Thread by @docrussjackson

“My freedom doesn’t care about your fear. My freedom doesn’t care about your feelings”: Postmodern and oppositional organizing in the hashtag OpenAmericaNow - Caitlyn M Jarvis, Sean M Eddington, 2021.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117…

Are the alt/hard/far-right, along with COVID conspiracy theorists (NOT people having rational, fact-based/well-evidenced discussions of eg the pros & cons of lockdowns) utilising the postmodernism they associate with "wokeness" & "identity politics" & which they claim to despise?

"Postmodernism is inherently oriented against power structures and institutions, with more recent literature highlighting how the new conservativism movement within the United States draws on and invokes postmodern logics, particularly within the alt-right movement."

"Postmodern logics are those contradictory, multifaceted, dynamic perspectives that recognize multiple perspectives & critique power. eg the right-wing employs postmodern logics as a means to oppose universalism and “deconstruct” liberal bias within the government and media."

"The integration of postmodern discourse within right-wing fringe groups allows for the advancement of neo-nationalist and isolations attitudes, while legitimizing racist, misogynistic, and hate ideologies."

"Trump may be considered the first postmodern president, noting that while Trump, his counselors, & his alt-right supporters frequently utilize “alternative facts,” Trump & the alt-right more frequently engage postmodernism through their post-truth logics & fear of the other."

"Fear of both the Left and media as corrupting the United States were evident throughout the analysis of (hashtag) OpenAmericaNow, as participants fostered antithetical identification by framing prominent liberal politicians as adversaries."

"Postmodern organizing is necessarily engaged in discursive, implicit power struggles (Derrida). In (hashtag) OpenAmericaNow, a majority of the conversation was directly tied to the implicit assumption that the macro-level elites were actively, & biasedly, working against the..

...micro-level collective. In this sense, the macro-level elites, which included not only Hollywood & news media but also Republican leaders who did not profusely deny COVID conspiracy theories, became the implicit (& often explicit) other against which OpenAmericaNow organized."

"As tweets showcased, users organized not only against macro-elites, but so too against knowledge structures and systems of power that they believed anathema to their collective beliefs and understandings about their rights within the United States (e.g. the WHO)."