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larsmaischak · 4 years

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The Mind of the Covid Deniers

Don't dismiss open-up protests as "crazy fringe"

May 13 2020

We should resist the temptation of dismissing the open-up protesters, whose violent side has been on display in Fresno this week in the assault on a police officer and the harassment of a Democratic member of the City Council, as a misguided or even misinformed fringe cause. That does not mean that we should go looking for the kernel of truth or the morsel of legitimate civic concern in the open-up protests. Quite the contrary. We should recognize these protests as part of a global fascist movement as dangerous as any virus.

While there has been some recognition by the media that the "open-up" protests are funded by the usual suspects in the network of far-right propaganda sources and organizations, there is still a strong willingness to discuss the motivations of the protesters in terms of the "legitimate concerns of citizens."

It is important to recognize that whatever legitimate concerns are cited by the protesters, the underlying causes of the protests are to be found in far-right, ultimately fascist, ideology. Certainly, the organizers of the protests have been actively attempting to nudge their followers towards main-stream messaging about economic hardship and individual liberties. And yet, what is on the protesters' minds is quite distinct from these concerns that might be regarded as legitimate, if perhaps a bit misguided.

A closer look at messages worn on the protesters' sleeves demonstrates this point. Consider placards and t-shirts, but also social media comments. The virus is "made in China," one shirt worn by a prospective patron of the north-west Fresno Waffle House proclaimed. This echoes the conspiracy theory claiming the virus was manufactured in a lab in Wuhan, either escaping accidentally, or set loose deliberately. In some accounts, development of the virus was funded by Bill Gates, as part of a scheme to impose a lockdown on America, damage the country's economy, and harm Trump, politically.

It is easy to dismiss this as a "crazy, fringe opinion," and certainly liberals have been busy explaining away every sign of fascist ideology in the past ten years as just that - a marginal phenomenon, best ignored. This dismissal is blind to the widespread dissemination of this and other conspiracy theories. They may originate on the fringes. But as soon as they prove their appeal among a small sub-set of the Republican base, they graduate quickly to mass appeal on YouTube, Fox, and other sources that convey legitimacy and purchase. Next thing, yesterday's "fringe" theory becomes the main subject of a Trump twitter fit. Tomorrow, it becomes the basis of national policy.

The three main views represented among the open-up activist can be classified thus:

There is no virus, just media fear-mongering motivated by a wish to harm America, which is to say, Trump.

There is a virus, but it is no more harmful than the flu. Liberals just want to lock you up at home, as a dry run for their eco-socialist dictatorship, aka the Green New Deal.

There is a virus, and it is extremely dangerous. It was manufactured in China, possibly with Bill Gates's money, in order to bring down America, and thereby harm Trump's chances of reelection.

Just because these theories cannot all be true, won't keep Trumpists from believing and repeating them, all at once. The consistency is not in the specific claims, but in the premise: Whatever is going on here, somewhere, someone with a lot of money, power, and malicious intent is doing this to harm Trump. And whatever harms Trump, harms me, that is to say, it harms America.

A glance at the daily digest of news items from realclearpolitics.com, where headlines from a broad field of far-right media outlets get play, shows the promiscuous pluralism of propaganda on the far right:

There's the Falun Gong-associated "Epoch Times", whose German-language edition has been busy promoting the neo-Nazi AfD Party, hammering home the Republican talking point about the Chinese Communist Party. This effort has been augmented by a professionally produced, well-financed video ad campaign on YouTube.

There's the smear of Democratic governors (Cuomo killed all the old people in nursing homes) and the praise of Trump (he has been calmly in charge, keeping us safe in spite of the haters), as if the playbook of the Hungarian fascist leader, Victor Orban, had been literally translated into English. If ever an opposition politician is elected mayor anywhere in Hungary, count on a deluge of articles in government media revealing his love of pedophelia, immigration, bestiality, and atheism. If not for Orban to keep us safe from these vile demonic creatures, where would Hungary be!

There's the gratuitous skepticism amplified to discredit science, and the ad hominem attacks on those who apply science in public policy. Fauci is an agent of Bill Gates and the Chinese, the charts were all wrong (and Trump had it right, all along), the whistleblowers were silenced by an overbearing expertocracy. This attack on science connects seamlessly to the established tropes of anti-vaccination paranoia and climate-change denial.

All these angles on the theme of conspiracy reflect the agenda and bias of their financers and backers. There's the foreign fascists with an axe to grind with the Communist Party of China, there's the rich right-wing Republican donors who just want to hold on to power in November, and there's the specific sub-set of these donors who make their money with fossil fuel and related industries, like real-estate and the urban-sprawl business in general. There's the opportunistic YouTubers and local politicians (hi, Gary Bredefeld!) who are auditioning for a more well-paid gig. Maybe a slot on Fox, or at least a radio program of your own?

For the common follower, the appeal is a mix of generic fascist tropes. There's the heroic posturing and sense of victimization by unseen, malicious powers. There's the strength-through-joy display of health and vigor, paired with disdain for the weak, expressed in slogans like "I refuse to let your fear take my freedom." There's xeno- as well as Sinophobia. And yet, this global fascist movement is a beautiful caleidoscope of diversity. Chinese, Hungarian, Hindu, German, Arab and American can all agree that the Jews are to blame. Or some other international cabal, if you're not ready to go there, quite yet. But ultimately, it will be the Jew again, that is for sure.

So whatever this movement represents, fringe it ain't. It floats comfortably down the broad mainstream of global fascism, in pleasure crafts decked out with all the amenities the funding from Uihlein, Mercer, Koch, deVos and all the others will purchase, and propelled along by the same stream of capital in search of valorization.

From the helm of the party boat to piloting the ship of state as part of the Trump administration, far-right groups and individuals move freely back and forth. Either way, they're in the Republican Party's organizational orbit, and the designation "fringe" becomes less and less plausible.

It is incumbent on those who wish to keep Americans safe from global contagion to take seriously the danger. Not merely the danger from the virus, but also the danger from the longer-running contagion of global fascism, with its many local and sub-cultural mutations. Fresno surely is a hot-spot of the latter.

#Fresno #fascism #Covid-19 #Virus denial #anti-vaxxers #conspiracy theory #Republican Party #Trump #anti-lockdown protests

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