William Lindsey Oct 11, 2024

"Trump and Vance are teaching us that the government cannot do anything except turn us against one another. They do so by spreading disinformation about critical matters like hurricanes, so that people despise and disrupt the government, the only institution that can help. This is impotence politics, and it leads to fascism."

~ Timothy Snyder

#Trump #JDVance #hurricane #ClimateChange #fascism #lies #disinformation #PoliticsofHate
/1

https://snyder.substack.com/p/from-the-storm-to-the-stormtroopers

From the Storm to the Stormtroopers

The Fascist Logic of Climate Lying

Thinking about...
Show threadWilliam Lindsey Oct 11, 2024

"As climate change worsens, the fascism will worsen too. This is the politics of catastrophe, which is where we are heading next. When we face a truly existential problem, and when our politics is not about policy but about enmity, we will blame the victims."

It will be all about the migrants, who will necessarily try to escape the effects of climate change in areas to the south hit hardest by this.

#Trump #JDVance #hurricane #ClimateChange #fascism #lies #disinformation #PoliticsofHate
/2

Show threadWilliam Lindsey Oct 11, 2024

"And none of this is new. Hitler too denied the science that would have solved the basic problems of survival; Hitler too promoted ecological crisis as a reason for race war; Hitler too started from mass deportations of migrants (largely carried out by a non-governmental actor deputized for the purpose, the SS)."

#Trump #JDVance #hurricane #ClimateChange #fascism #lies #disinformation #PoliticsofHate #Hitler
/3

Show threadWilliam Lindsey Oct 11, 2024

"The truth is, it’s getting harder to describe the extent to which a meaningful percentage of Americans have dissociated from reality. ...

Even in a decade marred by online grifters, shameless politicians, and an alternative right-wing-media complex pushing anti-science fringe theories, the events of the past few weeks stand out for their depravity and nihilism."

~ Charlie Warzel

#Trump #JDVance #hurricane #ClimateChange #fascism #lies #disinformation
/4

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/10/hurricane-milton-conspiracies-misinformation/680221/

I’m Running Out of Ways to Explain How Bad This Is

What’s happening in America today is something darker than a misinformation crisis.

The Atlantic
Show threadHel O'Ween

@wdlindsy

I keep this quote around. It's from 1980. It's not a new problem. And although Asimov specifically mentioned the United States, unfortunately I can assure you it is not restricted to the U.S.:

It’s hard to quarrel with that ancient justification of the free press: “America’s right to know.” It seems almost cruel to ask, ingenuously, ”America’s right to know what, please? Science? Mathematics? Economics? Foreign languages?”

None of those things, of course. In fact, one might well suppose that the popular feeling is that Americans are a lot better off without any of that tripe.

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
-- Isaac Asimov

Oct 11, 2024 at 2:45pmWeb
Show threadWilliam Lindsey Oct 11, 2024

@HelOWeen Yes, the cult of ignorance has always been there in the US. Richard Hofstadter dissected it for us powerfully.

But something is new today. That cult is on steroids due to the internet and especially social media. And it's being exploited by some exceptionally maleficewnt and powerful fascists from Trump and Vance to Musk and Bannon.