Thread by @bobfrombrockley

NEW POST: Why horseshoe theory is nonsense brockley.blogspot.com/2019/03/why-ho…

This post cites @transform6789 @nberlat @Pabloite @DavidVickrey1 @areidross @Three_Way_Fight @cberlet

https://twitter.com/bobfrombrockley/status/1106149684668710913?s=21

cc @FFRAFAction @therubykid @slackbastard

I’m going to tweet out the main points of my new blogpost as a thread, as that’s what people do these days.

1. Horseshoe theory is not a theory. It explains nothing.

brockley.blogspot.com/2019/03/why-ho…

2. Horseshoe theory reduces politics to a left-right line. Making the line bend a bit doesn’t make it fit reality better. (That’s why the political compass makes a bit more sense, as it recognises politics is multidimensional, and more so all the time.)

3. Horseshoe theory sees politics from the perspective of the centre. It’s a way of making the mainstream feel good about itself.

4. Horseshoe theory erases libertarian leftism. Libertarians at the furthest edge of the left have been the most consistent anti-totalitarians.

5. Horseshoe theory erases the anti-fascism of the left and the anti-communism of the right. Anti-fascism binds the left; anti-communism binds the right; and the best anti-Stalinists have been on the left.

6. The centre has been susceptible to the fascist creep too, from Oswald Mosley to the “third way” idea to Jenny Tonge.

7. Other theories are available, including confusionism, querfront, red-brown alliance, unorthodox fascism, the fascist creep, and the big bro-Nazi crib.

8. Left-right convergence makes more sense if you see it as a deliberate strategy of the far right, rather than as an inevitable drift at the extremes.

9. In a multipolar world, left-right convergence has been weaponised geopolitically, especially by Russia as part of its soft power strategy.

Finally, 10. We need to inoculate our movements against the fascist drift. We need to draw and hold clear lines against racism, nationalism and conspiracy theories. brockley.blogspot.com/2019/03/why-ho…

Okay thread over. That was harder than I thought it would be.

I posted something yesterday about horseshoe theory. I think the most flawed & underdeveloped bit was about centrism (no.6). See @twlldun’s replies to the original tweet in this thread. Here @almodozo sketches a more robust take:

https://twitter.com/almodozo/status/1106362897679163397?s=21

I didn’t expect the thread/post above to be so grimly relevant today in light if the awful Christchurch shooting, but this is very striking:

https://twitter.com/im_pulse/status/1106411900093583361?s=21