Fear and Loathing in the New Normal Reich

So my new book is now available to purchase.

It’s the one on the right, above, of course, and is the follow-up to my previous book (i.e., the one on the left, which is still banned in Germany, and the cover artwork of which got me prosecuted for “hate crime”).

The new book is published by Skyhorse Publishing. It was released today (i.e., April 29th) and is available for purchase from most fine booksellers (i.e., Bookshop, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Blackwell’s, Indigo, Apple Books, and so on), or you can purchase it at your local independent bookshop.

It will make me very happy if you purchase a copy.

It will make me and my publisher especially happy if you purchase a copy of the book today, or sometime this week, during its official launch.

So I’m going to try to persuade you to do that.

Ready? OK, here we go.

The book is a collection of the best of my essays from 2022 to 2024. It documents the aftermath of the Covid era, my Kafkaesque hate-crime prosecution here in Germany, the rise of the Musk Cult and its merger with the MAGA movement, the October 7th attacks, the liquidation of Gaza, and assorted other disturbing developments.

It features a Foreword by Matt Taibbi and a new introductory essay by me which isn’t available anywhere else. That titular introductory essay puts the events of the last five years—actually, the last thirty-five years—in context, which, we don’t get a lot of that these days (i.e., context). So that might be of interest.

Like its predecessor, it’s essentially a history book. An unofficial history book. Given how voraciously the Memory Hole is devouring and rewriting our actual history, you might want to collect a few books like these, you know, for the kids to read someday, or to remind yourself, or others, what actually happened. (As usual, I have included a buttload of citations, which you can use if you are trying to deprogram someone.)

And here are some things some impressive people have said about it:

“C. J. Hopkins belongs to a dying breed: an old-school leftist who has stayed true to his anti-capitalist (or anti-globocapitalist, as he would say) and anti-authoritarian roots, resisting both the lure of liberal-progressive neoliberalism and the temptations of faux-revolutionary rightism. This kind of 'intellectual sovereignty' is exactly what we need to navigate these tumultuous times—and that is perhaps why he is being so harshly persecuted by the justice system.”
—Thomas Fazi, writer and journalist, coauthor of The Covid Consensus: The Global Assault on Democracy and the Poor—A Critique from the Left

“Not every writer is persecuted by their government. Fewer have the courage to stand up to their persecutors and risk jail time and financial ruin. C. J. Hopkins paid the price to vindicate his right to speak and write freely. The words in these pages represent his brave acts of protest and defiance.”
—Nico Perrino, executive vice president of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

‟Reading these pages is like sitting with Hopkins and Kafka as they humorously compare their stories. Thank you, C. J., for making the madness of recent years a bit easier.”
—Gavin de Becker, bestselling author of The Gift of Fear

‟We live in a dark age. Oppression sucks the oxygen from our days with ill-intended interruptions and interventions. And then, marvelously, in marches C. J. Hopkins with his verbal lightsaber signing the air with honor. And our belly laughs bring back the oxygen and we can breathe again.”
—Catherine Austin Fitts, the Solari Report

“C. J. Hopkins is a stone-cold hero. Remember that picture taken in Germany in the 1930s of the one guy not doing the Nazi salute while everyone surrounding him is? That’s C. J. Hopkins.”
—Toby Young, director of the Free Speech Union, editor in chief of Daily Sceptic, and associate editor of The Spectator

“C. J. Hopkins is our modern Jeremiah. No other prophet has described the strategies or predicted the perils of the emerging totalitarianism with such persistence and eloquence.”
—Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

“C. J.’s case is an example of egregious censorship, and the free world should be repulsed by it.”
—JD Vance

“C. J. Hopkins is the modern Western version of a Samizdat writer, i.e., a forbidden wit who loudly says things that are obvious but Not Spoken Of in officialdom. Probably this is not a profitable life choice, but it is a hilarious enterprise, and his furious columns have increasingly become required reading as 'normal' media discourse strays further and further from reality.”
—Matt Taibbi

“Earlier this year, I interviewed @CJHopkins_Z23 before a German court annulled a lower court’s finding in his favor. He now faces three years in jail for writing satire. C. J.’s case is a central front on the battle over censorship and free speech.”
—Jay Bhattacharya

‟This book is a must-read. C. J,’s journey through the German legal system is a breathtaking commentary on bureaucratic excess. The most benign allusion to historical iconography becomes a delusional pursuit of the author by the legal system. The totalitarian impulse seems to be alive and well.”
—Drew Pinsky, MD

‟Hopkins’s writing on the New Normal Reich is a beacon of light, humour, and grace in these dark times. If I had to don a beret and head to the bunkers for a revolution, I’d want C. J. by my side. Buy this book for your ‘not awake’ friends and family if you want them to understand what we will lose when the censorship gates slam fully shut on free thought.”
—Trish Wood, award-winning investigative journalist and host of Trish Wood Is Critical podcast

How am I doing? Have you purchased the book yet?

No? Still here?

OK, then I’m going to go ahead and hard sell my Substack subscribers a bit.

There are about 34,000 of you currently, and less than three percent of you are paid subscribers. Which is fine. I do not paywall my columns. I depend on those readers who can afford to support my writing with paid subscriptions to do that voluntarily, and I’m very grateful that so many of you do!

But here’s the thing. If you’re one of those thousands of free subscribers, and you can possibly afford it, I’m asking you to purchase this book. I appreciate that some of you are on extremely tight budgets. I’ve been there, for most of my life, in fact. But, if you can somehow spring for this book, well, maybe think of it as a one-time contribution toward all of the columns you get to read for free on my Substack.

If you can do that, it will mean a lot to me, and not just personally. As I explained in a recent post, the better this book sells, the more embarrassing (and annoying) it will be for the German authorities, and the harder it will be for them to continue their absurd prosecution of me, and of many others like me.

That’s it … that’s the hard sell.

Oh, yeah, and one last request. If you have a moment, I’d be grateful if you could put a review or rating of the book on Amazon, Goodreads, or anywhere else that lets you do that. Same logic as above … the more good reviews and ratings, the more attention the book will get, and the more that will embarrass (and annoy) the German authorities. Who knows? It might even lead more people to reflect on that “context” I referred to above—i.e., the context of the last five, or thirty-five, years—and maybe even begin to see the through-line that runs through our recent history.

And to those of you who pre-ordered the book, thank you, and I hope you enjoy it!

---