Deregulated free-market capitalism, combined with antiquated electoral systems, have led the #UK, #USA & many other large western economies to become grotesquely unequal, dangerously polarised & unstable failing states, led by manipulative, sadistic & divisive populist liars.
Steve Bannon's pal Robert Mercer is a US hedge fund billionaire, early AI developer & former main investor in Cambridge Analytica.

He played a key role in Brexit by donating data analytics services to Nigel Farage. He was a major funder of Breitbart News & Trump's 2016 campaign.
In 2016, far-right billionaire & @Facebook board member Peter Thiel met with white nationalist Kevin DeAnna, who has called for "the formation of an ethnostate, the great dream of the White Republic". He's also on the #Palantir board.

Writing in libertarian think-tank Cato:
In March Johnson & Cummings, invited US tech giants into Downing St & Palantir was among them: a company with no prior experience of British healthcare was asked to help formulate the UK's response to the biggest health crisis in the history of the #NHS🤔

twnews.co.uk/gb-news/how-on…
In 2018, Liz Truss met with Koch brothers & billionaire John Malone-funded libertarian think tank the Cato Institute, who push to slash environmental & worker regulations. Malone is strongly connected to the Fox-Style #GBNews.

Can you see what it is yet?

unearthed.greenpeace.org/2018/12/19/liz…
What the oligarchs want is, in the words of Steve Bannon, the “deconstruction of the administrative state”: disaster capitalism profits from chaos.

The attack on our democracy by foreign billionaires is well underway & is being facilitated by the UK Govt.
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
In 2018, Liz Truss met with Koch brothers & billionaire John Malone-funded libertarian think tank the Cato Institute, who push to slash environmental & worker regulations. Malone is strongly connected to the Fox-Style #GBNews.

Can you see what it is yet?

unearthed.greenpeace.org/2018/12/19/liz…
What the oligarchs want is, in the words of Steve Bannon, the “deconstruction of the administrative state”: disaster capitalism profits from chaos.

The attack on our democracy by foreign billionaires is well underway. It's being facilitated by our Govt.

theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
As public trust in mainstream politicians falls, we've see the rise of populist leaders, the decay of democratic processes & the growth of illiberal democracies.

A collection of articles on #populism & #democracy, free to read until 30 November 2020:

bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/journals/popul…
'Why feelings trump facts: anti-politics, citizenship & emotion' explores the role of emotions as a key variable in terms of understanding both the rise of anti-political sentiment & its manifestation in forms of ethno-populism:

ingentaconnect.com/content/bup/ea…
'Theatrical manipulation and seductive sentimentality: constructions of empathy in Swedish online far-right discourse about EU-migrants' explores how participants in online far-right forums actually make sense of emotional experiences, including empathy:

ingentaconnect.com/content/bup/ea…
"Entering the 'post-shame era': the rise of illiberal democracy, populism and neo-authoritarianism in EUrope" explores how formerly taboo subjects & expressions in mainstream discourse are becoming accepted & normalised:

ingentaconnect.com/content/bup/gd…

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More from @docrussjackson

6 Oct
Short THREAD on the @UKLabour heartlands.

A 2016 study found that the sharp decline in the number of working-class @UKLabour MPs had - entirely predictably - caused a slump in support among voters with similar backgrounds,

pure.royalholloway.ac.uk/portal/en/publ…
The study says Neil Kinnock & Tony Blair made a deliberate & concerted effort to select “more & more middle-class candidates to run for office during the 1980s & 1990s as part of an effort to rebrand,” resulting in success at the ballot box.
But the study claimed that the “conscious electoral strategy” of reducing working-class MPs stored up intractable problems for @UKLabour - played out with the rise of UKIP & Brexit - as working-class voters, who initially simply didn’t vote in response, sought an alternative.
Read 19 tweets
5 Oct
If you're STILL unconcerned about foreign billionaires investing in the tech companies, media platforms, think tanks & new political parties dividing Britain by scapegoating minorities & demonising anyone or anything Left of the BNP or Britain First, you don't know 1930s history. Image
The US Right have been convincing themselves that "Liberals" or "Leftists" are EVIL since the 1950s & now, under Steve Bannon's guidance, this strategy has been imported wholesale to the UK, rolled out across the ENTIRE media & is now the main Govt policy.
washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/july-…
Just Albert Einstein. Image
Read 4 tweets
11 Sep
In August 2019, Interpal received an apology & damages of £50,000 after The Jewish Chronicle implied that the charity had links to terrorist activity.

On 23 August, the paper published the apology in full.

Truth, decency & facts don't matter to ideologically driven neocons.
In November 2019, The Jewish Chronicle published a ruling by IPSO that it had breached Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice in relation to a number of claims over four articles about a @UKLabour member published in February and March 2019...
IPSO also expressed significant concerns about the JC's handling of this complaint in that it had failed repeatedly to answer questions put to it by IPSO & considered that the publication's conduct during IPSO's investigation was unacceptable.
Read 6 tweets
8 Sep
Today's word in the everlasting war against the rise of the far-right at home & abroad, is 'retrotopia', the title of Zygmunt Bauman's last book.

'People who feel ignored or left behind become more tribal & develop a retrospective, nostalgic gaze.'

radicalrightanalysis.com/2019/01/04/doe…
Bauman argues that many share a sense of being left behind, abandoned, ignored (not ‘listened to’) & made redundant. This demise is blamed on traditional political elites, the MSM, foreign foes, & narratives frequently saturated with elaborate theories of conspiracy & treason.
It's also the outcome of a dramatic U-turn in the public mindset: “from investing public hopes of improvement in the uncertain and ever-too-obviously untrustworthy future, to re-investing them in the vaguely remembered past, valued for its assumed stability & so trustworthiness”.
Read 4 tweets
5 Sep
Ruth Wodak is a brilliant linguist who has been analysing far-right populist discourse for decades.

In the context of the latest "migrant crisis" & the demonization of refugees by those on the Right, everyone would benefit from her analysis & insights.

eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/1402…
Many of the issue-related arguments, metaphors and other rhetorical tropes as well as discursive strategies of exclusion from around 1989 can be discerned once more in the discourses surrounding the refugee movement (the so-called ‘refugee crisis’).
Such discourses and argumentation schemes are implemented by the respective far-right populist parties and their politicians, including Donald Trump, Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party & Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz.

What kinds of strategies are we dealing with here?
Read 64 tweets
29 Aug
THREAD

Despite @BBCNews & @BBCPolitics being full of right-wing editors & presenters who worked tirelessly to stop Corbyn, right-wingers have relentlessly attacked the @BBC for being left-wing, paving the way for two new Fox News style TV channels.

theguardian.com/media/2020/aug…
One group is promising a news channel “distinctly different from the out-of-touch incumbents” & has already been awarded a licence to broadcast by Ofcom, under the name “GB News”.

Its founder has said the @BBC is a “disgrace” that “is bad for Britain on so many levels".
'GB News' is the work of company All Perspectives, controlled by two British-American executives associated with the US billionaire John Malone - yet another libertarian billionaire, seemingly intent on replacing governments with 'more efficient' (& profitable) corporations.
Read 16 tweets

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