Thread by @drvolts

Hyping up (or just inventing) danger from leftist radicals is how fascists aligned with government power create a permission structure for greater repression. "We have to do it, we're just reacting to antifa!" Putin, Orban, Erdoğan -- always the same.
opb.org/article/2021/1…

This is why RW media spins its audience up on ACORN, New Black Panthers, Antifa, or whatever it will be next week. They know the mob needs some excuse, some kind of permission to indulge its hatred & violence, so it says: look at our evil opponents! We HAVE to be like this.

I don't even think it's a Machiavellian thing. I think when Glenn Beck connected all his various enemies & Others on that chalkboard into one grand conspiracy of Them, he believed it! It's something reactionaries need, psychologically. So they project it.

This also explains why, the very second protests over police brutality started, "violent antifa rioters out of control" was the RW narrative. *Instantly.* They all know, instinctively, how to respond; it's like a school of fish.

Here you have the phenomenon unfolding in real time. "We *have* to be autocratic and violent, we have no choice, our nefarious enemies forced it upon us!" (The idea that Christianity is oppressed in the US always makes me laugh.)

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1444761474442932231