Thread by @OzKaterji

The thing is about Aaron Bastani is that he's a genius. He knows exactly what to say to piss people off. He knows he can be bigoted, offensive, borderline racist & misogynist & that nobody can touch him. He is in no danger of losing his job or his position of influence with LOTO

He has taken the far-right shock jock model, the kind of thing Katie Hopkins built a career off, and created a pseudo-left wing version of it. It has pushed Novara Media into the spotlight countless times, far more than any of the private school Oxbridge kids they have on there.

So he can praise Nazi command economics, dismiss claims of anti-semitism, endorse Assad supporters, share conspiracy theories and mock disabled veterans knowing that no matter how justifiably angry people get, it only gives him a bigger platform.

Anyone getting angry is just a "centrist melt" and should be laughed at, even when he is perpetuating racist ideas. The more sensible people around him are fully aware of this and are riding his coat tails all the way to every paid TV appearance they can. It's Populism 101.

By the time he was posting photographs of intimidating messages left anonymously on the desks of female MPs and receiving no punishment for it, it was pretty clear to see that senior figures were perfectly comfortable with this behaviour as a form of political campaigning.

What's the answer to this? There is no effective answer besides no-platforming, and he has established his own platform, which makes that very difficult to accomplish. And nobody around him has any desire to stop that gravy train either.

But here's the thing, all of these guys are now fully invested in one man becoming Prime Minister. If that project fails, so do their careers. And if that project fails, and the party changes course, they will find themselves in the same position Militant did in the 80s.

It took a lawsuit and getting fired from every far-right friendly media outlet in the country for Katie Hopkins to finally lose the power of outrage she had weaponised for her political and personal financial gain.

For Bastani, the only thing that will damage his platform is a significant electoral defeat for the candidate he has backed, followed by a change in leadership, to the point that his opinion is no longer seen by the wider public as being representative of the Labour leadership.

On the other hand, if his side sweeps to power, his offensive diatribes move from the position of opposition, to the position of targeting perceived enemies of the state. It's hard to see the funny side of this to be perfectly honest with you.