Morning Briefing: Far Right 'Emerging Platforms Have Gained Traction'
Morning Briefing: Far Right 'Emerging Platforms Have Gained Traction'
Far right social media is playing a growing roll in the overall news and information landscape, "especially among Republicans and Trump supporters," according to a new Pew Research Center study.
Morning Briefing: Far right social media is having an impact, as “alternative social media sites like Truth Social and Parler are playing a small but growing role in the overall news and information landscape,” according to a new study by the Pew Research Center:
“Although fewer than one-in-ten Americans say they use any of these sites for news, most who do say they have found a community of likeminded people there. And news consumers on the four sites with large enough numbers to be analyzed individually – Parler, Rumble, Telegram and Truth Social – largely say they are satisfied with their experience getting news on the sites, that they find the information there to be mostly accurate, and that the discussions are mostly friendly.”
Christopher Healy, a professor at Furman University, has been “placed on leave for attending the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where protesters gathered to oppose the proposed removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.”
The professor claimed that he is being “punished because I exercised my rights as a U.S. citizen. Basically, that's all this is about.”
Members of the Proud Boys, the far right street gang, held signs that read “Science is Real Boy or Girl” and “Groomer” during a “protest at an outdoor session of Drag Queen Story Hour at Brookside Gardens in Wheaton.”
Minnesota Parents Alliance is “claiming to be nonpartisan has launched an effort to gain ‘parental rights’ on state school boards, partnering with anti-LGBTQ organizations and endorsing candidates who denounce Pride flags and critical race theory.”
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Brandy Zadrozny and Ben Collins write that “from Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in Florida to Akron Children’s Hospital in Ohio and Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Tennessee, health care providers and institutions are being targeted as part of a new tactic in a larger right-wing war against LGBTQ people and communities, as well as the people and institutions who serve them. Before doctors, many of these same conservative online influencers and media figures targeted teachers and librarians, branding them as pedophiles or “groomers” over books, drag shows and Pride events, disrupting the goings-on at schools and libraries across the country… It is a shift that has some health care advocates concerned about similarities to the anti-abortion rhetoric that spurred violence against abortion providers and clinics starting in the 1970s and continuing through recent years.” [NBC News]
Annika Brockschmidt writes that “it’s a bad sign when an elected official—any elected official—engages in what scholars of genocide describe as “genocidal rhetoric.” What makes it worse is that Marjorie Taylor Greene is no outlier in her party. Although she’s long been described as the fringe of the GOP, she and others, like Lauren Boebert, have found their way into the mainstream. How can we possibly tell? Well, for one: she has not and will not receive any meaningful pushback from her Republican colleagues on her incendiary, genocidal rhetoric—at least not from anyone that still has political aspirations in the party.” [Religion Dispatches]
Chrissy Stroop writes that “if one were to spend much time reading the US press, one would likely come away with the unfortunate impression that religious freedom is an inherently conservative, even reactionary, ideal – an ideal at odds with support for reproductive justice, LGBTIQ rights, and even workers’ rights. This situation is the result of a decades-long push by the Christian Right and its allies to reinforce the Christian privilege that permeates American society, and further establish this in the courts using legal outfits like Liberty Counsel and Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). Christian Right forces have also unfairly stacked the Supreme Court with right-wing, anti-choice, partisan justices, who willingly apply their distorted framing.” [openDemocracy]
What to expect from Radical Reports: Morning Briefing provides a daily round-up of reporting on the Radical Right; Extremist Links offers a weekly round-up of extremists activities including the white supremacist and militia movements; Research Desk provides monthly highlights research and analysis from academia on the Radical Right; Field Notes delivers research on key organizations and analysis of the strategies and tactics of the Radical Right.
Sex is an unchangable trait. 20 years of wokeness vs. 500 millions years of evolution.
Not only are wars fought with guns, they are also fought with words.
For anyone interested, I have just posted a review of a 1938 book called "The Tyranny of Words" which described the misuse of political language (prior to WW2) as "short-cut tags" that short-circuited thinking and communication.
I believe this type of verbal warfare is well underway both between nations and "within nations" and this tattered old book from 85 years ago speaks directly to our times, and to this moment in American history.
My site is free and open to anyone who is interested in tapping into the wisdom of writers and thinkers who faced similar challenges in the past:
https://neofascism.substack.com/p/the-tyranny-of-words-by-stuart-chase