I’m at a talk at UC Berkeley by Andrew Marantz, author of the book in the link. The Chancellor of the school let him embed with them during 2017 and with social media companies as well. I’ll tweet if there’s anything interesting penguinrandomhouse.com/books/562022/a…
People next to me are pretty impressed that he spent time with a bunch of alt-right/alt-lite types. One of the people next to me said “wow.” I don’t know why I’m writing this.
He’s talking about a guy in the OC who made memes about Hillary looking sickly and subliminally associating her w/disease
This propagandist made his propaganda filter up thru drudge to hannity et al. Marantz says the guy had a “substantive critique” of Clinton but social media thrives on emotion, not arguments
lol the dean of the j-school is here by the way. Do I have to disclose that for transparency? 
Also that’s the book
Marantz talks about the “techno-utopians” (Zucc et al) “Greed, naïveté, drinking their own kool-aid” is how he describes them. He says they never went deeper in their assumptions than American exceptionalism, rugged individualism and the marketplace of ideas rhetoric
Here’s his profile of Mike Penovic or whatever his name is. Thanks to @danieleharper for the link! newyorker.com/magazine/2017/…
The Chancellor of UC Berkeley, Carol Christ, says the alt-right “doesn’t impinge on my lived reality at all.” Christ spent upward of $4 million to provide security for alt-right speakers. huge thanks to @iambeale for writing the copy on this tweet
Marantz is asked if there’s an analogous movement on the left. He says no. America was founded on white supremacy and that’s always been a tool leveraged by the right wing. “It wouldn’t be the same book with all the proper bounds flipped.”
My old dean says he wasn’t sure if Marantz “wasn’t succumbing” to the alt-right’s hype about itself. Andy says “he forgot that Fox News fucking hated Trump until he won the nomination.”
My dean also said half the pre-Charlottesville alt-right “were Jewish.” Really fucking cool school I went to.
My dean also baselessly says that the current “insurgent” nativist right wing lost power as soon as Trump took office lol.
“So you think culture explains why districts” that voted for Obama turned around and voted for Trump” my dean says. “culture doesn’t just mean what music you like” Marantz says.
“Of course [Nazis] are fringe and embarrassing...it’s not so bifurcated that mainstream and fringe politics have nothing to do with each other,” Marantz says.
“There’s a real danger of slipping into all of the one/none of the other. Just because people aren’t vulnerable to economic disaster doesn’t mean they aren’t vulnerable to racism,” Marantz says. Not exact quote
It’s really just re-litigating 2016 for these fucking liberals isn’t it?
Marantz says “I don’t think we can write [right wing memes] out of the narrative just because we think they’re gross and uncomfortable”
The head of UCB’s PR, Mogulof, is asking if failures in the journalism industry lead to the current state. The answer isn’t interesting. The dean of my school is looking away.
Marantz says there’s a difference between “objectivity and truth” “when you’re covering a bigot, a liar, a troll, a racist”
Mogulof says Marantz is suggesting the Trump campaign targeted the 3% or so of the white vote Romney didn’t get to win in 2012 and appealed to them with racism.
Marantz responds by saying it’s not that they got half of America to “wear ‘I love David Duke’ pins” it was about pushing the discussion (Overton Window) far enough
Marantz goes back to the objectivity/truth thing when asked what journalists should do. “I bemoan the demise of Gawker because they could say (during GamerGate) ‘army of shithead trolls does shithead thing’” he says that’s less “objective” but it’s more true
They’re talking about freeze peech. Mogulof asks Chancellor Christ if they’ve been too lax with their free speech policies. She says the free speech ideals serve the institution just fine
She basically says the university shouldn’t intervene or take any political stances in her answer
I don’t think they’re gonna read my question
Mogulof read my question then cut the event short 15 minutes lol
@iambeale didn’t take a picture of his question card but he sent me a rough draft. Vote for whose question was better and we will interpret it as who you think is cuter
Another 🌎 ⭐️ moment: Chancellor Christ was talking about some book she just read that argues that free speech can’t be divorced from the political context the speech exists in. Andy wondered if it’d ever occurred to her before she read it. I wonder if she’ll ever think it again.
Also Andy says here’s the corrected figure on how much they spent dailycal.org/2018/02/04/uc-…
today this guy described how a Nazi organized an online mob to make something trend & how he watched it make it onto Hannity in real time.
then the dean of my journalism school turns to him and goes “I don’t buy it, you’re overvaluing their influence.”
It just blows my mind.
then the dean of my journalism school turns to him and goes “I don’t buy it, you’re overvaluing their influence.”
It just blows my mind.
Nouns not bounds
