Thread by @StefSimanowitz

"If you're interested, & I'll fund it somehow, I think you're the perfect guy, what we'd like to do is help knit together a populist nationalist movement throughout the world."

Bannon talking to @Nigel_Farage re alliance with Orban, Sisi, Modi & Duterte.

“Paradoxically, this generation of populist nationalists leads the way on international political cooperation.”

@Elif_Safak adds more to #Bannon’s list: Erdoğan in Turkey, Abascal in Spain, Salvini in Italy & far right parties in Poland, France & Austria. google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theg…

This was filmed in 2017 & is taken from the new documentary about Bannon, @TheBrinkFilm.

There's a moment in this clip when Farage looks towards the camera, clearly thinking: "I'm being filmed conspiring with a far-right extremist. If this ever gets out it won't look good."

"Take out the sword & throw away the scabbard," #SteveBannon.

When Europe's house is on fire, US nationalists will have achieved their goal. In the words of poet John Milton "It is better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven." #Farage #Brexit #BBCQT

In 2017, Steve Bannon invited @Nigel_Farage to join a "convening authority" of populists: "Guys in Egypt are coming to me, Modi’s guys in India, Duterte & we get Orbán."

Today, #Modi won by a landslide & far-right parties are buoyant ahead of #EUElections theguardian.com/politics/2019/…

Farage wins in the UK.
Salvini wins in Italy.
Le Pen wins in France.
Orbán wins in Hungary.

“If you’re surprised by the rise of the right, then you weren’t paying attention.” @garyyounge

#EuropeanElections2019 #EuElection2019 #EuropeanElectionResults theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

The right-wing PiS also won in Poland BUT it’s not all bad news.

The vote for the AfD in Germany & Vox in Spain are both down from the parliamentary elections & Geert Wilders’ PVV in Netherlands got 0 seats.

The #GreenWave is also an exciting development driven by young people.

Ahead of the #EuropeanElections, virtually all Hungary's newspapers (including regional ones), ran the same front page interview with Orbán.

A recent report found 77.8% of political/public affairs media is financed by sources decided by ruling Fidesz party. Pic via @andras_hont

Camus, writes allegorically in The Plague: “The plague bacillus never dies or disappears for good: it can lie dormant for years…& perhaps the day will come when, for the bane and the enlightening of men, it will rouse up its rats again & send them forth to die in a happy city.”

Carole Cadwalla describes the Brexit Party as “the latest host body for Farage - the tapeworm of British politics.”

But it is important to remember populist nationalist leaders are not merely parasites.

They also act as host bodies for the contagion of fascism & extremism.

British far-right extremists are being funded by international networks. New research by @RUSI_org finds that "Tommy Robinson", Generation Identity & National Action are among the British actors profiting from “international connectivity”. #EverydayFascism independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-n…

I only found out about Generation Identity & the Identitarian Movement last year after seeing them on a #Brexit march.

They're a racist movement who want ‘ethnopluralism’ (segregation on racial lines).

Check out this undercover investigation by @AJIunit

https://twitter.com/StefSimanowitz/status/1071803206794137601

Nigel Farage, who was filmed discussing how to "knit together a populist nationalist network throughout the world" with Steve Bannon, has arrived for a closed-door meeting with #Trump at US Ambassadors residence. #DonaldTrump (Photo - David Mirzoeff/PA). #TrumpUKVisit #TrumpInUK

On the day we mark #Dday75 & the defeat of Nazism, the @guardian's Steve Bannon film by @timtravershawk & @PaulLewis, wins at @DIGawards.

Watch here .

At 18mins Bannon is joined by @RaheemKassam, his "head guy in Europe" & former top aide to @Nigel_Farage

"There is a mutually beneficial relationship between the far right & the press."

In the 1920s, the membership of the KKK exploded thanks coverage in the media.

#Bannon, #Farage, #TommyRobinson are aware of this.
Our media must stop normalizing extremism. theguardian.com/world/2018/mar…

That favourite hypotheical: "What would I have done in 1930's Germany, to fight the rise of fascism?", is no longer a hypothetical.

Yet #Bannon has been interviewed by @BBCr4today, @BBCNewsnight @GMB @LBC @piersmorgan @cnbc @nytimes @ft @cnn @TheEconomist

https://twitter.com/StefSimanowitz/status/1030856863741628417

How to beat online neo-Nazis?

We need an ideologically agnostic int'l definition of terrorism that includes loose far-right networks. Govts need to look beyond big tech platforms & tackle the migration of extremists to smaller alt-tech sites. @julie_renbe theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

@Nigel_Farage “The west is being destroyed, not by migrants, but by the fear of migrants. The ghosts of the fascists have rematerialised & are sitting in our parliaments."

From #Trump to #Orban, politicians are winning votes by stoking age-old suspicions.
@suketumehta theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/a…

Who funds the far-right?

@BuzzFeed reveal secret audio recording of a meeting btw 3 senior Russian operatives & a close aide to Italy's Deputy PM, Matteo Salvini, negotiating a plan to pump money from a Russian oil deal into Salvini’s far-right Lega party buzzfeednews.com/article/albert…

Today, the Indian ambassador to the United States - @harshvshringla - tweeted this picture of himself with Steve Bannon who he described as “the legendary ideologue and Dharma warrior, an avid follower of the Bhagavad Gita.”

He later deleted the tweet.
thediplomat.com/2017/02/steve-…

”Boris Johnson is one of the most important persons on the world stage,” said Steve Bannon in 2018.

He met @BorisJohnson properly after Trump’s victory & says he’s been in direct contact with him (“talking all weekend”), @michaelgove & @Jacob_Rees_Mogg

“Polish society is very, very deeply divided,” former President Kwaśniewski.

#Poland's ruling populist right-wing Law and Justice Party (PiS), led by Jarosław Kaczyński, has extended its parliamentary majority in yesterday’s general election. #polandvotes #polandelection #polsk

In his new book, ‘Mindf*ck’, Cambridge Analytica whistleblower @chrisinsilico describes how he built a “psychological warfare tool” for Steve Bannon, designed to use big data & social media to drive open cracks in societies & hollow out democracies.

This scandal isn’t just about Cambridge Analytica’s ill-gotten data or @Facebook’s failure to protect it. It’s about the fact that the entire business model of Silicon Valley has monetised & incentivized the use of personal data to manipulate behaviour.

Ystdy, 1.42 million ppl in #Poland voted for the FAR-RIGHT Confederation, whose platform is openly homophobic, anti-Semitic & anti-immigrant.

It’s leader, Janusz Korwin-Mikke, claims that women are less intelligent than men & was suspended from the EP after giving a Nazi salute.

In the UK, the Vote Leave #Brexit campaign, run by Dominic Cummings with @BorisJohnson as it’s figurehead & @michaelgove as its chair, funnelled money to AIQ in Canada, an offshoot of #CambridgeAnalytica whose VP is Steve Bannon & founder is Robert Mercer.

The investigation into #CambridgeAnalytica was tugging at a loose thread that is connected to the very fabric of our society.

This scandal is not just about #Facebook, #Trump, #Brexit, #VoteLeave etc.

It is about the way corporate power subverts our democracy to its own ends.

Two weeks ago, 1.42 million people in #Poland voted for a openly homophobic, anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, far-right party.

Today, 23.6% of voters in the #German state of #Thuringia voted for a party whose top candidate a court ruled can legally be called a ‘fascist’. #Itwth19