Across the world, the Right reaches out to its base by campaigning on cultural issues, while serving elite economic interests.

This effective political strategy works by making the base ever angrier & more desperate.

It explains why #GBNews is paid for by wealthy hedge-funders.
Trump, Orban, Bolsonaro, Farage & now Boris Johnson have all embraced & successfully exploited this strategy.

ALL of these societies are now dangerously polarised.

For centuries, dictators have galvanised support by demonizing imagined enemies - it's the exact same principle.
This is, effectively, what the culture war is all about: KEEP fueling the passionate base's anger & desperation: KEEP telling them that Britain, civilisation, & *our entire way of life* is under threat from a wide range of Others who are everywhere.

It's McCarthyism on steroids.
Once the frame is established, it can be claimed that almost anything, no matter how absurd the claim, is a symptom of "woke tyranny" or "cancel culture": the police, the ruling class, Universities, the National Trust; prisons - even the military industrial complex & capitalism.
Partisan & populist newspapers, magazines & radio & TV channels & platforms deliberately stoke division & outrage, which drives audiences & ad revenue - & anger.

Nuanced, & intelligent, measured thought & discussion is increasingly hard to find.

We're on a VERY dangerous road.
It was only a few years ago that we watched open mouthed as Trump & the cranks at Fox News puked out their increasingly unhinged, deliberately inflammatory, & deliberately polarising culture war rhetoric, as we smugly thought 'that could never happen here'.

How wrong we were.
And before the army of new anonymous #GBNews supporting troll accounts unleash their venom, it doesn't mean there aren't serious disagreements.

But using culture war rhetoric to frame these divisions is not only absurd, it's dangerous, wrong, & harms all of us.

We need #nuance.
"In terms of format we are like Fox but we won’t be like Fox in that they come from a hard right disinformation fake news conspiracy agenda" - Andrew Neil

Epidemiologists are "DOOMSDAY SCIENTISTS ADDICTED TO POWER! WE MUST FIGHT BACK AGAINST THIS MADNESS!" - Dan Wootton

#GBNews

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More from @docrussjackson

20 Jun
Goebbels would be very impressed with how far the cranks at the Telegraph & the UK Government's Oliver Dowden have developed the Nazi's relatively unsophisticated #propaganda.

The "virus" of "wokeism" & the "minority" "undermining our freedom"?

Fuck off.
It's not hard to understand why extremely wealthy people fund the relentless demonization of decent citizens concerned about racism & other forms of bigotry, about the legacy of colonialism, about the impending climate crisis & about grotesque inequality:

Read 4 tweets
19 Jun
#THREAD

A small selection of what's "woke" - according to the US Libertarian billionaire-funded delusional paranoid divisive insufferable apocalyptical unhinged grifting culture war cranks at Spiked.
Prisons, schools, Lisa Nandy’s colonialism, & the lefties (who are secretly the militant wing of neoliberalism).
The capitalist class, the state, the ruling class, & capitalism.
Read 10 tweets
18 Jun
Donors Pumped Millions into White Nationalist Hate Group exposedbycmd.org/2021/06/17/don… via @EXPOSEDbyCMD
The large sum represents an unprecedented annual haul for an American white nationalist group and suggests that big-money donors of the conservative movement may be moving their riches to more extreme causes in the aftermath of Trump’s rise.
In an era where white nationalists increasingly embrace decentralized online activism, VDARE stands out for its organizational prowess and links to power.

#Hatewatch connected former Trump administration officials Stephen Miller and Julia Hahn to its founder, Peter Brimelow.
Read 21 tweets
17 Jun
The most absurd thing about this Alex Belfield & Jeremy Vine thing is not that anyone claiming to be "THE VOICE OF REASON" almost certainly isn't, but that Belfield is labouring under the mistaken belief that Vine, who RTd notorious far-right crank "Peter Snowden", is "a lefty".
Alex Belfield has form. Plenty of form.

The right-wing YouTuber once called a mother of triplets a "slapper" live on air, & recently referred to the women who escaped fines for walking by a reservoir during lockdown as “hotties”.

yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/whats-on/arts-…
In 2010, when he was a @BBC local radio dj, he was forced to apologise after he was suspended for making "totally inappropriate" on-air remarks to Look North weather presenter Keeley Donovan.

Can't imagine why the #GBeebies superfans love him.

yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/radio-dj-…
Read 8 tweets
17 Jun
A Guide to Right-Wing Discourse*

#THREAD

*As used EVERY DAY FOR YEARS by politicians, the press, Spiked, the Spectator, think-tanks, LBC, talkRADIO, & now, #GBeebies:

Unemployed: "work-shy"

Challenging bigotry: "woke“

Researching the legacy of colonialism: "cultural Marxism“
Health & safety: “bureaucracy”

Homeless: "lacking self-discipline"

Supporting Palestine: "antisemitic“

Helping asylum seekers: “Lefty activism“

Questioning injustice: “virtue-signalling”

Refusing to help people: "common sense“

Seeking truth: “Undermining our way of life”
Greed: "good"

Public sector: “bad”

Profiteering: "outsourcing"

Being polite: "political correctness"

Concern about populist nationalism: “anti-British”

Consumer, worker & environmental protections: “red tape”

Impoverishing people in Labour constituencies: "Leveling up“
Read 10 tweets
16 Jun
Boris Johnson’s former race adviser has warned of another Stephen Lawrence or Jo Cox tragedy if members of the government continue to inflame the culture wars gripping parts of the nation.

Reminds me of a certain TV opinion channel masquerading as news.

theguardian.com/world/2021/jun…
Speaking publicly for the first time since he resigned two months ago, Samuel Kasumu said he feared there were some in government pursuing a strategy of exploiting division for electoral gain that could result in severe consequences for the country.

It's Steve Bannon's strategy.
“There are some people in the government who feel like the right way to win is to pick a fight on the culture war & to exploit division. I worry about that. It seems like people have very short memories, & they’ve already forgotten #JoCox.”
Read 4 tweets

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