The rise of the internet’s ‘dirtbag left’

Maclean’s Magazine ^ | July 5, 2017 | John Semley

[2ndDivisionVet]

Earlier this year, a sloppily doodled MS Paint comic appeared on Reddit—the online news aggregator and so-called “front page of the internet”—juxtaposing images of 20th-century fascism with more modern symbols of far-right political thought. Under the column “fascism then” loomed the usual suspects: soldiers goose-stepping in formation, concentration-camp prisoners in striped pyjamas, a barking-mad Adolf Hitler. Under “fascism now” lurked a weirder assemblage of ideological signifiers of the so-called “alt-right”: a snickering cartoon frog in Nazi regalia, the crooning French candelabra from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, an anime character, a badly drawn swastika.

The comic carried a caption courtesy of Karl Marx: “All great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice…the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.” The passage is often condensed to read something like: “history repeats itself: first as tragedy, then as farce.”

Making sense of the shifting terrain of contemporary far-right politics demands an understanding this move from tragedy to farce. On its face, the emerging alt-right—a term coined by American white supremacist Richard Spencer, a far-right thought leader who claimed that the alt-right had been “memed into existence” and is also known for being punched in the face on camera by an antifascist on Donald Trump’s inauguration day—seems like a joke. It’s a movement dominated by cruddy comics, memes, jokes at the expense of politically correct “social justice warriors” (SJWs), and the open trolling of good taste. It’s difficult to take the alt-right seriously—and, indeed, to understand whether it takes itself seriously.....

[2ndDivisionVet]

This is an actual article in a major magazine? How far we've fallen.

[RushIsMyTeddyBear]

Kek.

[Fhios]

That would be the Nazi-Fascists since today fascism has gone generic.

[sourcery]

The mainland Chinese consider the author to be what they call "baizuo": "Baizuo" Is The New Derogatory Term Millions Of Chinese Are Using To Describe America's "White Left" Regressive Liberals

[Billthedrill]

And while it’d be easy to dismiss this fascist to-do list as a delusional racist fantasy...

Now there's a bit of irony: Semley is correct, but it's his article that falls under that category.

The Left loves to create their villains because then they can control them. Let's see: one side clubs people over the head with bicycle locks and the other outs them and turns them over to law enforcement. Which side is fascist, again?

[sourcery]

If you define fascism using Mussolini's definition (and there is no higher authority, since Mussolini invented both the term and the concept,) it's undeniable that fascism is a leftist ideology.

[Fester Chugabrew]

The last thing the left wants to do is operate with standard definitions.

[Major Matt Mason]

A Canadian magazine, so no surprise, really. I don't think liberals even know what the word fascist means, they just throw the word around interchangeably with the word Nazi.

[JmyBryan]

The left is hopelessly split. The only thing they “know” is to demonize those who don’t believe in fairy-tale ideas of gender and radical Islam.

[Behind the Blue Wall]

This is good news. These are leftists who are proud “card-carrying” socialists, who want the world to know exactly who they are and what they stand for. Unlike the Nancy Pelosi’s and Chuck Schumer’s of the world, they are too stupid to know that way more than half of the population category rejects everything they stand for.

[subterfuge]

Author seems very confused.

[Pollard]

No kidding. All over the place and basing a lot of the article on a book by and Irish person who is supposed to be some expert on American millennials? Wow.