Evan Krell August 8th, 2020 - 8:48 AM

Part I: https://movies.mxdwn.com/feature/how-the-internet-has-warped-film-criticism/

In my previous article, I gave a brief overview on how YouTube has given rise to certain brands of internet criticism, touching on the skit filled angry reviewers of the mid 2000s and the nitpicking, exaggerated shows like Honest Trailers and CinemaSins. The article drew the through line showing how these types of videos help spur the alt right movement online and how they lead to the types of malicious hate and comments directed towards The Last Jedi for its prominent female characters. See that article for more info.

For this piece I wanted to use another case study to highlight this topic. Another large franchise film with prominent female characters; 2019s Captain Marvel. In the yearlong gap between Infinity War and Endgame, Marvel Studios released two films to bridge the gap, the first of which was Captain Marvel. It was also noteworthy for being Marvels first standalone superhero film with a female lead, something that was long overdue. It and Black Panthers development were being impeded by Marvel Entertainment head Ike Perlmutter and other studio executives who felt like films starring women or Black characters wouldnt perform well enough at the box office. It took a shakeup in management around 2015 to get the films on track. Regardless, it was long past time for more diversity in these films.

Anticipation was high in the lead up for the film. Carol Danvers was and still is a fan favorite in the world of comics and in the initial announcement for Marvels Phase 3 slate, the reveal that the film would focus on Carol was met with thunderous applause. Initial trailers in the wake of Infinity War were also met with excitement, doubled by producer Kevin Feige hyping up Carol Danvers as the most powerful character among the Avengers lineup. As the films release drew nearer however, the conversation began to shift.

Before the film released, Rotten Tomatoes had a feature called want to see, where users of the website could demonstrate their interest in seeing the movie. The numbers for Captain Marvel were astronomically low, with an abnormal amount of submissions far above the usual Marvel movie, or any movie for that matter. People speculated that these were attempts to review bomb and dissuade audiences from seeing it. Rotten Tomatoes soon altered this feature to only show the amount interested instead of a percentage. Sure enough on opening day when user reviews opened up, the film had tens of thousands of negative reviews, more than major blockbusters get in their entire run. Most of these reviews likely came from bots, and almost all of them featured complaints about the movie being feminist propaganda.

Sadly, this type of reaction wasnt all too surprising. YouTube, a breeding ground for alt right internet trolls, was plagued with similar messages all throughout the movies marketing campaign. One infamous example was a user editing stills of the film to make Carol Danvers smile, believing that women should smile and look pretty. All over YouTube, alt right users were posting lengthy rant videos, claiming the film was part of a feminist agenda and making vitriolic comments towards the films star Brie Larson. The videos only got more frequent once the film released and much like The Last Jedi, its often hard to talk about the film in some online spaces without a horde of alt right trolls launching into rants and personal attacks.

When moving the discussion backwards a couple of years, this type of unbridled bigotry doesnt seem apparent during the release of Wonder Woman in 2017. Theres sure to be some of this hatred on YouTube but it was never to scale of the Captain Marvel review bombing. There could be several reasons as to why. Theres certainly something to be said about the sort of cult of personality that has formed around DC Comics, though that more applies to Zack Snyder. There have however been examples of many DC fans putting together conspiracy theories that Marvel has paid off critics to bad mouth other superhero properties. Though these have always been a very vocal minority and likely didnt have much to do with the Captain Marvel discourse.

The simple answer is that Brie Larson was incredibly outspoken during the pre-release phase of the film. In interviews, Larson would often use her platform to speak out against inequality and sexual harassment in the film industry. She became the primary target of attacks from many alt right users, who as I mentioned in the previous piece, almost always harbor a deep resentment towards women. Brie Larsons outspokenness, coupled with titular characters stoicness and defiance towards traditional gender roles, infuriated the trolls to no end.

The discussion around the review bombing also got more people talking about the nature of user review websites like Rotten Tomatoes. The video game industry has seen a similar problem with video game reviews, and that is the nature of reviewer scores. Often times people wont actually read or watch a review, theyll just skip to end or scour the page to find the numerical score assigned to the movie. This mirrors the discussion surrounding YouTube channels like CinemaSins. The nuance is gone, and all people care about is if something is good or bad. The internet likes to speak in hyperbole. Everything is either the greatest thing since sliced bread or its an abomination. Rarely can something just be okay.

It doesnt help that Rotten Tomatoes scoring system is unorthodox and not a very good judge of quality. If a film has a score of 78%, that doesnt mean that the average review score is 78/100. It simply means that 78% percent of reviewers are in agreement about liking the movie. Those positive reviews could range from liking it a little bit to absolutely loving it. Despite this, people often flock to these scores and make judgments about the movie before actually seeing it for themselves. Thats not to say that these numbers cant be helpful in giving a vague idea of the films reception, they certainly can be. When the reviews are raided by these trolls though, that becomes skewed.

The entire history and festering of the online alt right is too much to cover in just two short articles. Films like Captain Marvel or The Last Jedi are simply some of the most public spaces where these hate groups are making themselves known. This goes beyond whether or not someone thinks Captain Marvel is a good movie or not. Its becoming increasingly clear that the avenues in which films are discussed, like YouTube and Rotten Tomatoes, are becoming one of the fronts where the alt right is most active. As always, its important to take a stand against bigotry wherever it rears its ugly head root it out whenever possible.

Read this article:

How The Internet has Warped Film Criticism: Part II - mxdwn.com

Allen Lane, 16.99

Review by Jamie Maxwell

IN Twilight of Democracy, Anne Applebaum charts the fracturing of the Transatlantic right. The book is part-memoir, part-polemic. Over the past 20 years, the conservative movement has split into two factions, Applebaum contends: traditional neoliberals, who believe in free-markets, democratic institutions and the rule of law, and populists, who thrive on division, confusion, and nationalist paranoia.

Applebaum a journalist and historian based variously, in Poland, Britain and the US belongs firmly to the first faction. A veteran contributor to the Spectator, Sunday Times and Washington Post, she has enjoyed ringside access to rightwing elites for decades. Until recently, she was on good terms with Boris Johnson, a man she now describes as an all-consuming narcissist with a penchant for fabrication. (Nobody serious wants to leave the EU, she quotes the future prime minister as saying in 2014. Business doesnt want it. The City doesnt want it. It wont happen.)

In 2008 she broke with the Republican Party after John McCain added Sarah Palin a proto-Trump to his presidential ticket. McCain never spoke to me again, she writes. In Poland, Applebaum and her husband, the politician Radek Sikorski, have become targets of anti-Semitic propaganda linked to the countrys ruling Law and Justice Party. Whether I like it or not, I am part of this story, she laments.

Applebaums premise is that mainstream conservatives cautious, sceptical, committed, above all, to the cause of individual freedom have been sidelined by extremists. She is particularly interested in the so-called clerks of authoritarianism: the writers, bloggers, and intellectual agitators think Dominic Cummings and Steve Bannon who spread disinformation in order to undermine democratic norms.

Applebaums narrative sweeps across Europe and North America. In Hungary, she meets Maria Schmidt, an anti-communist scholar turned cheerleader for the far-right Orban regime. In Spain, she profiles Vox, an insurgent nationalist party cultivating a form of Trumpism on the Iberian peninsula. In Britain, she interviews John Sullivan, who once wrote speeches for Margaret Thatcher but now thinks the break-up of the UK is a price worth paying for Brexit. And in the US, she explores the dark pessimism of Donald Trumps highest-profile media supporters, including Fox News host Laura Ingraham, who believes American society is being destroyed by mass immigration.

The common theme uniting these disparate political threads, Applebaum says, is a desire for simplicity and the need to impose order on a disordered world. The end of the Thatcher and Reagan eras, coupled with the Wests triumph in the Cold War, left British and American conservatives with a deep sense of cultural despair, culminating in the revanchist campaigns of Brexit and Trump. In continental Europe, rightwing anxiety over the erosion of national borders produced new forms of militant euro-scepticism, laced with Islamophobia.

Class and inequality arent major factors in the rise of the alt-right, Applebaum insists: The vast majority of people [in the West] are not starving. If we describe them as poor, its because they lack things that human beings couldnt dream of a century ago. What matters is the growth of anti-pluralism and, in the age of social media echo-chambers, an aversion to fierce debates.

At heart, Twilight of Democracy is a rallying cry for an embattled neoliberal establishment; a warning, directed at the centre of the political spectrum, about the fragility of modern democratic culture and its system of open, constitutional government. Without constant vigilance, Applebaum concludes, that system may not survive the precariousness of our current moment. Liberal democracies always demanded things from citizens: argument, effort, struggle, she writes. They always required some tolerance for cacophony and chaos, as well as some willingness to push back at the people who create cacophony and chaos.

As you might expect from a celebrated historian of Soviet power, Applebaum is a forceful and intelligent writer. The splintered conservative social milieu she depicts is fascinating, both for its autobiographical insights and as a record of the internecine battles that have taken place on the Anglo-American right in recent years.

Less convincing, however, is her account of the schisms origins. The problem, she says, isnt closed-mindedness. It is simple-mindedness. Voters embrace authoritarian figureheads because they prefer unity over division and familiarity over the unknown. Demographic change is confusing, so it provokes a cultural backlash. Political discourse is contentious, so it is spurned in favour of more binary narratives. This logic is both reductive and self-serving: centrists can cope with the complexity of the 21st century, Applebaum a centrist says, but simple-minded populists cant.

Applebaum also mistakes her own sense of personal displacement for a fundamental shift in conservative ideology. Indeed, she consistently overstates the extent of the rupture in rightwing politics and downplays key elements of continuity between different generations of conservative leaders.

Applebaum assumes and expects the reader to assume that Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were democrats in a way that Johnson and Trump arent. But Thatcher cleaved away entire layers of local government and used the police to suppress strikes in pursuit of her radical economic agenda. Likewise, Trump may have entered the White House on a promise to drain the swamp, but he has governed as a relatively conventional Republican, cutting taxes for the ultra-rich, ditching vast swathes of federal environmental regulation and amplifying the grievances of white voters in a style consistent with past GOP presidents, Reagan among them. Ultimately, Trump is a product of conservative orthodoxy, not a rejection of it, and Thatcher was the archetype for Johnsons populism, not its antithesis.

This category error runs through the entire book. The new right is more Bolshevik than Burkean, Applebaum says. These are men and women who want to overthrow existing institutions, to destroy what exists. Really? Brexit was sold as an opportunity to restore British (or English) national independence from the grip of European control and Vox campaigns to defend Spains indissoluble unity from separatist movements in Catalonia and the Basque Country. These projects arent revolutionary. They are reactionary. The alt-right isnt trying to smash prevailing class structures. It is trying to strengthen them.

Applebaums analysis may be more relevant in Eastern Europe, where the post-Soviet consensus is visibly under strain, than it is in Western Europe and North America. But as a blanket account of how rightwing politics moved from the Reaganite optimism of the 1980s to the apocalyptic alarmism of today, it fails to convince. Twilight of Democracy is a compelling book, just not a very persuasive one. Applebaum wants things to go to back to normal, before hyper-partisanship and polarisation became the key registers of debate in London, Washington, and Warsaw. She overlooks the fact that normal wasnt all that democratic in the first place.

See the article here:

Hiya, Nice to see everyone earlier. Here's the second books lead, by Jamie Maxwell. Print headline: Rallying cry from the 'establishment' right...

A few weeks ago, I went to a political rally in a farmyard. The Polish presidential candidate Rafa Trzaskowski was speaking; in the background, a golden wheat field shimmered in the late-afternoon sun. The audience was enthusiasticthe host, a local farmer, had spread news of the candidates visit only the day beforebut the juxtaposition of Trzaskowski and the wheat field was odd. He is the mayor of Warsaw, speaks several languages, has degrees in economics, and belongs to the half of Poland that identifies as educated, urban, and European. What does he know from wheat?

But Trzaskowski was running for president in a country whose other half lives in an information bubble that teaches people to be suspicious of anyone from Warsaw who is educated, urban, and European. Polish state television, fully controlled by the ruling Law and Justice party, was sending aggressive messages into that bubble, warning its inhabitants that Trzaskowski was dubious, foreign, in hock to LGBT ideologywhich the incumbent president, Andrzej Duda, called worse than communismand beholden to Germans and Jews. The messages, constantly repeated on a wide array of radio stations and television channels, were designed to reinforce tribal loyalties and convince Law and Justice voters that they are real Poles, not impostors or traitors like their political opponents.

During his short campaign, Trzaskowski did his best to reach into that bubble too. He stood beside wheat fields, spent a lot of time in small towns, and ran ads that called for an end to division. We are united by a dream, he said in one speech: a dream of a different Poland, a Poland where there are no better and worse citizens. This was a deliberate choice: Instead of mobilizing the voters inside his own bubble by attacking the ruling party, he sought to bridge Polands deep polarization by appealing to national unity.

Anne Applebaum: Polands rulers made up a Rainbow Plague

He came close, winning 49 percent of the vote. But he failed. Trzaskowskis half of Poland was insufficiently enthusiastic, while the other half was energized, angry, and very much afraid of Jews, foreigners, and LGBT ideology. Dudas voters were also happy with the government subsidies and reduced retirement age that his party had approved, and not remotely inspired by Trzaskowskis language of solidarity and unityif they even heard it.

If they even heard it: If that doesnt sound familiar, it should. Because the same thing could happen in the United States this fallor during the next election in France, or Italy, or Ukraine. American politics, Polish politics, French politics, Italian politics, Ukrainian politics, all derived from their own history, economics, and culture, now have this in common: In each of these countries, deep informational divides separate one part of the electorate from the rest. Some voters live in a so-called populist bubble, where they hear nationalist and xenophobic messages, learn to distrust fact-based media and evidence-based science, and become receptive to conspiracy theories and suspicious of democratic institutions. Others read and hear completely different media, respect different authorities, and search for a different sort of news. Whatever the advantages of these other bubbles, their rules render the people in them incapable of understanding or speaking with those outside of them.

In some places, including Poland and the United States, the country is divided in half. In other places, such as Germany, the proportions vary, but the divide is just as deep. A couple of years ago, I took part in a project that looked at foreign influence in the 2017 German parliamentary elections. We found, among other things, that the overwhelming majority of Germansleft, right, and centerfollow a mix of big newspapers, magazines, and television outlets, including public TV. But many of the Germans who vote for the far-right Alternative for Germanythe number hovers between 10 and 14 percentget their news from a completely separate set of sources, including a heavy dose of Russian-funded German-language media, such as Sputnik and RT. The voters in the far-right bubble dont just have different opinions from other Germans; they have different facts, including facts provided by a foreign country.

David Frum: The great Russian disinformation campaign

The point I am making here is not about Russia. It is about the deep gap in perceptions that now separates a tenth of German voters from the other 90 percent. Is that chasm permanent? Should the other German political parties try to reach the people in the populist bubble? But how is it possible to reach people who cant hear you? This is not merely a question of how to convince people, how to use a better argument, or how to change minds. This is a question about how to get people to listen at all. Just shouting about facts will get you nowhere with those who no longer trust the sources that produce them.

Here is how this problem looks in the United States: On the day after Donald Trump met Vladimir Putin in Helsinki in 2018, Sarah Longwell found herself in Columbus, Ohio, talking with a focus group she had conveneda room full of people whom she characterizes as reluctant Trump voters, people who had voted for the president but had doubts. Trumps bizarre behavior in Helsinki had bothered her. The president had looked cowed and frightened; in accepting the Russian leaders insistence that he had not interfered in the 2016 U.S. election, Trump appeared to side with Putin and against Americas FBI. D.C. is on fire about it, Im on fire about it, I think its a big moment, Longwell told me. I ask folks in Columbus, What happened yesterday in Helsinki? They look blank.

Longwell is a Republican activist, or rather a Never Trump Republican activistone of the few remaining members of what was once a large group. She spent 2016 rooting for an alternative to Trump. She spent 2017 losing friends. That was the year of the body snatchers, she said, when people who you thought were with you suddenly started to change. In 2018, she tried to figure out what to do next. Instead of giving up, she and another Never Trump Republican, the longtime journalist and activist Bill Kristol, raised money and set out to find people who felt the same way, not in Washington but across America, especially in Republican-voting suburbs.

Their initiative, now called Republican Voters Against Trump, immediately ran into the information wall. Among Longwells focus group in Ohio, Trumps bizarre behavior in Helsinki did not register. People havent heard about it, Longwell recalled thinking. Its not breaking through. This wasnt because the people in the group were uninterested in politics. Nor was it because they were only watching Fox News. On the contrary, they were getting news from social media, from alerts on their phone, from devices of all kinds. They were getting too much news, in fact. As a result, all reporting about Trumpthe crush of scandals and corruptionis, Longwell said, so omnipresent, so daily, that it becomes white noise to people.

Helsinki, porn stars, Grab them by the pussy, Ivanka Trumps Chinese trademarks, taxpayers money going to Trump golf clubs, the sex scandals, ethics scandals, legal scandals, even the power-abuse scandal that led to Trumps impeachmentthey have all melted together over the past four years. They have become a series of unpleasant news stories that follow TV advertisements for hairspray or mouthwash, that precede a Facebook post about a cousins wedding anniversary. For Longwells reluctant Trump voters, dislike of the scandals and dislike of the media that report on the scandals became one and the samea huge hornets nest that nobody wanted to touch or think about. At the same time, these same voters were being bombarded with other messagesmessages that reminded them of their tribal allegiance. They swim in a cultural soup of Trumpism, Longwell said. Being Republican was part of their identity. Images relating to God, patriotism, and the Republican Party were all around them. Cumulatively, those messages were much stronger than their dislike for Trump.

Quinta Jurecic and Benjamin Wittes: Revenge of the Never Trumpers

Ben Scott, a technology expert who worked on disinformation policy at Barack Obamas State Department and was an adviser to Hillary Clintons 2016 campaign, has studied that same phenomenon. Digital media, he told me, have allowed people to experience a higher frequency of highly evocative representationsmeaning the constant barrage of pictures, video, commentary, and memes that portray America, Christians, or families under siege; that align Trump with the Church and the Army; that see threats from foreigners, immigrants, outsiders of all kinds. People who live in this alternative news bubble also see or hear mainstream, fact-based media. But they reject them. They identify them as the enemy, and they learn to ignore them. The Clinton campaigns mistake, Scott reckons, was its belief that people inside this bubble could be moved by an appeal to facts. They werent.

At first, Longwell also thought that an appeal to facts could move reluctant Trump voters to change their mind. But when she played them videos that clearly showed Trump lying, they shrugged it off. In part, this was because they did not hold him to the same standards as other politicians. Instead, she thinks, they saw him as a businessman and a celebrity, someone exempt from normal morality. They say, Yes, he lies. But hes honest, hes authentic, hes real, Longwell said.

Even more powerful, though, is the pull of the group. Republican voters know that Trump lies. If they forgive him, that is because their friends and their families, the other members of their party, forgive him too. Im a Republican, my parents are Republicans, all of my friends are Republicans, Longwells focus-group members told her. To vote differently wouldnt just be an intellectual decision for these voters. It would tear them away from their tribe.

But what happens when that tribe itself starts talking about Trump in a different way? That, it turns out, is quite another matter entirely.

Inside the noisy and chaotic modern information sphere, the message doesnt matter nearly as much as the messenger. Many people no longer trust major media outlets to give them valuable informationand they may never do so again. They no longer trust politicians or groups they perceive to be outside their tribe eitherand the days when a president got a respectful audience just for being the president may never return again. But voters do trust people they know, or people who resemble people they know. Understanding this to be true, Longwell and Kristol began experimenting. Instead of just creating professional campaign videos (though they have made one or two of those), they began soliciting and disseminating homemade clips. The Republican Voters Against Trump website features a quote from one of themId vote for a tuna fish sandwich before Id vote for Donald Trump againas well as information on how to create your own video.

Hundreds of people have contributed clips, and many have already been posted. Among them are people who describe themselves as lifelong Republicans, as evangelical Christians, or as veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. The videos are unscripted: The people in them give their own reasons for feeling disillusioned or angered by an administration they believe has betrayed them and their conservative ideals, and they explains their views in their own words. People know that they are being sold something in an ad, Longwell said. By contrast, they look at the RVAT videos, they see someone in their community, and they think, I like that person.

When tested on focus groups, the ads do have an impact: People find them convincing. Perhaps this is because they reflect conservative anxieties about Trump without criticizing the conservative tribe. The people in the videos sympathize with Republican voters dilemma, as Longwell herself does. Tribalism isnt all negative, she said. It also involves elements of loyalty, trust, and community. Indeed, Trumps abuse of loyalty, trust, and community is what seems to anger both her and the people in the videos the most. Their feelings of betrayal come through.

Robert P. Saldin and Steven M. Teles: The last anti-Trump Republicans are biding their time

The use of insiders to reach into closed communities is an established techniqueone often used in touchier, more trying circumstances. Sasha Havlicek, who runs a counter-extremism organization in London called the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (the group also worked on the 2017 German election study), has tried many times to find credible inside voices to speak with people who are on the cusp of being recruited online, whether into ISIS or white-supremacist organizations. Havlicek and her colleagues sometimes find disillusioned former members to counsel these would-be recruits, but she also looks for church groups, local employers, veterans, or anyone who can offer an alternative sense of community. Whats important, she told me, is to find people who can offer a crucial form of reassurance: Once you change your vote or your politics, once you break from what everyone around you is doing, you wont be alone.

If the world of counter-extremism offers lessons, so does the experience of anti-communism. Back in the 1980s, Poland was a Soviet-occupied Communist country with an entirely closed media environment. The Communist Party ran all the newspapers and the sole television network. Protest was illegal, and protesters were arrested. But an unusual dissident group called the Orange Alternative broke through the wall of regime mediaby making people laugh. The group staged happenings that werent exactly demonstrations but something closer to comic performances. In 1987, the Orange Alternative held a parade on the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, carrying pro-communist banners and drawing laughing crowds; another time, dozens of people dressed up as Santa Claus and gave out candy. The authorities were flummoxed: The parades were clearly protests, but the police looked stupid when they arrested people for wearing communist red outfits or Santa Claus suits. Srdja Popovic, the veteran Serbian activisthe helped lead a youth movement that overthrew the Serbian dictator Slobodan Miloevihas lectured on what he calls the power of laughtivism. Humor melts fear, he says. Mockery removes the aura of an authoritarian party or leader, making followers more willing to listen to alternatives.

In the U.S., this is one of the tactics now being pursued by the Lincoln Project. Founded by another group of anti-Trump Republicans, it doesnt need the elaborate introduction it might have required a few weeks ago, not least because it has so successfully trolled the president. In May, the group made a short video that began with the words, There is mourning in America. Today, more than 60,000 Americans have died from a deadly virus Donald Trump ignored. Gloomy music followed, along with gloomy pictures: tattered buildings, abandoned houses, shabbily dressed people. Then, at the end, a picture of the Lincoln Memorial and the American flag: If we have another four years like this, will there even be an America?

The clip, a harsh take on the famous Ronald Reagan Morning in America commercial, was an instant hit: More than 1.5 million people watched it within two days of its appearance on Twitter. Even more people saw it after it ran on Fox News in the Washington, D.C., market. One of its viewers was the president, who fired off a series of midnight tweets loaded with all the familiar insults: RINOs, losers, a disgrace. The result: Money poured into the Lincoln Projects coffers. John Weaver, one of the groups founders, told me that in subsequent days, the video was viewed on Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook millions of times.

Reed Galen, John Weaver, and Rick Wilson: The party of idolaters

Since then, the Lincoln Project has launched advertisements mocking Trump in Russian; advertisements making fun of the presidents apparent difficulties drinking a glass of water; advertisements laughing at his campaign manager, who was later fired, possibly for that reason; advertisements appearing within minutes of the event that they parody. A clip needling the president over his weight and apparent mental decline briefly caused #ImpotusAmericanus to trend on Twitter. The sometimes nasty, sometimes childish glee radiated by the groups Twitter account (1.8 million followers) has provoked a harsh counterattack. The Lincoln Project and its founders have been denounced by some on the right as Democrats in disguise, acting under a false flag; by some on the left for alleged hidden agendas; by others as stooping to the same destructive tactics as the president. My Atlantic colleague Andrew Ferguson called the Lincoln Projects ad campaign personally abusive, overwrought, pointlessly salacious.

The Lincoln Projects founders count the attacks from the Republican Party as a success, not least because they distract the GOP from its campaign against Joe Biden. But do the Lincoln Projects ads get through to Republican voters, let alone change their minds? Steve Schmidt, another one of the founders, argues that the information bubble around the president really does now function like an autocratic personality cult: Before any positive messages can get through, the spell has to be broken. For that reason, attacking Republican Party leaders is a necessity. Diminish them, mock them, and laugh at them, Schmidt told me. Punch back hard before you lose the ability to do it. He also thinks that aggressive, even vulgar, laughter will help break through the wall of indifference and convince distracted voters that something important is happening. The side arguing from democratic values should not be the soft side in the debate, Schmidt said. It should be ferocious.

In the grand scheme of things, both of these Never Trump Republican projects are tinylike little speedboats racing alongside the aircraft carrier that will be the Democratic presidential ad campaign this fall. Weaver described their role as the sappers blowing up supply lines while the generals prepare their assault. Still, some of their efforts run parallel to Bidens campaign strategy. He, too, is looking for ways to reach into the conservative bubble, or at least to not offend it. Biden has, for example, been careful to avoid making statements that could be used to scare Republican voters. He does not call for defunding the police, for example, or the opening of the border, or the abolition of all private health insurance. He keeps his rhetoric moderate, even though his base is baying for redder meat. As Ezra Klein of Vox has written, the Democratic candidates campaign staff is well aware that mobilization is often the flip side of polarization. The language that excites his base will also enrage his opponents, which is why he avoids it.

The risk, of course, is that Biden ends up like Trzaskowski, issuing calls for unity that excite nobody, not even his own party. But not everybody in the liberal center ends up that way. Schmidts conclusionthat the side arguing from democratic values need not be boringwas also reached a few years ago by a group of university students in Zurich, the founders of an effort called Operation Libero. When they began, the Swiss Peoples Party, a populist-nationalist party, dominated the countrys politics. It had successfully promoted a vision of Switzerland as a closed enclave, and proposed a series of referendums designed to stoke xenophobia, halt immigration, and curtail the countrys ability to sign foreign treaties.

Peter Beinart: Biden goes big without sounding like it

In contrast, Operation Liberos founders argued for a more welcoming vision of the nation. They pointed out that modern Switzerlands founding moment was the liberal revolution of 1848, that the country had a long history of religious tolerance and openness to the world. Calling themselves the children of 1848, Operation Libero started making amusing video clipsan animated cartoon of Helvetia, the national symbol, howling as she is knocked over by a populist wrecking balland memes. The group created teams of volunteers who would argue against the Swiss version of the online alt-right, and invited the populists to engage in debate. It worked: Not only did Operation Libero help its own side prevail in several referendum campaigns, but its members looked like they were having fun doing it. One widely circulated photograph showed members of the groupincluding one of its founders, Flavia Kleiner, in a hot-pink jacketcheering exuberantly as they celebrated an electoral victory.

But Operation Libero didnt just offer fun; it also offered patriotisma different version of patriotism. We are offering a more positive view of Switzerland, Kleiner told me a couple of years ago. We dont want it to be an open-air museum with an idealized past. In the United States, the field is wide open for Biden, or anyone who supports him, to use emotive American symbols and traditions to mobilize voters of all stripes. One Biden campaign ad from last year went in exactly this direction, contrasting the language of the Declaration of Independence (All men are created equal) with the language of the 2017 alt-right march in Charlottesville, Virginia (Jews will not replace us). The renewal or recasting of American founding documents to suit a contemporary moment is, of course, nothing new. Martin Luther King Jr. quoted the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence and referred to the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

But there is a possible trap here too. In this era of information overload, the appeals to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that worked in the past might now sound trite; worse still, the language of democracy and of Americas founding can sound like yet another set of slogans in the information war. Trumps campaign seems to be hoping that this happens; thats why the president is already mocking the ideas and ideals of democracy itself. On social media, the president has posted Trump 2024, 2028, 2032 memes and teasing tweets about postponing the election. Although they did cause some alarm among some of his supportersproof that the rules surrounding elections still enjoy bipartisan respectTrumps tweets may have achieved their purpose among others: They made the familiar rhetoric of democracy and common purpose sound old-fashioned, out of touch, dated.

Its not just American rhetoric that no longer unifies. American history itself has become contentious too. At a moment when people are arguing over statues, how can stories about the past ever unite us? Or, to put it differently: How can Biden talk about American history in a way that doesnt alienate either his opponents or his supporters?

Read: The Kumbaya candidate

Some lessons might emerge, eccentric though they may seem, from another project Ive been part of. This one also used focus groups, in an attempt to understand how Ukrainians in regions with very different histories remember the past. Western Ukraine was part of Poland until 1939, the east has a long history of Russian domination, and the two regions have radically different memories, especially of the Second World War. Russian disinformation directed at Ukraine has long sought to exacerbate these differences, characterizing western Ukrainians as Nazis and reminding easterners of the part they played in the Red Armys victory. As a result, any conversation about the war is liable to make somebody (maybe everybody) angry.

But when focus-group moderators changed the subject to different historical traumas, it turned out that the differences were not so great. When Ukrainians talk about, say, the Soviet-Afghan War in the 80s or the economic collapse that followed the end of the U.S.S.R. in the 90s, they have similarly strong emotions and similarly evocative feelings, no matter which part of the country they inhabit. They are also more likely to believe the information presented in documentaries about those subjects, whereas they approach similar films about the Second World War with distrust.

To my knowledge, no one has yet done the same kind of study in the U.S. But I can guess that, as in Ukraine, some Americans are divided by their different historical memories. Right now, different interpretations of the civil-rights movement, and even of the Civil War and Reconstruction, lie at the root of angry arguments about statues, military-base names, and the Confederate flag. Reconciling those memories is not something that will happen between now and November. But there might well be other things we can talk about, other episodes in American history that evoke strong, unifying feelings in both red and blue America. The moment of national mourning that followed 9/11? The financial crisis of 2008? The Biden campaign has already begun to explore the national experience of isolation and lockdown. Unsurprisingly, the Trump campaign has responded with a disinformation campaign designed to sow doubt about whether that isolation and lockdown were even necessary. From its point of view, anything that creates bonds between red and blue Americans is anathema.

One way or another, all successful campaignspolitical campaigns, activist campaigns, even commercial advertising campaignsneed to reckon with the fact that audiences live in different information spheres. The era of mass media and unitary campaign slogans is drawing to an end. This is not news: The Russian operatives who intervened in the 2016 election were telling members of Black Lives Matter Facebook groups different things from what they told the anti-immigration activists they targeted in Idaho.

Still, we havent really absorbed the significance of this moment. In this post-mass-media era, sowing division is far easier than creating unity, giving an advantage to politicians who seek to win by creating scapegoats and enemies. Targeted advertising makes it much easier to splice and dice the electorate, and it isnt hard to create misunderstandings between groups who no longer speak to each other. For all those reasons, the odds are that whoever is the ultimate victor, the 2020 campaign will leave America even more bitterly divided than it is today, and that will go on being a problem in the future.

Read: The long arc of Joe Biden

Even if the Democratic nominee wins, Can Biden reach into the opposite bubble? is a question not just for the autumn of 2020 but for the spring of 2021, the winter of 2022, and many years into the future. The need to reach across informational and cultural divides will add an extra layer of complication to the multiple economic, medical, and foreign-policy crises a new Biden administration would immediately face, and will make it difficult to carry out the deep reforms that our bureaucracy, our democracy, and our health-care system need. But unless Biden makes an effort to talk with his opponents, he could end up much like the candidate in the Polish wheat field, with only the facts and 49 percent of the public on his side. Bidens campaign may represent the last chance to bridge the gaps that divide us. If Trump wins another term, then we can be certain that no one will even try.

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The Facts Just Arent Getting Through - The Atlantic

The year was 1984 (coincidentally) and John Milius came out with his masterpiece, 'Red Dawn'. The first movie to bear the PG-13 rating in the US, 'Red Dawn' was once declared the most violent movie ever by the Guinness Book of World Record.However, watching it now makes you really wonder what all the hype was about. Is it violent? Yes, but not nearly as much as many of the movies that have been released in the 30-odd years since 'Red Dawn' hit the silver screen.

Keep in mind, the 'Rambo' series had only just begun two years ago and was yet to really get into form. And even in its year of release, 'Red Dawn' only holds the distinction of having been the first PG-13 movies because 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom' and 'Gremlins' had both been criticized for the level of violence they featured despite having a PG rating.

So in other words, it's not so much that 'Red Dawn' was so violent they had to invent a rating category for it, it's just that it was the first to come out after the change had already been made. It was still the most violent film of its time in terms of kill count (2.23 acts of violence per minute) but we now live in a time where movies have turned violence into an artform and sadly, beyond the violence, there's really not much to the movie.

'Red Dawn' is basically 'The Red Scare: The Cinematic Version'. The movie begins with the invasion of a town in Colorado by Soviet and Cuban troops and revolves around a bunch of teenagers (played by soon-to-be iconic actors like Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen) who begin waging guerilla warfare against the invaders.

If you knock your sense of disbelief out and leave it tied up in the attic before watching this film, you might still enjoy it. But it's so riddled with issues that it's hard to believe that this movie is something of a cult classic, to the point where the military operation that took out Saddam Hussein was called Operation Red Dawn and a remake of the movie was released in 2012.

'Red Dawn' feels like a strange combination of your grandfather's ravings about "the dirty commies" and your weird internet troll cousin's social media posts about the importance of guns and arming ourselves ahead of some phantom invasion or the other.To begin with, the movie's premise hardly holds up.

When the film begins, it is revealed that in this "near-future", NATO has broken up and Mexico is now a communist state. Yet none of that explains why the Soviets and the Cubans would pick Colorado of all places to launch their invasion.It's not a particularly well-written movie in any other aspect either. The plot seems hastily thrown together and the concept of character development doesn't seem to have been considered at any stage in the production process.

The only thing that comes close to explaining the why of the movie is Milius's own political views, which are on the very, very far right. The closest equivalents to his worldview that exist in contemporary politics are the anarcho-capitalist movements that deride both left-wing ideology and the state in equal measure.We see that distrust of the state in 'Red Dawn'. And a nice dose of hatred for "those damn dirty commies", of course.

Ultimately, the movie does have its audience today. Granted, that audience consists mostly of alt-rightists, gun nuts, and the kind of people who watch films solely for the gore, but it is an audience nonetheless. If you do hold the aforementioned political leanings, you might enjoy 'Red Dawn'. If you're just a gore fan looking for some vintage violence, you might enjoy it a little less. And if you're literally anyone else, the only reason to watch this movie is in film school or because you've been asked to review it.

'Red Dawn' was released on August 10, 1984.

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Gen Z Reviews Classic Movies | 'Red Dawn' is the most violent film of its time but barely worth the trouble no - MEAWW

The controversialNetflixprogram known asDear White Peoplehas truly taken the internet by storm, neatly dividing the field into devoted fans and rabid haters. Although showrunner Justin Simien believes that the negative reactions only serve to rehash the original point of his show, the fact remains that the world is not as egalitarian is a lot of people assume it to be.

RELATED:10 Most Powerful Quotes from Netflix's Dear White People

Each of theepisodes often elaborates on a singlecharacter's perspective, showing audiences the many possible angles that one must consider before delivering judgment. The series is to conclude with its fourth and final season to be released later this year here is a list of the 10 best episodes from the first three, arranged by IMDb score.

When the Student Pep Rally blockade doesn't work out as planned, Gabe tries to check on Samantha, but her absence makes him suspicious. He believes that she had some sort of romantic/sexual encounter with Reggie, who she was allegedly taking care of that night.

Troy declares that a meeting will be organized to discuss the issue, while Gabe and Joelle run around obtaining the backing they need from the different marginalized communities at Winchester. Gabe's standing is left in tatters when it is discovered that he was the one who called the campus police to the party (which left Reggie severely traumatized).

In the second season premiere, Samantha is forced to deal with a troublesome Twitter troll spewing alt-right garbage directed against her account. During her radio program, she refuses to consider Joelle's various (and rather sensible) suggestions, choosing instead to ruminate on the nefarious AltIvyW.

All members of A-P are disconcerted about the school's insistence on fusing them with David House, implying that the management believes in the ridiculous idea of self-segregation.

As the season one finale, this episode does not consider one character's view, but rather ties all the loose ends together into a neat bow. Lionel's piece comes out in The Independent, which forces Troy to acknowledge his father's dominating behavior and he reacts by destroying the glass panes in the front door of Hancock Hall.

Luckily, the campus police don't shoot him for this act, but that could be because Dean Fairbanks manages to arrive at the scene in time. In the end, the two old-pals-turned-bitter-enemies, Sam and Coco, find common ground and return to being tentative friends.

Reggie spends his time healing from his ordeal the previous night (having a cop aim a gun at his face through absolutely no fault of his own). The Black Students' Union has a meeting over the event, pointing out that the campus police have no reason to be carrying around weapons on university grounds.

RELATED:10 Shows To Watch If You Love Dear White People

Sam rejects Kurt's obviously insincere attempts at smoothing things over and plans to take matters into her own hands. At least Reggie finds some minor solace in narrating his experience via open mic poetry.

Troy and Coco begin a sexual relationship, which he wants to convert into romance, but is firmly rebuffed. He later eavesdrops on Samantha's argument with Dean Fairbanks, learning (to his astonishment) that it was she who invited people to the Blackface party, although she rationalizes her actions as necessary to unravel the deep-seated problems of racism at Winchester.

Lionel tags along with Troy on his "campaign trail" to become the President of the student body. Everything becomes considerably more complicated when Thane Lockwood, a popular jock, dies in an accident.

Coco reminisces about her first year at college, in which she requested that she be moved to Bechet House rather than A-P, but her developing friendship with Sam put her at ease. The pair soon found their own paths, however, with Coco subscribing to a sorority while Sam involved herself with the Black Student Union.

In the present timeline, Coco's endorsement of the Dear Black People party upsets Samantha and Joelle greatly. However, it is Sam who is left shamed when Coco suggests that the Dean didn't punish the former as severely as she would have been if she looked "more black."

This episode takes viewers on Gabe Mitchell's journey, specifically after his falling out withSam (and every POC student on campus). For most of its runtime, the story focuses on their relationship, finally culminating in Sam and Gabe meeting up in her radio booth.

Here, everything that has ever gone wrong is painfully dredged up he is angry about her cheating on him, while she is annoyed that he continues to demand evidence of "racial inequalities." Finally, the pair realize that they still have feelings for each other andthat all their complaints are, in fact, a manifestation of their love.

The world through the eyes of Lionel Higgins is both rose-tinted and filled with terror. The poor introvert finds it tricky to muster up enough courage to take a stand, but at least he's beginning to learn to say no.

RELATED:Dear White People: 5 Characters We'll Miss When the Show Ends (And 5 Who We Won't)

Lionel tells the BSU about the Blackface party, which is then promptly shut down. He goes on to write a front-page story about it for Silvio. He is the first to identify Sam as the culprit behind the party. He tells her that he knows what happened, which is why she accepts the responsibility (and the inevitable punishment)by means of her show.

The series opener introduces the sophisticated dynamics within Winchester without any preamble a radio show host cries foul about a Dear Black People party, but explains her rage by accurately comparing the dangerous stereotypes about Black people with the benign ones that refer to their privileged counterparts.

Unluckily for Sam, her loyalty to activism is questioned by her friends when they find out that she's in a relationship with a "white boy." To set things right, she acknowledges her role in the Blackface party, calling it a "sociological experiment."

The darkest episode in all three seasons by far, Chapter V begins almost innocently, following Reggie's app testing journey (to see if someone is woke or not). Joelle complains about his persistent "cyberstalking" of Sam, but the two end up going to Addison's party after making up.

Here, Addison casually drops the n-word while rapping and Reggie takes serious offense to it. Unfortunately, someone calls the campus cops, and they just ignore Addison's involvement in the argument and demand that Reggie display his student ID. When he refuses, they draw their gun on him.

NEXT:Dear White People: 10 Quotes To Remember From The First Episode

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In real life, Ajay disguises himself as an academic, mainly writing textbooks for children who all hate him for making their lives more miserable. He also writes about TV and film, strewing his opinions across the internet to see if people care (they don't).

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Dear White People: 10 Best Episodes, According To IMDb - Screen Rant

Four years ago, Jyssika Russell and two colleagues decided LGBTQ2 youth in Hamilton, Ontario, needed space. About an hours drive from Toronto, Hamilton has a population of nearly 750,000, a thriving arts scene, a large university. But there were no queer community centres. No gay bars. Some local non-profits ran LGBTQ2 programming, but nothing permanent that stood on its own. For a city of this size, we had nothing, Russell says.

Speqtrum is meant to be part of the solution. Russell and her co-founders designed the pilot project to provide active and social workshops for young LGBTQ2 people. Since then, Speqtrums offerings remain much the same. Our whole premise is to create and build community, primarily through activities, she says. The idea is that then that can help you connect and support each other.

But it is among the few offerings in Hamilton.

And that mattersespecially in a city where xenophobic protesters have made a routine out of demonstrating; where a former neo-Nazi leader worked at city hall, openly, for years; and where, in 2018, the most hate crimes were reported in the country.

That hatefulness was demonstrated in full force at Pride 2019 in Hamiltons Gage Park, when a group of protesters with homophobic signs showed up. According to the CBC, they physically clashed with counter-demonstrators who blocked them from the festivities. A number of people in pink masks identifying themselves as anarchists manoeuvered a portable barrier to block them, wrote CBC Hamilton reporter Samantha Craggs. Punching, shoving and hitting broke out between the two groups. Several people were injured.

Hamilton police were in attendance, but many felt they were slow to react. (An independent review of the incident, released in June 2020, found that the response to the violence was inadequate.) Meanwhile, Fred Eisenberger, Hamiltons mayor, and some of the city council came under heavy criticism for not more forcefully denouncing the protestersit took Eisenberger a week to release a formal statement. In the end, five people were charged: one of the homophobic demonstrators, and four of the counter-protesters.

A City of Hamilton spokesperson told Xtra that the city remains in solidarity with the LGBTQ2 community and is committed to being a Hamilton for All, where everyone in the city feels safe and welcome, and that they regret the violence that occurred at last years Pride event. Mayor Eisenberger and Hamilton Police Service Chief Eric Girt apologized for the pain and fear experienced that day by our Two-Spirit and LGBTQ+ communities, their friends and allies.

Hamilton is a city where marginalized communities have for years been trying to make space for themselvesthrough programs like Speqtrum and annual Pride events. But its also a city where hate has festered, particularly in the past few years. And its not alone: Research has found that right-wing extremism is growing worldwide. Thats why Hamiltons queer communitys fight against homophobia and racism isnt just their fightits everyones.

Hate does not emerge or operate in a vacuum, wrote Barbara Perry and Ryan Scrivens in their 2018 research paper on how organized hate groups emerge in Canada. The pair, both researchers of right-wing extremism, found three patterns: a community history and normativity of racism, a political climate of intolerance and a weak law enforcement response.

You can find these patterns in Hamilton. We have a history of hate groups in Hamilton that goes back over 80 years, as well as anti-Black racism within how we tell histories about Hamilton, and that is visible in leadership in Hamilton, across sectors, Ameil Joseph, an associate professor of social work at McMaster University, told CBC Hamilton in 2019.

In 2001, for example, just four days after 9/11, a mosque and a Hindu temple were targeted in acts of arson. Three men were arrested 12 years later, and all pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of mischief.

Theres a history of homophobia and intolerance toward LGBTQ2 people in the city, too. In the early 1990s, then-mayor Bob Morrow refused to declare Gay Pride Day; it would take a human rights tribunal ruling four years later to force him to recognize the day in Hamilton. Morrow, who was first elected in 1982, remains the longest serving mayor in Hamiltons historyhe didnt leave until he lost the 2000 election. (He also came back to serve as an appointed councillor after a city councillor died in 2014.) Even in his final year as mayor, he still did not attend Pride events, according to a local Hamilton Spectator report.

Since then, Hamiltons demographics have shifted significantly. Its become a bit of a joke in Toronto for people, fed up by sky-high housing and living costs, to claim they are going to pick up and move to Hamiltonand some of them are actually doing it. In 2016, a Hamilton Spectator report found that newcomers to the area were just as likely to be migrating from other parts of the province than from another country, and that the largest generational group of people living in the city were millennials. And nearly one in four people in Hamilton under the age of 15 are people of colour. Perry and Scrivens note that when newcomers arrive, they are often seen as scapegoats for all sorts of social ills by a small subset of people who are more likely to become radical.

Weve had a number of people and youth connect with us coming from other places in the [Greater Toronto Area] before they move here, mainly coming here because of cheaper rent, more services and transit options than the suburbs, says Russell. But, anecdotally, she noticed that some older LGBTQ2 people were doing the oppositemoving from Hamilton to Toronto for better access to safety and community.

Though the poverty level has lowered since the mid-90s, it remains high compared to the Ontario average. There are also massive income disparities at the neighbourhood level, according to the Spectator: 11 neighbourhoods in the lower inner city still have poverty rates of more than 30 percent.

Hamilton has a strong tradition of union activism and, at the federal and provincial level, the downtown ridings have been NDP strongholds since at least 2006, while more affluent areas of Ancaster and Dundas have typically voted for the Conservatives or Liberals. Yet, in 2018, Hamilton recorded the highest reports of hate crimes in the countryalmost triple that reported in Toronto, the biggest city in Canada.

It wasnt a surprise, says Michael Abraham, the lead at the SPACE Youth Centre, a drop-in centre for youth that provides programming for LGBTQ2 people. But it was so sad to see.

In 2018, there were 18 incidents of hate bias against the LGBTQ2 community; 58 were because of racial bias and 49 were because of the victims religion. That was a slight decrease in the number of incidents due to bias against sexual orientation from the previous year, when there were 22 incidents.

Hamiltons statistics in 2018 outstrip many other communities. Compared to the citywhich had 17.1 hate crimes per 100,000 peopleOttawa, the third ranked at the time Statistics Canada released the information, had only 9.8.

And Kojo Damptey, the interim executive director of the Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion, notes those numbers are also likely underreported. Those communities dont have a good relationship with the police, he says. Then theres the issue of hate crime reporting: For an incident to be officially counted as a hate-motivated crime, it must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that an actual crime occurred, and that it was motivated by hate. If Im walking downtown and somebody uses a racial slur at me, there is no chance that that person is going to be arrested, says Damptey.

Meanwhile, the tenor of racist, homophobic and transphobic incidents in Hamilton seemed to be getting worse. Weve often had the usual sort of religious person standing up on the hill with a sandwich board [at Pride], says Cole Gately, who was among organizers of Hamiltons 2017 Pride events. But about three years ago, people Gately describes as street preachers came to protest, as well as people he believes may have been affiliated with white supremacist groups.

It was in late 2018 that the Yellow Vest movementa group originating in France, protesting high gas and living costs, but that soon, in parts of Canada, intermingled with alt-right groupsmade its way to city hall. The first recorded protest, in December that year, was against Canada signing the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, an international agreement on a common approach to international migration.

After that, the protests at city hall became a weekly event, escalating into the confrontation at Pridewhich left many people in vulnerable communities wondering why a public space had become a venue for xenophobia and intolerance. Most of the leaders in our city and politicians said nothing, says Cameron Kroetsch, who is on Hamiltons LGBTQ advisory committee and the Pride board of directors. That has been the status quo, from what I can tell, for a long time in Hamilton. The city did eventually look into whether it could legally bar the group from a public space. A City of Hamilton spokesperson says that the citys corporate security team continues to observe rallies and demonstrations that take place in municipal spaces such as the city hall forecourt, andif there is reasonable evidence to substantiate a complainta trespass notice can be issued. So far, the city has issued two trespass notices related to violence by hate groups.

But more incidents have only increased friction in Hamilton. In 2019, a Vice investigation found Marc Lemire, a former neo-nazi leader, had been working at Hamilton City Hall for years, his name left off most of the citys public facing records. (After this was disclosed, Hamiltons LGBTQ advisory committee asked the city council not to fly the Pride flag at City Hall during Pride; instead, they didnt have a flag raising ceremony.) And Paul Fromm, a known white supremacist, was spotted at the Yellow Vest protests, according to the CBC. Then came the Pride counter-protesters.

The overall situation became scary enough that some community organizers worried they were putting themselves at risk just by holding events. Chris Farias was the host of Drag Queen Storytime in Hamilton, performing as Ladybird Fancypants. After one performance at Carter Park in the fall of 2019, Farias came home to find they had messages from concerned friends after hearing that threats had been made against Ladybird Fancypants and the event. Suddenly, Farias had to weigh performing against the potential of putting children at risk. I was scared that I was drawing hate to [kids], they said. Since then, Farias has only held Drag Queen Storytime online or for private events.

This hate Hamilton is, in some ways, a microcosm of the troubling rise of right-wing extremism in pockets of North America. Perry and Scrivens note that across Western Ontario, Quebec, the lower British Columbia mainland and Alberta, the economic transition and the demographic transitions that have affected [southern Canada] more than [northern Canada] have created a whole raft of anxieties for some elements of society. London, Ontarioonly about an hour-and-half drive from Hamiltonalso had alt-right protests in 2017.Hate speech and hate-promoting activity became so problematic that, in 2017, the City of London announced that the managing director of parks and recreation would be able to refuse or revoke permission for events on city grounds if they believed it promoted hatred or discrimination, writes Eternity Martis in her book They Said This Would Be Fun, a memoir about her experiences with racism while attending university in the city. (Martis is also a senior editor atXtra.) Hate incidents in the city have been so shocking that theyve made national headlines.

Theres evidence that organizers of the Hamilton Yellow Vest protests wanted to spread their movement further afield. According to the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, last year Justin Long, a member of the group, said in a video that its his goal to clear anti-fascists out of Hamilton and then move on to another citymaybe Niagara Falls.

While not all white nationalists are homophobic, the majority of right-wing extremists are virulently anti-LGBT and share an anxiety and fixation on white birth rates, which are just barely keeping pace with racial minorities, writes Julie Compton for NBC News. And according to a 2020 United Nations Security Council Counter Terrorism Committee report, there has been a 320 percent rise in attacks by individuals affiliated with extreme right-wing terrorism in the last five years. This all combines to create a potentially dangerous situation for queer people.

That there are no permanent safe spaces for LGBTQ2 people wasnt always the case in Hamilton. The Well was Hamiltons queer community centre for 10 years. Embassy, one of a small handful of gay bars, was located smack downtown from the mid-1990s. Despite the best efforts of one former mayor, Pride festivities have been marked since the early 90s.

But both The Well and Embassy closed in 2016. There have been some efforts to provide funds for LGBTQ2 communities: The city of Hamilton has a diversity and inclusion facilitator and, in 2018, installed rainbow sidewalks outside of city hall. But according to Joey Coleman, publisher of civic affairs news site The Public Record, there is no direct operational funding dedicated for LGBTQ2 programming aside from the facilitator position. A City of Hamilton spokesperson says that the citys enrichment fund applies an equity, diversity and inclusion lens to our grant process and engagement plans to ensure we are reaching all. This includes grants for Pride Hamilton.

Hamiltons lack of LGBTQ2 spaces is such an issue that while doing research for a survey of Hamiltons queer community, Suzanne Mills, one of the authors of the report and an associate professor at McMaster Universitys school of labour studies, noticed the town halls they were holding were very popular among queer and trans folks. [The attendees] didnt want to participate in the research at all, Mills says. They just wanted to meet people, that they would talk to about how they wanted social spaces and things to do. The study, released in 2019, found that while Two-Spirit and LGBTQ people generally have a strong connection to Hamilton, fewer felt that same connection to the citys queer community.

Mills research has also found that while LGBTQ2 folks generally feel safe in Hamilton, many do not feel safe outside or in places affiliated with religion. Racialized cisgender people and trans people felt less safe comparatively.

Creating space in the city has long been a unique challenge. But Adam George Palios and Steven Hilliard have tackled it headfirsta reversal of sorts on the headlines about hate in Hamilton. Their promo company, Adam and Steve, is one of the biggest organizers of LGBTQ2 events in The Hammer. Last year, they hosted a Pride party in this midst of all the strife. There was not a homophobic protester to be found. Instead, 500 people showed up to celebrate queerness. I remember walking around that night, genuinely in tears, seeing people I hadnt seen in years, who, for the first time in so long, came out to Pride to celebrate, says Hilliard. I think that that is the measure of where a community is going.

Just holding safer space [can] also be very healing, says Palios. Just to know that you can go somewhere and relax with your friends and you dont always have to be on edge. In the absence of a dedicated gay bar, Palios and Hilliard instead work on educating staff at local venues on how to be a safe space for the queer communitywhether thats the club where they bring alumni from RuPauls Drag Race, or the local sports bar where they host Dirty Bingo.

Having space can be crucially important to stopping hate. And having a united front also shows that the community has strength and support from others. Those sort of mechanisms [community centres] are so important for developing broader community support and developing allyship and solidarity, but also in deterring violence, says Barbara Perry.

Mills study of Hamiltons queer community found that there was a sizable minority of people who are leaving the city to access services and community spaces geared for LGBTQ2 peopleand almost all of them would prefer not to leave. Theres just a lot of people who feel lonely and disconnected, Mills says.

While Hamilton lacks something permanent, other organizations have stepped up to support the LGBTQ2 community in the last few years. The AIDS Network provides more generalized non-AIDS related programming, according to Mills study. The Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board hosts Rainbow Prom, a safe space for youth to celebrate. Kaleidoscope is an LGBTQ+ youth circle co-founded by Kiwanis Boys and Girls Clubs of Hamilton and NGen Youth Centre.

In May 2018, The SPACE Youth Centre introduced OQRA, an informal support group for queer and trans Black, Indigenous and racialized youth, after hearing concerns from the community that even what little was for offer in Hamilton was overwhelmingly white. (The Centre also offers Scope, an LGBTQ2 youth circle.) But Michael Abraham says the team is also trying to bring an intersectional lens to everything they do at SPACE. I think having spaces in which you can exist and flourish is a common need that pretty much anyone and everyone has, he says. So when you dont see yourself represented in your community, or the wider city, thats quite a challenge.

Speqtrums Jyssika Russell believes that this kind of organizing work is what can effectively stomp out hate in Hamilton. I think its just a perfect time to really highlight that whats going to stop a hate crisis in Hamilton is investing in community organizations, into mental health supports, into affordable housing and into addictions programs, Russell says. These are the things that will actually alleviate so many of those community issues.

Theres evidence that this kind of support for marginalized and vulnerable communities can push back against far-right radicalization. Perry and Scrivens reported that its often community activists who are able to see where hate is bubbling up and more effectively communicate that to authorities. One police officer in our study suggested that rights activists are crucial to counter-extremism initiatives because they fill in the gaps where police cant go, they wrote. (This, of course, depends on police having a trusting relationship with marginalized communitiesa reality that seems quite distant today.)

But funding remains an issue. Russell is currently fighting to keep Speqtrum going not only during a pandemic, but as the organizations provincial funds are set to run out.

A community hub space, first proposed by councillor Nrinder Nann, has received support from council. Mayor Eisenberger and several staff and councillors even visited Torontos 519 community centre, looking at it as a potential model for a centre in Hamilton. A community hub, however, was not in this years city budget, which passed before the COVID-19 pandemic began. (A city spokesperson said that as the city begins to reopen, this important work will continue.)

But the fight is far from over. I think sometimes people dont realize the amount of stress that this puts on people in our community, says Russell. The hate stuff is happening at the same time as our communities are hurting.

I think its incredible how resilient weve been able to be, she adds. But building these spaces, building community, takes a lot of time and energy and a lot of heart.

Read more here:

The anatomy of a city with a hate problem - Xtra Magazine

In many ways, the message offered by theNetflix Original,Dear White People, has been diluted in the backlash it has received for allegedly performing acts of "reverse-racism." Regardless, the show, currently about to enter its fourth installment, has received critical acclaim for its portrayal of minorities.The playful nature of the story blends seamlessly with the complex, and painful, issues brought up by the series.

RELATED:10 Most Powerful Quotes from Netflix's Dear White People

The world within Winchester University exemplifies the need for aBlack Lives Mattermovement, but simultaneously provides its students with safe spaces rarely afforded to people in the real world. In that sense, one might argue that thecharactersaren't entirely aware of the realities that lie beyond their campus protests. In either case, it would be fun to evaluate the Zodiac nature of some of the main roles (different as they all are from each other.)

The senior-most authority figure in all of Winchester, Dean Walter Fairbanks has earned his position with enormous amounts of hard work and persistence. As he keeps telling Troy, he wants nothing more than his son's success (without the accompanying stigma of stereotyping).

Being an Aries, Fairbanks is able to maintain control over the student body as well as Troy's future for a surprisingly long period of time. He clearly doesn't have a lot of patience, though, seeing as he considers Sam's complaints to be unimportant in the larger scheme of things.

Initially shy (read: Extremely introverted), Lionel comes into his own as a journalist for the school magazine, The Independent. Whenever it comes to his reporting, Lionel manifests the Taurus identity of hyperfocused diligence, devoting himself to gathering information about the stories that hefinds noteworthy rather than what his boss, Silvio, wants him to write about.

Lionel is a gentle soul, but when pushed to his limits, he can be quite the firebrand a fact proven when hepublicly accuses Silvio of beingSamantha's alt-right troll nemesis.

Coco had a tough childhood, one thatmade her into the woman she is today. Unfortunately, Coco tries her hardest to distance herself from her past, believing that only this will allow her the space to blossom into greatness, or, "the second black female President," as she calls it.

Nevertheless, Coco is suspended between both versions of herself, as many Gemini are, unable to decide which fork in the road power or comradeship is more suitable for her.

Reggie Green loves to learn, jumping from course to course and excelling in all of them with equal ease. A classic Cancer, his dreams are wider than his ambitions, which can sometimes lead to difficult or conflicting situations.

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One example of this occurs when Reggie instantly falls for Samantha White, even though she has a boyfriend. Another is when he sticks up for the misogynistic abuser, Moses Brown, defending him against allegations from women (simply because they happen to be white).

Joelle Brooks is a Leo: a true force of nature that parallels her best friend, Sam, in terms of activism. She is a bit on thegrouchy side at times, like when she goes off at Reggie for pining over his unrequited (and totally unnecessary) crush.

Joelle has a high level of self-esteem, as well. This is partially why she happens to be one of the smartest kids at Winchester, although shenever gets to outshine Sam and herpassion.

Muffy Tuttle plays the antagonist at first, butting heads with Coco over the smallest of matters. She has a tendency towards being manipulative, a feature inherited from her extremely wealthy background.

However, her Virgo nature shines brightest much later, when she willingly confides in Cocoabout being pressured into having sex with Moses Brown. Muffy is not one to take others' opinions as doctrine, either, like when she tells Joelle that it is the duty for all women to fight together (irrespective of race).

The Libra within Gabe explains his academic brilliance and commitment, seeing as he takes on a series of jobs, including being a Teaching Assistant, in addition to his enormous Master's course load.

While dating Sam, Gabe begins to rid himself of privileged thought processes, considering POC issues with a gentle compassion (excluding, of course, the matter of calling the campus police on Reggie). Gabe is constantly attempting to balance his inner prejudices with doing the right thing, a definitive Libra sign.

Sam White is the protagonist and the most vociferous character in the show, establishing a satirical radio program to "teach" white peoplehow tominimize their various microaggressions.

As a dynamic Scorpio, Sam refuses to let anything hold her back against speaking her mind, regardless of how it could affect her friendships, romances, or scholastic endeavors. At the same time, Sam finds it hard to let go of control, as seen when she insists on hiding her relationship with Gabe, a white man.

Kelsey is not very involved in the sociopolitical drama eternally staged at Winchester, but this doesn't mean she doesn't care about them. The difference here, however, is that her Sagittarianhabits imbue her with sufficient composure not to overreact whenever something goes awry or missing (with the singular exception of her therapy dog, Sorbet).

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Kelsey is honest to the point of shamelessness, which is shown when she basically reads Coco for assuming that she was only now coming out of the closet.

The Capricorn-born are blessed with a burning desire to win at everything in life, something Troy exhibits on a daily basis. One of the most popular (and accomplished) pupils at Winchester, he even plans to become President of the student body in order to further his aspirations.

Sadly, Troy's journey aligns with those of his wealthy white peers. He is regularly at odds with the black students on campus, mainly for his "elitist" bearing and perennial Devil's Advocacy.

The mostenigmatic character is the Narrator, who primarily plays a disembodied voice discussing the major events in the series. He also offers psychological and emotional context for the actions and behaviors of the main cast.

Like the Aquarius, the Narrator is rarely involved in issues directly but rather seeks to maintain historical records. However, he is revealed at the end of season 2 to be a real person (an ex-professor named Dr. Edward Ruskins), who reaches out to Sam and Lionel on behalf of the Order of X.

Rashid displays the major Pisces traits of empathy, generosity, and politeness, all of which hold him in good stead as an exchange student from Kenya. Although he is unable to totally comprehend the discourse of racism in America, Rashid remains a supportive and helpful person, especially to Joelle (whom he has an open liking for).

Rashid can be a bit sassy at times, for instance, when he point-blank tells the Black Caucus that his "ancestors were smart enough not to get captured."

NEXT:Dear White People: 10 Quotes To Remember From The First Episode

Next Every Episode Of The Man In The High Castle Season 1, Ranked According To IMDb

In real life, Ajay disguises himself as an academic, mainly writing textbooks for children who all hate him for making their lives more miserable. He also writes about TV and film, strewing his opinions across the internet to see if people care (they don't).

See more here:

Dear White People: Which Character Are You Based On Your Zodiac? - Screen Rant

Q Anon adherents have become more visible and outspoken across Florida over the past few years. Now the plethora of Q candidates have mainstreamed the fringe beliefs.

Reba Sherrill of Palm Beach wants to represent Florida in Congress.

The Republican candidate for the District 21 seat presently held by Democrat Lois Frankel said she supports term limits and calls for health care plans to include dental and eye coverage.

Pretty standard campaign stances for Republican candidates. Then, there are Sherrills more atypical beliefs.

Sherrill also believes that "pedivores" or pedophile cannibals eat babies to get high. And that children as young as six are taught about having sex with animals.

"There are so many things that are actually being taught to our children in the school system, I would categorize it as pure evil," she said on a YouTube video. "They start educating children in kindergarten about bestiality, anal sex and all these different things that children should not be exposed to."

Whoa, thats out there, yes, but Sherrill is not alone among congressional candidates in some of her more eyebrow-raising beliefs.

Elizabeth Felton, also running for Frankels seat, promotes a debunked conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton ran a child sex-trafficking ring out of a Washington, D.C. pizza parlor.

Two candidates running for the GOP nomination in another Palm Beach County congressional district also espouse seemingly outlandish views. Jessi Melton asserts communists run Broward County and Darlene Swaffar claims the government confiscates children from families who refuse to immunize them.

Meanwhile, four other candidates vying for three other congressional seats across Florida have also advocated wild conspiracy theories. Those include allegations the "American Baseball League" is being taken over by Marxists and the implication that the "C" in the Chick-Fil-A logo is a symbol of sexual deviancy.

Political experts say the 2020 election has brought out candidates who are a standard deviation or two toward the margins of the spectrum.

"Normally, political parties would do things to suppress their fringes," said political strategist Rick Wilson. "Now, they don't have the ability to stop these people from defining themselves as the core of the Republican Party."

In Florida, a common denominator among most of the the conspiracy theorists is they follow Q Anonymous QAnon, or Q, for short.

Among other things, Q adherents posit that a "Deep State" cabal of pedophiles run by political elites, business leaders and Hollywood celebrities are plotting to take over the world. Qs mission? "Enlighten" followers in an attempt to prevent that from happening.

Another commonality: They support President Donald Trump, whom many Q followers point to as the one who will lead believers "from darkness to light."

To be sure, the Q candidates also make mainstream, conservative arguments.

Protecting unborn babies? Check. Cleaning Floridas waterways? Check. Improving education, halting sex trafficking and fiercely defending second amendment rights? Check, check, check.

However, Q candidates often have other beliefs beliefs that not long ago would only have been whispered in private with like-minded individuals. But no more.

One political analyst said the beliefs are heartfelt.

"When they say they believe something, they are not lying," said Joseph Uscinski, Associate Professor of Political Science and specialist in public opinion and mass media at University of Miami. "Generally these beliefs are sincere, and this is what they think is true."

Certainly, the QAnon crowd has become more visible and outspoken across Florida over the past few years.

At some of President Trumps rallies, they stand out by wearing t-shirts or holding signs with codes identifying themselves as believers. On the internet, they use symbols like triangles, owls and lightning bolts; and hashtags like #GreatAwakening, #Q, #QAnon, #QAnonTruth, #OutOfTheShadows, #FallCabal and #WWG1WGA "Where we go one, we go all."

They have appeared at local government hearings, too. At a June 23 Palm Beach County Commission meeting to discuss mandating face masks, conspiracy theorists were front and center, ranting about the devil, the "Deep State," pedophiles and 5G technology.

From political fringe to mainstream

Experts say the proliferation of conspiracy candidates this election cycle is unsurprising, particularly in blue states.

"Youve got districts and states that tend to be strongly Democrat or Republican, and you are more likely to see them come up particularly in places that are solidly blue," said Mark Fenster, law professor at the University of Florida. "Places where the Republican Party is fairly small, out of power, and very intensely motivated to believe the worst of the other side."

No longer on the political fringe, candidates espousing conspiracy theories have drawn support and raised money.

Case-in-point: Sherrills opponent Laura Loomer, is arguably the highest-profile conspiracy theory candidate in Palm Beach County. Loomer, who denies any association with QAnon, has raised a stunning $1 million, much of it in large donations.

"Big donors tend to give money to candidates that they believe are going to win, no matter their views," said John Krosnick, professor of political science at Stanford University. "Then they will own them."

Another candidate that has embraced conspiracy theories about communism, Melton, has raised over $156,000, including 22 donations from WinRed, a GOP fundraising platform created by Trump, Jared Kushner and Republican congressional leaders, among others.

Melton has also snagged high-profile endorsements from Kentucky GOP U.S. Sen. Rand Paul and political adviser and Trump insider Roger Stone, who recently had his prison sentence commuted after being convicted of seven felonies. Stone also endorsed Loomer.

Like Loomer, Melton has had her share of troubles with social media. Twitter suspended Melton on several occasions after she posted doctored photos, fake quotes, and medical misinformation.

Down, but far from out, Loomer and Melton found acceptance on Parler an alternative social media site where conspiracy theories run rampant and facts, falsified quotes, doctored videos and misinformation can be shared without fear of censorship.

It is a place where subscribers can learn about how FEMA is planning a mass slaughter of Christians with the use of guillotines. And how Trump saved thousands of kidnapped babies hidden in cages under Central Park and in San Francisco. And how Bill Gates plans to implant microchips in people through the coronavirus vaccine, as well as how those in power plan to confiscate everyones money and turn them into slaves.

While the subject of conspiracy theories runs the gamut from how 5G radiation causes coronavirus to why Dr. Anthony Fauci is behind the "Plandemic," child sex trafficking rings seem to be the conspiracy theory of choice among QAnon followers.

These rings are omnipresent, they say, run by Satan-worshiping demons such as Hillary Clinton, the Obamas, Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson and Oprah Winfrey. One widely shared video accused online furniture retailer Wayfair of being part of a sex trafficking ring.

In July, TikTok joined Twitter in blocking Q-related hashtags and banning thousands of accounts after reports of Q members stalking other subscribers and not adhering to posted guidelines. Days later, Trump threatened to shut TikTok down.

Bipartisan conspiracy politics

Pam Wohlschlegel, committee member of the Republican Executive Committee of Palm Beach County, said the focus on conspiracy theorists in this years primary elections is overplayed. She doubts they will get much traction at the ballot box.

"I would think that most people won't support it," Wohlschlegel said.

Either way, Wohlschlegel said, the Republican Party, like the Democratic Party, does not prohibit anyone from running on its ticket and is not responsible for what individual candidates espouse. Its up to the voters to decide.

"Make intelligent decisions when you vote," she recommended. "The only way to do that is to study the candidates and take every advantage you can to meet them in person."

Wilson, a member of the Lincoln Project that opposes Trump, said the damage to the GOPs brand will be long-lasting.

"Its going to make the Republican Party much less sellable as an entity in suburbs among educated voters and those who are not mentally amenable to the absurdity it represents," he said.

Political affiliation does not dictate ones propensity for believing conspiracy theories, said Uscinski, who has written three books on the subject.

"It's not based on left-right politics," he said. "Its an absolute rejection of left-right politics. QAnon wants to kill the Clintons and Obamas, but they also want to kill the Bushes, Mike Pence, Oprah, Tom Hanks."

He also points out that, in the current election cycle, the right has not been the only side to fall victim to conspiracy theories.

"He ran against his own party and said everything is corrupt," Uscinski said of former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. "He just sticks with one conspiracy that the 1% control everything. But because Democrats dont have their own version of QAnon, you dont really hear about it that much."

But on a path paved by the highest-ranking government official in the nation, every QAnon candidate in Florida is running on a Republican ticket, save for one Independent. Trump opened the door, Uscinski said, and believers walked through it.

"Trump ran as a Republican, but he didnt run as a traditional Republican or a conservative," he said. "He ran as his own thing, which was against the establishment at large."

QAnon in a nutshell

QAnon is an unorganized faction bound by shared beliefs. Its roots trace back to 18th century Germany, but it did not garner mainstream media attention in the U.S. until the summer of 2018, when QAnon supporters wore distinguishing T-shirts to a Trump rally in Tampa.

There is no identified leader of QAnon, but some followers believe it to be a government insider with access to secret intelligence information. The leader then disseminates to QAnon followers the "truth" that the cabal the secret political operatives who run the country behind the scenes is attempting to hide.

QAnon writings tend to refer to people who should be feared in general terms by referring to them vaguely as "they," "the bad people," or the "Illuminati" powerful players like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Beyonc and Jay-Z who are hell-bent on world domination, they say.

Those who have been "redpilled are the enlightened ones. Those "bluepilled" are ignorant deniers of truth who choose darkness over light, ignorance over actuality.

Conspiracy theory culture can take hold, Krosnick said, when people have trouble accepting that a traumatic event can be caused by a lone individual or happenstance.

"You can understand why someone at home would wonder or say, This doesnt pass the smell test of plausibility," he said. "You cant deny JFK was assassinated, but the explanation for many people doesn't feel right."

In the past two decades, the rise of social media, combined with the proliferation of broadcasting, has helped propel conspiracy theorists out of the shadows. It was then cultivated by a president who has propagated doubt in mainstream media and government institutions, Krosnick said.

"The president shows up and says all the news you used to trust is now fake," he said. "The countrys ability to be confident that we have trusted sources to go to to know the truth has disintegrated."

So, in the perceived absence of reliable news sources, people gravitate to "conspiracy" theories to answer their questions, "alternative" facts to calm their fears.

"With a president that has promoted skepticism and is telling the public false information that is then widely discredited, now peoples imaginations are free to roam wherever they want to," Krosnick said.

While Trump and the Republicans do not hold a monopoly on conspiracy theories, those espousing the lion's share of those beliefs this election cycle are almost exclusively Republicans, said Fenster.

Typically, he said, conspiracy theories flow at a faster rate from whichever political party is out of power at the time. That is why widespread conspiracy theories on the right are so unusual this election cycle.

"What is different about today is that we have someone who broadcasts conspiracy theories who is in the White House," Fenster said. "It is now more on the right than on the left. And the alt-right community is defined by a conspiratorial view of how the world works."

Trump has become a master at using conspiracy theories to deflect attention away from issues on which he does not want the public to focus, Fenster said. During a recent week of polling that showed the president losing support nationwide, Trump reached for a doozy that reportedly shocked even his inner circle.

"Like the delay the election tweet," Fenster said of Trump's July 31 tweet suggesting the general election be postponed due to unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud. "Or really bad economic or COVID news. It distracts from that and will change the conversation once again."

So, when a president pushes conspiracy theories and convinces the public that facts are not facts and the mainstream media cannot be trusted, what is a skeptic to believe? Enter the QAnon phenomenon.

"Well see if it's on the fringes or not," Fenster said. "This could be a coming out party within Republican Party for QAnon believers, depending upon how they do in the elections."

Establishment GOP support?

Whether establishment Republicans show up to vote for QAnon candidates remains to be seen, said political analyst Trimmel Gomes. So far, national and state parties have said little, if anything, to denounce QAnon candidates.

"You may have traditional Republicans who may be concerned [about QAnon ideology], but theyve already been drowned out by everything else that's sort of invaded the party," Gomes said. "You are seeing the party just unfurl even further. Its getting so far right that anything goes. And now, QAnon has just latched on and become a melting pot for all the crazies."

Krosnick said that while it may appear the QAnon phenomenon is spreading like wildfire, research shows that is not the case. Social media followers can be artificially inflated and posts of support for conspiracy theories, or anything else for that matter, can be perpetuated by bots.

Uscinski, who has for years conducted regular polling in Florida about conspiracy theories, agrees that the number of QAnon followers is not exploding.

"We put it in a feeling thermometer that goes from 0-100," he said of a June 23 poll in Florida. "Q came out a few points better than Fidel Castro. And Florida hates Castro."

Still, some experts are concerned.

"I worry deeply about how we're going to get out of this mess," Krosnick said. "I dont see a pathway forward to help people regain trust in facts. Its going to take a really extraordinary set of leaders in the country to bring us back under control."

Gomes agreed.

"This phenomenon, unfortunately, has picked up legs," he said. "The test will be the upcoming election. Its worrying that people are losing grips on facts and questioning facts ...They don't trust the media, so you cant go back to them with rational arguments. And I don't know what the solution is to stop it."

@WendyRhodesFL

wrhodes@pbpost.com

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Election 2020: Conspiracy theory candidates become mainstream by politicizing fear - Palm Beach Post

BECCA MARTIN-BROWNbmartin@nwadg.com

The Interrogator, the next installment in TheatreSquareds virtual 2020 Arkansas New Play Festival, is set in World War II. But it might not always feel like it. The playwright, Russell Leigh Sharman, says whole sections of the transcripts [on which it is based] could be lifted out of context, and you might think they were recorded just yesterday. I began work on the story in 2015, but I returned to it as a play late last year. I was surprised, and honestly a bit disheartened, at how much more resonant the material had become in those four to five years.

The story is set at Fort Hunt, a top-secret prisoner of war camp built in the suburbs of Alexandria, Va., code-named PO BOX 1142.

It is a scary time in this country and around the world, says New York actor Joe Chisholm, pictured here in rehearsal for The Interrogator with Steven Marzolf and Matt Boston. I think until a few years ago, most people would look at the megalomania that was Hitlers rise and see it as a fluke in fabric of human history. But political division and dangerous rhetoric in todays world have seen the embers of nativism sparked and flamed in a frighteningly reminiscent fashion. It adds a heavy layer of djvu to see some similarities in how the world was back then compared to where we are now, and just how much we failed to learn last time. It makes the immediacy and need within the play that much easier to hook into as an actor, and I hope as an audience member.(Courtesy Photo/T2)

I first heard about PO BOX 1142 on the radio on a drive back from the Tulsa airport in 2015, Sharman explains. NPR did a story on how the park rangers at Fort Hunt, now a national park in Alexandria, uncovered the secret history of the location: How it was used as an interrogation center by the U.S. Army and Navy during the war and immediately after. How thousands of Nazi officers and U-boat commanders passed through on their way to more permanent camps. And how the only interrogators they could find who knew the language and the culture well enough were recent immigrants, most of them German and Austrian Jews.

The kicker was that there was no torture or physical duress of any kind permitted, he adds. The interrogators had to use psychology, build rapport, establish trust. They basically hung out with these guys played cards, chess, table tennis. Sometimes even took them out to dinner. And then these men, and they were all men, stayed quiet about their service for more than 60 years. Never told a soul. I was floored.

Sharman was a successful Hollywood screenwriter, so of course his first thought was that PO BOX 1142 would make a great movie. But he also knew it was going to be a hard sell in Hollywood a period film, mostly in German, and mostly in a windowless room with two men talking. Still, I couldnt shake the story. So I dove in. I spent the next few years pouring over every shred of documentation I could find. And there wasnt a whole lot. I finished the screenplay version a couple of years ago, and as I suspected, it got a lot of compliments but not a lot of traction in Hollywood. It was then that I realized this story needed to live in the theater. All of the elements that made it a hard sell in Hollywood were what would make it compelling on the stage.

I am amazed there has been no other formal account of PO BOX 1142 by now, no book, no documentary, Sharman adds. It is such a rich and fascinating story, and I am beyond excited to get to tell it in this form.

Sharman says the moral that a group of young men could offer grace to their enemies resonates as strongly today as it did in 1944.

The greatest triumph for these men was not the military intelligence they discovered, it was the ability to look their enemy in the eye whether thats a living breathing person or some past or present trauma and show beyond a shadow of a doubt they have not been broken, that they have not only survived, they have overcome. That is a truth that we can all aspire to.

But the transcripts of the interrogations also revealed some truly frightening parallels between the rise of National Socialism in Germany and our current political reality, the rise of the alt-right and the deep cultural divisions in the United States.

Sharman

I began to see the interrogations in a new light, beyond their historical context, Sharman says. There is always the temptation to hear a story like this one and think, Thank goodness all of that is in the past. But that would be a perilous mistake. I hope these resonances with our current experience will give us all pause, that they will remind us to be vigilant, ruthlessly self-critical, and, ultimately, full of grace for each other.

One reason we go to plays is to feel something, discover something, that puts our world, our troubles, in perspective and reminds us that were not alone, says director Amy Herzberg, one of the founders of TheatreSquared. This profoundly difficult, and I think hopeful, period of change were experiencing wound up underscoring several aspects of the play that we otherwise might have taken for granted.

This play takes this massive wrong from history and transforms it from the abstract into the profoundly personal. It helps us feel the meaning of that wrong by identifying with individual people. And then of course it leaves us with a hard-won sense of hope.

FAQ

The Interrogator

WHEN 7 p.m. Aug. 7

WHERE Streaming at playarkansas.com

COST By donation

INFO theatre2.org

BONUS The reading will be followed by a conversation with the creative team. Encore streaming is available through Aug. 10.

__

FYI

Arkansas New Play Festival

Upcoming Productions

Russian Troll Farm: A Workplace Comedy by Sara Gancher, directed by Jared Mezzochi

Weightless a genre-bending musical event by The Kilbanes (the theatrical songwriting duo Kate Kilbane and Dan Moses), directed by Tamilla Woodard

Heroes & Monsters by the LatinX Theatre Project

Continued here:

Doomed To Repeat It? - The Free Weekly

In a recent report for HOPE not hate, when it came to gender equality, there was a huge gulf between young men and women (Picture: WIktor Szymanowicz/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

The far-right has often been a breeding ground for toxic masculinity, but there is a new active and dangerous anti-women ideology slowly seeping into the movement.

Todays far-right supporters aim to establish the logic of supremacy by posing as the protectors of male identity, wielding free speech rhetoric, pseudo-science and a reassuring set of certainties in a rapidly changing world.

And in a climate where men feel more uncertain of their place in society, there is considerable worry that this way of thinking could occupy a place in the mainstream.

In a recent report for HOPE not hate, I polled over 2,000 16-24-year-olds across the UK, and found that while the vast majority of young people are open-minded on issues of immigration, race and LGBTQ+ rights, when it came to gender equality, there was a huge gulf between young men and women.

Half of young men thought feminism has gone too far and makes it harder for men to succeed, more than twice the proportion of young women who felt the same.

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Almost aquarter dismissed the idea that it was more dangerous to be a woman than a man in todays society, 18 per cent held a negative view of feminists,16 per cent believed that feminism had no role to play todayand14 per cent see anti-abortion activists positively.

These sentiments were most profound among young men who felt a loss of control over their own lives, who didnt feel represented or listened to.

These narratives fed into broader resentments about a perceived lack of opportunity, including issues like the availability and quality of work, good education and affordable housing.But young women are equally, if not more, subjected to these social challenges.

In fact, our polling revealed that over lockdown, young women were more likely to have lost their job, to have been furloughed, or to have struggled financially. Young women were also more likely to feel ignored by the political system and more pessimistic about the future.

Boys will be boys though, right?What we are seeing is young men pushing back against a drop in the status of the one asset they feel entitled to be secure in their male identity.

Hateful narratives take root where people feel voiceless, a sense of loss or dwindling hope.

The move of far-right ideas from the recesses into the fore is a process that has been taking place for a long time, threading new stands into the narrative to rebrand the same zero-sum game of power and privilege

In our poll, younger people overwhelmingly rejected anti-immigrant or racist views that have successfully drawn insomepeople from older generations looking for a scapegoaton which to pinresentmentand hurt caused by a loss of statusin a changing world.

White identityis no longer a socially acceptable refuge forthoseyoung people who feel that things are working against them,and who seek an escape from feelings ofvictimhoodand inadequacy.

This is what makes the manosphere male online subcultures linked to the alt-right, focused on grievances around sex, popularity and personal suppression and mens rights movement so dangerous.

It has the potential to penetrate into the mainstream with greater force than the far-rights traditional message.

As Western societies have gradually become more diverse, and anti-racist campaigners have pushed back against biological and cultural racism, outright white supremacist narratives have became too unpalatable to gain new recruits, particularly the young.

Instead,this movementhas crept beyondtheanonymous, dark and strange corners of the internet,with a mixture of free speech, race and gender science,misogyny and anti-feminismserving asan effective platform for recruitmentand its young male following is growing.

A third of young men reported consuming content from Tommy Robinson, while one in five had watched or read something on Brietbart or Infowars. Those who held anti-feminist views were even more likely to be viewing this content, and were more than twice as likely to buy into Antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Of those in our study who felt feminism was suppressing men,a majority offered qualified support for violence as a mechanism for change, believing thatpolitical violence can be necessary to defend something you believe in extreme circumstances.

The move of far-right ideas from the recesses into the fore is a process that has been taking place for a long time, threading new stands into the narrative to rebrand the same zero-sum game of power and privilege.

They reassert a hierarchy, where white men remain at the top, and women are targets to either be subordinated to male priorities and harassed into silence with hate and abuse, especially women of colour.

The overlay between male supremacy and hidden white supremacy, and its pervasiveness among young people should come as a great concern.

As society heads into a looming economic crisis, we must ensure young men understand that accepting their place in an equal society is not just a benefit for everyone else a just and fair society will benefit them, too.

The full report Young People in a Time of Covid-19: A Fear and Hope Study of 16-24 Year Olds can be downloadedon HOPE not hates website.

Do you have a story youd like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk.

Share your views in the comments below.

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Young men are turning on feminism it's what the far-right wants - Metro.co.uk

(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

In the United States today, this is the language of the revolutions media advance team. They want to silence one of our most prominent voices of opposition

We have reached the point in the United States where publicly stating ones political opinion is physically dangerous and often socially and professionally suicidal. Bernell Trammell, a 60-year-old black man, was shot to death on July 23rd at approximately 12:30 in the afternoon in front of his Milwaukee store, where he displayed handmade Re-elect Trump 2020 posters. Recently, he had walked through his neighborhood advocating for various Christian teachings and proclaiming his support for President Donald Trump. Local resident Adebisi Agoro said, He had a lot of different views, but it was his last view that made people be outrageous with him.

Trammell was also the target of angry posts on neighborhood Facebook pages, Agoro said. In a recently posted video Trammell himself noted the local attitude toward him that forced him to find a different location to speak openly about his beliefs:I moved over here because over there, theyre just about ready to kill me.

Bernell Trammell was correct. In spite of the fact that he was a Black Lives Matter supporter, there was no mention of his brazen daylight murder by Black Lives Matter or their supporters in the media including CNN, MSNBC, The Washington Post, or The New York Times.

In their own versions of murder by media, several of the companies above brazenly attacked 16-year-old Covington Catholic High School student Nicholas Sandmann for his offense of wearing a red MAGA hat while smiling at a Native American rights aggressor. In the now typical big lie style of journalism, Sandmann was falsely accused, vilified, and threatened for attacking the man who confronted him. As final proof of their character assassination slander, CNN and The Washington Post have now settled Sandmanns defamation lawsuits against them. The other media companies are expected to follow suit.

The physical and media attacks against those thought to be insufficiently woke like Sandmann are increasing in number and violence as liberal politicians, civic leaders, and celebrities continue to condone the violent, political extremism of left-wing activist groups. As the United States philosophy, history, and culture suffer from these Marxist-inspired and anarchist-executed attacks, leading public figures who stand for the United States, such as Fox News journalist Tucker Carlson have become prime targets. Carlsons brand of deeply incisive journalism is now highly dangerous work if we examine the fates of his colleagues in the Marxist cultural revolutions of Cuba and Venezuela. As Victor Davis Hanson writes,

Cultural revolutions are insidious and not just because they seek to change the way people think, write, speak, and act. They are also dangerous because they are fueled by self-righteous sanctimoniousness, expressed in seemingly innocuous terms such as social activism, equality, and fairness.Cubans and Venezuelans got poor and killed; woke Chavezes and Castros got rich and murderous.'

On his July 20, 2020 broadcast, Carlson reported that The New York Times was apparently keen to dox him and his family. In a strategic parry of pre-emptive doxxing, Carlson exposed the political operative, Murray Carpenter, writing the story for The New York Times. In the same stroke, he admonished the newspapers editors for having no journalistic reason to publish his home address, other than attempting to intimidate and shut me up.

This effort to silence a leading American journalist by The New York Times is the now-silent canary in our coal mine. This is the language of blood politics. This is the language of every third-world despot. This is the language of Marxist revolutionaries around the world for the last 100 years. In the United States today, this is the language of the revolutions media advance team. They want to silence one of our most prominent voices of opposition on their way to a coronation of their stuttering puppet, former Vice President Joe Biden.

When I say doxxing a prominent journalist is the language of blood politics, please consider this 2019 statement by the secretary-general Christophe Deloire of Reporters Without Borders, an organization that monitors the safety of reporters around the world:

We welcome the unprecedented fall in the number of journalists killed in war zones but, at the same time, more and more journalists are being deliberately murdered in connection with their work in democratic countries, which poses a real challenge for the democracies where these journalists live and work.

The phrase blood politics is not a euphemism.

During Carlsons broadcast accusing The New York Times of threatening him, Carlson also made it clear that the newspaper was well aware of what happens when blood politics is practiced. Carlson had been doxxed before, with the instances widely reported. In November of 2018, Antifa local chapter Smash Racism DC rallied outside Carlsons Washington, D.C. home promising violence and hoping to intimidate him and his family. They chanted through bullhorns, Tucker Carlson, we will fight. We know where you sleep at night!

The Antifa group then attacked his home while Carlson was at work doing his nightly broadcast. As they attempted to breach his front door, a security camera picked up one of the attackers mentioning a pipe bomb. His wife was home alone and hid in a closet while she called the police. By the time police arrived, the mob had broken Carlsons front door and vandalized his car. Soon after the attack, with four children at risk, the family decided to move from their home and out of the neighborhood where they had raised their children and away from the neighbors they loved.

Then in June of 2019, another Antifa group, All Out DC, plastered posters around Washington, D.C. showing Carlsons face under the superimposed Antifa three-arrow symbol. His new home address was printed underneath his face with the indictment:Block the Alt-Right. Racist with a huge following and platform, uses it to promote racist dogwhistles.

For now, private security is maintaining the defensive line at Carlsons home while a demoralized Metropolitan Police Department contends with a $15 million dollar defunding. Police patrolling will likely decrease dramatically. After a drop in the murder rate in April of this year, it has steadily increased, compared to the same months last year, every month since rioting began in May.

As happened in Venezuela, American cities have been burning, and our culture is being vandalized by Marxists, anarchists, socialist Democratic mayors, governors, senators, and a presidential candidate. We have been sleeping.

If Vice President Biden succeeds in his march to the White House, those of us who think and speak like Carlson will suffer the certain retribution of the candidates supporters. We must put out their fires now by increasing police strength, prosecuting all rioters and their leaders, and re-casting our city, state, and federal governments with effective, pro-American civil servants. As we re-build our cities, we must re-imagine not the police but our schools and universities to include pro-American curricula and spirit to prevent a left-wing insurrection from ever happening here again.

For those of us who stand as first-responders to our First Amendment and against the United States political and intellectual enemies, like Tucker Carlson, we should acknowledge their courage, zealously protect them, and actively, vocally join their lonely voices.

Jim Proser is the author of Savage Messiah: How Dr. Jordan Peterson Is Saving Western Civilization and No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy: The Life of General James Mattis.

Link:

The Singular Courage of Tucker Carlson - Merion West