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Is Mencken based on Donald Trump in Succession? The alt-right politician, Jeryd Mencken, is front and center in Season 4, Episode 8.

Its no secret that the characters in Succession are based on several real-life counterparts. Now that the election is finally upon our favorite (or least favorite) characters, its time to look in-depth at Jeryd Mencken (Justin Kirk). We first meet Mencken in Season 3 in the famous What It Takes episode, which brings us behind the scenes of the Republican Partys corruption.

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At the time, Logan Roy decides to back Mencken as the Republican candidate in the upcoming election over more centrist and traditional options. Roman (Kieran Culkin) sees himself in Mencken and they bond over their disruptor identities. But now that were on the precipice of Successions final Election Day, we cant help but wonder if Mencken is directly based on Donald Trump.

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While the most obvious comparison to draw to Jeryd Mencken is Donald Trump, Mencken is perhaps an even more ominous future of Americas democracy. It could be surmised that the previous president, nicknamed The Raisin, was more Trump-esque, although we know little about him besides his willingness to bend to the Roys. Of course, Trump bends to no one (or so it seems), which is just one similarity he shares with Mencken.

In Succession, Mencken is an outspoken alt-right pundit who believes that races shouldnt mix (yep, hes very scary). When he says things like, People trust people who look like them, and I love this country, but lets take a beat before we fundamentally alter its composition, these are carefully-coded phrases to further his all-white agenda.

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We know that Mencken is not a good guy, thanks to Shivs aversion to him. While Shiv has already thrown her morals in the trash, she supported Gil Eavis (a Bernie Sanders stand-in) at one point, so her heart was in the right place. She fears that if Mencken wins, women, children, people of color, and all disenfranchised communities will be in major trouble. But most importantly, the future of democracy will be at risk.

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This sounds like what people said about Trump, but Mencken also draws comparisons to pundits such as Richard Spencer, Josh Hawley, and Tucker Carlson. Mencken is much younger and more charismatic than Trump, and his all-white agenda closely mirrors Richard's. Mencken tells the voters that no one can pocket him. But at the same time, he will happily conspire with the Roy family to accomplish a shared agenda.

Richard Spencer

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Many right-wing politicians and pundits today, Trump aside, claim theyre all doing what they believe is right for the country. They claim they cant be bought and, like Trump, denounce traditional politics. Mencken does the same. Shiv even calls him a YouTube provocateur, hinting at a possible Jordan Peterson comparison as well. But at the end of the day, our politicians and Mencken all have their own power and financial interests at heart.

While Mencken may not be a direct version of Trump, he definitely evokes bits and pieces of Trumps rhetoric and election behavior. Democratic candidate Daniel Jimnez (Elliot Villar), on the other hand, is unwilling to play into the Roys hands. Kendall (Jeremy Strong) has made it clear that ideologically, he wants Jimnez to win, but because Jimnez is less willing than Mencken to play ball with the Roys, Kendalls allegiances are more complicated.

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We know that Gil draws many parallels to Bernie Sanders, but who does that make Jimnez? Because Jimnez wins the Democratic ticket, Gil is in the race as his running mate. However, Bernie didnt run alongside Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden in their respective elections. In fact, Kendall and Jimnez seem to have somewhat of a relationship, but whenever Kendall speaks to him, he doesnt seem very open or interested in what Kendalls agenda is.

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Jimnez evokes politicians such as Barack Obama or Cory Bookerhes a charismatic person of color who still feeds into the political system to rise above it. In many ways, this means that Jimnez is willing to sit down at the table with the Roys, but whether he would ever agree to anything with them is a major question mark. Even still, for the future of democracy, it seems like Shiv and Kendall want Jimnez to win.

Of course, as the owners of ATN, the Roys have some power over what happens, which is a scary depiction of our real-life democracy. Is it really left in the hands of the wealthiest few?

Tune into Succession every Sunday at 9 p.m. EST on HBO to see who takes the cake in an all-too-realistic alternate reality.

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Is Mencken Based on Trump in 'Succession'? He's an Alt-Right ... - Distractify

Irish Times

The piece ran on 11 May and accused people who use fake tan of mocking those with naturally dark skin

The Irish Times has apologised for running an article about Irish womens use of fake tan that was submitted by a hoaxer who used artificial intelligence.

The editor, Ruadhn Mac Cormaic, said on Sunday that it had fallen victim to a deliberate and coordinated deception that showed a need for stronger controls.

It was a breach of the trust between the Irish Times and its readers, and we are genuinely sorry. The incident has highlighted a gap in our pre-publication procedures, he said in a statement.

We need to make them more robust, and we will. It has also underlined one of the challenges raised by generative AI for news organisations. We, like others, will learn and adapt.

The paper ran the opinion piece from a contributor bylined as Adriana Acosta-Cortez on 11 May. It accused Irish women who used fake tan of mocking those with naturally dark skin. Acosta-Cortez was described as a 29-year-old Ecuadorian health worker who lived in north Dublin. A profile picture showed a blue-haired woman.

A Twitter account in Acosta-Cortezs name posted a message the next day criticising the Irish Times for running the article:

https://t.co/UHYCk0lHOe@IrishTimes genuinely sad that a once respectable news source has degraded themselves with such divisive tripe in order to generate clicks and traffic for their website. You need a better screening process than a believable gmail address #buyapaper gg

It included a link to an Irish Times article from January about robot infiltration of media.

The newspaper deleted the opinion piece within hours and launched a review.

The statement on Sunday confirmed Irelands paper of record had been duped. As in any 24/7 news operation, some days we do better than others. But last Thursday we got it badly wrong, said Mac Cormaic. It was a hoax; the person we were corresponding with was not who they claimed to be.

The article ran under the headline: Irish womens obsession with fake tan is problematic.

It began: Dear Irish women, we need to talk about fake tan. The article said women who artificially darkened their skin were donning an exotic costume.

Fake tan represents more than just an innocuous cosmetic choice; it raises questions of cultural appropriation and fetishisation of the high melanin content found in more pigmented people.

The piece was the papers second-most read article and prompted debate on radio and social media.

The person who controls Acosta-Cortezs Twitter account told the Guardian on Sunday, via direct message, that the Irish Timess apology sidestepped its decision to publish an incendiary article with an extreme leftwing viewpoint in pursuit of clicks.

The person said they were Irish, a college student and identified as non-binary. They said they created the Acosta-Cortez persona by repurposing the Twitter account, which dates from February 2021, by using some Spanish and following Ecuadorian outlets.

They said they used GPT-4 to create approximately 80% of the article and the image generator Dalle-E 2 to create a profile picture of a quintessential woke journalist using the prompts female, overweight, blue hair, business casual clothing, smug expression.

The hoaxs goal was to give my friends a laugh and to stir the shit in the debate about identity politics.

Some people have called me an alt-right troll but I dont think that I am. I think that identity politics is an extremely unhelpful lens through which to interpret the world.

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Irish Times apologises for hoax AI article about womens use of fake tan - The Guardian

At The New York Times Book Review, we write about thousands of books every year. Many of them are good. Some are even great. But we get that sometimes you just want to know, What should I read that is good or great for me?

Well, here you go a running list of some of the years best, most interesting, most talked-about books. Check back next month to see what weve added.

(For more recommendations, subscribe to our Read Like the Wind newsletter, check out our romance columnists favorite books of the year so far or visit our What to Read page.)

In this action-packed novel from a Booker Prize winner, a collective of activist gardeners crosses paths with a billionaire doomsday prepper on land they each want for different purposes. The billionaire decides to support the collective, citing common interests, but some of the activists suspect ulterior motives.

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This dazzling, epic narrative, translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell, is a bewitching brew of mystery and myth, peopled by mediums who can summon the Darkness for a secret society of wealthy occultists seeking to preserve consciousness after death.

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Hardings latest novel was inspired by the true story of a devastating 1912 eviction in Maine that displaced an entire mixed-race fishing community. Harding turns that history into a lyrical tale about the fictional Apple Island on the cusp of destruction.

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I want a hard-boiled tale from a master of noir

In the second novel in Mosleys King Oliver series, a Black private detective in New York investigates whether the government framed a prominent white supremacist. The plot gets more intricate the more he digs, with prison contractors, alt-right militias and Russian oil traffickers all in play.

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Rushdies new novel recounts the long life of Pampa Kampana, who creates an empire from magic seeds in 14th-century India. Her world is one of peace, where men and women are equal and all faiths welcome, but the story Rushdie tells is of a state that forever fails to live up to its ideals.

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A comedic take on the trials of immigration, Mas latest novel follows a Chinese man who is woefully unprepared for his move to America, but who powers through thanks to his belief that generosity and connection always exist among his fellow countrymen.

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In her radiant and brilliantly crafted fourth novel, Napolitano puts a fresh spin on a classic tale of four sisters and the man who joins their family. Take Little Women, move it to modern-day Chicago, add more intrigue, lots of basketball and a different kind of boy next door and youve got the bones of this thoroughly original story.

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Nonfiction

I want to take a head-spinning trip through the deep state

The people in this darkly funny book include fabulists, truth tellers, combatants, whistle-blowers. Like many of us, they have left traces of themselves in the digital ether by making a phone call, texting a friend, looking up something online. Howley writes about the national security state and those who get entangled in it Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning and Reality Winner all figure into Howleys riveting account.

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The central claim of this manifesto by the Princeton sociologist (who won a Pulitzer Prize for his 2016 book Evicted, about exploitation in Milwaukees poorest housing market) is that poverty in the United States is the product not only of larger economic shifts, but of choices and actions by more fortunate Americans.

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The Best Books to Read in 2023 - The New York Times

This piece appeared in the Spring 2023 issue of NACLA's quarterly print magazine, the NACLA Report. Subscribe in print today!

In November 2022, key figures of the Latin America Right gathered at an upscale hotel in Mexico City. On stage, the main organizer, Eduardo Verstegui, a Mexican actor, producer, and former advisor to Donald Trump on policies concerning the Latino community, gifted a Mexican football jersey to Brazilian lawmaker Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of the then-outgoing president. The jerseys number, 27, alluded to Bolsonaro as a possible presidential candidate in Brazil's 2027 elections. As Verstegui harshly attacked the Left and the administration of President Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador, Bolsonaro in turn praised him as a potential far-right candidate in Mexicos 2024 elections, eliciting cheers from the crowd. For Verstegui, the conference represented conservative unity at a time when the true Right found itself orphaned.

The rallying force behind the event was the U.S.-based Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). In addition to Bolsonaro, the hundreds of attendees included defeated Chilean presidential candidate Jos Antonio Kast and Argentine libertarian economist and presidential hopeful Javier Milei. Mexico was represented by clerics, former legislators from the center-right Partido Accin Nacional (PAN), and anti-abortion activists.

Former Colombian president lvaro Uribe gave a short and lackluster address, while Senator Mara Fernanda Cabal, a rising star of the Colombian Right who was introduced to the audience as the iron maiden against communism, gave a fiery one. Ghosts from the past were present as well, such as Ramfis Domnguez-Trujillo, grandson of Dominican despot Rafael Trujillo, and Zury Ros, current Guatemalan presidential candidate and daughter of convicted genocidaire General Efran Ros Montt.

U.S. political figures made appearances, most via videoconference. Propagandist Steve Bannon, Senator Ted Cruz, former U.S. ambassador to Mexico Chris Landau, conservative pundit Jack Posobiec, and CPAC's leading power couple Matt and Mercedes Schlapp all boasted about the growing strength of the conservative cause across the Americas. Even Donald Trump delivered a short, rather tepid video message, which the audience nevertheless noisily applauded. Europe, too, had a small but meaningful representation. A message from Santiago Abascal, head of the Spanish party Vox, met a warm reception, while Polish anticommunist icon Lech Walesa delivered a rambling keynote address that was not nearly as combative as those of his U.S. and Latin American peers.

CPAC Mexico was an occasion for reckoning. Contrary to the optimism that followed Trumps and Bolsonaros elections and the fall of Evo Morales in Bolivia, recent defeats in Chile, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Honduras, and Brazil seem to have put right-wing forces against the ropes. Yet these losses have galvanized conservatives, who, like they have in the past, are turning to internationalism to bolster their rise. Even in defeat, recent elections across the continent reveal that right-wing platforms are not only viable, but popular and capable of rallying grassroots and elite sectors, building coalitions, and gaining power in local and national arenas.

Three decades after the end of the Cold War and the consolidation of a widespread consensus supporting electoral democracy, the Old Right has sprung back as a seemingly good faith participant in the democratic game. This right wing sits at a crossroads. Given the decline of established center-right parties like Venezuelas COPEI or Chiles Christian Democratic Party over the past 20 years, a new constellation of hardline conservative actors is uniting internationally against new enemies like globalism, gender ideology, and the gay lobby.

But the roots of their grievances are decades old: their Cold War battles did not collapse with the fall of the Soviet Bloc, but rather they reconfigured in opposition to the 1990 creation of the So Paulo Forum (FSP), a continent-wide alliance of leftist and reformist parties, and with the rise of left-leaning Pink Tide governments in the early 2000s. Old tropes about communist subversion are joined today by warnings against cultural Marxism and its woke, progressive, feminist, and politically correct incarnations.

Fifty years before the CPAC Mexico gathering, Mexico City hosted a different mixture of fervent conservative crusaders. In 1972, the World Anti-Communist League, created in 1966 in the heat of the Vietnam War to foster a united international anticommunist front, held its first meeting outside of Asia. Thanks to its active anticommunist movement, Mexico was chosen as host. Activists welcomed over 300 committed cold warriors to Mexico City from around the world, including officials from Taiwan, Korea, South Vietnam, Guatemala, Paraguay, and Nicaragua; Cuban exiles; former fascist collaborators from Germany, Croatia, and Ukraine; Middle Eastern and African activists; and Latin American clerics and university students, among many others. For the Mexicans, it was a moment of pride and the culmination of decades of domestic and international activism, lobbying, fundraising, and proselytizing.

The WACL was the offspring of the Asian Peoples Anti-Communist League, a 1950s effort by East Asian governments to push back against Cold War neutralism and contain communist China. In the 1970s, as military regimes swept across most of Latin America and initiatives emerged for interstate collaboration against communism, most of them brokered by the United States, entities such as WACL provided spaces for expanding these alliances.

A major ally of the Reagan administration, the WACL became a global platform for U.S. neoconservatives such as Senator Jesse Helms and retired Major General John K. Singlaub, as well as for powerful religious organizations including Korean religious leader Reverend Sun Myung Moons Unification Church. During the 1972 conference in Mexico, Latin American members founded the Latin American Anti-Communist Confederation (CAL), which soon included top civilian and military figures from across the region and became a key component of the multinational state terror initiative known as Operation Condor. The CAL also fueled conflict in Central America with fighters, funding, weapons, and a well-oiled propaganda machine.

While 50 years apart, the 1972 and the 2022 summits in Mexico are kindred spirits. Yet, unlike the East Asian-dominated WACL, CPACs clear center is in the Western Hemisphere, specifically the United States, and it traces its origins to the U.S. New Right of the 1960s and the conservative response to the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. But CPAC has become increasingly less U.S.-centric. Meetings in Brazil, Japan, Australia, Hungary, Israel, and now Mexico are evidence of the willingness of Latin American and other global allies to participate in its expanding network.

At CPAC Mexico 2022, Eduardo Bolsonaro and Verstegui repeated Jair Bolsonaros claim that his defeat was the product of electoral frauda favored right-wing tactic for discrediting elections. At the same time, conservatives rejoiced in the defeat of Chiles progressive draft constitution in the September 2022 plebiscite, which Jos Antonio Kast previously deemed a victory against the ideology and the violence of the few. In the political world the Right inhabits, the battle has just begun and is as wide and hostile as they ever imagined it.

Right-Wing Resistance?

In recent years, the idea of resistance has become central to the Rights political imagination. According to journalist and researcher Pablo Stefanoni, the Rights success in positioning itself as the rebel victim of a globalist-progressive establishment allows it to compete with the Left in being outraged about reality and propose ways to transform it. For Stefanoni, the phenomenon is related to the fact that the Left has stopped reading the Right, while the Right, at least the alt-right, reads and discusses the Left. While arguable and perhaps simplifying, this perspective has been borne out at CPACs Latin American summits: the Right is evidently adept at constructing an image of their leftist-progressive enemies, in picking apart and weaponizing their discourse, and in capitalizing on anti-establishment rhetoric to position their pro-life, pro-business, pro-traditional family messages in mainstream channels and among a sizable support base.

Claims about a political landscape in which globalism and nationalism have displaced left and right distinctions often ring hollow in the ears of these conservatives. Despite its different tendencies, the Right is trying to build a clear sense of unity against its enemies. On stage at CPAC Mexico, combative taunting of zurdos (lefties), progres (progressives) and la derechita cobarde (the petty cowardly Right) combined with a slew of calls to defend free enterprise, private property, the traditional family, and life from conception on. Religious slogans such as Viva Cristo Rey (Long Live Christ the King) and appeals to defend Christianity and religious freedom abounded. Messages about combat, battle, and struggle against globalisma malleable term that often encompasses the Left, feminism, and LGBTQI+ groupsare key to the Rights discursive arsenal.

Read the rest of this article, available open access for a limited time.

Luis Herrn-vila is a historian of the Cold War in Latin America and assistant professor of history at the University of New Mexico. His research focuses on Mexican and other Latin American conservative, anticommunist, and extreme right movements.

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The Reinvention of the Latin American Right - NACLA

Pentagon leaks 2023

The worst US national security breach in years could help Moscow and prompt friction with Washingtons allies

Thu 13 Apr 2023 07.38 EDT

A large batch of leaked classified US government information, including top-secret briefings, have been discovered online over the past week, with many relating to perhaps the most sensitive arena of intelligence gathering in the world today: Russias invasion of Ukraine.

The most significant parts of the leak concern Kyivs level of preparedness for an expected counteroffensive, but there are plenty of lines about other countries involvement in the conflict that may cause serious diplomatic difficulties. Here are some of the key revelations so far:

Ukraine: US intelligence officials were pessimistic in February about Ukraines prospects for a new attack in the spring, saying Kyiv could fall well short of recapturing territory seized by Russia. There are also details of serious air defence shortages and a risk of running out of anti-aircraft missiles completely by May.

Russia: The leaks suggest the US has a remarkable level of insight into Russian military operations, with live information about the targets being attacked by Moscow and details of a plan to pay a bonus to soldiers who damage or destroy Nato tanks. Early on Thursday, the New York Times reported that a new batch of 27 pages shows that the depth of the infighting inside the Russian government appears broader and deeper than previously understood. There is also information on the Russian mercenary Wagner groups plan to expand its operations in Haiti, as well as US use of advanced satellite imaging technology to gather intelligence on Russian forces.

UK: One document suggests 97 special forces operatives were in Ukraine in February and March 50 of them British. Their purpose there is not specified, but it is suggested that the special forces could form part of a coordinated Nato group.

UN: Some documents seen by the BBC appear to describe private conversations between the UN secretary general, Antnio Guterres, and his deputy about a deal to secure the export of grain from Ukraine to help tackle a global food crisis. The files reportedly suggest the US felt Guterres was too sympathetic to Russian interests, saying he was undermining broader efforts to hold Moscow accountable for its actions in Ukraine.

South Korea: Documents based in part on intercepted communications show Seoul grappling with US pressure to ship ammunition to Ukraine amid concerns that artillery shells requested by Washington for its own use could be passed on. South Korea has a longstanding policy of not providing lethal weapons to countries at war.

Israel: Another document says the Mossad intelligence agency encouraged its staff to take part in protests over Benjamin Netanyahus plans to weaken the independence of Israels judiciary. The Mossad has denied those claims. There is also an assessment of scenarios in which Israel could be persuaded to provide weapons to Ukraine.

The worst national security breach in the US for years appears to have emerged through a video game messaging platform, where it was posted during an argument about the war in Ukraine.

The documents initially emerged on servers hosted by the gaming focused app Discord. They first appeared in a chatroom devoted to games, music and orthodox Christianity and replete with racist memes called Thug Shaker Central, then in another devoted to a Filipino YouTuber called WowMao. In early March they popped up on yet another server, Minecraft Earth Map, where a user who had been debating the war posted 10 of the files with the message: Here, have some leaked documents.

After that disorienting origin story, two versions of the cache of files appeared elsewhere. One was posted on 4chan, a conspiratorial online message board where the alt-right movement is thought to originate. Another, which analysts say included an edited image with inaccurate casualty figures, was shared on pro-Russian Telegram channels.

US media reports quote officials who say that while versions of some of the documents seem to have been doctored after they were uploaded to the internet, they mostly appear to be authentic. The Washington Post reported that a defence official said the documents appear to have been collated for top US military leaders including Gen Mark Milley, chair of the joint chiefs of staff, but that others with the right security clearances could also have accessed them.

On Wednesday night, the Post reported that the original source of the files on Thug Shaker Central was the groups administrator, a man it called OG, who worked on a military base and appeared in a video shouting a series of racial and antisemitic slurs into the camera, then [firing] several rounds at a target.

The Post also reports there are about 300 photographs of files in the leak, three times as many as were previously thought to be circulating.

There is some evidence that corroborates the case they were leaked rather than hacked: they appear to be pictures of documents that had been folded up and perhaps stuffed in the perpetrators pocket. The images show the documents laid on top of magazines surrounded by items including nail clippers and super glue, next to a book with a picture that looks like the scope of a hunting rifle.

The nature of the US assessment of Ukraines military readiness is bound to cause friction between Kyiv and Washington, while the detailed picture it presents of the intelligence gathered in Russia is likely to help Moscow take countermeasures to make it more difficult to obtain with human sources potentially at risk.

There is another problem for the US: the leak appears to show that it spies on some of its allies. That has caused ructions in South Korea and Israel, while CNN reported diplomats from multiple countries saying they planned to raise the matter with Washington.

It may not be surprising that in its public statements, the US is more focused on condemning the leak and identifying its source. Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, has vowed to turn over every rock to do so.

There are plenty of tools to do that, from time stamps on documents that appear to show when they were printed to registers of who has viewed the documents. If identified, the culprit could face a lengthy jail sentence. But whatever happens, even the might of the US government has no power to remove the documents from circulation.

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Pentagon leaks: how much damage will they cause? - The Guardian US