, it is necessary to understand why their false consciousness exists in the first place so that it may be counteracted. By understanding Five Finger Death Punch’s working-class performance, we can understand the forces at play that sow false consciousness among the American proletariat. By advancing narratives that, using white working-class history, contradict 5FDP’s capital-serving message, we can obstruct the flow of false consciousness and promote true class consciousness for all working people.

Notes

[1] Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto, 1848.

[2] Marcus Morris, “Class, Performance and Socialist Politics: The Political Campaigns of Early Labour Leaders,” in Politics, Performance and Popular Culture, edited by Peter Yeandle, Katherine Newey and Jeffrey Richards, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016, pp. 259-275

[3] Gabriel Winant, “Dirty Jobs, Done Dirt Cheap: Working in Reality Television,” New Labor Forum 23, no. 3 (Fall 2014): pp. 66-71.

[4] Celebrity Net Worth, “Mike Rowe Net Worth.” https://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-celebrities/actors/mike-rowe-net-worth/

[5] https://youtu.be/mDQpo23vfLw

[6] Zoltan Bathory, “When I Say That Nothing is Impossible, I Truly Believe It,” interview by Sam Law, Kerrang Magazine, March 30th, 2020.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Zoltan Bathory, “Interview: Five Finger Death Punch – Zoltan Bathory; Oslo, 2011,” interview by Guest, Musicalypse, January 10th, 2011.

[10] Jonathan Turley, “Big Money Behind War: The Military-Industrial Complex,” Al Jazeera, Jan 11th 2014. https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/1/11/big-money-behind-war-the-military-industrial-complex/

[11] Five Finger Death Punch, “The Pride.” https://youtu.be/zuQGx1H1Qh8

[12] Erika L. Paulson and Thomas C. O’Guinn, “Working-Class Cast: Images of the Working Class in Advertising,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 644 (Nov 2012): pp. 50-69.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Bennett Harrison and Barry Bluestone, The Great U-Turn: Corporate Restructuring and the Polarizing of America, New York, NY: Basic Books, 1988.

[15] Karl Marx, “Part Three: The Production of Absolute Surplus Value,” Capital: Volume 1, 1867.

[16] Wilma Lee Steele, “Do You Know Where the Word ‘Redneck’ Comes From? Mine Wars Museum Opens, Revives Lost Labor History,” interview by Roxy Todd, Inside Appalachia, West Virginia Public Broadcasting, May 18th, 2015.

[17] Brandon Nida, “Demystifying the Hidden Hand: Capital and the State at Blair Mountain,” Historical Archaeology 47, no. 3 (2013): pp. 52-68.

[18] Five Finger Death Punch, “Living the Dream.” https://youtu.be/eOkkWIOkWl8

Fascist Performance Art: Looking Further at Augustus Sol Invictus and Trends in the Far-Right

By Shane Burley

Normally I would not be inspired to write something in response to someone else, which is why this is intended to stand on its own. On January 11th, an article was published by me called Imperium and the Sun, which outlined the fascist motifs in the Senate run of Florida Libertarian Party candidate, Augustus Sol Invictus. Scarcely a couple of days after its publishing Augustus sent us a letter and issued a statement about the article, mainly thanking us for doing a critical look at his campaign in a substantial way. This is largely because the coverage on him has focused primarily on sensational parts of his life, mainly his use of animal sacrifice as an unusual manifestation of his pagan faith. That aspect was not incredibly concerning to me when writing the article, nor was his paganism, which is not something to really turn into an oddity. It should also be noted that in his public statement he was both fair and gracious, which did not seem insincere or meant to provoke malice. Instead, it may actually drive at some of his motivating reasons for running in the first place, where he would prefer a well-grounded critique as much as any form of commentary.

In an effort to essentially continue the discussion that happened in the previous article, I am going to use this opportunity to ask questions that can go deeper than the previous article did. I am also going use a couple of comments that were made mainly because it provides an additional avenue to discuss the issues with more guarded parts of the New Right.

In Invictus' public statement, he mentioned that he actually did name his law practice after the book Imperium by Francis Parker Yockey. This was actually a bit surprising as I would have assumed that it was more the broad concept of Imperium rather than the book itself, though there are obviously reasons to think it was simply out of admiration for the book. The book by Yockey is sort of a popularization of the ideas of Oswald Spengler and his book The Decline of the West, which came out of the sense of "national humiliation" that came over German nationalists during the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. Imperium itself is less of a philosophical tome and more of an extended rant that discusses the decline of America as a decadent failed-state because of democracy, capitalism, egalitarianism, and Jews. This book was foundational to the later work of people like the Liberty Lobby's Willis Carto and is still sold as a primary text on many nationalist and traditionalist websites like Arktos, who generally deride more openly "white power" authors. Imperium is one of the most virulently anti-Semitic books in modern writing, blaming the perceived destruction of "Western man" on Jewish subversion, which happened through destroying "national consciousness" so as to achieve dominance. The book itself is largely incoherent and bizarrely structured, almost feeling as though it is the "off the cuff" belligerence of an angry madman protesting the failure of his own life.

Largely, when reading the book, I was reminded strangely of Juche. For people that look at North Korea and its development of its own nationalism based both on Korean national myths and Japanese Imperial Fascism, Juche is the state philosophy of "self reliance." The books, written by Kim Il-Sung, are in multiple volumes and in most Korean homes. When you read them, as very few in Korea have, they are largely filled with unreadable drivel lacking in depth. Brian Reynolds Myers, who wrote the analysis of North Korea's development of a paranoid, race-based nationalism in The Cleanest Race, often described it as the kind of work a professor receives from an undergraduate who wrote their term paper the night before and needed to fill up the page requirements. The books are instead meant to appear on the wall and to fill up libraries, owing to the perceived intellectual prowess of both Kim Il-Sung and the "ongoing" Korean revolution. Kim Il-Sung himself wanted to appear as a philosopher as Mao Zedong had, and so he filled up books with words just as he had. The difference was that it was largely vapid, plagiarized, and up to revision on the whims of the state. Myers maintains the Juche is not ideological in any real way since it does not contain enough substance to coordinate consciousness leading to actions. Instead, it inspires servility and elevates the leadership of the country. Imperium feels largely like Yockey's attempt to use pseudo-intellectual language in an effort to create a large volume and to create the sense that the far-Right had intellectual foundations just as the Left did.

One thing that did stick from Yockey, and we are seeing today in many sides of the New Right, is a call for unity between the Right and Left. Yockey called for a "red-brown alliance," which would be the association between fascists and anti-Zionist communists (since he saw the Jews as essentially the primary problem), and this has been much of the discussion of a Third Positionism that sees both capitalism and communism as problematic. Today, we see this incredibly present in National Anarchism, National Revolution, and National Bolshevism, as well as various strains of racialist Asatru/Odinism and parts of the Alt Right. It should be noted that they do not borrow from the Left in terms of underlining ideas, but just in tactical notions like opposition to capitalism and support of deep environmentalism.

The fact that Sol Invictus sees Imperium as such a central text is telling, primarily from a racial direction as he often eschews racial language in his speeches and interviews (though not entirely).

One criticism Augustus provides, which is much less of 'Imperium and the Sun' and more of some of the reporters who I use as sources, is using a former relationship of his who would like to remain anonymous. In this she said that Augustus had a "dim view of women," which he takes exception with because, as he says, "he worships a goddess." He notes several times is that he worships the "feminine," a point which he believes absolves him of sexism. This is one of the more transparent parts of his claims since this is essentially the religious version of "I have a female friend."

The distinction needs to be made between "worshipping the feminine" and being progressive towards, and affirmative of, women. Augustus' worship of the "feminine" is primarily a notion built on the idea that women are essentially feminine. This provides a narrative for women based on his perception of their natural essence, a notion that is both stifling and erroneous. To have relationships with women that reflect respect and equality, which is what is needed to not have the "dim" view, he would have to negate this idea that women are "essentially" feminine or any other quality. It would also require one to be critical of toxic masculinity and the oppressive nature of historic patriarchy, and this is certainly not a direction Augustus seems to go with his narrative. Some people are feminine, others are not, but this is a shifting personality characteristic that is not adequately rooted in biology or spiritual essences. This, I think, is largely something that Augustus is aware of, and something he would be unwilling to do as his conception of the "modern world" he opposes is one that believes gender is performative rather than natural. This is really the distinction between the "feminine" and "feminism," which is to say that a feminist interpretation of gender and support for female autonomy is not something Invictus sees as central to his worldview. If his perception of women as having a distinct nature that they must fulfill then this is a radically dim view of women, and one that is certainly not negated by providing a laundry list of women he respects.

Augustus took clear issue with my reference to his intended destruction of the public education system. He has said on more than one occasion that he would "gut the Department of Education," which is not unusual for a libertarian candidate; and most people, even on the moderate Left, would see as destructive for lower-income communities. The first objection he makes to this assessment is simply that he does not oppose "equal access to education," which I assumed would be the real victim of his plan. This could be an ideological assessment of this, but when looking at the proliferation of charter schools in privatized educational enclaves it is pretty clear what the results would be of demolishing the public education system in the current state of capitalism. He then mentioned that what he wanted to do was get rid of the "Marxism" that has infected our schools. He then said that I am a Marxist, which I am not, and so that this is likely not a point we could find common ground.

The problem with this line is that is lacks even a cursory understanding of Marxism as it has ever been understood, both by Marxists and by critical eyes. A term that floats around the far Right, which is not used by literally anyone outside of it, is Cultural Marxism. The term is used to designate the Frankfurt School Marxists who developed areas of critical theory and used revamped understandings of Marxism to discuss social systems. They often note that this Cultural Marxism is either created as a pseudoscience by Jews to destabilize Western man so as to support their own ethnic interests, or that Jews simply think in rash relativisms that lead the smarter ones to overly complex nonsense. This, on its face, is ridiculous anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, but it also reveals a real problem in the way that the Right (including even moderate Republicans) thinks about Marxism.

Marxism itself really did not branch extensively into social issues, and instead the ideas that they lend to "Marxist infiltration" have much different origins. In general, this broad social left sphere actually comes from the interactions of feminism, queer liberation, the civil rights movement, radical environmentalism, and other intellectual and social struggles with anarchism, which is the ideological center of this discourse, sometimes explicitly, but more often implicitly. The fundamental core of the anarchist project is an opposition to social hierarchy. This has its core in capitalism in the contemporary world, but it also intersects and has individualized hierarchies through oppressed identities and social experiences. This is a constantly evolving sphere of understanding and struggle, one that certainly owes some criticisms of capitalism from Marx, but really little else. Marx himself drew together a system of "base and superstructure." This meant that the foundations were economic, and culture and social systems derived from the relationships to material production. The Frankfurt School certainly tried to evolve it, but it did not actually catch on because of its alienating academic nature. I am often surprised that the far-right does not attack Autonomism or Situationism as they successfully evolved some of Marx's ideas for social revolution, and in fact the far-right often cites both of these threads in Marxism to support certain positions and to discuss the alienating condition of the "modern world."

Today, much of the far-right derives its discussions about Cultural Marxism in a much more specific form from former UC Long Beach professor Kevin McDonald's work. His book series, called the Culture of Critique, is supposed to be an "evolutionary psychological" look at Judaism as a "group evolutionary strategy" that is a result of Jewish ethnocentrism and high "verbal intelligence." He goes through different movements that he claims were dominated by "strongly identified Jews" and then essentially tries to prove that they were pseudoscience used to confuse and destroy the Gentiles. Cultural Marxism is one of these, where he sees it as an attempt by Jews to destroy white identity and racial consciousness as a way of protecting them from anti-Semitism. It should be said openly that he has almost no support for the radical wing of his claims, though the level of anti-Semitism increased as the volumes were released. Today, his ideas have been almost roundly rejected, where he is often accused of being misinformed about genetics, industrial history, and even what the realities of group evolution. Likewise, most of his theories involve basically counting people who may or may not be Jews, then assuming they have some coordinated conspiracy or subconscious drive to destroy white people, and then deciding that certain academic of political fields were more influential than they were. This is especially true of Frankfurt School Marxism, which he blames for just about every aspect of the progressive culture.

So then, really, why is Marxism still accused of having this effect? The reason seems to be that Marxism has historically been the dominant left revolutionary force when fascism was first developed, and a narrative about Jewish involvement in Bolshevism was so heavily relied upon during its interwar resurgence that it would be hard to create a continuity between the past and the present by rejecting Marxism as the dominant force of degeneration. Almost all levels of Marxism, from its Leninist interpretations to Trotskyist middle-road attempts to Maoist insurrectionaries and Situationist counter-cultures, are difficult to interpret for those looking to find a direct center of what they see as a force to destroy "nation and identity." This is especially difficult given the role that Marxism has played in third-world nationalism, much of which I would assume Augustus would favor. Likewise, Trotskyism seems to be an incredibly easy subsection for the far-right to highlight, often saying that it is synonymous with the Cultural Marxism that the Frankfurt School represents. This is embarrassingly misguided as there is almost no theoretical connection between the party-oriented political work of modern Trotskyist groups and the Negative Dialectics of Adorno. It is not just that they have different subsets; they are of a completely different world. Today, much of Frankfurt School Marxism has actually founded the basis for Primitivist thought, people like David Watson and John Zerzan, who are often derided for having parts of their analysis shared with those on the more esoteric "green fascist" Right. They certainly lack the "mass cultural orientation," as Zerzan calls it, that Augustus would find problematic in the global contemporary Left.

The key point here is that the effect that Augustus rails about in schools, which would be egalitarianism and general left-liberalism, has no direct correlation to Marx. I assume that I am going to receive emails in the next couple days with long citations that "prove" the correlation between transgender identity and 19th century Marxism, then to the Jewish Talmud, but beyond their racism, almost no evidence, scholarship, or political action supports this thesis.

Invictus makes an interesting note about the back and forth assertions regarding his own fascist politics and his family make-up. Without going into it too deeply, his partner is Latino/a, as are his children. This has led many to counter that he simply could not be racist, which is clearly not true, but also it drives at something more difficult about the correlation between white supremacy and fascism. Augustus himself wants to note that having Latino/a children does not mean he is not a fascist. This shows a couple of things. First, that he likes to take the label of fascist. For most looking at the far-right, this is both surprising and not surprising. While most on the Alt Right (Neoreaction, contemporary White nationalism, and other sub-divisions) think of themselves as ideologically different than fascism, which they believe is a specific politic lost in interwar Europe, they do not necessarily deride it either. Likewise, they often use the term as a semi-joke, calling each other "fashy." This is actually why I referred to Augustus' hair as "fashy," which he took exception to, which actually comes from the way that people like The Daily Shoah often call that hair style, now popular with the Alt Right after Richard Spencer chose it.

Second, he seems to be aligning himself with a sort of fascism that is primarily one of power and hierarchy rather than having its roots in race. This may seem confusing, and it is, but there have been fascist movements whose nationalism and ideals were less oriented on race (like that rising in Brazil). Augustus has made his image a very thought-out and well-crafted piece of performance art. He chooses aesthetics that would make people immediately step back in horror because of their perceived "fascist" roots. He uses a straight face, an almost ironic appearing pose, for making videos where he looks into the camera with a 10,000-yard stare. When speaking, he does the modern equivalent of screaming in front of an iron eagle, where he often uses contradictory language about "the system" while hailing from both the Left and the Right. As mentioned in the last article, he hams up his accent so much that you almost expect him to say, "I've always depended on the kindness of strangers." This is the ideological hallmark of Third Positionist fascism, while also being innately rhetorical. Over and over again he calls for revolution, then he even specifies that he does not mean to vote or volunteer for his campaign. He means revolution, and believes that he was born to lead a civil war. This is followed up by literally calling for people to support him as a candidate for office with relatively conventional political stances. It may seem like an act meant to make people feel as though they are doing more than voting; think of the 2007 Ron Paul campaign. This is likely true, but it is also driving at a fascist rhetorical strategy of fomenting revolution in spirit while not going as far as to stage actual insurrection. Instead, he wants to inject the political sphere with the feeling of revolutionary struggle with the hope that this will lead to a culture of "will to power." Augustus seems to want to recreate the feeling of fascism, the powerful speeches, the calls for unity and strength, the resurrection of the heroic motifs. He purposely references Rome in the same way that Mussolini did, which both has the same effect of dog whistling to his nationalist base while having plausible deniability when it comes to WWII tyrannies. In this way, his politics are clearly built more on the image of strength, which is backed up by his calls for natural hierarchy and eugenics, and it may or may not include race.

Augustus sent over a speech he gave at the University of Florida looking at fascism, before which he did a reading of three Cantos of Ezra Pound on usury at the Jack Kerouac house. Usury itself, the unethical lending of money, is often used as an anti-Semitic caricature of Jewish lending practices. Much of this comes from periods in European history where Jews were restricted from owning property and most professions and had lending sometimes as the only source of income, which led the anti-Semites to find another way to denigrate the Jewish community. The use of the term usury could, theoretically, mean lending with huge interest rates, but the term itself is chosen very carefully so as to bring up the Jewish caricature. Ezra Pound, who he is referencing in both speeches, was an undisputable fascist and virulent anti-Semite, and one of the few far-right intellectuals that they still have to draw on.

The racial issues are confusing in that he really does seem to shift with the environment. In a recent December 8th presentation at a small bar in Jacksonville, Florida, he stood in front of a Rock Against Communism flag as he derided the Federal Government. ROC is a punk movement that was the neo-Nazi equivalent of the growing non-racist Oi! scene, and created the foundation of the "white noise" music culture and racist skinhead gang community. One of the people helping him set up had, on his shaved head, the Heathen Mjonir and another runic symbol often associated with neo-Nazis. It could be argued, as I'm sure it will be, that these could theoretically be non-racist as well (I even own a Mjonir necklace myself), but in this particular situation it certainly would be a remarkable coincidence. Augustus then gave a speech with showed clear support for "nationalists and white racialists" and calls to "name our enemies." All of this was started with a story about a farmer being removed from his land by the federal government and another unnamed enemy. This draws heavily on the Posse Comitatus militia narrative that tries to inter-mix class struggle by re-orienting the enemy as various covert agents inside of the government, namely the Jews. He continues, throughout the speech, to accuse Marxism as seeping into the culture, which again re-orients the struggle as between near eternal enemies coming from deep in the past. He even mentioned Robert Matthews, a deceased member of the white racialist insurrectionary group The Order, who is radical even for Invictus to mention. When on shows like The Daily Shoah, he certainly seems to stand in support of their white nationalism, but he does avoid taking a clear stance on this.

I mentioned in the original article that he is a "left-hand path (LHP)" follower of Crowley's Thelema. He noted my mention, going on to let me know that he will be speaking at the Left Hand Path Consortium in Atlanta on April 10th with a lecture titled "The Nature of Power." I want to say clearly that I am far from an academic versed in esoteric traditions, but I do know my way around this discussion. The term, which is actually usually avoided in the academy, refers to two ways to possibly interpret esoteric and religious traditions. Most religions are Right-Hand Path, which sees things like universal ethical codes that are generally utilitarian. LHP rejects morality as a key dividing line, which is why it is often associated with black magick and relativism or nihilism. Iconoclastic in its roots, the most prominent forms of LHP magick is associated with Satanism, both of the metaphorical LaVeyan sensibility and the more theological type associated with organizations like the The Order of Nine Angels. The Temple of Set, Ordo Templi Orientis, some types of Hinduism and Sufi Islam, and some smaller tribal religions, could also be described as such. Much of the discourse inside of the LHP is about the attraction to power, and much of it is often associated with the desire to dominate over others and to instill hierarchies. Esoteric, elitist, and often focused on personal gain, LHP really does separate its traditions from most values associated with religion.

Many people on the Left love to joke around the Church of Satan because of its anti-Christian roots and its advocacy of sexual freedom. They often do not go deep enough to see its more ingrained right-wing ideas, where private property, personal power, and, as Crowley said, letting one's "will" be the whole of the law, are what they are founded on. This tradition plays almost perfectly into both Invictus' politics and public image, as well as the idea of Imperium that drives his life and program.

Augustus clearly liked the article about him, primarily because very few people got beyond gawking at his peculiarities so as to look at his politics. It is because of this that I think he would be willing to answer some open questions, which I am sure he would answer honestly and sincerely given his composure and penchant for honorable behavior. I put together a short list of questions, all of which are intended to be tough and revealing. A first glance, it may seem as though they are just sensationalistic, and, in a sense, they are. But they are also getting at something real, and I sincerely do not know the answers to them. The politics that Augustus is accused of, as well as those he happily embodies, have, for various reasons, not been incredibly clear to the general public. Therefore, I want to avoid any double-speak, "politician talk," or dodging that is so common even in smaller political races. Augustus has said many times that he wants a political discussion that is not simplified or dumbed down, so I think that he will appreciate being challenged in this way.

Questions for Augustus Sol Invictus:

1. Are you a racial or ethnic nationalist?

2. Do you share the view with many of the outlets in which you have spoke, that there are IQ differences that are biologically different between racial groups?

3. Do you share the idea in Imperium that the Jews are innately enemies of Western society?

4. Do you think that the Holocaust did not occur in the numbers and specifics of the standard narrative?

5. What kind of eugenics program would you want to see implemented in the U.S. if you were to have complete control over it?

6. Do you see men and women as having innately different natures?

7. In what way does Thelema influence your political ideas?

8. In this natural hierarchy that you spoke of, what types of people end up near the top, and what types of people end up towards the bottom?

9. Can you explain, in detail, what you think Marxism to be and how it has been a dominant force in Western society?

10. How would you rid society of the subversive elements, be them Marxist or Jewish or whatever you believe them to be?

11. Do you generally oppose mass democracy as a concept?

12. Do you think that people are generally equal, despite their own particular differences?