So in his recap of the Multipolarity conference, the Brazilian rep describes how Dugin called for "imperial restoration," and notes "the appointment of American Jackson Hinkle as representative of the International Russophile Movement (MDR) in the USA." What's the MDR? /1

The MDR was established last year and is led by Nikolai Malinov, a Bulgarian former politician who was charged with spying and money laundering for the Double-Headed Eagle Society and the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies. /2
rferl.org/a/bulgaria-cha…

NYT shows convincingly that Russia blew up the Kakhova dam. In the short term, I think what this will do is cause a general rethink of the popular misconception that V Putin is a "rational actor." /1

nytimes.com/interactive/20… The best way Putin had of getting away with all sorts of horrendous stuff was playing everything off like he was just following Russia's rational self-interest as a regional power. This was never the case, as @shane_burley1 and I tried to show here. /2 newfascismsyllabus.com/opinions/ukrai…

much of this is due to liberal and centrist gate keepers repeatedly publishing anti-trans bigotry staged as appeals to reason, allowing trans rights to become the "anti-woke" wedge allows bog standard homophobic hate to spread as though it were sensibly-inclined discourse.

https://twitter.com/oneunderscore__/status/1669731847071203334

for a long time, a cordon sanitaire existed for the sake of generally intelligent discussions on important issues. that was demolished when peal clutching took over the mainstream after the BLM protests of 2014, and the radical right became more reasonable to the scared.

Fascism aside, one of the things I've been thinking a lot about lately is the depth of his charismatic leadership. Trumpism has reached near-chiliastic levels of millenarianism; the more persecuted, the more faithful; the more martyred, the more encouraged. Incredible to behold.

https://twitter.com/lionel_trolling/status/1667883555232292865

The quotation is from the first edition of Norman Cohn's *Pursuit of the Millennium*, which I can't find—I only have the 1970. It shows how the "paranoid style" emerged over centuries of millenarian movements (giving, I might add, special attention to the Anabaptists of Münster).

I suppose that seals it. Interesting that he refers to his Green Book where he keeps his thoughts. In the '70s, a lot of Third Positionists started reading Qaddafi's Green Books as roadmaps to the creation of ultranationalist societies. I wonder if that's a play here. /1

https://twitter.com/ryanjreilly/status/1661119721243136000

When I say Third Positionist here, I mean generally a current of fascist thought that attempted to recover a kind of "National Liberation" ethos from left-wing movements (mainly Maoist) by enhancing the rev nationalist part. Qaddafi was a proud supporter of fascists in Europe. /2

So, a man apparently of South Asian descent with a Nazi flag emblazoned with a swastika rammed a UHaul into the White House gates. Once again the far right is running with the "psychop" claim. I'd like to dig into that a bit. /1

cbsnews.com/news/u-haul-cr… We don't really know enough about this guy and his motivations beyond the flag and the mugshot to speculate too far. He's a fascist who wanted to attack the President. We'll see what sort of tendency/idea he had in mind. What I'm interested in here is the denial. /2

On his Russian social media account, the Allen shooter posted a hand-written text full of antisemitic and white supremacist drivel, admitting, "What can I say? It's cognitive dissonance to the max." It reads like any other, putting Soros and "NWO" in triple parentheses, etc., etc He says he's "proud to be Hispanic," and cites neo-Nazi William Luther Pierce and Michael Savage in deriding "white guilt losers," saying, "you deserve to lose your country." But he also says, "Western man towers above everybody."

it's funny: if you accept Guattari's thesis that the inmates *should* run the asylum, we're in a Guattarian multiverse—yet here we arrive at the fundamental argument already underpinning Edgar Allen Poe's finest work. it's geometric proof that horror is the truest expression... of the American psyche.

the problem with community notes is that it requires an algorithm, both precise and accurate, for exactly the scale and measure of madness that falls within the parameters of this site—given a responsive standard error and at a resolution fine enough to pierce the imagination... I call it the mad-o-meter.

honestly, a more ludicrous abuse of reader notes has not yet been applied. look: the point she makes smacks of swivel-eyed madness, but the notion that this website must be sterilized to the point of such an "objective takedown" reduces lightness to leaden drudgery. if someone posts that water simply doesn't exist, is it actually necessary to post a community note saying, in fact, water is wet? true, some deceptive theories cut painfully close to the bone, requiring intervention on the level of fact and nuance, but where is deceit here?

I honestly don't care about anything surrounding this, except for the usage of the word "incurious" in his statement. reprehensible.

https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1654750792899756036

Look, people, when you accuse your critics of incuriosity, you're merely justifying your own actions on the merits of curiosity, itself, which is not a justification for anything. "Why'd you torture the cat?" "You're so odiously incurious that you can't comprehend, that's why!"

the funniest thing about the "I disagree with Tucker, but" line is that it's inevitably followed by something that is by no means exculpatory but in fact especially egregious—such as, "he sure did help Assad's fascist regime cover up its crimes against humanity." "I disagree with Tucker but [like him, I'm also a monster]."

I see we have a Twitter dispute on contemporary American fascism today, so I will respond conscientiously, lol. I agree with some of @RadioFreeTom's points, but identify the key problem in the conflation of Trumpism with the Republican Party. /1

https://twitter.com/RadioFreeTom/status/1647337035793833985?s=20

In order to calmly assuage fears of Trumpism as a fascist movement, he needs to aggregate "the American right" together with Trumpism, specifically—a formula that simply won't wash. Note, though, that the similarities he states do stand. /2

https://twitter.com/RadioFreeTom/status/1647337037329055744?s=20

Greenwald's reactionary liberalism is, in a way, the epitome of Kant avec Sade. In order to discern between exposing malfeasance by the US and exposing battle plans that will imperil people defending against invasion, you have to weigh a modicum of decency against "the Ideal." Wherever "the Ideal" (free speech, free press, etc.) can be leveraged to cause harm, Greenwald hops onto Tucker Carlson's shoulder and starts preening himself for geriatrics across America, squaking right wing positions from the side of a self-assured, radical, authentic Liberal.

The story here is similar to the mass rally in Germany that happened the other day. It's something like a constant mobilization of the same (transnational) crowd doing the same thing, wash, rinse, repeat. 🧵/1

https://twitter.com/KareemRifai/status/1627342488460488704

The other day, the WashPo published a story about a similar rally in Munich: "demonstrations draw a radicalized fringe, with the antiwar protests taken up by many of the same organizers as anti-lockdown demonstrations during the pandemic" /2

washingtonpost.com/world/2023/02/…

The fascist student group tied to FdI is emboldened enough to attack high schoolers in the streets. The RW narrative of the Anni di piombo tends to elide reactionary violence (like this) that led up to the terrorism of 76-82. Is history now repeating?

https://twitter.com/ANPI_Scuola/status/1627324563989094409?s=20

I think histories tend to construct the Democristiani of the 50s-80s as "antifascist and democratic," which is partly true, but occludes greater understanding of fascist sympathies not only in police and armed services but throughout state bureaucracy during the period.

one of the things about recent revelations regarding the Kremlin's channeling of funds through soft power groups dedicated to spreading information operations in Europe is that they point to Dugin's continued influence after supposed marginalization in 2014. a short thread. /1 Here was the first indication, after Dugin's apparent involvement in the corrupt dealings with Salvini's Lega. Dugin appeared far more entwined with the Kremlin's operations in Europe than previously believed. /2 newlinesmag.com/reportage/excl…

this is all based on an internal proposal floated within the university's IT department's Slack *last June* that was never followed up on. the @nytimes seems here to go out of its way to rub disabled ppl's noses in any apparent failure given the slightest (false) pretext.

https://twitter.com/RottenInDenmark/status/1621638235700211712

this is just bullying behavior from a formerly dignified paper that seems to slump increasingly toward Quillette-style pseudo-intellectualism dressed up as high-class commentary.

Leaked emails reveal how the Russian Presidential Administration under Surkov worked closely with quasi-NGOs to funnel money into Dugin's network and manipulate the European information and political space. /1
occrp.org/en/investigati… This is the most incredible part of the new report for me, because it shows how the Kremlin funded Ochsenreiter's fascist magazine, Zuerst!, and how they collaborated closely with Piskorski to run anti-NATO ops. Of course, RT and Sputnik frequently promoted both of them. /2

In light of the OPCW's report on the Douma gas attack, which exposed propagandists efforts at covering it up, I thought it'd be nice to look back on some great articles opposing the "multipolarity" worldview that supports alt-imperialism. A brief thread of articles I love. /1 It's tough for me to look back to the Douma attacks, which occurred shortly before three of my own articles were baselessly retracted as a result of legal pressure and online trolls, bc it exhibited precisely what I tried to expose. Discussed here: /2 newpol.org/inside-look-ho…

I absolutely disagree with Lula's "multipolar" foreign policy, but he's the democratically elected President of Brazil, and the present far-right coup attempt must be condemned in the strongest sense. Also, Bolsonaro's foreign policy sucked too, lol. I hope this is a good moment to show that opposition to the far right is an internationally important position of solidarity. J6 has now inspired the same thing in Brazil, so those who downplayed it on the basis, eg, of anti-Americanism must understand how this is just blowback.