CrunchyToFarRightPipeline
ThoughtStorms Wiki
Context: IdentityPoliticsIsKryptoniteToTheLeft, PalimpsestHateHypothesis
Synthesis of NewAge and RightWingDeathCult
NaomiKlein on "Wellness" getting drawn into the right-wing conspiracism. : https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/nov/15/naomi-klein-interview-wellness-culture-far-right
GeorgeMonbiot writing about it https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/22/leftwingers-far-right-conspiracy-theories-anti-vaxxers-power
Interesting tweet stream from Kathleen Belew : https://twitter.com/kathleen_belew/status/1600135049185087488
It's also on ThreadReaderApp : https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1600135049185087488.html but I'm going to quote it below (CategoryCopyrightRisk)
Since the "crunchy to alt-right pipeline" is a conversation, people may be interested in the longer history of the white power movement's investment in crunch (crunchiness) (1)
All the way back in the 1970s and '80s, white power women (in the Klan, skinhead groups, Christian Identity churches, and beyond) were interested in a bunch of things you might think of as crunchy: (2)
These include organic farming, macrobiotic diet, paganism, avoiding fluoride, traditional midwifery (3)
Someone could write a great book on whether all of this was 1) genuine belief 2) a way to recruit from the leftist fringe that was also anti-state and was very crunchy or 3) (my bet) a mix of both) (4)
The Klan, the white power movement, the militant right, the alt-right have all been opportunistic social movements. That means they have always tacked to the prevailing cultural winds and taken advantage of whatever recruitment avenues were available. Crunch is this now (5)
However, and this is a big however, this OF COURSE does not mean that crunchiness is the same thing as being in or being vulnerable to extremism. What it is, is a window of opportunity being manipulated and exploited BY extremists (6)
If you are crunchy and not an extremist and feel offended by this, well, yeah, you should. It's an attempt to manipulate you into an ideology. (7)
(The place that this started in the most recent iteration of the movement is, I suspect, in antivaccination–not covid antivaxxing, but the anti-measles and anti-childhood vaccinations discussions in mom groups.) (8)
It's worth learning about how this worked in the earlier period to understand what's going on here. There's a chapter on this in Bring the War Home amazon.com/Bring-War-Home…. You should also check out @seywarddarby's Sisters in Hate and Kathleen Blee's Women in the Klan (9)
This is also a really good example of how the white power/militant right is not just men marching in the street, it's also women sharing antistatist cultural materials through social networks. (10, end)
This is getting so fucking complicated. Here's someone who liked my post on Twitter today. Who is probably a very nice and interesting person. And supports UniversalBasicIncome
But, you know, also an anti-vaxx transphobe.
Perhaps another way to think about this is that the right are always good at using "wedge" issues to split what, IMHO, ought to be mutually supporting groups on the left.
And in an age of stress, they've been particularly good at it, through Brexit, transphobia, Israel, anti-vaxx. Now trying to turn pro-working class leftists against environmentalism by claiming that it's adding unnecessary financial burdens on them when they can barely afford to still drive their cars.
Of course, people have been talking about how the FarRight and NewAge overlap for ages.
https://gen.medium.com/nazi-hippies-when-the-new-age-and-far-right-overlap-d1a6ddcd7be4
See also: