The day after Vladimir Putin illegally invaded Ukraine, I made a mistake. I wondered how this act of unjustified violence was playing in MAGA-land. So I checked out the website of onetime Trump White House strategist Steve Bannon—which features his daily podcast and is dubbed "War Room." Bannon fancies himself the grand, geostrategic thinker of Donald Trump’s movement and the big brain of global nationalist populism. A few days earlier, he had cheerily hailed Putin for being anti-woke and a foe of the LGBTQ agenda. He seemed the commander of the pro-Putin (or anti-anti-Putin) right, perhaps sharing that title with Fox’s Tucker Carlson. With Russian soldiers killing Ukrainians to seize control of and end a democracy, Bannon was ranting about...Hunter Biden. He claimed that the “Clinton mafia and the globalists and Hunter Biden and these guys made [Ukraine] their corrupt piggybank” and a “Clinton colony.” And he happily proclaimed that Russia’s assault on Ukraine would lead to the second article of impeachment for President Joe Biden for “instigating this war.” (The first article apparently is Biden initiating an “invasion” at the US-Mexico border.)

Bannon’s diatribe was completely unhinged. Bannon railed against NATO and the European Union for needlessly provoking Russia, deriding “deadbeat” NATO nations that (with the exception of the United Kingdom) contributed no soldiers to the Allied invasion of Normandy in World War II. (Uh, NATO didn’t exist then.) He blamed the “globalists, the party of Davos” for having created the conflict between Russia and Ukraine in 2014—a reference to the popular democratic uprising that overthrew the corrupt and pro-Putin government of Viktor Yanukovych. In his account, the United States and NATO provoked Putin, yet, Bannon said, Biden was a weakling. Referring to Biden and unnamed MSNBC commentators, he exclaimed, “the blood is on your hands.” He added, once again with Hunter in mind, “Your son’s running around in art galleries, [with] that crap he calls art.”

Not one word about Putin’s malevolence. Not one word of sympathy for Ukrainians. And hardly a rational analysis. As Russian forces moved into Ukraine, was Hunter Biden the issue? Normally, such ravings would be best to ignore. If you heard an unkempt man on a city street corner screaming about Hunter like this, you’d shrug and maybe feel a pang of sympathy for the poor fellow and his family. But Bannon claims his daily, multi-hour podcast has 135 million downloads. He is a MAGA king. Trump cultists listen to him. Many did so a year ago, when he urged them to flock to Washington for protests on January 6. He was a key member of the Trump crew that was plotting to overturn the election, and he was advising Trump on what to do. (In January the Justice Department indicted Bannon on contempt charges for defying a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the 1/6 riot.) Bannon is a barometer for sentiment within the Trump movement regarding Putin’s war. His initial reaction indicated he didn’t give a damn about Ukraine or Putin’s threat to democracy.

At the same time, another bellwether of right-wing thinking was available: the annual Conservative Political Action Conference underway in Orlando, Florida. This conclave brings together leading GOP officials, Republican presidential wannabes, and thousands of conservative activists. While speakers did criticize the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it didn’t seem to be the number-one concern of the gathering. Donald Trump Jr. began his talk by deriding...Hunter Biden. (What is with this obsession?) John Schnatter, the founder of the mediocre Papa John’s pizza chain, said Biden intentionally caused Putin to invade Ukraine to “create a great smokescreen, to create a distraction from all the real issues here affecting Americans.” Ohio Republican Senate candidate J.D. Vance—whose campaign is a pet project of dangerous billionaire Peter Thiel—shared this confession: “I’m sick of being told that we have to care more about people 6,000 miles away than we do people like my mom.” (Don’t cry for him, Ukrainians.)

CPAC was a cavalcade of grievance, trolling, and crazy. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-QAnon) brought the house down with her calls for the impeachment of Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. In an interview with Fox, while discussing Ukraine, she said, “We also have neighbors to the north”—referring to Canadians—“who need freedom and need to be liberated.” Comparing the truckers blockading border bridges (a group that has included people waving Confederate flags, QAnon banners, and swastikas) to the citizens of a democratic nation being attacked by Putin’s army? But looniness and irrational hyperbole sell. Look at Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Cancun). He claimed Sen. Elizabeth Warren posed the same threat to the United States as the ChiComs: “The Chinese communists and Elizabeth Warren both want to control you. Your assets, your savings, your speech, your life, your children, every decision they want to control, and so we need to break up the means of controlling the citizenry.”

These are not serious people. But that doesn’t mean they’re not dangerous. The evening before her appearance at CPAC, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Bigotland) appeared at the America First Political Action Conference organized by Nick Fuentes, a well-known neo-Nazi, white nationalist, and Hitler fanboy. This didn’t prevent the CPACers from showing MTG lots of love when she showed up at their shindig. From the stage, she said (rather loudly), “We gotta hold Democrats accountable. Fire Fauci. We gotta investigate Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Lock her up. Lock 'em all up.” No surprise, the gal who said there were Jewish space lasers is more concerned about Clinton conspiracy theories—no, the Clinton campaign did not hack and spy on Trump—than the horrors in Ukraine.

After her visit with Fuentes became a news story, Greene issued a bonkers explanation. She huffed, “I won’t cancel others in the conservative movement, even if I find some of their statements tasteless, misguided or even repulsive at times.” No cancellations for white nationalists and neo-Nazis? She went on: “The atheist media demands no disavowal from left-wing politicians who hang out with jihadis and abortionists. But they demand immediate disavowals of any Republican willing to speak to 1,200 people gathered to declare that Christ is King, & brands them only by their sins.” That is, it’s okay to show your support for a white nationalist outfit if you praise Jesus. Greene dismissed criticism of her get-together with the fascists as “identity politics.” She added, “Being truly America First...means having the courage to stop agonizing over fake divisions and disingenuous allegations from our godless and gutless mainstream media.” Apparently, the division between neo-Nazis and non-neo-Nazis is a false one. Remember, House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy said that if the Republicans win the House in November’s elections, Greene will be reinstated to the committee assignments she lost and may even receive “better” positions.

Greene was no outlier. Other Republican officials palled around with Fuentes and his white supremacist bros. This group included Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona and, also from the Grand Canyon state, state Sen. Wendy Rogers. As one account put it, Rogers addressed the Nazi-fest remotely, fawned over Fuentes, and called for building gallows to “make an example of these traitors who have betrayed our country.” Of Fuentes—whose goal is to turn the United States into a white Christian nation—she said, “I truly respect Nick because he’s the most persecuted man in America.” The crowd roared with approval. She praised him for “standing up to tyranny.” This conference opened with Fuentes hailing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the audience chanting, “Putin, Putin, Putin.” It ended with Fuentes declaring that “the United States is the evil empire in the world” and Nazi-quipping, “Now, they’re going and saying, ‘Vladimir Putin is Adolf Hitler,’ as if that isn’t a good thing.” He giggled and added, “Oops, I shouldn’t have said that.”

As if embracing Fuentes was not bad enough, Rogers later zapped out several offensive and anti-Semitic tweets in reference to the crisis in Ukraine. She said, “I stand with Christians worldwide not the global bankers who are shoving godlessness and degeneracy in our face.” Then: “Zelensky is globalist puppet for Soros and the Clintons.” And: “The West is trying to deplatform and debank Russia. This is just as wrong as invading Russia.” I know this might surprise you, but Trump has endorsed Rogers—a Big Lie champion and member of the Oath Keepers right-wing militia group who has attended QAnon meetings and who once called Robert E. Lee “a great patriot”—in her reelection bid. After I tweeted about Rogers’ tweets—“Your Republican Party on Trump,” I observed—she blocked me. Following her endorsement of Fuentes, Arizona Republican Gov. Doug Ducey stood by his support of Rogers, saying she “is still better” than her Democratic opponent and he needs her to maintain a GOP governing majority. Embracing white supremacists and fascists is not a disqualification in the Grand Old Party.

The GOP and its putative (and petulant) leader are welcoming neo-Nazi supporters into their midst, while providing a safe place for Putin-lovers. And this is considered normal. During his speech at CPAC, Trump praised Greene. He did so after her appearance with Fuentes was much publicized. (It brings to mind this purported Trump remark: “Well, Hitler did a lot of good things.”) Of course, he assailed Hillary Clinton and the crowd shouted, “Lock her up!” (There didn’t seem to be much concern among the CPACers about Trump absconding from the White House with cartons of highly classified documents.) He warned that the nation was threatened more by Democrats, RINOs, and “left-wing fascists” than by Putin or others abroad: "As grave as the dangers are abroad, it's the destruction within that spells our doom. Our most dangerous people are people from within. These are people that must hate our country because they make us weak." And in a sign that these folks are indeed into autocracy—be it in Russia or in the United States—Trump said that if he runs again for the White House and wins, he will seek to expand executive power so a president can fire any federal employee. This would let him bring the federal government to “heel.” In other words, make it totally his fiefdom. The CPAC flock applauded.

A horrible war was raging. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees had fled their homes. Missiles were raining down on Kyiv and other cities. Putin was threatening nuclear war. And leading conservatives were fuming about Hunter Biden, trolling Democrats, hobnobbing with neo-Nazis, and cheering an autocrat-wannabe. For many years—through the 1990s and 2000s—I regularly attended CPAC and got into fierce but good-natured impromptu debates with conservative advocates over policy matters. (For some reason, Wayne LaPierre of the NRA used to like to joust with me in the hallways.) Most of the right-wingers present at those conventions were wrong, not nuts—though CPAC always had its share of extremists, warmongering hawks, conspiracists, and crazies. Yet now the entire conservative movement, under the seemingly unbreakable influence of Trump, has become deranged. They are (metaphorically) drunk on Trump Vodka (an overpriced product that spectacularly failed). And even an actual war and the threat of nuclear Armageddon can’t sober them up.

Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland@motherjones.com.

The Rebranding

The observant among you probably have noticed that we’ve gone through a subtle name change from This Land to Our Land. As I reported previously, there was a trademark issue with This Land. An outfit in Oklahoma called This Land Press that sells clothes and that several years ago published a quarterly periodical had a trademark on its name and objected to the use of This Land for this newsletter. (The company did give us a few months to find a new name.) As regular readers know, I issued a call for suggestions and noted that I already had contenders in mind.

The suggestions that arrived in my inbox were...amusing. Many readers tried to pun off my name: Corn Flakes, Cornmeal (“real grist for your brain”), Corn’s Kernels, Kernels of Truth, Cornucopia, Cornfabulation, The Corn Chronicles. I’ve put up with corny jokes since nursery school. So hard pass. Reader Marcia Meyer wrote, “Whatever!...with or without the exclamation point. Regardless of what you rename the newsletter, I'm going to read it.” Harlan Krier proposed Beyond Yonder and explained, “‘Yonder’ is seeable but your articles are a bit deeper and insightful so...‘beyond.’” Kris Weinschenker stuck with a song title: “As far as rebranding goes, I ain't got much. All Along the Watchtower is about it. There MUST be some way outta here, right??? I don't think Dylan or the Jehovah's witnesses would object, but who knows?”

Harvey Berman suggested The View From Here or Are We There Yet? If I ever start a newsletter for parenting, I will use the second one. From Kevin Ingraham came Can You Believe It? and You Read It Here. I did like the ring of the second one, as well as another proposed name from him: This Just In. That last one received consideration, though I wondered if it conveyed too much a sense of breaking news. Pat King kicked in The American Idea. That was a nice compliment for my work, but it sounded more like the title for a manifesto or PBS series. David Cavallo proposed This Planet, which was intimidating. (The whole planet?) Marilyn Mueller was more modest: This America. Jan Justis conjured up Motherland. I appreciated the desire to stick with a piece of the original name, but that reminded me too much of the Soviet Union. And Catherine Nicole prompted a chuckle with Land on the Run. Melanie Meehan-Crossley tried to riff off the original title with For You and Me. As did Lee Miller: This Land for All of US.

One of my favorites came from Kelly McQuoid: Haec Terra. That’s “this land” in Latin. Very clever. I wonder what a trademark lawyer would say about that. Lise Lindsay offered Pellucid. I had to look up the word’s meaning: lucid in style or meaning, easily understood, translucently clear. Thanks, Lise!

One name I considered that no one mentioned was This Hard Land, which is the title of a Bruce Springsteen song that conveys righteous defiance. (“Stay hard, stay hungry, stay alive, if you can, and meet me in a dream of this hard land.”) It would retain the feel of the original name. In the end, I went with my first idea: Our Land. A few readers suggested it as well, with Margie Perez being the first to do so. This name is but a slight alteration and still recalls the inspiration for the original title—though the phrase “our land” does not appear in Woody Guthrie’s song. I thought about Your Land, but that lacks a communal feel. Our Land, I hope, covers what we all share—ideas, dreams, passions, challenges, fears, and plans. Thanks for helping me through this transition. It was heartening to see that many of you already feel a connection to this relatively new enterprise. Now onward with Our Land.

Read Recent Issues of Our Land

February 26, 2022: How we let Ukraine—and the world—down; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Special Useful Idiots Edition); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

February 23, 2022: Yoko Ono (finally?) gets the credit she deserves; a Trump-Russia fantasy; The Slow Hustle takes on the hard case of a Baltimore cop-killing; and more.

February 19, 2022: A masterclass in both-sidesism from Washington Post columnist Matt Bai; Dumbass Comment of the Week; the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

February 15, 2022: Why is John Fogerty serenading Trump crony Steve Wynn?; can Trump be barred from running for president because he flushed documents down the toilet?; The Woman in the House Across the Street From the Girl in the Window doesn’t know if she’s in a parody or not; Elvis Costello tells us to listen to Ian Prowse; and more.

February 12, 2022: Would you want to look at photos of a massacre?; rebranding This Land; Dumbass Comment of the Week; the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

February 8, 2022: The Trump coup: Maybe we can’t handle the truth; Steve Martin and Martin Short shine in Only Murders in the Building; Invasion’s odd but conventional take on the sci-fi/alien-attack genre; and more.

February 5, 2022: Can we call Trump’s race war a “race war”?; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Michele Bachmann and Rick Scott); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

February 1, 2022: Please tell me: Why is Michael Flynn crazy?; an impressive film about Nicolas Cage and his pig; Wajahat Ali’s impressive memoir about growing up Muslim and nonwhite in America; and more.

January 29, 2022: The inside story of the banning of Maus—it’s dumber than you think; Dumbass Comment of the Week; the Mailbag; and MoxieCam™; and more.

January 25, 2022: The snowflake-ization of the right; would you buy cryptocurrency from this man (Steve Bannon)?; Belfast, a feel-good movie about a civil war; Elvis Costello’s delightful and cynical new album; and more.

January 22, 2022: Readers speak out: How to save the republic from Republicans; Dumbass Comment of the Week; the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.