Happy 2026 and welcome to yet another installation of my extremely niche writing: neither journalistic nor academic, but aspirationally similar in spirit to Dr. Cas Mudde’s juxtaposed analysis of right-wing political extremism with the cultural categories of music and professional sports, except that in my case I focus on the following four obscure themes: 

I) the Roman Mithraists who referred to one another as ‘Syndexioi’, as well as Mithraic antecedents and affiliated tendencies in Europe, Asia and North Africa

II) the self-described Western Chauvinist Proud Boys, the militia group with the most specific premeditated plan to attack the Capitol on January 6, 2021, who I've referred to as the ‘Pueri Superbi’, their name in Latin: language of the Roman Empire which defined “the West”

III) the MAGA regime which emancipated the Proud Boy rank & file and leadership and still appears headed on a horrible trajectory towards funding the group to the tune of $100 million and turning it into the paramilitary force referred to as “Trump's army”

IV) the tragic and petra genetrix-like emergence of fascism from the history and culture of “the West” along with its dangerous modern-day perseverance, which unites all of these elements

Oy to the World: On Staying Light-Hearted for the Return of the Light

The recent Yadla / Chellah winter solstice festival celebrated in Iran and in most of the neighbouring _stan countries, according to the dissident theory of the late Iranian researcher Hashem Razi, derives from the autumn equinox festival of Mithrakana / Mehregan which honours the Zoroastrian yazata Mithra from which the Roman variant of Mithras derives.  The much-extended winter solstice season also has modern relevance where I live nearly on the other side of the world; step even briefly into a retail environment and it's apparent how significant what we currently call The Christmas Season is to the marketplace.  It’s nice that, thanks to the earth’s axial tilt in its orbit around the sun, the days are getting longer again and the light is returning, but in most schools, stores and shopping malls you’d think something entirely unrelated was afoot.

Driving home from a recent Christmas party with a Reggae Christmas playlist going, I wound up inadvertently listening to the song Christmas Cancelled by Macka B.  His Cucumba is a track that I’ve been a fan of for some time, having initially come across it via The Kiffness’ remix, because much as I enjoy listening to Reggae I’m admittedly quite ignorant about any contemporary artists post-Bob Marley and Sister Nancy.  Anyhow, the god Mithras receives a mention at about 1 minute and 49 seconds into this fun but somewhat preachy track about how Christmas is just a commercial neo-pagan scam.  Technically, Macka B means Sol Invictus and not Mithras, but close enough: the former was an epithet for the latter. These two divinities were simultaneously distinct and the same, similar to how for many Christians The Father and The Son are distinct entities while simultaneously being God, how for many Hindus Krishna is distinct from Vishnu while simultaneously being his avatar, or how (for me) bagels are distinct from buns, both simultaneously being bread products.

Macka B’s point is well-taken though: beneath all the family togetherness and feasting (which is great), gift-giving in modern consumer society primarily supports the economic growth of predominantly Buddhist, Taoist and Confucian China, which is the production source of most Christmas gifts and decorations.  This is not a critique of China, since I genuinely admire the people, the respect for elders and the cultural emphasis on education, not to mention the excellent food, and note how the rest of us are quite a ways behind in terms of the solar panel and electric car production necessary to mitigate our planet’s shared climate change challenge (direct atmospheric experience of Sol Invictus).  I’m also not against global trade, though it would be cool if some day there were a domestically-owned car company here (in Canada).  What I’m pointing out is the irony of religious mutation/evolution combined with the interplay between western capitalism’s and eastern communism’s mutual dependence, each ostensibly separate economic systems, but when viewed from a distance it’s all a unitary body.

Returning to Macka B: over the past century the holiday has transformed into something quite materialistic; the syndexioi / Mithras-worshippers would have been pleased about this since, after soldiers, merchants comprised one of their core constituents.  There’s also still much residual animism / polytheism in the modern day celebration of Christmas, there’s no specific mention of Christmas as a holiday celebration in the Bible, and - like or dislike it - the legacy of the worship of the god Mithras / Sol Invictus remains a component of what we celebrate today, as does a smattering of Norse polytheism and perhaps even some Saomi/Siberian reindeer-herding and amanita muscaria psychotropism, à la Carl Ruck’s theory.  Though there are a few minor similarities between Mithras and Santa such as the red cloak and Phrygian cap, it's hard to imagine Anatolia’s mysterious Saint Nicholas engaged in a tauroctony.  

The phenomena of adults lying about Santa to their kids and perpetuating the Elf on the Shelf shtick is an interesting combination of masochism, sleep deprivation, clever creativity and cuteness, leading to the suggestion that perhaps the original, primeval, dare I say perennial religious tradition is kayfabe, which goes beyond spirituality to encompass the realms of political ideology, and of sports and entertainment (there’s Dr. Cas Mudde’s three themes again!).  Faith, however, is nonpartisan; who or whatever you worship or follow, it’s all just about maintaining that poker-face long enough to make it believable, both to others and to yourself.  I'm not saying that Christmas should be more (or less) about Jesus or Odin or Sol Invictus, or that people shouldn't buy presents,  Still, if I had to hand-make all my gifts it would turn into a year-round effort, and if everything I bought was local or even domestic I’d be broke.  Just have fun and be nice whatever you do and don’t take it all too seriously; religious traditions certainly aren’t worth killing or dying for.

MAGA vs NAMA

I recently completed Laura K. Field’s Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right.  Field, originally a student of the work of Leo Strauss, critically examines the Straussian esotericist legacy on modern academic conservatism.  Her book examines the players from the National Conservative (Christopher Rufo, Yoram Hazony, Viktor Orbán), Claremonter (Michael Anton, Charles Kesler, John Eastman), Postliberal (Adrian Vermeule, JD Vance, Patrick Denern) and Hard Right (Curtis Yarvin, Stephen Wolfe, Costin Alamariu) factions of the American New Right responsible for bringing us Trump, Project 2025, the “No Enemies to the Right” doctrine and the high rates of Bronze Age Pervert readership amongst young White House staffers.  Chapter 11 in her book contained an unexpected reference to Mithras by Charles Haywood: shampoo heir, far-right blogger and founder of the Christian nationalist and white supremacist fraternal order The Society for American Civic Renewal:  

Of course, Mithras is the god of many things, depending on the era and cultural context: light, spiritual ascension, loyalty, oaths, contracts, courage and brotherhood.  In the context of Imperial Rome, he’s very much a god of military victory and imperialism, given how prominent his worship was amongst soldiers and how many Mithraea were built along the empire’s frontier.  In that respect he’s very much a symbol of the New Rome (the United States) in terms of its posturing towards annexing Greenland, annexing Canada and its military actions against Venezuela, and whose Vice President and possible future president JD Vance, a tool of Peter Thiel, was set up by Thiel at Mithril Capital.  Mithras’ military attributes are also embodied by the frenemy global power Russia (arguably a successor to Rome via the Byzantine Empire) in its imperialist war against Ukraine, and whose leader is treated with a mixture of fear, admiration and respect by Trump.

The Charles Haywood reference to Mithras above suggests that the deity is fini, but even though I’m a secularist/agnostic type and don’t partake personally in any serious worship of anything other than Coffea arabica, I would argue that Mithras is still very much part of the culture, just a bit buried.  I get that Haywood’s making an analogy about the political left, but still, it’s a bit harsh to call anyone “evil, destructive, laughable, losers, idiots, and discredited”.  I’ve pretty much left the organized left at this point, but you know what they say about “if you have nothing nice to say”.  The same could be said about Haywood’s scolding of Mithras-worshippers; I’m not one of them, but there’s no need for him to discredit them.  While it’s true that, with the exception of residual traces in the scriptures and religious practices of Hindu and Zoroastrian / Parsi faiths, there’s not much active Mithraic worship in the world compared to the worship taking place in mosques, churches, synagogues, gurdwaras and temples, I think Haywood underestimates what he doesn’t understand, and I don’t think Mithras is completely down for the count quite yet, as worship can take multiple forms.  

First case in point: the devotional candles of the Mithras Candle company (and I should mention here that this is neither a product endorsement nor a paid product placement; while I do light the occasional beeswax candle and have made a few myself using mold, drip and sheet-bending methods, I already have beekeepers as neighbours in multiple directions so I can easily get candles locally).  That said, from their photos Ben and Sochi from Mithras Candle do seem like nice folks, so next time I’m in the Beach / Upper Beach / Kingston Village neighbourhood I might just pick one up at distributor Blossom & Tempest (which is also not a sponsor).  Speaking of candles, happy recent celebration of Hanukkah for those who practice.  Fun fact: before he ascended the throne upon his brother Seleucus IV’s death in 175 BCE, the Seleucid basileus (monarch) Antiochus IV, the villain in the Hanukkah story and principal enemy of the Maccabees, was originally named Mithradates. !חג שמח  Plus, the aforementioned Macka B (also not a sponsor) takes his name from the Maccabees.

Second case in point: comic book superhero fandom, which is serious devotional practice.  As I mentioned in my post from this past Samhain / Halloween, Mithras gets a cameo in the Turkish contribution to Superman: The World.  Everyone's favourite (mostly) Invincible Son of Krypton (powered by the Earth's Sun) fights the god Mithras who is summoned through an inter-dimensional portal via a bull sacrifice by cultists at the Göbeklitepe, Şanlıurfa archaeological site.  I once spent a month in Turkey nearly thirty years ago on a project unrelated to archaeology; a long story that (thankfully for you) I won't get into here.  As well, my favourite toy as a five year-old was my Superman action figure (a small plastic poseable doll, really), and at that age I slept in Superman bedsheets, watched the Christopher Reeve film as soon as it arrived in theatres, repeatedly listened to the John Williams (not a sponsor) soundtrack on vinyl, and I even attempting to style my hair with Superman’s signature “S”-curl.  

All that said, I don't want to give too much away and create any spoilers, so suffice to say that writer / illustrator / graphic designer Ethem Onur Bilgiç created a very interesting spin on the portrayal of Mithras, who in the story arrives via the cultic portal wearing a red sash proclaiming that he knows who Superman is and tells him that "you don't belong to this world I built long ago".  Again, this is not a sponsorship / ad / endorsement, but if you're interested in Mithras and/or Superman, then you can read Superman: The World via the DC UNIVERSE INFINITE or if, like me, you prefer paper books and meatworld, then you can pick up your own copy at your local comics shop, and of course, neither of these are sponsors.

Proud Bondi

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi - the person supposedly standing up for the U.S. government against the $100 million Proud Boy lawsuit / potential mechanism for financing the creation of a national paramilitary force - has a record of spreading baseless claims about fraud and making unfounded allegations about “evidence of cheating” and “fake ballots” in the 2024 elections, remaining involved behind the scenes with Trump allies trying to overturn the election, and siccing MAGA election deniers on Philadelphia City Commissioner and secretary on the city's bipartisan Board of Elections Seth Bluestein for engaging with poll observers from both parties, causing him to receive antisemitic harassment and threats requiring police protection for his family.  She's also spearheading the prosecution of left-leaning NGOs with RICO charges under the false premise that, if they’re actively opposed to fascism, they’re therefore “members” of the ‘antifa’ boogeyman.  Bondi’s theoretically the gatekeeper in all this: the supposed “good guy”.

Other Legal Shenanigans

Augustus Sol Invictus - famous among other things for being named after a Mithraic divine associate and epithet and Roman deity patron of a December 25th holiday, for being a pro-eugenics torch-carrying neo-Nazi, wife-abuser, and part of the original Proud Boys $100 million lawsuit - has also been back in the news for finally getting the boot from Florida’s bar association.   Meanwhile, the New York City-based law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison is still advising Washington, DC’s Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church - where Rosa Parks’ 2005 funeral took place - in its fights against the Proud Boys over its intellectual property, which it won in February through a $2.8 million judgement.  Proud Boys trampled on and stole the church’s Black Lives Manner banner after Donald Trump’s electoral loss to Joe Biden.  The church has only collected $8,000 so far, but a judge has ordered Enrique Tarrio’s interests in the Proud Coin cryptocurrency to be used to pay towards the damages judgement, and if Tarrio refuses to co-operate with court orders, he we receive a bench warrant or even wind back up in jail, with his next hearing scheduled for this month.   Despite this, the firm has agreed to provide $40 million in pro bono work for causes that Trump supports and to “not adopt, use, or pursue any DEI policies”.

From Street to Office and Back Again

A differentiation has been made between the extreme (extra-parliamentary) right and the radical (parliamentary) right, though these groups are connected: the street backs up the parliament while the parliament motivates the street.  This is also true in terms of the political left, environmental/green political activism, Islamist or Christian nationalist movements, various politically-minded conspiracy theory movements, and other ideological causes.  Case in point: while Europe seems to be headed for a hegemony of the parliamentary radical right, right-wing extremist street-level social movements are also strengthening.

Chip Berlet’s Right-Wing U.S. Populism model illustrates the overlap between the electoral conservative right, dissident right populists and the insurgent social movements of the ultra right in their producerist-narrative and racialized battle against both “elite” and “lazy” “parasite” enemies.  Similarly, Field’s Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right (mentioned above) illustrates the correlations between right wing think tanks and street-level groups and how they relate to figures such as Curtis Yarvin, Costin Alamariu, Charles Cornish-Dale, Darren Beattie, political donors like the Rockbridge Network, and other hard right theorists and pundits who bridge the gap between marching in the streets and the sitting in the White House or the Capitol Building.  Lately there have been some big gains made by the Democrats.  Perhaps this is simply by virtue of being the party out of power and free from the constraints of having to deal with the consequences of drafting policy, but it could also be that Trump has reached his pinnacle and the wave is rolling back toward Mar-a-Lago. 

Trump - who has enriched himself $3.4 billion in the past year - has been maintaining anti-modern, partisan, vindictive and vengeful white nationalist anti-Somali tirades, and lamenting immigration to the United States from “hellholes” he condemns as “filthy, dirty, disgusting, ridden with crime”; how refugees and other migrants should avoid being from these places is a mystery given that 14% of the world’s population lived within 5 km of violent conflict at last survey less than three years ago.  His harassment policies and adoption of “remigration” policies have been an alignment with European far-right political parties, a utilization of the deportation vocabulary of European neo-Nazi movements and of North American white supremacists.  

Rockets, Retribution and Racism

Trump has been adopting the language of and receiving praise from Austrian “Identitarian” Martin Sellner, the recipient of a €1,500 financial contribution from the 2019 Christchurch mass shooter, and promoted Paul Ingrassia - who admitted his Nazi-streak - to acting general counsel of the General Services Administration.  His War Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was faulted by a Pentagon investigation over his Signal fiasco, shared a bizarre and cartoonishly violent Franklin the Turtle meme, which I have parodied below (by virtue of the fact that the cartoon’s theme song was sung by Bruce Cockburn, the same guy who wrote If I Had a Rocket Launcher): 

Tying this incident back to ancient times for a moment, Roman centurions were famous for their testudo (tortoise) formation, an adaptation of the Hellenic Phalanx, and roughly equivalent to the Viking shield wall.

In a March 2023 speech Trump said that “for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution”.  He’s been carrying out retribution ever since.  Trump callously and narcissistically blamed the murder of Rob and Michele Reiner on “Trump Derangement Syndrome” (I’ve been on the receiving end of that one as well).  Speaking of betrayal, the question was raised at Turning Point’s recent AmericaFest whether the antisemitism of Nick Fuentes, Tucker Carlson, Candice Owens and Steve Bannon should remain welcome in the Republican Party.  That question was answered by the accused assassin of Charlie Kirk JD Vance, who stated that “we have far more important work to do than cancelling each other” or, in other words: "yes, they are welcome” in a movement where “you don't have to apologize for being white” and the U.S. “always will be a Christian nation”.  

Meanwhile, Turning Point - the organization with a strategy of sowing fear “that white Christian supremacy is under attack by nefarious actors, including immigrants, the LGBTQ+ community and civil rights activists” - is slated to open new chapters in high schools throughout Texas, Oklahoma and Florida, while Texas’ Bill 12 has simultaneously banned LGBTQ+ student clubs.  Amongst a Republican demographic overlapping with and just a notch older than Turning Point’s, December’s New York Young Republican Gala was all about the normalization of racism, with appearances by white supremacist Jared Taylor, members of Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland party and Pizzagate conspiracy theory author Jack Posobiec which was met by the waving of a swastika flag.

Times New Roman Revanchism

Something I neglected to write about in the section of my original piece connecting the iconography of modern day America to that of the Roman Empire was how the ubiquitous American Express credit card uses a Roman centurion as its logo.  I don’t use that particular credit card, but I do occasionally watch hockey, and those credit card ads are pretty frequent during commercial breaks: ads which neglect any mention of the epidemic of credit card debt as nearly half of Americans struggle to afford groceries, utility bills, health care, housing and transportation.  Maybe this logo will change over time; it’s hard to imagine the symbol of security and authority for a modern-day empire not changing over the millennia from being a guy holding a sword to a guy with a gun to a tank to a bomber to an autonomous drone or perhaps autonomous robotic dog.  Still, a robot dog on a credit card might not be the classic and inspiring look that the company’s going for.

I also neglect to mention how for quite some time now the MAGA donor and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has had a fascination with the Roman Empire. His honeymoon was in Rome and two of his kids are named after the emperors Augustus and Marcus Aurelius.  Plus speaking of Rome, Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s strange "Return to Tradition" directive fetishization of the Times New Roman font was announced as a method of signalling opposition to “radical” diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility programs and to “restore decorum and professionalism to the department’s written work”; ironic, coming from a politician who’s railed against the restrictions of 'political correctness’ in the past seems but now seems pretty ok about restricting the ability of readers with low vision or dyslexia or who use screen readers from being able to read the documents produced by their own government.

This past year ICE has arrested nearly 75,000 people with no criminal records and the DHS has sent Venezuelan migrants off to languish at El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) maximum security prison.  It would be hard to imagine the Proud Boys / Pueri Superbi topping that, but a lot of things I couldn’t imagine last year are now quite common.  Though Trump still entertains a supporter-backed third term, a post-Trump MAGA future is starting to look increasingly likely.  I’d say the sooner he goes the better, but if he’s just going to be replaced by Vance, that’s just one step forward two steps back. 

“We will come back, perhaps in a much different and stronger form, when crime begins to soar again" Trump wrote on Truth Social on New Year's Eve after being forced by the Supreme Court to withdraw National Guard troops from Portland, L.A. and Chicago. While this may be just his usual bluster, I wonder what he was alluding to in terms of “a much different and stronger form”? Robot dogs? Zombies? The Sumerian god Gozer’s apocalyptic manifestation as the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man? Was he making a reference to Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus or to Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson’s The Illuminatus! Trilogy? I’d be shocked if he’d read either.

Perhaps Trump was referencing a plan to transfer $100 million to The Proud Boys, effectively financing their transformation into a paramilitary force? On that chipper note I shall take my leave for another month, or perhaps more, or perhaps I’ll write a bot for outsourcing this research and writing; we’ll see. 

Thanks for reading and have a very safe, abundant, equitable, prosperous, creative and happy 2026.