Category Archives: Alt-right

There are certainly TV shows and episodes that deserve to be called the bestthats why we made this list. But in 2020, a year defined by anxiety and being stuck inside, the best shows werent always the ones that mattered most. While there is joy in watching something of supreme quality, this year called more for comfort, nostalgia, and nontraditional entertainment. With that said, here are the things that the Ringer staff turned to in 2020 ...

I admit it: I hopped on Ted Lasso very late in the match. When the series first came out in August, earning rave reviews and filling my timeline with sickly-sweet sentiments about a college football coach who got a new job he was ridiculously underqualified for, I balked. There was no way this show could be that good, that funny, that charmingI pretty much thought people were just bored. But then I caved and discovered that, in the immortal words of Ted Lasso (played by Jason Sudeikis) himself, Last one theres a Scotch egg.

Ted Lasso is about a Premier League club owner who, fresh off a divorce in which she gained control of the team, tries to sabotage their chances by bringing in an American football coach who doesnt even know what offsides is. But what its really about is earning respect (the hard way, not the showy way), putting others before yourself, andughlearning to hope. Its just as earnest as advertised, but in the best way possible, and by the time they break out Youll Never Walk Alone in the seasons final episode, you, too, will have started to believe in Ted Lasso. Megan Schuster

I have watched a lot of bad television this year. Some of it was new, some it was old; some of it was acclaimed, some of it was not. It was fine, mostlybeing bored on the couch is a luxury in 2020.

I loved The Great both because it was really and truly quite great, but also because of what an absolute surprise it was. Sure, plenty of those more in the know were fully aware of what to expect from Tony McNamara and Elle Fanning. But in my home, it took a gradual talking into: Its a period dramabut not that kind of period drama; its about Catherine the Greatbut not, like, in a boring way, or in Russian; also bears are there, I think? So, having trudged in from the 1700s St. Petersburg frost for lack of alternatives, what a joy to find a sharp, bizarre, belly-laughing jewel box of a show. It might be the only 2020 surprise that I absolutely loved. Huzzah. Claire McNear

When I was first acclimating myself to Gen Zs favorite timesuck in mid-March, my colleague Alyssa Bereznak directed me to the account of one Tyler Gaca, a.k.a. @ghosthoney, dubbing him the Los Espookys of TikTok. I instantly knew what she meant. Like Los Espookys cocreator and costar Julio Torres, Gaca creates a world of his own, one where a novelty Pokmon donut can be an artistic muse and sunglasses can be traded for miniature owls. Gaca is technically an influencer in that he does social media full time and recently moved to L.A., but his page is a merciful break from the relentless monotony of the online creator aesthetic. Some of his videos are fictional sketches; some are charming vignettes with his husband; some are just takes, like how all golf courses should be public butterfly gardens. All manage to make TikToks 60-second format feel expansive, expressive, and just plain weirdall with a fraction of the time and resources real television can afford. Alison Herman

Not much about 2020 has been satisfyingDan Devine: bastion of the understatementbut the finale of Better Call Sauls phenomenal fifth season certainly qualified. With one look, one withering Wouldnt I? and one unmistakable hand gesture, the last scene of Something Unforgivable fulfilled a promise five years and 50-odd hours in the making, propelling one of televisions best shows into a deeply compelling and terrifyingly uncertain future.

What begins as the sort of small-time-scam spitballing that represents foreplay for Jimmy McGill and Kim Wexler turns deathly serious post-coitus, as Kims pillow talk produces a Wed never do it but pivot that calls to mind Benjen Starks received wisdom about that particular transition word. What followsKim pitching a plan to destroy Howard Hamlins life that would net her and Jimmy around $2 millis jarringly matter-of-fact and even-tempered, laying bare just how easy it is to keep sliding down that slippery slope once you begin your descent.

Its not just about the way the electric Rhea Seehorn says Wouldnt I? when Jimmy argues that Kim wouldnt really be OK with going after Howard like this. Its also about the way she follows up that bombshellcompletely relaxed, contentedly exhaling. She doesnt just tell you how far shes already fallen, how comfortable shed be reducing a man to rubble. She shows you. The finger guns are out of their holsters now, the masks off; the journey-beneath-the-journey that Better Call Saul has really been about all along is complete. All thats left is to find out how far down that slope goes, and how many people will get hurt by the time we reach the bottom. Dan Devine

Ive always liked golfing, but 2020 was the year that I became obsessed with golfing. Stuck inside for months, the world sputtering into chaos, suddenly here was this sport that I could play safely outdoors, temporarily protected from reality by a perimeter of pine trees. Contrary to the rest of my life, the laws of nature and cause and effect still seemed to apply on a golf course: Id hit a white ball, and if I didnt shift my hips too much or bend my left arm like a schmuck, itd generally go in the direction that I wanted it to.

At some point Mark Zuckerberg mustve noticed all of the golf course geotags, because now I cant scroll through Facebook without seeing this mans face:

I know nothing about him (I dont want to complicate our relationship), but Ive grown to love Rick Shiels. How he moves his hand like an overexcited conductor. The way he slaps the bottom of his irons like theyre a bag of soil at Home Depot. How it often seems like hes having an existential crisis trying to decide whether to keep talking or actually swing the frickin club. The apparently limited resources; most times you cant even see if the shot he just hit was a good one. I cant claim that Rick Shiels has made me better at golfthe chunk I took out of a fairway last week would beg to differbut I do know that Ill stop and watch every time he crosses my feed. Because at least he seems nice, and at least the world seems to make a little bit of sense, if only for three minutes. Andrew Gruttadaro

I can tell you the exact moment when Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election. It wasnt once the networks called Pennsylvania a few days after the polls closed. It wasnt when the Supreme Court denied Texas the right to challenge the vote counts in four states last week. It wasnt once California cast its votes for Biden in the Electoral College earlier this week. I knew Trump lost once the comedian James Austin Johnson uploaded his latest impersonation: Trump complaining, in his nasal absurdity, about the requirements for beating a Pokmon game. Johnsons breakout TrumpScooby-Doo bit from a few months ago is great, too, but his Trump-Pokmon bit really synthesizes Trump into a single, succinct, comprehensive artifact for dissemination to later generations and extraterrestrial scavengers. Justin Charity

I find so much joy in reality TVs excessive production tropes. The plush interiors, replete with enough decorative pillows and wine to fill an Olympic-size swimming pool; the interstitial interviews where cast members speak in snappy punch lines; the gongs and bowed cymbals that add a heightened sense of drama to otherwise unremarkable conversations. These techniques can make a conversation about life insurance policies interesting, and nobody knows that better than Boman Martinez-Reid. The 22-year-old TikTokers parodies cram every reality TV trick in under a minute, elevating the climax of each incident to fantastical heights. What begins with a disagreement over what to eat for lunch ends with an exchange so disrespectful that Martinez-Reid quite literally melts into a puddle. Microphones are replaced with bananas, makeup blotters are Rubiks Cubes, and cocktails are garnished with exercise weights and whisks. A true student of the Bravo universe, Martinez-Reid sometimes even drops in a teaser graphic (starring him) at the bottom of the screen midepisode. At a moment when our own understanding of reality keeps being stretched to unbelievable limits, Martinez-Reids TikTok offers a welcome alternate universe, where the stakes of everyday life are far more frivolous and where, above all else, whimsy rules. Alyssa Bereznak

On average, I cry about once or twice a year. Like a sailor lost at sea, I ration out my tears as if they were the last sleeve of saltines left in the cupboard. Its partially an act of self-preservationor, thats what I like to believe.

Either way, in a year full of devastation, loss, and anxiety, one of the rare pieces of entertainment that managed to break me was a cartoon about a vampire and royal piece of anthropomorphic bubblegum. Adventure Time: Distant Lands is a set of HBO Max specials spun off from the hit 2010s series created by Pendleton Ward. Obsidian, the second episode in the series, follows Marceline the Vampire Queen and Princess Bubblegum as they try to save the citizens of the Glass Kingdom and their brittle but beautiful relationship. At the episodes climax, Marceline (voiced by Olivia Olson) serenades Bubblegum with a song called Monster. Over a simple guitar melody, Marceline admits to her partner and, more so to herself, how much her childhood trauma has stunted her ability to give and receive love. In a warm but wounded voice, she sings, We were messed up kids who taught ourselves how to live / And Im still scared that Im not good enough.

During Adventure Times cultural peak, fans passionately shipped Marceline and Princess Bubblegum and were ultimately rewarded when the two characters united at the shows conclusion. Monster is the culmination of that specific moment in time. Instead of Marceline and Bubblegum living happily ever after, the creators of Adventure Time decided to do one betterthey gave their beloved characters a relationship as gorgeously flawed as the lives of the people who spent so much time watching them. Charles Holmes

Its quite difficult to describe Conner OMalleys videos. ... I mean, it honestly feels impossible. You might have seen Conner OMalley earlier this year in Palm Springs, in which he played the brother of the bride, and that mightve been the most normal thing hes been a part of in 2020. This year, OMalley published 15 original videos on his YouTube channelheavy emphasis on the word original. His first video of 2020 was a Hudson Yards interactive video game, brought to you by Lululemon Interactive (Lululemon had no part in making this video) in which he walked around Hudson Yards saying hi to tourists. While that may sound somewhat normal, the video takes a turn when he unlocks Allyship, as the game turns into a 3D animated hard rock music video about [Struggles to find words.] honestly I dont even know.

After two videos about trying to save the stock market with a movie script about Joe Biden and blue Powerade, Conner followed up with his most successful video of the year, titled Smoking 500 Cigarettes for 5G. The video, which has racked up over 1 million views, focuses on Conner walking up and down Kosciuszko Bridge smoking cigarettes, in partnership with T-Mobile and Verizon (neither company agreed to this). He eventually succeeds in his mission, and when he unlocks the power of 5G he finds out that Jeffrey Epstein was killed by the Burlington Coat Factory. As I mentioned from the jump, these videos make zero sensebut thats their beauty. They are somehow timely, yet also not from any time thats ever existed. There is no rhyme or reason to any of them, and each video leaves you scratching your headbut somehow, they spark a sensation that feels unique and necessary in this already absurd year. So with an extremely heavy NSFW warning, I urge you to check out Conner OMalleys YouTube channel. I can guarantee you will regret it. Sean Yoo

Philadelphia is a great city, maybe even the best city, not to mention the birthplace of our nationwhich is why it was only fitting that, nearly 250 years after founding America, we managed to save it. As you might know, Philly was instrumental in reducing Donald Trump to a failed one-term president. And if somehow you hadnt heard on November 7, the day the election was officially called for President-Elect Joe Biden, Philly made sure to let you know. There was music and dancing in the streets and an impromptu pop-up parade. Someone, or several someones, naturally had a giant Eagle ready to deploy on the streets. (Go Birds.) Others celebrated by waving ceremonial loaves of victory bread outside Reading Terminal Market.

And if all of that wasnt enough, there was the well-chronicled Four Seasons Total Landscaping press conference disaster by the defeated and discombobulated Trump campaign to provide all of us with some merch, some memes, and more than a few laughs. Even Captain America dunked on them. What a grand timecourtesy of your friends from Philly. If you think we were obnoxious after the Eagles beat the Pats to win the Super Bowl, well never let you forget that time we came riding to democracys rescue. John Gonzalez

Classical music is in many ways the most low-tech category of musical artnearly all the instruments are acoustic; a good chunk of the repertoire predates the steam engine, much less the AirPods Maxbut with nowhere else to turn in the midst of worldwide lockdown, soloists and ensembles embraced Zoom. In a famously, and sometimes forbiddingly, formal art form, concerts were suddenly being streamed from living rooms, where some of the worlds greatest musicians sat among their bookcases and houseplants and played deathlessly beautiful music while their cats wandered around, totally bored. At the online Metropolitan Opera gala, I watched awe-inspiring opera divas sing grand arias from their basements and kitchens; on Instagram, I watched members of the renowned vocal ensemble The Sixteen share recipes and TV recs before singing informal concerts with their families. I watched members of the Philadelphia Orchestra play teleconference octets.

And no, it wasnt the same as going to a concert hall. But 2020 was such a grand tragic opera on its own that the low-key, thoughtful, welcoming spirit of these shows was, if anything, a better consolation for this moment. I hope the moments are better next year, but Ill never forget how these musicians responded to this one. Brian Phillips

Throughout this tumultuous year, the YouTube videos of HunniBee ASMR have symbolically held my hand (ears?). Ive let the world fade into white noise while I sit transfixed as she demolishes an entire family order of KFC fried chicken, ruins her teeth chowing down on desserts made to look like household items, and slurps her way through noodles of almost every variety. HunniBee ASMRs videos have no plot, no characters save one, and certainly no greater meaning beyond the sensory enjoyment of a random Canadian woman eating colorful foods while micd up. I cant get enough. Theres something so soothing and familiar about her presence, almost as if shes saying, Yeah, youre going to watch and listen to me eat food for 30 minutes, but no judgment! I do this for your enjoyment, and I truly hope it brings you happiness. Amelia Wedemeyer

No moment on inauguration day in 2017 summed up how stupid the next four years would be more than alt-right provocateur Richard Spencer getting rocked in his jaw as he explained the meaning of the frog pin adorning his lapel. But anyone who spent much time online in the run-up to the 2016 election didnt need an introduction to Spencers amphibian mascot: It was Pepe, a seemingly innocuous cartoon adopted first by 4chan users and later by the alt-right as a means of trolling.

Feels Good Man starts with the story of Pepes more innocent beginnings. Matt Furie, a talented cartoonist and seemingly decent human, created the character in the mid-2000s as part of his comic Boys Club. (The title of the documentary gets its name from a strip in which Pepe pulls his pants all the way down to pee and declares that it feels good, man.) But just as soon as Furie drew Pepe, people started appropriating the frogs image. Eventually, he became a rallying cry for Trump supporters. Before long, Pepe would be listed by the Anti-Defamation League as a hate symbol.

Directed by Arthur Jones, a friend of Furies, Feels Good Man is many thingsan exploration of incel culture, a tale of someone trying to reclaim their creation, an excuse to laugh at Alex Jones. But watching the doc as we approach the inauguration of a new president, it feels like a bookend to a moment that began with Spencer getting punched. Pepe didnt deserve what happened to him, but society certainly deserved such a ridiculous symbol for such a cartoonishly stupid period of history. Justin Sayles

Celebrity Twitter, like regular Twitter, ranges from boring to sanctimonious, to offensive, to deranged, to schticky, to occasionally clever. But theres no single account that better captures a movie stars on-screen persona than James Caans. Every one of his tweets has a pure enough dose of his tough-guy charm that when Im down, I scroll through his timeline as a pick-me-up.

His formula is pretty simple: Theres usually a shot from one of his films, an image of a movie poster, or a photo of him on set, and then a snappy caption. And best of all, theres always a three-word farewell message: End of Tweet.

Is Caan actually the author of the account? Even if hes not, I dont care. No TV show, movie, or viral video has made me laugh more in 2020. End of blurb. Alan Siegel

In the spring of 2020, my fellow Tea Time hosts and I were faced with a professional conundrum: We had a pop culture news podcast and no pop culture news to report. Other than the occasional Ben-Ana paparazzi photo, nothing was happening. We were forced to get creative, by which I mean we shamelessly mashed together two Ringer podcastsThe Rewatchables and Binge Modeand created a new segment for Tea Time called Cringe Mode. We pledged to rewatch and revisit the cringey, embarrassing movies we loved growing upstarting, of course, with the Twilight saga. All throughout May, I reread every installment of Stephanie Meyers enthralling, perfectly terrible series. The books were, if still hilarious, actually better than I remembered; the movies were so, so much worse.

As it turns out, we timed our deep dive perfectly. For some reason, the rest of the internets bored millennials also decided en masse to revisit their long-lost obsession with Twilight this year. Part of it was thanks to TikTokTwilight provided a sort of meme treasure trove that was instantly familiar to much of TikToks core demographic. But it was also, at least in my case, a comforting exercise in escapism. Like many newly remote-working millennials, I moved back home temporarily, settled into my childhood bedroom, and fell back into the stories I couldnt get enough of as a preteenfor better and for worse.

Heres all Im saying: If Edward Cullen could get through the Spanish Flu of 1918, we can get through this. Kate Halliwell

Last fall, a friend of mine who plays rugby instructed me to learn about the sport before the World Cup so that shed have someone to talk about it with. By way of assistance, she sent me a YouTube clip from a Welsh guy who was doing preview videos before the tournament. In the 15 months since, Ive watched every video posted on the Squidge Rugby channel and gone from wondering why they never throw the ball forward to knowing the difference between a hooker and an inside centre. Ive also developed a fierce emotional attachment to Japan winger Kotaro Matsushima and his pineapple-like hairdo.

Channels like Squidge and the Lanterne Rouge cycling channel sit in what I consider the ideal tone of sports analysts: Listening to a friend who knows slightly more than you do. Funny and accessible enough to attract and teach casual fans of the sport, but detailed enough to retain the diehards. Full of expert knowledge and insight but with an outsiders irreverence. Michael Baumann

Running out of TV has been a constant concernor, at least, a popular topic for reported thinkpiecesduring a year when Hollywood production delays coincided with pandemic-driven increases in time spent streaming. But while networks may have had to scramble to keep new content coming, I found the slight slowdown in the pace of peak TV to be a relief. For the first time in a while, my wife and I felt like we could keep up with new releases during our socially distanced downtime and still have a little time left over to cross off some preexisting series from our decades-spanning TV to-do list. We watched all of The Shield, Halt and Catch Fire, Sex and the City, and Stath Lets Flats. We started (and continue to work our way through) Patriot, Yellowstone, Red Oaks, Money Heist, and Wings. We finally finished The Durrells in Corfu. This year brought many new sources of stress, but even for people who had more time at home, running out of TV wasnt one of them. In fact, 2020 made me realize how long my media backlog could keep me entertained. Not that Im trying to give 2021 any ideas. Ben Lindbergh

Link:

The Things We (Actually) Loved Watching in 2020 - The Ringer

A mohawk-topped black man defiantly marches forward across a public plaza as a weaponized water cannon blasts him back, creating a visceral spectacle recalling civil rights confrontations in 1960s Birmingham, Alabama, but the year is really 2014, and the place is New York City. A series of free workshops teaches eager participants the art and history of protest songs, all the while repurposing such musical dissent to accommodate issues of contemporary resistance. A mysterious huddle of white-clad scriveners silently documents the routine behavior of urban passersby, including those everyday acts of drudgery, pleasure, and resistance that theorist Michel de Certeau described as the murmuring voice of societies. Who are these persons, agents, performers? What do they want? And how did they and their projects materialize in the citys public spaces?

Three projects by three artistsDread Scott, Pablo Helguera, and Ernesto Pujolall set against a backdrop of routine unfreedom, were each developed in an effort to foster creative collaborations between communities and artists. It is an objective especially suited to our times, when the very term art is radically shifting, twisting, inverting, if not undergoing an outright self-expulsion by moving out of its familiar dwelling places to occupy the public sphere at an ever-accelerating tempo. Unavoidably, as art joins in the everyday social world, its status as a privileged realm, set apart from the ubiquitous materialistic pursuits of consumer society, is likewise receding from view. This essay argues that this trade-off is one that artists and critics have yet to really confront, especially if they wish to remain relevant in a world of Lolcats, Doomsday preppers, and xenophobic frog memes.

We are witnessing today the full-on return of socially engaged cultural activism, not only amongst embedded movement artists and community-based cultural workers, but by professionally trained, MFA-bearing artists who refuse the conventional opposition separating art from politics, from current events, and from life in general. Decades of work by artists such as Scott, Helguera, and Pujol (and many others) now serves as inspiration for this emerging cultural shift that concurrently loops back to energize their own creative practices.

For El Club do Protesta/The Protest Club (2011), senior citizens studied and adapted traditional protest songs from Latin and North America in a series of workshops with Pablo Helguera and professional musicians, culminating inperformances on Manhattans High Line. Photo by More Art.

This new wave of cultural activism ranges from the deconstructive installations and raucous performances of Debtfair, who collectively call out the intolerable burden of overextended credit obligations suffered by students, artists, and workers, to the visually bracing public interventions of Decolonize This Place, who stage confrontations over issues such as anthropological bigotry at the American Museum of Natural History and the ethical challenges represented by board members of the Whitney Museum. Since the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, on August 9, 2014, the activist coalition Black Lives Matter has mobilized many artists who are infuriated by police shootings of unarmed African American people. Meanwhile, in the UK, the group Liberate Tate managed to wean the London-based museum off British Petroleums addictive feed of petrodollars.

Especially since the 2008 financial crash, we have seen a surge of creative hybrid art and activist experiments that address fair labor practices within the multimillion-dollar art world, by groups such as Working Artists for the Greater Economy (WAGE), Occupy Museums (Debtfair, mentioned above, is a facet of their work), and the multilevel tactical interventions of Gulf Labor/Global Ultra Luxury Faction (GULF), who have targeted Guggenheim museums in New York and Venice, Italy, with boycotts, occupations, and charges of abuse towards migrant laborers in Abu Dhabi, the site of a future Guggenheim outpost, presently on hold. Recently the staff of the New Museum successfully voted to form a union, despite overt efforts by administrators to stop them.

Still, what makes this return of a highly politicized cultural consciousness so very robust and far-reaching today? After all, thepost-warfusion of art and politicswas fully mapped out between 1968 and 1984, from the uprisings of the New Left across the globe, to post-colonial and identity liberation movements, to mass resistance against Ronald Reagans push to invade Nicaragua and station tactical nuclear missiles in Turkey.Is it this historical precedent? Or a certain pedagogical influence from one generation to another? Advances in communications technology? Or is it something new and unprecedented in our present moment? And why is this burst of socially committed culture taking place as the very category of art as autonomous object is dissolving from view, but also as the regressive forces of nationalism, racism, and misogyny are dangerously gaining in strength across the globe?

Occupy Museums, Debtfair (2017). Photo: Henri Neuendorf.

Lets begin with a hypothetical genealogy of activist art, one that for practical reasons is focused primarily on post-1968 New York City. This alternative art-historical chronicle flows forward from the anti-Vietnam War demonstrations of the Art Workers Coalition, Black Emergency Cultural Coalition, and Guerilla Art Action Group in the late 1960s, through such informal collectives as Artists Meeting for Cultural Change and the Real Estate Show in the 1970s. Group Material, Political Art Documentation/Distribution, the Guerilla Girls, Gran Fury, and Critical Art Ensemble emerged in the next decade, followed by the rise of tactical media in the 1990s and 2000s with Electronic Disturbance Theater, Center for the Tactical Magic, and RTmark and The Yes Men, whose digital mimesis, intelligent sabotage, and corporate identity correction characterizes much of this work. Though these antecedents aggregate into a definite and determinate argument, they do not fully explain current circumstances.

Pedagogy also plays a role in our brief analysis. Since the turn of the last century, we find an ever-expanding explosion of seemingly spontaneous collectivism and cultural activism amongst younger artists, graduates of MFA programs taught by studio faculty who made it their mission to intentionally pry open standard formalist art-historical narratives, in order to insert social and political motivation into traditional art-for-arts-sake curricula. And yet the influence of these progressive art educators does not fully account for the accelerating wave of militant cultural activism over the past couple of decades. Dare we consider technology as its primary booster?

Permeating the 1990s and early 2000s was an alluring techtopian enchantment brought about by increasingly accessible social communication networks. When coupled with the implosion of the sclerotic socialist eastern bloc, as well as with the charismatic cyber-tactics of Mexicos EZLN (Zapatista Army of National Liberation), it suddenly seemed that Another World is Possible. Adopted in 2001 by the first World Social Forum for civil society and social justice in Porto Alegre, Brazil, the phrase also became a mantra for the counter-globalization movement reaching from Seattle to Genoa. Improvising with only half-hearted irony on this speculative futurity, cultural theorist Gene Ray proposed in 2004 that Another (Art) World is Possible, carefully though clearly surfing the wave of optimism launched by new globally connected communications media.

And it was unquestionably a remarkable moment. For a time it seemed possible to speak about an alternative mode of globalization that would be fundamentally different from the blanket monetization of the planet dreamt of by transnational corporations. In just such an ecstatic vein, Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig opined buoyantly:

[digital] technology could enable a whole generation to createremixed films, new forms of music, digital art, a new kind of storytelling, writing, a new technology for poetry, criticism, political activismand then, through the infrastructure of the Internet, share that creativity with others.

But before long, post-9/11 Patriot Act restrictions tarnished the Wild West allure of early cyberspace, which was further crippled by increasing legalization, consolidation, and rapid commercialization of Internet platforms. The dream of direct digital democracy did not die so much as deflate, only to be reanimated as increasingly specialized, even sectarian, subscriber sites, internally horizontal, yes, but thoroughly disconnected from any lingering promise of an open-source, global infrastructure where everyone could share their unbridled creativity (above all think here of Facebook). Next came the cold gray new reality of the jobless future, an existential shockwave from the 2008 financial collapse that all but demolished the liberatory expectations of the creative class, at least as anticipated by neoliberal urban management guru Richard Florida. Still, resistance abhors an aspirational vacuum.

Ernesto Pujols performance 9-5 (2015). Nisa Ojalvo 2015.

Like a sonic boom following a speeding jet, several years after the global financial collapse came the angry, bold, as well as joyful resistance that erupted in 2011 into urban squares, as citizens of the so-called creative class congealed into occupying, unemployed armies from Tahrir Square, Cairo, to Puerta del Sol square in downtown Madrid and to Zuccotti Park in New York City. The spark soon spread across the US and Europe, into Russia and to Hong Kong and other parts of the Middle East. Brimming with improvised speeches, DIY music, social choreography and the human mic, these occupations shared an overarching sense of collective expectation, each citys encampment germinating its own low-tech dissident culture made up of handmade cardboard signs taped together or trimmed down, or simply folded into manageable dimensions to maximize protest visibility.

This corporeal dissidence was also streamed online, thus mixing up digital medias advantages with actual bodies in the street, as if suggesting that some small part of the 1990s techtopia was still alive, though now curiously taking a backseat to a host of obsolete protest media, from picket signs and banner drops to defiant public processions physically blocking traffic. Still, this marriage of low- and high-tech forms was not unprecedentedone need only recall the motto of early 20th-century avant-garde Russian artist Vladimir Tatlin: not the old, not the new, but the necessary. And yet, at this point in our hypothetical genealogy of cultural activism, we began to see stirrings of something unexpected, if not entirely novel, because these swarms of semi-organized resistance also contained a strain of regressive cultural opposition that commingled and competed with progressive protesters for visibility and dominance within the media-enhanced theater of discontent.

While the left and right most often expressed opposite positions (though at other times shared nearly identical views regarding questions of governance, democracy, identity, and most of all globalization), this paradoxical phenomena of commingling was perhaps most palpably present in February 2014 during the so-called EuroMaidan uprising in Kiev, Ukraine, when the population occupied and barricaded the citys central plaza in protest of the governments shift away from ties with the European Union and towards Putins Russia. In that embattled town square, known locally as Maidan Nezalezhnosti, or Independence Square, liberals, conservatives, and several far-right parties briefly cohabited. All of this took place despite the occupiers contradictory ambitions regarding neoliberal markets vs. social democracy, and the establishment of secular governance vs. a form of Christian nationalist authority. As strange as that was, today when we look to Brexit and the 2016 US election results, we can see that there is a continuum moving forward from EuroMaidan to the current political situation, as anti-globalist forces, once viewed primarily as a phenomenon on the political left, meld with, or are replaced by, conservative, but also extreme-right, protestors. Put differently, this seeming historical and political anomaly has its own ludicrous logic.

Further muddying post-Internet expectations for the spontaneous emergence of a pro-humanist cybercommons has been the recent phenomenon of bigoted, alt-right websites including 4chan, and the even more grotesque and misogynist 8chan. All the same, even such racist, nationalist, or post-human imaginaries do not forgo all utopian longing, and offer some degree of physiological comfort to the chronically alienated individual. The need to push back against chronic unfreedom has thankfully given birth to countless politically progressive online platforms, but also millions of spritely Instagram posts featuring amusing household pets, impudent children, and electro-comical faux pas spoken by Alexa and her AI kin, along with the inverted dystopian conspiracies such as pedophilic pizza parlors and fake gun survivors paid to denounce the National Rifle Association.

Silly, paranoid, fascistthese defense mechanisms may all be a far cry indeed from the promised dawn of the digital neo-enlightenment foreseen by Lessig and other techtopian dreamers almost two decades ago (though it now feels more like a century has passed since then). Still, the unconcealable contradictions that today result from dramatic climate-changeinduced weather, staggering income asymmetries, structural xenophobia, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and racism, but also the dreaded emergence of a total surveillance state are always only a swipe or click away, thanks to the more than seven billion mobile devices that link our neural pathways together in the glimmering global matrix of fear, hope, longing, and connectivity, where instantaneous clickable consumption offers partial, though only temporary, satisfaction.

Within this multi-pixelated contemporary world, we can no longer count on arts once radical autonomy to set its practice apart from other forms of production, exploitation, and fear. When everything is spectacularized, monetized, and brandable, the realm of fine art is left undefended against the voracious appetite of affective capital. We have entered the era of what I call Bare Art. It is an unsettling moment when the institutions and practices of high culture continue to subsist as such, and yet where art is now bereft of mystery, depth, aura, and all those curious traits that once made art appear to operate in an exceptional state, autonomous and detached from the vulgarities of the marketplace. Neverthelessand this is one more paradoxical wrinkle in this gamehigh arts peculiar social license to misbehave, to imitate or even mock reality, to blur genres and disciplines has not vanished, but instead has been simultaneously amplified and decentralized as this contrarian aesthetic value is now imputed to almost everything that jumps, pops, and flows across our glow-screenbedazzled collective attention span. And it is precisely from this weakened state that new strengths must emerge.

Krzysztof Wodiczko,Ustedes (Them) (2020). Multimedia installation and live performance on Governors Island, New York City, commissioned by More Art. Photo by Manuel Molina Martagon.

The practices of Scott, Helguera, and Pujol, together with many more socially engaged activist artists and collectives, operate within this fully illuminated space of Bare Art. Everything is now out there in plain sight, right alongside the profusion of every other cultural output including Pepe the Frog memes, Lolcat posts, and Doomsday prepper videos. Art has lost its centuries-old ideological privilege, and yet has gained in this process a front-row seat in a contentious struggle to rethink the way expressive, imaginative, and artistic value is generated, for whom, why, and to what ends. Finally we encounter the missing ingredient regarding the explosion of art activism today. It is not the exceptional position of high culture within society that has made this proliferation possible, but instead arts earthbound plummet into the everyday. This is of course precisely what the early 20th-century avant-garde had proposed just about 100 years ago. Though it now arrives with a twist.

Artist Krzysztof Wodiczko brilliantly argues that the very possibility of a transformative avant-garde art, if it is to exist today, requires simultaneously deconstructing and constructing participation through language, but also bodies, histories, affects, etc. And perhaps we already bear witness to this process, not only with the work of Scott, Helguera, and Pujol, but also with such near-spontaneous social protest formations as Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, and Viacrucis del Migrante (Migrant Caravan). It seems we have arrived at a moment of great possibilities, and equally great risks, where art is both the name for a particular act of defiance, and the name of a $60-some-billion-dollar industry tracked by leading investment funds.

If Wodiczko is correct, and I hope he is, then we who are both true defenders and relentless critics of contemporary art must act like a cadre of hooded ninjas, or sorcerers, upholding past ideals, while coldly confronting the most abject contradictions, like irradiated apostles of an uncertain future. This is an uncomfortable, maybe even untenable, position that we will learn to live with, as mass collective agency once again impulsively erupts into public places and media spaces. Informed by oppositional lessons learned from a long-suppressed history from below, inspired by a host of once-marginalized pedagogues, and armed with a disruptive tactical technology that reanimates a socially engaged artistic agency by any means necessary, let us celebrate a haunted necromantic vanguardism that casts impossible dark-matter shadows across the brazen and bright world of bare art.

Excerpted fromMore Art in the Public Eye, edited by Micaela Martegani, Jeff Kasper, and Emma Drew,Duke University Press, 2019.

See more here:

Memes Are Dominating Attention Spans and Clicks Like Never Before. So Why Is Serious Socially Engaged Art Also Thriving? - artnet News

White Noise director Daniel Lombrosos interest in the alt-right started in 2016, five months before Donalds Trumps election. Working as a reporter for The Atlantic magazine, he spent three years in the field, starting his research on Reddit and 4chan before gaining the trust of three of the movements brightest stars: Richard Spencer, organizer of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville; social media personality Mike Cernovich; and Canadian activist Lauren Southern.

It was a slow process, says Lombroso. People had this idea that Trump had radical supporters, but no one had defined it. I was 23 years old at the time and I saw people my age [that were] really energized by this candidate that no one expected to win. I started with the profile of Richard Spencer and caught a room full of people doing Nazi salutes [at a conference in Washington], which went viral. It clarified that it was fundamentally a white nationalism movement.

Many reporters want a quick soundbite and then they leave, he continues, but I wanted to understand why they believe what they believe. And how their ideas work on other people, even though I find them completely abhorrent, dangerous and repulsive. I am Jewish and yet I spent hundreds and hundreds of hours with them, having lunch, dinner, taking flights. I was willing to spend 30 hours off the record to get 10 amazing seconds.

Such moments include Lauren Southern allegedly being propositioned by [Proud Boys founder] Gavin McInnes, Cernovich opening up about his insecurity, and Spencers breakdown in front of the camera after his speech at the Michigan State University resulted in protests. When I brought back these rushes everyone went: This is a crazy fucking scene, Lombroso recalls. Spencer is pacing around in his double-breasted suit, listening to Depeche Mode. Hes obviously scared, as his brand has already been damaged, but in a weird, sadistic way maybe that was the great performance he always wanted. [Was he] dreaming of becoming an avant-garde theater director?

One of the biggest takeaways from the film is that they built a powerful movement, but the leaders are broken people, he says. They are lost, and they created a community of lost followers. The goal was to demystify their public image by showing them in private. Mike Cernovich epitomizes it the mosthe is this avatar of alpha masculinity, and yet most of his money comes from alimony from his first wife.

That said, its Southern who embodies the most absurd contradictions, Lambroso says, calling her the most important character in the film. She embodies the feminist ideal, even through she is fighting against it! Shes like Phyllis Schlafly, he says, referring to the recent FX show Mrs. America. You cant talk about the alt-right without mentioning misogyny, as it came from mens rights activism and pick-up blogging. Having a family can be wonderful, but this is much more insidiousthis idea that we need to have babies to preserve the white race. Lauren is propagating anti-feminism, and then it comes back to bite her.

Although his film is, as he says, an unsympathetic eulogy to the alt-right, even as his protagonists continue to self-destruct, he accepts the fact that their ideas are already embedded in the mainstream. Its a terrible habit, but I continue to check on them, he admits. I will always be fascinated by extremismmy grandparents were Holocaust survivors. But the digital world has now become physical. Trump tweets something and thousands show up, although he claims there were millions. We see attacks by incels [involuntary celibates] and all these weird fringe communities coming alive. I think that will stay with us.

Even though Biden won, people wanted a decisive victory against Trumpism and that didnt come. His more radical base, which has now evolved into [internet conspiracy] QAnon, for example, is not going anywhere. In the past, if you were interested in white nationalism, you would meet a bunch of weirdos at a Home Depot parking lot and pass around pamphlets. Now you can sit in your room, and when you stumble upon someone like Lauren its easy to believe that you found the truth. Its called being red-pilled in this movement. As long as social media algorithms push people in that direction, as long as Trump refuses to concede, this stuff is just going to fester.

After White Noise, Lombroso has already started developing new projects, both dealing with themes that are, he says, at the core of his work: citizenship, ethnicity and what it means to belong. That includes a coming-of-age story about an Indian-American girl making sense of the unexpected death of her father and another film based on his pen-pal relationship with a Russian spy, currently serving a 15-year prison sentence. I will probably stick to documentary for now, he says, but eventually I hope to become a hybrid director.

Daniel LombrosoCourtesy of Daniel Lombroso

Visit link:

White Noise Director on Alt-Right: As Long as Trump Refuses to Concede, This Stuff Is Just Going to Fester - Variety

The alt-right homophobe intended to infect "10 to 20" LGBT+ people with COVID-19. (GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP via Getty)

An alt-right homophobe in New Zealand is being investigated for a plot to deliberately infect the LGBT+ community and people of colour with COVID-19.

According to the queer New Zealand publication Express, the man posted on an alt-right website claiming that he had contracted woohoo flu, andwrote that he had a really sore throat and was unable to stop coughing.

He then explained that he wanted to target the LGBT+ community and communities of colour by spreading the virus at a gay bar in Auckland and at a church.

The anonymous homophobe said he was aiming to infect 10 to 20 people at the bar, and asked for advice on how to fit in without risking getting hit on.

He also said he planned to visit multiple churches with congregations of colour, and in a separate post asked if it would be too suspicious to travel to the churches as the one closest to him was predominantly white.

Police have been notified, and told the publication that they were taking the threats extremely seriously.

A police spokesperson said authorities were continuing to make enquiries into an anonymous post made on an online forum.

They said: The nature of this anonymous post is concerning, and Police take these sorts of matters extremely seriously.

Police are limited in further comment at this stage as our enquiries are ongoing.

New Zealand minister for health responded to the investigation: The ministry supports the police as being the appropriate agency to look into this incident as they will be best placed to find out whats happened and determine what further actions are required.

The country has reduced its new daily COVID-19 cases to single figures under prime minister Jacinda Arden who, after Octobers election, will now lead a parliament with the highest proportion of LGBT+ MPs in the world.

Excerpt from:

Alt-right homophobe plots to infiltrate gay bar and deliberately infect LGBT+ community with COVID-19 - PinkNews

As the holidays approach, the typical jokes about family political fights will no doubt abound especially with a contentious presidential election marred by conspiracy theories, misinformation and threats of violence. While Bidens win signals a return to basic decency at the presidential level, the nation remains very much divided. Worse, misinformation on the legitimacy of the election is spreading rapidly, further driving conspiratorial thinking and other alt-right messages to the fore of current political discourse. Thus, behind the jokes and the family feuds which inspire them are very real consequences for millions of people in the United States something the recent election made incredibly clear. As such, this holiday season, white progressives need to remain consistent with their supposed commitment to social justice they need to stand up to their racist loved ones.

While the results of the election spurred celebration across the country, white progressives must not be complacent. Yes, a proto-facist leader has been defeated, but the hateful rhetoric, conspiratorial thinking and virulent racism, xenophobia and sexism he espoused during his tenure remain deeply entrenched in American political discourse. Thus, not only is the fight for the rights of marginalized communities ongoing, but our new president while better in a myriad of ways must also be held accountable and face demands to execute a progressive agenda. While there are many ways white progressives can help in this mission, a necessary component of this involves debunking misinformation and combatting hateful rhetoric within their own families.

Privileged progressives must make good on their moral commitment to social justice not only in our public actions, but in our personal ones. While white progressives may attend protests, hold phone banking sessions or donate to mutual aid funds, none of this serves as adequate allyship if they are unable to stand up to those closest to them. Thus, if white progressives truly care about the causes they so often and so publicly claim to support, it follows that they must stand up to their families, friends and anyone else in their social circles who espouse hateful views, conspiracy theories or other misrepresentations of facts.

This holiday season, white progressives should not continue to favor their own comfort and familial peace over the tangible suffering of vulnerable people. In failing to stand up to their families and friends whether their statements are meant well or not white liberals show a distinct complacency with white supremacy, sexism, xenophobia and the countless other ways in which bigotry rears its ugly head. Thus, when we sit silent over our uncles QAnon rants or our high school friends xenophobic comments, it shows that we value our own comfort over what we know to be our ethical duty. Further, if your allyship consists primarily of posting prettily curated Instagram slideshows, then it isn't an allyship its a performance. Conflict particularly when it is with people we love can be hard, but this does not mean we get an ethical opt-out.

To be clear, this article is not intended to argue that you are obligated to put yourself in a physically or financially dangerous situation in order to argue against your familys beliefs. If confronting your family and friends could cause violence or abuse, you should obviously protect your safety. Further, arguing against racist family members beliefs is not the beginning and end of good allyship. Rather, it is a necessary component in a long and complex process. Good allyship is an ongoing process that requires constant listening, learning and action. Ultimately, as a white woman, I dont think my job can or should be to tell you how to be an ally to marginalized people with experiences far different from my own. However, what I do know is that continuing to do nothing to the individual people we are most likely to persuade is unacceptable.

Ultimately, telling your family members that their bigotry is wrong is not activism. However, it is still an incredibly important way not only to show that your moral principles and the individuals and communities whose lives and livelihoods are in the crosshairs of these conversations are more important to you than your relationship with racists. Will having hard and likely contentious conversations with your family work to persuade them? Maybe, maybe not. The reason to stand up against your loved ones bigotry is not just to be persuasive clearly and decisively showing your family that their bigoted beliefs do not have a compliant audience is also a valuable action. No matter the outcome, standing up for your principles disrupts the presumption of agreement so often assumed by bigots. Hateful beliefs may continue but at the very least you can make it clear that they are not welcome to at least one person at the dinner table.

Emma Camp is an Opinion Columnist for The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at opinion@cavalierdaily.com.

The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of The Cavalier Daily. Columns represent the views of the authors alone.

See the rest here:

CAMP: Stand up to your racist family - University of Virginia The Cavalier Daily

In the days following the US election, hard-right politicians, commentators and social media stars were lacking a platform on which their conspiracy theories could go viral. Both Twitter and Facebook were flaggingtheir endless stream of posts suggesting the election had been stolen, warning they were misleading or contained false information. The right needed a place to regroup; the platforms that had served as megaphones were slipping from their grasp. So, in what perhaps felt like a last shot, they encouraged each other to go to Parler: the free speech platform, heralded bycorners of the right as their last social media hope.

Parler is a relatively newplatform, which encourages themindset that the only rule is there are no rules. It brands itself as a foil to mainstream platforms the place users can go to say what they cant say elsewhere. After launching in August 2018, it surged in users the following May, when Politico reported that Donald Trumps then-campaign manager Brad Parscale was considering making the president an account amid free speech concerns onTwitter. He didnt;but he did set upan accountfor the Team Trump campaign, which is still active. Parler enjoyed greater popularity among right-wingers as a result. In the UK, there was a similar pullto the platform inJune when a user created an account that pretended to be Katie Hopkins who hadrecently been banned from Twitter and managed to raise $500 for legal fees before anyone realised it was a hoax. This saw British commentators and Conservative MPs sign up to the site, proof of Parlers free speech USP.

After a quiet few months, Parler crept back into the news in October, ahead of the3 November election. It became a hotbed of QAnon, Pizzagateand Hunter Biden conspiracy theories. In the week after the election, it was top of the American app store charts, listed as the most downloaded product on both Apple and Android devices.

With the endorsement of countless right-wing celebrities and politicians, it has swelled to ten million users worldwide up from 2.8 million users in July. Right-wing personalities across the globe are now encouraging users to commit to Parler and to quit Twitter for good. And that user growth, coupled with the support of so manymainstream political voices,makes the platform different from its predecessors. If its biggest stars quit other platforms outright, there would be an even bigger draw for theaverage user to keep coming back.

But can Parler really thrive on the right? Can it become a household name? What does the right get out of social media likeParler a platform where, perhaps for the first time, its own mainstreampolitical echo chamber has been created?

***

Parler is not the only place the right is, or has ever, gathered online with little to no left-wing influence. 4chan, Gaband messaging service Telegram have become popular with the alt-right at different points over the last 15 years. However, the vast majority of these platforms have gained reputations as being toxic, and have become synonymous with the worst of the internet. Milo Yiannopoulos, an early far-right British starlet who was banned from Twitter in 2016, infamouslyposted on Telegramlast year: I cant put food on the table this way.

Parler, on the other hand, has been able to style itself as more mainstream, more sanitised in the short time its been live. But,despite its more palatable public face, it still allows most of what you would find on more notorious alt-right sites. After a blip this summer,CEO John Matzewarned the platform would not allow obscene words in usernames, repeated harassment in the comments, or pornographic images (all of which are allowed on Twitter), but misinformation and abuse are still rife on the site.Parlers cleanappearance therefore allows politicians, for example, toparticipate on the site, even though familiarly insidious content lurks underneath. This is the key to Parlers success as a right-wing social media platform.

[See also:What is Parler? Inside the pro-Trump unbiased platform]

One of its biggest drawbacks, however, is the same complaint many on the right make about Twitter: it really is an echo chamber. As a user, you are metwith the same set of opinions,shared in different word formations on different accounts. There is no incentive for anyone on the left to join. And so Parler posts tend to fall flat: intrigue and controversy are impossible when everyone is inagreement.

Already, you can sense users tiring. Right-wing social media posters who are active elsewhere have barely touched Parler since joining. Fox News host Tucker Carlson has only posted twice since joining at the end of 2018 and Donald Trump Jrs partner, Kimberly Guilfoyle, has also posted infrequently since she joined in July. Texas Senator Ted Cruz, one of thepoliticians who very enthusiastically joined Parlerin June,has even started sharing non-political memes clearly ripped from Facebook pages. All three of these conservative personalities still post regularly on Twitter and many others who claimed to be leaving Twitter for good have already begun to trickle back.

The only people who appearto use Parler as their main social media outlet are those who have been banned from all other mainstream platforms. Alex Jones, of InfoWars fame, who was banned from YouTube, Twitterand Facebook last year, posts multiple times a day to his account; Yiannopoulos has also begun posting aggressively on Parler. However, both Jones and Yiannopoulos have only drawn about a tenth of the audience they had on more mainstream platforms over the last ten years, and have subsequently faded into relative obscurity. They may be prolific on Parler, but their importance in advancing the cause ofthe right is very limited.

Audience isnt only a problem for those who have nowhere else to go. Parler is, of course, already inherently smaller, before factoring in the work it takes to grow audiences on Twitter and Facebook over the course of years. Whats the point of posting on Parler alone, when you could tweet and get upwards of 20 times the engagement? Parlers loudest advocates would arguethis is the early price users must pay to fully divorce themselves from mainstream tech platforms. But any long-term benefits to the cause will not tempt those who have become brand names in and of themselves.

However, enthusiasm for Parler is still high, even if its long-term prospects are less promising. In the two weeks since election day, new users haveincluded longstanding political personalities and swathes of newly elected politicians. Fresh, right-wing faces in the Senate, the Houseand smaller state legislatures have flockedto the site. They join their senior counterparts in advocating for this new digital future for the right.

But its hard to envision a reality in which Parlers influence extends all that far. In the past, each waveof new Parler users has abated after a few days or weeks of hype. Users get bored, and its biggest names become less vocal. Enthusiasm only lasts if effectiveness does too.

[See also:How QAnon conspiracy theorists entered the US Congress]

Ultimately, for any ideology to thrive, you cant survive on a single-minded platform made for public consumption. 4Chan thrives for two reasons: because there really are no rules, and because users eventually water down their ideas and disseminate themon more mainstream sites. For platforms that have high mainstream salience, the pay-off is created by the back and forth between two opposing sides.

Parler, by trying to create the best of all of them, creates the worst of both worlds. It maintains a more restrictive platform than 4Chan without any of the political tension other platforms offer. The joy for many politically active social media users is criticising the other side. But you cant "own" the liberalsif there are no liberals around to "own". In an effort to create the first mainstream echo chamber, Parler proves why its theory doesnt work in practice: theres no ground to be gained by repeating what everyone else is already thinking.

Go here to read the rest:

Can the right thrive on Parler? - New Statesman

Donald Trump's attempts to steal the election are fruitless. His legal theater is going nowhere, and it's becoming apparent that this is more about shaking down credulous supporters for cash than about actually overturning the election results. Michigan pounded another nail in Trump's coffin Tuesday, when two Republicans who were blocking the vote certification in Wayne County, which includes Detroit, relented in the face of public outrage. It's all over but the grifting, which will likely continue as long as Trump keeps getting people to give him money for his "legal defense" money that is being funneled through a PAC and likely straight into Trump's pocket.

Yet the Republican establishment is still tiptoeing around Trump, coddling his fragile ego by refusing to admit he lost the election. Some are going a step further, such as South Carolina's Sen. Lindsey Graham, who has been exerting pressure on state officials to toss out legally-cast ballots. Why are all these Republicans so afraid of Trump, who will no longer be president in 63 days?

The main reason appears to be that Republicans really are worried about their electoral prospects after Trump. The record Democratic turnout in the 2020 election President-elect Joe Biden turned out 14 million more voters than Hillary Clinton in 2016 caused many Republicans down-ballot from Trumpto sweat their re-election prospects. Luckily for them, however,Trump also turned out an eye-popping 10 million new voters, which was enough to save the skins of many GOP candidates, even as Trump lost by slender margins in swing states.

Trump is a turnout machine for Republicans, who have been desperately casting around for years now for a way to save their party despite demographic changes that make the Democrats more popular among voters. The question of whether there will beTrumpism after Trump nowdogsboth Republicans who want to replicate their electoral successes under the reality TV president and Democrats who dearly hopethis whole disaster was an anomaly.

"[S]ome conservative opinion leaders are already looking forward to a post-Trump future where the viable things about the 45th president can be neatly separated from his troublesome persona," Ed Kilgore writes for New York.

He cites "a representative fantasy" by right-wing writer Kristin Tate at The Hill, wholongs for a "Republican with the political positions of Trump, but without decades of tabloid fodder," proposing that candidate might avoid "the bandwagon effect of suburban voters eager to show their public disapproval of his latest action."

Kilgore explores the various hopes that Republicans have for a "new Trump."Will it be Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, a Bible-thumper straight out of "The Handmaid's Tale" who has some crossover appeal for his occasional swipes at corporate America (though mostly for itsperceived degeneracy)? Or Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who brings the racism and militant neofascism of Trump, but without the gleeful sleaze of a shameless sexual assailant?

These choices expose whyRepublicans fear that there maybe no way to haveTrumpism without Trump. Those guys and other contenders areall missing the secret sauce that helped Trump recruit so heavily among non-voters and infrequent voters. And no, it's not his so-called charisma.

What Trump really has going for him is what I call the "crackpot factor."Trump speaks to voters who share the racism and sexism of typical GOP voters, but who often don't vote because they think politics is boring and areawash in conspiracy theories about how the system is "rigged."Those voters saw a kindred spirit in Trump, a man who speaks fluent conspiracy theory and who got his start in politics by promoting claims that Barack Obama wasn't a native-born U.S. citizen.

Before the 2020 election, the team at FiveThirtyEight took a deep dive on the views of people who vote infrequently or not at all. There's a lot of reasons for non-voting, such as a belief it doesn't matter orthe obstacles that make voting difficult, but oneimportant factor was a lack of trust in the system. For some voters, especially nonwhite voters or liberal-leaning voters, this is unfortunately a realistic assessment of the situation, where social progress often feels glacial and voting doesn't seem to make much difference.

But for right-leaning voters, I suspect a lot of this distrust flows from a conspiratorial mindset, born from a steady diet of misinformationthat has been made all too readily available bythe internet. These are the types that populate the audience forJoe Rogan and Alex Jones. These are people whohate Democrats but also feel alienated bythe religiosity and elitism of mainstream Republicans, and turn to "alternative" sources of information that are thick with paranoid conspiracy theories. Trump, who indulged the same"alternative facts" that they enjoy,stirred something in them that other Republicans simply couldn't.

In 2014, Pew Research, using extensive data, developed a political typology that sorted Americans into sixgroups. Two of the Republican-leaning ones are incredibly familiar topolitical observers, the "steadfast conservatives" and "business conservatives,"or, respectively,the religious right and the rich folks whoare in itfor the tax cuts.

But they also detected an emerging group, which they deemed "young outsiders," who "do not have a strong allegiance to the Republican Party" and, in fact, "tend to dislikebothpolitical parties."These voters registered as "socially liberal,"insofar as they don't support bans on abortion or gay marriage and, importantly, aren't especiallyreligious.

But the "young outsiders" doshare the racism of traditional conservatives. They are easily riled up by thedemonization of social spending programs like Obamacare or food stamps They approve of programs, like Medicare, that are viewed as benefiting white people. They're in favorlegal marijuana butoppose gun control. And they vote farless often than other conservatives.

I personally believe that the Pew research failed to capturehow sexist this group is. The usual proxy questions to measure sexism, such as attitudes towards abortion, simply aren't adequate in this context. I suspect this group, while not as opposed to abortion as otherconservatives, is angry about other feminist concernssuch as the #MeToo movement, where men's privilegeto mistreat women are being attacked.

These are, I suspect, the Gamergaters and the alt-right types who flocked to Trump in the years after this survey. They gobble down internet conspiracy theories like QAnon, which creates engagement with right-wingpolitics for those who aren't religious conservatives or business elites. They like to imagine that embracing more authoritarian attitudes is an "edgy" revolt against liberalism. They are overwhelmingly white (though 14% are Hispanic), and under 50 years old. While more than half of those defined as"strong liberals" are college graduates, three-quarters of the "young outsiders"don't havecollege diplomas.

Trump gota whole lot of those people who don't usually vote to do so, turningout more non-college-educated white voters in 2016, for example, than Mitt Romney did in 2012. These votersoverlooked his alliance withthe religious right and were instead fixated on his playboy persona, his over-the-top sexism and racismand, of course, his sweeping embrace of nutbar conspiracy theories of all kinds.

Over the past four years, everything that Trump's opponents hate about him his grossness, his cruelty to women and people of color, his rejection of the polite norms of D.C. politicsand, of course, his conspiracy theories likely generated even more enthusiasm from this subset of voters that other Republicans have had trouble capturing or motivating.

That's why it's reasonable to be skeptical aboutthe likely success of the current crop of wannabe Trumps. Hawley's religiosity and culture-war rigiditywon't play well with these Trump Republicans whoare just fine with premarital sex and legal weed, even if they're not fond of women having the right to file sexual harassment complaints. Cotton may roll out fascist fantasies that appeal to the QAnoners and the alt-right, but he's a stiff and, I suspect, won'tappeal to those who enjoy Trump's wrestling-heel gift forinsulting and degrading people. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who also wants to be the next Trump, has intense weenie energy that makes it hard for him to win these people over.

Trump speaks to the great American crackpot, especially the younger set that was otherwise more interested in perusing conspiracy theory websites or "pick-up artist" forums than in voting. These folks won't be moved by Hawley's promise ofa handmaid in every bed or Cotton's promise of stormtroopers on the streets. In the face of the growing Democratic majority, Republicans need this subset ofcrank voters, who don't care about old-school culture-war fights over abortion or evolution, but sure do love QAnon. Without Trump's demented tweeting and his willingness to leave empirical reality behind, it's not clear how the GOP cankeep the crank vote going.

More:

The crackpot factor: Why the GOP is worried about turning out the vote after Trump - Salon

The current, soon-to-be-former president took a clear Twitter shot at Republican Gov. Mike DeWine when he predicted the state's next gubernatorial race 'will be hotly contested'

Since the coronavirus reached Ohio, Gov. Mike DeWine has tried to execute a difficult dance, acknowledging and sometimes following the advice of health experts, particularly departed health director Amy Acton in the early months of the pandemic, while at the same time trying to pacify a Republican president who has repeatedly pushed to open state economies despite the dangers of COVID-19.

It hasnt always been pretty, either. Following some early successes in holding back the virus, DeWine shifted toward opening the state for business, and he was slow to issue a mask mandate as the virus took hold and cases climbed. And, in the end, the tip-toeing didnt even matter. Over the weekend, following an interview in which DeWine acknowledged Joe Biden as president-elect, Trump fired off a tweet aimed squarely at the Ohio co-chair of his re-election campaign, writing, Who will be running for Governor of the Great State of Ohio? Will be hotly contested!

With that in mind, we thought wed take a crack at ranking the candidates we could see Trump backing in 2022.

12. Josh Mandel

Mandel, Alives 2018 pick for worst politician, has been quiet in the two years since he unexpectedly dropped out of a run for the U.S. Senate to attend to a family health issue. A comeback feels inevitable, though, and Mandels past use of anti-Muslim campaign ads, his willing embrace of the alt-right and a passive relationship with the truth all feel very Trumpian in nature. Plus, he still has an active federal campaign account.

11. Jim Renacci

The former congressman, who lost his 2018 Senate run, operates a Twitter account filled with the kind of scare-tactic rhetoric that riles up the base (If socialism prevails, America will cease to exist) and his pinned tweet is a photo taken alongside Trump.

10. The Ohio anti-masker who keeps turning up in viral videos where she refuses to comply with public health orders

If a Gadsden flag learned how to operate a smartphone and had a penchant for ginning up faux outrage, this would be the result.

9. Nino Vitale

A member of the Ohio House of Representatives whose inflammatory, questionably sourced social media posts make it clear he badly wants to be a part of the public conversation.

8. TownHall owner Bobby George

Like Trump, George has a contentious relationship with the media and an apparent aversion to masking up.

7. Larry Householder

The former Speaker of the House won his recent election in a landslide despite his July arrest on a corruption charge, so the skys the limit.

6. Ken Blackwell

The former Ohio State Treasurer and current conservative columnist has proudly picked up the sad Stop the Steal banner, taking to Twitter to share conspiracy theories and outright falsehoods supporting Trumps continuing refusal to concede.

5. That viral photo of the open Ohio protesters

This era-defining image from Dispatch photographer Joshua A. Bickel arguably captures the point at which DeWine softened his stance on COVID, which leaves the photo incredibly well-positioned to outflank the governor from the right.

4. Candice Keller

A run for the office feels sadly inevitable. Fortunately, so does a loss.

3. Any of these 15 breeds of canine ranked as the best lap dogs

Complete fealty is what Trump wants from his followers, which brings us to...

2. Jim Jordan

The Ohio congressman and former OSU wrestling coach, who six former athletes claim knew about the sexual conduct complaints brought against a team doctor and did nothing to act, has emerged as one of Trumps most outspoken sycophants. We imagine Trump would repay that loyalty in kind with a full-throated primary endorsement. That is unless...

1. Donald Trump

You know he wants to.

Visit link:

The List: Ranking the candidates Trump could back for Ohio governor in 2022 - Columbus Alive

Setting aside the fact that these guidelines are completely optional, its worth remembering that one of the reasons were still struggling to control the virus more than eight months into the pandemic is that both the larger public and our elected officials didnt take necessary action early on. This inaction often drew cheers from conservative media outlets and commentators, who spent significant portions of the year trying to undermine public health guidelines while downplaying the danger presented by the virus.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Fox News has been a major source of COVID-19 misinformation and a consistent critic of measures to slow the spread of the virus. Whether it was promoting the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine despite a total lack of evidence for its effectiveness as a coronavirus treatment or playing host to anti-mask advocate and Covid Contrarian Alex Berenson, Fox has been an unfortunately influential voice in the national discussion around the pandemic, downplaying the deadliness of the disease, criticizing states for enacting restrictions on public gatherings, and bashing the idea of lockdowns. While its impossible to know exactly how different the impact of the pandemic would be if Foxs advice had been ignored by the president and his loyal supporters, months of preaching defiance in the face of science hasnt helped matters. If not for Foxs destructive monthslong assault on public health, its within the realm of possibilities that we could be enjoying something closer to a normal holiday season.

This isnt going to be a relatively normal holiday season, however, and Fox News isnt taking that news particularly well. On Tuesdays edition of Fox & Friends, Fox Business host Charles Payne referred to COVID-related restrictions implemented by Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo as a push for separation of families, invoking the Trump administrations zero tolerance policy targeting children of undocumented immigrants. On Monday, White House Coronavirus Task Force adviser Dr. Scott Atlas went on Fox News to criticize the idea that elderly Americans who are most at risk from the virus shouldnt take part in large family celebrations, fatalistically adding that for many people this is their final Thanksgiving.

Fox News host Sean Hannity, who has been one of the biggest sources of destructive COVID-19 coverage, has posted at least a dozen tweets about Thanksgiving. On Monday, he hyped appearances by right-wing commentator Dave Rubin and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) on his show by claiming that the Left was waging a war on Thanksgiving. After Democratic New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio curtailed the annual Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade, Hannity called him the Worlds Worst Mayor.

View post:

Right-wing media dismiss efforts to save thousands of lives as a "War on Thanksgiving" - Media Matters for America

Peter Jukes looks at the rise and fall of the dark money and online culture war strategies that put Donald Trump in the White House and pushed Britain out of the EUExporting Polarisation

For most of the last 40 years, British domestic politics has been out of synch with the United States. Though Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher composed a formidable Cold War alliance and promoted the Anglo Saxon model of privatisation and deregulation, the reality of every day cultural life around politics in the US was very different from the UK at the time.

I lived in Boston as an exchange student at an American high school in the early 80s and, compared to the Punk-era Britain I had left behind, the political scene was much more consensual and polite. My teachers were a mix of small c conservatives and former Vietnam War protestors, but discussions were fluid and, unpredictably, likely to arrive at an agreement. Among the pupils, few would think of not dating someone because of political allegiance. This was echoed in the broader political culture. In Congress at that time, politicians would cross the floor and vote across party lines. There was still a belief in bipartisanship in contrast to the grim, grey UK I returned to.

Under the cosh of Thatcherism, nuclear re-armament and radical industrial restructuring, there was no way you could snog someone for long as a British student in the 80s without ending up asking the question: whose side are you on?The dirty war in Northern Ireland, the miners strike, the Conservative Party Brighton bombing, Murdochs Wapping dispute, CND women at Greenham Common, City of Londons Big Bang, Harry Enfields Loadsamoney, Yuppies, Sloane Rangers and the Looney Left during that decade it was almost impossible to chat with a London cabbie or have a family Sunday lunch without an unpalatable political argument.

Twenty years later, all that had reversed. When I returned to live and work in the United States again in the early noughties, the polarisation of Britains Thatcher years seemed to have been exported there.

Issues like gay marriage, abortion, gun control, religion they were intractable discussions for Americans, which you avoided raising at the diner or a bar, for fear of ostracism and permanent estrangement. American political culture had polarised and cocooned, with Democrats telling me theyd never date a Republican, and vice versa.

Meanwhile, in Britain, under the premierships of Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and even heir to Blair David Cameron, the idea of a culture war over matters of sexual orientation, religious observance, or the role of socialised healthcare and gun control seemed unlikely and vaguely absurd. Even the right-wing tabloid the Sun used a Barack Obama lookalike poster for David Camerons 2010 election campaign with the slogan Yes, we Cam!

I remember remarking to an American friend around that time that I was glad our Conservative Party wasnt infected by the atavistic, vote-suppressing extreme politics of the American Conservative right.

How blind I was about what was to happen.

The key moment for the unleashing of hard-right US Conservatism into UK politics was the US Supreme Court Ruling: Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission in 2010.

Citizens United was an activist group chaired by David Bossie, who went on to be Donald Trumps deputy campaign manager in 2016 (hes still working for him now trying to overturn the recent election result). In 2010, Bossie managed to revise a law which prohibited for-profit and not-for-profit corporations from advertising or broadcasting political messages during elections or primaries. The legal judgment was based on the constitutional first amendment right of free speech and the Supreme Court effectively ruled that these corporations were people and had the same rights to political self-expression as individuals.

Whatever the metaphysical import of this ruling, the practical effect was to unleash unlimited spending on political campaigns by American corporations and rich individuals in vehicles such as SuperPacs and that wave of money soon hit the UK and jolted British politics to the right.

The networks to receive this influx of cash were already in place. Sir Anthony Fisher, an Eton-educated businessman, having made his money from US-style intensive chicken farming and the founder of the Institute of Economic Affairs in London in 1955, set up the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in the US in 1981. Funded by the oil industry giants, big tobacco, and other right-wing not-for-profits like the Koch Brothers Foundation, it acted as a transatlantic umbrella for a range of libertarian and free-market think tanks.

The Atlas networks role in pushing for Britain to leave the EU was apparent when leading Brexiter and former MEP Daniel Hannan delivered its Toast to Freedom in New York in 2018 and celebrated the factory-farmed broiler chicken as a symbol of liberty. The lowering of food hygiene and factory farming standards to US levels has been touted as one of the main benefits of Brexit at least to those in the food industry.

But the Citizens United overspill, and its emphasis on free speech, went much further than these obvious commercial and lobbying networks in the UK, and had a toxic effect on the culture of British politics.

One hidden channel for right-wing US thinking and practice was the Young Britons Foundation (YBF), a self-described Conservative madrasa and a UK offshoot of the Young Americas Foundation (YAF), which was funded by the hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer.

For 12 years, until it was closed down over allegations of bullying after the suicide of a young Conservative activist in 2015, the YBF hosted some of the key figures who led Britain to Brexit.

Hannan was the YBF president. Matt Richardson, who went on to be the secretary of Nigel Farages UKIP, was the executive director. Matthew Elliot, of the TaxPayers Alliance at 55 Tufton Street and destined to become executive director of Boris Johnsons Vote Leave campaign, hosted talks and panels.

Apart from the potential channels for US dark money, the striking thing is the change of tone ushered into Conservative politics through the Young Britons Foundation.

A key moment was its 10th anniversary conference at Churchill College, Cambridge in 2013. Steve Bannon, who was then the managing director of the Alt-right website Breitbart, was a major presence, discussing the role of online campaigning with the Guido Fawkes political editor Harry Cole, and recruiting their fellow panellist Raheem Kassam to run his London branch.

Bannon had also just co-founded the notorious digital campaigning company Cambridge Analytica which would target individuals based on their fears and paranoias. Bannon called this combination of news and psychometric targeting his weapons which he would use, in the UK too it would seem, to flood the zone with sh*t.

Also billed to appear that weekend was Douglas Murray, associate director the Henry Jackson Society (HJS), to talk about Jihad, Islamism, Israel, the War on Terror and Neo-Conservatism. The founder of the HJS, Dr Alan Mendoza, was also a regular attendee.

According to a founding director and former associate director of the HJS, it began to become around this time a far-right, deeply anti-Muslim racist organisation. As Nafeez Ahmed has reported in Byline Times, the HJS was also a recipient of dark money from key donors in the US who began to back Donald Trump.

If youre wondering why British political discourse began to degrade, look no further than the arrival of American right-wing conservatism via both the funding of activists and new media outlets which propagated their message.

It is no accident that the UKs culture wars were also triggered by a US Supreme Court ruling over free speech. Free speech was the wedge by which formerly marginal expressions of xenophobic nationalism, racism, and Islamophobia could become central in Britains public debate.

It didnt matter if many of the voices expressing these opinions online were paid for by multiple accounts, boosted by dark digital analytics, or indeed often outright replicants run by troll farms hosted and funded by hostile foreign countries. If the Supreme Court had ruled that corporations were people, why not networks of bots and troll armies?

And we fell for it. Millions of Brits and Americans read and believed opinions and facts effectively generated by robots. The pioneer of computing, Alan Turing, once suggested that artificial intelligence would arrive when, during a conversation, we failed to spot the difference between a computer and a person. We failed the Turing test, politically, in 2016.

The media of the 20th Century was once described by the philosopher Noam Chomsky as manufacturing consent. By the time of Britains EU Referendum and Donald Trumps election in 2016, with most people receiving their news and opinions through algorithms devised by social media giants like Facebook and YouTube, this was effectively replaced by the automation of consent.

Some people seek to minimise this, pointing to the existing racial and economic fissures in British and American society that made them both ripe for populism, particularly after the financial crash of 2008. But just one in 50 of the votes cast in the EU Referendum, or 70,000 votes in the US Rust Belt states in the 2016 Presidential Election, won the twin shock victories either side of the Atlantic.Did the intervention of these dark-money-funded culture war interventions make enough of a difference to tip things over the edge?

The protagonists certainly thought so. Nigel Farage raised a pint after the EU Referendum victory to thank Bannon and Breitbart we couldnt have done it without you while Trump declared: Im Mr Brexit plus plus plus.

The failure of Donald Trump to secure a second term is a severe setback to that transatlantic Alt-right alliance of libertarians and neo-nationalists.

The prospect of a US/UK trade deal with Joe Biden as President, though it was never going to be that favourable to Britain, is even more problematic given different priorities in the White House, and Congresss demonstrable objection to anything that would undermine the internationally-binding Good Friday Agreement.

Boris Johnsons Internal Market Bill, currently being debated in Parliament, threatens to break more international treaties and, if not directly punished, will undermine the prestige and reliability of Britain in any other future negotiations.

On a personal level, Johnson has many fences to mend with the President-elect, because of his perceived proximity to Bannon and Trump, and his frankly racist remarks about Barack Obamas attitude about Brexit stemming from his antipathy to Britain because of his part-Kenyan ancestry. Biden has called Johnson the physical and emotional clone of Donald Trump.

More profoundly, the media and lobbying networks around MAGA and Brexit are going to have much less influence in Washington, where they matter. Steve Bannon is currently indicted for fraud and, with a Biden nominee leading the Department of Justice, an unredacted version ofSpecial Counsel Robert Muellers report on Russian interference could reveal more transatlantic connections with Vladimir Putins Russia.

Other ongoing FBI investigations into campaign finance and counter-intelligence will expose more about Trumps various business dealings with hostile foreign powers and those could entrammel some key Brexiters.

Many on the UK right, and not just Farage and his Brexit Party outriders, were heavily invested in a Trump second term. We could soon discover why.

But beyond any criminal or intelligence liability, the simultaneous arrival of Biden and Brexit in January next year will make the UK even more irrelevant to the global considerations of a new US Government.

As a result, British think tanks will be of less interest to US for-profit and not-for-profit corporations. With no place at the EU table and with a declining economy, hit by the dual shock of leaving the Single Market and the worst Coronavirus impact of the G7 nations, were just not in crude financial terms such a key asset. And right-wing British activists will receive fewer remittances of dark money as a result.

The US culture wars were always designed to create wedge issues around guns, religion, education, race and class to get working-class Americans, particularly in the South, to vote against their economic interests and for tax cuts for a wealthy elite because, at least, they shared the same nominal values.

This Southern Strategy was echoed by Johnson and Dominic Cummings in the 2019 General Election and the apparent collapse of the Labour Red Wall in north-eastern constituencies. It led to a stunning tactical victory, but the long-term strategic consequences are still moot. Trumps Rust Belt defence collapsed after one term. This does not bode well for the Conservative Partys current rhetoric pitting working-class voters against metropolitan elites.

When it comes to Britains role in American culture wars, as Steve Bannon identified early on, the UK was a bridgehead in the battle for the populist right. With its reputation (at least in the US) for prudence, propriety and stiff upper lip sobriety as Bannon told his head of research at Cambridge Analytica Chris Wylie in 2014 Britain is an exemplar. If the UK fell for Bannons brand of nationalist populism, the US would be likely to follow and the EU collapse: Brexit would be a lesson to everyone.

Well, Brexit was a lesson to everyone a bad one dont, whatever you do, follow. The countrys reputation for transparency and reasonableness is permanently tarnished: both its economy and soft power influence are badly trashed. The disparate nations of the United Kingdom are more in danger of breaking up than they have been for decades and their people are restive, divided and destined to continue the Alt-right battles about wokeness and cultural Marxism long after they have lost any wider resonance.

In that way, the transatlantic alliance of dark money and polarisation is over. We are on our own. Britain served its role as part of a larger offensive but it is now abandoned like a rusting aircraft carrier waiting to be sold for scrap. We may remain as a rump Trumpocracy, and our think tanks will still receive dribbles of cash from the US Conservative right. But we will be increasingly irrelevant and rapidly ignored, and then will finally have to confront our own demons without blaming or relying on monsters from abroad.

More:

Citizens Disunited: The End of the Transatlantic Trumpist Alliance - Byline Times