Category Archives: Alt-right

We should be applauding social housing projects, but resist the rhetoric that sees council housing as the only solution to the housing crisis, says Owen Hopkins.

Donald Trump may have been vanquished, but Trumpism is still alive and well, as evidenced by the 71 million votes he received the highest ever for a US presidential candidate, apart, of course, from his vanquisher, president-elect Joe Biden.

After four years of Trump, we've become used to hearing about right-wing populism, which has spawned manifestations across the world, from Bolsonaro in Brazil and Orbn in Hungary to Boris Johnson in England. But populism is not confined to the right, it is also alive and kicking on the left for whom architecture is central to linking the macro to the micro, just as it is for the right.

A neat illustration of the micro scale can be seen in a new council housing project in Greenwich in south-east London by the British architect Peter Barber, which he recently tweeted out. It's the type of project that would be familiar to anyone who has followed Barber's career since he came to prominence with the Donnybrook Quarter in Hackney in 2006.

Barber's commitment to the social value of architecture has made him an almost sainted figure among the architectural commentariat

Since then, Barber has built a reputation as quite possibly Britain's leading housing architect, renowned for his cleverly planned and generously detailed projects. Aligned with this is Barber's commitment to the social value of architecture, which has made him an almost sainted figure among the architectural commentariat.

As a result, Barber's work is something of an ever-present on social media. So far so familiar, you might say. But what made Barber's tweet about this project catch my eye was that it had been liked a massive 57,000 times and counting.

For anyone active on "architecture Twitter" this is in stark contrast to the recent proliferation of Trumpian "alt-right" accounts which deploy "traditional architecture" as a way of promoting deeply unpleasant far-right views about some kind of mythical "authentic" western values.

Mikhail Riches' Goldsmith Street social housing wins Stirling Prize 2019

So, it was refreshing and not a little bit uplighting to see something so different generate such a response.

Reading the replies, it was striking that many of the people who responded positively did so not just because it is such a well-considered architectural project, but because it is council housing, standing as the built embodiment of collective values that many on the political left hold dear. Those who were critical of the project were generally so for the same reason.

I couldn't help wondering whether what I was seeing here was council housing functioning as cypher for political ideology

Perhaps it's a function of the inherent reductiveness of social media, but I couldn't help wondering whether what I was seeing here was council housing functioning as cypher for political ideology in a way that's not so different to how traditional architecture is used by those "alt-right" Twitter accounts. To be absolutely clear, this is not suggesting a false equivalence between whatever political position one might infer in being pro council housing and the abhorrent views of the "alt-right". Instead, it's about a commonality or equivalence of tactics.

If this sounds a stretch, consider the familiar left-wing "critique" of the housing crisis: the vilification of private landlords, housing developers and the Right to Buy policy introduced by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government 40 years ago all examples of blame directed at elites. Then, in contrast, is the idea that only the state has the solutions, through tighter regulation and, above all else, a massive council housing programme.

Running through all of this is the attempt to reduce a complex situation to a simple solution think of Trump's exhortations that only he could "Make America Great Again". But at a structural level, this is little different from believing only the state has the answers, a position that, when it comes to architecture, fetishises council housing with the same conviction as the right fetishises traditional styles.

The inescapable question that follows is whether we should still be troubled by these populist tactics when they are used to promote policies we happen to agree with, like building more council housing?

What Barber builds is actually very different to the populist mass council housing building programme advocated by the left

This question becomes more pertinent when we realise the substantial disconnect that exists between this left-wing populist rhetoric and projects by the likes of Barber that it so idolises. What Barber builds is actually very different to the populist mass council housing building programme advocated by the left as the solution to all our housing ills. Barber's projects are generally small in scale, designed by a private practice rather than the public sector, and, like much of the best council housing being built right now, are generally in London.

"London has an ambition for quality public housing design not seen since the 1970s"

The latter is a quirk of the city's sky-high property prices, which allows the more ambitious (and well located) local authorities to use units built for private sale to subsidise those developed for social rents. While this arrangement is a function of councils still being limited by central government, it simply could not happen in a housing market that wasn't so overheated.

Given this, one might wonder whether Barber would actually be able to deliver housing of such high quality if the political situation was more aligned to the one advocated by left-wing populists. It is certainly the case that the highly specific nature of his projects and the way they are tied into their sites on which their success to a significant degree rests would be more difficult to achieve on larger, more comprehensive, "mass" scales.

All this goes to show how little concerned populists whether of the right or the left are with actual architecture

After all, this is one of the key architectural lessons of the post-war era, which judging by much of the council housing going up in London right now is one that almost all of its architects, Barber included, are fully signed up to. This simple fact makes clear just how misguided the populist rhetoric that harks back to those glory days actually is in its naive assumption that our relationships to state, environment and to each other are little changed since the 1950s and 1960s.

All this goes to show how little concerned populists, whether of the right or the left, are with actual architecture. For the right, the only thing that matters is style; for the left, it's council housing and state intervention. Anything else is a betrayal. And it's this insistence on a zero-sum game that is populism's fatal flaw.

Peter Barber Architects creates terraced tenement block in Peckham

The opposite of populism is pluralism, diversity and multiplicity. History tells us that it's the kind of culture that produces the best architecture, not one of conformity. So while we should certainly be applauding council housing projects today and Barber's especially we must resist populist rhetoric that sees council housing as proxy for the state as the only solution to the housing crisis, just as we do the right's weaponisation of traditional styles. A political position that claims it has all the answers leaves no room for innovation or doing things differently.

It's always tempting to look for the easy solution, but we should be immediately suspicious of claims there is only one answer to a problem, as much as we of anyone who says there's only one way to build. While Trump's fall could lead us to think that populism is on the wane, on the ground the fight against populisms of the right and of the left is only just beginning.

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The left "fetishises council housing with the same conviction as the right fetishises traditional styles - Dezeen

Police in Auckland are investigating a foiled attempt by a man to deliberately infect the citys LGBTQI and ethnic communities with COVID-19.

News of the sickening and depraved crime first emerged on the websiteexpress magazine where it is claimed the man has posted messages on an alt-right website. The posts allegedly stated he had come down with the woohoo flu a racist reference to where the virus originated and that he had a really sore throat and the inability to stop coughing.

It is alleged the man had intended to visit a gay bar on Wednesday night with the hopes of achieving 10-20 infections and had asked fellow users of the alt-right website how best to fit in at the bar without risking get hit on.

Further to this, the man had allegedly planned to visit a number of ethnic churches, where in a separate post he asked whether it would be too suspicious if they then drove 10 to 20 minutes from their place of residence over the weekend to deliberately infect people who attend a predominately ethnic church as the one closest to him was predominately white.

After a local bar manager hadalerted express magazine to the messages, they then passed all of the screenshots onto local police with a spokesperson for Auckland Police saying that they arecontinuing to make enquiries into an anonymous post made on an online forum on Monday.

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,

After being alerted of the investigation, a spokesperson for the New Zealand Minister for Health added,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.

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Plot To Infect New Zealand LGBTQI Community With COVID-19 Foiled - Star Observer

AMERICAN PROTEST-Despite pre-election plywood covering store fronts in cities across the United States, it was total fearmongering that far right militias, Black Lives Matter, or Antifa would initiate street violence during or after the November 3 presidential election.

Why? We clearly know who are the major purveyors of violence in the United State, especially who has the guns and military equipment, extensive training, and uses them every day to attack and often kill people in the United States and other countries. It is not the far-right militias, Black Lives Matter, or Antifa. Instead, it is local and federal police departments and the countrys military.

First, the largest armed group in the United States is the countrys military. They have an annual budget of at least $750 billion, with another $400 billion scattered among other federal agencies and departments. They have about 500 domestic military installations and control 800 foreign military bases.At present the United States government is engaged in nine foreign wars, and whenever there is a serious domestic rebellion, presidents routinely order the countrys military to enter cities like Detroit and Los Angeles to suppress civil disturbances.

Furthermore, a branch of the armed forces, the National Guard, has trained units in Alabama and Utah ready to instantly deploy to any part of the United States to quell new civil disturbances.

Second, there are nearly 15,000 police departments in the United State and least 75 percent of them have SWAT teams trained in commando operations and bestowed more military equipment than they can use.They engage in over 100,000 quasi-military operations every year, and in May-July 2020 these SWAT teams were widely used to quell demonstrations opposing excessive police violence over the entire United States.

Third, the FBI has 52 field offices, and each office has a trained, heavily armed SWAT team of at least 42 people. Like U.S. Marshalls and ICE officers, they can be instantly deployed to oppose street demonstrations, as they recently were in Washington, DC and Portland, Oregon.

Fourth, these groups are connected through Fusion centers and other administrative mechanisms to operationally link them together to suppress mass movements, like Occupy and Black Lives Matter. Their tools include drones, spy planes, and mass surveillance.

Fifth, the FBI has made it clear that the main domestic terrorist threat in the United States (ignoring the 1000 people per year that the police murder) comes from Alt Right white supremacists, not unarmed mass movements, like Black Lives Matter (BLM).

The latter is a protest organization with a nationalist outlook, with no military component, but extensive support from large, social justice philanthropies (e.g., Ford Foundation). While BLM and the sympathy demonstrations it sparked in June 2020 could not prevent organized criminals, undercover cops, provocateurs, and deranged people from showing up, BLM does not recruit, organize, or train these opportunists.

Sixth, Antifa is not even an organization; it is a loose 80-year-old alliance of local anti-fascist individuals and informal small groups that coalesce to confront fascist groups when they initiate violence.Also, there is no connection between Antifa and Black Lives Matter. They are rarely at the same events and neither group engages in electoral politics.

Too bad so many trees had to needlessly die for all that plywood.

(Victor Rothman is a California-based political analyst.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

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Why Street Violence from Militias, Black Lives Matter, and Antifa Never Appeared - City Watch

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For Korea watchers, U.S. President Donald Trumps narrative that Democrats, backed by foreign powers, have stolen the election through massive voter fraud uncannily resembles a widespread conspiracy theory that emerged in South Korea following its legislative election on April 15. Both narratives suggest that the liberal/progressive parties colluded with China to tamper with ballots, in elections that were expected to and indeed did benefit the progressives.

The convergence of the narratives on electoral fraud in South Korea and the United States is not a coincidence. Different forms of the American far-rights discourses and practices have been adopted by its Korean counterparts, from the emergence of fringe media outlets that stand in opposition to the mainstream media, to the widespread use of Pepe the Frog memes on fringe sites. Furthermore, an increasingly assertive Beijing has made it easier for South Korean conservatives to rally around their existing anti-communist identity and accuse progressives of colluding with outside enemies, a stance that fits neatly with the narratives from the U.S.

But this is not merely a tale of two similar narratives or a frivolous double-take on fringe conspiracy theories. It brings attention to the domestic contexts that have allowed these conspiracy theories to emerge out of the fringe, as well as the potential of greater challenges. The American struggle with right-wing populism has been well-documented already, and this article instead focuses on the South Korean context, which has received relatively less attention. The movement questioning the results of the April 15 election in South Korea highlights factors in its political landscape that may further disrupt the foundations of its democratic system in the same way that the election of Trump has done in the U.S., and it underscores the transnational element of todays right-wing politics, which act both at the domestic and international levels.

Beijings Dark Shadows Extending from Seoul to Washington?

Get briefed on the story of the week, and developing stories to watch across the Asia-Pacific.

Preparing for the election amid a COVID-19-struck economy and unfavorable polling numbers, Trump had been suggesting for months that the election might get stolen by Democrats and foreign actors like China. In particular, the Trump campaign problematized the increased use of mail-in ballots. In August, Trump said, The mailmen are going to get them, and people are just going to grab batches of them [China and Russia], theyll be grabbing plenty of them. Its a disaster, its a rigged election waiting to happen.

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As expected, once it became apparent that the election would not be going his way, Trump started to call the mail-in ballots illegal, and launched numerous legal battles. Foreign Policys James Palmer warned that Trump is likely to take up the conspiracy theories circulating in the right-wing Chinese media that link Biden to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

As Trump started to make claims of illegal ballots, Min Kyung-wook, an ex-member of the South Korean National Assembly, wrote on November 5 that the dark shadows of the April 15th election that unseated him had extended to the U.S. presidential election, referring to Joe Bidens expected victory. Drawing a parallel between the two elections, Min pointed to the CCP and leftist factions allegedly collaborating with Beijing as the forces behind the acts of electoral fraud in both the U.S. and South Korea.

A former prime-time news anchor at Korean Broadcasting System, Min has been spearheading the movement to raise awareness about alleged electoral fraud since losing his seat in the April 15 legislative elections, in which his party, the United Future Party (now the People Power Party), suffered a landslide defeat. Min started to bring to the surface internet conspiracy theories claiming that advance votes had been tampered with in order to hand a landslide victory to the ruling Democratic Party of Korea.

South Koreas April election saw a record 26.7 percent of voters casting their ballots in advance, with the National Election Commission and the political parties encouraging voters to do so amidst the pandemic. Similar to the U.S., voters who voted early favored the progressives. For instance, in Seoul, the Democratic Party led the United Future Party by 26.76 percent in advance voting, while the margin was reduced to 1.35 percent in regular voting. Also, the ballots cast in advance were counted after the regular votes, so several races where the United Future Party was leading flipped at the last minute, much like Pennsylvania and Georgia in the U.S. election.

Shortly after the election, Min publicized far-right conspiracy theories about the election that had been circulating on the internet. He pointed out that the ballot boxes containing advance voting ballots were stored in places without CCTVs, and highlighted the discrepancy between the results of early and regular voting. Min obtained crushed ballots some of them believed to be stamped by the authorities from an observer and presented them as further evidence of election tampering. He also problematized the QR codes on advance voting ballots, suggesting that these contain the personally identifiable information of 5 million Korean citizens, including records on criminal activities, military service, tax payments, and so forth.

The China Factor

A critical element of Mins claims is that Beijing was involved in the electoral fraud that allegedly took place during the April election, colluding with leftist forces in power that are sympathetic to the Chinese agenda. Min made an unsubstantiated and ultimately refuted claim that Chinese tech giant Huawei supplied 700 pieces of election equipment to the National Election Commission and that the personal information obtained through QR codes was transmitted to the Chinese. He also presented a numerical arrangement and claimed that this was a code that read FOLLOW_THE_PARTY, left by a Chinese hacker who had infiltrated the NECs system.

Such a narrative exploits anti-Chinese sentiments, which remain extremely high in South Korea. According to a Pew Research poll, the percentage of South Koreans viewing China unfavorably jumped from 31 percent to 75 percent between 2002 and 2020. In addition to the current pandemic and recent controversies over the suppression of protests in Hong Kong and revelations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang, South Koreas direct exposure to an increasingly influential and assertive China has played a role. For instance, the installation of U.S. anti-missile systems in the country in 2016 led Beijing to impose a wide-ranging ban on South Korean products, which brought to public attention the countrys economic reliance on China and created a collective sense of resentment toward a more assertive Beijing.

The current political context plays a role in it as well. Under President Moon Jae-in, South Korea has been attempting to rebalance its relationship between Washington and Beijing. While Japan and the Five Eyes allies have banned Huawei from bidding for 5G contracts, Seoul has left the Huawei question to be decided by the private sector, and it has not prevented LG U+ from using Huawei equipment in its 5G network. Further, Seoul has remained either silent on or slow to respond to concerns such as the re-education camps in Xinjiang or the passage of the new National Security Law in Hong Kong, issues that have provoked criticism from other democracies.

Conservatives, who generally support the alliance with the U.S., have been criticizing the current administration for being too soft on China, and the far-right has activated existing Cold War identities that label progressives as reds or commies. In this context, Min leveraged Sinophobia, both domestic and foreign, to strengthen the claims that Beijing interfered in both elections. For instance, Min borrowed the unsubstantiated report, circulating among U.S. conspiracy theorists, that 20,000 fake IDs from China and Hong Kong were seized at Chicagos OHare Airport, as well as the claims that Hunter Biden is involved in lobbying activities with the Chinese. The mail-in ballots controversy and the victory of Joe Biden, for Min, reinforces the idea that there is a transnational group of leftists from Seoul to Washington who are collaborating with Beijing to undermine the liberal world order, which gets us to the culture war.

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Culture War

Mins campaign to expose the alleged electoral fraud has been supported by right-wing, independent media on online platforms. In recent years, YouTube has seen explosive growth in South Korea; based on data from Android users, the number of YouTube users increased by 38 percent to 34 million between 2016 and 2019, and the hours of content uploaded to Korean YouTube channels grew by 50 percent between 2018 and 2019. The increase in popularity and profitability of YouTube channels has attracted numerous celebrities and content creators, including right-wing commentators who have not been able to find a platform in mainstream media.

Most of the top South Korean YouTube channels in the politics category lean toward the right. Ranked by total video views, eight out of the top 10 channels in this category have a right-wing stance. Shinuihansu, the top-ranked channel, has over 1.3 million subscribers and 978 million views, and Jin Seong-ho Broadcasting has 1.1 million subscribers and almost 800 million views. These channels are run by former politicians and journalists who have connections and insider knowledge. Their easy-to-digest news briefings have become extremely popular among conservatives in South Korea especially the elderly, who share these clips via KakaoTalk, the omnipresent Korean messaging app.

Many of these YouTubers have wholeheartedly embraced the U.S. style of culture war against leftists, whom they deem to be present not only in politics but also in the arts, academia, and the private sector, in cahoots with Chinese capital. For instance, the Garo Sero Institutes YouTube channel, which has over 600,000 subscribers and over 315 million views, has been referring to the institutes activities as a cultural war. The channel features Kim Yong-ho, a former entertainment journalist, and Kang Yong-seok, a former member of the National Assembly, both of whom have not been shy about exposing the private matters of celebrities and sharing unsubstantiated reports. The goal is not only to draw attention to their political commentaries but also to harness gossip and fake news in service of the culture war against the left. They have obviously taken their playbook from the U.S. alt-right, which has been linking the left with Hollywood. The Garo Sero Institutes Kim produced a film titled Parasite Family, which makes a direct reference to the ongoing scandal over the Moon governments former justice minister, in a manner similar to Dinesh DSouza.

What Are the Implications?

To be clear, the mainstream in both the U.S. and South Korea has responded to these claims of electoral fraud with swift dismissal. However, in the era of alternative facts, the space that the mainstream occupies is under constant challenge, and these fringe theories have come out of the fringes, with prominent political figures in mainstream parties, like Trump or Min, behind them. The context in the U.S. that has led to the resurgence of the far-right has been well-documented and analyzed, and it might be necessary to continue watching this space in South Korea, which seems to be mirroring the U.S.

In his recent book Why Were Polarized, Ezra Klein writes about how what he terms mega-identities, which organize diverse identities along two-party lines, have contributed to what seems to be an irreconcilable partisanship in the U.S and South Korea might be headed in the same direction. Although the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye in 2016 has been celebrated as a sign of South Koreas democratic maturity, this may have been South Koreas Obama moment, which clearly demarcated the end of the old South Korea symbolized by Park and her father, the authoritarian leader Park Chung-hee, and the beginning of the new South Korea of the Candlelight Revolution.

South Koreans remain divided over gender issues; immigration and race increasingly raise controversies on a national scale, as observed in the case of Sam Okyere earlier this year. In addition, consider voters disappointment with Moons progressive administration, which has failed to get the country out of Hell Choseon. The administration has been beset with alleged abuses of power by its appointees the precise reason Park was dethroned and economic policies that have failed to address concerns such as rising housing prices.

Meanwhile, the geopolitical tension between the U.S. and China will further pressure South Korea, the perennial shrimp between two whales, further activating Cold War identities on the far-right. Right-wing demagogues will continue exploiting the idea of a transnational cartel of leftists, corrupted by Chinese capital, collaborating with Beijing to undermine the liberal world order in all sectors, from entertainment to government.

The context of Mins quixotic crusade reveals a South Korea that displays conditions of intense political polarization akin to that of the U.S. under Trump, one that has presented tempting opportunities to Min and other far-right activists. The growing influence of far-right YouTube channels seems to be both a symptom and cause of this polarization, and they are increasingly seeping into the mainstream. Of course, conditions do not equal causation, but it definitely presents risks to South Koreas democracy.

Ultimately, in South Korea, we see the ramifications of a different type of interdependence between the far-right, which has reactivated Cold War identities, and the backdrop of decentralized platforms, culture wars, and a new geopolitical rivalry. The South Korean case highlights yet again how the erosion of democratic norms in the U.S. is not merely a domestic affair but one that has real, tangible consequences beyond its borders.

Dongwoo Kim is a program manager at Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, specializing in digital technology governance. He is a graduate of the University of Alberta, University of British Columbia, and the Yenching Academy of Peking University.

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Before Trump, South Korean Conservatives Also Claimed a 'Stolen' Election - The Diplomat

Far-right groups descended upon the Freedom Plaza in Washington D.C. Saturday for the Million MAGA March, where they protested the results of the 2020 presidential election and made baseless claims of voter fraud.

Much to attendees delight, President Donald Trump made a brief appearance before the marches got underway.

Notably, some of the loudest attendees at the march, which originally had three different names but fused into one march, were the white nationalist groypers, led by Unite the Right attendee Nick Fuentes.

The boisterous group of bible-carrying, white college-aged men became so loud that, at one point, their chants drowned out the main events speaker.

Fuck Charlie Kirk, they chanted. They also railed against Fox News and Republican legislators during their mini-rally, which occurred simultaneously to the larger rally.

Their leader, Fuentes, eventually appeared, and there was nothing he said that they disagreed with. At every opportunity, the groypers gleefully applauded Fuentes remarks.

Many, while marching to the Supreme Court from Freedom Plaza, asked to take photos with Fuentes. When he accepted, the young groypers would shower their leader in praise, commenting on how they watch his DLive show each night or how much idolize him.

Alt-right figure and groyper Tim Gionet, aka Baked Alaska, and far-right YouTuber Vincent James were also present at the march.

When asked why he decided to come out to the march, one groyper told the Daily Dot, journalists suck before walking away. Attendees exhibited similar disdain for the media, including Fox News.

Also in attendance at the pro-Trump march was the far-right hate group the Proud Boys, which presented themselves as security for the event.

The large group of nearly 50 proud boys even went as far as to tout they would hit antifa with a dildo.

Overall, the march wasnt too eventful, as it mainly drew in many low-level MAGA characters and far-right groups. Later into the evening on Saturday, anti-fascist demonstrators and far-right instigators clashed.

*First Published: Nov 15, 2020, 1:42 pm

Zachary Petrizzo is an undergraduate student at George Mason University and a Washington, D.C. based journalist.

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Groypers, Proud Boys, other far-right groups rally for Trump at 'Million MAGA March' - The Daily Dot

Paul Gilroy is a writer and academic specialising in Black British culture. His books include There Aint No Black in the Union Jack (1987) , Small Acts (1993), The Black Atlantic (1993) and After Empire (2004). He has taught at Goldsmiths, University of London and Yale, where he was the chair of the department of African American studies. He is currently director of the centre for the study of race and racism at University College London. Gilroy was awarded the 2019 Holberg prize for his outstanding contributions to a number of academic fields, including cultural studies, critical race studies, history and African-American studies.

I know that you are close friends with Steve McQueen, our guest editor. How did you meet?I was teaching at Goldsmiths when he was a student there. One day, he knocked on my door with his friend, Desmond, another Black art student. He just wanted to talk and I was happy to do that. He kept on knocking on the door and he would bring his obsessions and his frustrations. I think that he was eager to be taken seriously in a way. It was clear in talking to him that we had interests in common and that he was a remarkable character.

He often speaks of himself as part of a continuum of Black artists, activists and writers who preceded and paved the way for him. I guess you would be included in that lineage.Well, Im just 15 or 16 years older than Steve, so maybe it was more about the fact that, back then, there were not that many other people writing about Black British art. The fact that I was perhaps helped to make a space in which some of the things he wanted to do could be articulated.

In many ways, Steves Small Axe films, particularly Lovers Rock, seem to me to be an elegy for another time and another kind of Black British communal identity that seems suddenly very distant.Yes, I agree. Demographically, the Caribbean population has shrunk and the dominant Black settler populations in Britain now are African people from different places, who arrived here under different conditions. Some, not all, arrived as refugees, some as middle-class people with more access to capital. So that generates a very different Blackness. It is more divided and more open to looking towards the US, and the generic forms of Black politics coming out of there, rather than being rooted in the aftermath of the slave experience.

The Black Lives Matter protests that followed the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and then spread globally were seen by many as a moment of real change. Do you agree?I really dont know. It had to happen, but it does not guarantee anything for the future. I know there are people in the US who think that, because of what happened, we may be in the build-up to a new racial settlement there, a third reconstruction if you like, the first being after the civil war, the second the civil rights movement in the 1960s. I want to believe that is true, but I dont have enough information to be able to judge that. What happens next is the issue. At the moment, it feels like fatigue and depression and apathy may be in the ascendant. I dont want to be bleak, but, really, I dont see the momentum of the spring and early summer being maintained.

In your book After Empire you posed the question, could there be a contemporary British multicultural identity? Given all that has happened since, that possibility seems much further away now than when you asked the question.Yes, it does. There was a moment back then, when the reaction against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan created an alignment based on the urgent need to articulate an alternative that was not subject to the traditional belligerence, that was not Americanised. That has faded. The discrepancy between what is going on here and the widespread and sustained protests in America is stark. Here, there is apathy, fatigue, frustration.

I dont know if the technologies that get people protesting in the streets are so good at keeping them there

How do you feel about the explosion of post-BLM virtue-signalling from the corporate worlds of the art, media and fashion?Well, the eager corporations and brands with their black squares and empty gestures might be enough to nudge some people who are looking for radical answers into the arms of the alt-right. More positively, it showed that some people in high places were watching the uprisings, that even corporate capitalism was listening. Maybe there are sources of hope and possibility in momentarily winning their attention, but I think it has its limits.

In America and Britain, there is the sense that the colonial past and, in particular, the slave trade, has not been engaged with in any meaningful way either culturally, historically or in terms of education. Is it possible to move forward politically without that happening?No. And its not a case of looking for an apology because you are offended, its about looking through that history colonialism, slavery and familiarising yourself with it in all its intimate detail. The education system is broken from top to bottom and teaching the Tudors and the Nazis is never going to fix it. Whats exciting about Steves films, the Mangrove one in particular, is that they are an attempt to offer a historical transfusion that, in the present condition, can give younger viewers and mainstream viewers an alternative sense of what the history of this country might be over the last 50 years.

As someone who has written extensively about race and history, are you pessimistic for the future?I dont think we can afford the luxury of pessimism. I have been dispirited of late, but when I saw those young people out in the streets in the pandemic, with their masks on, spaced apart, announcing to the world that racism is a bad thing, it was inspiring and uplifting. That banner was taken up very widely and some of the people who took it up were very young. That is hopeful. The question is, can that mobilisation of people be the source of a movement that can carry this forward. Thats where my own pessimism bites me, because I dont know if the technologies that get people into the streets are so good at keeping them there.

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Paul Gilroy: 'I dont think we can afford the luxury of pessimism' - The Guardian

White nationalist Richard Spencer has said he will be backing Democratic candidate Joe Biden in November's election after previously distancing himself from Donald Trump.

Spencer, who was one of the key figureheads of the alt-right movement, tweeted how he is "on Team Joe" on Monday, adding in a self-made campaign slogan, "Liberals are clearly more competent."

In a series of tweets, Spencer further explained his reasoning for backing Biden.

"The MAGA/Alt-Right moment is over. I made mistakes; Trump is an obvious disaster; but mainly the paradigm contained flaws that we now are able to perceive. And it needs to end," Spencer wrote. "So be patient. We'll have another day in the sun. We need to recover and return in a new form."

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In another tweet, Spencer added: "I will never flip on my fundamental principles. (My principles were never voting for the supposed 'the lesser or two evils' or 'stopping big government.')

"Walking into certain defeat, even death, is not heroic. It's foolhardy. I have no sympathy for martyrs. I admire winners."

The Southern Poverty Law Center describes Spencer as "a suit-and-tie version of the white supremacists of old."

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Spencer first rose to prominence in 2016 after shouting "Hail Trump!" and being greeted with Nazi salutes at an event in Washington shortly after Trump was elected.

However, Spencer said earlier this year that he regrets voting for Trump, following the killing of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani.

Spencer feared that Trump's approved airstrike which resulted in the death of Soleimani brought the U.S. to the brink of war with Iran.

"I deeply regret voting for and promoting Donald Trump in 2016," Spencer tweeted. "To the people of Iran, there are millions of Americans who do not want war, who do not hate you, and who respect your nation and its history.

"After our traitorous elite is brought to justice, we hope to achieve peace, reconciliation, and forgiveness," he added.

Spencer also led a protest against the Trump administration launching an airstrike on a Syrian airbase in 2017.

Credited with creating the term "alt-right," Spencer was also one of the main organizers of the neo-Nazi "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 at which counter-protester Heather Heyer died after being struck by a car driven by white supremacist James Alex Fields Jr.

In a statement released on the third anniversary of the deady rally, Biden said: "Three years ago today, the world watched in horror as neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and far-right extremists with torches in hand descended on Charlottesville, Virginia, spewing the same anti-Semitic bile that was heard in Hitler's Germany in the 1930s.

"It was a moment of testing for our country, and a wake-up call to the fact that hate never diesit only hides. And when our leaders give it oxygen, it can come roaring back to life.

"And then our president claimed that there were 'very fine people on both sides.' Donald Trump had the audacity to assign moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those who stood against it.

"I knew then that we were in a battle for the soul of this nation. And I knew then that I could not stand by and let Donald Trump destroy the core values of this nation. Now, three years later, we can see even more clearly that everything that has made America, America, is at stake."

Spencer and Biden's campaign team have been contacted for comment.

Excerpt from:

Richard Spencer Backs Joe Biden, Says 'MAGA/Alt-Right Moment is Over' - Newsweek

A middle-aged lawyer recently sat down at a pok restaurant in a North Georgia town. He was sniffling and dabbing his eyes with a napkin. Dont think its corona, he said, pulling up a Web site on his phone with statistics on diagnoses worldwide. Then he looked at Twitter and began talking about a different sort of virus. When Donald Trump first announced his Presidential bid, I told my wife, immediately, Hes going to be the President, he said. The lawyer welcomed the candidacy. How to put this and not sound fifteen? he said. I like chaos. I thrive in it.

For years, the lawyer, who asked not to be identified, worked in Washington, D.C., for the Republican Party. He moved his family south a few years ago, having realized, he said, that D.C. is just Hollywood for ugly people. He found that he had time on his hands. Id never been interested in social media, he said. I cant stand Facebook. But he became intrigued by the power of Twitter. Really repulsive meme-ing, the stuff that makes you laugh, makes you remember, he said. The right, he went on, is great at it instinctively. Whether its a 4chan board or basement neckbeards, they nail it. They can distill a huge talking paragraph into a cat picture. He considers Trumps digital facility absolutely genius, and believes that his frequent Twitter misspellings (Barrack Obama, covfefe) are intentional. In 2015, while the lawyers young children napped, he began trolling. Id have a glass of wine, talk to my wife, watch Netflix, and see what kinds of things we could do, he said. He would sometimes pass four or five hours a day this way.

The lawyer is not a mainstream Republican; he likes Bill Clinton and Bernie Sanders. He was also unbothered by the recent Senate report on Russias election meddling. (If youre not interfering with elections, he said, youre not doing it right.) Out of curiosity, he attended a far-right gathering, where he found the younger attendees to be maybe a little misguided, but well intended. He began creating fake Twitter accounts, he said, to see whether I could get more interactions, more retweets, by being a little more radical. The Confederate flag was often his avatar, or the Bonnie Blue, a lesser-known Confederate banner. For his handles, he made up acronyms with a nationalistic tinge, such as FFK: Faith Folk and Kin. He fashioned the accounts ersatz users as boomers or gun-rights activists. The latter, he said, were easy: Just follow Dana Loesch and interact with those crazy girls who stay up all night tweeting Second Amendment stuff. He added, Id get them to retweet me and then my following would blow up. By the time the 2016 race was under way, he had about twenty accounts, each with a few thousand followers. His fake alt-right accounts amplified Trumps messaging and distorted Hillary Clintons. (Something about her makes me nervous, he said.) His fake Antifa ones spread what he called disinformation and false stories to benefit Trump.

He pulled up an old account with the handle Ruthless Lessruth. This was supposed to be a girl who was married to an alt-right guy, he said. He explained how hed used the account to trick an Antifa group into protesting an alt-right rally that didnt exist: I P.M.d the head of the Atlanta Antifa and told him that my husband was alt-right and that I was repulsed by it. Then, in the guise of the wife, he directed the Atlanta Antifa group to a would-be rally at a Marriott Marquis. A bunch of people showed up. That was hard to do, to pose as a girl with political views that Im not familiar with. Some of his Antifa accounts also pushed veganism. You have to find some community to exploit, he said. Id find an approved vegan account with Antifa leanings and interact with them a bit. It was really tedious. But Im a lawyerI get into the minutiae. Manning accounts on both sides of the political spectrum had its risks. There was always the fear of tweeting something out of the wrong account, he said. Like praising immigration to my alt-right followers or something.

The lawyers trolling dropped off in 2017. Hed become disillusioned by Trump. He hasnt done anything he said he was going to do, the lawyer said. But Id vote for him over Biden. No one is excited about Biden. (I would have pulled for Bernie, he said.) He recently opened a new Twitter account. I just dicked around on it, he said. I watched some of the trending tags. Im not a conspiracy theorist. Theres nothing I think is being hidden from us that I care a lot about. He sighed. Maybe Ive just gotten old.

Here is the original post:

Confessions of a Trump Troll - The New Yorker

Red Pill Hari Kunzru

Knopf

September 2020

"You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe," Morpheus tells Neo in the Wachowski Bros.' 1999 film, The Matrix. "You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes."

It is with The Matrix that the term "red pill" entered our vocabulary and later memedom as we grew into our collective, online consciousness, but the dilemma between living in blissful ignorance and confronting the truth about reality is nothing new. Neither is the idea that our reality might be simulated, or at least manipulated. From Ren Descartes' Evil Demon to Gilbert Harman's Brain in a Vat, thought experiments have often sought to tease out whether it is possible to trust our perception of reality, to determine whether we can know with certainty that what we seem to experience with our senses is an accurate assessment of some larger truth.

It is this larger truth that the far-right, emboldened by the emergence of a reactionary political class all too willing to stoke the flames of panic and prejudice, have laid claim to in recent years, claiming also, in the process, the term "red pill" to describe their process of awakening to uncomfortable realities they accuse the left-leaning of not wanting to come face to face with. British-Indian novelist Hari Kunzru, author of five previous novels and PEN/Jean Stein Book Award finalist, addresses the intersection of such existential quandaries in his latest novel, aptly titled Red Pill.

The premise of Red Pill is simple enough; clichd, almost. The unnamed narrator, a struggling writer suffering a dry spell, embarks on a retreat to clear his mind and restore his creative faculties. Any overused tropes end here, though, as Kunzru weaves an intricate fabric from a multitude of seemingly disparate elements German romanticism, the legacy of the Third Reich, the Stasi, the European migrant crisis, the 2016 US presidential election all of which come together to create this haunted tale that merges questions of privacy, transhumanism, the political ascendency of the Right in Europe and the US, and moral responsibility, among others.

Water drop by qimono (Pixabay License / Pixabay)

Kunzru's protagonist a man of Indian heritage, married and father to a young daughter is awarded a fellowship at the Deuter Center in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee. If that latter name sounds familiar, it is because it served as the location of the eponymous 1942 Wannsee Conference, in which the implementation of the Final Solution to the Jewish Question was discussed a tragic and macabre past that weighs on the setting in much the same way the cold, stark, unforgiving weather does. Rather than use his fellowship to any industrious effect and develop his work on the concept of the self in lyric poetry, however, the narrator finds he is unable to fall in step with the center's rather aggressive communal work policy, which dictates that he must research and write in the presence of others.

In between calls with his wife back in Brooklyn and visits to the grave of Romantic poet Heinrich von Kleist, he binge-watches Blue Lives, a disturbingly violent police show that peppers its scenes of torture with obscure quotes, which the narrator believes might be intended as subtext.

Interestingly, the fictional Blue Lives airs at a time in which another nihilistic group fixated with the brutalization of the body is filming its own horrors for the world to see. Although ISIS is not explicitly mentioned by name, the footage from "jihadi propaganda" videos is referenced in one of several instances in which the narrator juxtaposes death with spectacle, the dignity (and what he assumes to be the inherent human right) of privacy with violent and humiliating invasiveness. Meanwhile, his initial topic of investigation the lyric "I" suffers from his frustrated attempts to secure for himself isolation and, if he is being honest with himself, plain old disinterest.

"Deep down I had no real desire to understand how lyric poets had historically experienced their subjectivity. I wasn't that interested," he admits. "It was a piece of wishfulness, an expression of my own desire to be raised above the pleasures and pains of my life, to be free from the reigning coercions of a toddler, the relentless financial pressure of living in New York. I wanted to remain alone with myself as inwardness. I wanted, in short, to take a break."

Photo by Advait Jayant on Unsplash

His desire for solitude and clarity is inexorably thwarted, and he happens upon surveillance footage that leads him to believe that residents at the center are being watched, even in (what ought to be) the privacy of their own rooms. It is thus that his paranoia at being spied upon and his preoccupation with the creator of Blue Lives, Anton, and the show's underlying meaning converge to form the catalyst for his own descent into madness, mirrored, no less, by the poet Kleist, who also "had a crisis, brought about by reading Kant, who taught that the human senses are unreliable, and so we are unable to apprehend the truth that lies beneath the surface of things."

He begs his cleaning lady, Monika, to tell him the truth about whether the center is spying on its residents, which leads to a rather long aside in the novel in which she recounts her terrible experiences at the hands of the Stasi, little assuaging his general sense of malaise and imminent doom.

The world events that unfold around the narrator are no more helpful at staying this spiral into psychosis. At the very outset of the novel, he acknowledges the role of chance in determining whether one is born into wealth or war, comfort or mortal struggle, also acknowledging the fragility of one's current circumstances, tenuous and unpredictable. "Our very happiness made me uneasy," he confesses. "It was a time when the media was full of images of children hurt and displaced by war. I frequently found myself hunched over my laptop, my eyes welling with tears. I was distressed by what I saw, but also haunted by a more selfish question: if the world changed, would I be able to protect my family? Could I scale the fence with my little girl on my shoulders? Would I be able to keep hold of my wife's hand as the rubber boat overturned? Our life together was fragile. One day something would break."

His position as a member of an ethnic minority in a white man's world compounds this anxiety, which he sees reflected in a refugee father and daughter duo he meets at different intervals in the novel and desperately longs to help in some way. "It's always people like us who go first," he tells his wife.

When the narrator at last meets Anton, he is finally afforded the opportunity to ask the burning questions that have been consuming his thoughts only the answers he receives are far from placating. His obsession becomes manic, and he follows the mind behind the show across countries, refusing to accept the man's destructive vision of a future in which humankind is divided into two groups: one that fuses with technology to transcend animal limitations an updated version of the Nazi take on Nietzsche's bermensch and the other that is destined to slavery in service of the first.

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

Kunzru accomplishes several noteworthy things with Red Pill, not the least of which is following nihilistic philosophies (even those that do not designate themselves as such but instead, claim to hold a utopian vision for the future that involves culling 'undesirable' elements) to their logical endpoint. In striving to fabricate an artificial, 'perfectionist' version of ourselves, we ironically (or predictably, for anyone who is familiar with history) expose the very worst in our nature.

Kunzru also addresses the bedrock humanity hits in stretching philosophy that questions reality to the extent it renders any cooperation based on that reality impossible to its snapping point. If we cannot agree on basic premises and inalienable rights, what then?

The mental crisis that ensues from having the foundations of one's belief system shattered is likewise accurately depicted: the world becomes unrecognizable, a simulation as it were. "The streetscape wasn't real. The sidewalk, the passers-by, the cars, the clouds in the sky, all were elements in a giant simulation. The sunlight was not sunlight but code."

The author excels in capturing the geist in alt-right circles, down to the language used. "Cultural Marxism has filled your brain with worms," Anton tells the narrator, after the latter confronts the Blue Lives creator and accuses him of being on the wrong side of history with his morbid masterplan for the future. Using a term favored by conspiracy theorists who allege that progressives are using psychological manipulation to topple the natural order of the world, Anton essentially equates the narrator's opposition to the erosion of basic human values with erosion of the values he personally believes to be enlightened. For that is what cultural Marxists do, according to the alt-right: They promote atheism, gay rights, feminism, all through the humanities faculties in universities and the media and all at the expense of the status quo.

Noteworthy is the Nazi preoccupation with the thinkers of the Frankfurt School, most of whom were Jewish. Another gem of an exchange between narrator and Anton: "Why are you promoting a future in which some people are treated like raw material? That's a disgusting vision," the narrator says, to which Anton responds, laughing: "I'm sorry it gives you sad feels."

Perhaps the most remarkable features of this novel are its relevance to current events and the questions it raises with regard to the ethical frameworks we take for granted and within which we operate. If "privacy is the exclusive property of the gods," as the narrator posits, is the impending class struggle between spies and those who are spied upon? Where will our steady handover of privacy in exchange for security lead to down the road?

If, again, privacy is the demarcating factor between the ruling and subordinate classes, what does it say about refugees on dinghies in the Mediterranean, whose lives and bodies are battlegrounds for political figures to build their platforms on? Is little Alan Kurdi, lying face down on a beach in Turkey, the ultimate spectacle, the ultimate "mockery of human dignity" that is simultaneously relished as a symbol, as the sacrificial animal on which humanity's sins may be pinned, and disdained for its inconvenience?

In the novel, as in reality, the very real flesh-and-blood human lives of refugee father and daughter occupy a space in the background as the theoretical tug of war between Anton and the narrator occupies the foreground, and the parallels between a past that is never too far behind and a present that threatens to rouse those ugly ghosts are all too evident.

Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog [By Caspar David Friedrich - The photographic reproduction was done by Cybershot800i. (Diff). Public Domain / Wikipedia]

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Privacy and Alt-Right Transhumanism in Hari Kunzru's 'Red Pill' - PopMatters

After Donald Trump won the U.S. election in November 2016, some Republicans hoped that the new President would mellow in office and moderate his hardline campaign positions. Steve Bannon saw it as his job to make sure that didnt happen.

Bannon, a former investment banker and right-wing documentary filmmaker who served as one of Trumps principal advisers during the final months of his campaign, moved into the West Wing in January 2017, taking over an office at a crucial hallway intersection steps from the Oval Office. His perch allowed him to see nearly everyone visiting then-chief of staff Reince Priebus on one side, and Trumps son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner on the other.

Bannons official new title was chief strategist, and he saw himself as besieged by ideological rivals trying to slow-walk Trumps controversial campaign promises to build a border wall, gut trade deals, and ban Muslims from entering the country. His ascent was seen by many as bringing the fringe voices of white nationalists and the alt-right directly into the West Wing. He spent hours on calls with GOP donors and reporters painting Priebus as beholden to the old Republican establishment and Kushner as a Democrat in Trumps house. He lasted seven months, before being pushed out for leaking about palace intrigue and refusing to cede access and control to Trumps second chief of staff, John Kelly.

Bannons time in the White House may have been short, but it was influential. Within a few weeks of moving in, Bannon helped launch Trump on the hardline policy path he has rarely deviated from since. Bannon, along with senior advisor Stephen Miller, pushed for the hasty freeze of the U.S. refugee program and the halt in immigration from seven majority Muslim countries, moves that were later challenged in court and required revisions. He kept a white board on the wall next to his desk and put green check marks next to actions that weakened international trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership and North American Free Trade Agreement.

It is quite a fall, then, to go from viewing himself as keeper of the Presidents to-do list to being arrested by federal agents three years later. Bannon was taken into custody on Thursday, accused of helping orchestrate a scheme to defraud hundreds of thousands of donors who contributed $25 million to an online crowdfunding campaign to build a privately funded wall on the U.S. border with Mexico. Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York alleged that Bannon had falsely told donors he would not be compensated for his work on the We Build the Wall project, and charged him with counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Bannon was reportedly arrested off the coast of Connecticut aboard the yacht of Guo Wengui, an exiled Chinese businessman.

Bannon pleaded not guilty on Thursday and was released on a $5 million bond. He wont be allowed to board private jets or boats without permission from a federal judge and must restrict his travel to New York and Washington, D.C. Bannon and his lawyer did not respond to requests for comment.

On Friday morning, Bannon was back on the air of his podcast, War Room: Pandemic, saying that his arrest was a political hit job and an attempt to silence proponents of building a border wall. He did not address directly the charge that he defrauded donors. All these charges are nonsense, Bannon said into a large radio microphone, wearing his signature costume: two black collared shirts. This is to stop and intimidate people who want to talk about the wall.

Trump distanced himself from Bannons wall project on Thursday, saying he didnt like the project and thought it was being done for showboating reasons. Trump said he feels very badly for his former adviser, but added, I havent been dealing with him for a very long period of time. It was inappropriate to be trying to fund a wall with private funds, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office during a visit of Iraqs Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi.

A White House statement sought to further distance the President from Bannon. President Trump has not been involved with Steve Bannon since the campaign and the early part of the Administration, and he does not know the people involved with this project, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in a statement. One advisory board member of the private wall project, Kris Kobach, the former secretary of state of Kansas, told the New York Times last year that the effort had Trumps blessing.

Bannons path to a desk down the hall from the Oval Office was as circuitous as one of his lengthy tangents that often veer into the history of Nazi propaganda or the Roman Empire. Bannon grew up in a family of Irish-Catholic Democrats in Richmond, Virginia. His father was a telephone lineman who later moved into management. Bannon served as a Navy officer and later got a degree in national security studies from Georgetown and an M.B.A. from Harvard. He eventually went to work for Goldman Sachs before breaking out to start a boutique investment firm in Beverly Hills that specialized in entertainment deals. In the early 2000s, he began producing documentaries that lashed out at political and financial elites and eventually took over Breitbart News, a website that Bannon once described as a platform for the alt-right, a movement that has embraced racist views and anti-semitism.

It was a tweet that brought Bannon and Trump together. In July 2015, weeks after Donald Trump announced he would run for President, Steve Bannon wrote on Breitbart that Trumps book, Time to Get Tough, was a blockbuster policy manifesto. Trump tweeted a link to the story. After that, Bannon repeatedly interviewed Trump on his radio show, and a year later, Bannon was hired as chief executive of the campaign.

Bannon didnt have to bring Trump his ideas on trade imbalances, harsh immigration policies and stripping away environmental regulations Trump already had them. The two men found each other, and Bannon brought a propagandists sensibility to the fight. They both embraced a tactic in Washington of not backing down in the face of flaming criticism and not apologizing if they landed on the wrong side of the truth. Bannon was fond of likening himself and Trump to honey badgers who dont relent even after being stung by bees or bitten by snakes.

When Trump won, Bannon asked to be named chief strategist in the White House and for the first few months of the Trump administration, Bannon had broad privileges to attend meetings in the Oval Office. The Anti-Defamation League called Bannons promotion a sad day and described his tenure at Breitbart as presiding over the premier website of the alt-right a loose-knit group of white nationalists and unabashed anti-Semites and racists. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate-crimes, described Bannon at the time as the main driver behind Breitbart becoming a white ethno-nationalist propaganda mill. Former Ohio governor John Kasichs chief of staff John Weaver said Bannon would be footsteps from the Oval Office and represents the racist, fascist extreme right.

In the White House, Bannon was one of the few in Trumps orbit who rarely wore a suit and tie, often opting for a rumpled blazer and layers of dark collared shirts. Bannon left the white House in August 2017, in the wake of a firestorm over Trump saying both sides had responsibility for deadly violence during clashes over the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, VA. Former White House aide Cliff Sims wrote in his book Team of Vipers that Bannon was the only one in the White House entirely comfortable and thrilled, really with Trumps remarks. Bannon clashed with Trumps second chief of staff John Kelly over Trumps response and other issues, and Trump had come to believe Bannon was regularly leaking to reporters about policy fights inside the West Wing.

Most presidents have an early ideological cheerleader like Bannon, says Julian Zelizer, a historian at Princeton University and author of Burning Down the House: Newt Gingrich, the Fall of a Speaker, and the Rise of the New Republican Party. Bannon played a role for Trump that was similar to how David Axelrod was able to help Barack Obama define a new Democratic coalition, and how Karl Rove helped George W. Bush expand on his base in Texas to win the White House, says Zelizer. Bannon saw how Trump fit into the Republican party and was able to articulate how Trumps anti-establishment populism and his restrictionist ideas on trade and immigration, once seen as fringe movements, could be the new GOP orthodoxy.

He had a feel for the Republican party and how it had changed over time, Zelizer says.He played an important role in not just helping Trump, but in helping Republicans see why Trump was the right candidate for the party at that moment, says Zelizer.

But one way Bannon was different than those close advisors, Zelizer says, was his active desire to sow chaos in government and erode the administrative state. Bannons arrest comes on the same day that a federal judge blocked Trumps latest effort to protect his tax returns from being handed over to prosecutors in New York as part of an investigation into Trumps business practices. Trumps lawyers are expected to appeal the decision. Ultimately it isnt surprising that another person in Trumps orbit would find themselves in legal trouble, Zelizer notes. This is someone who was comfortable in the world of Trump where the lines of ethics are beyond blurry, he says.

Once outside the White House, Bannon continued to take aim at the Republican establishment. He has long seen himself as a revolutionary wanting to crash the existing political order and undermine the clubby circle of elites, with targets ranging from the Clintons to Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Over the past few years, his support from major Republican donors waned and his direct influence over Trump dropped off. Bannon started a podcast about the COVID-19 pandemic that focused on Chinas initial coverup of the virus, and hes been a vocal critic of the Chinese Communist Party. Trump has said Bannons been a more effective advocate for him since he left the White House. Actually, Steve Bannons been much better not being involved. He says, the greatest president ever. Trump told Fox Newss Chris Wallace during an interview on July 19.

But even Bannon knows he lost sway and influence the moment he stepped out of the West Wing. Trump is always influenced by the last guy he talks to, Bannon told TIME during an interview at the dining table in his Capitol Hill townhouse in January. If you want to influence Trump, you got to be the last guy he talks to, Bannon said. That hasnt been Bannon for years.

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You Got to Be the Last Guy He Talks To.' The Rise and Fall of Trump Adviser Steve Bannon - TIME