The radical right indulges in the erasure from its narrative of inconvenient or unwelcome facts from the accepted knowledge base of history and science. There is a general recognition that major problems and issues of our world — including understanding them and their causes and proposing remedies and coping strategies — are rarely simple in… Continue reading “Can the Radical Right’s Reductionist Narrative Withstand Real-World Complexity?”
Calls to sacrifice lives for the economy. Funding protests that endanger public health. The radical right is highlighting their “pro-life” hypocrisy. The so-called “anti-lockdown” protests around the USA have brought together a motley of groups and interests, from Proud Boys to pro-gun enthusiasts and Trump supporters. But the extremist element is the most consistently flamboyant and loud in exposing… Continue reading “Nihilism And Hypocrisy Is The GOP’s COVID-19 Response”
President Trump, GOP governors, and members of his base who are pushing to reopen too soon while Dr. Fauci warns of “needless suffering and death.” In an interview on Fox News (“ Tucker Carlson Tonight”) back on March 23, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick expressed his willingness to give up his life in exchange for… Continue reading “Right-Wing Push For Premature Reopenings Will Prolong Pandemic”
The vicious cycle of suppression, spikes in migration, renewed hostilities and reintroduction of restrictive policies could continue for years after the pandemic. A dangerous cycle for immigrants has begun. On April 20, President Donald Trump announced that he would sign an executive order to temporarily halt immigration into the United States in order to curb the spread of… Continue reading “COVID-19 Will Have Long-Lasting Effects on Migration”
The radical right has always been good at spreading misinformation; now they might be spreading Covid-19. It is easy to look at the core ideology of the radical right—nativism, white supremacy, homophobia, misogyny—and call it ignorant and uninformed. This labelling is problematic because it is lazy; it assumes an either/or approach to knowledge and does… Continue reading “Is the radical right spreading the coronavirus?”
Throughout ideological contradictions and changing perception of events on the ground, the Oath Keepers’ messaging remained consistent around one key element: the existence of a deep-state plot against US President Trump. By mid-April 2020, protests against government-imposed lockdowns began springing up across the United States. At their center was a pronounced distrust of the government… Continue reading “ANTI-GOVERNMENT IDEOLOGY IN THE TIMES OF COVID-19”
“Five, 10 years from now—different party. You’re going to have a worker’s party.” These words, uttered by Donald Trump in the May of 2016, might at first appear prophetic given the current bout of protests that have taken off throughout the US. In these protests, the star-spangled banner is strewn across various cityscapes as largely… Continue reading “Contesting Class in the Lockdown Protests”
Since Trump’s electoral victory in 2016, many journalists have praised The Authoritarian Personality as a prophetic text that predicted the rise of fascism in the United States. On the seventieth anniversary of its publication, Andrew Woods reflects on The Authoritarian Personality’s approach to conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists in the radical right. Following the 2016… Continue reading “Revisiting the Authoritarian Personality: Conspiracy Theories and the Crank”
The far-right has always created “alt-histories” and used historical revisionism to protect their power. President Trump is no different. In 2017, Kellyanne Conway, counselor to US President Donald Trump, coined the phrase ‘alternative facts’ to describe why the Trump administration had differing figures about the size of the audience at the newly elected president’s inauguration… Continue reading “Amid COVID-19, Trump Attempts To Rewrite History”
In late 2018, a majority of Brazilians elected Jair Bolsonaro president of the republic. By now, they probably wished they had never heard of him. In the current coronavirus crisis, Bolsonaro has joined the gallery of toxic leaders, in line with Donald Trump and Boris Johnson. Unlike the latter, Bolsonaro seems completely immune to any… Continue reading “Coronavirus-19’s victims: Populism”