Talk:Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory

Usage in The Heritage Foundation's Project 2025

Yesterday an article released by Salon, and carried by Yahoo News, explicitly pointed out that the conspiracy theory "Cultural Marxism" is part of the thinking behind The Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 (which is to be expected, considering Paul Weyrich's involvement with both the conspiracy theory, as well as Heritage's foundation).

I'm shopping for opinions on whether this information is pertinent to the article, and whether it might be included.

The Salon paragraphs that contain the phrase "Cultural Marxism" are as follows:

This is evident throughout Mandate for Leadership, the 920-page manifesto published earlier this year by the Heritage Foundation-led 2025 Presidential Transition Project (or Project 2025), which aims to recruit and vet up to 20,000 potential staffers for a future Republican administration after the anticipated purge. Writing in the book’s introduction, project director Paul Dans, who served in Trump’s Office of Personnel Management during his final year, breathlessly proclaims that the “long march of cultural Marxism through our institutions has come to pass,” giving credence to a notorious conspiracy theory that has long floated around white supremacist circles. With the federal government ostensibly captured by "cultural Marxists” and “globalists,” Dans frantically proclaims that it has been "weaponized against American citizens and conservative values, with freedom and liberty under siege as never before.”

Republicans have been harboring fantasies about gutting the federal government since the Reagan era. But what distinguishes today’s right from the past is its greater willingness to employ explicitly authoritarian means to achieve their ends. Indeed, a growing number of conservatives now appear convinced that the next Republican president must be granted something close to dictatorial power if their movement is to stand a chance against the “cultural Marxists” who allegedly control the state.

With the now widespread acceptance among conservatives that the federal government and other major institutions have been captured by "cultural Marxists,” “globalists,” and “wokeists,” Republicans are now pre-programmed to accept more authoritarian leadership. This is especially the case among a younger coterie of Republicans who have come to prominence in the post-Trump era. Unlike some of their older Republican colleagues, these young Trumpians are more open to employing post-Constitutional or “extra-Constitutional” means to achieve their reactionary goals.

Interestingly enough, the Project 2025 policy document ("Mandate for Leadership 2025: The Conservative Promise") only appears to use the phrase cultural Marxism once, on the second page of its general introduction:

It’s not 1980. In 2023, the game has changed. The long march of cultural Marxism through our institutions has come to pass. The federal government is a behemoth, weaponized against American citizens and conservative values, with freedom and liberty under siege as never before. The task at hand to reverse this tide and restore our Republic to its original moorings is too great for any one conservative policy shop to spearhead. It requires the collective action of our movement. With the quickening approach of January 2025, we have two years and one chance to get it right.

After doing a search on google news, other articles noting the connection can be found from CounterPunch, (1), The Daily Beast. (2), Politico, (3), Truthout, (4), and Washington Monthly, (5). Please feel free to contribute further opinions, sources and discussion below. Some of the questions to consider are, is this worthy of inclusion? What section should the content be in, and what should be said about it given the sources available? Thank you for any opinions you have, or help you can offer. 194.223.39.240 (talk) 09:42, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the sources. I was waiting such sources before mentionning Project 2025 here. Since the mention of Cultural Marxism in its manifesto is only one paragraph and since the media coverture is not yet massive (especially compared ot other endorsements of the Cultural Marxism already mentionned in the wikipedia article), i think that a short mention in the wikipedia article) would suffice, something like one sentence, with all sources of course. Visite fortuitement prolongée (talk) 20:55, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

I'd say leave it out. I suggest the Salon article at least isn't particularly reliable for analyzing whether Heritage is using the term conspiratorially; I don't think Lynch is like an expert in this subject or something, is he? Also it's considered progressive-leaning, so it could be considered biased when it comes to inferring Heritage's intent. In any case, it doesn't seem like a particularly noteworthy example of someone mentioning the term; we have plenty of other more notable examples in the article: WP:UNDUE. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 21:41, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Notability for the antagonistic role of "cultural Marxism" in the "2025 Project" seems to only be increasing with time: Here's a (very recent) article in The Nation. Excerpt:

[...] In his forward, Roberts warns that the “very moral foundations of our society are in peril” from “the totalitarian cult known today as the “The Great Awokening.” This “woke Marxist” cult, Roberts charges, has infiltrated the military, the corporations, the universities, and the bureaucracy. Big Tech is “less a contributor to the US economy than it is a tool of China’s government.” Paul Dans, director of the 2025 project, writes in his introductory note,

The long march of cultural Marxism through our institutions has come to pass. [...]

I would argue this, along with the other sources already mentioned here, warrants inclusion. TucanHolmes (talk) 08:43, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

This source doesn't argue that 2025 is using it in a conspiratorial way, though, it is instead complaining more about 2025 being bad policy. "focus is a war on equity" i.e. it's using the term in the sense of "synonymous with the 'Critical Theory'" as our article puts it. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 19:37, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Never said that it argues that, it instead merely documents that the conspiracy theory plays a prominent role in Project 2025. Excerpt:

This “woke Marxist” cult, Roberts charges, has infiltrated the military, the corporations, the universities, and the bureaucracy. [...]

See also the explicit mentioning of Cultural Marxism in the excerpt above. I think that this demonstrates both notability for the conspiracy theory's role in Project 2025 and gives us a further reliable source to cite, if we include it in the article. TucanHolmes (talk) 12:49, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Image of Anders Breivik

@Thismess: Anders Breivik is clearly the most notable example of a terrorist directly inspired by this conspiracy theory. Per our image use policy:

The purpose of an image is to increase readers' understanding of the article's subject matter, usually by directly depicting people, things, activities, and concepts described in the article. The relevant aspect of the image should be clear and central.

I see no reason why this image, an illustration of the most notable example of the political violence connected with this conspiracy theory, should be removed from the article; please explain. TucanHolmes (talk) 17:54, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

We are talking about the picture in the "Political violence" section, right? If so, I think it is on-topic and perfectly reasonable to include it. The linked article, 2011 Norway attacks, makes the relevance clear for anybody who does not find it obvious. The fact that the image is the fake ID card used in the actual violence makes it particularly relevant for this section. It is no more questionable than any of the other images of individuals in the article. What is the actual objection here? That this image doesn't show the actual violence being perpetrated? I don't think it would be any better if it did. Unless there is an even better picture that could be used instead, I think we should retain it. DanielRigal (talk) 19:23, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Seeing the back and forth on the article page, I was a bit doubtful that the image added much, but the above comments convinced me that the image belongs. It rather drives home the point that this conspiracy theory has a body count. CAVincent (talk) 20:44, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

I never said anything about Breivik, it's the fake police ID I find to be very out of place and out of topic. As a particular item, I don't see its relevance to the topic of Cultural Marxism at all. If there has to be an image associated with Breivik, perhaps the image of the smoke from the explosion at the top of the 2011 Norway attacks article would be more suitable, since it's the attack that is in question and not an article about (fake) police IDs. Thismess (talk) 11:14, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

The text under the picture reads "The counterfeit police identity card used by Breivik to commit the 2011 Norway attacks, which he said were a defense against Cultural Marxism" - which states how the picture is related to the attack, and how the attack is related to the topic of the page. 203.214.56.152 (talk) 11:32, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

A thing about Breivik is he didn't seem to see this as a Jewish conspiracy, but instead a Muslim conspiracy? (if a conspiracy at all?) more here. (I mean, he was otherwise anti-semitic and identarian, I'm just saying.) I wonder if it would be worth talking about that in that section. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 18:29, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure how relevant that is, since the supposed conspiracy in this conspiracy theory is still attributed to a dark and ominous/nebulous force of 'Cultural Marxism'. This still reeks of antisemitism, and I'd argue that, even in the frame of this theory, Muslims are the object, not the subject of the conspiracy, just as much a piece on the board as everything else. Conspiracy theorists are rarely coherent, since their conspiratorial beliefs are irrational, a venue to express something emotional. TucanHolmes (talk) 20:58, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

"If a conspiracy at all"? Huh? Excuse me? No. It doesn't stop being a conspiracy theory just because you remove parts of it. You would have to remove all the false parts of it that claim a conspiracy in order for it to be a regular theory.

Breivik directly transcribes William S. Lind's writings as if they're his own extensively in "his" manifesto, and the page already covers that Lind's theory was debuted at a Holocaust denial conference, and that the think tank he was working for (The Free Congress Foundation) used an actual Nazi collaborator (the Arrow Cross party member, Laszlo Pasztor [1]) in promoting the conspiracy theory.

There's nothing in your linked source [2] to suggest that Cultural Marxism is somehow no longer a conspiracy theory because you replace "Jews" with "Muslims". 02:42, 23 April 2024 (UTC) 203.214.56.152 (talk) 02:42, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

That said it may be useful to mention this on the page, that whilst antisemitism is a large part of the history and usage of the conspiracy theory, there are non-antisemitic variants targeted at other groups, such as trans people and Muslims. 203.214.56.152 (talk) 02:45, 23 April 2024 (UTC)