tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/alt-right-31564/articlesAlt-Right – The Conversation2023-08-01T16:20:43Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2094132023-08-01T16:20:43Z2023-08-01T16:20:43ZConspiracy theories: how social media can help them spread and even spark violence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540217/original/file-20230731-235681-lb9vkv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C15%2C2560%2C1900&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former US president Donald Trump's repeaded false statements about the 2020 election having been "stolen" from him eventually led supporters to attack the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DC_Capitol_Storming_IMG_7961.jpg">Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Conspiracy theory beliefs and (more generally) misinformation may be groundless, but they can have a range of harmful real-world consequences, including spreading lies, undermining trust in media and government institutions and inciting violent or even extremist behaviours.</p>
<p>For example, some conspiracy theories claim that the Covid-19 pandemic <a href="https://theconversation.com/conspiracy-theorists-are-falsely-claiming-that-the-coronavirus-pandemic-is-an-elaborate-hoax-135985">is a hoax</a> or a plot by a secret cabal to <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2023/07/18/rfk-jrs-family-denounces-claim-that-jews-chinese-are-immune-to-Covid-here-are-all-the-other-conspiracies-he-promotes/">control the world population</a>. Such beliefs can lead to a rejection of vital health measures, such as wearing masks or getting vaccinated, and thereby endanger the public. They can also erode the credibility and authority of scientific and political institutions, such as the World Health Organization or the United Nations, and foster distrust and polarisation.</p>
<p>Taken to the extreme, conspiracy theories can even motivate some individuals or groups to engage in violence. False narratives about the 2020 US presidential election having been “stolen” underpinned the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/10/us/politics/voting-fraud.html">attack on the US Capitol</a>, on 6 January 2021. Another example is the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/pizzagate-from-rumor-to-hashtag-to-gunfire-in-dc/2016/12/06/4c7def50-bbd4-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html">“Pizzagate” incident</a> in 2016: falsely believing that a Washington, D.C., pizzeria was a front for a child-sex ring involving high-ranking Democrats, a man from South Carolina drove to the capital, entered the restaurant with an assault-style rifle, and terrified its workers and customers as he searched for evidence that didn’t exist of a crime that never took place.</p>
<p>Far from harmless chatter, these two examples show misinformation and conspiracy theories can pose serious threats to individual and collective safety, social cohesion and even democratic stability.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540222/original/file-20230731-189599-3m4deq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540222/original/file-20230731-189599-3m4deq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540222/original/file-20230731-189599-3m4deq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540222/original/file-20230731-189599-3m4deq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540222/original/file-20230731-189599-3m4deq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540222/original/file-20230731-189599-3m4deq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540222/original/file-20230731-189599-3m4deq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540222/original/file-20230731-189599-3m4deq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Contrary to all facts, online conspiracy mongers claimed that Comet Ping Pong, a Washington, DC, pizza restaurant, was supposedly the front for a child-sex ring.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Comet_Ping_Pong_Pizzagate_2016_01.jpg">Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Conspiracy-minded communities grow and spread online. Social media, including forums, enable such groups to form and have continuous and repeated access to information that reinforces their beliefs and helps them forge a sense of shared identity. Instead of withering in the face of evidence that contradicts their beliefs, such groups often choose to deepen their commitment and this, in turn, can lead to radicalisation. For many, the thought of giving up their delusions is simply unthinkable – they’re too invested.</p>
<p>This identification is why common strategies to combat misinformation or conspiracy theories, such as fact-checking, debunking or presenting alternative views to such theories, not only fail but can even contribute to pushing these communities to grow even more resolute.</p>
<h2>Why and how conspiracy theories grow</h2>
<p>In our <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/isj.12427">recent study</a>, we set out to understand exactly <em>why</em> and <em>how</em> conspiracy theories persist and persevere over time on social media.</p>
<p>We found that social media can help breed a shared identity toward conspiracy theory radicalisation by acting as an echo chamber for such beliefs. The core characteristics of social media play a critical role in building and reinforcing identity echo chambers. For example, they enable individuals to become increasingly committed to such theories through having an easy and persistent access to content that feeds their misconstrued beliefs. Such individuals can imagine themselves to be “real life investigators”, yet scour the Internet searching only for information that <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/confirmation-bias">confirms their pre-existing beliefs</a>.</p>
<p>Online networks also enable individuals to replicate conspiracy theories easily by simply sharing or copy/pasting related content. This information is therefore quickly visible to followers or members of a forum which can then be visible through hashtags and via algorithms that are used by some platforms. Our study identifies four key stages in the escalation of such conspiracy beliefs.</p>
<ol>
<li><p><strong>Identity confirmation</strong>: Users consult and view different types of content (via fora, mainstream media and social media) to actively verify and confirm their own views.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Identity affirmation</strong>: Individuals disassociate or pick selectively information from their original sources of information (mentioned above). In the case of “Pizzagate”, conspiracy-minded users took pictures from the Clinton Foundation’s support work in Haiti, created visual materials supporting supposed connections to a sex-trafficking ring, and then posted them on Reddit and 4chan. While obviously altered and taken out of context, the images were widely shared to promote the conspiracy theory.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Identity protection</strong>: Individuals safeguard their “informational environment” by actively seeking to discredit individuals or organisations that present contradictory evidence, for example with antagonistic or negative posts or comments.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Identity enactment</strong>: Individuals seek broader social approval from a more mainstream audience. This can also lead to efforts to recruit more people and call for violent actions, leveraging the community userbase.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>These stages actually constitute a spiralling loop, reinforcing a conspiratorial shared social identity and enabling a potential escalation to radicalisation.</p>
<h2>Prevention, not more information</h2>
<p><a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/isj.12427">Our findings</a> underline the need to rethink some of the current fact-based approaches, which have not only been proven to be ineffective, but that actually feed conspiratorial beliefs. Instead, we encourage policymakers to focus on prevention and support education.</p>
<p>More than ever, developing media literacy and critical-thinking skills that can help citizens assess the credibility and validity of online information sources has become a critical challenge. Those skills include analysis, synthesis, contrasting evidence and options to spot flaws and inconsistencies, among others.</p>
<p>It is also important to address the underlying social issues that can contribute to the spread of conspiracy theories. The reality of conspiracy-theory communities is that they often represent marginalised populations of our society – their very existence is made possible by social exclusion. Addressing social exclusion and promoting community values may also help combat the spread of conspiracy theories.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209413/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christine Abdalla Mikhaeil is a member of the Association for Information Systems (AIS).</span></em></p>Conspiracy theories may be baseless, but they can have a range of harmful real-world consequences, including spreading lies, undermining trust in media and government and inciting violence.Christine Abdalla Mikhaeil, Assistant professor in information systems, IÉSEG School of ManagementLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2042512023-04-26T12:28:10Z2023-04-26T12:28:10ZA tweak to the University of Nebraska’s logo shows how the once benign ‘OK’ sign has entered a ‘purgatory of meaning’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522694/original/file-20230424-24-f223jw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C54%2C5160%2C3391&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nebraska Cornhuskers mascot Herbie Husker pumps up the crowd during a 2015 football game.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/nebraska-cornhuskers-mascot-herbie-husker-is-seen-during-news-photo/493666358?adppopup=true">Michael Hickey/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On April 17, 2023, the Nebraska Cornhuskers unveiled the latest version of their beloved mascot, <a href="https://myhusker.com/herbie-husker-nebraska/">Herbie Husker</a>.</p>
<p>Herbie’s left hand no longer forms the “OK” symbol. Instead, an <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2023/04/19/nebraska-herbie-husker-mascot-change/">index finger is raised</a> to indicate that the team is No. 1.</p>
<p>The change was made, University of Nebraska officials explained, because the universal <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-do-we-say-ok-122528">symbol of approbation</a> – curling the index finger to touch the thumb, forming an “O” – had become associated with white supremacy and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/09/26/764728163/the-ok-hand-gesture-is-now-listed-as-a-symbol-of-hate">hate speech</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two cartoon logos of farmers in overalls wearing red cowboy hats." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522812/original/file-20230425-14-dy9dxg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522812/original/file-20230425-14-dy9dxg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522812/original/file-20230425-14-dy9dxg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522812/original/file-20230425-14-dy9dxg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522812/original/file-20230425-14-dy9dxg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522812/original/file-20230425-14-dy9dxg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522812/original/file-20230425-14-dy9dxg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The University of Nebraska determined that the ‘OK’ gesture was too prone to misinterpretation, prompting a change to one of its logos.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.si.com/.image/c_limit%2Ccs_srgb%2Cq_auto:good%2Cw_700/MTk3MzE2MzY5MjI0NTc0MjI5/herbiehuskeroldnew.webp">University of Nebraska Athletics</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>How did something as benign and commonplace as the “OK” hand gesture come to assume such sinister undertones? And what does the University of Nebraska’s willingness to change its mascot say about the ways in which ambiguous signs and symbols can take on a life of their own?</p>
<h2>A new way to hate?</h2>
<p>In 2015, Milo Yiannopoulos, Richard Spencer and other figures of the “<a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/alt-right">alt-right</a>,” a white nationalist movement, started using the hand gesture in <a href="https://twitter.com/RichardBSpencer/status/796132542739083264">posed photos of themselves</a>. But it took off in February 2017, when a prank message was posted on <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2014/09/25/absolutely-everything-you-need-to-know-to-understand-4chan-the-internets-own-bogeyman/">4-chan</a>, the anonymous messaging site that has been a breeding ground for racism and conspiracy theories.</p>
<p>“<a href="https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/249/757/858.jpg_large">Operation O-KKK</a>” encouraged the flooding of social media sites like Twitter with posts proclaiming the familiar gesture to be a symbol of the alt-right. But what began as an effort to “<a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/09/18/ok-sign-white-power-symbol-or-just-right-wing-troll">troll the libs</a>” quickly took on a life of its own.</p>
<p>In May 2019, an attendee at a Chicago Cubs baseball game made the gesture on camera behind a Black reporter, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/sports/cubs-fan-banned-wrigley-field-after-flashing-white-power-symbol-n1003681">prompting the team to ban him</a> from Wrigley Field.</p>
<p>Shortly thereafter, school officials recalled yearbooks in <a href="https://abc7chicago.com/white-power-sign-yearbook-photo-symbol-gesture/5323243/">Petaluma, California</a>, and <a href="https://www.insider.com/oak-park-river-forest-high-school-reprinting-yearbooks-white-power-symbols-2019-5">Chicago</a> after discovering pictures of students making the gesture. The Anti-Defamation League went on to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/09/26/okay-hand-sign-has-moved-trolling-campaign-real-hate-symbol-civil-rights-group-says/">add the gesture</a> to its database of hate symbols.</p>
<p>There have also been cases of mistaken identity, however.</p>
<p>During the 2019 Army-Navy football game, midshipmen and cadets flashed what seemed to be the white power gesture on-camera behind the ESPN commentator – a game that was politically charged because then-President Donald Trump was in attendance.</p>
<p>The academies, however, determined that the students had been playing the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/us/army-navy-circle-game.html">Circle Game</a> instead – a practical joke in which participants try to trick each other into looking at a circle gesture, which prompts a punch.</p>
<p>The Army-Navy incident was a high-profile example of misperception. But there have been several similar episodes involving the same gesture.</p>
<h2>Symbolic overreaction</h2>
<p>In June 2020, for example, a utility employee in San Diego supposedly made a white power sign while dangling his arm from a company truck. Another motorist took a picture and reported the worker to his company. The employee was fired, even though he claimed to be merely <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/502975-california-man-fired-over-alleged-white-power-sign-says-he-was/">cracking his knuckles</a>.</p>
<p>And in April 2021, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/16/business/media/jeopardy-hand-gesture-maga-conspiracy.html">a contestant on “Jeopardy!”</a> held up three fingers when he was introduced in celebration of having won the three previous games. Yet the belief that it was a white power gesture prompted nearly 600 former contestants to <a href="https://medium.com/@j.contestants.letter/letter-from-former-jeopardy-2eda854efdf1">sign a statement</a> denouncing what they perceived as a gesture of hate.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9ET15AOp-6Q?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A ‘Jeopardy!’ contestant came under fire for flashing a symbol meant to indicate his three wins in 2021.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As I describe in my recently published book on the <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781633888906/Failure-to-Communicate-Why-We-Misunderstand-What-We-Hear-Read-and-See">causes of miscommunication</a>, these types of incidents are not new and not unusual. </p>
<p>They can be characterized as symptoms of <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100208829;jsessionid=C4EB93703624B46E08D17572D94A202C">moral panic</a>, in which the media, politicians and activists fan the flames of uncertainty and worry.</p>
<p>In the case of the “OK” symbol, <a href="https://theconversation.com/did-far-right-extremist-violence-really-spike-in-2017-89067">concerns about white supremacy snowballed</a> in the wake of events like <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-ryan-kellys-pulitzer-prize-winning-photograph-an-american-guernica-82567">the 2017 Unite the Right rally</a>, when white nationalists and far-right militias converged on Charlottesville, Virginia.</p>
<p>The ensuing clashes with counterprotesters resulted in more than 30 injuries and one death. Afterward, many Americans were particularly sensitive to racist symbols – and perhaps more prone to interpret ambiguous gestures as white power signs.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Marchers holding Nazi and Confederate flags." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522839/original/file-20230425-14-3mecq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522839/original/file-20230425-14-3mecq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522839/original/file-20230425-14-3mecq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522839/original/file-20230425-14-3mecq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522839/original/file-20230425-14-3mecq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522839/original/file-20230425-14-3mecq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522839/original/file-20230425-14-3mecq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Demonstrators carry Confederate and Nazi flags during the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., on Aug. 12, 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/demonstrators-carry-confederate-and-nazi-flags-during-the-news-photo/830922288?adppopup=true">Emily Molli/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Gang signs and moral panic</h2>
<p>A very similar dynamic involving gang signs has played out over the past couple of decades. </p>
<p>In 2007, the Virginia Tourism Agency created an <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2007-08-19-0708180225-story.html">ad campaign</a> that included actors making the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/11/fashion/hand-heart-gesture-grows-in-popularity-noticed.html">heart sign</a>: curled fingers joined with thumbs pointing downward. The campaign was changed when state officials discovered that the street and prison gang the Gangster Disciples <a href="https://www.c-ville.com/Thug_life">also used the symbol</a>.</p>
<p>In 2013, a group of California <a href="https://www.wtvr.com/2013/11/06/police-students-could-be-mistaken-as-gang-members-with-new-school-sweatshirt">high school seniors</a> ordered sweatshirts with “XIV” – their year of graduation – emblazoned on them. However, the number is also a symbol of the northern California <a href="https://unitedgangs.com/nortenos-norte-14/">Norteños gangs</a>, as “N” is the 14th letter of the alphabet. To avoid any association with the gangs, school officials advised students to avoid wearing the clothing.</p>
<p>And in March 2014, a Mississippi high school placed a student on indefinite suspension after he had been photographed standing next to his biology project. He was accused of flashing a gang sign because his thumb and two other fingers were outstretched. These form a “V” and an “L” – a symbol of the Vice Lords gang. But the student <a href="https://reason.com/2014/03/10/mississippi-high-school-suspended-studen/">protested that he was merely indicating</a> “3,” the number of his football jersey, which he was also wearing in the photo.</p>
<p>Tragically, there have also been episodes in which sign language was <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/deaf-woman-asl-sign-language-shot-gang-signs-1639018">misinterpreted</a> as gang symbols, leading to <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/deaf-man-stabbed-sign-language-mistaken-gang-signs/story?id=18213488">acts of violence</a> against those simply trying to communicate.</p>
<h2>Kids, cats and devils?</h2>
<p>As these examples make clear, moral panics often reflect society’s anxieties. </p>
<p>They run the gamut, from uneasiness about young children <a href="https://theconversation.com/banning-smartphones-for-kids-is-just-another-technology-fearing-moral-panic-74485">using smartphones</a> to <a href="https://theconversation.com/dont-blame-cats-for-destroying-wildlife-shaky-logic-is-leading-to-moral-panic-138710">house cats killing wildlife</a> and even to role-playing games fostering <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/18/us/when-dungeons-dragons-set-off-a-moral-panic.html?">demon worship</a>.</p>
<p>Fears of gangs and hate groups are just the latest manifestation of this phenomenon.</p>
<p>At the time of the Army-Navy game, The Washington Post wrote that the “OK” gesture “now lives in a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/12/16/how-okay-hand-sign-keeps-tricking-us-into-looking/">purgatory of meaning</a>.” </p>
<p>It’s hardly surprising, then, that universities are distancing themselves from ambiguous and controversial symbols. </p>
<p>Moral panics may not be grounded in reality, but the concerns they give life to can still be bad for one’s image – or one’s team.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204251/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roger J. Kreuz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Hand gestures are notoriously prone to misinterpretation.Roger J. Kreuz, Associate Dean and Professor of Psychology, University of MemphisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2012852023-03-09T19:05:47Z2023-03-09T19:05:47ZThe road to March 15: ‘networked white rage’ and the Christchurch terror attacks<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514127/original/file-20230308-28-k0ywkg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C11%2C7896%2C5252&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The massacres of March 15 2019 at two Christchurch mosques confirmed the far right remains a constant threat to public order and safety in New Zealand, and that this threat was largely overlooked by security and intelligence agencies. </p>
<p>Both elements were corroborated by the findings of the <a href="https://christchurchattack.royalcommission.nz/the-report/">Royal Commission of Inquiry</a> into the attacks that was released in November 2020. The country was not exempt from such activist, murderous politics, despite widespread complacency. </p>
<p>While the perpetrator exhibited many of the longstanding ideological beliefs and violent tactics of white supremacists, his “manifesto” reflected the influence and rise of the alt-right, with a focus on the “great replacement”, the participation in online subcultures and new versions of conspiracies (as well as old ones). </p>
<p>We trace the development of the alt-right as a series of disparate coalitions of far-right and (white) ethnonationalist groups, activists and ideologies – secular and religious – and their use of online platforms to proselytise, recruit and radicalise. We are particularly interested in the rise of identitarian movements and ideologies, and their transnational influence and reach. </p>
<p>How has ethnonationalism been (re-)radicalised? How have new motifs and symbols been used to attract and explain, especially in identifying groups – the “deep state”, mass media, groups such as Muslims or Jews – as an existential threat facing the “white race” or “European civilisation”? </p>
<p>What role does religion play in these new coalitions and their selection of religious enemies and targets? How significant is the neglect of religion in the failure to recognise religious motivations and ideologies by security and intelligence agencies in secular polities? And how have online platforms and possibilities been utilised in the cause of these new politics?</p>
<h2>A new stage in far-right politics</h2>
<p>The alt-right is a product of the ideological mixing of traditional far-right politics and conservative populist movements. As David Neiwert writes in Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump, key elements began to appear with the Tea Party after 2010 in the US: nativist anti-immigrant views, specifically in relation to “ ‘parasitic’ minorities and immigrants”, a “hostility towards ‘liberal’ elites” and the “supposed ‘tyranny’ of the president”. Neiwert writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>These populist movements have created an “[a]lternative universe [and] a set of alternative explanations [which are] amplified by a panoply of conspiracy theories [including] a New World order [which is] plotting to enslave all of mankind in a world government that permits no freedom […] In this alternative universe, facts and the laws of political gravity do not apply.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513882/original/file-20230307-16-wtb2x2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513882/original/file-20230307-16-wtb2x2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=847&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513882/original/file-20230307-16-wtb2x2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=847&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513882/original/file-20230307-16-wtb2x2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=847&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513882/original/file-20230307-16-wtb2x2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1064&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513882/original/file-20230307-16-wtb2x2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1064&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513882/original/file-20230307-16-wtb2x2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1064&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>The term "alt-right” was first coined in 2009 by Richard Spencer, an American white nationalist disillusioned with contemporary conservatism and who became director of the National Policy Institute, a lobby group for race-based policies where “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/02/opinion/sunday/what-the-alt-right-really-means.html">race is the foundation of identity</a>” – a far-right response to, and version of, contemporary identity politics. A year later, Spencer established his own webzine, The Alternative Right. </p>
<p>By the 2016 US presidential election, the views and activities of the alt-right had become well established and provided a contrast to more traditional far-right politics – in two particular ways. </p>
<p>First, the alt-right were firmly internet-based. Secondly, many followed the Spencer tradition of the “suit-and-tie image” of white nationalism, the preppy look of middle America. The term gained traction when Hillary Clinton, as a presidential candidate, used it in a speech in August 2015 to critique white supremacy and her opponent, Donald Trump. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fear-and-loathing-in-new-zealand-an-overdue-examination-of-our-underworld-of-extremists-is-valuable-but-flawed-198580">Fear and loathing in New Zealand: an overdue examination of our ‘underworld of extremists’ is valuable but flawed</a>
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<h2>‘Networked white rage’</h2>
<p>Explanations for the rise of the alt-right vary. Some, such as the author <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1536504218766547">Jessie Daniels</a>, see it as a “manifestation of the angry white male who has status anxiety about his declining social and economic power”. </p>
<p>There is certainly some evidence of a high degree of disillusionment and feelings of marginalisation in white communities in the US that then translates into support for an angry and exclusive nationalism through the second decade of the 21st century. Arlie Hochschild chronicles this in her compelling book, <a href="https://thenewpress.com/books/strangers-their-own-land">Strangers in Their Own Land</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-christchurch-commissions-call-to-improve-social-cohesion-is-its-hardest-and-most-important-recommendation-149969">The Christchurch commission’s call to improve social cohesion is its hardest — and most important — recommendation</a>
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<p>The second explanation is that it is a product of the echo chambers of the internet – or “an informal and ill-defined collection of internet-based radicals”. Jessie Daniels goes on to argue:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The rise of the alt-right is both a continuation of a centuries-old dimension of racism in the US and part of an emerging media ecosystem powered by algorithms […] The ideology of the contemporary alt-right is entirely consistent with earlier manifestations of extremist white supremacy with only slight modifications in style and emphasis […] This iteration is newly enabled by algorithms [which] deliver search results for those who seek confirmation for racist notions and [which] connect newcomers to like-minded racists […] providing networked white rage.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The ideological positions of the alt-right are just as likely to be embedded in video games or music videos.</p>
<h2>The red-pilled alt-right</h2>
<p>A third component is the demographic profile of the alt-right. Many are young white males, some of whom are university graduates or students. Milo Yiannopoulos, a key US alt-right activist and commentator who, with Allum Bokhari, wrote “An establishment conservative’s guide to the alt-right”, described the movement as “born out of the youthful, subversive underground edges of the internet”. </p>
<p>In many ways, this is no different from earlier neo-fascist and neo-Nazi movements, such as skinheads, but the image and membership have changed: more intellectual (or claiming to be), more skilful messaging (by Canadian YouTube activists Stefan Molyneux and Lauren Southern, for example) and a more carefully managed appeal to conservatives, nationalists and populists.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/replacement-theory-isnt-new-3-things-to-know-about-how-this-once-fringe-conspiracy-has-become-more-mainstream-183492">Replacement theory isn't new – 3 things to know about how this once-fringe conspiracy has become more mainstream</a>
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<p>The alt-right had been growing and evolving for some time, but the US presidential campaign in 2016 and the subsequent election of Donald Trump confirmed the presence and influence of the alt-right as a “mass movement” that hinged on the radicalising potential of the internet, especially of “disenfranchised and mostly anonymous, young white men”. As David Neiwert noted: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Alt-righters see [getting red-pilled] as a metaphor for what they consider to be the revelatory power of their ideology, which cuts through the lies of “social justice warriors” (SJWs), “cultural Marxists” and the mainstream media. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>A new phase, and a variation on far-right political traditions and activism, had emerged by 2015–16. One element of this, which appeared alongside the alt-right, was identitarianism, which places the threat to the “white race” or “European civilisation” at the core of alt-right activism.</p>
<h2>Identitarian politics</h2>
<p>This term has been largely defined by <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/12/10/what-is-generation-identity">Generation Identity</a>, a European-based movement that arose from <a href="https://www.counterextremism.com/supremacy/les-identitaires">Bloc Identitaire</a>, which was founded in 2002 in Nice. A youth wing was established a decade later, and was most apparent in Austria, Germany and Italy.</p>
<p>Generation Identity, one of whose leaders is Martin Sellner, an Austrian and former neo-Nazi, is a European analogue of the largely American alt-right. A core ideological concern is the “great replacement” and, specifically, as Julie Ebner wrote in Going Dark: The Secret Social Lives of Extremists, the belief that a mix of “pro-abortion and pro-LGBTQI+ laws had lowered birthrates of native Europeans, and pro-migration policies […] have allowed minorities to engage in a ‘strategic mass breeding’ .”</p>
<p>American identitarians formed <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_Evropa">Identity Evropa</a>, which was renamed the American Identity Movement in the US in 2019. It has close links to Generation Identity in Europe and with the alt-right in the US. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/white-nationalism-is-a-political-ideology-that-mainstreams-racist-conspiracy-theories-184375">White nationalism is a political ideology that mainstreams racist conspiracy theories</a>
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<p>European identitarians have adopted some of the strategies of the alt-right, especially the Breitbart belief (a reference to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/business/media/the-life-and-death-of-andrew-breitbart.html">Andrew Breitbart</a>, an influencer of the alt-right and founder of the website that bears his name) that changing cultural narratives precedes political change. </p>
<p>In particular, there is the Breitbart argument that activists “need to create counter-cultures that attract young people [in order] to increase public pressure on mainstream politics”.</p>
<p>This is sometimes referred to as “strategic polarisation” or forcing bystanders to take a position either of support or against alt-right or identitarian ideological positions. The intent is to radicalise individuals or communities and to implement their own local or national campaigns. </p>
<p>Here is an example of seeking to alter the “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window">Overton window</a>” (changing the spectrum of politically acceptable views) and to move the political spectrum to the right so that alt-right and identitarian ideas become normalised. </p>
<h2>Crisis narratives</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514139/original/file-20230308-28-xz4ubd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514139/original/file-20230308-28-xz4ubd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514139/original/file-20230308-28-xz4ubd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514139/original/file-20230308-28-xz4ubd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514139/original/file-20230308-28-xz4ubd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514139/original/file-20230308-28-xz4ubd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1120&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514139/original/file-20230308-28-xz4ubd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1120&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514139/original/file-20230308-28-xz4ubd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1120&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">French writer and ‘great replacement’ theorist Renaud Camus, pictured here in 1989.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Julie Ebner infiltrated Generation Identity groups in the United Kingdom and provided an excellent account (in her book Going Dark) of how such identitarian politics operate – and how such politics were a major influence on the March 15 terrorist.</p>
<p>Identitarianism is a movement that primarily advocates for a contemporary ethno-nationalism, is typically exclusive (hence, “re-migrating” non-natives and immigrants) and that portrays Islam as the key threat (therefore “de-Islamisation”). </p>
<p>This position was espoused by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaud_Camus">Renaud Camus</a> in his book, Le Grand Remplacement (2011), which introduced the idea of “white genocide” and “reverse racism”, and has had a major influence on the ideological preoccupations of the alt-right. As Eibner writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Great Replacement theory combines all four features of a violence inciting ideology [or] so-called “crises narratives”: conspiracy, dystopia, impurity and existential threat. The idea is that Europeans [sometimes labelled the “white race”] are being replaced with racially and culturally distinct migrants (impurity) by a cabal of global elites and complicit actors in governments, tech firms and media outlets (conspiracy), leading to the gradual decay of society (dystopia) and the eventual extinction of whites (existential threat).</p>
</blockquote>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/violent-extremists-are-not-lone-wolves-dispelling-this-myth-could-help-reduce-violence-200434">Violent extremists are not lone wolves – dispelling this myth could help reduce violence</a>
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<p>This theory, along with its four components, is found in a range of contemporary alt-right groups such as <a href="https://www.newsroom.co.nz/white-supremacist-group-infiltrated">Action Zealandia</a>. It was also a preoccupation of the March 15 terrorist whose manifesto, “The Great Replacement”, draws heavily on Renaud Camus’ You Will Not Replace Us! (2018), as well as the earlier work that also provided the rallying call to the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.</p>
<p>The terrorist also valorised <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik">Anders Behring Breivik</a> and referenced the Norwegian’s manifesto alongside the justificatory confessions and statements of other terrorists, in particular highlighting the tradition of Christian crusader knights doing God’s work defending Christendom and Christianity against their enemies, mainly Muslims and Jews. </p>
<p>These precursors provided the symbols, memes, framework, inspiration and preemptive-strike strategy for the March 15 attacks. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>This is an edited extract from</em> Histories of Hate: The Radical Right in Aotearoa New Zealand, <em>edited by Matthew Cunningham, Marinus La Rooij and Paul Spoonley (Otago University Press).</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201285/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Spoonley receives funding from MBIE. He is Co-Director of He Whenua Taurikura. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Morris does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In this extract from the new book Histories of Hate: The Radical Right in Aotearoa New Zealand, the authors examine the ideological origins of the Christchurch massacres nearly four years ago.Paul Spoonley, Distinguished Professor, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Massey UniversityPaul Morris, Emeritus Professor, School of Social and Cultural Studies, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of WellingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1985802023-02-14T18:00:25Z2023-02-14T18:00:25ZFear and loathing in New Zealand: an overdue examination of our ‘underworld of extremists’ is valuable but flawed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509922/original/file-20230213-16-b2dsap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C0%2C5375%2C3589&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protesters in New Zealand's parliament grounds in early 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since the horrific attacks in Christchurch in 2019 there has been substantial and growing attention paid to the extreme right in New Zealand. The pandemic – and the conspiracy theories and anti-government sentiment that developed in response – increased that scrutiny, and the sense of unease or alarm many felt about it.</p>
<p>Yet until now we have relied on just a handful of academic articles and media reports to gauge the extent and nature of the contemporary far right in New Zealand. Byron Clark’s new work is the first book to provide an overview of the multitude of groups and individuals loosely categorised as “alt-right”.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Fear: New Zealand’s hostile underworld of extremists – Byron C Clark (HarperCollins)</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Clark is an independent researcher who has done invaluable work in exposing the ideologies, behaviour and online and offline presence of a range of fringe political groups and individuals. He has an unparalleled knowledge of this network, their YouTube and Telegram channels, and the connections between them.</p>
<p>The book (like Clark’s Twitter account) is a crucial starting point for anyone seeking to understand the alt-right in New Zealand. It is beautifully written and contains excellent insights that can inform the study of contemporary extremism.</p>
<p>As one example, he discusses how, as the traditional markers of adulthood like home ownership and a stable career became increasingly unattainable, many young men found sanctuary in gaming and other online pursuits. For some, feminism came to be seen as threatening even that refuge.</p>
<p>In short, this is an excellent and useful book. For those of us who research (and teach about) extremism, it will serve as an important reference point. Nor is it confined to New Zealand; it serves as a study of how quite disparate, even opposed, groups can begin to orbit one another during a time of crisis.</p>
<h2>Defining our terms</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509927/original/file-20230214-28-sq25sj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509927/original/file-20230214-28-sq25sj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509927/original/file-20230214-28-sq25sj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509927/original/file-20230214-28-sq25sj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509927/original/file-20230214-28-sq25sj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509927/original/file-20230214-28-sq25sj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509927/original/file-20230214-28-sq25sj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>Some aspects of the book might have been stronger, however. In particular, there was a need for clearer definitions of key terms, and much more evidence needed for many of its claims.</p>
<p>The author uses three important terms – alt-right, far right and extremism – in the title and throughout the book. The various groups, ideologies and individuals discussed – including Action Zealandia, Voices for Freedom, Counterspin, QAnon, Groundswell and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindutva">Hindutva</a> – are presented as manifestations of these phenomena in New Zealand.</p>
<p>But the author never defines these terms, and uses them interchangeably. Given the contention of the book that these groups should be understood as “far right”, it was crucial the author explain why this is the case.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-extremism-visible-at-the-parliament-protest-has-been-growing-in-nz-for-years-is-enough-being-done-177831">The extremism visible at the parliament protest has been growing in NZ for years – is enough being done?</a>
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<p>When used by the leading scholars in the field, the term “far right” is normally reserved for highly nationalistic and racist movements. These seek a strong, even authoritarian, leader and government, a punitive focus on law and order, the punishment of social deviancy, and are “nativist” (anti-immigration). These goals may not come at the expense of democracy but always come at the cost of <em>liberal</em> democracy.</p>
<p>The alt-right refers to a more contemporary iteration of this white nationalism, characterised by intensive use of social media. <a href="https://www.adl.org/">ADL</a> (formerly the Anti-Defamation League) <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/alt-right-primer-new-white-supremacy">defines</a> the movement as “a repackaging of white supremacy by extremists seeking to mainstream their ideology”.</p>
<p>The category spans an eclectic network of misogynists, white supremacists, neo-Nazis and fascists, all united in their focus on white identity and seeking to provide an alternative (hence the label) to the mainstream conservative right.</p>
<h2>What is extremism?</h2>
<p>The author also provides no definition of “extremism”, a word used both in the book and its promotion. Government <a href="https://safeguarding.network/content/safeguarding-resources/radicalisation/">definitions</a> refer to extremist movements as those seen as “objectionable”, “holding views outside the mainstream” or “seeking radical changes to society”.</p>
<p>But liberal democracy is predicated on the tolerance of views outside the mainstream and so such broad definitions are unhelpful, even damaging. The key feature of extremism, then, is the use or legitimisation of violence in pursuit of the movement’s ideology or goals.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509929/original/file-20230214-20-8wn940.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509929/original/file-20230214-20-8wn940.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509929/original/file-20230214-20-8wn940.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509929/original/file-20230214-20-8wn940.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509929/original/file-20230214-20-8wn940.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509929/original/file-20230214-20-8wn940.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509929/original/file-20230214-20-8wn940.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Author Byron C Clark.</span>
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<p>If definitions had been provided, it might have stimulated a more nuanced consideration of the motley network of groups and movements that emerged in New Zealand during the pandemic.</p>
<p>Some groups covered in the book – Action Zealandia and Counterspin, for example – clearly fall within the normal definitions of these terms. But for others, their inclusion is puzzling and unconvincing. Many do not seek a society based on law and order and centralised authoritarian leadership, oppose immigration or seek to protect the “white race”.</p>
<p>And most have not legitimated violence. Opposing vaccinations or spreading disinformation does not qualify a group as far right – many on the left and in between also do that.</p>
<p>The book discusses groups as diverse as Action Zealandia and Groundswell, and individuals such as neo-Nazi Philip Arps and former knitting club member and Voices for Freedom founder Alia Bland, as if they are manifestations of the same movement. At one point, the Wellington <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-parliament-occupation-is-over-now-new-zealand-needs-new-laws-to-protect-the-epicentre-of-its-democracy-179751">anti-mandate protests</a> are explained together with the Christchurch terrorist attack as being due to “people no longer knowing what to believe anymore”.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-nz-anti-vax-movements-exploitation-of-holocaust-imagery-is-part-of-a-long-and-sorry-history-177710">The NZ anti-vax movement’s exploitation of Holocaust imagery is part of a long and sorry history</a>
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<h2>Need for evidence</h2>
<p>This lack of definition and conflation of different groups, ideologies and goals is connected to my second concern: a lack of evidence. </p>
<p>Many chapters focus on particular movements, parties or forms of “extremism” identified by the author as present or important in New Zealand. Unfortunately, the book fails either to show the movement is present in New Zealand or to provide a compelling case that it is far right, alt-right or extremist.</p>
<p>In part, this is because much of the discussion relies on the claims and reports of New Zealand-based commentators that are themselves not based on evidence.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/citizens-social-media-like-mastodon-can-provide-an-antidote-to-propaganda-and-disinformation-192491">Citizens' social media, like Mastodon, can provide an antidote to propaganda and disinformation</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The chapter on Voices for Freedom starts by stating “no comprehensive study of New Zealand’s far right can ignore them”. But clearly that depends on how we define the far right: as far as I am aware, the group has expressed none of the views listed at the start of this review (and none are provided in the chapter).</p>
<p>Whatever we think of the group’s opposition to vaccination, lockdowns and other measures to control the spread of COVID-19, this does not make it far right. And as much as we might find the group’s views reprehensible and damaging, it does not seek violence.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509930/original/file-20230214-28-oczc6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509930/original/file-20230214-28-oczc6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509930/original/file-20230214-28-oczc6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509930/original/file-20230214-28-oczc6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509930/original/file-20230214-28-oczc6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509930/original/file-20230214-28-oczc6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509930/original/file-20230214-28-oczc6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Aftermath of the parliament protests in 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Careful coverage needed</h2>
<p>There is even less evidence provided in the following chapters on the anti-mandate Outdoors Party, the farmers movement Groundswell, and the apparent presence in New Zealand of a racist Rhodesian pride movement. Even the chapter on disinformation provides no data or evidence to support the claims made.</p>
<p>There is a tendency to focus on fragmented evidence of a New Zealand-based individual or group, and buffer a lack of activity or presence in this country with discussion of an affiliate group from the past or from overseas.</p>
<p>For example, Hindutva is presented as present and threatening in New Zealand, but with little to no evidence. Because of a lack of demonstrable activity or presence here, the author uses the fact that the New Zealand Hindu Council is affiliated to the India-based nationalist organisation <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vishva_Hindu_Parishad">VHP</a>, to discuss in much greater length the VHP’s extremist activity in India, even including a discussion of the riots in Gujarat in 2002.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/its-almost-like-grooming-how-anti-vaxxers-conspiracy-theorists-and-the-far-right-came-together-over-covid-168383">'It's almost like grooming': how anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists, and the far-right came together over COVID</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This history of violence and extremism in India will give many readers the impression that something similar is present in New Zealand, when no evidence has been provided for this inference.</p>
<p>Other important statements also required supporting evidence. The back cover states: “New Zealand has one of the highest concentrations of alt-right groups compared with other nations.” As a marketing tool this is understandable: it will shock browsers in bookstores and be repeated as fact at parties around the country. But no evidence is provided for the claim.</p>
<p>For all that, Byron Clark’s work provides an exceptional service to researchers and all those who want to understand the often bizarre and counterintuitive features of the far right, conspiracy theory and anti-government movements in contemporary New Zealand.</p>
<p>But when we write about these groups we need to take care how we describe them, and not to exaggerate their size, intentions and organisational links. Otherwise, we risk adding to their appeal among the disaffected, pushing together otherwise antithetical groups, generating misplaced fear and contributing to rising polarisation. The topic is too important not to warrant very careful coverage.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198580/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Wilson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A new book examining New Zealand’s extreme and alt-right movements tackles an important issue. But it could have defined its terms better and provided more evidence for its claims.Chris Wilson, Programme Director, Master of Conflict and Terrorism Studies, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata RauLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1928332022-11-02T16:33:55Z2022-11-02T16:33:55ZWhy the ideology of the ‘New Right’ is so dangerous<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492547/original/file-20221031-16-h5sd8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C8640%2C5755&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Giorgia Meloni gestures during the handover ceremony with outgoing Prime Minister Mario Draghi at Chigi Palace in Rome in October 2022. Meloni, whose political party with neo-fascist roots secured the most votes in Italy's national election in September, took office as the country's first far-right leader since the end of the Second World War. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/why-the-ideology-of-the--new-right--is-so-dangerous" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The populist radical right has been on the rise for some time, with candidates and parties on the far-right fringe of the political spectrum reaching new heights across the world. </p>
<p>The electoral successes of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/09/how-did-donald-trump-win-analysis">Donald Trump</a> in the United States, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/24/emmanuel-macron-wins-french-presidential-election-say-projected-results">Marine Le Pen</a> in France, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/24/angela-merkel-fourth-term-far-right-afd-third-german-election">Alternative for Germany</a> and, most recently, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/21/giorgia-meloni-tells-italian-president-she-is-ready-to-become-pm-berlusconi-salvini">Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy</a> has put the spotlight on an ideological shift: the so-called <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13569317.2021.1979139">New Right</a>.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/italys-election-is-a-case-study-in-a-new-phase-for-the-radical-right-92198">Italy's election is a case study in a new phase for the radical right</a>
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<p>It’s a loose network of radical right-wing activists who organize themselves in regional initiatives such as the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276421999446">Alt-Right </a> in the U.S., the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/03/as-macron-does-quiet-deals-with-le-pen-the-far-right-has-france-in-its-grip">Nouvelle Droite</a> in France, the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/23739770.2019.1700661">Neue Rechte</a> in Germany and the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/22/casapound-italy-mussolini-fascism-mainstream">CasaPound</a> in Italy. </p>
<p>This broad movement is aiming for an ideological renewal of right-wing politics by focusing on cultural identity and the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00313220600769331">politics of belonging</a>. Such an approach is called <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/096394800113349">“metapolitical”</a> since it first attempts to shape how we think about and experience our daily world, playing a long game to change the political structures of our societies. </p>
<h2>Identity politics</h2>
<p>The focus on <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/STEFST-11">identity politics</a> has led to a very <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/01/the-ruthlessly-effective-rebranding-of-europes-new-far-right">successful rebranding</a> of far-right extremism. Proponents of the New Right are less committed than their predecessors to discussing natural superiority, and try to <a href="https://doi.org/10.3817/0393099099">avoid the overt racism</a> of traditional neo-Nazi groups, giving their political views a broader appeal. </p>
<p>They instead push the line that <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/article/white-supremacy-returned-mainstream-politics/">white people are oppressed in contemporary western societies</a>. They present themselves as “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/13/us/patriot-front-beliefs-history-explainer/index.html">patriotic activists</a>” who are simply concerned with responding to “uncontrolled immigration,” “anti-white discrimination” and the “loss of traditions.”</p>
<p>One of their main enemies <a href="https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/globalization">is globalization</a>, against which they insist on a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17449626.2011.635688">“right to difference”</a> (including <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/0031322X.2021.1920722">Alain de Benoist</a>, one of the founders of France’s New Right movement) for each culture. </p>
<p>They reject the melding of cultures since they believe that cultures are rooted in clearly demarcated and internally uniform social groups. This stems from their key contention that humanity consists of a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13569310306084">plurality of distinct “ethnocultures.”</a></p>
<p>Ethnocultures are organic communities to which their members belong by birth. The family is frequently presented as the biological source of ethnocultural communities. </p>
<p>The members of a community also ostensibly share a way of life. Their communal life is characterized by specific cultural practices and moral values. A person’s individual identity is thus shaped by the ethnocultural community they belong to, according to these New Right proponents.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A vandalized campaign poster shows a candidate with a Hitler moustache." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492549/original/file-20221031-14-2z90cg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492549/original/file-20221031-14-2z90cg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492549/original/file-20221031-14-2z90cg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492549/original/file-20221031-14-2z90cg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492549/original/file-20221031-14-2z90cg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492549/original/file-20221031-14-2z90cg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492549/original/file-20221031-14-2z90cg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A vandalized election campaign poster for the far-right Alternative for Germany party showing the party’s top candidate, Oliver Kirchner, with an Adolf Hitler moustache is seen in Magdeburg, Germany, in June 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Passing on traditions</h2>
<p>These proponents often invoke mythical beginnings or supposedly glorious chapters of a community’s past, and emphasize the necessity of historical continuity for its survival.</p>
<p>Cultural traditions therefore must be passed on from generation to generation without significant changes. Fulfilling this task is the common destiny of the members of an ethnocultural community. </p>
<p>New Right advocates focused on identity politics believe that ethnocultures are in competition with each other and their encounters lead to clashes that threaten the collective identity of a community — a ready-made justification for violent conflicts, <a href="https://www.thepostil.com/the-return-of-the-iron-curtain/">including war</a>. The results of these struggles show the supposed inequality of the different cultures. </p>
<p>Their concept of culture readily explains why the New Right is obsessed with migration and regard it as a major threat to their political vision. Consequently, they propagate conspiracy theories, including the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/08/a-deadly-ideology-how-the-great-replacement-theory-went-mainstream">“great replacement” theory</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/white-nationalism-is-a-political-ideology-that-mainstreams-racist-conspiracy-theories-184375">White nationalism is a political ideology that mainstreams racist conspiracy theories</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In this pernicious view, migration is depicted as a plot organized by liberal global elites to replace the native people of western countries with foreigners. The often proclaimed “right to difference” therefore only applies to the relationships between groups. Individual members of a certain group have to conform to its overall character. </p>
<p>This segregationist agenda not only has harmful consequences for migrants, but also for those who are seen as members of an ethnoculture. Treating cultures as uniform can mask important differences between sub-groups within a culture, especially the diverging interests of the group’s elite and its non-elite members. </p>
<p>We saw this exploited in the rhetoric that British people should “<a href="https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/perspective/eu-ref-haughton.aspx">take back control</a>” of the United Kingdom through voting for Brexit. This idea was questionable for a number of reasons, especially the false implication that all members of the group “the British” would be more powerful following Brexit.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Three people hold pro-Brexit signs, two in Santa hats. One side reads Make Britain Great Again." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492550/original/file-20221031-26-63vj3n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492550/original/file-20221031-26-63vj3n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492550/original/file-20221031-26-63vj3n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492550/original/file-20221031-26-63vj3n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492550/original/file-20221031-26-63vj3n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492550/original/file-20221031-26-63vj3n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492550/original/file-20221031-26-63vj3n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pro-Brexit demonstrators hold banners outside Parliament in London in December 2019. (</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Dangerous</h2>
<p>The ideology of the New Right is politically dangerous. It also depicts an <a href="http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/34221">inaccurate picture</a> of how cultural life works. </p>
<p>Cultures neither have clear boundaries nor are they uniform and consistent over time. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1069397118816939">They are flexible and dynamic</a>, in constant interaction with each other.</p>
<p>These intercultural encounters can be opportunities to grow and to increase both self-understanding and an understanding of others. Think about the many formative influences that other cultures have had on Europe, including on Christianity (which comes from the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-christianity-spread-around-world-animated-map-2015-7">Middle East</a>) and the numerical system (which <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hindu-Arabic-numerals">comes from India</a>). </p>
<p>We should embrace the diversity of our cultural lives, and reject the New Right’s attempts to further divide us. <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/9237638/brazil-election-results-bolsonar-lula/">While recent election results in Brazil</a>, and <a href="https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/elections/us/2020/results/">in the U.S.</a> two years ago, may be hopeful signs, this is a broader fight about how we interpret the world. </p>
<p>It requires more than election victories to push back against the dangerous ethnocultural framing of social conflicts that’s often embraced by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/02/the-new-austrian-government-will-brand-itself-as-moderate-but-dont-believe-it">mainstream politicians</a>. </p>
<p>Instead, we need convincing counter-narratives that explain the causes of the economic crises we are facing and promote solidarity as a solution to the staggering social inequality that undermines all societies.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192833/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Johannes Steizinger received funding from the European Research Council (Project: The Emergence of Relativism, Grant No: 339382) to conduct his research on far-right ideologies. </span></em></p>The so-called New Right is aiming for an ideological renewal of right-wing politics by focusing on cultural identity and the politics of belonging. Here’s why that’s so ominous.Johannes Steizinger, Associate Professor of Philosophy, McMaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1924912022-10-25T18:03:13Z2022-10-25T18:03:13ZCitizens’ social media, like Mastodon, can provide an antidote to propaganda and disinformation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491498/original/file-20221024-5750-cbjv96.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4936%2C3280&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Citizens' social media platforms are powered by open-source software.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/citizens--social-media-can-provide-an-antidote-to-propaganda-and-disinformation" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>In early October, the Pew Research Center released a report called “<a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2022/10/06/the-role-of-alternative-social-media-in-the-news-and-information-environment/">The Role of Alternative Social Media in the News and Information Environment</a>.” While the report is well-researched and reveals a great deal about the current state of digital media, news and right-wing propaganda, it is wrong about alternative social media. </p>
<p>The report focuses on seven alternative social media sites: BitChute, Gab, Gettr, Parler, Rumble, Telegram and Truth Social. These sites help put the “alt” in alt-right by <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2022/10/06/content-from-prominent-alternative-social-media-accounts-highlights-extreme-vaccine-skepticism-anxiety-over-lgbtq-issues/">harbouring transphobes, anti-vaxxers and Jan. 6 insurrection sympathizers</a>.</p>
<p>The report provides content analysis on these sites and shows how some Americans might rely upon them for news. For those of us concerned with the rise of bigotry, fascism and disinformation in the United States, the Pew report offers some valuable insights into the role of these particular alternative social media sites.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1578056256912297993"}"></div></p>
<p>However, the problem with the report is that it misses a large number of alternative social media sites that <em>actively and effectively oppose</em> the right-wing propaganda coming from the seven sites. This distracts us from real-world solutions to the problems of online hate speech, disinformation and surveillance capitalism.</p>
<h2>Defining alternative media</h2>
<p>The report’s core fault is conceptual and methodological. Its definition of “alternative social media” is “social media sites with relatively small user bases that have typically emerged as alternatives to larger, more established social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.” </p>
<p>Although this definition does put “alternative” in opposition to mainstream (as alternative media theory has long done), the authors’ central concern with size influences their methodology and ultimately blinds them to the diversity of alternative social media. </p>
<p>For example, the seven sites they selected for the study had to meet the following criteria: “they had publicly accessible posts, were mentioned in news media, and had at least 500,000 unique visitors in December 2021.” </p>
<p>While 500,000 unique visitors is indeed small in relation to Instagram or YouTube, this threshold excludes a significant number of alternative social media sites that do not harbour transphobes, anti-vaxxers or insurrectionists.</p>
<h2>The fediverse</h2>
<p>There is a network of very small online communities that band together through both technology and shared social values, known as <a href="https://fediverse.party/">the fediverse</a>. These sites run software such as <a href="https://joinmastodon.org/">Mastodon</a>, a microblogging service, or <a href="https://pixelfed.org/">Pixelfed</a>, an Instagram-like image sharing service.</p>
<p>In contrast with both corporate social media, such as Facebook and alt-right alternatives such as Truth Social, fediverse sites are often <em>purposely</em> small. For example, the site <a href="https://queer.party/about">queer.party</a> currently has 6,000 registered users — and it is currently closed to new members, because the administrators of that site have no desire to make it much larger. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-far-right-online-spaces-use-mainstream-media-to-spread-their-ideology-189066">How far-right online spaces use mainstream media to spread their ideology</a>
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<p>However, even though they are small, there are <a href="https://fediverse.party/en/fediverse/">about 9,000 fediverse sites</a>. And they are not islands: as the name “fediverse” implies, <a href="https://newatlas.com/what-is-the-fediverse/56385/">a portmanteau of “federated” and “universe</a>,” these sites band together, not unlike the <a href="https://ca.startrek.com/database_article/united-federation-of-planets">United Federation of Planets</a> of <em>Star Trek</em> fame.</p>
<p>Queer.party users can communicate with those on <a href="https://climatejustice.social/about">climatejustice.social</a>, who might connect to members of the academic-focused <a href="https://scholar.social/about/more">scholar.social</a>. Overall, the fediverse has millions of members.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yZoASOyfvGQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Technologist Derek Caelin describes how the ‘fediverse’ dealt with right-wing trolls.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Importantly, these sites can <em>defederate</em> with those who act unethically. For example, while Gab is a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448211024546">nasty, anti-Semitic place full of Nazis</a>, it could have been worse. Much worse. </p>
<p>Early in its history, Andrew Torba, the founder of Gab Social, a far-right networking site, <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2019/07/16/gab-mastodon-challenges-content-moderation-more-distributed-social-network/">proclaimed his desire to make a large network</a> – a federation – of white Christian nationalist sites. This would be achieved through Gab’s use of Mastodon software, which would enable such a federation. </p>
<p>However, Gab’s plan to make a large network of sites was thwarted by the concerted efforts of fediverse administrators and users, who used a co-ordinated campaign to isolate Gab from the rest of the fediverse. The effort worked: <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/12/20691957/mastodon-decentralized-social-network-gab-migration-fediverse-app-blocking">Gab gave up its dream of creating a decentralized network of fascists</a>, and is now a centralized site – not much unlike the mainstream social media sites it was trying to escape.</p>
<h2>No surveillance</h2>
<p>The fediverse is by and large <a href="https://www.fediverse.to/">free of targeted and behavioural advertising</a>, a key technology of surveillance capitalism. In contrast to Facebook, fediverse sites don’t monitor your activities and sell the resulting data to marketers and advertisers. </p>
<p>This is another contrast to the right-wing social media the Pew report focused on: Truth Social, for example, offers advertisers <a href="https://truthsocial.com/advertising">means to target audiences</a> and has <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/truth-social-join-rumbles-advertising-platform-2022-08-23/">partnered with Rumble</a> to expand its advertising efforts. Indeed, in this sense, Truth Social isn’t alternative at all — it’s aping the practices of Facebook. </p>
<p>Fediverse sites eschew surveillance capitalism, largely in favour of <a href="https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/proudhon/1849/the-coming-era-of-mutualism.html">more mutualist</a> ways of supporting each other. </p>
<h2>False dichotomies</h2>
<p>Ultimately, if we reduce “alternative social media” to be solely large, right-wing alternative media – as the Pew report does – we get a false dichotomy where the extent and diversity of the types of media available is greatly reduced. </p>
<p>On the one hand are the mainstream corporate social media, which, for all their faults, have in fact <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/08/business/dealbook/trump-facebook-twitter-deplatforming.html">deplatformed people like Donald Trump</a>. And on the other hand, we have alt-right social media, which fosters bigotry.</p>
<p>The result is we miss out on innovations in platform governance that both go beyond the corporate model and actually do a very good job at marginalizing hate speech and undermining surveillance capitalism. </p>
<p>More nuance is needed here: the Pew report focuses solely on what mass media scholar Kristoffer Holt calls “<a href="https://www.routledge.com/Right-Wing-Alternative-Media/Holt/p/book/9781032338200">right-wing alternative media</a>.” And in doing so, it misses a more democratic form of alternative media, what communication scholar Clemencia Rodríguez refers to as “<a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/1073260968">citizens’ social media</a>.”</p>
<p>And for all of us tired of both big tech and online trolling, citizens’ social media is our way forward.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/social-media-and-society-125586" target="_blank"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479539/original/file-20220817-20-g5jxhm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=144&fit=crop&dpr=1" width="100%"></a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192491/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert W. Gehl does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Citizens’ social media is a form of alternative media that challenges both mainstream media and right-wing propaganda.Robert W. Gehl, Ontario Research Chair of Digital Governance for Social Justice, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1854572022-07-13T13:57:05Z2022-07-13T13:57:05ZNew book challenges whiteness: a review through the cover image<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472840/original/file-20220706-15-x1igkj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Detail of the cover of the new book featuring art by Norman Catherine.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Routledge Handbook of Critical Studies in Whiteness/Routledge</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The cover of <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Handbook-of-Critical-Studies-in-Whiteness/Hunter-Westhuizen/p/book/9780367403799">The Routledge Handbook of Critical Studies in Whiteness</a> carries a striking image courtesy of South African artist <a href="https://www.normancatherine.com/">Norman Catherine</a>. The image was created in 2015 as <a href="https://www.normancatherine.com/gicle-prints">one of a set of digital prints</a> and, typical of Catherine’s work, contrasts dark and light to present a cynical view of the world <a href="https://www.normancatherine.com/about">informed by society and politics</a>. </p>
<p>This image can be interpreted as expressing some of the ideas in the Handbook. It gives me a way to approach this book review because my teaching, research and writing deal with understanding how graphic images can convey ideas and carry meaning. I am not proposing that Catherine deliberately set out to visualise whiteness in his image, and acknowledge that my interpretation is my subjective opinion.</p>
<p>Titled “Show & Tell”, it shows a stylised male figure in profile, with slicked back black hair and a skin colour ranging from pale pink, green and grey to a hot magenta and shining yellow.</p>
<p>Catherine’s choice of skin colours illustrates the most obvious thing about people called white, and that is that they are not actually white. As noted by English academic Richard Dyer in his analysis of racial imagery of white people in his 1997 book <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/white/oclc/34547959">White</a>, white people are not literally nor symbolically white.</p>
<p>The figure’s profile lacks a forehead and is dominated by an enormous yellow nose and forward jutting chin, between which a grimacing mouth encircled by a row of blocky white teeth gapes. His black-clad torso is transformed into a similar profile, with glaring white teeth and a flapping pink tongue. I interpret the figure as showing what Dyer identified as “a divided nature and internal struggle between mind (God) and body (man)”, “a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Manichaeism">Manichean</a> (dualism of black:white”, “the presence of the dark within the white man”).</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472842/original/file-20220706-14-ztzj6a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472842/original/file-20220706-14-ztzj6a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472842/original/file-20220706-14-ztzj6a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=854&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472842/original/file-20220706-14-ztzj6a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=854&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472842/original/file-20220706-14-ztzj6a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=854&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472842/original/file-20220706-14-ztzj6a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1073&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472842/original/file-20220706-14-ztzj6a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1073&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472842/original/file-20220706-14-ztzj6a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1073&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Routledge</span></span>
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<p>Such a divided way of seeing and knowing the world contributed to centuries of racism and white supremacy that continues into the present with devastating impact. Challenging and dismantling racism and white supremacy is part of the purpose of the book, edited by academics <a href="https://www.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/staff/dr-shona-hunter/">Shona Hunter</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/christi-van-der-westhuizen-240334">Christi van der Westhuizen</a>.</p>
<p>Critical Studies in Whiteness matter as it forms, in the words of the editors, part of a “broader project towards racial and social justice, and the end of heteropatriarchy and coloniality”. The editors describe whiteness as (page 3)</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a dynamic, shifting, but durable system of domination through, under, against and within which people live, work, and relate. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Whiteness can be overt and highly visible, as was the case in apartheid South Africa, or operate invisibly. This book succeeds well in describing and criticising, through many examples, how whiteness works.</p>
<h2>Whiteness across time and space</h2>
<p>To make whiteness visible is a frequently stated goal of whiteness studies and this is shown on the cover in the clearly defined figure. However, Hunter and Van der Westhuizen argue in Chapter 1 that whiteness shifts between invisibility and visibility, to the point of becoming “hyper-visible”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/afrikaner-identity-in-post-apartheid-south-africa-remains-stuck-in-whiteness-87471">Afrikaner identity in post-apartheid South Africa remains stuck in whiteness</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The arguments the editors make in their introductory chapter are complex, layered and not easily summarised. This is not surprising as the book is aimed at researchers, scholars and advanced students in a variety of academic fields. </p>
<p>The Handbook, consisting of 28 chapters, a preface and an epilogue, analyses the operation of whiteness across time and space. It does so through the contributions of a variety of scholars from various disciplinary, geographic and national contexts. A wide range of topics are covered from different perspectives. From histories of whiteness in India, Japan and South Africa, to a critique of trans-racial adoption in Sweden, and the harm done to grassroots organisations in the United States by foundations created by “white, corporate elitists”.</p>
<p>Contributions point to whiteness as being positioned at the heart of a “global colonial world system” and as being implicated with capitalist relations, <a href="https://www.masterclass.com/articles/understanding-heteronormativity">heteronormativity</a> – the belief that heterosexuality is the only natural expression of sexuality – and patriarchy. This is signified in Catherine’s figure with its pinstriped trousers and shiny black lace-ups.</p>
<p>Across the figure’s torso wounds strain against stitches through which various colours show, presumably of the skin beneath the black clothing. This brings to mind an objective of Critical Whiteness Studies which is identified by the editors as</p>
<blockquote>
<p>dissect(ing) whiteness as a distinct power formation within the structures of race, racism, and white supremacy, that rose with and sustained colonialism, and today forms an essential part of coloniality (page xx).</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>The backlash</h2>
<p>The inflicting of wounds on and sustained critique of whiteness has, however, not been without counterattacks. The wounded figure responds angrily, mouthing off, dynamic lines swirling around him, indicating that he has been forcefully lashing out.</p>
<p>The defence of whiteness is visible in the rise of the <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/alt-right">Alt-Right</a>, neo-fascism and various forms of nationalism in recent years. The volume contains incisive critiques of such phenomena. This includes the backlash against feminism — in the form of the active promotion of traditional femininity through <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780429355769-7/tradculture-reproducing-whiteness-neo-fascism-gendered-discourse-online-ashley-mattheis">#TradCulture</a> — and the embracing of whiteness as a form of resistance by the Alt-Right.</p>
<p>The rise of such phenomena underscores the fact that the social justice and anti-racist intent of the volume is now needed more than ever. While aimed at an academic audience, many of the chapters are very readable and I hope it finds a broader audience as the arguments it contains must be more widely debated.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185457/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Deirdre Pretorius is related to Christi van der Westhuizen and knows Shona Hunter through her affiliation with the University of Johannesburg.</span></em></p>This book succeeds well in describing and criticising, through many examples, how whiteness works.Deirdre Pretorius, Associate Professor in the Graphic Design Department, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1784102022-03-07T04:40:38Z2022-03-07T04:40:38ZRefugees, reporting and the far right: how the Ukraine crisis reveals brutal ‘everyday racism’ in Europe and beyond<p><em>Please be advised this article features accounts of racism and racist discourse, including mentions of Nazism.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>The intensifying conflict in Ukraine has raised the issue of racism not only in Ukraine, but Europe. Three specific and related dimensions of racism are evident in this complex conflict.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1498659852721213446"}"></div></p>
<h2>Discrimination against African and Asian nationals fleeing Ukraine</h2>
<p>Shocking <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-africans-and-asians-fleeing-ukraine-subjected-to-racial-discrimination/?utm_medium=Referrer:+Social+Network+/+Media&utm_campaign=Shared+Web+Article+Links">reports</a> emerged in the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2022/feb/28/footage-shared-on-social-media-appears-to-show-discrimination-as-people-flee-ukraine-video">past week</a> of discrimination faced by African and Asian nationals (mainly international students in Ukraine) who were among the over <a href="https://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/ukraine/location?secret=unhcrrestricted">1 million</a> people seeking refuge in neighbouring Poland, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and Moldova. </p>
<p>African and Asian people were forcibly prevented from boarding trains and buses leaving Ukrainian cities, as priority was given to white Ukrainians. Those who finally reached the Polish border (some even on foot) found that again white Ukrainians were <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/shockingly-racist-african-governments-condemn-unfair-treatment-of-their-citizens-in-ukraine/b6z591ies">prioritised entry</a>. Some African, Asian, and Middle-Eastern nationals were met by verbal and physical abuse <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/mar/02/people-of-colour-fleeing-ukraine-attacked-by-polish-nationalists">on arrival</a>.</p>
<p>Many African, Asian, and Middle Eastern nationals spent two to three days at border check-points, and reported lack of food, water, accommodation or basic support in freezing winter conditions, while they waited to get through.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://au.int/en/pressreleases/20220228/statement-ill-treatment-africans-trying-leave-ukraine">statement</a> issued by the African Union condemned reports about the treatment of Africans as “shockingly racist and in breach of international law” and observed: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>all people have the right to cross international borders during conflict, and as such, should enjoy the same rights to cross to safety from the conflict in Ukraine, notwithstanding their nationality or racial identity.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1498139393877364738"}"></div></p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-we-mourn-the-victims-of-tragedies-depends-on-their-citizenship-status-130989">How we mourn the victims of tragedies depends on their citizenship status</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Racist mainstream media portrayals</h2>
<p>Equally disturbing is the unthinkingly racist mainstream media framing of Ukrainian refugees, in comparison to the framing of refugees from Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan or Africa. </p>
<p>Below, a selection of such racist <a href="https://twitter.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1497974245737050120">commentary</a> from major news outlets:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>“This isn’t Iraq or Afghanistan […] This is a relatively civilised, relatively European city” - Charlie D’Agata, CBS</p></li>
<li><p>“War is no longer something visited upon impoverished and remote populations” - Daniel Hannan, <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/vladimir-putins-monstrous-invasion-attack-civilisation/">The Telegraph</a></p></li>
<li><p>“What’s compelling is looking at them, the way they are dressed. These are prosperous, middle-class people. These are not obviously refugees trying to get away from the Middle East […] or North Africa. They look like any European family that you’d live next door to” – Peter Dobbie, Al Jazeera</p></li>
</ul>
<p>These descriptions of Ukrainian refugees invidiously position them as more “civilised” and “superior” to refugees from the Middle East, African or Asian nations. This seems to imply that Ukrainian lives are worth saving, while the lives of millions of others who seek refuge are more disposable because they are people who are not “well-dressed”, “middle-class”, don’t “look like us”, or live in more remote, supposedly less “civilised” locations.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1498691574347321345"}"></div></p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/7-ways-to-spot-polarizing-language-how-to-choose-responsibly-what-to-amplify-online-or-in-person-177276">7 ways to spot polarizing language — how to choose responsibly what to amplify online or in-person</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>White-supremacist Ukrainian mobilisation</h2>
<p>The third and more dangerous dimension of racism is the mobilisation of the neo-Facist, white supremacist Azov movement in Ukraine since 2014. Azov started as a volunteer battalion that was then officially <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/1/who-are-the-azov-regiment">integrated</a> into the National Guard of Ukraine in November 2014. The current Ukrainian government has not made comment on this movement.</p>
<p>In the current crisis, Azov battalion is <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/ukraine-readies-insurgency-russia-prepares-possible-war-n1288778">training Ukrainian civilians</a> for guerrilla-style combat with the Russian military.</p>
<p>However, it is important to also note that similar white nationalist groups exist across Europe and North America. Therefore Putin’s claim of “de-Nazification” of Ukraine is a flimsy reason for invasion of Ukraine.</p>
<p>While the Azov battalion officially denies adhering to white supremacist ideologies, Azov’s street patrol called National Militia were responsible for <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-far-right-vigilantes-destroy-another-romany-camp-in-kyiv/29280336.html">attacks on Roma</a> in Ukraine in 2018. </p>
<p>Azov also plays a pivotal role in the global network of far-right, white-nationalist extremism; it “participated in training and radicalising United States–based white supremacy organizations” (according to a 2018 <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-far-right-vigilantes-destroy-another-romany-camp-in-kyiv/29280336.html">FBI affidavit</a>). </p>
<p>Closer to home, alongside other European far-right movements, Azov’s propaganda appears to have inspired Brenton Tarrant of Australia in his deadly terrorist attack on a mosque in Christchurch in 2019. This was evidenced by the sonnerad or black sun on his jacket, a symbol <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-10/christchurch-shooting-far-right-groups-in-ukraine-eastern-europe/10983542">commonly used</a> by the Azov Battalion and far-right brands in France.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-us-is-boosting-aid-to-ukraine-4-questions-answered-178132">The US is boosting aid to Ukraine: 4 questions answered</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What accounts for these three dimensions of racism in the Ukraine crisis, and how are they connected?</h2>
<p>Research suggests racism and xenophobia varies with the relationship between hostile government <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/10/xenophobia-eastern-europe-refugees/410800/">policies</a> and anti-migrant sentiments of the population. In short, the problem of racism is not just Ukrainian or eastern European, it is European.</p>
<p>More nuanced analysis argues there is insufficient evidence to show eastern Europeans are more xenophobic than western Europeans. Any analysis should consider the <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/rethinking-eastern-european-racism/">complex histories</a> of migration from, and through eastern European countries. </p>
<p>Indeed, as the global news coverage of Ukrainan refugees demonstrates, everyday racism - or what Goorie author Melissa Lucashenko <a href="https://www.uqp.com.au/books/too-much-lip">refers</a> to as “white normal savagery” is not restricted to eastern Europe. All three dimensions of racism discussed here are the manifestation of global, systemic institutionalised racism and imperialism. </p>
<p>Acknowledgement of this institutionalised racism and imperialism would begin by first recognising the Ukraine crisis as a <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/02/28/crisis-over-ukraine-a-primer/">power struggle</a> between the US/NATO and Russia, underwritten by interests of weapons manufacturers and oil companies. This crisis was long <a href="https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1498491107902062592.html">predicted</a> by strategic observers of global politics.</p>
<p>Recognising the wider context of institutionalised racism would allow us to connect the current racist treatment of African and Asian migrants in the Ukraine crisis to <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/10/27/europes-deadly-border-policies">deadly</a> European border policies over the past decades. These policies have led to increasing numbers of migrants mostly from Africa and the Middle East, reported as missing in the Mediterranean since <a href="https://missingmigrants.iom.int/region/mediterranean">2014</a>.</p>
<p>Azov needs to be recognised as the belligerently violent face of a racialised political order that is potentially dangerous. However, this would require holding the US accountable for its <a href="https://jacobinmag.com/2022/01/cia-neo-nazi-training-ukraine-russia-putin-biden-nato">suspected</a> support of Azov, and its refusal (along with Ukraine) to condemn the glorification of Nazism in a <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-un-nazi-glorification-resolution-vote-against-free-speech-far-right-white-supremacist-neo-alt-a8066761.html">UN Resolution</a> in 2017.</p>
<p>Finally, we should recognise that any moves to dismantle institutionalised racism are unlikely to be undertaken voluntarily. As Professor of Sociology József Böröcz <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/socf.12752">argues</a>, the defining element of “whiteness” is a “claim, indeed demand, for unconditional global privilege” that is always being reconstituted.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178410/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bina Fernandez does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The intensifying conflict in the Ukraine has raised the issue of racism not only in Ukraine, but Europe. Three specific and related dimensions of racism are evident in this complex conflict.Bina Fernandez, Associate professor, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1539712021-02-17T13:21:52Z2021-02-17T13:21:52ZHow the National Guard became the go-to military force for riots and civil disturbances<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384553/original/file-20210216-13-1dg02bc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C49%2C6645%2C4383&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Virginia National Guard troops in front of the U.S. Capitol building, Feb. 5, 2021.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/virginia-national-guard-troops-walk-down-the-capitol-steps-news-photo/1230985766">Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.stripes.com/news/us/5-000-national-guard-troops-will-remain-in-dc-beyond-mid-march-1.659837">Pentagon has approved leaving 5,000 troops</a> deployed indefinitely to protect the U.S. Capitol from domestic extremist threats, down from about 26,000 deployed after the Jan. 6 insurrection.</p>
<p>The National Guard is a federally funded <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/03/us/what-is-national-guard-trnd/index.html">reserve force</a> of the U.S. Army or Air Force based in states. These part-time citizen soldiers typically hold civilian jobs but can be activated by state governors <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-the-president-really-order-the-military-to-occupy-us-cities-and-states-139844">or the president</a> to respond to natural disasters, health emergencies or violent protests, or to support military operations overseas. Although many Americans are <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/optics-matter-national-guard-deployments-amid-unrest-have-a-long-and-controversial-history">skeptical of any military response</a> to civilian unrest, the National Guard is widely seen as a <a href="https://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did=467769">reliable peacekeeping force</a>. </p>
<p>It wasn’t always this way. The National Guard has a complicated history of responding to civil disturbances.</p>
<h2>History of the National Guard</h2>
<p>The modern National Guard evolved from Colonial-era militias. </p>
<p>Because of post-Revolutionary fears over the cost and potential tyranny of a <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI_S8_C12_1_1/">standing army</a>, the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-1/section-8/clause-15-16/the-militia-clauses">Constitution</a> authorized citizens to form militias that would “execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.” </p>
<p>Subsequent <a href="https://constitution.org/1-Activism/mil/mil_act_1792.htm">militia acts</a> confirmed state authority over the militia with responsibility as a national military reserve for defense and peacekeeping. By the 19th century, local militias were almost everywhere, but they varied widely in <a href="https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9780803229709/">mandate and quality</a>.</p>
<p>In the South, militias – <a href="https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/slave-patrols/">once used to hunt down escaped slaves</a> – continued to <a href="https://theconversation.com/theres-a-history-of-white-supremacists-interpreting-government-leaders-words-as-encouragement-137873">enforce white supremacy</a> after the Civil War, <a href="https://muse-jhu-edu.ezproxy.csbsju.edu/article/380947">attacking Republican politicians and killing Black voters</a>. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, in fits and starts, New York’s militias were becoming <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Rise-National-Guard-Evolution-1865-1920/dp/0803264283">well funded, trained and regulated</a>, as, increasingly, were <a href="https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy.csbsju.edu/stable/27553270?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">those in the Midwest</a>.</p>
<h2>National Guard and labor wars</h2>
<p>By the late 19th century, state and local militias were regularly being used to respond to civil disorder. </p>
<p>Still, when more than 100,000 workers across the U.S. protested wage cuts by walking off the job for up to six weeks in what was called the <a href="https://ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Great_Railroad_Strike_of_1877">Great Labor Strikes of 1877</a>, state and city officials throughout the country hesitated to call out their militias to reopen the railroads. </p>
<p>According to <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/641532">my historical research</a>, officials feared that militiamen might sympathize with the workers’ uprising. Secretary of War George McCrary was among them. In a <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=tysXAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA266&lpg=PA266&dq=%22this+fact+alone+renders+the+local+militia+unreliable+in+such+an+emergency%22&source=bl&ots=E8bS2RYDRb&sig=ACfU3U10BNcacjosfCCgzcyew-6MGIs7vA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwil6Pjvh-juAhWGB80KHe1mDSoQ6AEwAXoECAQQAg#v=onepage&q=%22this%20fact%20alone%20renders%20the%20local%20militia%20unreliable%20in%20such%20an%20emergency%22&f=false">report that year</a>, he argued that the Army was more dependable in strikes than local militias. </p>
<p>“Uprisings enlist in a greater or less degree the sympathy of the communities in which they occur,” he argued, calling local militia “unreliable in such an emergency.” </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384616/original/file-20210217-21-bfqwyk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Black and white illustration of militia in city streets" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384616/original/file-20210217-21-bfqwyk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384616/original/file-20210217-21-bfqwyk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=774&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384616/original/file-20210217-21-bfqwyk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=774&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384616/original/file-20210217-21-bfqwyk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=774&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384616/original/file-20210217-21-bfqwyk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=973&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384616/original/file-20210217-21-bfqwyk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=973&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384616/original/file-20210217-21-bfqwyk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=973&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 6th Baltimore Regiment, a Maryland militia, on strike duty in 1877.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8a/Harpers_8_11_1877_6th_Regiment_Fighting_Baltimore.jpg/696px-Harpers_8_11_1877_6th_Regiment_Fighting_Baltimore.jpg">Harper's Weekly magazine</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The state militias also lacked uniform <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Rise-National-Guard-Evolution-1865-1920/dp/0803264283/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1613260967&sr=1-1">discipline, centralized command structure and tactical training</a>.
Many militiamen <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=lsgscx5TyyoC&pg=PA156&lpg=PA156&dq=%22lessons+learned+the+ing+and+strike+duty,+1894-1916%22&source=bl&ots=ag3pISCgrG&sig=ACfU3U1oOUiCbEQdUtHlbrXWkYnHzPILFg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjCjavOjujuAhUFU80KHTCDAPMQ6AEwBXoECAgQAg#v=onepage&q=%22lessons%20learned%20the%20ing%20and%20strike%20duty%2C%201894-1916%22&f=false">hated being deployed on labor strike or riot duty within their own communities</a>. They did not want to be seen as pawns of big business, and unions increasingly prohibited their members from joining militias.</p>
<p>The 1877 labor strikes highlighted <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=nHsJBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA183&lpg=PA183&dq=%22local+militia+unreliable%22&source=bl&ots=p3mR4h8Zw2&sig=ACfU3U3FCTkKQ6DAj2I_o8PYX2AOFHoJlw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjn7szfkdbuAhWRK80KHVkbCOoQ6AEwAHoECAMQAg#v=onepage&q=%22local%20militia%20unreliable%22&f=false">the need for well-trained state militias</a> with clear mandates. State legislatures began to ramp up funding for militias, which came to be called the National Guard. </p>
<p>Over the next half-century, the Guard’s role as a viable federal reserve to the U.S. Army, <a href="https://history.army.mil/news/2016/160500a_natDefAct1916.html">under the control of the War Department</a>, became <a href="https://history.army.mil/documents/1901/Root-NG.htm">federally codified</a>. Between 1900 and 1915, the U.S. government invested US$60 million for National Guard training, weapons and soldier pay. </p>
<h2>Racial uprisings</h2>
<p>By the 1960s, the National Guard had an annual budget nearing <a href="https://www.nationalguard.mil/About-the-Guard/Historical-Publications/Annual-Reports/FileId/134540/">$950 million</a>. Between 1965 and 1971, the Army National Guard was deployed <a href="https://www.gao.gov/assets/210/203694.pdf">260 times</a> to maintain order during urban and anti-war civil disturbances such as those following the death of Martin Luther King Jr. </p>
<p>But the National Guard was still predominantly white and male, and its discipline and training again came under scrutiny during the era’s racial uprisings. </p>
<p>In 1967, inexperienced National Guard troops with as little as <a href="https://www.gao.gov/assets/210/203694.pdf">six hours of riot training</a> were deployed to racial uprisings by Black residents in <a href="https://detroithistorical.org/learn/encyclopedia-of-detroit/uprising-1967">Detroit</a> and in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/11/nyregion/newark-riots-50-years.html">Newark</a>, New Jersey. Rather than keep the peace, they responded with lethal force. Of 43 deaths in Detroit’s five days of protests, <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/news/detroitriot/2017/07/23/victims-detroit-riot-1967/499550001/">Guardsmen were responsible for at least nine</a>. One victim was 4-year-old Tonia Blanding, who was killed on July 26, 1967, when <a href="https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy.csbsju.edu/stable/2784247?seq=5#metadata_info_tab_contents">Guardsmen shot into her apartment building</a> based on rumors of snipers. </p>
<p>In Newark, then-police director Dominick Spina condemned the untrained Guardsmen for creating a “<a href="https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/national-advisory-commission-civil-disorders-kerner-report-1967/">state of hysteria</a>” in his city during demonstrations in July 1967 following rumors that a Black man had been killed in police custody. </p>
<p>President Lyndon B. Johnson formed the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, known as the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/23/us/kerner-commission-report.html">Kerner Commission</a>, to investigate 1967’s civil unrest. The commission’s report urged the federal government to develop guidelines governing riot control and <a href="http://www.eisenhowerfoundation.org/docs/kerner/Kerner_C12.pdf">fund research into such alternatives</a> to lethal weapons as tear gas and sound cannons, which were pursued.</p>
<h2>Deaths at Kent State</h2>
<p>On May 4, 1970, National Guardsmen responded to student anti-war protests at <a href="https://www.kent.edu/may-4-1970">Kent State University</a> in Ohio. When the soldiers ran out of tear gas, students threw bricks and bottles at them. The soldiers opened fire, killing four students and injuring nine.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384554/original/file-20210216-19-1ktdd57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Black-and-white image of three running young people, chased by a dozen armed soldiers" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384554/original/file-20210216-19-1ktdd57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384554/original/file-20210216-19-1ktdd57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384554/original/file-20210216-19-1ktdd57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384554/original/file-20210216-19-1ktdd57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384554/original/file-20210216-19-1ktdd57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384554/original/file-20210216-19-1ktdd57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384554/original/file-20210216-19-1ktdd57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">After the Kent State killings, students at the University of New Mexico flee the National Guard on May 4, 1970.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com.mx/detail/fotografía-de-noticias/following-the-may-4-1970-shooting-of-students-fotografía-de-noticias/526095104?adppopup=true">Steven Clevenger/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/04/kent-state-massacre-marked-start-of-americas-polarization">Americans supported the Guard’s actions</a> at Kent State, while others were anguished. President Richard Nixon’s <a href="https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED083899.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1OYAUxWVXtSsUbSHlCO67UY0VLqfMz9VgUXpfwLm12RhWVNEUhD-ThbLM">Commission on Campus Unrest</a> argued in its September 1970 report that “even if the guardsmen faced danger, it was not a danger that called for lethal force.” </p>
<p>“The Kent State tragedy must mark the last time that … loaded rifles are issued to guardsmen confronting student demonstrators,” the report concluded.</p>
<h2>Making a modern Guard</h2>
<p>The outcry over civilian deaths in Detroit, Newark, Kent State and elsewhere resulted in <a href="https://www.gao.gov/assets/210/203694.pdf">changes to the National Guard</a>.</p>
<p>Guardsmen were given more protective equipment and trained in nonlethal methods of crowd control. In the past 50 years, the National Guard has also grown into a more diverse force. Today, nearly <a href="https://download.militaryonesource.mil/12038/MOS/Reports/2018-demographics-report.pdf">20% of the Guard members are women and 25% are people of color</a>. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Today, government leaders and civilians see the National Guard as a reliable force for emergency responses of all kinds, from disaster relief to delivering COVID-19 vaccinations.</p>
<p>But the future may hold more troubles. Recent investigations into <a href="https://theconversation.com/police-soldiers-bring-lethal-skill-to-militia-campaigns-against-us-government-153369">white supremacist infiltration of the military and police</a> prompted closer scrutiny of National Guard troops. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/19/us/politics/national-guard-extremist-pentagon.html">Two members were removed from duty</a> protecting the presidential inauguration because of links with extremist organizations.</p>
<p><em>A caption in this story has been corrected to reflect that the photo was taken of students fleeing the National Guard at the University of New Mexico.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153971/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shannon M. Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Some 5,000 National Guardsmen will stay in Washington to protect the Capitol into March, according to the Pentagon. The Guard is seen as a reliable peacekeeping force – but it wasn’t always that way.Shannon M. Smith, Associate Professor of History, College of Saint Benedict & Saint John's UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1548592021-02-17T11:31:28Z2021-02-17T11:31:28Z‘Patriots’ in America: how fighting for your country has taken on new meaning for Trump supporters<p>Despite Donald Trump’s seeming lack of interest in the project, a number of his followers around the US have been flirting with the idea of forming a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-facebook-extremists-idUSKBN2A21SP">breakaway party of the right</a> to challenge the Republican establishment. Most of these have names which use the word “patriot”. </p>
<p>In Florida, former Republican voters registered the <a href="http://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/syndicated/patriot-party-of-wisconsin-created-over-split-by-trump-voters/">American Patriot Party of the United States</a> — or TAPPUS, for short – while at the end of January a spokesman for the former president <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/26/trump-campaign-distances-itself-from-new-patriot-party">denied reports</a> he was planning to fundraise in cooperation with a group calling itself the MAGA Patriot Party National Committee.</p>
<p>Patriot was a word that surfaced repeatedly during the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/19/briefing/trump-biden-brazil-1776-report.html">assault on the US Capitol</a> in January, being repeatedly invoked to define the identities and motivations of those who invaded the nation’s legislative heart. Ivanka Trump herself <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/ivanka-trump-deleted-tweet-calling-231947284.html">praised the participants</a> on Twitter as “American Patriots” – though she deleted her tweet after being challenged by other Twitter users for her use of this word. </p>
<p>“Patriot” is a common enough word, but its modern use is often nebulous. A simple dictionary definition of a patriot is “one who loves and supports his or her country”. So you could call anyone who expressed their love for their country a patriot – no matter where or when they lived. In the US context, though, until relatively recently the word has been used most frequently in relation to New England – and especially Boston – in the era of the American revolution. </p>
<p>“Patriot” has long been a convenient shorthand for those American colonists who supported or participated in the revolution, as distinct from the “loyalists” who hoped that the North American colonies would remain part of the British empire. New Englanders, particularly those who live in or around Boston, like to think that their city and region holds a special place in the history of the revolution, and thus of the United States. It was the home of leaders such as Paul Revere, Samuel Adams and John Hancock. It was also the site of the Stamp Act riots, the Boston Tea Party and the Battle of Bunker Hill. </p>
<p>The region’s sole National Football League franchise is the New England Patriots, who are based in Boston’s southern suburbs. The team’s mascot, Pat Patriot, is depicted as a revolutionary-era soldier, wearing a Continental Army uniform and a tricorne hat. On the third Monday of April, Massachusetts, Maine and Connecticut celebrate the state holiday known as <a href="https://www.history.com/news/what-is-patriots-day">Patriots’ Day</a>, in commemoration of the opening battles of the American revolution, which took place at Lexington, Concord, and Menotomy (now Arlington), Massachusetts. </p>
<p>The holiday is marked by re-enactments of these battles, and, more prominently, by the Boston Marathon. The 2016 film <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/feb/23/patriots-day-review-boston-marathon-bombings-mark-wahlberg">Patriots’ Day</a> was so titled because its subject was the 2013 terrorist attack on the marathon.</p>
<h2>No surrender</h2>
<p>What, then, is the connection between a regional tradition of remembrance of the revolution and the crowds of Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol Building? In 2016 a small but assertive group which called itself <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/9/8/21417403/patriot-prayer-explained-portland">Patriot Prayer</a> emerged, holding pro-Trump rallies in liberal west coast enclaves such as Portland, Oregon. But the term did not gain wide usage among white nationalists and other members of the alt-right until 2020, when it became a popular way for Trump supporters to describe themselves.</p>
<p>Kyle Rittenhouse, the Illinois teenager who <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/us/kyle-rittenhouse-kenosha-shooting-video.html">shot three people</a> at a Black Lives Matter protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, was hailed by Trump supporters as a patriot. Since November’s presidential election, the word has been employed repeatedly among those who believe that the Democrats stole Trump’s victory. </p>
<p>Trump supporters travelling from Louisville, Kentucky for the rally on January 6 referred to their group as a “<a href="https://eu.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/2021/01/05/trump-supporters-exit-louisville-for-stop-the-steal-rally/4132703001/">patriot caravan</a>”. Meanwhile the husband of Ashli Babbit – the air force veteran who was shot and killed by Capitol police during the invasion – praised her as a “great patriot to all who knew her”.</p>
<p>On the far-right Breitbart website, someone commenting on a story quoting Donald Trump calling for a “peaceful” transfer of power attracted a large number of approvals when they left the following comment:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There will NEVER be ‘reconciliation’. We have irreconcilable differences, and the fight has just begun. We need to disown the RNC until they support the Patriot Party.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Mythical history</h2>
<p>The word “patriot” has an obvious appeal. It’s difficult to argue against a person or group’s love of their country and their willingness to take action to defend it. That’s particularly significant when, in the case of the alt-right, it believes that its nation’s core values are threatened. </p>
<p>But we might view white nationalists’ embrace of the term as inspired less by American history than by the 2000 Hollywood film The Patriot, starring Mel Gibson – himself one of Hollywood’s most ardent conservatives. Gibson’s character enters the War of Independence only reluctantly to protect one son and avenge the death of another. In other words, for unimpeachable motives.</p>
<p>But is it a stretch to apply this conception of the “patriot” to those who, like <a href="https://theconversation.com/capitol-riots-ashli-babbitt-and-the-far-right-radicalisation-of-women-152930">Babbit</a> or the “<a href="https://theconversation.com/us-capitol-riot-the-myths-behind-the-tattoos-worn-by-qanon-shaman-jake-angeli-152996">QAnon Shaman</a>”, stormed the Capitol because they believed that the Democrats had “stolen” the election? From the point of view of someone who believes the QAnon conspiracy theory that the Democratic Party elite were behind a vast paedophile ring threatening innocent children, perhaps this really did seem to be an act of patriotism. </p>
<p>Samuel Johnson famously claimed that “patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel,” but – as is so often true – the reality is undoubtedly far more complex.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154859/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natalie Zacek does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The word ‘patriot’ has a particular meaning to many Americans. But some of them took their idea of patriotism a bit far on January 6.Natalie Zacek, Lecturer in History and American Studies, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1534512021-01-20T19:08:48Z2021-01-20T19:08:48ZTo publish or not to publish? The media’s free-speech dilemmas in a world of division, violence and extremism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379657/original/file-20210120-13-1ockv3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/AP/ John Nacion/STAR MAX/IPx</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Terrorism, political extremism, Donald Trump, social media and the phenomenon of “cancel culture” are confronting journalists with a range of agonising free-speech dilemmas to which there are no easy answers.</p>
<p>Do they allow a president of the United States to use their platforms to falsely and provocatively claim the election he has just lost was stolen from him?</p>
<p>How do they cover the activities and rhetoric of political extremists without giving oxygen to race hate and civil insurrection?</p>
<p>How do they integrate news-making social media material into their own content, when it is also hateful or a threat to the civil peace?</p>
<p>Should journalists engage in, or take a stand against, “<a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/12/30/20879720/what-is-cancel-culture-explained-history-debate">cancel culture</a>”?</p>
<p>How should editors respond to the “<a href="https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/subjecting-free-speech-to-the-assassins-veto-20150508-ggx374.html">assassin’s veto</a>”, when extremists threaten to kill those who publish content that offends their culture or religion?</p>
<p>The West has experienced concrete examples of all these in recent years. In the US, many of them became pressing during the Trump presidency.</p>
<p>When five of the big US television networks <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-06/us-media-cuts-away-from-trumps-speech-citing-false-statements/12858350">cut away from Trump’s White House press conference</a> on November 6 after he claimed the election had been stolen, they did so on the grounds that he was lying and endangering civil peace.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/to-stay-or-cut-away-as-trump-makes-baseless-claims-tv-networks-are-faced-with-a-serious-dilemma-149628">To stay or cut away? As Trump makes baseless claims, TV networks are faced with a serious dilemma</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Silencing the president was an extraordinary step, since it is the job of the media to tell people what is going on, hold public officials to account, and uphold the right to free speech. It looked like an abandonment of their role in democratic life.</p>
<p>Against that, television’s acknowledged reach and power imposes a heavy duty not to provide a platform for dangerous speech.</p>
<p>Then on January 6 – two months later to the day – after yet more incitement from Trump, a violent mob <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/10/us/politics/capitol-siege-security.html">laid siege to the Capitol</a> and five people lost their lives. The networks’ decision looked prescient.</p>
<p>They had acted on the principle that a clear and present danger to civil peace, based on credible evidence, should be prioritised over commitments to informing the public, holding public officials to account and freedom of speech.</p>
<p>This case also raised a further dilemma. Even if the danger to peace did not exist, should journalists just go on reporting – or broadcasting – known lies, even when they come from the president of the United States?</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/no-twitter-is-not-censoring-donald-trump-free-speech-is-not-guaranteed-if-it-harms-others-153092">No, Twitter is not censoring Donald Trump. Free speech is not guaranteed if it harms others</a>
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<p>Newspaper editors and producers of pre-recorded radio and television content have the time to report lies while simultaneously calling them out as lies. Live radio and television do not. The words are out and the damage is done.</p>
<p>So the medium, the nature and size of the risk, how the informational and accountability functions of journalism are prioritised against the risk, and the free-speech imperative all play into these decisions.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379658/original/file-20210120-17-1b2s8ov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379658/original/file-20210120-17-1b2s8ov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379658/original/file-20210120-17-1b2s8ov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379658/original/file-20210120-17-1b2s8ov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379658/original/file-20210120-17-1b2s8ov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379658/original/file-20210120-17-1b2s8ov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379658/original/file-20210120-17-1b2s8ov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Should the media report known lies, even if uttered by the president of the United States?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/EPA/White House handout</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Similar considerations arise in respect of reporting political extremism.</p>
<p>The ABC’s Four Corners program is about to embark on a story about the alt-right in the US. Having advertised this in a <a href="https://twitter.com/neighbour_s/status/1349241500220100608">promotional tweet</a>, the ABC received some social media blow-back raising the question of why it would give oxygen to these groups.</p>
<p>The influence of the alt-right on Western politics is a matter of real public interest because of the way it shapes political rhetoric and policy responses, particular on race and immigration.</p>
<p>To not report on this phenomenon because it pursues a morally reprehensible ideology would be to fail the ethical obligation of journalism to tell the community about the important things that are going on in the world.</p>
<p>It is not a question of whether to report, but how.</p>
<p>The Four Corners program will not be live to air. There will be opportunity for judicious editing. Journalists are under no obligation to report everything they are told. In fact they almost never do.</p>
<h2>Motive matters</h2>
<p>Whether the decision to omit is censorship comes down to motive: is it censorship to omit hate speech or incitement to violence? No. Because the reporter doesn’t agree with it? Yes.</p>
<p>Integrating social media content into professional mass media news presents all these complexities and one more: what is called the news value of “virality”.</p>
<p>Does the fact something has gone viral on social media make it news? For the more responsible professional mass media, something more will usually be needed. Does the subject matter affect large numbers of people? Is it inherently significant in some way? Does it involve some person who is in a position of authority or public trust?</p>
<p>Trump’s use of Twitter was an exploitation of these decision-rules, but did not invalidate them.</p>
<p>Social media is also the means by which “cancel culture” works. It enables large numbers of people to join a chorus of condemnation against someone for something they have said or done. It also puts pressure on institutions such as universities or media outlets to shun them.</p>
<p>It has become a means by which the otherwise powerless or voiceless can exert influence over people or organisations that would otherwise be beyond their reach.</p>
<p>There are those who are worried about the effects on free speech. In July 2020, Harper’s magazine <a href="https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/">published a letter of protest</a> signed by 152 authors, academics, journalists, artists, poets, playwrights and critics.</p>
<p>While applauding the intentions behind “cancel culture” in advancing racial and social justice, they raised their voices against what they saw as a new set of moral attitudes that tended to favour ideological conformity.</p>
<p>In the aftermath of the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/12/30/950053607/in-2020-protests-spread-across-the-globe-with-a-similar-message-black-lives-matt">police killings of black people in 2020</a> and the law-and-order response of the Trump administration, “cancel culture” began to affect journalism ethics. Some journalists on <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/ignited-by-public-protests-american-newsrooms-are-having-their-own-racial-reckoning/2020/06/12/be622bce-a995-11ea-94d2-d7bc43b26bf9_story.html">papers such as The Washington Post</a> and The New York Times began taking public positions against the way their papers were reporting race issues.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379659/original/file-20210120-23-1stiyr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379659/original/file-20210120-23-1stiyr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379659/original/file-20210120-23-1stiyr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379659/original/file-20210120-23-1stiyr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379659/original/file-20210120-23-1stiyr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379659/original/file-20210120-23-1stiyr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379659/original/file-20210120-23-1stiyr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In the aftermath of the Black Lives Matter protests, some journalists began to question how their papers covered race issues.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/AP/Evan Vucci</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It led to a lively debate in the profession about the extent to which moral preferences should shape news decisions. The riposte to those who argued that they should, was: whose moral preferences should prevail?</p>
<p>This was yet another illustration of the complexities surrounding free speech issues arising from the social media phenomenon, the Trump presidency and the combination of the two.</p>
<p>Terrorism has also added its contribution. Over the decade 2005-2015, what became known as <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/daily-videos/prophet-muhammad-cartoon-debate-continues-10-years-later/">the Danish cartoons</a> confronted journalists and editors with life-and-death decisions.</p>
<p>In 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten (Jutland Post) published cartoons lampooning the Prophet Mohammed. It was a conscious act of defiance against “the assassin’s veto”, violent threats to free speech by Islamist-jihadis.</p>
<p>In 2009, a Danish-born professor of politics wrote a book, <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300124729/cartoons-shook-world">The Cartoons that Shook the World</a>. Yale University Press, which published it, refused to re-publish the cartoons after having taken advice from counter-terrorism experts about the risks.</p>
<p>In November 2011, the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-15551998">published an issue called Charia Hebdo</a>, satirically featuring the Prophet as editor. The real editor was placed on an Al-Qaeda hit list and in January 2015, two masked gunmen <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30710883">opened fire on the newspaper office</a>, killing 12 people, including the editor.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/charlie-hebdo-the-pen-must-defy-the-sword-islamic-or-not-36006">Charlie Hebdo: the pen must defy the sword, Islamic or not</a>
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<p>The world’s media were confronted with the decision whether to re-publish the cartoons again in defiance of “the assassin’s veto”. Some did, but most – including Jyllands Posten – did not.</p>
<h2>The necessary limits of free speech</h2>
<p>Free speech is an indispensable civil right under assault from all these forces. But none of the philosophers whose names we immediately associate with free speech have claimed it to be absolute.</p>
<p>The social media platforms, having for years proclaimed themselves extreme libertarians, have in recent times begun to recognise this is indefensible, and strengthened their moderating procedures.</p>
<p>Some of Australia’s senior politicians seem baffled by the issue.</p>
<p>When Twitter shut down Trump’s account, acting Prime Minister Michael McCormack didn’t seem to know where he stood, saying in one breath it was <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-11/twitter-censorship-donald-trump-australia-michael-mccormack/13046656">a violation of free speech to shut down Trump</a> while in the next that Twitter should also take down the false image of an Australian soldier slitting the throat of an Afghan child.</p>
<p>And he is a former country newspaper editor.</p>
<p>This was followed by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s remark that he was “<a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/senior-ministers-take-aim-at-trump-social-media-silencing-20210111-p56t7n.html">uncomfortable</a>” with the Twitter decision. He quoted Voltaire as saying something Voltaire never said: the famous line that while he disagreed with what someone said, he would defend to the death his right to say it. It was a fabrication <a href="https://checkyourfact.com/2019/09/17/fact-check-voltaire-disapprove-defend-death-right-freedom-speech/">put into Voltaire’s mouth by a biographer</a> more than 100 years after his death.</p>
<p>Voltaire, Milton, Spinoza, Locke and Mill, to say nothing of the US Supreme Court, have not regarded free speech as an absolute right.</p>
<p>So while the media face some extremely difficult decisions in today’s operating environment, they do not need to burden themselves with the belief that every decision not to publish is the violation of an inviolable right.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153451/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Denis Muller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>What to publish on incendiary issues is a complex matter, but journalists needn’t believe that not publishing, when there is a good reason, violates and inviolable right.Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1533692021-01-19T19:53:48Z2021-01-19T19:53:48ZPolice, soldiers bring lethal skill to militia campaigns against US government<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379078/original/file-20210115-23-j8apf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=51%2C0%2C5760%2C3750&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Militia members associated with the Three Percenters movement conducting a military drill in Flovilla, Ga., in 2016, days after Trump's election. After his 2020 defeat, Three Percenters were involved in the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/members-of-the-georgia-security-forces-are-seen-during-news-photo/623578082?adppopup=true">Mohammed Elshamy/Anadolu Agency/Getty Image</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Thousands of police and soldiers – people professionally trained in the use of violence and familiar with military protocols – are part of an extremist effort to undermine the U.S. government and subvert the democratic process. </p>
<p>According to an investigative report published in the Atlantic in November into a <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/right-wing-militias-civil-war/616473/">leaked database kept by the Oath Keepers</a> – one of several <a href="https://theconversation.com/symbols-of-white-supremacy-flew-proudly-at-the-capitol-riot-5-essential-reads-153055">far-right and white supremacist militias</a> that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 – 10% of Oath Keepers are current police officers or military members. Another significant portion of the group’s membership is retired military and <a href="https://theconversation.com/capitol-siege-raises-questions-over-extent-of-white-supremacist-infiltration-of-us-police-153145">law enforcement personnel</a>.</p>
<p>The hate group – founded by a former Army paratrooper after Barack Obama’s 2008 election – claimed “an improbable 30,000 members who were said to be mostly current and former military, law enforcement and emergency first responders” in 2016, according to the <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/oath-keepers">Southern Poverty Law Center</a>. </p>
<p>The Three Percenters, another militia present at the Capitol on Jan. 6, also draws a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/18/us/politics/capitol-riot-militias.html">substantial portion of its members from law enforcement, both military and civilian</a>. Larry Brock, a pro-Trump rioter <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/larry-brock-arrested-capitol-riots-intended-take-hostages/">arrested</a> with <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/press-release/file/1352026/download">zip-tie handcuffs, allegedly for taking hostages</a>, is a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/prosecutor-capitol-rioter-aimed-to-take-hostages/2021/01/14/f06e589a-56c9-11eb-acc5-92d2819a1ccb_story.html">posted content from the Three Percenters online</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.adl.org/education/resources/backgrounders/militia-movement">militia movement</a> is a militarized stream of the American far-right. Its members promote an ideology that undermines the authority and legitimacy of the federal government and stockpile weapons.</p>
<p>When <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/11/us/politics/veterans-trump-protests-militias.html">militia members have a professional background with the military or police</a>, it enhances the ability of these groups to execute sophisticated and successful operations. It also helps them convey a patriotic image that obscures the security threat they present.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379070/original/file-20210115-23-1lcprea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Man in camouflage, a bulletproof vest and sunglasses stands guard with hands folded" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379070/original/file-20210115-23-1lcprea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379070/original/file-20210115-23-1lcprea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379070/original/file-20210115-23-1lcprea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379070/original/file-20210115-23-1lcprea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379070/original/file-20210115-23-1lcprea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379070/original/file-20210115-23-1lcprea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379070/original/file-20210115-23-1lcprea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A member of the Oath Keepers at a rally to overturn the 2020 election results at the U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 5, 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/member-of-the-right-wing-group-oath-keepers-stands-guard-news-photo/1294712646?adppopup=true">Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Longstanding ties</h2>
<p>The day before the Biden inauguration, in late afternoon, 12 National Guardsmen deployed to Washington, D.C. were removed from that duty after an investigation uncovered <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/19/national-guard-members-removed-inauguration-460426">problems in their past; two had apparent ties to right-wing militias</a>.</p>
<p>Far-right elements have always had some presence in <a href="https://www.vox.com/michael-brown-shooting-ferguson-mo/2014/8/19/6031759/ferguson-history-riots-police-brutality-civil-rights">U.S. security forces</a>. </p>
<p>Throughout the 20th century, many <a href="https://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/watchmen">local police departments were heavily populated with Ku Klux Klan members</a>. The connections between terror groups and law enforcement enabled discrimination and violence against African Americans, Jews and other minorities. </p>
<p>In 1923, all the Black residents of Blandford, Indiana were forced out of town to an unknown location following accusations that an African American man assaulted a young girl. The unlawful “deportation” was conducted and organized by the local sheriff, a Klansman, <a href="https://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/watchmen">with the assistance of local Klan chapters</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379092/original/file-20210115-13-qkcf30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Head shot of a balding white man with a goatee against a blue background" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379092/original/file-20210115-13-qkcf30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379092/original/file-20210115-13-qkcf30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=857&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379092/original/file-20210115-13-qkcf30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=857&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379092/original/file-20210115-13-qkcf30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=857&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379092/original/file-20210115-13-qkcf30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1077&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379092/original/file-20210115-13-qkcf30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1077&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379092/original/file-20210115-13-qkcf30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1077&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Wade Michael Page, the U.S. Army veteran who killed six Sikh worshipers in 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/in-this-handout-photo-provided-by-the-johnson-county-news-photo/484960729?adppopup=true">FBI via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Many U.S. military bases have also had <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/frazier-glenn-miller">cells of neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups</a> throughout the 20th century.</p>
<p>In 1995, three paratroopers from Fort Bragg, in North Carolina, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1995/12/11/soldiers-in-white-supremacist-uniforms/0d5d01b9-5f4d-478a-a598-73c7646a8711/">were arrested and charged</a> in the killing of a Black couple in Fayetteville. <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1997-05-13-9705130165-story.html">Two were sentenced to life in prison</a> for the murders. The Army initiated an investigation at the base, which was known for being a hub of the National Alliance, <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/national-alliance">then the country’s most influential American neo-Nazi group</a>. </p>
<p>The Army identified and discharged 19 paratroopers for participating in hate activities. <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2012/sikh-temple-killer-wade-michael-page-radicalized-army">One went on</a> to kill <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2012/08/06/us/wisconsin-temple-shooting/index.html">six worshipers in a Sikh temple</a> in Oak Creek, Wisconsin in August 2012. He died in a police shootout.</p>
<h2>Growing convergence</h2>
<p>Concerns about the penetration of <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/11/military-right-wing-extremism-457861">far-right elements into the military and law enforcement have become acute in the last decade</a> with the emergence of militias like the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/19/politics/oath-keepers-capitol-riot-charges/index.html">Oath Keepers</a>, which was founded on the principle of recruiting police and military. Oath Keepers <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/right-wing-militias-civil-war/616473/">pledge to disobey orders on the job which they deem contradict the Constitution</a>. </p>
<p>The militias’ success secretly infiltrating police departments contributed to the emergence of new far-right associations that openly recruit law enforcement, like the <a href="https://cspoa.org">Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers of America</a>. </p>
<p>Founded in 2011 by former Arizona sheriff Richard Mack, the group promotes the notion – contrary to the Constitution – that the federal government authorities should be subordinated to local law enforcement. It has more than 500 sheriffs nationwide. <a href="https://www.politicalresearch.org/2019/06/10/how-a-right-wing-network-mobilized-sheriffs-departments">Just over half are currently in office</a>. </p>
<p>The Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers of America has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2016/04/28/national-group-of-sheriffs-opposed-to-federal-government-overreach-gains-size-momentum/">pushed its members not to enforce gun control laws</a> and pandemic-related <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/31/us-sheriffs-mask-orders-covid-19-blm">mask regulations</a> that they believe infringe on civil liberties.</p>
<h2>Skilled insurrectionists</h2>
<p>When members of far-right groups are also <a href="https://theconversation.com/capitol-siege-raises-questions-over-extent-of-white-supremacist-infiltration-of-us-police-153145">professionals sworn to protect the nation or their communities</a>, it makes those groups seem more legitimate. </p>
<p>Authorities may be less likely to treat them as domestic security threats, a categorization that would limit their access to firearms and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-uncomfortable-questions-facing-capitol-police-over-the-security-breach-by-maga-mob-152857">sensitive locations</a>. </p>
<p>Yet military and police members actually make American militias more effective, according to <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=xBQYKHwAAAAJ&hl=en">my research on the violent practices of the American far-right</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379077/original/file-20210115-13-1jzeywx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C15%2C5185%2C3803&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Glasses-wearing man in military fatigues poses with an American flag in front of a large crowd" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379077/original/file-20210115-13-1jzeywx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C15%2C5185%2C3803&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379077/original/file-20210115-13-1jzeywx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379077/original/file-20210115-13-1jzeywx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379077/original/file-20210115-13-1jzeywx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379077/original/file-20210115-13-1jzeywx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379077/original/file-20210115-13-1jzeywx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379077/original/file-20210115-13-1jzeywx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Texas Militia member at the pro-Trump rally in Washington, D.C., Jan. 6, 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/trump-supporters-near-the-us-capitol-following-a-quot-stop-news-photo/1230475969?adppopup=true">Selcuk Acar/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A data set I manage with my team at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and used for my <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/american-zealots/9780231167116">recent book on right-wing terror</a> shows that militia attacks are more lethal than those of other far-right groups. The perpetrators are experienced with weapons and ammunition, and have at least some military training. </p>
<p>Attacks by other far-right groups are, in large measure, <a href="https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/binaries/content/assets/customsites/perspectives-on-terrorism/2018/issue-6/a4-sweeney-perliger.pdf">initiated by people with limited operational experience, who act spontaneously</a>. </p>
<p>Militias are also more likely to attack secured, high-value targets like <a href="https://www.radicalrightanalysis.com/2021/01/07/carr-policy-insight-series-deciphering-the-second-wave-of-the-american-militia-movement/">government facilities</a>. Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, is a prime example. He was a Gulf War veteran <a href="https://www.news9.com/story/5f80fb1f1f327834b9461b18/michigan-militia-group-had-ties-to-timothy-mcveigh">associated with the Michigan Militia</a> whose bomb killed 168 people at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 1995. </p>
<p>The penetration of far-right militants into the ranks of police and the military seems to be driving an increase in direct attacks on police and military targets. </p>
<p>Between 1990 and 2000, 13% of U.S. of militia attacks and plots were aimed at military or police installations or personnel, our data set shows. The proportion <a href="https://www.radicalrightanalysis.com/2021/01/07/carr-policy-insight-series-deciphering-the-second-wave-of-the-american-militia-movement/">jumped to 40%</a> by 2017. </p>
<p>And with their training in surveillance, intelligence collection and public safety, the dangerous activities of militias are generally harder for federal agencies to monitor and counter. </p>
<p>When militias recruit professionals, they are better at waging their radical crusade.</p>
<p><em>This story was updated to reflect developing news about security at Biden’s inauguration and corrected to accurately locate Fayetteville in North Carolina.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153369/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Arie Perliger receives funding from the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Defense.</span></em></p>A leaked database shows at least 10% of the far-right Oath Keepers militia is active police or military – people professionally trained in using weapons and conducting sophisticated operations.Arie Perliger, Director of Security Studies and Professor of Criminology and Justice Studies, UMass LowellLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1534492021-01-19T19:08:26Z2021-01-19T19:08:26ZAs Joe Biden prepares to become president, the US still reels from the deadly consequences of ‘alternative facts’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379422/original/file-20210119-20-1umlm0e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/AP/Patrick Semansky</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every four years on January 20, the US exercises a key tenet of democratic government: the peaceful transfer of power. This year, the scene looks a bit different.</p>
<p>If the last US presidential inauguration in 2017 debuted the phrase “alternative facts”, the 2021 inauguration represents their deadly consequences. After <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/13/qanon-capitol-siege-trump/">conspiracy-theory inspired violence</a> laid siege to the Capitol Building where lawmakers met to confirm the election results, more than 20,000 troops now patrol the US Capitol to ensure the transition goes ahead smoothly against calls for insurrection.</p>
<p>The threat of disinformation and alternative facts has taken many forms over the past several years, from conspiracy theories about climate change to <a href="https://www.ghsn.org/Policy-Reports">COVID-19</a>, culminating in a <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/fbi-documents-conspiracy-theories-terrorism-160000507.html">2019 FBI memo warning</a> about the threat of “conspiracy-theory driven domestic extremists”, particularly around elections. </p>
<p>It follows years of warnings from national security <a href="https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2020/09/03/troops-white-nationalism-a-national-security-threat-equal-to-isis-al-qaeda/">practitioners</a> and scholars about the growing risk of domestic extremists. More recently, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-12/asio-briefing-warns-far-right-is-exploiting-coronavirus/12344472">as reported</a> by the FBI and ASIO, these groups have used the global pandemic to recruit and radicalise new members, seizing on the isolation and uncertainty to offer a sense of community and clarity of purpose. </p>
<p>The conspiracy theory that drove the violence at the Capitol Building has been building for the past four years. During this time, US President Donald Trump has decried any <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/alternate-reality-trump-plays-his-old-litigious-hand-in-fight-for-survival-20201107-p56cdf.html">contest</a> he does not win as fraudulent.</p>
<p>More recently, he has called his supporters to action, warning that there will be “<a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-said-there-will-be-no-god-if-biden-is-elected/ar-BB19edMV">no God</a>” and “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55640437">no country</a>” without him as president. Though the attack only lasted a few hours, the consequences will linger for years. </p>
<p>As Joe Biden prepares to become the 46th president of the United States, managing the fallout from it will be one of his gravest challenges.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/as-us-election-day-nears-the-outcome-wont-be-simply-a-matter-of-political-will-148441">As US election day nears, the outcome won't be simply a matter of political will</a>
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<h2>The long-standing threat of right-wing extremists</h2>
<p>This threat appears to have been taken seriously by long-standing national security <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/12/trump-stochastic-terrorism-violence-rhetoric/">experts</a> and scholars. But action against it was hindered under the Trump administration.</p>
<p>Starting in 2017, federal funding for tackling white nationalist and other far right extremist activity was cut, including <a href="https://apnews.com/article/534c01d60a50492ab3e1e616c3c71720">university research</a> and non-profit deradicalisation organisations such as<a href="https://www.newsweek.com/far-right-alt-right-neo-nazis-life-after-hate-628829">Life After Hate</a> </p>
<p>Last year, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/09/politics/dhs-whistleblower-white-supremacist-threat/index.html">a whistleblower report</a> from the Department of Homeland Security alleged senior intelligence officials were instructed to modify intelligence assessments to match Trump’s rhetoric and modify the section on White Supremacy in a manner that made the threat appear less severe. </p>
<p>During 2020, diverse groups <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/01/08/capitol-riot-trump-forecast-encouraged/">stormed state legislative buildings</a> to evade COVID-19 mitigation efforts and intimidate lawmakers at the behest of Trump. </p>
<p>Despite these public signs of growing extremist violence, even some lawmakers appeared to be caught unaware by the Capitol insurrection. In an opinion piece just after the event, Republican Senator Susan Collins <a href="https://bangordailynews.com/2021/01/11/opinion/contributors/democracy-prevailed-over-the-rioters-who-sieged-the-capitol/">wrote she</a> first assumed the attack was coming from Iran. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379430/original/file-20210119-14-16g16ta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379430/original/file-20210119-14-16g16ta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379430/original/file-20210119-14-16g16ta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379430/original/file-20210119-14-16g16ta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379430/original/file-20210119-14-16g16ta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379430/original/file-20210119-14-16g16ta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379430/original/file-20210119-14-16g16ta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Trump supporters breached the Capitol on January 6, claiming the election result was fradulent.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/AP/ John Nacion/STAR MAX/IPx</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Trump has demonstrated that conspiracy theories can drive electoral and fundraising success. Having started his political campaign with the “birther” conspiracy theory, challenging the citizenship and eligibility of American-born Barack Obama, Trump also cast shadows over his Republican rivals, including Ted Cruz, by accusing Cruz’s father of being <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-36195317">linked to the man who killed JFK</a>.</p>
<p>Similarly, Trump will end his administration on a conspiracy theory, one that has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/11/us/who-died-in-capitol-building-attack.html">already cost</a> five lives. Despite recent backlash from <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/10/business/citigroup-bluecross-commerce-bank-pac-donations/index.html">business leaders</a> in America, Trump <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/12/trumps-bogus-election-fraud-claims-fundraising-usd200-million-since-election-day.html">fundraised more than $200 million </a> after election night on the basis of his refusal to concede defeat. </p>
<p>Recent Congressional races have further demonstrated the success of Trump’s template. Holocaust-deniers in three states ran for office in <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/republican-holocaust-deniers-697379/">2018</a> (all as Republicans). Two <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/03/us/politics/qanon-candidates-marjorie-taylor-greene.html">of the newest members of Congress</a> are members of QAnon, the inheritor of the “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/27/technology/pizzagate-justin-bieber-qanon-tiktok.html">pizzagate</a>” conspiracy theory, in which all who oppose Trump are deep state members of a international child sex trafficking cabal. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-alt-right-believes-another-american-revolution-is-coming-153093">Why the alt-right believes another American Revolution is coming</a>
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<h2>The challenge ahead for Biden</h2>
<p>Where then, does this leave policy-making on national and global issues that require sober reflection and good judgement?</p>
<p>Alternative facts have no place in good governance. Their purpose is only to destroy and divide. This is why disinformation has been pursued so aggressively by hostile foreign actors against the US, with <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4673195/user-clip-clinton-watts-testimony-senate-intelligence-committee-hearing-march-30-2017">Russian active measures</a> detailed extensively by the Republican chaired <a href="https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Report_Volume2.pdf">Senate Intelligence Committee reports</a>. </p>
<p>Voter fraud, one of the key narratives of Russian efforts in election interference in 2016, has now become mainstreamed in the Republican base, with <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/01/15/biden-begins-presidency-with-positive-ratings-trump-departs-with-lowest-ever-job-mark/">nearly half of respondents expressing doubt</a> about Biden’s win. Public assurances by Republican secretaries of state have had limited impact, culminating in Trump’s taped conversation <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/03/us/politics/trump-raffensperger-georgia-call-transcript.html">in which he asks</a> the Georgia Secretary of state to “find” 11,000 votes for him (to win).</p>
<p>Joe Biden should focus on repairing Americans’ frayed trust in institutions and rehabilitate America’s battered reputation. At the same time, he should lead with science and fact, most immediately in tackling the nation’s COVID crisis.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="AAP/AP/Matt Slocum" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379423/original/file-20210119-21-1wpevwn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379423/original/file-20210119-21-1wpevwn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379423/original/file-20210119-21-1wpevwn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379423/original/file-20210119-21-1wpevwn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379423/original/file-20210119-21-1wpevwn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379423/original/file-20210119-21-1wpevwn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379423/original/file-20210119-21-1wpevwn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One of Joe Biden’s first priorities should be repairing trust in American institutions.</span>
</figcaption>
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<p>Where conspiracy theories go hand in hand with corruption (such as Trump soliciting an election official to tamper with results), state authorities should pursue charges. Where disinformation has proven lucrative, tools should be explored to remove financial rewards. For instance, non-profit organisations that participated in or fundraised what the <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/01/12/joint-chiefs-staff-call-capitol-riots-sedition-and-insurrection/6646481002">Joint Chiefs of Staff declared</a> as “sedition and insurrection” could be stripped of protective tax status. </p>
<p>Some of these remedies lie firmly with Congress. <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/12/liz-cheney-trump-impeachment-statement-458394">Impeachment</a> proceedings are already underway which could remove Trump’s ability to run in 2024. <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/amendment/amendment-xiv#:%7E:text=No%20State%20shall%20make%20or,equal%20protection%20of%20the%20laws.">The 14th Amendment</a> could be applied to expel or bar current office holders who participated in the insurrection from running for election again. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-is-impeached-again-in-historic-vote-now-republicans-must-decide-the-future-of-their-party-153196">Trump is impeached again in historic vote. Now Republicans must decide the future of their party</a>
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<p>Trump has recently condemned the violence done in his name. But he has not disavowed the rationale for it. His supporters within the Republican base, media and elected ranks continue to repeat his conspiracy theories on <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com.au/james-murdoch-son-of-fox-news-boss-rupert-outlets-peddle-lies-2021-1">Fox “entertainment” shows</a>, on <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/limbaugh-dismisses-calls-to-end-violence-after-mob-hits-capitol/ar-BB1czamf">AM radio</a>, and now the halls of Congress. More than <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/insurrection-at-the-capitol/2021/01/07/954380156/here-are-the-republicans-who-objected-to-the-electoral-college-count">100 US Representatives</a> voted against certifying the ballots on which they themselves were elected. </p>
<p>The next few years will see investigations, commissions and reports detailing the failures that led up to the Capitol attacks. Any delay in accountability could see even more lives lost to conspiracy theories and those who profit from them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153449/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer S. Hunt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Among the new president’s top priorities should be restoring faith in institutions and science.Jennifer S. Hunt, Lecturer in National Security, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1530932021-01-14T23:44:01Z2021-01-14T23:44:01ZWhy the alt-right believes another American Revolution is coming<p>The alt-right, QAnon, paramilitary and Donald Trump-supporting <a href="https://twitter.com/HannahAllam/status/1349328144969457664?s=20">mob</a> that stormed the US Capitol on January 6 claimed they were only doing what the so-called “<a href="https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/founding-fathers-united-states">founding fathers</a>” of the US had done in 1776: overthrowing an illegitimate government that no longer represented them. </p>
<p>This was the start of what they called the “<a href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-01-06/the-second-revolution-begins-today-armed-right-wing-groups-celebrate-attack-on-capitol">second American Revolution</a>”. </p>
<p>This is why the <a href="https://theconversation.com/yellow-gadsden-flag-prominent-in-capitol-takeover-carries-a-long-and-shifting-history-145142">“Don’t Tread on Me” flag</a> was visible in the chaos — a symbol of resistance that dates back to the (first) American Revolution and was <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125184586">resurrected</a> a decade ago by Republican <a href="http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1922169,00.html">Tea Party activists</a>. </p>
<p>It is not hard to understand the appeal of this history to Trump’s followers. The era of the “founding fathers” has always <a href="http://www.andyschocket.net/fighting-over-the-founders/">loomed large in the minds of most Americans</a>. And stories about the past are, after all, how <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-presence-of-the-past/9780231111485">individuals, families</a>, and <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095958187">communities small and large</a>, make sense of themselves. </p>
<p>Yet, it is worth noting these recollections of the past are necessarily selective. </p>
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<h2>The right to life, liberty — and to abolish government</h2>
<p>Alt-right extremists, following conservative politicians, have also drawn succour from the Constitution, particularly when it comes to their “rights”, such as the right to free speech and bear arms. </p>
<p>These and other rights were not actually enumerated in the original Constitution, but rather tacked on in the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/bill-of-rights-transcript#toc-the-u-s-bill-of-rights">Bill of Rights</a> — a set of ten amendments passed <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780809016433">to appease opponents of the Constitution</a> and get it ratified.</p>
<p>These rights are fused together with the more vague yet “unalienable” rights enunciated in the 1776 <a href="https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript">Declaration of Independence</a> — chief among them being the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-were-the-capitol-rioters-so-angry-because-theyre-scared-of-losing-grip-on-their-perverse-idea-of-democracy-152812">Why were the Capitol rioters so angry? Because they're scared of losing grip on their perverse idea of democracy</a>
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<p>Drawing on philosopher John Locke’s <a href="https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2007/januaryfebruary/feature/building-the-bill-rights">ideas</a>, the Declaration of Independence proclaims “we the people” come together to form a government to protect these rights. </p>
<p>And crucial to Trump supporters today, it says, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This was the sentiment voiced on January 6 when pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol. They <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/01/capitol-riot-photos-inside-trump.html">chanted</a> “This is our America” and “Whose house? Our house!” </p>
<p>Trump himself <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/now/2021/january/trump-language-capitol-riot-mcintosh.html">encouraged this thinking</a> when he told the crowd before they marched to the Capitol, “You’ll never take back our country with weakness.”</p>
<p>The question is: who do Trump and, more broadly speaking, the alt-right think has taken the United States from them?</p>
<h2>Rights for only a select few</h2>
<p>The answer is evident in how the alt-right imagines the past: their vision of history omits or callously ignores the fact their constitutional rights have come at the cost of the lives and rights of others. </p>
<p>Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence it was a “self-evident” truth “that all men are created equal.” Generations of enslaved and free Black activists and their allies have <a href="https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1592&context=faculty_scholarship">worked towards</a> <a href="https://www.mprnews.org/story/2013/08/28/daily-circuit-march-on-washington">realising this goal</a>. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-far-right-and-white-supremacists-have-embraced-the-middle-ages-and-their-symbols-152968">Why the far-right and white supremacists have embraced the Middle Ages and their symbols</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But for the founding fathers, and many of their white supremacist heirs, true “citizens” were exclusively white and male. A few years after penning the declaration, Jefferson denounced <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3h490t.html">Black people as inferior</a>. He owned hundreds of slaves. Even his own children, whom he fathered with Sally Hemings, <a href="https://ushistoryscene.com/article/hemings-jefferson/">were born into slavery</a>.</p>
<p>Almost all of the founding fathers, in fact, <a href="https://www.history.com/news/how-many-u-s-presidents-owned-slaves">were slaveholders</a> or <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/hbsworkingknowledge/2017/05/03/the-clear-connection-between-slavery-and-american-capitalism/?sh=7f3d78c7bd3b">profited from the slave trade</a>. Neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution freed any of the half million enslaved people in the new United States — <a href="http://slaveryandremembrance.org/articles/article/?id=A0064">one-fifth</a> of the population.</p>
<p>Rather, the Constitution purposefully <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/how-the-constitution-was-indeed-pro-slavery/406288/">entrenched</a> the institution of slavery. By protecting the rights of slaveholders to pursue their happiness by holding on to their “<a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-price-for-their-pound-of-flesh-9780807067147">property</a>”, it doomed <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/maps-reveal-slavery-expanded-across-united-states-180951452/">four more generations</a> to enslavement. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Signing of the Declaration of Independence" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378773/original/file-20210114-23-1u1vavy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378773/original/file-20210114-23-1u1vavy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378773/original/file-20210114-23-1u1vavy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378773/original/file-20210114-23-1u1vavy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378773/original/file-20210114-23-1u1vavy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378773/original/file-20210114-23-1u1vavy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378773/original/file-20210114-23-1u1vavy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Signing of the Declaration of Independence, by Armand Dumaresq.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The White House Historical Association (White House Collection)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By the start of the Civil War in 1861, there were <a href="https://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/placesinhistory/archive/2011/20110318_slavery.html#:%7E:text=March%2018%2C%201861&text=Of%20those%2031%20million%2C%20as,the%201850%20and%201860%20census.">4 million people</a> enslaved in the US.</p>
<p>The Constitution also gave the government the power to raise an army. After the American Revolution, this power was used time and again <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300218121/surviving-genocide">to wage a long genocidal war</a> against Native Americans across the continent. </p>
<p>When enslaved and free Black people and their white abolitionist allies acted against slavery, slaveholders invoked the Revolution. They claimed they were undertaking God’s will to complete the work begun in 1776 of creating a free nation, and made <a href="https://ericaarmstrongdunbar.com/nevercaught-ericaarmstrongdunbar">slave-holding former President George Washington</a> <a href="https://www.historynet.com/george-washington-hero-of-the-confederacy.htm">their hero</a>.</p>
<p>It took an unprecedented and destructive Civil War to finally put an end to slavery, and another century or so for African Americans to achieve full rights as citizens in the United States. Every step of the way, they were <a href="https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_events_uncivil.html">contested</a> and <a href="https://americanhistory.si.edu/brown/history/1-segregated/separate-but-equal.html">blocked</a> by <a href="https://www.professorcarolanderson.org/white-rage">individuals, groups, states and judges</a> who claimed they were upholding the principles of the Constitution.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-is-the-confederate-flag-so-offensive-143256">Why is the Confederate flag so offensive?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Rights trump equality</h2>
<p>It should be no surprise, then, the alt-right movement is invoking the same “Revolution” today. </p>
<p>After Barack Obama’s presidency, Trump <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/14/us/politics/donald-trump-white-identity.html">gave a voice</a> to the grievances of his largely white supporters who feared they were being displaced in their own country.</p>
<p>And following the summer of the Black Lives Matter movement and Trump’s baseless claims the 2020 election was stolen, the Capitol Hill insurrectionists firmly believed “they” had lost control of the United States. They were no longer the “we the people” in charge. </p>
<p>As in the past, they also had the support of prominent politicians beyond Trump. One of their supporters, the newly elected Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (who is also a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/03/qanon-marjorie-taylor-greene-wins-congress">QAnon supporter</a>) declared before the January 6 move to block the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential victory,
“<a href="https://fb.watch/2_0CO1eCeS/">This is our 1776 moment</a>”. </p>
<p>And Congressman Paul Gosar, a prominent Trump supporter, wrote an op-ed entitled “Are we witnessing a coup d’etat?” in which he <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/us/trump-loyalists-in-congress-fanned-flames-before-capitol-riot.html">advised followers</a> to “be ready to defend the Constitution and the White House”.</p>
<p>It has never been entirely clear when exactly the United States <a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-has-made-america-nostalgic-again-for-a-past-that-never-existed-149449">was last great</a> in the minds of Trump supporters wearing their “Make America Great Again” caps. It might be the Ronald Reagan presidency of the 1980s for some, or sometime prior to the civil rights, women’s and gay liberation movements and the <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674286078&content=reviews">US defeat in Vietnam</a>.</p>
<p>But there’s no doubt as to when this mythical greatness started. The yearning for the founding era — a time when slaveholders overthrew a government to protect their rights (including the right to hold people as property) — is palpable.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153093/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clare Corbould has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council. She is a member of the Australian Greens.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael McDonnell receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>Trump supporters have staked a claim to the US Constitution and the founding era of the country in their battle against what they perceive as an ‘illegitimate’ government.Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin UniversityMichael McDonnell, Professor of History, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1459682020-09-15T12:03:19Z2020-09-15T12:03:19ZCoronavirus and conspiracies: how the far right is exploiting the pandemic<p>Just as the global death toll from COVID-19 reached 250,000 at the start of May this year, a short film emerged that has <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/12/21254184/how-plandemic-went-viral-facebook-youtube">since been called</a> “the first true hit conspiracy video of the COVID-19 era”. Titled “Plandemic”, it featured a lengthy interview with the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/14/plandemic-movie-discredited-dr-doctor-judy-mikovits-how-debunked-conspiracy-theory-film-went-viral">discredited scientist Judy Mikovits</a>, who falsely argued that the COVID death tolls were being exaggerated to pave the way for a large-scale vaccination programme. </p>
<p>Allegedly orchestrated by “big pharma” companies in conjunction with Bill Gates, this scheme would supposedly “kill millions” in the name of generating profit. The video was removed from Facebook and YouTube where it had been shared, but not before it was watched an estimated <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/09/technology/plandemic-judy-mikovitz-coronavirus-disinformation.html%22">8 million times</a>.</p>
<p>The perceived danger of an eventual vaccination programme has been one of the most concerning and far-reaching of coronavirus conspiracy narratives. But it has also been linked to attempts by the far right to exploit the pandemic to promote its extreme ideology.</p>
<p>Similar conspiracies are prevalent within far-right social media circles, but many of them degenerate into <a href="https://gnet-research.org/2020/04/21/online-antisemitism-in-times-of-covid-19/">overt antisemitism</a>, with claims the virus is a hoax engineered by “Jewish elites” intent on implementing a vaccine either for profit or to eradicate the white race. One <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-conspiracy-theory-flick-plandemic-lures-normies-down-the-far-right-rabbit-hole">journalist warned</a> that the Plandemic video may be the first step in introducing new audiences “into the depths of the far-right abyss”.</p>
<p>By playing on people’s health fears in such ways, the far right is hoping to <a href="https://culturapolitica2018.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/kill-all-normies_-online-culture-wars-from-4chan-and-tumblr-to-trump-and-th.pdf">normalise its views</a> and make those of the political mainstream seem inadequate when it comes to explaining or resolving the crisis. And it’s possible that the pandemic may be increasing public awareness of and even participation in extremist discourse.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.un.org/sc/ctc/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/CTED_Trends_Alert_Extreme_Right-Wing_Terrorism_JULY.pdf">recent report</a> from the United Nations Security Council warns that extreme right-wing groups and individuals in the US have sought to exploit the pandemic to “radicalize, recruit, and inspire plots and attacks”. This sentiment is echoed in a <a href="https://www.statewatch.org/media/documents/news/2020/jun/eu-council-ctc-terrorism-and-corona-note-7838-20.pdf">note from the Council of the European Union</a>, which warns that it is “highly likely” right-wing extremists are now “capitalising on the corona crisis more than on any other issue”. It adds that this focus may have led to an expansion in target selection, with sites like hospitals being viewed as legitimate targets for large-scale attacks.</p>
<p>The far right’s focus on coronavirus has been reflected across social media. One <a href="https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/20200513-ISDG-Weekly-Briefing-3b.pdf">recent report</a> showed that between January and April 2020, hundreds of thousands of far-right posts about coronavirus were made to public Facebook groups. Meanwhile, conspiratorial narratives relating to “elites” – a staple of far-right discourse – steadily increased from mid-March. </p>
<p>Similarly, far-right groups on the encrypted messaging app Telegram have set up a range of channels dedicated specifically to the discussion of coronavirus, often amplifying disinformation. In March, Telegram channels associated with white supremacy and racism <a href="https://time.com/5817665/coronavirus-conspiracy-theories-white-supremacist-groups/">attracted an influx of over 6,000 users</a>, with one channel, dedicated to the discussion of coronavirus, growing its user base by 800%.</p>
<p>One of the key ways the far right is doing this is by taking advantage of the staggering extent of misinformation and conspiracy theories surrounding the virus. The “plandemic” narrative is one example, but there has also been a <a href="https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/The-Genesis-of-a-Conspiracy-Theory.pdf">significant rise</a> in social media activity relating to the QAnon conspiracy movement, which has also <a href="https://theconversation.com/qanon-conspiracy-theories-about-the-coronavirus-pandemic-are-a-public-health-threat-135515">amplified misinformation about the pandemic</a>.</p>
<p>A number of these conspiracies have also been influential within the <a href="https://theconversation.com/reopen-protest-movement-created-boosted-by-fake-grassroots-tactics-137027">Reopen movement</a>, which advocates for the lifting of lockdown restrictions. This momentum has been harnessed by some far-right actors, particularly the Proud Boys, an alt-right, “pro-west fraternal organisation”. </p>
<p>This group has historically attempted to market itself towards the Republican mainstream on platforms such as Facebook by <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17439884.2018.1544149">deliberately avoiding the use of overtly racist symbols</a>. Now a number of Proud Boys have been spotted taking part in anti-lockdown protests, with the group’s president, Enrique Tarrio, framing the Florida protests as the point where “the battle for the 2020 election starts”. This suggests he is using the protests as a <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2020/04/27/anti-lockdown-rallies-are-providing-opening-proud-boys-and-other-far-right-extremists">propaganda opportunity</a> for his movement.</p>
<p>Indeed, the spirit of the protests accords closely with narratives being propagated by some more overtly extreme facets of the right, suggesting the Reopen movement has presented an opportunity to popularise extreme anti-state messaging. For example, one alt-right figure used his Telegram channel to paint the lockdown measures as a “power grab” by the state, and an orchestrated attempt to ensure citizens – particularly men - remain “slaves” to society and the government.</p>
<h2>Boogaloo</h2>
<p>Perhaps one of the most concerning groups that appears to have been buoyed by similar narratives is the <a href="https://theconversation.com/far-right-boogaloo-movement-is-using-hawaiian-shirts-to-hide-its-intentions-142633">“boogaloo’ movement</a>, a loose online network of radical firearms activists that has been linked to several violent incidents across the US. It unites a wide <a href="https://homeland.house.gov/imo/media/doc/Testimony%2520-%2520MacNab.pdf">variety of people</a>, some of whom have attempted to associate with Black Lives Matter, and others with neo-Nazism, with a commitment to preserving their right to bear arms and a shared desire to incite a civil war in order to overthrow the government.</p>
<p>In place of a rigid political philosophy, the movement’s disparate followers are instead bound by <a href="https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2020/05/27/the-boogaloo-movement-is-not-what-you-think/">in-jokes and memes</a>. But some supporters have also demonstrated a propensity for violence, with several incidents this year <a href="https://www.informant.news/p/the-boogaloo-cases">leading to arrests</a>, and three alleged followers now facing <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8385995/Prosecutors-3-arrested-terrorism-charges-Las-Vegas.html">terrorism charges</a>. </p>
<p>This activity has been matched by <a href="https://www.un.org/sc/ctc/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/CTED_Trends_Alert_Extreme_Right-Wing_Terrorism_JULY.pdf">numerous online posts</a> referring to insurrectional violence relating to the coronavirus. And unrest related to pandemic restrictions appears to have significantly boosted the profile of the movement. </p>
<p>Research <a href="https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Covid-19-Briefing-PDF.pdf">has shown</a> that the conspiracy theory that the US government is using the pandemic to restrict American citizens’ freedoms has been central in influencing calls for a civil war. Some Boogaloo supporters also believe that the pandemic and subsequent lockdown have helped raise awareness of their civil war narrative amongst wider populations.</p>
<p>The pandemic has certainly been fertile ground for far-right messaging, helping give new platforms to activists and movements. While it is impossible to predict the long-term effects of these events, the potential for the crisis to spread some elements of far-right ideology to more mainstream audiences cannot be ignored. Shifting those people away from these ideas may be as difficult as tackling the virus itself.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145968/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Blyth Crawford is a Research Fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) based in the Department of War Studies at King's College London. </span></em></p>Extremists are playing on people’s health fears to normalise their views.Blyth Crawford, PhD Candidate, Department of War Studies, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1423352020-07-22T12:00:43Z2020-07-22T12:00:43ZThe Constitution doesn’t have a problem with mask mandates<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348690/original/file-20200721-37-1wucaeu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=104%2C67%2C4835%2C3166&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A protester during an anti-mask rally on July 19 in Indianapolis, Indiana, against the mayor's mask order and the governor's extension of the state shutdown.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/protester-holds-a-placard-saying-no-mandated-masks-or-news-photo/1227699922?adppopup=true">Jeremy Hogan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/diy-cloth-face-coverings.html">public health professionals</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/01/us/coronavirus-masks.html">and politicians</a> are urging or requiring citizens to wear face masks to help slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus. </p>
<p>Some Americans have refused, wrongly claiming mask decrees <a href="https://katv.com/news/local/farmers-elected-state-officials-protest-against-arkansas-new-mask-mandate">violate the Constitution</a>. An internet search turns up dozens of examples. </p>
<p>“Costco Karen,” for instance, staged a sit-in in a Costco entrance in Hillsboro, Oregon after she refused to wear a mask, yelling “I am an American … I <a href="https://www.newsbreak.com/news/0PWWFlzO/costco-karen-stages-sit-in-over-being-asked-to-wear-a-face-mask-yells-i-am-an-american-i-have-rights">have rights</a>.”</p>
<p>A group called Health Freedom Idaho organized a protest against a Boise, Idaho, mask mandate. One protester said, “I’m afraid where this country is headed if we just all roll over and abide by control that goes against our <a href="https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/face-mask-protests-boise-city-hall-mayor-mclean-public-health-order-idaho-coronavirus/277-8173b157-2f7d-4429-b873-da198cd2ed16">constitutional rights</a>.” </p>
<p>As one protester said, “The coronavirus doesn’t override the <a href="https://reason.com/2020/04/22/coronavirus-restrictions-that-go-too-far/">Constitution</a>.”</p>
<p>Speaking as a constitutional law scholar, these objections are nonsense. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348691/original/file-20200721-27-yv29es.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348691/original/file-20200721-27-yv29es.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348691/original/file-20200721-27-yv29es.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348691/original/file-20200721-27-yv29es.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348691/original/file-20200721-27-yv29es.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348691/original/file-20200721-27-yv29es.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348691/original/file-20200721-27-yv29es.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348691/original/file-20200721-27-yv29es.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protesters at an ‘anti-mask’ rally at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus on July 18.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/protesters-hold-placards-during-an-anti-mask-rally-at-ohio-news-photo/1227687429?adppopup=true">Megan Jelinger/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The objections</h2>
<p>It is not always clear why anti-maskers think government orders requiring face coverings in public spaces or those put in place by private businesses violate their constitutional rights, much less what they think those rights are. But most of the mistaken objections fall into two categories:</p>
<p>Mandatory masks violate the First Amendment right to speech, assembly, and especially association and mandatory masks violate a person’s constitutional right to liberty and to make decisions about their own health and bodily integrity.</p>
<p>They’re not mutually exclusive claims: A <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6961900-502020CA006920XXXXMB-3.html">lawsuit</a> filed by four Florida residents against Palm Beach County, for example, argued that mask mandates “interfere with … personal liberty and constitutional rights,” such as freedom of speech, right to privacy, due process, and the “constitutionally protected right to enjoy and defend life and liberty.” The lawsuit asked the court to issue a permanent injunction against the county’s mask mandate.</p>
<p>On July 27, the Court declined to issue an injunction against the mask mandate. <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/1142/502020CA006920XXXXMB_144.pdf?1595945196">Citing Jacobsen v. Massachusetts, the Court found that</a> “no constitutional right is infringed by the Mask Ordinance’s mandate … and that the requirement to swear such a covering has a clear rational basis based on the protection of public health.” More to the point, the Court continued, “constitutional rights and the ideals of limited government do not … allow (citizens) to wholly shirk their social obligation to their fellow Americans or to society as a whole…. After all, we do not have a constitutional right to infect others.” </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Responding to a reporter who asked why President Donald Trump appeared unconcerned about the absence of masks and social distancing at a campaign rally in Tulsa, Vice President Mike Pence said: “I want to remind you again freedom of speech and the right to peaceably assemble is in the Constitution of the U.S. Even in a health crisis, the American people don’t forfeit our <a href="https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a32984272/mike-pence-masks-social-distancing-trump-rallies/">constitutional rights</a>.”</p>
<h2>What the First Amendment does – and doesn’t – do</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment">The First Amendment</a> protects freedom of speech, press, petition, assembly and religion.</p>
<p>There are two reasons why mask mandates don’t violate the First Amendment. </p>
<p>First, a mask doesn’t keep you from expressing yourself. At most, it limits where and how you can speak. Constitutional law scholars and judges call these <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supreme_court_of_the_united_states_2013%E2%80%932014_term_in_review/first_amendment_freedom_of_speech">“time, place, and manner” restrictions</a>. If they do not discriminate on the basis of the content of the speech, such restrictions do not violate the <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1988/88-226">First Amendment</a>. An example of a valid time, place and manner restriction would be a law that limits political campaigning within a certain distance of a <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1991/90-1056">voting booth</a>.</p>
<p>Additionally, the First Amendment, like all liberties ensured by the Constitution, is not absolute. </p>
<p>All constitutional rights are subject to the goverment’s authority to protect the health, safety and welfare of the community. This authority is called the “<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/police_powers">police power</a>.” The Supreme Court has long held that protecting public health is sufficient reason to institute measures that might otherwise violate the First Amendment or other provisions in the Bill of Rights. In 1944, in the case of <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/321/158">Prince v. Massachusetts</a>, for example, the Supreme Court upheld a law that prohibited parents from using their children to distribute religious pamphlets on public streets.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3SxOw_3gAeQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A man protesting a mask mandate in Florida says he’s standing up for “the rights of people to make their own medical decisions.”</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The right to liberty</h2>
<p>Some anti-maskers object that masks violate the right to liberty. </p>
<p>The right to liberty, including the right to make choices about one’s health and body, is essentially a constitutional principle of individual autonomy, neatly summarized as “My body, <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/gop-lawmaker-my-body-my-choice-facemasks-1513121">my choice</a>.” </p>
<p>The 1905 case of <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1900-1940/197us11">Jacobsen v. Massachusetts</a> shows why mask mandates don’t violate any constitutional right to privacy or health or bodily integrity. In that case, the Supreme Court upheld a smallpox vaccination requirement in Cambridge, Massachusetts. </p>
<p>The court said that the vaccination requirement did not violate Jacobsen’s right to liberty or “the inherent right of every freeman to care for his own body and health in such way as to him seems best.” </p>
<p>As the court wrote, “There are manifold restraints to which every person is necessarily subject for the common good. On any other basis, organized society could not exist with safety to its members.” In a <a href="https://casetext.com/case/matter-of-nyc-v-antoinette-r">1995 New York case</a>, a state court held that an individual with active tuberculosis could be forcibly detained in a hospital for appropriate medical treatment. </p>
<p>Even if you assume that mask mandates infringe upon what the Supreme Court calls “fundamental rights,” or rights that the court has called the <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1900-1940/302us319">“very essence of a scheme of ordered liberty</a>,” it has consistently ruled states can act if the restrictions advance a compelling state interest and do so in the least restrictive manner. </p>
<h2>Rights are conditional</h2>
<p>As the Jacobsen ruling and the doctrine of time, place and manner make clear, the protection of all constitutional liberties rides upon certain necessary – but rarely examined – assumptions about communal and public life. </p>
<p>One is that constitutional rights – whether to liberty, speech, assembly, freedom of movement or autonomy – are held on several conditions. The most basic and important of these conditions is that our exercise of rights must not endanger others (and in so doing violate their rights) or the public welfare. This is simply another version of the police power doctrine.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, a global pandemic in which a serious and deadly communicable disease can be transmitted by <a href="https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-1595_article">asymptomatic carriers</a> upsets that background and justifies a wide range of reasonable restrictions on our liberties. Believing otherwise makes the Constitution a suicide pact – and not just metaphorically.</p>
<p><em>This story has been updated to reflect a ruling in the Palm Beach County court challenge to a mask mandate.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142335/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John E. Finn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A constitutional law scholar says that the arguments made by anti-mask protesters that the Constitution protects their freedom to go maskless are just wrong.John E. Finn, Professor Emeritus of Government, Wesleyan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1388402020-05-19T14:27:17Z2020-05-19T14:27:17ZColonial amnesia and Germany’s efforts to achieve ‘internal liberation’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/336018/original/file-20200519-152292-nulqys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protesters in Berlin demand that the 1904-1908 mass killings in Namibia be recognised as the first genocide committed by Germany.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied/Courtesy of Joachim Zeller</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Speaking at the 75th commemoration of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/08/european-leaders-mark-heroics-of-war-generation-after-75-years">VE (Victory in Europe) Day</a>, German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier <a href="https://www.bundespraesident.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/Reden/2020/05/200508-75-Jahre-Ende-WKII-Englisch.pdf?__blob=publicationFile">said</a> it was a day of liberation “imposed from outside”, by Allied military forces, including the Soviets. But as he stated, “internal liberation”, the coming to terms with the heritage of dictatorship and above all the horrific mass crimes, remained “a long and painful process”.</p>
<p>In 1985 the West German head of state, Richard von Weizsäcker, for the first time used the term “liberation” for the <a href="https://www.bundespraesident.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/Reden/2015/02/150202-RvW-Rede-8-Mai-1985-englisch.pdf?__blob=publicationFile">unconditional surrender of German troops</a> that marked the end of the second world war in Europe. This sparked considerable protest and controversy, a sign that even as late as the mid-1980s, Germany was having difficulty coming to terms with its past.</p>
<p>Steinmeier’s more consistent plea to “accept our historic responsibility” met broad consensus. “Internal liberation” had come some way – leaving aside comparatively weak statements by the <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/afd-what-you-need-to-know-about-germanys-far-right-party/a-37208199">right-wing Alternative für Deutschland</a>.</p>
<p>The culture of remembrance, concerning also dire aspects of the past, that’s been engendered in Germany is viewed by many as exemplary. But it nevertheless has some grave shortcomings. Notably, the remembrance of <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/auschwitz">Auschwitz</a> as a substantial part of German state rationale has come about through a halting and conflicting process. For all its merits, still, by virtually singling out the Shoah (the genocide of the Jews in Europe), it marginalises and disregards other mass crimes of the Nazi period. </p>
<p>As recalled during the VE-Day anniversary, such elision from memory includes over 30 million victims of the war against the Soviet Union and the occupation of eastern territories in what are today Russia, Ukraine, Belorussia, Moldavia, Poland and the Baltic states. This blank spot relates to an ingrained culture in Germany of discrimination against Slavic people and refuses to acknowledge the crimes perpetrated by the millions of <a href="https://www.neues-deutschland.de/artikel/1136440.ns-zeit-die-wehrmacht-warrs-auch.html?sstr=Hannes%7CHeer">ordinary German soldiers</a>.</p>
<p>Another glaring lacuna concerns Germany’s past as a colonial power. This period lasted from <a href="https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/German_colonial_empire">1884 to 1919</a>. Despite the relatively short duration, this experience had a great impact on Germany’s violent trajectory during the first half of the 20th century. Since 1945, however, this history has been largely forgotten.</p>
<p>Today many Germans are not even aware that their country once ruled colonies in Africa, Oceania and China. Such public amnesia about <a href="https://www.rosalux.de/fileadmin/rls_uploads/pdfs/Standpunkte/Standpunkte_9-2018.pdf">Germany’s colonial past</a> does not imply only a lack of knowledge. Rather it manifests in the refusal to acknowledge the practice of German colonialism and countenance the consequences. </p>
<p>A prominent case is the <a href="https://theconversation.com/has-the-relationship-between-namibia-and-germany-sunk-to-a-new-low-121329">genocide of 1904-1908 in then South West Africa</a>. Germany admitted the fact in 2015. But bilateral negotiations with Namibia <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/14623528.2020.1750823">have not yet reached any result</a>.</p>
<h2>Selective amnesia</h2>
<p>Complacency about German culture of remembrance tends to isolate the Shoah as the mainstay of canonised public memory. There was a period when the entire field of comparative genocide studies was scrutinised as undermining the singularity of the Shoah. American political scientist and historian <a href="https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/fr/document/genocide-theory-search-knowledge-and-quest-meaning.html">Henry Huttenbach</a> pointed to the imbalance</p>
<blockquote>
<p>that the Holocaust became the paradigm for all genocides by default.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This also eroded the vital call of “Never Again” by the survivors of the Buchenwald concentration camp <a href="https://www.blurb.com/b/828859-never-again-buchenwald">in 1945</a>. If comparison is tabooed, the Holocaust cannot stand as a warning that organised mass extinction might yet be repeated. </p>
<p>But, unfortunately, we have to stand guard against the very real possibility of current and future cases of genocide, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.</p>
<p>The persistent lack of awareness was shown once again in a mid-2019 foreign ministry <a href="https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/blob/2298392/633d49372b71cb6fafd36c1f064c102c/transitional-justice-data.pdf">position paper on transitional justice</a>. It “advocates a comprehensive understanding of confronting past injustices” and refers to “reparations and compensation for National Socialist injustices”. It suggests that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Germany can provide information about basic requirements, problems and mechanisms for the development of state and civil-society reparation efforts.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Strikingly, however, the term “colonialism” does not feature even once in the 32 pages.</p>
<p>Rather, German diplomacy is seen as aggressively keeping things apart. This attitude is self-congratulatory and discriminating at one and the same time. </p>
<h2>Namibian genocide</h2>
<p>The issue was epitomised when Ruprecht Polenz, the German special envoy in the negotiations with the Namibian government about the consequences of the genocide, met a delegation of Namibian descendants of genocide survivors in 2016. They challenged him for not being part of the negotiations. They pointed out that Germany had negotiated with other non-state agencies, such as <a href="https://www.bpb.de/apuz/162883/wiedergutmachung-in-deutschland-19451990-ein-ueberblick?p=all">the Jewish Claims Conference</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/336022/original/file-20200519-152284-f31qfv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/336022/original/file-20200519-152284-f31qfv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336022/original/file-20200519-152284-f31qfv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336022/original/file-20200519-152284-f31qfv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336022/original/file-20200519-152284-f31qfv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336022/original/file-20200519-152284-f31qfv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336022/original/file-20200519-152284-f31qfv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Graves of forced labourers from a concentration in Lüderitz, Namibia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reinhart Kössler</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Polenz stressed that it was inappropriate to draw comparisons in cases such as genocide. But at the same time he pointed out that the Holocaust was qualitatively different from the genocide in Namibia. The meeting exploded in protest by the Namibian delegates – and <a href="http://genocide-namibia.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/PRESS-RELEASE-NOV-2016.pdf">a walkout</a>. They saw disrespect in belittling what happened to their ancestors as well as discriminating against them as Africans.</p>
<p>Already in 2001, Namibia’s foreign minister, Theo-Ben Gurirab, commented at the <a href="https://nhri.ohchr.org/EN/Themes/Racial/Pages/2001-World-Conference-Against-Racism.aspx">World Conference Against Racism</a> on the lack of a German apology to Namibians in contradistinction to Europeans. He concluded that if there was a problem in apologising because Namibians were black, <a href="http://www.freiburg-postkolonial.de/Seiten/melber-reconciliation2006.htm">that would be racist</a>.</p>
<h2>The challenges of ‘internal liberation’</h2>
<p>German memory politics and practices are not quite as exemplary as the Foreign Office would like to make us believe. In fact, the engagement with the violent past particularly of the first half of the 20th century is an ongoing and painful as well as conflictual process. Inasmuch as this process has been seen to consecutively encompass crimes and victim groups that had been silenced before, such an observation can only underline the magnitude of the task.</p>
<p>The urgency of addressing such challenge emerges from revisionist efforts, spearheaded by the Alternative für Deutschland. The group’s honorary chairman, Alexander Gauland, infamously termed Nazi rule as “bird’s shit” in comparison to <a href="https://www.afdbundestag.de/wortlaut-der-umstrittenen-passage-der-rede-von-alexander-gauland/">Germany’s “successful” history</a>.</p>
<p>The party has drawn up a parliamentary draft resolution calling for a positive reassessment of <a href="https://dipbt.bundestag.de/dip21/btd/19/157/1915784.pdf">colonialism’s modernising achievements</a>. It makes explicit reference to a 2018 statement by the personal representative of the <a href="https://africasacountry.com/2019/01/a-technocratic-reformulation-of-colonialism">German Chancellor for Africa</a>. He maintained that German colonialism contributed to liberate the African continent from archaic structures.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/surviving-genocide-a-voice-from-colonial-namibia-at-the-turn-of-the-last-century-130546">Surviving genocide: a voice from colonial Namibia at the turn of the last century</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>These developments show that there are limits to Germany’s accomplishment of coming to terms with its violent past. This was also reflected in the vigorous objection by German officials to <a href="https://wiser.wits.ac.za/users/achille-mbembe">Achille Mbembe</a>, the Cameroonian philosopher and political theorist, being invited as keynote speaker at this year’s Ruhrtriennale, a renowned cultural festival. He had been asked to address the issue of <a href="https://presse.ruhrtriennale.de/pressreleases/ruhrtriennale-2020-beschliesst-die-zwischenzeit-mit-internationalem-programm-2983369">“Reparation”</a>.</p>
<p>A deputy of the Liberal Party in the <a href="https://fdp.fraktion.nrw/sites/default/files/uploads/2020/03/25/offenerbrieflorenzdeutschanstefaniecarpwegenachillembembe-ruhrtriennale2020.pdf">North Rhine Westphalia Diet</a> alleged that Mbembe had refuted Israel’s right to exist as a state, and had “relativised” the Holocaust by comparing the practices of separation under apartheid with the Palestinian situation. The federal government’s antisemitism commissioner <a href="https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/german-antisemitism-commissioner-rejects-bds-academic-at-festival-624577">joined this
protest</a>.</p>
<p>This intervention sparked a controversy that stands as a warning that the postcolonial situation of Germany is very much at stake. By reducing the conflict to issues of antisemitism, it has been trapped in the pitfalls of colonial amnesia. But inner liberation remains hard work. It means conflict and pain, and it must never end.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/138840/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henning Melber has been a member of SWAPO since 1974.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Reinhart Kössler does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The culture of remembrance in Germany is viewed by many as exemplary. But it has some grave shortcomings.Henning Melber, Extraordinary Professor, Department of Political Sciences, University of PretoriaReinhart Kössler, Professor in Political Science, University of FreiburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1370442020-04-28T19:33:41Z2020-04-28T19:33:41ZWhy are white supremacists protesting to ‘reopen’ the US economy?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330849/original/file-20200427-145560-cmr9wt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C15%2C5184%2C3430&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Joey Gibson, leader of the right-wing group Patriot Prayer, addresses a crowd on April 19, 2020, in Olympia, Washington, insisting the state lift restrictions put in place to help fight the coronavirus outbreak.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/jpoey-gibson-leader-of-the-right-wing-group-patriot-prayer-news-photo/1210404334">Karen Ducey/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/16/us/protests-coronavirus-stay-home-orders/index.html">series of protests</a>, primarily in state capitals, are demanding the end of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions. Among the protesters are people who <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/23/us/politics/wisconsin-coronavirus-protests.html">express concern about their jobs or the economy</a> as a whole.</p>
<p>But there are also far-right <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/8/1/17253444/qanon-trump-conspiracy-theory-reddit">conspiracy theorists</a>, <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/proud-boys">white supremacists</a> like <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520300453/alt-right-gangs">Proud Boys</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/04/13/833010421/patriot-movement-calls-on-followers-to-defy-covid-19-restrictions">citizens’ militia members</a> at these protests. The exact number of each group that attends these protests is unknown, since police have not traditionally monitored these groups, but signs and symbols of far right groups have been seen at many of these protests across the country. </p>
<p>These <a href="https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/493707-kentucky-sees-highest-spike-in-coronavirus-cases">protests risk</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/20/us-protests-lockdown-coronavirus-cases-surge-warning">spreading the virus</a> and have <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/04/15/lansing-capitol-protest-michigan-stay-home-order/5136842002/">disrupted traffic, potentially delaying ambulances</a>. But as researchers of <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=cLpO6QwAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">street gangs’</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=fjys1XAAAAAJ&hl=en">far-right groups’</a> violence and recruitment, we believe these protests may become a way right-wingers expand the spread of anti-Semitic rhetoric and <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/boogaloo-facebook-pages-coronavirus-militia-group-extremists_n_5ea3072bc5b6d376358eba98">militant racism</a>.</p>
<p>Proud Boys, and many other far-right activists, don’t typically focus their concern on whether stores and businesses are open. They’re usually more concerned about <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2018.1544149">pro-white, pro-male rhetoric</a>. They’re attending these rallies as part of their longstanding search for any opportunity to <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691170206/the-extreme-gone-mainstream">make extremist groups look mainstream</a> – and because they are always looking for potential recruits to further their cause.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330847/original/file-20200427-145566-8ddyl8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330847/original/file-20200427-145566-8ddyl8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330847/original/file-20200427-145566-8ddyl8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330847/original/file-20200427-145566-8ddyl8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330847/original/file-20200427-145566-8ddyl8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330847/original/file-20200427-145566-8ddyl8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330847/original/file-20200427-145566-8ddyl8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330847/original/file-20200427-145566-8ddyl8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio addresses a protesters at a April 25, 2020, event he helped organize in Miami to call for the reopening of Florida amid the coronavirus pandemic.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/enrique-tarrio-event-organizer-and-leader-of-the-far-right-news-photo/1211015058">Adam DelGuidice/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Exploiting an opportunity</h2>
<p>While not all far-right groups agree on everything, many of them now subscribe to the idea that Western government is corrupt and <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/11/11/20882005/accelerationism-white-supremacy-christchurch">its demise needs to be accelerated</a> through a race war.</p>
<p>For far-right groups, almost any interaction is <a href="https://www.start.umd.edu/pubs/START_RecruitmentRadicalizationAmongUSFarRightTerrorists_Nov2016.pdf">an opportunity to connect with</a> people with social or economic insecurities or their children. Even if <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/4/22/21227928/coronavirus-social-distancing-lockdown-trump-tea-party">some of the protesters have genuine concerns</a>, they’re in protest lines near people looking to offer them targets to blame for society’s problems.</p>
<p>Once they’re standing side by side at a protest, members of far-right hate groups <a href="https://www.wweek.com/news/2019/03/11/neo-nazis-saw-patriot-prayer-rallies-as-fertile-recruitment-grounds-and-targeted-local-newspapers-to-gain-publicity/">begin to share their ideas</a>. That lures some people deeper into <a href="https://www.washingtonian.com/2019/05/05/what-happened-after-my-13-year-old-son-joined-the-alt-right/">online groups and forums where they can be radicalized</a> against immigrants, Jews or other stereotypical scapegoats.</p>
<p>It’s true that only a few will go to that extreme – but they represent <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/11/29/the-daily-use-of-gab-is-climbing-which-talker-might-become-as-violent-as-the-pittsburgh-synagogue-gunman/">potential sparks for future far-right violence</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330822/original/file-20200427-145525-171w776.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330822/original/file-20200427-145525-171w776.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330822/original/file-20200427-145525-171w776.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330822/original/file-20200427-145525-171w776.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330822/original/file-20200427-145525-171w776.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330822/original/file-20200427-145525-171w776.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330822/original/file-20200427-145525-171w776.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330822/original/file-20200427-145525-171w776.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Virginia State Police officers keep an eye on an April 22, 2020 rally in Richmond calling for the state’s governor to lift restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/state-police-officers-monitor-activity-during-a-reopen-news-photo/1210663121">Ryan M. Kelly/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Official responses</h2>
<p>President Donald Trump, a <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/far-right-white-evangelicals-love-trump-for-many-reasons-including-their-terrifying-obsession-with-the-end-times-report/">favorite of far-right activists</a>, has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/04/21/far-right-distrust-quarantine/">tweeted encouragement</a> to the protesters. Police responses have been uneven. Some protesters have been <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/news/coronavirus-stay-at-home-orders-violations-pennsylvania-philadelphia-new-jersey-police-enforcement-20200421.html">charged with violating emergency government orders</a> against public gatherings. </p>
<p>Other events, however, have gone <a href="https://theconversation.com/white-nationalist-groups-are-really-street-gangs-and-law-enforcement-needs-to-treat-them-that-way-107691">undisturbed by officials</a> – similar to how <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/03/magazine/FBI-charlottesville-white-nationalism-far-right.html">far-right “free speech” rallies</a> in 2018 often were <a href="https://thecrimereport.org/2018/08/14/to-deter-violence-why-not-consider-alt-right-groups-as-street-gangs/">treated gently by police</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2020/04/21/as-protests-spread-states-tread-carefully-to-avoid-inflaming-extremists">Police have tended to be hesitant</a> to deal with far-right groups at these protests. As a result, the risk is growing of right-wing militants spreading the coronavirus, either unintentionally at rallies or in intentional efforts: <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/3/23/1930417/-White-nationalists-looking-to-weaponize-coronavirus-pandemic-both-literally-and-figuratively">Federal authorities have warned</a> that some right-wingers are talking about specifically sending infected people to target communities of color. </p>
<p>One thing police could do – which they often do when facing criminal groups – is to track the level of coordination between different protests. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/22/us/white-supremacy-the-base.html">Identifying far-right activists who attend multiple events</a> or travel across state borders to attend a rally may indicate that they are using these events <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/opinion/coronavirus-protests-astroturf.html">as part of a connected public relations campaign</a>.</p>
<p>[<em>You need to understand the coronavirus pandemic, and we can help.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=upper-coronavirus-help">Read The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/137044/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Militant far-right groups are always looking to appear legitimate and to recruit more Americans to their causes.Shannon Reid, Associate Professor, University of North Carolina – CharlotteMatthew Valasik, Associate Professor of Sociology, Louisiana State University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1367962020-04-21T16:17:53Z2020-04-21T16:17:53ZDonald Trump’s ‘Chinese virus’: the politics of naming<p>For several weeks, from January through early March, US president Donald Trump <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/15/opinion/trump-coronavirus.html">downplayed</a> the likely consequences of the coronavirus, presenting it as a minor nuisance and exaggerating the federal government’s response, even as Alex Azar, the Secretary of Health and Human Services declared a <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/about/leadership/secretary/speeches/2020-speeches/secretary-azar-delivers-remarks-on-declaration-of-public-health-emergency-2019-novel-coronavirus.html">public-health emergency and travel restrictions to and from China</a> on January 31.</p>
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<p>It appears that the president dismissed the threat of the coronavirus because he feared the bad news might affect the market and jeopardize his chances of reelection. But as Wall Street dropped further, he finally addressed the nation from the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a1Mdq8-_wo">Oval Office on March 11</a> to announce the suspension of travel “from Europe” as a way to protect Americans from the “foreign virus.”</p>
<h2>The politics of the “Chinese virus”</h2>
<p>Casting the virus “foreign” was not a simple rhetorical flourish. According to the database website <a href="https://factba.se/">Factbase</a>, the president used the expression “Chinese virus” more than <a href="https://factba.se/search">20 times</a> between March 16 and March 30. The deliberateness of the wording was made clear when a photographer captured the script of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/03/20/coronavirus-trump-chinese-virus/">his speech</a> wherein Trump had crossed out the word “Corona” and replaced it with “Chinese.”</p>
<p>Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/25/mike-pompeo-g7-coronavirus-149425">China of putting the world at risk</a> for its lack of transparency, even <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/25/mike-pompeo-g7-coronavirus-149425">scrapping a joint G7 statement</a> after its members refused to refer to the virus as the “Wuhan virus.”</p>
<p>Secretary Pompeo had a point. By early February, there was already strong evidence of a Chinese cover-up and repression of whistle-blowers (<a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/03/wuhan-coronavirus-coverup-lies-chinese-officials-xi-jinping/">here</a>, and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/17/world/asia/coronavirus-china-xu-zhiyong.html">here</a>), later confirmed by more investigations (<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/china-coronavirus-cover-up-claims-1.5471946">here</a> and <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/2/10/21124881/coronavirus-outbreak-china-li-wenliang-world-health-organization">here</a>). Yet rather than criticize China, President Trump <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/news/much-respect-trump-praises-chinas-understanding-of-coronavirus-pledges-to-coordinate-u-s-response-with-xi/">heaped praise</a> on the Chinese response, especially following his phone conversations with China’s leader Xi Jinping for whom the president said he had “great respect” (<a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-speech-north-carolina-opportunity-summit-february-7-2020">February 7</a>, <a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-remarks-business-meeting-governors-february-10-2020">Feb.10</a>) and who, he claimed, was “doing a good job” (<a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-press-gaggle-air-force-one-departure-february-18-2020">Feb. 18</a>), “a professional job” (<a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-press-gaggle-marine-one-departure-february-7-2020">Feb7</a>.), “loves his country” (<a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-press-gaggle-marine-one-departure-february-23-2020">Feb.23</a>) and is “extremely capable, working hard and professionally” (<a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-interview-geraldo-rivera-february-13-2020">Feb. 13</a>). This, even when he was asked about how he can legitimately believe the Chinese communiste regime (<a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-press-conference-white-house-coronavirus-february-26-2020">Feb. 26</a>).</p>
<p>Donald Trump’s well-established, long-time fascination for <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/donald-trump-s-history-praising-dictators-n604801">authoritarian leaders</a> and for <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/lisa/9861">power</a> probably played a role in his favorable view of China’s leadership. But one of his concerns was also his fear that upsetting Beijing would jeopardize the US-China trade deal, hence his insistence on the good relationship with China followed by praise of the deal (<a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-speech-north-carolina-opportunity-summit-february-7-2020">Feb 7</a>, <a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-remarks-business-meeting-governors-february-10-2020">Feb.10</a>, <a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-interview-fox-10-phoenix-kari-lake-february-19-2020">Feb. 19</a>). According to an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/politics/coronavirus-trump-response.html">investigation conducted by the New York Times</a>, Trump resisted taking the hard line defended by many hawks in his administration (including Secretary Pompeo) – at least, until he was informed that a Chinese official had spread a conspiracy theory that <a href="https://fsi.stanford.edu/news/china-covid19-origin-narrative">Covid-19 had been imported by the U.S. Army personnel</a>, which clearly upset him (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iEhLe5G4RU">here</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWWJRPC3Njc">here</a>).</p>
<p>This is when the president started using the expression “Chinese virus.” When faced with accusations of racism, he dismissed <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-addresses-kung-flu-remark-says-asian-americans-agree-100-with-him-using-chinese-virus">its impact on Asian Americans</a>, saying: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“It’s not racist at all. No, it’s not at all. It’s from China. That’s why. It comes from China. I want to be accurate.” (<a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-press-conference-coronavirus-briefing-march-18-2020">March 18</a>)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is a seemingly common-sense justification – after all, the virus <em>did</em> originate in China. This line of defense was eagerly taken up with by <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/right-wing-media-double-down-racist-efforts-rebrand-coronavirus">conservative media</a> and Republican officials as another battle against <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_correctness">“political correctness”</a> in America’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_war">culture war</a>.</p>
<h2>Language matters</h2>
<p>President Trump may not have had racist intentions in this case, but the intent matters less than the effect. By early March, racist acts and harassment against Asians had already <a href="https://time.com/5797836/coronavirus-racism-stereotypes-attacks/">surged</a> and they continued to spike through March and into April (<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/asian-americans-report-nearly-500-racist-acts-over-last-week-n1169821">here</a>, <a href="https://bedfordandbowery.com/2020/03/chinese-businesses-victimized-by-crime-believe-coronavirus-is-to-blame/">here</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/us/chinese-coronavirus-racist-attacks.html">here</a> or <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/03/25/821591155/the-coronavirus-crisis-is-sparking-harassment-of-asian-americans">here</a>). Trump’s own Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a warning that <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/homeland-security-warns-terrorists-exploit-covid-19-pandemic/story?id=69770582">white supremacists may exploit the crisis</a> against Asian-Americans. While Donald Trump did not commit these terrible acts, elected officials and scientists have a responsibility for the way they talk about the virus – words matter. That is why the WHO has had <a href="https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/163636/WHO_HSE_FOS_15.1_eng.pdf">a strict guideline</a> since 2015 regarding the naming of diseases, a guideline followed by other world leaders.</p>
<p>The expressions “Chinese virus” and “Wuhan virus” personify the threat. Personification is metaphorical: its purpose is to help understand something unfamiliar and abstract (i.e. the virus) by using terms that are familiar and embodied (i.e. a location, a nationality or a person). But as cognitive linguists <a href="https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo3637992.html">George Lakoff and Mark Johnson</a> have long shown, metaphors are not just poetic tools, they are used constantly and shape our world view. The adjective “Chinese” is particularly problematic as it associates the infection with an ethnicity. Talking about group identities with<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2690128/">an explicitly medical language</a> is a recognized process of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_(philosophy)">Othering</a> (<a href="https://tidsskrift.dk/qual/article/view/5510">here</a> and <a href="https://books.google.fr/books?hl=en&lr=&id=aB6pAgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT306&dq=othering+identity+">here</a>), historically used in <a href="https://theconversation.com/anti-asian-racism-during-coronavirus-how-the-language-of-disease-produces-hate-and-violence-134496">anti-immigrant rhetoric and policy, including toward Chinese immigrants in North America</a>. This type of language stokes anxiety, resentment, fear and disgust toward people associated with that group.</p>
<h2>Diseases, bodies and disgust</h2>
<p>Metaphors also shape our world view by both highlighting and hiding certain aspects of a concept (<a href="https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo3637992.html">Lakoff and Johnson</a>). For instance, the expression “foreign virus” implies that the nation is a body facing an external threat identified as foreign. The <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/400562.The_Body_in_the_Mind">nation-as-a-body</a> is <a href="https://www.academia.edu/9963242/The_metaphor_of_the_body_politic_across_languages_and_cultures">a common metaphor in the English language</a> (think of expressions such as “head of state,” “head of government,” “long arm of the law”, etc.), but it also a metaphor used in anti-immigrant rhetoric as professor O'Brien has shown in his book, <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781315141633"><em>Contagion and the National Body</em></a>. Donald Trump himself has associated immigrants with “disease coming into our country,” (<a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-speech-iowa-gop-fundraiser-dinner-june-11-2019">June 11, 2019</a>), “communicable disease” and “tremendous medical problem coming into a country” (<a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-remarks-bill-signing-genocide-december-11-2018">Dec. 11, 2018</a>), including during the 2015 primary campaign.</p>
<p>Such language implies that borders will protect an uncontaminated, homogeneous and somewhat “pure” population from the filthy, malignant foreigner. It hides the fact that travel restrictions alone <a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/trumps-snowballing-china-travel-claim/">cannot contain an outbreak</a>, especially one that’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/3/12/21176669/travel-ban-trump-coronavirus-china-italy-europe">already there</a>. They may delay the spread providing that governments prepare a public health response, something the Trump administration did not do for a whole month, hence the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/13/trump-coronavirus-meltdown-media-authority">president’s anger when confronted by the press on this issue</a>.</p>
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<p>Similarly, while the red states were quick to support closing foreign borders, they were <a href="https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/04/06/red-and-blue-states-are-divided-over-social-distancing">reluctant to impose social distancing</a>within, and while these measures were in place in the Blue states, in accordance with the White House’s own <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6878850-Testing-Blueprint.html">guidelines</a>, the president eventually <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/17/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-governors.html">encouraged protests against democrat governors</a> of those states.</p>
<p>Associating the virus with foreigners also plays to his supporters’ cognitive bias <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ps-political-science-and-politics/article/explaining-the-trump-vote-the-effect-of-racist-resentment-and-antiimmigrant-sentiments/537A8ABA46783791BFF4E2E36B90C0BE/core-reader">against outsiders and immigrants</a> and their fear of contagion – <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trumping-fears-of-the-oth_b_7925932">racial, social, cultural or otherwise</a>. Academic studies (<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1948550611429024">here</a> and <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1474704918764170">here</a>) have shown a correlation between <a href="https://bigthink.com/stephen-johnson/how-sensitive-we-are-to-disgust-determines-our-views-on-immigration-study-says">anti-immigration views</a>, political conservatism and disgust sensitivity. </p>
<p>Communication scholar <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319342996_The_disgust_of_Donald_Trump">Michael Richardson has convincingly argued</a> that disgust has been one of the primary affective drivers of Trump’s success. The psychology of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disgust">disgust</a> is important here: its primary function is precisely to <a href="https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/disgust-evolved-to-protect-us-from-disease-is-it-working">help us avoid diseases</a>. It is concerned with what comes OUT OF the body, but also with what goes IN. It is also learned in early childhood. Problems arise when the psychology of disgust is directed at <a href="https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/disgust-evolved-to-protect-us-from-disease-is-it-working">innocent groups or behaviors</a> and passed off as “natural.” Blaming a <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/sen-cornyn-china-blame-coronavirus-because-people-eat-bats-n1163431">clichéd version</a> of the Asian diet for the virus betrays a willful ignorance. Trump, himself, is a noted germaphobe, one who supported the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global/commentisfree/2020/mar/13/trump-coronavirus-antivaxxer-vaccine">anti-vaccine movement</a> because he didn’t like the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/09/health/trump-vaccines.html">“idea of injecting bad things into your body”</a>.</p>
<h2>The war metaphor</h2>
<p>President Trump abruptly <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/tv/trump-questioned-by-fox-on-apparent-move-away-from-chinese-virus-rhetoric/">stopped using the expression</a> “Chinese virus” after China promised to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/us/politics/coronavirus-trump-china.html">send medical supplies</a>, and turned his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE7Q1c8XoSE">attack on the WHO instead</a>, attacking them out for praising China. </p>
<p>Not quite ready to apologize, the president issued a series of statements via <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1242202290393677829">Twitter</a> and in his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJmlnt-QZgY">briefings</a> asking for the protection of “our Asian community”.</p>
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<p>He seems to have finally settled on the use of “the invisible enemy,” which he has used <a href="https://factba.se/search">more than 50 times from March through mid-April</a>. This is part of his use of the war metaphor. Of course a pandemic is not war, and much has been much written about (<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/04/03/why-waging-war-coronavirus-dangerous-metaphor">here</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/21/donald-trump-boris-johnson-coronavirus">here</a>, or <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/03/war-metaphor-coronavirus/609049/">here</a>), including on The Conversation (<a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-if-we-are-in-a-war-against-covid-19-then-we-need-to-know-where-the-enemy-is-135274">here</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/stop-calling-coronavirus-pandemic-a-war-135486">here</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/war-metaphors-used-for-covid-19-are-compelling-but-also-dangerous-135406">here</a>). </p>
<p>But what distinguishes President Trump from other leaders who have used the same war analogy to mobilize their countries is that he has largely dismissed the painful aspect of the “war” by focusing directly on the “great victory” which, according to him, “will happen much earlier than expected” (<a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-press-conference-coronavirus-briefing-march-22-2020">March 22</a>) and “will take place quickly” (<a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-press-conference-coronavirus-briefing-march-18-2020">March 18</a>).</p>
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<p>Meanwhile he has continued to pit people against each other, ignoring that a pandemic requires global cooperation and medical solutions, not national and military ones, or even local ones where <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/03/24/scramble-medical-equipment-descends-into-chaos-us-states-hospitals-compete-rare-supplies/">states compete with each other</a> for medical supplies in an “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/31/new-york-andrew-cuomo-coronavirus-ventilators">eBay” style bidding war encouraged by the Federal government</a>. By presenting himself as a “wartime president” (<a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-press-conference-coronavirus-briefing-march-22-2020">March 22</a>) against a willful enemy who is “brilliant” or “very smart” (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J-ixpBt8g8">April 10</a>), Donald Trump has externalized responsibilities, blamed <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/19/trump-us-coronavirus-briefing-media">the media</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/04/14/trump-who-coronavirus-response/">international institutions</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE7Q1c8XoSE">political correctness</a> and <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/04/02/coronavirus-trump-hits-governors-says-andrew-cuomo-working-hard/5108421002/">the governors</a>.</p>
<p>So while the wording has changed, the intent has not. Each new metaphor allows him to change the narrative, deflect blame and cast himself as the Savior-in-Chief who has saved <a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-press-conference-coronavirus-briefing-april-13-2020">“tens of thousands of lives”</a> from the “foreign enemy.” Reality TV needs heroes. Trump desperately wants to be that hero. This script, though, doesn’t seem to fit that storyline despite <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUXsgVA8lN8">his best efforts</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/136796/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>An analysis of the expressions used by Donald Trump to designate Covid-19 sheds light on his political calculations and on the evolution of his relationship with China in recent weeks.Jérôme Viala-Gaudefroy, Assistant lecturer, CY Cergy Paris UniversitéDana Lindaman, Associate Professor of French Studies, University of Minnesota DuluthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1338912020-04-07T09:40:07Z2020-04-07T09:40:07ZHow conspiracy theories spread online – it’s not just down to algorithms<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325066/original/file-20200402-74904-dt9ss9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=667%2C0%2C4282%2C1274&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Thumbnails from "Alt-Right" YouTube channels. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/AltRightOpenIntelligenceInitiative">Digital Methods Initiative, 2017</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Debate has grown in recent years over the role that social media algorithms play in spreading conspiracy theories and extreme political content online. YouTube’s recommender algorithm has come under particularly severe scrutiny. A <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/08/technology/youtube-radical.html">number of exposés</a> have detailed how it <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0894439314555329">can take viewers</a> down a radicalisation rabbit hole. </p>
<p>While YouTube has certainly extended the reach of conspiracy theorists, it’s difficult to assess the objective role of algorithms in these radicalisation processes. But my own research has observed the way certain radical communities which congregate at the fringes of the web have managed to essentially manufacture conspiracy theories. These have, in turn, trended on social media. </p>
<p>In 2019, YouTube dramatically cleaned up its platform after coming under <a href="https://gijn.org/2019/10/28/how-they-did-it-exposing-right-wing-radicalization-on-youtube/">pressure from journalists</a>. It removed lucrative ad revenue and deleted entire channels – most notoriously the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IExFSpWI0xE">Infowars channel</a> of the US talk-radio host Alex Jones. </p>
<p>While a <a href="https://farid.berkeley.edu/downloads/publications/arxiv20.pdf">recent research paper</a> on this topic noted a corresponding overall decrease in conspiracy theory videos on YouTube, it also observed that the platform continued to recommend conspiratorial videos to viewers who had previously consumed such material. The findings indicate that plenty of potentially objectionable content remains on YouTube. However, they don’t necessarily support the argument that viewers are guided by algorithms down rabbit holes of ever-more conspiratorial content.</p>
<p>By contrast, another <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/1912.11211.pdf">recent study</a> of YouTube’s recommender algorithm found that conspiracy channels seemed to gain “zero traffic from recommendations”. While this particular study’s methodology generated <a href="https://twitter.com/random_walker/status/1211262124724510721">some debate</a> <a href="https://medium.com/@anna.zaitsev/response-to-critique-on-our-paper-algorithmic-extremism-examining-youtubes-rabbit-hole-of-8b53611ce903">back</a> and <a href="https://medium.com/@anna.zaitsev/response-to-further-critique-on-our-paper-algorithmic-extremism-examining-youtubes-rabbit-hole-af3226896203">forth</a>, the fact is that an accurate understanding of how these social media algorithms work is impossible. Their inner workings are a corporate secret known only to a few – and possibly even to no humans at all because the underlying mechanisms are so complex. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320763/original/file-20200316-128086-glagrj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320763/original/file-20200316-128086-glagrj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=200&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320763/original/file-20200316-128086-glagrj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=200&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320763/original/file-20200316-128086-glagrj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=200&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320763/original/file-20200316-128086-glagrj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320763/original/file-20200316-128086-glagrj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320763/original/file-20200316-128086-glagrj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>This article is part of a series tied to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/expert-guide-to-conspiracy-theories-83678">Expert guide to conspiracy theories</a>, a series by The Conversation’s The Anthill podcast. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/the-anthill-podcast-27460">Listen here</a>, on <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-anthill/id1114423002?mt=2">Apple Podcasts</a> or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/265Bnp4BgwaEmFv2QciIOC?si=-WMr1ecDTsO_6avrkxZu8g">Spotify</a>, or search for The Anthill wherever you get your podcasts.</em></p>
<h2>Not just cultural dopes</h2>
<p>The presumption that audiences are the passive recipients of media messages – that they are <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Studies_in_Ethnomethodology.html?id=OuwDc3vZ8OoC&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y">“cultural dopes”</a> easily subject to <a href="https://books.google.nl/books/about/Swift_Viewing.html?id=tCxD8qvjuowC&redir_esc=y">subliminal manipulation</a> – has a long popular history in the field of media and communications studies. It’s an argument that’s often popped up in conservative reactions to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNT4DikDdQw">heavy metal music</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j1dKluNZT8">video game violence</a>. </p>
<p>But by focusing on audiences as active participants rather than passive recipients we arguably gain greater insights into the complex media ecosystem within which conspiracy theories develop and propagate online. Often these move from <a href="https://podtail.com/en/podcast/intellectual-explorers-club/marc-tuters-the-deep-vernacular-web-and-the-great-/">the subcultural fringes of the deep web</a> to a more mainstream audience.</p>
<p>Conspiracy theories are an increasingly important method of <a href="https://www.hopenothate.org.uk/research/state-of-hate-reports/state-of-hate-2020/">indoctrination and extremist radicalisation</a>. At the same time, their adversarial logic also maps onto a populist style of political rhetoric that pits the general will of the people against a corrupt and ageing establishment elite. </p>
<p>A much more extreme version of this dynamic is also characteristic of right-wing anger against the perceived dominance of a <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=globalist+elite&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwi5yp2v4tXoAhVKlKQKHZjeBaoQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=globalist+elite&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzICCAA6BggAEAgQHjoGCAAQBRAeOgQIABAYUNM9WLNCYNBHaABwAHgAgAFEiAGfApIBATWYAQCgAQGqAQtnd3Mtd2l6LWltZw&sclient=img&ei=jyiMXvnGHcqokgWYvZfQCg&bih=925&biw=1919&safe=off">“globalist liberal elite”</a>. Such anger galvanised parts of the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330021744_LARPing_Liberal_Tears_Irony_Belief_and_Idiocy_in_the_Deep_Vernacular_Web_Online_Actions_and_Offline_Consequences_in_Europe_and_the_US">trolling subculture</a> associated with certain forums, message boards and microblogging social networks, in support of the presidential candidacy of <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=god+emperor+trump&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwiIzKP74tXoAhWDr6QKHdK_CQcQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=god+emperor&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQARgAMgIIADICCAAyAggAMgIIADICCAAyAggAMgIIADICCAAyAggAMgIIADoECAAQQzoGCAAQBRAeOgYIABAIEB5Q6bYDWODlA2Dh7QNoA3AAeAGAAY0BiAGcCpIBBDE5LjGYAQCgAQGqAQtnd3Mtd2l6LWltZw&sclient=img&ei=LimMXoj9OoPfkgXS_6Y4&bih=925&biw=1919&safe=off">Donald Trump</a>. </p>
<p>A common rhetorical technique used on the far-right political discussion forum of the anonymous message board 4chan has been to lump together all manifestations of this liberal, globalist elite into <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1461444819888746">a singular nebulous “other”</a>. Whether a perfidious individual, a shadowy organisation, or <a href="https://krisis.eu/nl/cultural-marxism/">a suspect way of thinking</a>, this conspiracy is imagined as something which undermines the interests of the ultra-nationalist community. These interests also tend to coincide with those of Trump as well as of the white race in general. </p>
<p>This far-right online community has an established record of <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781003026433/chapters/10.4324/9781003026433-18">propagating hatred</a>, and it has also produced two extremely bizarre and extremely successful pro-Trump conspiracy theories: Pizzagate and QAnon. </p>
<h2>Pizzagate</h2>
<p>Unlike the black boxes of corporate social media algorithms, 4chan datasets are easily captured and analysed, which has allowed us to study these conspiracy theories in order to identify the processes that brought them about. In both cases these conspiracy theories can be understood as the product of collective labour by amateur researchers congregating within these fringe communities who build up a theory by a process of referencing and citation. </p>
<p>Pizzagate was a bizarre theory connecting the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton to a child sex ring supposedly run out of a pizza parlour in Washington DC. <a href="http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/1422">It developed on 4chan</a> in the course of a single day, shortly before the November 2016 US election. What made Pizzagate new and unusual was how it seemed to emerge from the fringes of the web, at a safe distance from Trump’s own campaign. </p>
<p>Algorithms surely did play a part in spreading <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=%23Pizzagate&safe=off&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjC8uiv6dXoAhWP_KQKHU07ADAQ_AUoAXoECGoQAw&biw=1919&bih=925">#Pizzagate</a>. But more crucial to legitimising it was the <a href="https://books.google.nl/books?id=MVRuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA233&dq=The+Propaganda+Pipeline:+Hacking+the+Core+from+the+Periphery&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiXzdOt_MvoAhXBjKQKHf13AWQQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=The%20Propaganda%20Pipeline%3A%20Hacking%20the%20Core%20from%20the%20Periphery&f=false">way</a> elements of the story filtered through popular social media channels on Twitter and YouTube, including the Infowars channel of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=12&v=x_iixejTugc&feature=emb_title">Alex Jones</a></p>
<h2>QAnon</h2>
<p>A year later, at the outset of the investigation by Robert Mueller into alleged Russian collusion in the Trump campaign, a new conspiracy theory <a href="https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/QAnon-ScientometricsofConspiracyCreationTracingConspiracymakingon4Chan">once again emerged from 4chan</a>. It reworked some elements of the Pizzagate narrative and combined it together with <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=deep+state&safe=off&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjbiPLS6tXoAhVQ_qQKHQssBMUQ_AUoAXoECGsQAw&biw=1919&bih=925">“deep state”</a> conspiracy theories. What would in time simply become known as QAnon initially grew from a series of 4chan posts by a supposed government official with “Q level” security clearance.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325069/original/file-20200402-74904-1eptolx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325069/original/file-20200402-74904-1eptolx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325069/original/file-20200402-74904-1eptolx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325069/original/file-20200402-74904-1eptolx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325069/original/file-20200402-74904-1eptolx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325069/original/file-20200402-74904-1eptolx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325069/original/file-20200402-74904-1eptolx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325069/original/file-20200402-74904-1eptolx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Citation network that started the QAnon conspiracy theory on 4chan/pol/</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/QAnon-ScientometricsofConspiracyCreationTracingConspiracymakingon4Chan">Andrea Beneddti</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Often referred to by readers as “breadcrumbs”, these posts tended to simply ask open ended questions – such as “who controls the narrative?” “what is a map?” and “why is this relevant?”. Like medieval scholars engaged in interpretation of metaphysical texts, readers have constructed elaborate <a href="https://www.greatawakeningmap.co/news">illuminated manuscripts</a> and narrative compilations. One of these is currently an Amazon #1 bestseller in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/QAnon-Invitation-Great-Awakening-WWG1WGA-ebook/dp/B07PJZQ8PQ/ref=msx_wsirn_v1_2/140-3063620-6776660?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B07PJZQ8PQ&pd_rd_r=138e4ccc-6ae5-42bb-a1b2-196d3242bedf&pd_rd_w=c0bvn&pd_rd_wg=9CZIW&pf_rd_p=3187ad9b-122f-43f5-9fd5-75b35f775d85&pf_rd_r=18VMJTR0VS8SPM7CDB2G&psc=1&refRID=18VMJTR0VS8SPM7CDB2G">the category of “censorship”</a>.</p>
<p>The message here is that by focusing on the role of algorithms in amplifying the reach of conspiracy theories, we should be careful not to fall back on a patronising framework that imagines people as passive relays rather than <a href="https://books.google.nl/books?hl=en&lr=&id=-eTbAAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA381&dq=active+audiences+ang&ots=DcTTqcSKPl&sig=eMB1LMzEODXIWbs0wNvaeh5suCE#v=onepage&q=active%20audiences%20ang&f=false">active audiences</a> engaged in their own kind of research which propagates radically alternative interpretations of events. </p>
<p>The theory that social media algorithms lure people into conspiracy theories is difficult to definitively prove. But what’s clear is that a conspiratorial subculture with roots extending into the deep web now increasingly appears just below the surface of average people’s seemingly <a href="http://salhagen.nl/dmi19/normiefication">“normal” media consumption</a>. In the end, the real problem is less one of manipulation by algorithms than of political polarisation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/133891/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The author received funding from the ODYCCEUS Horizon 2020 project, grant agreement number 732942.</span></em></p>Researchers have been able to track how radical communities on the fringes of the web essentially manufacture conspiracy theories.Marc Tuters, Department of Media & Culture, Faculty of Humanities, University of AmsterdamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1323842020-02-24T12:30:56Z2020-02-24T12:30:56ZASIO chief Mike Burgess says there are more spies in Australia ‘than at the height of the cold war’<p>A foreign intelligence service sent a “sleeper” agent to Australia, who provided logistical support for visiting spies, the head of ASIO, Mike Burgess, has revealed, in a speech pledging to intensify the fight against the threat posed by espionage and foreign interference.</p>
<p>Delivering his first “annual threat assessment”, Burgess, who took over ASIO last year, warned: “There are more foreign intelligence officers and their proxies operating in Australia now than at the height of the cold war and many of them have the requisite level of capability, the intent and the persistence to cause significant harm to our national security”.</p>
<p>He said the “sleeper” agent “lay dormant for many years, quietly building community and business links, all the while secretly maintaining contact with his offshore handlers.</p>
<p>"The agent started feeding his spymasters information about Australia-based expatriate dissidents, which directly led to harassment of the dissidents in Australia and their relatives overseas.</p>
<p>"In exchange for significant cash payments, the agent also provided on-the-ground logistical support for spies who travelled to Australia to conduct intelligence activities”.</p>
<p>Burgess did not specify any particular countries conducting hostile operations here and indicated a number were in ASIO’s sights. “Australia is currently the target of sophisticated and persistent espionage and foreign interference activities from a range of nations.”</p>
<p>But interference from China - including its cyber attacks - has increasingly become the primary worry for the Australian government and intelligence community. China’s activities were a major driving force behind the foreign interference legislation brought in by the Turnbull government.</p>
<p>“The level of threat we face from foreign espionage and interference activities is currently unprecedented. It is higher now than it was at the height of the cold war,” Burgess said.</p>
<p>“Espionage and foreign interference are affecting parts of the community that they did not touch during the cold war.</p>
<p>"And the intent is to engineer fundamental shifts in Australia’s position in the world, not just to collect intelligence or use us as a potential ‘back-door’ into our allies and partners,” he said.</p>
<p>“ASIO has uncovered cases where foreign spies have travelled to Australia with the intention of setting up sophisticated hacking infrastructure targeting computers containing sensitive and classified information.</p>
<p>"We’ve seen visiting scientists and academics ingratiating themselves into university life with the aim of conducting clandestine intelligence collection. This strikes at the very heart of our notions of free and fair academic exchange.</p>
<p>"And perhaps most disturbingly, hostile intelligence services have directly threatened and intimidated Australians in this country. In one particular case, the agents threatened the physical safety of an Australia-based individual as part of a foreign interference plot”.</p>
<p>Hostile foreign intelligence services were being directed to target Australia because of its strategic position and alliances, its leadership in science and technology, the expertise across the economy and because it was retooling its defence force and defence industrial base.</p>
<p>“Hostile foreign intelligence agencies have always sought access to personal information because they want to identify and cultivate potential human sources”, Burgess said. Now they were recognising the opportunities presented by the internet and social networking applications.</p>
<p>“In the past, attempted recruitment was time-intensive, expensive and risky … But now, they can use the internet to work from the safety of their overseas headquarters to launch cyber operations against Australian networks and to send thousands of friend and networking requests to unsuspecting targets with the click of a mouse”.</p>
<p>Burgess said in the last few years ASIO had consistently detected and regularly disrupted espionage in Australia.</p>
<p>He welcomed the current “robust public discussion” about the threats to Australia’s safety and prosperity from espionage and foreign interference, and foresaw the foreign interference legislation becoming more important.</p>
<p>The mere passage of the foreign interference law had discomforted foreign intelligence services. Any future prosecution would have a “further chilling effect”.</p>
<p>But ASIO sought to act before damage was done, and had recommended visa cancellations to stop foreign agents coming and had intercepted agents when they had arrived.</p>
<p>“As Director-General of Security, I intend to step up our actions to counter espionage and foreign interference”, Burgess said.</p>
<p>“We will actively support the prosecution of espionage and foreign interference before the courts,” he said.</p>
<p>“My message here is simple. If you intend to conduct espionage or foreign interference against Australia, ASIO and our partners will be hunting you”.</p>
<p>In his speech Burgess reiterated the “unacceptably high” threat of terrorism that Australia faced would remain for the foreseeable future, saying “the number of terrorism leads we are investigating right now has doubled since this time last year”.</p>
<p>While violent Islamic extremism would remain the principal concern, “the extreme right wing threat is real and it is growing”.</p>
<p>“In suburbs around Australia, small cells regularly meet to salute Nazi flags, inspect weapons, train in combat and share their hateful ideology. These groups are more organised and security conscious than they were in previous years.”</p>
<p>He said earlier this year ASIO advice led to an Australian being stopped from leaving to fight with an extreme right wing group overseas.</p>
<p>“While these are small in number at this time in comparison to what we saw with foreign fighters heading to the Middle East, any development like this is very concerning”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/132384/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Mike Burgess, the head of ASIO, warns there are more foreign agents operating in Australia than at the height of the cold war - and many of them have the capability, intent, and persistence to cause significant harm.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1309682020-02-07T16:56:53Z2020-02-07T16:56:53ZTradwives: the women looking for a simpler past but grounded in the neoliberal present<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314199/original/file-20200207-27557-11lter3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=19%2C0%2C1578%2C1027&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Trad wives are drawn to retro 1950s images of women as "happy housewives"</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/42353480@N02/5757760150">Flikr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.thedarlingacademy.com/about/">Alena Petitt</a>, a well-known author and lifestyle blogger, has become the British face of the “Tradwife” movement, closely associated with the hashtag #TradWife. The movement harks back to an earlier era, encouraging women to take pleasure in traditional domestic duties while promoting feminine submissiveness, domesticity, and wifehood. </p>
<p>In a BBC clip, Petitt explains that her role is to submit to, serve, and spoil her husband “<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/stories-51113371/submitting-to-my-husband-like-it-s-1959-why-i-became-a-tradwife">like it’s 1959</a>”.</p>
<p>Writing on her website, <a href="https://www.thedarlingacademy.com/">The Darling Academy</a>, she adds that many women crave a “sense of belonging and home and quaintness,” and therefore choose to become homemakers where “husbands must always come first”.</p>
<p>Given its glorification of traditional femininity, the Tradwife movement is often framed in the media as a backlash against feminism. This can been seen in news stories featuring bitter disagreements between <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2020/jan/27/tradwives-new-trend-submissive-women-dark-heart-history">feminist critics</a> and women who embrace a tradwife identity.</p>
<h2>A choice as much as any</h2>
<p>This emphasis on “tradwives vs feminists” is sadly predictable. It fits the all-too-familiar trope of “catfighting” so often characterising <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14680777.2016.1193300?src=recsys&journalCode=rfms20">conversations about feminist politics</a> in the media. This framing, wittingly or unwittingly, identifies feminism as the problem, ignoring the larger structural issues at stake.</p>
<p>Rather than simply a backlash against feminism, the tradwife phenomenon needs to be understood as a symptom of – as well as a reaction to – the increasing insecurity of our times.</p>
<p>Tradwives often use the language of choice. They describe their decision to step off the treadmill of work as a “true calling” to be homemakers, mothers and wives. But even the most private of choices – like deciding to leave a career and become a full-time housewife – are always made within structural constraints. As one of us (Shani) shows in the book <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/heading-home/9780231184724">Heading Home</a>, these choices are always shaped by social, cultural, economic and political conditions.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1222276244731056130"}"></div></p>
<p>Many of the women in tradwife groups discuss the strain of working in demanding jobs and the difficulty of coming home to, what the American writer Arlie Hochschild has famously called, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=St_6kWcPJS8C&oi=fnd&pg=PT25&dq=arlie+hochschild+second+shift&ots=8G4Vj_u2g8&sig=Xks4yt2P-ifULvh4QCtwS13UtEQ#v=onepage&q=arlie%20hochschild%20second%20shift&f=false">the second shift</a>. This includes tending to children and household chores, as well as looking after elderly family members.</p>
<p>Petitt herself talks about how in her early twenties she was a driven career woman. Another self-identifying tradwife, <a href="https://www.stylist.co.uk/long-reads/traditional-1950s-housewife-tradwife-tradlife-explained-women-reject-feminism-careers-domestic-housework/315360">Jenny Smith</a> (pseudonym), recounts working long days as a finance administrator before dramatically changing course.</p>
<p>The current toxic always-on work culture must be understood as a key factor facilitating the rise of this retro-movement. As <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691179179/overload">overload work culture has become common</a> in many developed countries, governments have also been <a href="https://cpag.org.uk/sites/default/files/files/Austerity%20Generation%20FINAL.pdf">cutting vital resources</a> that help support families and communities. Combined with entrenched gendered social norms, the burden of care disproportionately falls on women. Even relatively privileged women therefore find it difficult to live up to the popular feminist ideal of “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-rise-of-neoliberal-feminism-9780190901226?cc=us&lang=en&">work-life balance</a>”.</p>
<p>So although at first blush the Tradwife movement may seem profoundly at odds with our times – particularly in the wake of movements likes MeToo and TimesUp – it is very much a product of the contemporary moment. The choices made by women who identify as tradwives may be presented as entirely personal. However, they are inseparable from the profound crisis of both work and care under neoliberal capitalism.</p>
<h2>Gaining control</h2>
<p>We live in a time when normative gender roles and dominant notions of sexuality have not only been challenged but are in flux. As such, reasserting a narrowly defined version of femininity may be a way for some women to gain a sense of control over their lives.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/B7vODBKnUvm","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>“Being a tradwife is empowering and has enabled me to take back control of my life,” explains <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-7926581/How-Tradwives-sacrifice-careers-satisfy-husbands-whim.html">Stacey McCall</a>. A 33-year old tradwife, she quit her job due to the pressures of her and her husband both working in demanding full-time jobs.</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, the movement is aligned with notions of <a href="https://www.thedarlingacademy.com/articles/national-cream-tea-day/">traditional</a> Britishness in the UK, and, as some have suggested, with the alt-right in the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/01/opinion/sunday/tradwives-women-alt-right.html">US</a>. Despite their nominal differences, however, both movements are united by a similar nostalgia for an imagined harmonious national past, which has a form of gender traditionalism at its heart.</p>
<p>Tradwife blogs and videos are filled with serene settings outside the world of neoliberal capitalist work. Retro 1950s images of women as “happy housewives” abound. Yet paradoxically, this nostalgic return to a simpler and better past is dependent on the very values that it seemingly rejects.</p>
<p>Tradwives like Alena Petitt in the UK and US blogger <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fascinating-Womanhood-Timeless-Andelin-Forsyth-ebook/dp/B07K7HR5B3">Dixie Andelin Forsyth</a> have become successful entrepreneurs who monetize their trad-wifehood. The movement, more generally, depends on savvy entrepreneurial women like these, who, through their social media activities, classes, courses, advice books, and products, advocate and popularise trad-wifehood as a desirable choice and identity.</p>
<p>Far from refusing neoliberal capitalism, the world of paid full-time labour or even what some consider feminist success, the Tradwife movement is deeply embedded in and indebted to all of them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130968/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Tradwife movement confounding feminist critics is a reaction to our overburdened times.Catherine Rottenberg, Associate Professor, University of NottinghamShani Orgad, Professor in Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political ScienceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1269472019-11-13T15:33:47Z2019-11-13T15:33:47ZUK election 2019: how the growing reach of alt-media is shaping the campaign<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301487/original/file-20191113-77300-dprle2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Competing voices: alt-media personalities Tom Harwood of Guido Fawkes, left, and Ash Sarkar of Novara Media.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Screenshot from Joe.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The UK media landscape features a new source of political coverage. Grouped together under the umbrella term “<a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/jimwaterson/the-rise-of-the-alt-left">alt-media</a>”, this new genre of political media is largely (but not exclusively) left-leaning and is a possible response to a mainstream press that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/may/15/tv-news-let-the-tories-fight-the-election-coalition-economy-taxation">largely presents the opposite ideological standpoint</a>.</p>
<p>Irrespective of their political alignment, <a href="https://www.thecanary.co/">The Canary</a>, <a href="https://order-order.com/">Guido Fawkes</a>, <a href="https://skwawkbox.org/">The Skwawkbox</a>, <a href="https://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.com/">Another Angry Voice</a> (AAV) and others are becoming increasingly influential. During the 2017 election campaign, for example, The Guardian <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/01/diy-political-websites-new-force-shaping-general-election-debate-canary">ran with the headline</a>: “DIY political websites: new force shaping the general election debate”. <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/jimwaterson/the-rise-of-the-alt-left">Elsewhere</a> it was claimed that articles on The Canary were viewed 500,000 times, with one piece on AAV attracting 1.5m hits.</p>
<p>Their editors and journalists are also becoming part of mainstream political discourse. <a href="https://novaramedia.com/tag/ash-sarkar/">Ash Sarkar from Novara Media</a> has appeared many times on Newsnight, Question Time and Good Morning Britain, while <a href="https://tomharwood.uk/">Tom Harwood from Guido Fawkes</a> has become similarly prominent.</p>
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<p>The alt-media’s relationship with the UK mainstream media is central to our research, which focuses on analysing how such sites go about their business – and to what effect. Our joint <a href="https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/view/1424572-rise-of-alternative-news-sources">Cardiff/Swansea University project</a> is currently analysing several years of alt-media content, before interviewing its journalists and audiences. We anticipate that our findings will be important for the sites themselves as well as for media regulators, not to mention the mainstream media that find themselves so regularly under scrutiny.</p>
<p>While these sites apparently revel in looking and sounding distinctively different from each other, they share a radical, partisan and uncompromising approach. Despite the fact that the motivation and stories behind their brands are unfamiliar to many, their eye-catchingly emphatic material is widely shared on social media. Many casual users of Twitter and Facebook, for example, may have read their content without realising where it originated.</p>
<h2>Alt-issues</h2>
<p>Analysing their social media activity offers some important insight into the issues and interpretations that are gaining the most traction in the early stages of the campaign. </p>
<p>Figure 1 (below) shows the level of activity across eight alt-media sites on Twitter and Facebook during the opening part of the campaign (November 3-10, 2019). The dark blue columns isolate how often tweets have been favourited and the light blue columns indicate total Twitter interactions. The red columns isolate Facebook page likes and the pink columns show total Facebook interactions, incorporating shares, reactions and comments.</p>
<p>If judged by interaction volume, right-wing Guido Fawkes dominates the Twitterscape – but, when added together, Evolve Politics, AAV, Novara Media, Skwawkbox and the Canary are busier on behalf of the left. Together, their interactions reach a total of just over 146,000 versus 97,001 for Guido Fawkes. </p>
<p>On Facebook, this left-wing dominance is even more emphatic. AAV is by far the most successful in getting its content shared, with over 81,000 total shares in the first week of the campaign. As BuzzFeed’s then political commentator Jim Waterson <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/jimwaterson/the-rise-of-the-alt-left">observed</a> in the 2017 election, “most mainstream news sites” would “kill” for such traffic. </p>
<p>No other alt-media sites come close to AAV in terms of Facebook interactions. But we found that fellow left-leaning sites The Canary and Evolve received far more traffic during the period than Conservative Woman, Breitbart and Guido Fawkes, which clearly prefer to spend time with their audience on Twitter. </p>
<h2>Shared content</h2>
<p>Our examination of the most shared content on alt-media sites reveals predominately negative coverage. Figure 2 (below) captures the key sentiments displayed towards the main parties and the mainstream media across the top five most interacted with Tweets and Facebook posts for the four most active sites. In this small sample, alt-media sites and audiences appear to show a preference for content that undermines political opponents and the mainstream media. </p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, given the greater activity in and around the left-leaning sites, the Conservatives received most negative sentiments. However, mainstream media are both supported and attacked, depending on the circumstances. On November 6, for example, an AAV tweet proclaimed its “solidarity” for the oft-maligned Sky News presenter Kay Burley and to “anyone else who dares face down the Tory bullies”, when she “empty-chaired” the Conservative Party chairman James Cleverly during a live broadcast. </p>
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<p>Unsurprising for an organisation which <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/jimwaterson/the-rise-of-the-alt-left">claims</a> that criticising the BBC’s political coverage is the key “traffic driver” for its site, the next day on Twitter, Evolve called it <a href="https://twitter.com/evolvepolitics/status/1192366038823948288">“astounding”</a> that the BBC featured an “ex-Labour nobody” to suggest that Jeremy Corbyn is unsuitable for high office, while ignoring the revelation by former Conservative chancellor Kenneth Clarke that he “can’t bring himself to vote Tory”. Indeed, Facebook negativity generally seems to gravitate towards the Conservatives and the mainstream media.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1192366038823948288"}"></div></p>
<p>So in terms of the new alt-media’s social media activity, the early campaign is negative, combative and one that in terms of activity, at least, the left might be winning. Who knows whether that may turn out to be a microcosm of the wider picture? </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300094/original/file-20191104-88372-xpdf2e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300094/original/file-20191104-88372-xpdf2e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300094/original/file-20191104-88372-xpdf2e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300094/original/file-20191104-88372-xpdf2e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300094/original/file-20191104-88372-xpdf2e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300094/original/file-20191104-88372-xpdf2e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300094/original/file-20191104-88372-xpdf2e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/the-daily-newsletter-2?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKGE2019&utm_content=GEBannerA">Click here to subscribe to our newsletter if you believe this election should be all about the facts.</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126947/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Thomas receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Declan McDowell-Naylor receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)</span></em></p>A new genre of political media is influencing people that mainstream commentators seem unable to reach.Richard Thomas, Senior Lecturer, Media & Communication, Swansea UniversityDeclan McDowell-Naylor, Research Associate, School of Journalism, Media and Culture, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1250542019-10-20T19:05:48Z2019-10-20T19:05:48ZThe Trump presidency should not be shocking. It’s a symptom of our cultural malaise<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297033/original/file-20191015-98657-1kbbxd8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It's a mistake to see Trump as unique or his success as something that could only occur in America.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pete Marovich/Pool/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>During the 2016 US presidential campaign, people around the world were regularly reassured by election experts that Donald Trump was too outrageous to be elected president. </p>
<p>Reflecting this conventional wisdom, Hilary Clinton campaign’s central message seemed to be: “seriously?”. </p>
<p>In other words, we were constantly told that Trump was too offensive, ignorant and dangerous to be chosen to lead the US. But this political interpretation tended to miss how American popular culture had created the conditions for a character like Trump to upend the mannered and formulaic presidential selection process. </p>
<p>In many ways, the Trump campaign was politics catching up with popular culture.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297785/original/file-20191019-56228-5w3chj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297785/original/file-20191019-56228-5w3chj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297785/original/file-20191019-56228-5w3chj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297785/original/file-20191019-56228-5w3chj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297785/original/file-20191019-56228-5w3chj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297785/original/file-20191019-56228-5w3chj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297785/original/file-20191019-56228-5w3chj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Trump told a rally in Dallas last week: ‘It’s much easier being presidential … All you have to do is act like a stiff.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Larry W. Smith/EPA</span></span>
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<h2>Trump’s embrace of the worst parts of pop culture</h2>
<p>In my new book, <a href="https://gleebooks.worldsecuresystems.com/BookingRetrieve.aspx?ID=318620">Anti-Americanism and American Exceptionalism</a>, I argue that it is a mistake to see Trump as unique or his success as something that could only occur in America. </p>
<p>Trump-like behaviour is all around us. His narcissism, bullying, misogyny, racism, populism and tendency to play the victim is all too commonplace – and these are certainly not just American problems. </p>
<p>What is exceptional is that American politics tends to be more pretentious and has a greater sense of self-importance than politics elsewhere. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-impeachment-inquiry-might-affect-trumps-2020-re-election-chances-124424">How the impeachment inquiry might affect Trump's 2020 re-election chances</a>
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<p>Trump snubbed the pretentiousness and faux politeness of the US political system with a devil-may-care attitude, and in so doing made presidential politics more like Westminster parliamentary politics with its name-calling and bravado. </p>
<p>Trump has also taken the worst lessons from popular culture and used them to his advantage. </p>
<p>He turned the second presidential debate, for instance, into a version of The Jerry Springer Show by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/10/us/politics/bill-clinton-accusers.html">inviting three women who had accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault</a> to sit in the audience. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297036/original/file-20191015-98653-n5dyq4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297036/original/file-20191015-98653-n5dyq4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297036/original/file-20191015-98653-n5dyq4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297036/original/file-20191015-98653-n5dyq4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297036/original/file-20191015-98653-n5dyq4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297036/original/file-20191015-98653-n5dyq4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297036/original/file-20191015-98653-n5dyq4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Trump attempted to deflect attention from the Access Hollywood tapes with an attention-grabbing stunt at his second debate with Hillary Clinton.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andrew Gombert/EPA</span></span>
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<p>Over <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2018/06/20/jerry-springer-show-exit/720075002/">4,000 episodes</a>, Springer had used traumatic cases like these to entertain and distract daytime television viewers. This is far from just an American ploy as radio shock-jocks like Alan Jones in Australia are well-practised at using victims for their own purposes.</p>
<p>In the wake of the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-recorded-having-extremely-lewd-conversation-about-women-in-2005/2016/10/07/3b9ce776-8cb4-11e6-bf8a-3d26847eeed4_story.html">Access Hollywood tapes</a>, Trump drew from Springer’s playbook and turned one of the most important testing grounds in American politics into a crass reality television drama. By inviting Clinton’s accusers, his intention was to make this claim: Hillary’s husband is worse than I am. </p>
<p>Hardly caring to answer the serious questions posed during the debate, Trump also ventured that <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2016-presidential-debates/4">Hillary Clinton “would be in jail”</a> if he was president, echoing the notorious “lock her up” chants at his rallies.</p>
<p>This mocking campaign style – which has continued throughout his presidency – has had real and grave consequences. However, it was far more in touch with the spirit of the times than is usually admitted.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/8-reasons-why-impeaching-donald-trump-is-a-big-risk-for-the-democrats-and-3-reasons-why-its-not-124154">8 reasons why impeaching Donald Trump is a big risk for the Democrats (and 3 reasons why it's not)</a>
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<h2>A symptom of widespread cultural malaise</h2>
<p>Trump’s constant self-promotion and trolling of opponents is not only utterly familiar, it’s emblematic of narcissistic 21st century culture. He is certainly more culturally familiar than Hillary Clinton with her lifelong dedication to public service and understanding of complex public policy issues. </p>
<p>The Trump phenomenon is politics subsumed by popular culture. During the 2016 campaign, he lived by the entertainment industry maxim that you can get away with almost anything as long as you’re not boring. </p>
<p>Part of the media’s watchdog role relies on accountability, ethics and the law being central to politics. However, this understanding is undermined when politics is reduced to a popularity contest and increasingly resembles the anything-goes ethos of popular culture.</p>
<p>If we view Trump as a product of popular culture, then he is clearly a symptom of a cultural malaise rather than a radical departure from it. </p>
<p>Given this, it has been intriguing to watch The New York Times, CNN and other traditional media outlets react with endless shock and horror to Trump, as if they had never seen anything like him.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1185387696883142656"}"></div></p>
<p>One of the other many curiosities of the Trump era is that <a href="https://www.potus.com/presidential-facts/age-at-inauguration/">the oldest person ever to be elected US president</a> quickly mastered the dark arts of Twitter and has strong appeal with a tech-savvy male youth subculture, which has made shock, conspiracies, misogyny, racism, trolling and bullying supposedly funny and transgressive. </p>
<p>New information technologies haven’t just fuelled greater understanding in the world – as some of the utopian founders of the internet had hoped – they have also given more power to the obnoxious and ill-informed. </p>
<p>Once you engage with this online culture, it is clear that Trump is part of a disturbingly widespread cultural backlash rather than being a unique phenomenon.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-the-united-states-on-the-brink-of-a-revolution-123244">Is the United States on the brink of a revolution?</a>
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<p>One sign of this is how much less critical Trump has been of white nationalists than any president in the post-civil rights era. By <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/trump-defends-white-nationalist-protesters-some-very-fine-people-on-both-sides/537012/">delaying and obfuscating his criticisms</a>, he has encouraged those on the alt-right to believe their voices are being heard.</p>
<p>How we got to this sorry place is that the shock culture that pervades right-wing talk radio hosts, Fox News and 4Chan all made Trump’s alt-right presidency possible. </p>
<p>With the next presidential election looming, it is time to take these popular but often insensitive cultural and political developments that helped Trump come to power very seriously. These cultural trends are on the rise and require resistance as they degrade our personal lives and political culture.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125054/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brendon O'Connor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Trump lives by the maxim that you can get away with almost anything as long as you’re not boring. This doesn’t make him an outlier – he’s emblematic of our contemporary pop culture.Brendon O'Connor, Associate Professor in American Politics at the United States Studies Centre, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1227172019-10-02T20:04:38Z2019-10-02T20:04:38ZAustralia isn’t taking the national security threat from far-right extremism seriously enough<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295168/original/file-20191002-101512-qyece5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=934%2C0%2C4742%2C3035&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Christchurch attack is a clear signal we need to change our approach to both hateful extremism and toxic political discourse in Australia.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Alexander/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This is part of a new series looking at the national security challenges facing Australia, how our leaders are responding to them through legislation and how these measures are impacting society. Read the rest of the series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/australias-security-state-77051">here</a>.</em></p>
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<p>Until the <a href="https://theconversation.com/nz/topics/christchurch-terror-attack-68330">terror attack in Christchurch</a> in March, the threat of far-right terrorism in Australia was one we knew was coming, but believed was well over the horizon. </p>
<p>The sordid story of the Christchurch attacker – “ordinary Australian” turned hateful bigot turned mass-murdering terrorist – contains some uncomfortable truths for our country, not least of which is the fact that the threat of far-right extremism has arrived in the here and now. </p>
<p>Just as troubling, yet even more challenging because it is so insidious, are the clear links between the Christchurch shooter’s motivations and our mainstream political discourse. Facing up to this threat requires us changing our approach both to hateful extremism and toxic political discourse.</p>
<p>Police and counter-terrorism officials have long been warning us of the rising threat of far-right violent extremism. Over the past decade, this has emerged as the <a href="https://www.adl.org/news/press-releases/right-wing-extremism-linked-to-every-2018-extremist-murder-in-the-us-adl-finds">number one terrorist threat in America</a> and a <a href="https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/181119_RightWingTerrorism_layout_FINAL.pdf">persistent</a> and <a href="https://time.com/5681199/uk-far-right-terrorism/">growing threat</a> in Europe.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/christchurch-attacks-are-a-stark-warning-of-toxic-political-environment-that-allows-hate-to-flourish-113662">Christchurch attacks are a stark warning of toxic political environment that allows hate to flourish</a>
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<p>It’s tempting to say that had more resources been committed to tracking and monitoring far-right groups and individuals in Australia, the Christchurch terrorist perhaps could have been stopped. </p>
<p>But even in hindsight, things are not so clear. The Christchurch gunman was a lone actor with no previous history of significant violence, although his <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/the-killer-within-brenton-tarrants-online-fantasy-reallife-horror/news-story/295609c73561cb9e8f6a2a31cc66015b">involvement in hateful extremism</a> was well-known to family and friends.</p>
<p>This is the particular threat that keeps counter-terrorism experts awake at night, when so-called “<a href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1609777,00.html">cleanskins</a>” (people with ostensibly spotless records) turn into lone-actor terrorists.</p>
<h2>We are flying blind on far-right extremism</h2>
<p>One clear lesson from Christchurch is that we need to pay more attention to hate speech and hate crimes. </p>
<p>It is true that “<a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/inside-the-shit-posting-subculture-the-christchurch-shooter-belonged-to-20190317-p514xt.html">shit-posting</a>” is a common occurrence on social media, and among all those people spouting off, it is extremely difficult to see who might become a violent extremist. </p>
<p>But clearly, we don’t understand the world of far-right extremism nearly as well as we should. We need a better way of monitoring and tracking far-right forums, social networks and the links between far-right individuals through their histories of travel and extremist communications. </p>
<p>We also have <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/language/english/australia-has-no-national-hate-crime-database-but-here-s-how-to-build-one">no centralised, national database of hate incidents</a>. Hate crimes remain under-reported, poorly documented and de-prioritised to low levels of state policing. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/right-wing-extremism-has-a-long-history-in-australia-113842">Right-wing extremism has a long history in Australia</a>
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<p>The result is that we are flying blind. We don’t get to see the patterns between far-right groups and internet “shit-posters” because we are not collecting the data. </p>
<p>If we made it a priority at the state and federal level to document hate incidents, whether crimes or not, we would at least have a sense of when and where the problem is growing and who is most significantly involved.</p>
<p>This wouldn’t eliminate the threat of far-right extremism, but it might help stop the next massacre and it would certainly contribute to making Australian society more healthy, welcoming and just.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295171/original/file-20191002-101512-7tnpq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295171/original/file-20191002-101512-7tnpq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295171/original/file-20191002-101512-7tnpq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295171/original/file-20191002-101512-7tnpq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295171/original/file-20191002-101512-7tnpq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295171/original/file-20191002-101512-7tnpq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295171/original/file-20191002-101512-7tnpq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Anti-immigrant protesters at a Reclaim Australia rally in Sydney in 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Moir/AAP</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>A disproportionate focus on Islamist terror threats</h2>
<p>The September 11 attacks in America, and subsequent attacks by al-Qaeda in Bali, Madrid, London and elsewhere, triggered an enormous investment in counter-terrorism efforts in Australia. </p>
<p>This had barely begun to abate when the formation of the Islamic State (IS) caliphate in mid-2014 alerted us to the high rates of terror recruitment in Australia and prompted the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-12/australia-increases-terrorism-threat-level/5739466">raising of the national terrorism alert</a> to the penultimate level in September 2014. </p>
<p>An intercepted phone call then triggered Australia’s <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com.au/suspects-in-terror-raids-planned-random-acts-against-members-of-the-public-2014-9">largest-ever counter-terrorism operation</a>. Shortly afterward, the Islamic State issued a call for random lone-actor attacks around the world and, within days, an 18-year-old launched a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/jul/31/numan-haider-inquest-finds-police-had-no-choice-but-to-shoot-radicalised-teenager">knife attack against two police officers in Melbourne</a>. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-has-enacted-82-anti-terror-laws-since-2001-but-tough-laws-alone-cant-eliminate-terrorism-123521">Australia has enacted 82 anti-terror laws since 2001. But tough laws alone can't eliminate terrorism</a>
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<p>These circumstances have led to <a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-has-enacted-82-anti-terror-laws-since-2001-but-tough-laws-alone-cant-eliminate-terrorism-123521">82 counter-terrorism laws being enacted in Australia</a> since 2001, and <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/BriefingBook45p/ViolentExtremism">16 counter-terrorism operations since 2014</a>, almost all of which have been responding to the threat posed by violent Islamist groups like al-Qaeda and IS. </p>
<p>This perception of the increased threat posed by these groups has resulted in a disproportionate investment in counter-terrorism compared with <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life-and-relationships/terrorism-is-rare-but-intimate-partner-violence-is-an-everyday-event-20190208-p50wki.html">the response to the much greater threat posed by domestic violence</a>. </p>
<p>At the same time, however, very little has been invested in preventative counter-terrorism measures, including countering far-right extremism. </p>
<h2>A national discourse bound up in fear</h2>
<p>We pride ourselves on being <a href="https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/mca/Statements/english-multicultural-statement.pdf">the world’s most successful multicultural society</a>, yet we consistently turn a deaf ear to those who come up against hatred. </p>
<p>Just last month, for example, a <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace/eight-out-of-10-asian-australians-experience-discrimination-survey-20190920-p52tfp.html">new national survey</a> found that 82% of Asian Australians, 81% of Australians of Middle Eastern background and 71% of Indigenous Australians had experienced some form of discrimination.</p>
<p>One reason why we are not yet ready to face up to this problem is that our national political discourse has for decades become bound up with the politics of fear, “othering”, and scapegoating minority communities. </p>
<p>When we demonise “illegal arrivals” and give license to the toxic rhetoric that we are being “swamped by Asians”, as <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/pauline-hansons-1996-maiden-speech-to-parliament-full-transcript-20160915-grgjv3.html">Pauline Hanson put it in the late 1990s</a>, or more recently “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/video/2016/sep/14/pauline-hanson-australia-in-danger-of-being-swamped-by-muslims-video">flooded by Muslims</a>”, then we are buying into the core element of the narrative of terrorists like the Christchurch gunman.</p>
<p>In his manifesto, the gunman referenced the far-right extremist trope of “<a href="https://www.gq.com/story/white-replacement-conspiracy-theory">the great replacement</a>” –
the fear that white Christian society is being overrun by brown-skinned, non-Christian people who are changing its culture and society irrevocably. </p>
<p>He picked up this idea from parts of Europe where there is strong antagonism to migrants and Muslims. But he referenced it directly from the writings of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/03/world/white-extremist-terrorism-christchurch.html">Norwegian far-right terrorist</a> who shot dead 69 people and blew up another eight in July 2011. </p>
<p>This same argument featured in the manifesto of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/22/us/walmart-el-paso.html">El Paso gunman</a> who murdered 22 people at a Walmart store in Texas last month. In it, he <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/juliareinstein/people-killed-shooting-el-paso-wal-mart-custody">praised the Christchurch shooter</a> and warned of a “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/05/great-replacement-theory-alt-right-killers-el-paso">Hispanic invasion</a>” of Texas.</p>
<p>These alt-right terrorists are driven in part <a href="https://theconversation.com/christchurch-attacks-are-a-stark-warning-of-toxic-political-environment-that-allows-hate-to-flourish-113662">by a fantasy</a> of going from “zero to hero” in the alt-right internet world and becoming renowned as “warrior defenders”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295173/original/file-20191002-101499-1cywn4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295173/original/file-20191002-101499-1cywn4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=332&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295173/original/file-20191002-101499-1cywn4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=332&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295173/original/file-20191002-101499-1cywn4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=332&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295173/original/file-20191002-101499-1cywn4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295173/original/file-20191002-101499-1cywn4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295173/original/file-20191002-101499-1cywn4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">White nationalist manifestos are a recurring feature of far-right extremist attacks, like the one in El Paso this year.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Larry W. Smith/EPA</span></span>
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<h2>Prioritising far-right extremism</h2>
<p>Prior to Christchurch, kicking the can down the road and prioritising other threats to our national security seemed an understandable, if not ideal response. </p>
<p>We now need to face the reality that of 50 terrorism-related deaths in the US last year, <a href="https://www.adl.org/news/press-releases/right-wing-extremism-linked-to-every-2018-extremist-murder-in-the-us-adl-finds">almost all involved far-right extremism</a>. (Only one was linked to jihadi terrorism.) This is a pattern that’s been established for decades now. In fact, <a href="https://www.adl.org/news/press-releases/right-wing-extremism-linked-to-every-2018-extremist-murder-in-the-us-adl-finds">nearly three-quarters of all terrorist deaths in the US</a> over the past decade have been linked to far-right extremism. </p>
<p>And while there is reason to hope the problem will never become quite so serious in Australia (despite the fact an Australian far-right extremist has murdered 51 people in another country), we need to do what we can now to counter the rise of hate speech and hate crimes – not later. </p>
<p>There are no quick fixes or guaranteed solutions, but these steps will make society better in ways that go far beyond the immediate threat of another terrorist attack.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122717/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Greg Barton is engaged in a range of projects working to understand and counter violent extremism in Australia and in Southeast Asia that are funded by the Australian government.</span></em></p>To understand the threat better, we need to devote more resources to monitoring and tracking far-right forums and social networks and a national database tracking hate crimes.Greg Barton, Chair in Global Islamic Politics, Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.