Thread by @nickreeves9876

1/ We still don't have a name for the force attacking democracy. It is international. It has taken over the Tories and US Republicans. It is backed by billionaires like Koch, Mercer, Murdoch and Thiel. It links sociopathic greed with nationalism, fascism, racism & bigotry.

2/ The force attacking democracy isn't a top-down organisation. It's a web of money, power and influence linking individuals and groups sharing the desire to destroy liberal democracy. It's backed by Putin, but he only has an effect because others in the West share his goals.

3/ It is frustrating that we still lack a widely agreed name for this web of money and power, greed and hate which is attacking democracy. We only have names for the parts, not for the whole. How can you fight an enemy for whom you have no name?

4/ I call this international anti-democratic axis "kleptofascism", linking the elements of sociopathic greed, hate and authoritarianism. But "fascism" makes one think of stiff-armed salutes and uniformed thugs, and this is not the style of the modern enemies of democracy.

5/ We could call the thing "Putinism". Putin's Russia is indeed a fully realised example of a kleptofascist state. But Putin is not the leader of this movement and it is misleading to make it appear that the movement is run from Moscow.

6/ We could call the international anti-democratic network "populism". But there can be populisms of the left and right, and the name fails to conjure up the real sense of danger of the threat or indicate any of its main constituent parts.

7/ We cannot effectively fight something for which we have no name. Pointing to the parts for which we have names leaves us blind to the threat posed by the whole. Wide agreement on a name would be a huge boost to our cause.

8/ For want of a better name I'll continue to call the thing "kleptofascism" or the "kleptofascist axis". I've thought of calling it the "Hydra". But unless that name was very widespread, hardly anyone would know what it referred to.

9/ A whole bunch of folk have said the enemy is capitalism. That's just silly. Communism has failed totally and genocidally. We're stuck with capitalism. But some forms of capitalist society produce democracy, human rights and the rule of law, and others do not.

10/ What we are now faced with is an international axis pushing us away from a social market form of capitalism which brings with it democracy, human rights and widespread welfare improvements, towards a corrupt, authoritarian, oligarchic form of capitalist society.