Josh MeyerUSA TODAY
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WASHINGTON – Before he was tapped as Donald Trump’s vice-presidential running mate, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, enthusiastically endorsed a new book by a far-right conspiracy theorist that praises fascist dictators for violently suppressing leftists − or, as the book calls them, "unhumans."
Vance was one of several prominent conservatives to blurb the book, which links current American progressives to past communists and other “unhumans” that need to be “crushed” by any means necessary.
“In the past, communists marched in the streets waving red flags. Today, they march through HR, college campuses, and courtrooms to wage lawfare against good, honest people,” Vance says in a blurb on the back cover of “Unhumans: The Secret History of Communist Revolutions (and How to Crush Them).”
“In Unhumans,” Vance adds, authors “Jack Posobiec and Joshua Lisec reveal their plans and show us what to do to fight back.”
Posobiec, an influential Trump supporter, rose to MAGA-world fame in 2016 by advancing conspiracy theories including "PizzaGate" which falsely claimed Democrats were running a child sex trafficking ring out of a Washington, D.C. pizza parlor that led to a man storming the restaurant with an assault rifle.
Praise for dictators and opposition to democracy
The basic premise of "Unhumans" is that throughout history there has always been an amorphous cabal of leftists who “hate and kill” anyone who stands in their way, including God-fearing, law-abiding Americans. The blob of "the bureaucrats and their activist allies who hold your legal, financial, and social fate in their hands" − are so evil and out to ruin society that they are not worthy of consideration as humans, the book argues.
"Our study of history has brought us to this conclusion: Democracy has never worked to protect innocents from the unhumans. It is time to stop playing by rules they won’t," write Posobiec, a far-right provocateur and Joshua Lisec, a professional ghostwriter.
These "unhumans" need to be suppressed by those willing to emulate right-wing dictators like Spain’s Francisco Franco, they write.
After overthrowing Spain's democratically elected republic in 1936, Franco and his far-right Nationalists instituted martial law. During the ensuing Spanish Civil War, the Nationalists sent more than 500,000 people to concentration camps and executed another 100,000. After the war ended, during Franco's subsequent dictatorship, they killed another 50,000, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
The authors dedicate a chapter to how Americans can fight back against the unhumans, titled "The Plan: Counterrevolutionary Strategy and Tactics."
"When the unhumans bring a show of force, team humanity must bring forth an even greater one," they write, urging readers to emulate autocrats such as "Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, Pyotr Wrangel, Francisco Franco, Chiang Kai-shek—each with their officers, their soldiers, their fighting men in arms."
It continues: "Whenever such a man has willed communism into submission, it has always been with equitable means. The communist-socialists shoot the priests; Franco’s forces shoot them dead. Caesar’s enemies plotted to arrest him and establish their own new world order; Caesar arrested them first.
Critics pounce
The book – and Vance’s endorsem*nt of it – have received negative coverage from right-wing extremism watchers, historians and left-leaning publications like Mother Jones, the New Republic and Current Affairs.
Critics say the book, released last month, not only idolizes brutal authoritarians but uses false narratives to demonize today’s mainstream progressives and liberals, including Black Lives Matter activists and those opposing Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election he lost to President Joe Biden.
“This book is a homily and apologia that spans centuries of revisionism on murderous dictators and insurrectionists and it's co-authored by someone who lauds far-right extremists and bigots in the United States,” said Brian Levin, founder of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.
The Southern Poverty Law Center in 2022 listed Posobiec as an extremist who has “collaborated with white nationalists, antigovernment extremists … and neo-Nazis,” as well as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“Jack Posobiec is a political operative and internet performer of the anti-democracy hard right, known primarily for creating and amplifying viral disinformation campaigns,” the SPLC said, including the “Stop the Steal” campaign that cast doubt on the integrity of the 2020 election. “His disinformation typically focuses on making his political opponents seem dangerous or criminal, while ignoring or downplaying the corruption of authoritarians.”
Levin, a lawyer and former police officer who has monitored political violence for decades, said the book and its strategies for “crushing” unhumans is especially dangerous in the current superheated political environment because it "amplifies and directs aggression" toward progressives.
Given the current climate, Levin questioned Vance’s support of the book, which has climbed many non-fiction best-seller lists, including USA TODAY’s.
“Posobiec is a long-time extremist,” Levin said Tuesday. “Wouldn't that alone be reason enough to question Vance's judgment? But in combination with its embrace of political aggression, it is mind-bogglingly irresponsible as we see a rise in political violence.”
Posobiec, who describes himself in the book as an independent journalist and “veteran U.S. Navy intelligence officer,” is now host of the podcast “Human Events Daily.” The subject of Tuesday’s show, after new Democratic nominee Kamala Harris picked Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate? “TRUMP & VANCE VS TWO DRUNKEN MARXISTS 2024.”
William Martin, a Vance campaign spokesperson, told USA TODAY Wednesday that Vance and the campaign "decline to comment" on the "Unhumans" book and Vance’s support of it.
But Vance's endorsem*nt of the book dovetails with the foreward he wrote for another radical-right manifesto, "Dawn's Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America" by the architect of the controversial Project 2025 conservative policy agenda. In its original subtitle that book advocates "burning down Washington" in a second Trump administration if he wins this Nov. 5.
Vance’s foreword, the New Republic reported citing an advance copy, ends with this dire call to action: "We are now all realizing that it’s time to circle the wagons and load the muskets. In the fights that lay ahead, these ideas are an essential weapon."
That book was initially scheduled to be released next month, but author Kevin Roberts, who said a "second American Revolution" will be bloodless “if the left allows it to be” told Real Clear Politics he is delaying publication.
Vance had no comment Wednesday on his foreward for the Roberts book, and whether the publication delay might be related to his selection as Trump's running mate on July 15.
The ‘Secret History of Communist Revolutions’
Posobiec told USA TODAY that the criticism of "Unhumans" – and of Vance − is unwarranted.
In an interview with USA Today, Posobiec said 'unhumans' are not mainstream progressives, but people who participated in violent Black Lives Matter protests, and who have targeted “folks like myself, my family, Trump supporters, anyone who marched peacefully on January 6."
In its 229 pages, the book revisits some of the worst communist regimes in Russia, China and elsewhere to argue that these movements follow a consistent pattern of instilling fear, stripping away human rights and jailing, torturing, and even murdering those they deem a threat.
The book was published last month with a foreword by far-right agitator and former Trump official Stephen Bannon, who praised the authors for arguing that a form of “Cultural Marxism” that emerged in the 1950s in the United States is now resurgent, making “humanity itself currently under threat.”
'Nothing in this book advocates illegal violence'
Posobiec took exception with the many critics who say the book is an open call for attacks on those deemed to be against conservative values.
“Nothing in this book advocates illegal violence," Posobiec said. Instead, he said, “We do advocate for legal weapons of mass persuasion.”
Asked what constitutes “legal violence,” he said: “Police activity. Arrests.”
Yes, the book glorifies the actions of well-known despots like Franco, Caesar and Wisconsin Republican Sen. Joseph McCarthy, Posobiec said. But he said all of them have been misunderstood, and that the book sets out to clear their names by showing how aggressive they were in hunting down and neutralizing those seeking to rob their communities of human rights and freedoms.
In “Unhumans,” for instance, McCarthy isn’t described as a zealot who ruined lives of innocent Americans in the 1950s by falsely accusing them of being communist agents. Instead, the book says, “Soviet sympathizers tried to poison the youth with media and schooling; Senator McCarthy poisoned their reputation to make them unemployable. Reciprocity.”
Jackie Singh, a former Biden campaign official and researcher on threats to democracy, said the underlying theme of the entire book – the use of the term “unhumans” − encourages political violence whether the authors intended it or not.
“Any linguistic suggestion that some particular out-groups of human beings are somehow 'lesser', closer to animals, vermin, insects etc. can only drive cultural progression towards acceptance of violence towards those groups,” Singh said. “Those who employ such language are aware of this purpose and exploit humanity's desire for belonging and tendency towards groupthink to advance anti-democratic political goals.”
