One of my friends (an Asian woman) on Facebook has gone full Q-Anon. It was jarring to see at first.
Didn't think people like her would be the target audience, TBH.
Some observations:
1) Q-A people spend a lot of time boosting and praising each other on each other's FB pages. Drives up engagement, visibility and makes them look much bigger.
Every post of her has lots of comments and shares. The comments are.... mad. But they work in boosting engagement.
2) Most of the messages are either #SaveourChildren#GoodoverEvil or pro-Trump. They genuinely believe they are trying to do good in the world and save others.
Lots of messages ape language of empowerment and motivation. 'do good in the world' etc etc.
3) Fact-checking all this is a complete waste of time.
Half the posts there are ridiculing fact-checkers, or so far down a rabbit-hole that you won't even begin to challenge their worldview. I've not said anything. Most of our mutual friends have been quiet too.
4) People call Q-Anon a 'far-right' group, but this is misleading.
Other than their support for Trump as the 'saviour' of children - the language, memes, hashtags they use are very 'left-wing'.
This is a typical kind of post
Hah, no. I'm just going to watch. Confronting someone so far down the rabbit hole is a waste of my time.
You wouldn't even know or think this is Q-Anon material.
But it is
Sheesh. Some people think I'm saying this is left-wing group or has left-wing aims. OBVIOUSLY NOT! Stop being so excessively defensive please.
I'm just saying the language the Q-Anon ppl use is similar to some of the modern anti-establishment left. Gets them a range of recruits
Yeah this is a fair point.
My issue is that people dismiss them as a 'far-right' group, which they look like from afar, but deep in the rabbit hole their language is very different.
As soon as I got into Tiktok (about a year ago) I saw lots of videos by wannabe British finance and investing "influencers", who emphasised how easy it was to make a passive income through multiple buy-to-let houses.
And I think it says a lot about the world we live in...👇🏽
Firstly, if wannabe influencers on Tiktok are talking about it, it must already be popular.
That suggests a lot of Britons took advantage of zero interest rates to borrow money up to their eyeballs for buy-to-let properties.
This might explain our housing shortage problem
Secondly, it implies that low interest rates may exacerbate inequality in our society by making it easier for richer people to buy, and earn from, lots of assets.
Poorer people on the other hand may not take as much debt to acquire assets.
A few thoughts on Suella Braverman's extreme and offensive language on asylum seekers crossing the Channel.
There's this idea that Rishi Sunak is using another brown woman to "whitewash racism".
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Some on the left believe that only white people can be racist. This neatly puts brown and black people on a pedestal, who can only be authentic and "right on" with left-wing politics.
I'm just glad we have Suella Braverman, Priti Patel and Rishi Sunak to prove you wrong.
Of course, brown and black people can have abhorrent politics. They can be racist too!
As @soniasodha wrote: I am not sure it is any less bigoted to apply benevolent rather than malevolent stereotypes to Asian and black people. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
One common response to Rishi Sunak's coronation as PM is that he doesn't represent the "common man" or even British Indians.
This is true. But there is an important way in which he is one of us, the Tofu-eating Twitterati, and why the hard-right hate him.
When you hear phrases like "globalist" and "WEF elite" etc, mostly from the radical- & far-right, the implication is that Rishi Sunak is a metropolitan social liberal.
Not the criticism Suella Braverman and Priti Patel usually get.
And Sunak *is* obviously a social liberal.
He voted for Brexit because (like BJ) he saw which way the wind was blowing. And he made absurd claims/promises during the leadership election because he was losing to Truss.
The right don't believe it either, hence the implication he's a snake.
As we are about to get our first non-white and Hindu PM, a few reminders:
1) Disparaging someone's racial or religious background, or claiming they're not "authentic" brown/Hindu is racist.
2) Point 1 applies regardless of your own background.
3) Hindu is not same as Hindutva
4) Calling someone a "brown sahib" or a "coconut" or anything along those lines is racist and derogatory. Why? You're implying they are controlled by white people.
Here's the case against Rishi Sunak as PM, from a liberal-left perspective.
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1) He has absolutely no good ideas. His earlier leadership campaign was awful, with not one good idea.
2) he will claim a "mandate" from the markets (not so simple, pal) to pursue more austerity
3) He's a plutocrat, a rich kid with no sense of how the poor in Britain are suffering. He'll say Britain needs a large dose of cuts to balance the books because that's the kind of politics he's comfortable with.
4) He will always pander to the Tory right bc he's scared of them
(evidence for point 4 is his earlier leadership election)
5) Britain needs cheaper energy, cheaper housing, cheaper trade. He's pushing policies that will do the opposite.
6) In a desperate bid to maintain support he will lean into "culture wars"