Holier Than Thou

Dear Reader, I’ve always enjoyed the term ‘political theatre.’

More than anything, it’s the implications of the term, the metaphorical, that seems to so perfectly encapsulate the true nature of politics. Like the theatre, it’s an effort with incredibly high stakes and an ever-observing audience. It’s a stage wherein one flubbed line means the difference between rave reviews or a quick trip out. It’s a madcap dash to ensure all the elements are in place to ensure the major players all come out looking the professionals they all claim to be.

And up until now, I had always assumed it to be a comedy. While its certainly always had the sprinklings of an emotional drama, the core of politics in the past decade seemed to be an obscene comedy of errors. The cringe comedy of Gordon Brown calling an old-woman racist. The giggling gross out of David Cameron playing with pigs in ways that would a make a butcher cringe. There were even times when the Republican Party seemed to devolve into a supreme form of slapstick.

And then the play changed.

Perhaps it’s just me losing an almost painful naivety. But the realities of the political climate seemed to take on a much harsher image. The past year in particular has seen politics shift into some kind of existential nightmare.

The fall of the Labour Party is infinitely less amusing once it seems that they might prove incapable of picking themselves back up. It becomes much more difficult to roll one’s eyes at the gaffs of the working man’s party when their opponents, so drunk on so much power have managed to pull Britain out of Europe and plunged it into an austerity-soaked shambling free-fall.

The bumbling Republican Party is a lot less amusing when a thirteen-times bankrupt businessman is at the helm – even less so now that they’ve managed to secure what is already proving to be the most terrifying presidency this side of the third Omen (Wherein the literal antichrist became the leader of the free world.)

Even the internet seems a lot less comforting when it seems that every website may be the front for the rise of a new Third Reich, where an army of online fascists run amok – some even have the backing of the Kremlin to boot.

I had originally chosen the title ‘Holier Than Thou’ because I had thought it was the number one problem that faced the left – to an extent I still believe so. But it’s a problem that runs throughout politics. And everyone knows that the secret to good theatre isn’t self-love. It’s the love of the production.

Cameron McInnes Editor

Labour PAINS. In the high risk world of elections, there’s nothing more reassuring to any party than the safe seat. When entire governments can be uprooted due to the whims of even one constituency, there’s a reassurance in knowing that no matter how disastrous an election goes, there are always the loyal few that a party can routinely rely on.

Copeland has always been a staunch Labour safe seat. The constituency was created in 1983 – and since then has always played host to a Labour MP. Prior to that, back when the area went by Copeland and Whitehaven, the area had given power to Labour since 1935.

The area was, by all definitions, a Labour stronghold.

That is, right up until this year. When incumbent MP Jamie Reed announced he was quitting, a sudden by-election was called – which Labour promptly lost.

It’s the most recent in a long line of disasters for the reds; between the losses of two general elections and failure to stop the nowimpending Brexit, not to mention the ever present accusations of infighting and antiSemitism that have dogged the party in recent years. And now there remains an important question – who’s to blame for the decline

of what was once Britain’s most successful party?

For many, there can be only one answer: Jeremy Corbyn.

The current Labour leader has proved controversial since his first day in office, and he’s become less popular since. His current polling, as reported by the Telegraph, puts him at around 62% unfavourable. To put this this in perspective, this leaves him just 10% shy of the ranks of Trump and Putin.

Tom Harris is a former Scottish Labour MP, and one of many of the Labour camp dissatisfied with Corbyn’s performance. When asked if Corbyn had any chance of a successful leadership, was response was simple; “No. “He has too much baggage. The Tories are undoubtedly, even now, preparing general election campaign posters regurgitating some of his more stupid statements of the past IRA, calling Hamas “friends”, calling to abolish NATO, and so on and so on. If he remains leader, it’s a question of how many seats Labour lose.”

It’s a particularly succinct list of some of the

Labour leader’s more groan-worthy gaffs. In 2015, Corbyn appeared on BBC Radio Ulster and refused to condemn the actions of the IRA a whopping five times, which did nothing to help his reputation where the Irish troubles are still held for some as fresh wounds.

In 2009 he described the Palestinian fundamentalist group Hamas as “friends,” a move which faced immediate backlash from numerous pro-Israeli groups. Corbyn’s apology only came during an in-party probe into antiSemitism a mere seven years later.

Tellingly, Tom places the loss of Copeland – even the loss of EU membership – squarely at Corbyn’s feet; “Corbyn was a central cause of the Copeland loss. You can hardly stand on a platform of hostility and opposition to nuclear power

then expect to lead a party to victory in a constituency where most people are employed by the nuclear industry. As for the EU, I think Leave would have won anyway, but Corbyn damaged himself and the Labour Party by pretending to support a cause he has never believed in and doing so unconvincingly.”

And yet, despite this, has Corbyn not earned his place at the top? Not only did he win his first leadership contest in 2015 by a staggering 59.48% (Second place Andy Burnham only managed 19.04%.), he also managed to fend off a vote of no confidence just over a year later, emerging with another triumphant 60% victory. Is it not logical then that Labour owes a debt to those who voted in Corbyn not once, but twice? Not according to Tom; “I think Labour has done far too much to

support him in his role. His election as leader wasn’t an expression of democracy - it was a hostile takeover by a form of left politics that is totally alien to the Labour tradition.”

Corbyn has made no secret of his aim to shift the Labour party to the left – he has spoken in the past of sticking to Labour’s “socialist ideals.” He’s proposed a ‘maximum wage’ in an effort to curb the extravagant bonuses of the banking elite. He’s a man who pines for less nukes and less monarchs. After the stagnant centrist appeal that spanned from Blair to Milliband, Corbyn’s almost radical leftist belief was initially seen as the jump start the dead in the water Labour needed to fight back the rising tide of right wing power.

Even in the wake of Corbyn’s initial leadership bid, the Labour party saw a titanic surge in

members. Membership rose from 190,000 in May 2015 to 515,000 in July 2016 – a massive gain of 325,000 new members. All of this means little to Tom, who declares that these new members, and the attempted shift to the left, are not the key to winning elections; “All elections are won from the centre ground; Corbyn’s election doesn’t change this, it simply ignores it. Every election since the universal franchise was introduced has been decided based on the two-party swing between the government and the main opposition party. The next one will also be decided by the two-party swing. Labour members are just too precious to admit that one of those two parties is the Conservative party.

“Parties are successful when they appeal beyond their core base towards where most

voters are, and for Labour that means in the rightward direction. This is uncomfortable to many. Too bad.”

It feels unfair to blame Corbyn for all of Labour’s problems, which stem as far back to the leadership of Tony Blair. From an illegal war in the Middle-East all the way to a chaotic election loss to the Conservatives in 2010, the rein of Corbyn is less the beginning of the end than the latest chapter in the tragic tale of a party that has lost its way. It’s a sentiment that Tom echoes, if slightly less sympathetically (and with a tad criticism for Gordon Brown and Ed Milliband); “Corbyn is a symptom, not the cause, of Labour’s demise. But leadership plays a central role in parties’ attractiveness to voters, especially today, far more so than in the past. There was a chance, under Gordon Brown, to reshape the political map for a generation, if not for good, but Brown was the wrong person for the job and he made too many mistakes.

“Those mistakes led directly to Ed Miliband’s election as leader - again, the wrong choice at the time. And if it hadn’t been for Miliband’s changes to the party, Corbyn could never have been elected leader.”

And once again, Tom admonishes the party for losing the focus on the hallowed centre-ground; “It’s about policy too, of course. But the party became too nervous about constantly having to appeal to a broad cross-section of society; it felt the balance had gone too far right. It lost its nerve and retreated into its comfort zone where it only speaks to itself and imagines the rest of the country thinks the same way. It doesn’t.”

So a final, burning question remains: is it too late for Jeremy Corbyn? For all his mistakes, Corbyn remains a man at least committed to his leftist vision; a flawed leader at the top a party seemingly at war with itself. Surely it’s too late to turn things around, especially in the face of an unpopular Conservative party in the midst of a messy EU exit?

“He can’t. He has already been defined. Once the voters choose to take a dim view, it’s virtually impossible to change it. And in Corbyn’s case, the harsh judgment is justified: he simply doesn’t have the qualities needed in a leader: intelligence, speaking ability, or even principle.”

A slight

BERNING

sensation.

The 2016 presidential election seemed, at least in the primary stage, to be a story of the outsiders. On the republican side, a line-up of by-the-numbers milquetoast candidates was suddenly shaken up by dark horse (and eventual President) Donald Trump. Over on the Democrats side, there was Bernie Sanders.

For a huge swathe of young, politically jaded young people, Sanders was everything they had been looking for in the ideal candidate.

He spoke in grand, sweeping platitudes; free college, legal weed, and an America freed from the grip of major banks and corporations.

He developed a massive following almost overnight; the dubiously named ‘Bernie-Bros.’

Sasha Stone has written heavily on the phenomenon of the Bernie-Bro for publications such as Medium and ExtraNewsFeed. She defines the Bernie-Bros as obsessive to the point of hostility; “Bernie-Bro was a term coined by a journalist to describe a particular type of die-hard Bernie Sanders fan. It started out defining youngish white men, between the ages of 18 - 40, who identify with Bernie so much that they felt the

need to express their love for him every day – through t-shirts, through art, through memes.

“As the Bernie brand grew, his supporters became more hostile; Bernie-Bro went from being a type of guy (emo, brooding, usually upper middle class, college educated) to being known for someone who harassed people online, usually women. At some point, the trolls posed as Bernie bros and their behaviour was so hostile the whole Bernie movement ended up taking the blame.

“White men bristle at the idea of a Bernie bro.

They see it as a sexist term or a way to write off protesters or passionate supporters of Bernie Sanders. When people say “Bernie-Bro” what they mean is a person who will harass others in the name of Bernie Sanders.”

The cult of Bernie has such power that it soon became something akin to a political social status, even to those unable or unwilling to actually vote.

“The Bernie Sanders movement was mostly overtaken by the younger generation of millennials, some of whom were too young to

vote. Bernie became the cool brand offering a world they thought was possible - free college, universal healthcare, ending climate change.

They looked at him and they saw a hero. Their love for him turned into a religious devotion and they could not accept it when he lost.”

And lose Bernie did. He failed to win the Democratic nomination, with Hillary Clinton becoming the potential nominee, who then went on to lose the election in what may go down in history in one of the most shocking results in US political history. In the wake of the Trump presidency, the Bernie-Bros were immediate in their response; cries of “Bernie would have won” echoed around the internet.

Sasha casts some heavy doubts on these claims; “There are two reasons to consider why he would not have won. The first is that he could not win the primary. He did not have enough outreach in the key areas where democrats depend on their base, most notably the south.

No democrat has ever won the presidency without winning the south in the primary since the civil rights movement changed the Democratic Party, the black vote in the south has been crucial. Not only did Bernie Sanders lose big there, but he then blamed his loss on it being a “more conservative” area. That was a pretty good indicator that he had no understanding of how to win a primary. If he could not win the primary, he could not get the nomination.

“Also, one of the reasons Sanders was boosted by the Republicans and by Putin was because he is a well-known socialist. America is not ready, though his supporters are under the delusion that they are.

“Finally, Bernie Sanders is not a Christian and in America, 70% of the voters and a growing number of activist voters are Christian. No one has ever tested it to see if it matters or not, but we know that the combination of socialism and not being Christian would have sunk his chances against Donald Trump.

“His supporters cling to the polls that had him higher than Trump, but those same polls showed Hillary higher than Bernie Sanders.

In the end, he could have won the states that she lost probably, but that doesn’t necessarily

mean he could have won the election. It’s a question we’ll just never know the answer to.”

One would think the loss of the primary would have marked an early end in the story of the Bernie-Bros. Even in the weeks leading up to Hillary Clinton’s official nomination, it had become obvious that Sanders was not going to win the primary. Despite this, his rabid supporters begun to subscribe to the almost theory that the Democrats had conspired to cheat Sanders out of the nomination, citing emails from the Clinton camp that spoke of Sanders in a negative tone. It’s a claim that Sasha finds difficult to accept.

“Only people with a limited understanding of politics would ever think such a thing. Did the Democratic Party have a preference for Hillary Clinton? Absolutely. She was one of their most loyal and hardworking members for thirty years. She fundraised, went to speeches, supported their causes. She was also clearly Obama’s chosen successor. You have one shot to take office after a two term democrat leaves office: make the case that the democrats had done a great job in power, so let’s have four more years of that. Hillary, or Joe Biden, would have been the person to do that. But Bernie Sanders ran a campaign against Obama as though Obama and the democrats had failed.

That cemented their loss.”

There’s no doubt that Sanders and his followers have had some impact on the election. They proved an omnipresent presence in online discussion, and proved themselves a powerful force for political campaigning. The question, then, is; did they have a positive or negative one?

“They certainly helped the democrats lose.

There is no doubt about that. Their silly antics at the convention, their spitting on Hillary, Bernie’s turning Hillary into an establishment tool. He was unfair to her and most certainly turned voters away from Hillary Clinton, even if that meant voting against their own best interests. Many of them grew up with Obama as their president, which made them think anything was possible. Unfortunately, those of us who have lived through many elections knew how it was going to turn out.”

It seems easy to criticise Sanders and his

fanbase, especially considering that for many of them, this was their first exposure to such high stakes political theatre. Through the lens of Clinton’s devastating loss, it’s important to ask what the Clinton camp could have done to court the favour of Sander’s devoted following. According to Sasha, the answer is, unfortunately, not much; “Hillary did try to reach out to them. She never attacked Bernie Sanders, she changed her stance on TPP and the minimum wage.

She is realistic and knows what’s possible in Washington and to make them happy she would have had to lie to them - and though they called her a liar repeatedly, she wasn’t willing to do that. Bernie seemed to have no problem lying to them. But sure, maybe choosing someone on Team Bernie as a Vice President would have been a good idea. Bernie himself would have been a mistake and given the republicans an easy target.

“But the Sanders supporters were cruel and abusive throughout the primary. They blamed Hillary supporters for not listening to them but the truth is, they were simply too stubborn and obstinate to listen to. They were asking for impossible things, things that would have hurt Hillary’s chances.”

It leaves an uncomfortable conclusion; if the Bernie-Bros were unwilling or unable to co-operate with the Hillary campaign, then it surely must fall to Sanders himself to attempt to persuade his followers to vote for his fellow Democratic candidate (especially considering the now all too real alternative.) According to Sasha, Sander’s meagre efforts to reach out to Clinton were ultimately too little, too late; “He could have dropped out after he lost the south. He could have refrained from calling her unqualified and a corporate whore. He could have thrown his support around her much earlier and not given his supporters false hope that the primary was rigged and the superdelegates were the problem.

“Good lord, Obama and Hillary were only 45,000 votes apart by the convention. Bernie was around 4 million behind Hillary. What planet was he living on? So yes, they were all caught up in mass hysteria because no one had ever seen anything like his movement before. It had to have gone to his head. In the end, his revolution was about Hillary and the democrats, not about the republicans and Trump. He did try by the end to turn it around but it was way too late.”

And now, it seems that for all of Sanders’ talk

of a grand revolution, he and his supporters’ efforts were for naught. With Trump in the White House, already showing his affinity for controversial executive orders, it seems the liberal wonderland portrayed in Sanders’ speeches is further away than ever. Is there room left for the take-no-prisoners style of the Bernie-Bros?

“They’ll stick around until they figure out that they need the support of the Democratic Party if they want to win anything. They only have to look to the Green Party to see where purity and absolutism can take you.

followers into a frenzy and unleashed them on the wrong opponent. In a post-Trump mindset, it’s all too easy to be angry at the Bernie-Bros who were so self-righteous in their hatred of Clinton they would rather burn the house down than tidy the room. It’s a frustrating reality that all the talk of revolution has instead swung so wildly in the opposite direction – a progressive paradise turned regressive disappointment. But as Sasha says;

“On the positive side, there is no denying that Bernie has energized young people. This is their future, after all, and it’s their future to shape. The people who were the Bernie “The Bernie folks want to make government Sanders generation back in 1968, during the bigger. Maybe someday they can. Maybe counter culture, all learned that same hard the economy will collapse at the hands of lesson and they threw their support behind the republicans. Maybe then there might Hillary in 2016 because they know that they be another FDR who can establish social need power in Washington. They need a seat programs for the poor. But we’re losing things at the table. They needed the Supreme Court. now we’ll never get back. Team Bernie foolishly It seems like many in the Sanders movement allowed our government to fall into the don’t seem to have a grasp of how our hands of people who want to undo the social government actually works, with three equal programs put in by Teddy Roosevelt, FDR branches of power. But everyone is happy to and LBJ. It will take decades to replace those see young people activated and energized. things and we will be seeing some dark days If only they could stop hating on democrats, from now on.” especially women, we could be a powerful Sasha closes on a grim but tragically optimistic movement as a whole. note. It’s true that Sanders whipped his “But we are still fractured.”

Black

Lives

SCATTERED In 2014, an unarmed black man was gunned down on the streets of Charlotte, North Carolina. His name was Keith Lamont Scott.

Tragically, it’s an all too familiar story in America.

What followed the shooting was a clash between police and protestors that would result in a state of emergency being declared in Charlotte. Stores was looted. Tear gas deployed. The chaos culminated in the murder of protestor Justin Carr.

One phrase lingers over the entire, messy proceeding; one the lips of protestors, drawn on to discarded signs, and even spray-painted on the ruins of burned out convenience stores.

Black Lives Matter.

Since its inception in 2013, the organisation has proved massively controversial. Despite a campaign goal that seems relatively inoffensive – that is, to highlight and combat systematic racism toward black people – the group has often been decried as everything from massively ineffective to being branded a

hate group. Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani even went as far to write off the group as being “inherently racist.”

And yet despite these criticisms the group has still proven itself a powerful force. Both the Republican and Democrat primaries quizzed candidates on their opinions of the organisation. The group continues to make headlines and draw the attention of the American press. According to a Pew Research poll, more than 60% of black Americans supported the group.

Suzanne Kelly is a campaigner and social media admin for BLM. She defends the group despite the bevy of criticism it often faces; she claims that those focusing on criticising the group have misplaced concerns; “Whether a person thinks Black Lives Matter is a controversial group depends largely on the individual’s perspective. My personal belief is that anyone calling BLM out for being ‘controversial’ should be far more concerned with extremist hate groups that have been

going far longer and have far wider reaching tentacles.

“The best way to answer this question is by quoting someone who has put it very well. This is a quote from Loreen De Kort: “Why do Black Lives Matter? - Ironically, the answer to this question actually is BECAUSE all lives matter. Black lives, white lives, Hispanic, Asian, you name it, they matter. It means not JUST white lives matter. It does NOT mean ONLY black lives matter. It means the rights you acknowledge for white lives you must also acknowledge for black lives. It means stop justifying the atrocious behaviours perpetuated against the black people in this country with racist ideals, a racial system of justice and indirect and direct racism from the people in

this country. It means black people are people, not animals, not thugs, not predators, not savages. People. Living breathing people with the same rights as everyone else and it’s long overdue the system which does not recognize and treat us as equals, according to the law, needs to be addressed.”

It’s certainly a powerful statement. More than that, it’s a pained plea for an assistance that doesn’t seem to exist. It’s a plea echoed on an international level as well; perhaps partly due to the controversy it so regularly courts, Black Lives Matter is a group that has often stood independent of others, and attempts to change this have been met with various levels of rejection.

A Black Lives Matter presence at last year’s

Toronto LGBT Pride event eventually broke down to the point where the parade ground to a halt. Meetings with both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton in the run-up to the presidential ended in relative unease, with BLM facing criticism on both counts. It’s a problem that Suzanne is well aware of.

“I think the entire political spectrum should give BLM more support. The left in the UK seems to be having its own issues. The left in the USA seems to be regrouping after Clinton won the popular vote and lost the Electoral College. There should be more support though by all means.”

Another challenge facing Black Lives Matter is the number of groups that gave cropped up in response to the movement, each bearing an “X

Lives Matter” titling.

The most notable of these is “All Lives Matter,” seemingly birthed from the criticism that Black Lives Matter is in some fashion a racist moniker, as seen almost as much mainstream coverage as its namesake – but as faced just as much criticism.

Despite a mainstream appeal that reaches all the way to the political elite – Hillary Clinton referred to the group during a speech to a predominantly African-American church in Missouri – it is unclear what the aim of All Lives Matter actually stands for. While Black Lives Matter routinely faces criticism for the way it carries out its protests, the actual goal of these efforts has always been clear.

Many (including Suzanne) feel that the work

of groups like All Lives Matter is in fact less pointless and more a dangerous ignorance, detracting from the very real issues that Black Lives Matter aims to address;

Lives Matter as enemies, instead look toward police ranks and attempt to fight racism before it has a chance to end in a another tragic incident:

“To ignore the roots of BLM is to ignore a problem that simply does not exist for most of white middle and upper class America. The system is not treating black individuals the way it treats white ones. I could give dozens of high-profile police arrests, shootings, assaults to demonstrate my feeling on the issue, but I will just give one.

“The police are trained professionals who are willing to put their lives on the line to protect and serve. An honest, rights-respecting, helpful peacekeeper is welcome. That is not what we are seeing; that is not what we have in the USA.

“Sandra Bland.”

Sandra Bland was an African American woman from Waller County, Texas, who was taken in to police custody after arguing with an officer following a routine traffic stop. She spent the night in a jail cell, where she was discovered the next morning – she had hanged herself during the night.

Questions and accusations were immediately thrown at officer responsible for her arrest, Brian Encina. In the days and weeks following Sandra Bland’s death, he was accused of racial profiling for his handling of the traffic stop and the decision to arrest Sandra.

The police force faced criticism, especially considering that no attempts had been made to place Sandra Bland under suicide watch, despite her being extremely distressed in the hours leading to her taking her own life.

To Suzanne, the story of Sandra Black represents why the work of Black Lives Matter is so important, “All lives do matter, but anyone who stops to look at what is actually occurring in the USA will see one group is being persecuted and abused.”

Another group formed as a response to Black Lives Matter is Blue Lives Matter, which claims to campaign in the interests of law enforcement, which it states that groups such as Black Lives Matter have attempted to demonize. It is true that many Black Lives Matter protests have ended as all out brawls between protestors and police.

Suzanne responds that Blue Lives Matter should, instead of focusing on treating Black

“Those in Blue Lives Matter should be pulling out all the stops in my opinion to ensure that guns do not fall into the hands of those who are mentally or emotionally unfit to have them, and ammunition should be likewise controlled.

“I am so happy to live in the UK where we have had one – only one – tragic school shooting event. I have lost count of the US’s school shootings. Want to protect police? Ensure they are trained, mentally sound for the post, are not racists who do not belong to racist groups, and fix our very broken gun laws.”

It is clear that (at least to those within BLM) that more protest groups are counter-intuitive to helping BLM achieve its goals. So then, the question is; what can people and groups on the left be doing to help Black Lives Matter.

To Suzanne, it’s a complex question with a complex answer. First, the UK left must set its house in order; “In the UK I see a Left that has moved sharply to the Right with Mr Blair’s ‘New Labour’ that needs to stop its infighting, re-evaluate its own values and return to its founding principles.”

One her biggest concerns is the ever-expanding movement that would see the UK police armed in a fashion similar to their US counterparts; “I expect to see several targets for their attention: they must stop the growing tide that wants to arm police more routinely; we know this does not end well. Tasers need to be reevaluated, as for one instance police in Bristol tasered their own race relations representative – in the head. Tasers are being wrongly used – there are parts of the body that should not be shot; there have been deaths.”

Another of her prime concerns is the private prison system. There are currently 14 governmentally contracted prison facilities

in the UK, and it’s something Suzanne finds deeply troubling; “Any move towards a privatised prison system must be soundly defeated. This is one of the USA’s main issues – we have created for poor people, for minorities, a system where school is like a mini-prison with students assaulted by guards and police, which leads to unacceptable rights violations. From that school people are pushed into private prisons where they are to my mind being used as veritable slave labour to create for instance cheap goods.”

Ultimately, her biggest issue is the very one Black Lives Matter has dedicated itself to combat; “The biggest issue is to get racists out of government and out of institutions. In recent times, this has never been harder, but everyone has to pull together so we do not read about the next Sandra Bland. I still think about her, and am horrified. Then I remember she is just one story. Black Lives Matter; they should matter to the politicians, police, judicial system and the president. My wish – everyone across the political system would work towards this.

Let’s have some politicians running on these issues please.”

It seems that Black Lives Matter is caught in an awkward place. It’s a group pushing for radical change while simultaneously facing immense criticism for deploying radical methods. It’s a group pushing a very liberal idea against a political landscape that is in the midst of a colossal shift to the right. To Suzanne, it’s a noble aim; and it’s one that has her absolute loyalty.

“I grew up in the States and I know without any doubt there is serious racial inequality just as there is serious sexual inequality. I have been watching as the media accounts of horrendous treatment of people – particularly black people – by some police forces have caused brutality and death take the place of the freedoms all people are supposed to enjoy.

“All lives matter to me; I have seen though that organisations that promote hate are allowed to thrive in the USA, and without a doubt in my mind these organisations have taken root in police and government. I want to do something about that; it’s not my only cause (I have campaigned against Trump’s hate speech for some time) – but if I can help at all, I’m at BLM’s disposal.”

FAKING

NEWS

Just moments into his very first press conference, newly-inaugurated US President Donald Trump makes a startling accusation.

A reporter from CNN attempts to ask a question in regards to a freshly published dossier that seemingly confirms links between the Trump administration and the Russian government. The process itself isn’t just routine – it’s very literally the entire reason to hold a press conference.

Trump refuses to even field questions from the reporter, and instead retorts; “You are fake news!”

In the weeks following, the US President has went on to accuse a number of publications, including the BBC, the New York Times, and even Buzzfeed of being ‘fake news.’

It’s a term that’s taken on a new significance, due perhaps in part to Trump’s campaign leaning so heavily on it as a means to criticize outlets that the businessman-turned-leader finds to be less than desirable.

But fake news is more than just the rambling of the most angry and powerful. The art of deception is both a potent political tool and a booming economy.

Melissa Zimdars, a professor of communication and media at Merrimack College, began to notice that her students were sourcing articles and using talking points that stemmed from fake news sites. In an effort to combat this wave of misinformation, she published a list of fake news sites which were from then on not permitted as sources.

The list quickly breached the confines of the classroom and went viral, being shared hundreds of times across social networks.

Unexpectedly, Melissa faced a wave of backlash, due in no small part to her choice to include controversial sites like extreme conservative publication Breitbart (former editor Steve Bannon is now one of Donald’s Trump’s more high ranking political aides).

Users accused her of allowing her political bias to cloud her judgement, but Melissa claims that her list includes fake news sites from

across the political spectrum.

To hear Melissa define fake news; “If you asked me this question 2 years ago, I would have said satirical news like The Onion or The Colbert Report, but now it most commonly refers to outright false information, taking the form of news, that may or may not be designed to do harm.

“In the case of fake news spread by Russia, for example, it is ideologically motivated, but other types of fake news are more about profit generation, as is the case with the Macedonian teenager operations.”

“Macedonian teenager operations” refers to the town of Veles, Macedonia, which in the final half of the US election became infamous for the sheer quantity of fake news stories being produced there, with more than a hundred proTrump being traced to the place at one point.

One teenager from the small town claimed in an interview with Wired that he had earned almost £13,000 a month from the production of fake news – for perspective, the average yearly salary in Macedonia is £270.

Not all fake news is created for profit – some has a far more nefarious purpose. A US committee investigating Russian meddling with the 2016 election discovered that the Kremlin had created a thousand strong legion of fake news creators, all generating content designed to turn voters off of Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton.

Since publishing her infamous list of fake news sites, Melissa has been heavily involved in the battle against misinformation. But it hasn’t been easy; “Fake news websites pop up and go away rather quickly. If one gets on a list somewhere, it will fade out and be replaced by another.

“Another problem is that there are far more fake new websites (and propaganda websites) that are far right or conservative, for various reasons, so while I include websites from across the political spectrum and apolitical sites, my resource ends up being imbalanced, which leads to accusations that I’m biased.

We are all biased, and I work very hard to be self-reflexive about those biases, but this fact

definitely makes some people resistant to my work and the work of others.”

So why is fake news suddenly all the rage. Well, as Melissa points out; “Fake news has existed as long as journalism.

It’s an evolution of the sacred tabloid tradition.

So it’s not a new phenomenon, it’s just one that has the potential to be created easily and spread quickly.”

It’s this ability to spread quickly that makes fake news such a commodity. As soon as a news story hits a social network, there is no limit to the amount of people it has the potential to reach. Facebook in particular has found itself at war with false information.

According to the Pew Research Centre, more than 60% of adults get their news from Facebook, so there’s a certain responsibility held by the site to ensure that at the very least, it’s actual news.

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerburg even issued a statement wherein he promised that; “We take misinformation seriously. Our goal is to connect people with the stories they find most meaningful, and we know people want accurate information.”

Zuckerburg even went on to promise that the site would be doing everything it could to stop the spread of false news stories, with measures including teaming up with factchecking site Snopes to essentially tell users if the story they are reading is true or false.

These steps are certainly important – crucial even – for stopping the creation and spread of even more fake news. But what of the lies that have already been told? What impact can the hordes of false news stories? Most crucially – did fake news in fact play a part in the creation of President Trump? Melissa isn’t so sure; “I don’t think we fully know yet. Undoubtedly it reinforced people’s beliefs about candidates, but we don’t yet have solid evidence if it fundamentally changed public opinion or shifted opinions about candidates.

“We also need to be careful about the assumptions we make about sharers of

fake news: not everyone is a dupe, but the remainder aren’t necessarily sharing false information maliciously. If anything, fake news has helped bring to light some fundamental problems in contemporary society, particularly in regard to our trust-- or lack thereof-- in institutions and people.”

to investigate Russian fake news generation, they discovered that stories had been created to target readers in the key swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Eerily enough, in all of these states, Donald Trump pulled out a surprising (if narrow) election-night victory.

Melissa’s uncertainty isn’t shared across the board. One fake news creator, Paul Horner, who gained a certain level of infamy after having his fake news stories appear on Google alongside legitimate news outlets (and by having one retweeted by Eric Trump) went as far as to say in an interview with the Washington Post that “I think Trump is in the White House because of me.”

So if we have at least some grasp on how fake news impacts politics, what of its peers? Is fake news having a negative impact on what good and honest news media is left? Well, according to Melissa, it may actually be having a marginal benefit;

More sinisterly, when the US government began

“Legitimate news sources have only damaged themselves over the years, and a lot of it has to do with the political economic and technological realities of news media. If

anything, the fake news frenzy seems to be inspiring some journalists to work toward setting themselves apart from circulates of fake news and propaganda.”

So far it’s clear that both the social media it spreads on and the old media it rubs shoulders with are both at least trying to combat the epidemic of fake news. So is there anything the savvy reader can do to ensure they don’t fall for the latest fake headline? As Melissa says;

one of these factors. The best thing to do is just read widely and try to corroborate and contextualize the information we come across.

Fake news won’t have as much of an impact of we get information from a variety of news sources.”

And finally – is there any truth to Trump’s boisterous accusations? Is it time to write even off the esteemed journalists of CNN as purveyors of fake news? Well;

“There are some signs that a “news” organization is suspect: Some major ones are a lack of author attribution, a lack of an “about us” section or any info about publishers.

Readers should also watch out for loaded and exaggerated language, clickbait-style headlines or a total reliance on digital born images.

“Only if we go by his definition of “fake news,” which is anything that one disagrees with.

“But there is no way to 100% tell based on

“So, no.”

“CNN makes mistakes, like all news organizations, but their intent isn’t too personally deceive or plant false information for financial gain.

CTRL-ALT

RIGHT. Even in a political landscape that has seen a massive shift (at least from the mainstream perspective) back to a more conservative right, there cannot be a less acceptable political stance than white nationalism. A lack of mainstream appeal goes hand in hand with a movement so firmly rooted in its association with the Nazis. One would think (and hope) that following the demise of the Nazi Party would have signalled the end of the movement, although history has tragically proven otherwise.

And so we encounter white nationalists in perhaps the only place such a movement could grow – the internet.

Meet the alt-right.

It’s neo-fascism for the YouTube generation.

White power for web 2.0.

It’s a movement so recent that its history essentially only dates back to last year, where the movement was born, bolstered by the then freshly announced Trump campaign.

The actual origin point of the movement is hazy at best. On websites like Reddit or the controversial 4chan there had always existed an extreme right-wing presence – no doubt the ability to remain totally anonymous behind an online pseudonym no doubt played a large part in this.

But in July of 2016, then – editor of extreme right wing news site Brietbart Steve Bannon (who now sits in the White House as one of President Trump’s more prominent political aides) described his site as “the news source of the alt-right.” An article published on the site, titled “An Establishment Conservative’s Guide to the Alt-Right,” reads less like a piece of journalism and more like a manifesto for the movement.

One of the most prominent gatherings of the alt-right was on website Reddit, under a section fittingly titled ‘/r/altright.’ The group was just shy of 20,000 members before Reddit admins stepped in and closed the group down.

The founder of the group was a user under the

username of MortalSisyphus. He refuses to disclose his real name despite repeated asks to do – he claims that doing so will “make him a target for “SJWs” (that’s ‘Social Justice Warriors’). For a movement so steeped in association with the negative, when asked to define what the alt-right stands for, he speaks in sweeping, noble platitudes; “We do not define ourselves in negatives.

We are ethno-nationalists. We are pro-white, pro-European, pro-nationalist, pro-traditional values. We believe in securing the existence of our people and a future for our children.

the most right-wing it’s been in eight years.)

To hear MortalSisyphus describe his crusade against ‘The Left;’ “Above all else, the greatest threat coming from the Left is support for mass immigration.

Policies can be debated, changed, reverted. But the demographics of a nation are essentially permanent, and have the widest ranging consequences.

“A nation without borders is not a nation at all, and despite what you see in the media, the vast majority of Americans oppose our borders being as open as they are. This is the number “We are fundamentally collectivists, and believe one reason Donald Trump was elected, and that man is a social being meant to live in a why the alt-right supports him.” collective society. We believe cooperation and There is a truth, however slim, to these claims. self-sacrifice are the basis for civilization, and According to a 2016 Pew Research poll, 43% that egotism and individualism will breed the of Americans believe that immigration to the death of a people.”

U.S. should be decreased, with 35% saying that It’s a very rose-tinted description of what in it should be remain at its present level, with a principle sounds like an Orwellian dystopia. His mere 18% believing that it should be increased. description of some of the movement’s core beliefs offer up a similarly selective defence of It’s not just a white or male centrism at the cores of the alt-right, there’s also a decidedly the white-centric, male-centric world view that homophobic slant to the proceedings; runs throughout the alt-right.

“We believe in social and political hierarchy. We “We also believe the political Left is pushing believe that what Nature has made unequal, no moral degeneracy. They’ve moved on from gay marriage to a generalized attempt to man or institution can make equal. We believe the inequality of races, genders, and individuals undermine the concept of “binary” genders, is both self-evident and scientifically verifiable. and there are even the first signs of an attempt to normalize paedophilia.”

“We believe that all people have a basic human right to preserve their heritage, and that whites It’s here that the thin veneer of pride begins to give way to what looks to be a much uglier are no exception to that rule.” core of racism and homophobia. When pressed If there’s one thing no-one can accuse on the subject, MortalSisyphus seemingly MortalSisyphus of being, it’s modest; dismisses the term, instead attacking those who would use it; “We believe our power and our numbers grow with each passing day. We believe we can “We believe the term “racist” has become little and will change the course of history. We are more than an anti-white pejorative designed the true “conservatives,” in the sense we want to disparage our collective self-interest. We to preserve Western civilization, European believe that advocacy for “diversity” has at root culture, and above all else, European people anti-white intentions. We believe that whites themselves.” and whites alone have been excluded from the right to ethnic pride or nativist ideology; A common thread of discussion for the that shame, guilt, and self-hatred have been alt-right seems to be a sense of perceived conditioned into our people and our nations victimhood. The movement paints the left as a systematically and that it must be rooted out if grand collective, determined to undermine the we hope to survive. We believe in taking back values of tradition at all costs (this seemingly our pride and never again cowering in fear of discounts the fact that the US government is externally imposed labels.

“We believe that one of the primary causes for the decline of conservatism in the United States was a fear of such labels. These labels are tools used by the Left to disparage people, to silence people, to threaten people, to keep people in line and under control.”

The argument reaches a troubling but expected crescendo; “For this reason, many on the alt-right intentionally buck such trends, and will selfidentify as racist, anti-Semitic, and so on.”

It’s one thing (albeit a tad shocking) to take such an open pride in being a shameless racist or homophobe. But what of the most problematic of the alt-right’s disreputable associations; the Nazis.

When pressed on the subject, MortalSisyphus seems less eager to deny the claim than to disparage those who would use it; “Our opponents use purely emotional associations to tar and feather us. They know and understand that the label “Nazi” evokes profound emotional reactions in the average citizen, and thus they desperately try to ascribe that label to us. Most of us reject the label. First of all, the term itself is a pejorative to describe National Socialists, which makes it unfair even in an historical context.

“But more importantly, the term refers to a specific political party in a specific nation at a specific time nearly a hundred years ago. The altright is a modern political movement with modern sentiments and isn’t tied to such a specific group from the distinct past.”

The notion that the only thing separating the altright with a group responsible for mass genocide is the passage of time is an uncomfortable one. What’s even more uncomfortable is the implication that there are those within the altright who are less than eager to reject the label of Nazi; “Of course there will be those in the alt-right who embrace the label, because they want to normalize the term and thus take power away from it to disparage those of us with far-right beliefs. But even most of those would refer to themselves as National Socialists, and not Nazi.”

So how exactly does a movement that considers

gay marriage ‘degeneracy’ and so proudly associates itself with racists and Nazis attract so much attention? To MortalSisyphus, the draw lies online, and to a rejection of a culture that prior to now has been dominated by mainstream media coverage; “I think the growth is primarily tied to the increasing power of an open internet. In the past, public opinion was completely controlled and shaped by mainstream media outlets. That is no longer the case, and sites like 4chan have provided a completely open forum for people of every political persuasion to debate and share ideas.

“Any sufficently free and open forum will tend toward right-of-center beliefs, because there is truth in our beliefs, and sites such as Reddit or Twitter which want to retain a Leftist status-quo are typically forced to resort to bans and other draconian methods to silence our views.”

It’s important to note that the alt-right wasn’t removed from Reddit because the website disagreed with their admittedly controversial political stance – the group was removed due to the fact it repeatedly and aggressively harassed other users.

And yet the growth of the movement is staggering. With alt-right figureheads like Steve Bannon now directly influencing politics, are we now on the edge of seeing something as regressive as the alt-right enter the mainstream political discourse. According to MortalSisyphus, it already has.

“I think it is clear we have already entered the mainstream. You can see and read alt-right perspectives everywhere, particularly on the internet. They are littered across YouTube comments, Reddit threads, and growing alternative sites like Breitbart.

“Never before have I seen is a Nationalist uprising as we are seeing today, and it is in part a creation of the Left itself. We are opening the door, and even mainstream representatives like Steve King [A congressman from Iowa who early this year tweeted that “We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies,”] are making blatant ethno nationalist public statements.

“The mainstream media is desperately trying to maintain the label “controversial” to our views,

but every day the mainstream media loses more power and respect in the public at large, due to their own abuses and bias over the years.”

Finally, MortalSisyphus turns to the future of the ideology, and its place in society. To him, it’s a future that may see the end of what is currently defined as the ‘alt-right.’ Not because the ideals behind it – as racist, homophobic and downright Nazi-esqe as they be – have been overcome. But rather because he predicts they will be absorbed and embraced by mainstream conservative culture.

“The alt-right grows in number and power every day. More people hear our arguments, investigate our views, see our interviews.

“I predict that the more radical elements of the movement will naturally and necessarily give way to a more “mainstream,” conservative movement. Perhaps the alt-right label will be abandoned entirely as the Left continually attaches negative emotional associations with the label. Those with a nuanced, almost “political” approach to politics, such as Richard Spencer, will naturally lead the movement forward and create the most progress.

“In other words, I see the conservative movement at large, as well as the Republican party, absorbing more and more of our nationalist views and normalizing them in the mainstream. I see the Left continuing to freak out, overreact, and thus shoot themselves in the foot and kill their own progress. I see the power of mainstream media, “conservative” politicians, and educational institutions declining more and more as the power of internet culture grows and begins to overtake them.”

It feels almost reassuring to dismiss his claims. It would be calming to imagine that as

a society we have moved past a world where these ideals could even have a chance at entering the mainstream.

“In the long run what matters are the ideas, not the labels. Our ideas, which have been branded heretical, will form the basis for political discussion and change in the years to come.”

It’s a chilling thought.

“A fool and his money are soon elected.”

WILL RODGERS