In general, there’s this persistent idea that it’s somehow shocking for someone on the far left to wind up on the far right, when the fact is that the chasm between the two is a construct. One doesn’t have to cross all the points on the imagined continuum to get to the other end.
I don’t subscribe to the old adage that you’d have to be heartless to be a young conservative or brainless to be an old leftist.
But I’m an old enough leftist to have seen plenty of young contrarians pivot to the far right after realizing that being a reactionary involved way less work.
Hell, I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t bark as loud as I did when I was half my age. But that’s mainly because I don’t chase my tail as much as I used to, either.
“Look how much Chomsky I’ve understood 60% of!” is no longer the priority to me that it once was.
Either way, if you want to be an angry antagonist, but you can’t hack it with the leftists, then there will always be a place for you on the far right.
Mopping up angry losers who don’t fit in anywhere else is kind of the first page of their playbook.
Not for nothing, but that’s why Twitter, a site that’s been abandoned by everyone except for the losers who are willing to pay eight bucks a month to bump their shitty opinions to the top of the marketplace of ideas, has become such a fertile ground for far-right recruitment in the space of a year.
@mjmbca Yeah but even more directly, I can actually go on Twitter and see that there are plenty of people on there chatting about different topics.
If you haven't and you're interested you might want to go see for yourself.
But it's simply not true that such conversations aren't happening there. I can see for myself on a daily basis that they are. As can you.
@volkris Ah, you’re taking issue with the “everyone’s left but the far-right recruitment fodder” hyperbole? Yes, fair point, that was an exaggeration. There are still other people there.
@mjmbca correct.
I see a ton of good conversation happening on that site, so the hyperbole seems not only outstated but just really pretty wrong.
Like claiming it never rains anymore in a rainforest (I'm just picking something off the top of my head) it's not only over statement but it's just really out there to say.
@volkris I guess I took for granted that the hyperbole would be understood as hyperbole in service of the evidence-based point. But fool me twice, right?
@volkris My friend, there’s such a wealth of easily Googleable support for this fact over the past few weeks alone that I’m happy to encourage you to do so and wish you well.