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As someone who has been writing about what Glen Greenwald recently identified as a "left/right coalition" for a while now, I've been delighted to see so many of y'all opposing it! I thought I'd contribute a little background on this stuff in case folks are interested. 
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I've been researching the Boogaloo Boys and left-right convergence for a while now, and have been featured as an expert on the subject in a lot of places (eg, NPR, The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio-Canada). Here's such a piece from last June. /2 https://www.insider.com/boogaloo-bois-protest-far-right-minneapolis-extremist-guns-hawaiian-shirts-2020-5
Here's a series of articles I wrote about left and right joining together over support for the Kremlin's foreign policy agenda in 2018. It includes folks at the Grayzone, whose employee is now calling for Boogaloo solidarity. Big Surprise! /3 https://alexanderreidross.net/2018/11/19/the-left-and-the-right-through-russian-political-and-information-operations/
People got so mad at me for pointing this out three years ago that the SPLC retracted it despite being fact-checked (see attached). I was perceived as an insane fraud as a result. Max Blumenthal said my piece was the work of a "cabal of interests." /4
http://brockley.blogspot.com/2018/03/fact-checking-splc-on-max-blumenthal.html
http://brockley.blogspot.com/2018/03/fact-checking-splc-on-max-blumenthal.html
Funny enough, however, right after my work was killed, the left/right coalition mobilized to protect Assad right after. It was so striking to me how ppl would deny something and then participate in it openly, so I wrote this: /5 https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/assad-s-war-crimes-bring-far-left-and-right-together-and-putin-smiles-1.6008713
People raged and screamed, Glenn Greenwald was literally seething, I was called "discredited," "smear merchant," and so on. Some ppl tried to get me fired, but I actually got my PhD and dedicated myself to putting down everything I was saying into academic publications. /6
To show that my data/presentation were on point, I wrote this academic piece with @emmibevensee for prestigious IEEE, using the same reference points, showing how the Alt Right was utilizing pro-Russia information systems and "alt media." See here: /7 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=8622270&casa_token=35o99C1xcCgAAAAA:V7WYPTqsTz4gy5l95yCwTbR030inkG62gG9n7D0d4sChEWyh1xjJOAkR-uENkd9WRWGtAGbBauQ&tag=1
As well, I placed this peer-reviewed article in left-wing scholarly journal, Boundary2Online, which uses the same research to examine the ways that disinfo spreads through volunteerist platforms, crowdsourcing theories, and spotlighting successful cons. /8 https://www.boundary2.org/2019/11/alexander-reid-ross-fooling-the-nation-extremism-and-the-pro-russia-disinformation-ecosystem/
I write about this stuff, bc I had person experience with it in Russia 15 years ago. I authored this piece to show the NazBol movement's development for Daily Beast; it was lawyered and ready-to-go, but the editor canned it because of the SPLC thing. /9 https://medium.com/@areidross/from-exile-to-dirtbag-edgelord-geopolitics-and-the-rise-of-national-bolshevism-in-the-u-s-84822021b0e8
You see, it didn't matter that I was right, that my edited piece had been lawyered and was straight-up. What mattered is that as soon as I published, a rabid swarm of terror wasps would attack me and anyone who shared my stuff with insinuations, lies, and ad hominem. /10
And it had the added effect, whenever someone pulled my piece, of reinforcing the perception that I am deliberately spreading false information or simply a ridiculous crazy person speaking in tongues. Tbh, that last one might stick, but that's another story.
These tend to be the same types who pose as "civil libertarians" and screech about "cancel culture," how the MSM is always censoring them, and how the ex-President has every right to spew hate wherever he wants. You know the type... Anyway... /11
