Kooks?

So this bundle of content claims to be contra the kooks - in opposition to the kooks. Which might lead a reasonable visitor to ask - what is a kook? Well, to state the obvious, it's defined as a person who is crazy or eccentric in American vernacular. But I'll use it in this body of writing to refer to supporters of radical right-wing parties generally and supporters of Donald Trump in the United States in particular. And I'll use it in this way as part of a demonstration that their views are not valid ones deserving of any respect or deference, as they substantially lack any factual, political, ethical, or moral content.

This use of kooks is also my attempt to account for the linguistic black hole in which opponents of these groups find themselves. Fascism, Nazism, anocracy, Orbanism, illiberal democracy, managed democracy, semi-democracy, authoritarian – all of these terms and many more are bandied about without any being analogous to the challenge the current movement poses to the United States and the "Western" democracies more generally. One of the more compelling ones is "competitive authoritarianism" in which authoritarian governments have lively opposition who can sometimes win, but are systematically sidelined, with all institutions public and private in the regime's hands by a variety of inducements. Brendan Nyhan lays out the reading on this nicely:

Ryan Cooper in his prescient article These Are the Stakes in 2022 hints at who "kooks" might be:

So let us consider what might happen should the conservative movement succeed in their attempt to abolish our democratic republic and install themselves in permanent power. Thinking again of Rome, I think it is fair to say that none of the current crop of would-be tyrants are remotely comparable to Augustus or Diocletian, who were ruthless but still among the most competent leaders in history. Instead the GOP is brimming over with imbeciles, propaganda-addled maniacs, sex pests, and/or drug fiends—like some political party composed entirely of the most degenerate Roman emperors assembled over the entire five-century lifespan of the empire.

But Ryan here is really referring to the leaders of the Trump cult, and he presciently picks out Musk as one of them before Musk fell down the kook rabbit hole. But it can't really be that all the people who want this are imbeciles and propaganda-addled maniacs – though a great many seem to be. So what's going on?

I'll tentatively define kooks (principally in the American context)