Read on Twitter
A non-exhaustive list of factors that contribute to the rise of Trumpism in Hong Kong. My hope is that this can help with our reckoning, and for us to devise effective and targeted ways to organize/educate against it.
In an earlier thread, I mentioned desperation and other embodied/affective reasons that prompt folks to divert their protest energies into the Trump campaign: https://twitter.com/sharonyamsy/status/1324324543276736512
Existing conservative social values in HK (e.g. anti-mainland immigrant; anti-Blackness) were transposed to US politics, thus enhancing the appeal of Trump: https://www.thestandnews.com/politics/%E7%89%B9%E5%AF%AB-%E6%92%90-trump-%E8%80%85%E5%9C%A8%E9%A6%99%E6%B8%AF-%E6%94%B6%E7%9C%8B-%E8%A2%81%E7%88%B8%E7%88%B8-%E7%AD%96%E7%95%A5%E5%8F%8D%E5%85%B1%E8%88%87%E5%8F%8D%E6%94%BF%E6%B2%BB%E6%AD%A3%E7%A2%BA/
From the same article: The rise in popularity of yellow, pro-Trump key opinion leaders on YouTube and Epoch Times. When these outlets promulgate disinformation, it is taken as facts and spreads like wildfire.
Distrust of mainstream media outlets: mainstream HK outlets have promoted gov narratives that distort the truth. During the US election, the distrust is transposed onto other media outlets in conjunction with confirmation bias. https://hongkongfp.com/2020/11/14/fact-checkers-under-fire-as-some-hong-kong-trump-supporters-cry-foul-over-us-election/
Confirmation bias, in turn, fuels the spread of disinfo and makes people resistant to counter evidence. The truth is thus seen as unknowable, and hence we hear some who decry “both sides are lying, so I might as well choose what seems to be in my best interests."
. @zeynep wrote about the effects of disinformation campaigns in Twitter and Tear Gas--specifically, how it creates paralysis and resignation, which are detrimental to progressive grassroots movements.
The belief that because the US is an electoral democracy, it’s impossible for there to be authoritarianism, unlike China. Single-issue focus (“tough on China”) and the binary logic that one’s enemy’s enemy is one’s friend.
Both of these points were discussed in @johncw_Mok’s op-ed: https://twitter.com/sharonyamsy/status/1322876062636920832
Colonial education prompts people to focus on powerful state actors in the West as primary agents, while omitting grassroots capacity building. This makes people more susceptible to idolizing Trump admin’s anti-China platform.
This interview with local organizer gets at the need for more grassroots political education: https://lausan.hk/2020/to-chi-kuen-interview/
