By David Futrelle
Given how many of today’s alt-right Nazis and Nazi-equivalents grew up on 4chan, the internet’s Troll Central, it’s hardly surprising that they lie about almost everything. What is perhaps a little more surprising is how bad at it they are. Most of their deceptive propaganda is so obviously phony that in many cases the only people they are fooling are each other.
Case in point: In the wake of two violent alt-right rallies in Charlottesville, during which antifascist activist Heather Heyer was brutally murdered by a Trump-loving, Pepe-posting white supremacist, alt-rightists have been doing their best to try to smear Antifa counterprotesters as the real perpetrators of violence in Charlottesville.
They’ve done so in part by flooding the internet with mislabeled photos of other demonstrations, with one of the most widely distributed photos featuring an Antifa graphic crudely photoshopped onto the back of a Greek protester beating a cop.
Lefty Twitterer @2dAmMuslim took apart some of these claims in a recent thread. Let’s just look at his screenshots of the, er, discussion, which started off with a right-winger posting not one, not two, but four different bullshit pics, all of which have been widely distributed by right-wingers in recent days, intended to “prove” that Antifas were the true thugs in Charlottesville.
“Libertas” responded to this rebuttal by … blocking @2ndAmMuslim.
Alt-rightists have also been distributing what they claim is a secret Antifa manual allegedly discovered somewhere on the campus of The Evergreen State College. Its fakeness is so readily apparent — just read the thing — that it could only be convincing to dedicated Fox News viewers and especially gullible channers who don’t actually know anything about actual Antifa beliefs.
My favorite bits come at the end, when whoever wrote this thing basically stopped trying to be even slightly convincing.
But it isn’t just channers who find themselves duped by these crude fakes. Independent Journal Review “journalist” Benny Johnson — who was famously fired from Buzzfeed for plagiarism — recently reported on an obviously phony Antifa Twitter account as if it were the Twitter account of a real organization. The problem with his article was evident just from its headline: “Boston Antifa Thanks Hillary Clinton, Democrats for Their Support as They Burn American Flag.”
Anyone who knows anything about Antifas know that they aren’t exactly big Hillary Clinton fans. It’s a bit like reporting that a group of Boston Red Sox fans was heaping praise on the New York Yankees. See Angry White Men and NYmag for more on this particular debacle.
After Johnson was informed by half the internet that the group was fake, he or his editors added an “Alleged” to the front of his headline.
But this is probably my favorite bit of alt-right bullshit from recent days. Here an enterprising propagandist reuses a picture from a Cleveland rally in order to “prove” that some of the white supremacists protesting in Boston last weekend were black women. Not so fast, ironically-named “TruthInGovernment.”
https://twitter.com/BrettSVergara/status/899003964364120065
H/T — Thanks to Twitter’s Leon Tchotchke (@played_straight) for convincing me to do this post.
Possibly the Little Old Lady Blows Hoodlums Away legend is related to a news story from the 1970s – west of England, I believe – which appears in the “Book of Heroic Failures”.
A young person attempted to snatch a handbag from an older woman (in a cathedral close, I seem to remember) and, unfortunately for him, picked a woman who did martial arts. She dislocated his shoulder for him.
But no gun, no gang, no extrajudicial killings, and, as it was reported, no racial difference between attempted thief and expected victim.
bluecat: would-be thieves suffering bad consequences is a common trope of lazy newspapers throughout history.
One of my favorites was when Breitbart ran a scare piece identifying a discarded red-and-white striped Adidas soccer jersey as an Islamic prayer rug, left at the Arizona border by terrorists. It was found by some “Independent American Security Contractors” (aka scared militia bigots playing army in the woods). Thinking it might be booby-trapped, they poked at it with a stick, saw “Arabic writing”, snapped a pic, and sent it to Breitbart. Darn those sneaky Islamomexifascists!
Encyclopedia Brown would be insulted if you walked into his garage with a story that transparently terrible.
Another reason conservatives are so bad at lying is that in order to lie convincingly, you have to be able to step into someone else’s shoes. That requires empathy, a theory of other minds, careful observation of the world, and the ability to articulate an opponent’s position without caricature or judgment. The right is not noted for any of these things.
There’s an element of contempt for the audience, too. The more lazy and grotesque the lie they can get the rubes to accept, the more powerful they feel. Manipulation is part and parcel of their worldview.
@PeeVee
Aye, I expected the picture to come from “unexpected” places.
In other news, I had numerous long talks with her, and I’m happy to say she’s dropped absolutely all of the alt-reich bullshit. Now starts the recovery process of helping her teach herself the one thing she needs the most, the thing no one ever taught her because she’s American and grew up in a conservative environment : critical thinking.
Luckily the current political climate is making my points for me. Unless someone is really cut from that same alt-reich cloth (and it turns out she isn’t), it isn’t that hard to show them the egregious bullshit for what it really is.
@ooglyboggles
Still struggling to think of ONE THING. I guess they both had a messianic complex, but Jesus wasn’t concerned with kingdoms of this world.
This Muslim anti dog hoax happened last year in the UK where leaflets were distributed by a fake Public Purity organisation. This started out on 4chan too by the looks of it.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/14/muslim-campaign-to-ban-dogs-in-public-places—is-it-an-islamoph/
Of course. They know it’s true, so whatever facts you cite must be a hoax.
First things first: hello everyone, this is my first post. I haven’t been reading this blog for too long, although in the past week or so I’ve read through a significant portion of the archives. I’m not generally inclined towards participating in online discussions/communities (I’ve had some really bad experiences, real life damaging, getting-doxxed-and-having-my-conservative-family-learn-I’m-trans-bad), but this one seems to be that rarest of jewels, an active, well-moderated, positive group of people on the internet, so I’m going to give it a shot.
Anyway, it’s astonishing how easily people, even intelligent, worldly people, fall for obviously fake Z-grade garbage as long as it affirms their political beliefs. Makes me anxious, I can’t help but wonder if I’m ever similarly duped by stuff that, to somebody with a different perspective, would be equally laughable.
Also, I couldn’t find out how to contact the moderators/admins, but this is the second time I’m submitting this post, as I mistyped my email address the first time and there doesn’t seem to be an option to delete or edit the (currently yet to be let through the filter) first attempt. Sorry if this wasn’t the right thing to do in this situation.
Ever since Charlottesville I’ve been terrified that Scotland is going to vanish thanks to all the No True Scotsmanning coming from the right.
I kind of half-dissent from this post, or at least from what seems like it might be the motivation behind it. Yes, absolutely, all of the specific examples of “violent extremist Antifa” are crude fakes, and the broader panic narrative developing on the right about Soros-funded DNC-directed Antifa terrorists taking over the country is obviously insane.
But… the fact remains that Antifa are almost uniformly illiberal communist/anarchist nutjobs. The defining, organizing principle of Antifa is street violence to suppress right-wing speech, including nonviolent speech. Almost everyone in Antifa thinks the cops are a purely oppressive, ruling-class gendarmerie that should be abolished & celebrates when a “pig” gets beaten or even Molotov’d.
So the only real defence of Antifa being offered here is “we’re actually not numerous / organized enough to do that, although we totally would do that if we could.” Which is hardly a defence.
I feel like a lot of people who in the calm light of day do not actually buy in to the crazy / scary beliefs and practices of these guys are currently defending them as “our team,” and it worries me.
@ numerobis, it is that, but it’s interesting how it has added layers of racial hatred, fear and a “serves ’em right if they all get killed” mentality – plus of course the love of guns. The person with the biggest gun is the best person (and obviously the gang didn’t think of that: makes you wonder where they’ve been the last 30 years or so).
@ Buttercup Q. Skullpants
I think my favourite was a flag at a London Gay Pride march which parodied the Daesh flag by substituting the lettering for an array of pleasurable devices. This was picked up and reported as “What on earth is ISIS doing marching at a Pride event?” and even “Omigod the streets of London really do belong to Muslims”.
The creator of the flag was quite bemused
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/30/isis-dildo-flag-london-pride-cnn
These are the ones that work on directing the social flow. The first deceiver comes up with whatever social link that they can that gets them the social effect that they want. They should be social priorities.
The tellers of falsehoods are another kind entirely and while they deserve the same shaming (and get it) I’m working on best methods, family is the first in-group. My parents are very politically difficult. They are “bomb throwers” by type. My father just posted an article that basically steals the race issue to politically tack on abortion.
Black babies. They have no idea the level of social disgust I’m feeling. I kept it almost completely impersonal but shamed the fuck out of the theft of someone else’s social issues because they can’t defend abortion as a single issue. They think they are good people, they have no sense of what this says about how they think of black and white babies.
I made it personal only when I reminded him that he is responsible for his choice in posting it. This is where “leaning in” applies I believe. The time before last I told him that thus sort of thing is why I don’t call or go on facebook. There has to be a way of chipping away at this.
Evan Harper:
1) read the comments policy.
2) now read it again.
3) got citations to support any part of this big heap of assertions?
Evan Harper,
First of all, read the comments policy.
Second of all, are you really going to defend the police and claim that they aren’t there to uphold white upper class supremacy? Not saying every cop goes into the force with the intent to that, but that’s pretty clearly what the job entails.
ETA: There’s also nothing wrong with being an anarchist. I’ve known many. Both on and off line. None of them are violent or out to start a civil war or whatever the fuck you think anarchists are about.
This is quite an interesting article.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/450501/white-nationalists-alt-right-vague-grievances-what-do-they-want
Shares a few themes with David’s recent Cut piece.
@Evan,
Here’s the “Official Twitter Account of Antifa”, specifically the first people they’ve ever followed:
It could be that perhaps there’s some misinformation out there about Antifa.
Just sayin’.
I remember the good old days when the pigs were anarchists. 😀
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/anarchy-has-always-appealed-to-me-says-police-chief-9131508.html
The rampant projection on display from these guys would be comical if it wasn’t so dangerous. I mean, the same group of nihilistic a-holes who routinely accuse their perceived enemies of orchestrating false flags are themselves concocting false flags. The same group that holds up violent hooligans like “Based Stick Man” and “Based Knife Man” as people to emulate, then proclaim themselves “nonviolent” in the wake of Charlotteville. That shout “fuck your feelings” one moment, then cry and demand you respect their “pride” in their race the next.
Joseph Heller couldn’t come up with stuff this good if he tried. It’s like Catch-22 if everybody was Captain Aardvark.
I’d accuse them of gross hypocrisy if that mattered to them at all. But no, they just do what they have to in order to escape accountability and introspection.
@Evan Harper
First, comments policy, please.
Second, there’s so much wrong there I’m not sure I’m drunk enough yet to adress it.
Ehh it’s almost fine though, I’m getting used to it. The misconceptions about Antifa are baffling even on the left. So I’m just gonna say my usual line : I’ve never seen an antifa beat the shit out of a right-winger just for speaking out. I have however seen a lot of antifa get the shit beaten out of them to keep the punches away from me while I was practicing my own free speech.
I skimmed the “Antifa manual”. Did they think the fresh coffee stain would make it look more legitimate?
It’s kind of pretty obvious throughout it that no one left of center (And the Democrats are definitely right-wing) wrote it or had any input into it at all.
It’s kind of ridiculous to expect Anti-fascists to have a manual. They’re anti-fascist, and while they’d obviously have training for folks out in the streets, I doubt they’d have an “official statement of beliefs” or whatever because their standpoint is obvious from their name. Opposing all fascists.
One little touch I thought was telling is that the fake manual explicitly divides people along race lines, but if you actually look at anti-fascists, a good percentage of them are white people.
I may not have been explicit enough up there, my parents are forced birther types and I was brief out of frustration. Two stolen issues, I also pointed out they wanted to control people in this equation. Layers of racist, sexist bullshit.
Is it really that surprising that the Nazi-worshipping “alt-right” created what is essentially a 4chan version of the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”?
Honestly, I’ve crafted more convincing props for my RPGs than these supposed tech wizards and l33t h4xx0rz.
Heh.
Vaguely on topic… I was listening to the CBC radio this morning, and their more in depth news show ‘The Current’ (hosted this week by Matt Galloway, a biracial gentleman who normally hosts the Toronto Metro Morning show) had a segment on the ongoing crisis at Rebel Media:
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-august-22-2017-1.4255624/is-there-a-future-for-right-wing-rebel-media-1.4255625
Part of what was on topic about this piece was where they had an audio segment (I believe it was Gavin McInnes) talking about how some Muslim hip hop artist was lying about their motives to try and sneak jihad in as acceptable through music. Or something like that. I was like, ‘this makes no sense unless you accept as an axiom that all Muslims are actively trying to undermine Western civilization’… which, of course, is the same sort of problem MRAs tend to have with women, assuming they are all part of some faceless unthinking mob all doing the same thing.
Actually, one of the other notes in that segment was pointing out that Conservative leader Andrew Scheer’s distancing himself from Rebel Media rings a little hollow given that his campaign was pretty much run by Hamish Marshall, who was on Rebel Media’s board and acted as a business manager there.
@Evan Harper
Back it up.
And, well. Brian Jean, notable hopeful for the brand new United conservative Party in Alberta and leader of the far-right Wildrose Party is advertising on Breitbart. So there’s that.
The past year has been a real eye-opener for a lot of sleepy conservative people up here. They’ve started to realize who they’re allied with. Many have already fled the conservative side, but a lot are pretty okay with it. Party-before-country and all that. What a time to be alive.