Digital Commons Network^™

Reactionary Technopolitics: A Critical Sociohistorical Review, Sean Doody

Fast Capitalism

This paper outlines a critical social history of reactionary media, political, and information networks ”what I refer to generally as technopolitics” in the United States and their significance to the hostility towards truth and fact that is a central feature of our political present. I begin with a critical review of the unique right-wing media and political ecosystem that emerged from the alliance between neoliberalism and social conservatism in the twentieth-century. In the second section, I focus on digitization, Trump, and the alt-right, and discuss the historical tethers connecting the latter to the cyber-libertarians and white supremacists operating on the …

Social Crises, Political Conflicts, And Cultural Contradictions Of Nixonland: Tracing Constitutional Crisis In The Usa From Nixon To Trump, Timothy W. Luke

Fast Capitalism

Many developments, like greater domestic turmoil, economic dislocation, social immobility, and political gridlock, suggest "the public" and "the private" are different domains with the US than they were decades ago in 1969 when President Nixon entered office. The constitutional state, as a theory and set of practices in the USA in the Nixon era was put under tremendous strains, and it seems clear that those pressures fractured it. After Vietnam, stagflation, Watergate, and the transitional Ford Administration, has it ever been the same? The Reagan-Bush assault on the New Deal and Great Society as well as the essentially permanent mobilization …

The Death Of Neoliberal Realism?, Zachariah William Wheeler

Fast Capitalism

Post-punk theorist Mark Fisher (d. 2017) shows how neoliberalism relies on a "reflexive impudence" imposed on politics and culture by the necessity of "realism." Neoliberalism puts fixed limits on how we can imagine the future, and what degree of deviation can be expected from participating in the political process. This paper takes seriously Fisher's perspective, analyzing recent political events in the U.S. as they relate to the use of neoliberalism as a deflationary political tactic. My analysis expands on how two different figures, Trump and Sanders, politicize discourse and develop consciousness outside of this pre-approved realism enforced by neoliberalism. Figures …

The Frailty Of The Strong Executive, Peter D. Ore, Andrew Paul Davis

Fast Capitalism

This essay reflects on the contemporaneous empowerment of the executive branch under the Trump administration with regard to other branches of government, as well as the disempowerment of the nation's bureacracy. We argue that this combination leads to a simultaneously unfettered, yet feeble executive that has little oversight, yet is routinely ineffective. We explore how tensions in organizational and political theory with regard to private and public governance have presaged this administrative move. This essay concludes by discussing why elite actors might support such an unencumbered, yet ineffective executive.

Author Biographies

Peter D. Ore, University of Arizona

Peter Ore is …

The United States Of Trump Corp.: The 'Not Normal/New Normal' Governing Style Of A Personal Brand, Steven Alfonso Panageotou, Joel M. Crombez

Fast Capitalism

Mired in inconsistency, contradiction, and scandal, Donald J. Trump's presidency appears to be anything but normal. This has prompted a great deal of searching among social scientists and journalists to understand what exactly is behind Trump's erratic governing style. These narratives center the new normal of American presidential politics on the extreme form of Trump's narcissistic behavior and his flagrant commitment to ethno-nationalist, authoritarian, and neoliberal practices. However, because these narratives rely on traditional political strategies and theories, they do not fully capture the most novel aspects of the Trump mode of governance. What is "not normal" about President Donald …

Making It Up As He Goes: Trump's Improvisational Rhetoric And The Hyper-Rhetorical Presidency, Richard Holtzman

Fast Capitalism

Trump disregards the norms of presidential communication by regularly speaking or tweeting off-the-cuff with seemingly little forethought or editorial input. As White House administrations institutionalized presidential speechwriting and strategic communications over the past century, meticulously-crafted rhetoric became the norm. Trump's improvisational rhetoric is the antithesis of the highly-professionalized, disciplined approach to political communication we have come to expect from the presidency. This essay takes the position that his reliance on improvisational rhetoric is more than a matter of communication; it is a matter of governance. Trump regularly uses improvised communication to make important policy decisions. In doing so, the president …

Introduction To "This Is Not Normal", David M. Arditi, Timothy W. Luke

Fast Capitalism

Author Biographies

David M. Arditi, University of Texas Arlington

David Arditi is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Arlington, where he serves as Director of the Center for Theory. He researches the impact of digital technology on society. His forthcoming book, Getting Signed: Record Contracts, Musicians and Power in Society, explores the way musicians' dreams become their source of exploitation.

Timothy W. Luke, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Timothy W. Luke is a University Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science. Luke's areas of research specialization include environmental and cultural studies …

The Art Of The Deal, The Arts Of Democracy: Trump, Dewey, And Democracy, Nancy Sue Love

Fast Capitalism

Donald Trump's politics has been variously described as "neoliberal," "nationalist," "authoritarian," "populist," and even "fascist," and all these descriptors are appropriate in some respects. In this article, I explore the linkages between Trump, neoliberalism, and fascism through what may seem an unlikely aspect of his politics, that is, his artistry as a candidate and now the president. In elevating deal-making to an art form, Trump is not unique. Fascist leaders have long fancied themselves as artists and regarded politics as an art form. I argue that Trump's "art of the deal" materializes and normalizes the aesthetics of neoliberal capitalism; it …

Formatted Feelings: Rap As A Pedagogy Of Capitalized Emotion, Guanhua Yao

Impact: A Journal of Community and Cultural Inquiry in Education

This article examines mainstream rap as a key apparatus through which capital formats emotional life under platform capitalism. Utilizing grounded theory coding for ten Billboard No. 1 rap tracks released between 2005 and 2025, the analysis identifies durable affective templates, commodified desire, spectacularized power, and curated vulnerability, that standardize how emotion becomes legible, repeatable, and marketable. Synthesizing affect theory, media sociology, and social dramaturgy, the article argues that rap teaches listeners how to perform feeling in ways compatible with visibility regimes and datafied attention economies. Rather than treating these songs as expressive artifacts, the study reframes them as pedagogical infrastructures …

Macau Noir: Criminal Brotherhoods, Casino Capitalism, And The Case Of The Post-Socialist Chinese Consumer, Tim Simpson

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

Noir As Politics: Spanish Language Hardboiled Detective Fiction And The Discontents Of The Left, Patrick Blaine

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

Saviano, Garrone, Gomorrah: Neorealism And Noir In The Land Of The Camorra, Fabrizio Cilento

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

A Contribution To The Critique Of The Political Economy Of Google, Christian Fuchs

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

The Yugoslav Wars As The Primordial Accumulation Of Capital, Mirt Komel

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

There's Chemistry Between Us: European Transition To Transition, Anže Dolinar

Fast Capitalism

Transition state of a chemical reaction is a particular configuration along the reaction coordinate. In chemistry this state is characterized by a specific property of irreversibility and corresponds to the highest energy level along a certain reaction coordinate. One of the qualities of transition state is its indetermination. In other words, we do not know what really goes on in that state, all we have are approximations.

What concerns me here is the transition state of nation states as a specific configuration corresponding to this chemical analogy. If this analogy holds true two equally important consequences will inevitably follow. Firstly, …

Satire, Guns, And Humans: Lessons From The Nacirema, Steve Kroll-Smith, Gwen Hunnicutt

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

A Hokies' Lament: American Social Psychosis And The Virginia Tech Killings, Stephen Pfohl

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

Mediated Ritual On Academic Ground, Neal King

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

Risk, Return To Industry, And The Future Of Democracy, Lukas Szrot

Fast Capitalism

Reflecting on 2020, I consider the possibility of the collapse of the United States, as well as the ways in which it has fallen short of representative and democratic promise. I argue that the spread of conspiratorial reason is symptomatic of the mistrust that has arisen from these failures. Drawing on naturalist, critical theory, and sociology of knowledge accounts of conspiratorial reason, I argue that such thinking is interest-bound, weaponizing mistrust, and is broadly appealing but ultimately disempowering, serving the ends of failed praxis and reification of power. I examine two possible sources of institutionalized mistrust: the "culture wars" thesis …

The Plague Of White Supremacy In The Age Of Fascist Politics, Henry Giroux

Fast Capitalism

The toxic thrust of white supremacy runs through American culture like an electric current. Without apology,Jim Crow is back suffocating American society in a wave of voter suppression laws, ongoing attempts by rightwing politicians to implement a form of apartheid pedagogy, and the resurgence of a right-wing cultural politics organized around the legacy of white nationalism and white supremacy. The emergence of white supremacy to the centers of power is also evident in the reign of police violence against Black people that came into full view with the murder of George Floyd by a white police officer and the ensuring …

Beyond Prepper Culture As Right-Wing Extremism: Selling Preparedness To Everyday Consumers As How To Survive The End Of The World On A Budget, Timothy W. Luke

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

A Prelude To Insurrection: How A 4chan Refrain Anticipated The Capitol Riot, Marc Tuters

Fast Capitalism

This paper looks at how vernacular practices associated with fringe web communities seem to have found their way into reactionary American politics in recent years. Combining concepts from political communication (Bennett and Segerberg 2013) and from assemblage theory (Samson 2020), the paper looks at how key elements of the Capitol insurrection narrative initially emerged on 4chan as meme about a second civil war (called "the Boogaloo"), then spreading to social media and amplified by President Trump. In an effort to make sense of this relationship between the fringe the mainstream, the paper offers both original empirical analysis as well as …

Homoterrorism: Definition, Application, Subversion, Angelos Bollas

Fast Capitalism

On Friday, September 21, 2018, news reports on Greek corporate media announced the death of a man who had allegedly attempted to rob a jewellery store. The media announcement was accompanied by video footage in which two civilians were shown violently attacking the alleged thief while the latter was attempting to escape the jewellery store. A little later, the alleged thief was announced dead. This is the case of Zak Kostopoulos who was lynched in his attempt to escape a jewellery shop where he had found shelter from a threat that, to this day, remains unknown. Zak was lynched literally …

The Rise Of The Robots: Technocapitalism And The Policing Of Race, Constantine Gidaris

Fast Capitalism

This article critically engages with the emergence of police robots in the United States, arguing that their inevitable foray into everyday policing will fuel existing issues of racial discrimination. Building on Luis Suarez-Villa's (2009) conceptualization of technocapitalism, I situate police robots within a framework of social domination that thrives not only on its connections to corporatism and militarism, but also on technocapitalist conditions that invariably exacerbate the oppressive dynamics of racist and discriminatory policing. Although police robots will make police work safer for officers (Sharkey 2008), I contend that they will be used by the police as weaponized machines of …

Precarious Labor In Covid Times: The Case Of Musicians, David M. Arditi

Fast Capitalism

The coronavirus pandemic changed the way we think about work, the economy, and our everyday lives as governments shutdown all but the most essential public spaces. Workers who earn a living through precarious employment have faced unique barriers to securing wages. The impact of the pandemic shutdown was especially devastating on musicians' lives and many supporting workers in the entertainment industry. The structural insecurity of gig work became amplified as venues were forced to stop performances for a year or more. In this paper, I argue the current phase of capitalism that depends on precarious labor and unending consumption destroys …

Modularity, Labor, And Ideology In Edtech Platforms, Mario Khreiche

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

Fast "Truths" And Slow Knowledge; Oracular Answers And Wikipedia's Epistemology, Zachary Mcdowell, Matthew Vetter

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

Full Issue, Fast Capitalism Editorial Team

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

Fediverse’S Evolution From The Cultural-Historical Activity Theory, José Manuel Meza-Cano, Edith González-Santiago

Fast Capitalism

This paper begins by mentioning some problems we found in social networks belonging to corporations such as Facebook and Twitter, emphasizing the inclusion of algorithmic timelines, the verticality of decisions that respond to market logic, and the privacy of users’ data. This research gives rise to presenting open-source social networks as a democratic and safer alternative for their users. These social networks shape the Fediverse, the result of the union of the words Federation- Universe, and whose history and evolution we describe. We expose the main postulates of the Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) for using this theory to conduct the …

Reading About Gender Identity In A Rural Community: Discourse Around Young Adult Literature And Social Justice, Ashley S. Boyd, Rachael R. Wolney

Journal of Queer and Trans Studies in Education

This study explores how a rural adult book club engaged with gender identity through young adult literature (YAL), focusing on Mason Deaver’s I Wish You All the Best. Facilitated by two teacher educators, the club brought together local residents and a guest speaker from a regional support organization to discuss gender, pronouns, and the experiences of nonbinary youth. Using critical discourse analysis and thematic coding, the authors examine how participants, cisgender adults, navigated unfamiliar concepts, reflected on their own beliefs, and considered implications for their personal and professional lives. Findings highlight the power of YAL to serve as a …