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As Trump time comes to an end, a disturbing section of the left is thinking about reaching out to the hard right to try and make itself relevant with his angry, bigoted followers... [a short thread]
![As Trump time comes to an end, a disturbing section of the left is thinking about reaching out to the hard right to try and make itself relevant with his angry, bigoted followers... [a short thread]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EsLN_YgXMAMr5QP.jpg "As Trump time comes to an end, a disturbing section of the left is thinking about reaching out to the hard right to try and make itself relevant with his angry, bigoted followers... [a short thread]")
...Some of the Extremely Online Left in the US has deluded itself into thinking that the far right insurgency is a bluecollar movement (a bit like how both Blue Labour centrists and the Trot/Stalinist left in the UK persuaded itself Brexit is a working class victory)...
(of course, we know now the 6 January rioters were CEOs, lawyers, cops and whitecollar GOP activists https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2021/01/10254783/who-stormed-capitol-rioters-police-officers-ceo-lawyers HT @FFRAFAction )
...Here's two recent examples of the defective left thinking it's a good thing to reach out to the far right. First, Jacobin on QAnon and then Rovics promoting Matthew Heimbach:
Daniel Bessner & Amber A'Lee Frost just published something in Jacobin that says "QAnon-ers are correct about a lot of things", including the existence of an elite pedophile "cabal", and have "legitimate concerns" about the hidden forces controlling the world....
Both authors have form. Bessner, a a contributing editor at Jacobin and a non-resident fellow at the Koch Brothers funded @QuincyInst, tweeted this gem a couple of days after armed MAGA putschists stormed the Capitol:
(On the Quincy Institute, check out this thread: https://twitter.com/charliearchy/status/1146494278564106240?s=20
It also has an uncomfortably large number of associates who've been accused of antisemitism: https://www.jpost.com/american-politics/new-us-think-tank-accused-of-antisemitism-615750 )
It also has an uncomfortably large number of associates who've been accused of antisemitism: https://www.jpost.com/american-politics/new-us-think-tank-accused-of-antisemitism-615750 )
And Frost, Chapo Trap House co-host, was of course celebrated by the UK's own Spiked for her "anti-woke" politics. In her Spiked interview, Frost said that Trump fans are "ours to win".
(If you don't know about Chapo, here's a good primer https://medium.com/@badly_xeroxed/syria-the-alt-left-and-other-lesser-known-extremisms-943ddfa4229e )
Example 2: David Rovics, anarchist songwriter, hosted an actual Nazi, Matthew Heimbach (founder of the Traditionalist Worker Party), on his show: https://twitter.com/RuthlessWe/status/1351737473177534464?s=20
Rovics seems to think Heimbach is an ex-fascist. At best this is gullibility: Heimbach's entire rebrand is designed to appeal to the left-wing fantasy of winning over mythical proto-socialist bluecollar MAGA fans. https://twitter.com/RuthlessWe/status/1351743513398951936?s=20
One of the ways the likes of Heimbach reach out to the defective left is their apparent support for some version of "anti-imperialism". Here he is in a Hezbollah T-shirt (HT @JettGoldsmith)
Of course, Rovics has form too, as a long-time promoter of antisemite Gilad Atzmon, who is a common gateway for anti-Zionists to embrace fascist ideas. https://twitter.com/TomNwainwright/status/1351798158322491392?s=20
Conclusion:
(a) winning over pro-Trump racists is a dangerous fantasy
(b)the left needs to be more vigilant about this stuff, and treat the people introducing far right ideas into our spaces as pariahs.
(a) winning over pro-Trump racists is a dangerous fantasy
(b)the left needs to be more vigilant about this stuff, and treat the people introducing far right ideas into our spaces as pariahs.
[HT for some content to @supergutman, @talktoharris1, & @pplswar, all of whom you should follow.
Other good sources on red-brown convergence include @transform6789, @daphlawless, @areidross, @Marusya_1312 & @emmibevensee.
Last, read this at @libcomorg: https://libcom.org/library/investigation-red-brown-alliances-third-positionism-russia-ukraine-syria-western-left
Other good sources on red-brown convergence include @transform6789, @daphlawless, @areidross, @Marusya_1312 & @emmibevensee.
Last, read this at @libcomorg: https://libcom.org/library/investigation-red-brown-alliances-third-positionism-russia-ukraine-syria-western-left
PS One thing in the Bessner/Frost piece I meant to also take issue with but forgot is their laughable claim that middle class professionals are absent from Q Anon. All analysts of the scene agree that middle class professionals make up a large part of it https://twitter.com/Minkowitz/status/1351891885158248448?s=20
Also good on the claim that MAGA is the cry from the heart of the dispossesed and left behind, this new @newlinesmag piece by @michaeldweiss "They did not come from the factory floor or coal mine but the real estate brokerage and suburban split-level." https://newlinesmag.com/argument/little-man-what-now/
