European Farmer Rallies – Far Right Parties – Murdoch – Right Wing Media – Atlas Koch Network – Think Tanks – Putin versus EU – Taxes – Regulation

Interesting article on farmers’ rallies and how Hungarian PM Orban is supporting in their opposition to EU, environmental laws, CAP, competition and taxes, including on fossil fuels, while like others in Poland etc. there’s a whiff of Putin and Russia in the background.

Much of this is confected, in some cases farmers complaining of outsiders taking over and being used for media content, to nudge against the EU, taxes, fossil fuels, environmental laws, science and regulation.

No coincidence that it reflects techniques used in the global anti-Covid lock down and mandate rallies promoted by Atlas Koch Network, also behind Brexit vs. EU; in Australia clear links between Koch think tanks and Murdoch media targeting centrist government e.g. Victorian State Labor government was constantly attacked and dog whistled.

Confected and faux populism of the right to denigrate supranational bodies, liberal democracy, empower youth or working age, science, education, regulation and taxes; see Tea Party movement in the US. 

According to Politico, Orban’s now has plans to influence the EU from the inside, as a majority of EU citizens, including Hungarians, support the EU; developing a Trojan horse to attack the EU from within, on behalf of external agents who also supported Brexit.

‘Orbán-backed Think Tank Courts Farmers Linked to Far Right Ahead of EU Poll

Hardline groups planning June protests accused the EU of “deliberately exterminating its own farmers” at the MCC Brussels event.

By Marta Kasztelan, Clare Carlile and Joey Grostern on May 2, 2024 @ 06:02 PDT

An oil-funded think tank backed by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is involved in organising widespread farmer protests in the run-up to the EU elections, DeSmog can reveal.

Hardline farming groups pledged to “sweep away” EU decision-makers at a “lunch and discussion” event, which was hosted by MCC Brussels on April 9.

The think tank is an offshoot of Mathias Corvinus Collegium – an educational institution that in 2020 received more than $1.3 billion in Hungarian state funding. It convened a number of far-right linked farming groups from 10 EU countries in the Belgian capital.

Speakers at the meeting included the hardline Dutch organisation Farmers’ Defence Force (FDF), which hit out at EU environmental and trade policy.

Spokesperson Sieta van Keimpema accused the EU Commission of “deliberately exterminating its own farmers and its own food production”.

She told the audience at the “eco-friendly” Thon Hotel EU that their movement would “take a broom and sweep them away from their Brussels homes, sweep them away from the 6th to the 9th [of June]”.

The group hopes to rally 100,000 people to attend protests on June 4, in what it sees as a critical moment to influence voters. The demonstration would be the culmination of a wave of Europe-wide protests by farmers, which have triggered an unprecedented rollback of environmental measures.

The protest is backed by organisations from Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, France, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania and Spain, according to FDF’s press release.

MCC, which also hosted the controversial “hard-right” NatCon conference in April, has ramped up its hostility to EU-led green farming reforms over the past six months. It is a newcomer to the farming debate, first publicly declaring support for the cause last summer, months before widespread protests that saw tractors block roads in countries across the continent earlier this year.

A report from the Financial Times in February suggested that the think tank had organised farmers demonstrations in January, though it did not name the group directly. An event on the MCC Brussels website appears to corroborate this, inviting farmers to attend a protest on January 24 against “the EU’s overzealous green policies” followed by networking drinks.

Cas Mudde, a professor specialising in the populist radical right at University of Georgia, says MCC Brussels’ support of protests fits with the eurosceptic agenda of Orbán, whose political director chairs the think tank’s parent group.

“The far-right in general, and Orbán in particular, has a strategic reason for supporting the radical farmers in Brussels,” Mudde told DeSmog. “They create the public image of chaos and dissatisfaction with the EU, which helps their anti-EU message for the European election campaign.”

MCC, the parent organisation for MCC Brussels, was contacted for comment prior to publication. MCC Brussels was contacted immediately after publication of the article but has yet to offer a comment.

‘Much More Radical’

Farmers have clashed with police and lit fires outside EU buildings in Brussels in a spate of demonstrations in the past four months. While farmers have protested against an anticipated surge in bureaucracy from proposed green laws, complaints also focused on low prices at the farm gate and lack of protection against increasingly extreme weather. 

The protests have led to the weakening of proposed environmental reforms that were aimed at reducing climate impacts from agriculture, which is responsible for 11 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the EU.

Led by the right-wing European People’s Party, the EU’s largest political grouping, MEPs last week voted to weaken the majority of sustainability requirements for farmers in return for EU CAP subsidies. 

In some cases, far-right groups have hijacked protests, with authorities in Germany warning that groups there could even be using farmers to trigger an “overthrow” of the government. 

Far-right parties are expected to make major wins at the upcoming EU ballot, riding on rural discontent. 

Speakers at the April 9 event included Thomas Fazi, an author and researcher for MCC Brussels who has criticised the “great net zero lie” and spread conspiracy theories about the World Economic Forum attempting to control the food system through environmental laws. In his address, Fazi praised the farmers protests and warned against the EU’s “decades-long attack on Europe’s small-farming model”, urging farmers to be “much more radical in their analysis and demands”.

Fazi did not respond to DeSmog’s requests for comment. 

Far-Right Attendance

The Brussels discussion was followed by an invitation to a separate meeting held by farmers and a reception in the EU Parliament.

Although a full list of attendees was not made public, YouTube video footage and images posted on social media show that a number of key far-right figureheads participated in the MCC event.

Alongside Fazi, speakers included van Keimpema from Farmers’ Defence Force, who ran as a candidate for the Netherlands’ fringe far-right party Belang van Nederland last year. She told the event: “They are killing farmers and food production, slowly but surely, through land grabbing.” 

In 2019, van Keimpema warned of a “civil war” between farmers and the Dutch government over environmental measures. In a post on X in February, she dismissed climate warnings as “hysterical disaster and fear-mongering”. 

Farmers Defence Force, which was formed in 2019 to oppose animal rights activists, played a key role in protesting the country’s plans to buy out cattle farms in order to address the Netherland’s nitrogen pollution crisis. Its members have been criticised for aggressive tactics such as harassing journalists and intimidating environmental activists. 

The group described the MCC Brussels gathering as “a hopeful day”. In a press release issued after the meeting, it called on the “warriors” to “defend companies and families against the EU Commission’s demolition policy. Together. On June 4.”

Speaking on behalf of FDF, Van Keimpema told DeSmog that the group was not involved in organising any “media meetings” but had been invited as a speaker to the MCC event.

“We accepted, just as we accept invitations to speak at government meetings, TV programmes, papers, universities, schools, political and scientific events and in parliaments, from left to right politically,” she said. 

Van Keimpema added that their quotes had been “taken out of context”.

Another attendee, dairy farmer Bart Dickens from the Belgian Farmers Defence Force, told the Brussels meeting that the only way to win the EU’s “war on farming” was for farmers across Europe to “fight together”. The group, which was formed in 2023, claims to be independent but previously received funding from its Dutch counterpart.

A number of other far-right linked farmers groups were also present at the Brussels meeting.

A member of France’s Coordination Rurale, which has strong links to the country’s National Front party, was photographed outside the hotel in the group’s signature yellow beret. Also present were members of Germany’s hardline farming group Land Schafft Verbindung (LSV). At least one LSV member has had past ties to the neo-Nazi group NDP, now called Die Heimat.

Spain’s Plataforma 6-F, which was set up by a former affiliate of populist party Vox, are also reported to be taking part in the June 4 protests (although their presence at the MCC event is unknown).

“European farmers have made their voices heard and rattled, potentially even panicked, the institutions of the European Union,” MCC Brussels said on its webpage for the event.

DeSmog identified other far-right politicians in attendance. Front-row seats were held by Patricia Chagnon-Clevers, member of the European Parliament from France’s National Rally (formerly National Front) party, who posted on X that she was “delighted to participate”, and Hermann Kelly, leader of the Irish Freedom Party, which campaigns for Ireland to leave the EU.

The Farmers Defence Force has so far raised over €11,000 euros of a €50,000 euro target for the June protests. The group told news website Euractiv that it hoped the demonstrations would “make people aware of the possibility to vote for a different future” at the EU elections. 

‘War on Farming’

MCC Brussels is widely understood as part of Orbán’s plan to reshape the politics of the continent. The autocrat Orbán – who is in his fifth term as Hungry’s leader – is a major critic of the European Union, and recently declared plans to “occupy” Brussels and put a far-right stamp on policies around migration, climate and gender.

In 2020, the Hungarian government gifted the parent of the think tank, Mathias Corvinus Collegium, 10 percent stakes in the oil and gas giant MOL and in the pharmaceutical firm Gedeon Richter – two of the country’s three most valuable companies. It also provided more than $460 million in cash and $9 million in property. 

The Collegium – which models itself as an educational institute – made $65 million in dividends from the oil company in 2022.

MCC Brussels claims to be a long-term supporter of farmers, who it says have been targeted by “left-wing” green reforms. However, it only began publicly posting about the issue last year.

In a report issued in November titled “The Silent War on Farming: How EU policies are destroying our agriculture”, MCC claimed that the EU was “at war with its own farmers” and accused the bloc of “an environmentalist crusade”.

On an event page for a farmer demonstration and networking event hosted by MCC Brussels in January, the think tank stated: “the fortunes of farmers across Europe suffer from a common problem: the EU’s overzealous green policies and disinterest in, if not disdain for, farmers and ordinary people living in rural communities.”

In the last five years the EU has attempted to curb the polluting impacts of the agriculture industry, which has contributed to sharp decline in bird and bee populations across the bloc. The last Commission tabled a package of farming measures including cuts to pesticide use and steps to protect ecosystems on farmland – proposals which more than 6,000 scientists dubbed “cornerstones of food security and human health” in an open letter last year.

Orbán has embraced the farmers’ protests. In January 2024, his official X account posted a video of him at the demonstrations, accompanied by the words, “We will stand up for the voice of the people! Even if the bureaucrats in Brussels blackmail us.” The following month, his ruling Fidesz party posted a video on Facebook which also used the farmers’ protests to promote opposition to the EU.

“Orbán has carefully crafted his profile as a defender of large scale agriculture,” Balša Lubarda from DAMAR Research Institute, an expert in the far right and sustainability, told DeSmog. 

“The farmers’ protests seem to be an easy opportunity for Orbán to entrench his populist position as ‘the defender of the people against the climate elites’, which will most certainly bring votes.”

The organisations referenced in the article were approached for comment and had not responded prior to publication.

Additional research and reporting by Laura Villadiego, Coen Ramaer, Katharina Wecker and Rachel Sherrington

Editing by Phoebe Cooke and Hazel Healy

Update

Friday 3 May at 2:45pm. We updated the article to clarify that MCC Brussels were contacted immediately after the article was published. Its parent company MCC was contacted prior to publication.’

For more blogs and articles Ageing Democracy, Climate Change, Environment, EU European Union, Fossil Fuel Pollution, Koch Network, Political Strategy, Populist Politics, Russia and White Nationalism click through

Ageing Democracy, Nativism and Populism

Posted on January 18, 2019

Liberal democracies in western world need to make sure they do not become populist gerontocracies with changing demographics creating elderly ‘Gerrymandering’ where influence and numbers of older voters (with short term horizons) increasing proportionally over younger generations with longer term interests but less voice and influence.

Collective Narcissism, Ageing Electorates, Pensioner Populism, White Nativism and Autocracy

Posted on November 5, 2021

Plato noted more than 2000 years ago, one of the greatest dangers for democracy is that ordinary people are all too easily swayed by the emotional and deceptive rhetoric of ambitious politicians. We have observed the Anglosphere including the U.K., Australia and U.S., becoming more nativist, conservative, libertarian, extreme and conspiracy minded.  This is not organic.

French Farmers, Truckers and Covid Freedom Rallies Astroturfing vs. Science, Environment and EU European Union?

Posted on March 5, 2024

Farmers protesting in France and probably elsewhere are more about astroturfing by Big Ag to oppose the EU European’s Union Green Agenda, threats to CAP Common Agricultural Policy, pesticides and fossil fuels; does not seem to be a genuine issue of small farmers especially with indirect support of Le Pen?

Further, not only have similar protests occurred on the border of Poland and Ukraine, and other points, with allegations of Russian influence, there seems to be resonance with the US fossil fuel Koch Network ‘freedom rallies’ globally against Covid science, vaccinations and health mandates vs. centrist governments.

Heritage Foundation – Danube Institute – Trump – Hungarian PM Orban – Atlas – Koch Network – Conservatives

Posted on March 18, 2024

The Heritage Foundation has attracted attention of writer Michel in a The New Republic article below for Trump’s admiration of Hungarian PM Orban and how it has become more far right and extreme e.g. anti-Ukraine sentiments.

Additionally, the linked Danube Institute in Hungary is led by former Thatcher aide John O’Sullivan and European contributor for Australian conservative journal Quadrant.

Radical Libertarian Disinformation Machine – Koch Network by Nancy MacLean

Posted on October 19, 2022

Many nations, at least in the Anglosphere, have experienced disinformation whether related to climate science or fossil fuels, Covid science, education or democracy, and of late witnessed ‘Trussonomics’ in the UK, another version of Buchanan’s ‘Kochonomics’ or ‘radical right libertarian’ ideology.

However, where does this disinformation come from?

According to historian Nancy Maclean it’s a ‘deny and delay’ strategy of Koch Bros. or Koch Network which includes astroturfing, ‘Dark Money’, creating research, gerrymandering, SLAPPs, universities, Christians and conservatives.

Conspiracy of Denial – COVID-19 and Climate Science

Posted on August 24, 2020

Some would not be surprised with the doubts and confusion being created round the COVID-19 crisis, especially by those wanting all economic activity to continue and ignore the human costs. 

However, much of this agitprop, astro-turfing and junk science used by non experts has much in common with the information, media and political techniques used by radical right libertarian think tanks funded by the fossil fuel sector and related media, to influence society on climate science to avoid constraints and preserve income streams, with some eugenics in the background.

Russia and Anglosphere – Conservatives and Oligarchs – War vs EU and Future

Posted on July 26, 2023

Very good insight into and overview of Putin’s Russia and the ‘west’ including the Anglosphere from Alexander Etkin (CEU Wien) in Russia’s War Against Modernity.

Following are significant excerpts from Etkind’s analysis from reviewer at Inside Story (Australia) Jon Richardson, on how it endeavours to explain Russia, and one would add many other nations too, mirroring the radical right or corrupt nativist authoritarians with support from fossil fuels & industry oligarchs, consolidated right wing media, think tanks and leveraging ageing electorates.

Tucker Carlson – Donald Trump – Fox News – Rupert & Lachlan Murdoch – VDare – Peter Brimelow

Following are excerpts from a New York Times article on Tucker Carlson and Fox News, click through here How Tucker Carlson Reshaped Fox News — and Became Trump’s Heir from 30th April 2022.

After Roger Aile’s departure Fox News appointed Suzanne Scott who is less central amongst presenters and names as opposed to her focus on ratings, revenue etc. and less attention was paid to ethical & moral behaviour of e.g. Carlson, Hannity et al and open support for Trump and ‘the big lie’.

However, many would argue that the supposed business objective of just ratings and revenue would disagree when Murdoch media assets lose money in other markets, including Australia and the UK; suggest it’s more about political PR and influence?

‘How Tucker Carlson Reshaped Fox News — and Became Trump’s Heir

By Nicholas Confessore

Part 2 of 3 articles, Part 1 click here

Tucker Carlson had a problem.

After years in the cable wilderness, he had made a triumphant return to prime time. And his new show, “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” had leapfrogged to the heart of Fox News’s evening lineup just months after Donald J. Trump’s upset victory shattered the boundaries of conventional politics.

But as Mr. Trump thrashed through his first months in office, Mr. Carlson found himself with an unexpected programming challenge: Fox was too pro-Trump. The new president watched his favorite network religiously, and often tweeted about what he saw there, while Fox broadcasts reliably parroted White House messaging. No one was more on message than Sean Hannity, then Fox’s highest-rated star, who frequently devoted his show to Mr. Trump’s daily battles with Washington Democrats and the media.

Newly planted in Fox’s newly vacated 8 p.m. time slot — previously held by the disgraced star Bill O’Reilly — Mr. Carlson told friends and co-workers that he needed to find a way to reach the Trump faithful, but without imitating Mr. Hannity. He didn’t want to get sucked into apologizing for Mr. Trump every day, he told one colleague, because the fickle, undisciplined new president would constantly need apologizing for.

The solution would not just propel Mr. Carlson toward the summit of cable news. It would ultimately thrust him to the forefront of the nationalist forces reshaping American conservatism. “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” the host and his producers decided, would embrace Trumpism, not Mr. Trump. The show would grasp the emotional core of Mr. Trump’s allure — white panic over the country’s changing ethnic composition — while keeping a carefully measured distance from the president himself. For years, as his television career sputtered, Mr. Carlson had adopted increasingly catastrophic views of immigration and the country’s shifting demographics. Now, as Mr. Trump took unvarnished nativism from the right-wing fringe to the Oval Office, Mr. Carlson made it the centerpiece of “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

He began seeking out stories, one friend observed, that were sometimes “really weird” and often inaccurate but tapped into viewers’ fears of a trampled-on American culture. He inveighed against Macy’s new line of hijabs, and devoted a segment to “Gypsy” refugees in a Pennsylvania town who Mr. Carlson said had left “streets covered — pardon us now, but it’s true — with human feces.” (It was not true: Local officials ultimately documented a single instance of a refugee child who had pulled down his pants outside because he couldn’t make it back home in time.) He cataloged, and magnified, overlooked instances of what he cast as growing discrimination against white Americans. Stories about the threat of immigration had long been a feature of Fox. But Mr. Carlson dialed up the intensity, expertly weaving tropes borrowed from the far right into a narrative that would come to define “Tucker Carlson Tonight”: falling birthrates among the native-born, big-city crime, lax immigration policies designed to forcibly alter American society — all engineered or encouraged by a “ruling class” desperate to censor public discussion of its own failures.

A Times analysis of 1,150 episodes reveals how Tucker Carlson pushes extremist ideas and conspiracy theories into millions of households, five nights a week.

Trumpism Without Trump

“Tucker Carlson Tonight” was at first only a slight update on the classic cable shoutfest. The show arrived on Fox a few months after Roger Ailes, the network’s powerful co-founder, was forced out amid a widening sexual harassment scandal. Mr. Ailes had been lukewarm on Mr. Carlson, then paying his dues on the weekend edition of “Fox and Friends.” (According to a Fox colleague at the time, Mr. Ailes had once described Mr. Carlson’s hiring at Fox as “his last chance” in cable news.) But the Murdochs liked him, and Rupert Murdoch, who temporarily took the reins after ousting Mr. Ailes, installed Mr. Carlson in Fox’s 7 p.m. slot.

In segments dubbed “Tucker Takes On,” Mr. Carlson would invite on a liberal foil for combat, an approach Fox executives sometimes referred to as “Twitter for television.” There were lighter segments, like “The Friend Zone,” in which the host would bring on a Fox colleague or friend for a bit of self-promotion, or “King for a Day,” in which viewers would be invited to propose one thing they would do to fix the country.

Less than two months in, Mr. Murdoch promoted Mr. Carlson again, to the higher-profile 9 p.m. slot abruptly vacated by Megyn Kelly. To help write scripts, Mr. Carlson hired one of his old Daily Caller reporters: Blake Neff, a young South Dakotan who would later be let go after CNN outed him for posting racist and sexist jokes online. “Tucker Carlson Tonight” began to dial up coverage of college liberals, both a Fox staple and Mr. Neff’s specialty at The Caller. Sometimes titled “Campus Craziness,” the segments featured conservative professors shunned for criticizing Islam and left-wing professors expressing hatred for white people.

A Ratings Game

But as America declined on screen, Mr. Carlson ascended behind it.

Fox News was undergoing the most significant changes in its history, a shift that would position Mr. Carlson to seize outsize power within the network. The Murdochs were negotiating to sell most of their television and studio assets to the Walt Disney Company, a transaction that would also resolve the family’s succession battle, leaving Lachlan Murdoch as sole heir to the throne. He was widely viewed as having more conservative politics than his father. In Australia, he had been instrumental in installing a number of hard-right executives and editors at the family’s media properties, while overseeing efforts to transform the little-watched cable channel Sky News into a mini-Fox, with a fiery evening lineup. At Fox, he became friendly with Mr. Carlson, who cultivated a perception within the network that the two men were close.

Mr. Murdoch ran the new Fox enterprises — now a stripped-down company with Fox News at its core — from across the country, in Los Angeles. (Last year, he moved back to Australia.) In mid-2018, he announced the appointment of Suzanne Scott, an Ailes-era network veteran, as the new Fox News chief executive. Though credited with helping revamp the network’s post-O’Reilly lineup, Ms. Scott, who would preside over Fox expansions into weather, books and other new divisions, seemed disinclined to exert Mr. Ailes’s tight rein over Fox’s talent, according to former employees. And where Mr. Ailes had been regarded within Fox — if not always outside it — as protective of the news divisions’ credibility, Ms. Scott, mindful of the cable industry’s long-term headwinds, was focused on preserving the network’s audience. “Suzanne began talking about, ‘We have to do more of what we do best,’” said one former senior employee.

Under Ms. Scott, Fox’s news shows began to more closely mimic its highly rated prime-time opinion shows in both tone and topic. 

Mr. Lowell and Mr. Mitchell pitched the initiative as “Moneyball” for television: a data-driven, audience-first approach to deciding what to cover and how to cover it. But journalists on the daytime lineup discerned a pattern to what the audience didn’t like. Segments featuring Fox’s own reporters consistently drew lower ratings, especially if they were covering stories the audience deemed unfavorable to Mr. Trump. So did guests who leaned left, or simply staked out independent viewpoints. Mr. Lowell and Mr. Mitchell, for example, urged shows not to book Chris Stirewalt, a respected, down-the-middle political editor and analyst. But immigration was a hit. Coverage of migrant caravans became a Fox mainstay, with one correspondent even embedded with refugee groups.

Fox executives wanted to focus on “the grievance, the stuff that would get people boiled up,” said one current Fox employee. “They’re coming for you, the Blacks are coming for you, the Mexicans are coming for you.”

Dangers Abroad

In the spring of 2018, Mr. Carlson aired a segment that jolted even his more jaded Fox colleagues. South Africa’s white farmers were “being targeted in a wave of barbaric and horrifying murders,” he told viewers. The Black-led government “just passed a law allowing it to seize their farms without any compensation, based purely on their ethnicity.”

Until Mr. Carlson waded in, few Americans were paying attention to “farm murders” in South Africa. In a country of 60 million people, where violent crime is common but the vast majority of its victims are Black, the police record dozens of murders of whites on farms and other small holdings each year. But the notion that white farmers were being singled out for attack was largely confined to the far-right web, where writers and commenters warned of a burgeoning “white genocide” — itself a neo-Nazi trope dating back to the end of apartheid.

Then the Murdoch empire stepped in. In the winter of 2018, reporters for a Murdoch-owned Australian tabloid, The Daily Telegraph, contacted AfriForum, a self-styled civil rights group for South Africa’s Afrikaner white minority. For months, with little success, the group had been circulating widely contested studies claiming to show that white farmers faced a disproportionate risk of murder and brutalization. After touring white-owned farms in South Africa, the Telegraph team returned with a package of columns and news articles asserting that being a South African farmer was “now the world’s most dangerous job” and demanding that they be granted emergency refugee visas. From there, the story would be picked up by the Fox-inspired nighttime hosts on Sky News. Within days, Australia’s home affairs minister floated the idea of fast-track visas for South African farmers.

The idea went nowhere, but the story soon jumped around the world. In a 2018 meeting of Fox News executives, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions, Mr. Lowell proposed covering farm murders for American audiences, echoing the fevered framing of his Australian colleagues: a country descending into chaos, an impoverished Black majority scheming to kill white farmers and steal their land. Mr. Carlson, it turned out, was also pursuing the story. He had briefly mentioned farm murders in a segment that March, and two months later, when AfriForum officials made a lobbying trip to Washington, an ally put them in touch with him…..

….But Mr. Carlson dug in. He covered South African farm murders and land disputes throughout the spring and summer, again claiming that officials there were seizing land that they hadn’t under a constitutional amendment that didn’t exist. That August, after an episode of “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” President Trump tweeted that his administration would “closely study” the seizure of white-owned land and the “large-scale killing of farmers.” Alt-right and neo-Nazi figures in the United States cheered the propaganda coup. Patrick Casey, leader of the group Identity Evropa, exulted that Mr. Trump’s proclamation could help bring white nationalist ideas to a mainstream audience.

“Conservatives becoming aware of the plight of White South Africans has the potential to take them beyond the current limitations of ‘acceptable’ conservative immigration debate toward identitarianism,” Mr. Casey tweeted.

Strange Bedfellows

Fox journalists soon had another reason for concern. Around the same time Mr. Carlson was promoting the notion of a South African ethnic cleansing, Fox was lurching through a post-Ailes rebuilding of its human resources organization. Lines of authority and power had always been mysterious at Fox, and so when a formal organizational chart appeared on the company’s employee portal, some curious employees logged on to see who reported directly to Rupert Murdoch.

Most of Murdoch’s subordinates were unsurprising, according to several people who viewed the chart. But one came as a shock: Peter Brimelow, founder of the website VDare.

The British-born Mr. Brimelow had known Mr. Murdoch for decades and once worked as a columnist for MarketWatch, the Murdoch-owned financial news site. But over the years, he had adopted more pronounced nativist views; VDare, started in 1999, had evolved into a hub of the new, more online-oriented white nationalist movement. Mr. Brimelow once described the Obama administration as a “Minority Occupation Government” and California as “totally overrun by barrios of illegal immigrants.” Shortly after Mr. Trump was elected, he spoke at a conference held by the National Policy Institute, a latter-day white nationalist group. (Mr. Brimelow sued The Times in 2020 for articles in which either he or VDare was described as white nationalist; a judge dismissed the case later that year. A separate lawsuit brought by VDare is still pending.)

Mr. Brimelow’s apparent role at Fox set off a new wave of consternation and gossip. Employees who asked about the relationship were given a variety of explanations. Mr. Brimelow was said to be helping with Mr. Murdoch’s memoirs — a project that, as far as most people understood, their boss had abandoned in the 1990s — or writing speeches, or attached to some other Murdoch initiative. In short order, several former Fox employees recalled, the organizational chart was taken down entirely.

A Fox spokeswoman said Mr. Brimelow did not currently have any relationship with the company. Mr. Brimelow declined to comment, writing in an email that The Times could not be trusted, so “you cannot expect any sane person to talk to you.”

In August 2018, Mr. Brimelow was spotted at a birthday party for the Trump adviser Larry Kudlow, drawing an article in The Washington Post and prompting the White House and Mr. Kudlow to distance themselves from Mr. Brimelow. But at Fox, some took the Brimelow discovery as an indirect explanation for the latitude Fox had extended Mr. Carlson on South Africa. If Mr. Murdoch had someone like Mr. Brimelow working for him, reasoned the former employee, he would have little objection to Mr. Carlson peddling far-right themes. (By coincidence, the same week Mr. Murdoch’s newspapers had begun their emergency-visa campaign in Australia, VDare published a story imploring Mr. Trump to welcome South African farmers to the United States.)

South Africa was not an aberration. In an echo of how Mr. Murdoch’s media empire had spent decades nurturing right-wing populism throughout the English-speaking world, Mr. Carlson had begun to fashion his show as a broader platform for nationalist ideas. From early on, he had promoted right-wing figures from abroad, people who could provide testimony on his themes of immigration and social decay. Now he was forging links with an increasingly globalized movement of populist activists and politicians — some of them eager for influence in Trump-era Washington.

Among those politicians was Hungary’s autocratic prime minister, Viktor Orban, a rising darling of the international far right. In late 2018, the Hungarian embassy hired a lobbyist, William Nixon, with business ties to Mr. Carlson’s father; within weeks, the lobbyist was in touch with Mr. Carlson about arranging an interview with the Hungarian foreign minister, who was planning a trip to Washington. During these talks, according to a person with knowledge of the conversations, Mr. Carlson mentioned that his head writer, Mr. Neff, was headed to Hungary the following year to report on how Mr. Orban was “improving the country.” (At the time, allies of Mr. Orban, a promoter of what he called “illiberal democracy,” had completed a sweeping takeover of the country’s news media, and the government would soon begin efforts to shut down a Budapest university founded by the liberal philanthropist George Soros.) In an email to The Times, Mr. Neff characterized his trip as a vacation.,,,,,

……Where South Africa was a warning of the hell that America could become, Hungary was a vision of the paradise that could be had by taking America back. “You don’t have to watch your country collapse,” Mr. Carlson told viewers. “You don’t have to have leaders who hate the population or divide their own people against each other.”

Going Farther Afield

The day after the 2018 midterms, as darkness fell over Washington’s leafy Kent neighborhood, members of a local antifa group appeared outside Mr. Carlson’s home to protest his coverage of the migrant caravan. Standing in his driveway, yelling through bullhorns, they chanted, “We know where you sleep at night.” Mr. Carlson was not at home, but his wife, Susie Andrews, was. According to the Carlsons, someone banged on the door. Panicked, she locked herself in the pantry and dialed 911…..

The Backlash Pays

It was a frequent refrain on “Tucker Carlson Tonight”— and a calculated one. According to former Fox employees, Mr. Carlson and his team had learned to work the calls for boycotts and cancellation into their programming playbook. Mr. Carlson would grab third rails on race or immigration, then harvest the inevitable backlash, returning the next evening to roast his critics for trying to suppress an obvious truth. The feedback loop didn’t just drive up ratings. It boosted the audience’s loyalty to Fox, while encouraging audiences to identify with Mr. Carlson himself, now playing victim to the same forces he was warning them about. (Liberal-leaning outlets and Twitter influencers also capitalized on Mr. Carlson’s provocations, using clips from “Tucker Carlson Tonight” to attract and provoke his haters rather than his fans.)….

…..But it’s less clear whether the attacks significantly affected Fox’s bottom line: To compensate for the lost advertising, Fox turned “Tucker Carlson Tonight” into a promotional engine for the network itself. It replaced the fleeing sponsors with a torrent of in-house promos, leveraging Mr. Carlson’s popularity to drive viewers to other, more advertiser-friendly offerings. By early 2019, roughly a fifth of all advertising “impressions” on the show were from in-house ads, according to data from the analytics company iSpot.tv. ….

An Upside-Down Nation

In the end, it was Fox’s own political unit, a bastion of traditional news-gathering, that brought the network’s increasingly wobbly balancing act to an end. Just before midnight on Election Day, hours ahead of other networks and news consortiums, Fox announced that Joseph R. Biden Jr. had won the swing state of Arizona. Mr. Trump instantly declared the result a “fraud,” but the following Saturday, as late votes trickled in, Mr. Biden won Pennsylvania, ending the presidential race.

Mr. Trump’s defeat was the ultimate glitch in Fox’s Trump narrative, one that couldn’t be so easily spun or papered over by its prime-time hosts. Despondent Trump supporters began to look elsewhere for news, encouraged by anti-Fox tweets from Mr. Trump himself. In early December, the upstart conservative network Newsmax, which had positioned itself as even more devotedly pro-Trump, scored its first ratings win over Fox. It was a minor crack in Fox’s cable dominance — fewer than 30,000 viewers in one audience segment on a single December night in the 7 p.m. hour — but it sent shudders through the Fox executive suites. The network might shrug off the complaints of a few advertisers; losing audience to a right-leaning rival was another thing. That month, according to one former Fox executive, Rupert Murdoch delivered a message to the network’s chief executive, Ms. Scott: Clean house. (A Fox spokeswoman disputed this description.)

The purge would not come until early January, as CNN and MSNBC overtook Fox, the cable-news ratings leader for two decades, and as Washington reeled from the violent, Trump-inspired effort to overturn Mr. Biden’s victory. In the intervening weeks, Mr. Carlson and other Fox prime-time hosts would pump out a steady stream of attacks on the election results, often drawing on claims of voter fraud from Mr. Trump and his new legal team, led by Rudolph W. Giuliani. Fox’s prime-time guns also aimed inward: When a Fox White House correspondent and occasional Carlson guest, Kristin Fisher, told viewers that much of one rambling Giuliani presentation “was simply not true or has already been thrown out in court,” Mr. Carlson went on the air to attack “credentialed reporters, some of whom we know and like,” who were refusing “even to acknowledge” the already discredited claims. He had not mentioned Ms. Fisher by name, but she was warned by superiors to keep her head down, according to two former employees. She did not reappear on air for several days, and her appearances declined significantly in subsequent weeks. (Ms. Fisher later left for CNN.) Around the network, supervisors repeated an Orwellian mantra: “Respect the audience.”

“When a group of sad, disenfranchised people who have been left out of the modern economy show up at your office, you don’t have to listen to their complaints. Not for a second. Why would you?”…

…..Trumpism without Trump had begun as a programming strategy. Now, with Mr. Trump gone from the White House and cut off from Twitter and Facebook, it has become a reality. Mr. Carlson, more successfully than any other figure on the right, has filled the vacuum, picking up the banner of Mr. Trump’s movement and the followers who insist he was cheated of victory….

…..“Propaganda tends to bewilder people, to confuse them when they first hear it,” Mr. Carlson observed last fall, in a monologue accusing liberals and mainstream outlets of themselves misleading the public about Covid-19, Jan. 6 and the 2020 elections. “It is so completely and obviously untrue,” he continued. “‘What is this?’ you think. And yet for that very reason, because it’s so ridiculous, so absurd, propaganda tends to be effective.”

Reporting was contributed by Larry Buchanan, Weiyi Cai, Ben Decker, Alan Feuer, Barbara Harvey, Kenneth P. Vogel, and Karen Yourish. Jack Begg and Julie Tate contributed research.’

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Murdochs, FoxNews, Tucker Carlson, Anglo Conservatives and Hungary

Posted on November 19, 2023

Fox owner Rupert Murdoch allegedly fired FoxNews’ Tucker Carlson which may be plausible, but not credible if one observes other allegations apart from Christian beliefs that have emerged?

Strange Conservative Political Links – The Anglosphere, Hungary and Russia

Posted on November 17, 2022

Another informed article from Szabolc Panyi in ByLine Times titled ‘Strange Allies Hungary, Russia & the UK’ highlighting the links of Anglosphere conservatives on the right including visitors, fellows and politicians presenting at or liaising with their counterparts, think tanks and institutes.

Not only are there allegations and warnings about links to Putin’s Russia e.g. US conservative Anne Applebaum warned visiting fellows of the Danube Institute after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and before the Hungarian elections, funded by the Hungarian government (3 April 2022, Twitter), but appear to be links with Koch Network think tanks and media.  The latter not only involves Murdoch’s FoxNews, Tucker Carlson, CPAC, Steve Bannon, Nigel Farage et al., but links to RT and (K)GB News (supported by the Legatum Institute in Dubai?).

Putin Owns Trump’s GOP Republicans & UK Conservatives?

Posted on April 19, 2024

Observed over the past several years confusion and surprise around the success of Trump, GOP etc. and UK Conservatives’ mutual admiration for authoritarian Christian nationalists, including the likes of Vladimir Putin and Russia?

Media Misinformation and Distrust – Fox News – Rupert Murdoch – Roger Ailes – Vladimir Putin

Posted on April 16, 2024

Relevant article from the past on methods of media communication, misinformation and shared techniques between Putin’s Russia e.g. IRA Internet Research Agency troll farm, Fox News and related media outlets.

While Roger Ailes was apparently not well liked by Lachlan or James Murdoch, he was left to his own devices at Fox News by Rupert Murdoch to assist in creating narratives and talking points for the right and profits, especially amongst the GOP Republicans, developing mistrust amongst voters.

Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch – Fox News and Ultra Conservative Grifters – Putin, Brexit, Trump, GOP and Orban

Posted on March 7, 2024

Repost of article about Rupert Murdoch in Australia by Sean Kelly in Mother Jones January 2024.

Putin’s Russian Led Corruption of Anglosphere and European Radical Right, Conservatives and Christians

Posted on March 4, 2024

Some years ago Putin and Russia attracted much attention and sympathy from Anglo and European ultra conservative Christians, radical right and free market libertarians for Russia’s corrupt nativist authoritarianism with antipathy towards liberal democracy, the EU and open society.

These phenomena can be observed through visitors and liaisons, but more so by shared talking points and values.  These include family values, pro-life, Christianity, patriarchy, misogyny, white supremacy, traditionalism, dominionism, Evangelicals, anti-LGBT, anti-woke,  anti-elite, anti-gay marriage, traditional wives etc. and corruption, promoted by right wing parties, media, ultra conservative influencers, think tanks and NGOs.

Mainstreaming Extremism – How Public Figures and Media Incite Nativist Beliefs Leading to Violence

Posted on November 29, 2022

Eugenics and racism have been apparent for centuries, but nowadays we are not surprised at extremist events in the Anglosphere, especially shootings in the US, mostly from the white nativist right, with incitement from media, or those accessing media.

Below is an article repost from Bryn Nelson in Scientific American: ‘How Stochastic Terrorism Uses Disgust to Incite Violence. Pundits are weaponizing disgust to fuel violence, and it’s affecting our humanity.’ describing how people are encouraged to view what should be neutral sociocultural issues with ‘disgust’.

US or UK Sanctions on Murdoch’s Fox News Support for Putin’s Russia?

Posted on May 8, 2022

Interesting article by Nick Cohen suggesting sanctions for Murdoch’s Fox News, and highlighting influence through to the left in the Anglosphere, where there is support for Putin’s Russia and his interests.  

Seems to be shared white Christian nationalist interests and issues between Putin’s Russia, the GOP representing business, libertarian ideology of Koch Network think tanks and also the left, not to forget many Conservative and some Labour MPs compromised by Russian influence, like many of the far right in Europe.

Mont Pelerin Society MPS – Social Darwinism – Free Market Economics – Atlas Koch Network

The Mont Pelerin Society (MPS) another fulcrum of influence for radical right libertarians, climate science deniers and fossil fuels, the less than 1% and Austrian-Chicago School of social-Darwinist economics, with its influence continuing via Atlas or Koch Network and ultra conservatives.

MPS has been behind and influenced a network of think tanks globally via Atlas or Koch to promote climate science denial, fossil fuels, deregulation or lower standards etc. then leveraging right wing media, influencers, advisors and politicians to adopt the same policies, see ‘bill mill’ ALEC.

Members allegedly have included Charles Koch, and supported by notables including Murdochs, Evangelical Christian and related donors, with the GOP Republicans adopting MPS and John Birch Society ideas, themes and actions for Project 2025, being developed with Heritage Foundation support.

Like members of IEA Institute of Economic Affairs and MPS, ‘segregation economist’ James Buchanan, the economic muse of Charles Koch, Atlas and Koch Network.

Objective, beyond low tax, small government and light regulation appears to be implementing a permanent social-Darwinist ideology used to justify corrupt nativist Christian authoritarianism in the Anglosphere, west, Russia and developing world, for the less than 1%?

‘DeSmog:

The Mont Pelerin Society MPS

Background

The Mont Pelerin Society (MPS) was created in 1947 by the free market economist and philosopher Friedrich von Hayek and advocates “classical liberalism,” an ideology classified by small government and minimal regulation of business. It was named after the location of the group’s first meeting in Switzerland, and the group’s subsequent annual meetings have spanned the globe including Galapagos Islands, Prague (former Czech president Vaclav Klaus is a member), New York, Morocco, Tokyo, Sydney, Buenos Aires, and Stockholm. American economist Milton Friedman was also one of the founding members of the Society….

….. Antony Fisher, a former Mont Pelerin Society Member, established both the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) in Europe, and the Atlas Economic Research Foundation. IEA’s other co-founder, Arthur Seldon, was formerly vice president of the MPS.

The Atlas Society, not to be confused with the Atlas Network, also includes individuals with affiliations to MPS. According to DeSmog research, Mont Pelerin members have ties to a wide range of conservative think tanks, many which have consistently denied the human influence on climate change. Some of the top groups tied to MPS through affiliations of its members include the Cato Institute, The Hoover Institution, the Heritage Foundation, the Reason Foundation, the Foundation for Economic Education, the American Enterprise Institute, the Centre for the New Europe, George Mason University, Fraser Institute, Mercatus Center (George Mason University), and the Heartland Institute.

Membership lists obtained by DeSmog dating to 2010 and, more recently, 2013 show that organizations represented by the MPS have deep ties to the Koch network. Charles Koch himself is a long-standing member of the Society. DeSmog dug into individual member affiliations, and found that Koch foundations have poured more than $100 million into at least 54 groups connected to individual MPS members.

Stance on Climate Change

Some sources have connected the proliferation of climate change denial organizations and think tanks with neoliberalism. A 2013 issue of the not-for-profit magazine Overland put it as follows:

“Neoliberalism is a coherent political movement embodied in the institutional history of the global network of think tanks: the American Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute, the Institute of Economic Affairs, the Institute of Public Affairs (the key Australian node of the network) and their dedicated spin-off counter-science think tanks. All can be traced back to the Mont Pelerin Society, the central think tank of the neoliberal counter-revolution, founded in 1947 by Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman.”

Overland also equates the tactics of climate science denialism with that of the tobacco industry.

“Each component of the neoliberal response is firmly grounded in neoliberal economic doctrine and has its own special function. Similar to the strategies of tobacco companies, science denialism is intended to quash immediate impulses to respond to the crisis, thus buying time for commercial interests to find a way to profit. The think tanks behind the denial of climate change don’t seriously believe they will, in the long run, win the war of ideas within academic science. But bashing pointy-headed elites lends them a certain populist cachet, while protecting the commercial interests of the oil companies, coal miners and gas drillers.

The project to institute markets in emission permits is a neoliberal mid-range strategy, better attuned to appeal to centrist governments, NGOs and the educated segments of the populace, as well as to the financial sector. […]”

Writing at DeSmog, Graham Readfearn has noted that the Mont Pelerin Society has long been home to some of the most ardent supporters of climate change denial……

Continues here.’

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Adam Smith – Classical Liberal Economics or Conservative Calvinist Christianity or White Christian Nationalism?

Posted on June 21, 2021

We observe many governments, especially Anglosphere and conservative, following the ideology of Adam Smith, promoted through Koch linked think tanks, assiduously. The outcomes include less Keynesian influence on government policy and more Smith, or Hayek, Friedman and Buchanan.

The latter cite ‘freedom and liberty’ for society, and economic policies based round ‘public choice theory’, monetarism and small government. Related there is also much emphasis or attention paid to elections, taxes, government budgets and many sociocultural issues including impairment of workers and unions rights, interfering on university campuses, demanding immigration restrictions, ‘freedom of speech’ and using Christianity as a divisive issue to create an ageing conservative voter coalition, especially in the USA.

CPAC Conservative Political Action Conference and the John Birch Society

Posted on March 14, 2024

CPAC US has been in the news for falling audiences and fallings out between different groups and players, while CPAC Hungary will be held 25-26th April in Budapest.

Recently both The Atlantic and SPLC Southern Poverty Law Center have highlighted the links between CPAC and the anti-communist John Birch Society, founded by Robert Welch, with assistance from others including Fred Koch.

Anglosphere Nativist Libertarian Social Economic Policies or Return of Eugenics?

Posted on October 28, 2022

In the past decade we have witnessed a political shift to the nativist and libertarian right in the Anglosphere, but described as ‘conservative’, appealing to the important above median age voter, less educated, more socially conservative, obedient and monocultural, but e.g. in UK leading to austerity measures?

Most of these ideas come from the classical or liberal economists of the past including Calvin, Smith, Ricardo et al. and also includes old eugenics based ideas of dour Christian men like Malthus on population, Galton on social Darwinism or eugenics, and worse, Madison Grant in the US who influenced Hitler.

Ghosts of Galton and Eugenics Return – Society, Population and Environment in the 21st Century

Posted on November 25, 2021

We have already looked at some other key players of the past related to eugenics, population via Malthus and liberal economics of Adam Smith, now we look at Galton, if not in detail, a broad sketch of his life and later impact on society, especially in the Anglosphere.

This has been exemplified by how eugenics theory never went away, even after the Nazis post WWII, but reemerged via the US using an environmental and climate prism, with a focus upon Malthusian population obsessions; supported by ZPG, UNPD data, Anglosphere media and think tanks to avoid regulation and business constraints, while encouraging xenophobia.

CPAC Conservative Political Action Conference and the John Birch Society

Posted on March 14, 2024

CPAC US has been in the news for falling audiences and fallings out between different groups and players, while CPAC Hungary will be held 25-26th April in Budapest.

Recently both The Atlantic and SPLC Southern Poverty Law Center have highlighted the links between CPAC and the anti-communist John Birch Society, founded by Robert Welch, with assistance from others including Fred Koch.

Anglosphere Oligarchs – Koch Atlas Network Think Tanks

Posted on March 27, 2023

We have heard much of supposed ‘libertarian’ think tanks or PR outfits in the Anglosphere influencing policy, especially of the right, via media and lobbying, euphemistically known as ‘Koch Network’ or the ‘Kochtopus’ with a fondness for fossil fuels and climate science denial.

New Yorker journalist Jane Mayer investigated several years ago for her book ‘Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right’ (2017) which included insight into oligarch donors Mellon-Scaife, Olin, Bradley, DeVos and Coors.

Further, historian Nancy MacLean in researching her book ‘Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America’ (2017) she stumbled across the economic muse of Kochs, ‘segregation economist’ James Buchanan.

Russian Influence and Propaganda in Anglosphere – GOP Republicans, UK Conservatives, Media and Think Tanks

Analysis via Rolling Stone article on GOP Representatives being informed by and using Russian talking points e.g. to denigrate Ukraine, EU European Union, the west and liberal democracy.

However, this assumes that the same GOP representatives have always been informed well, while avoiding media, influencers, Christian groups and think tanks?

One would argue that no man or woman is an island, let alone purely objective and original as most of our knowledge is gained from media, especially in US and Anglosphere, that is informed by Atlas – Koch Network think tanks, Murdoch led right wing media e.g. Fox News and influencers, while many Christian groups have had long term links with Russia from Soviet times (and influence operations?).

Further, not only is there the shared interest including fossil fuels, nationalism, Christianity, traditional values and autocracy, but deep seated antipathy towards the EU European Union’s minimum standards on labour, consumer protections, taxes, anti-laundering measures, environment, transition to renewable energy sources, liberal democracy, diversity and empowered citizens; see Brexit.

However, many claim that maybe these Anglosphere players had been compromised in past decades (without realising) by Russian influence e.g. UK ‘Conservatives for Russia’, but now being ‘wedged’ into silence or blocking e.g. aid to Ukraine?

‘Rolling Stone:

GOP Rep. Turner: Republicans Have ‘Uttered’ Russian Propaganda ‘on the House Floor’

The congressman said it is “absolutely true” that Russia’s anti-Ukraine messaging has “infected” his party’s base

BY PETER WADE

Republican Rep. Mike Turner accused some of his colleagues of having “uttered” Russian propaganda “on the House floor” amid Vladimir Putin‘s invasion of Ukraine.

“We see directly coming from Russia attempts to mask communications that are anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor,” the chair of the House Intelligence Committee told Jake Tapper in an interview that aired Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union.

Turner’s comments back an earlier assertion by fellow Republican and chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Michael McCaul, who told Puck News last week, “I think Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States, unfortunately, and it’s infected a good chunk of my party’s base.”

McCaul blamed conservative media outlets for pushing Russian propaganda, including “nighttime entertainment shows” that spew “identical” talking points being used by Russian state media. He mentioned “these people that read various conspiracy-theory outlets that are just not accurate, and they actually model Russian propaganda” and said it was “obvious” which of his GOP colleagues had fallen for it. That’s when McCaul’s staff insisted the conversation be moved off the record.

“I mean, there are members of Congress today who still incorrectly say that this conflict between Russia and Ukraine is over NATO, which, of course, it is not,” Turner said Sunday. “Vladimir Putin having made it very clear, both publicly and to his own population, that his view is that this is a conflict of a much broader claim of Russia to Eastern Europe, including claiming all of Ukraine territory as Russia’s.”

“To the extent that this propaganda takes hold, it makes it more difficult for us to really see this as an authoritarian versus democracy battle, which is what it is,” Turner added.

Republican members of the House, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, have recently opposed any additional aid to Ukraine. Greene has threatened to hold a vote to remove House Speaker Mike Johnson if he brings Ukraine aid to a floor vote. Turner said he doesn’t see “any risk” that Johnson will be ousted.’

Bill Kristol on Koch Network’s Heritage Foundation and Hungarian PM Orban:

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Brexit and UK Political Interference by Putin, Russia and Anglo Conservative Allies

Posted on March 12, 2024

Still, there is discussion and analysis of Brexit versus the EU and Trump versus Biden’s Democrat administration, with accusations and allegations being made against Conservative MPs, Ministers, some Labour, media, Anglo right wing grifters, US fossil fueled Atlas – Koch Network think tanks at Tufton, related nativist Tanton Network and Russians, including FSB, diplomats, media and oligarch types.

Radical Right in the West – Fossil Fuel Atlas Koch Network – Nativist Tanton Network – Murdoch Media – Putin’s Russia – Brexit – Trump

Posted on March 6, 2024

Radical right in Anglosphere and Europe is cited here by Scott in Politico, including the ‘great replacement’ and Renaud Camus, climate science and Covid 19 scepticism. 

Symptoms of fossil fuels, oligarchs and <1% supporting corrupt nativist authoritarianism found around (mostly) right wing parties with ageing and low info constituents, informed by talking points prompted by mainstream media, social media and influencers.

Putin’s Russian Led Corruption of Anglosphere and European Radical Right, Conservatives and Christians

Posted on March 4, 2024

Some years ago Putin and Russia attracted much attention and sympathy from Anglo and European ultra conservative Christians, radical right and free market libertarians for Russia’s corrupt nativist authoritarianism with antipathy towards liberal democracy, the EU and open society.

These phenomena can be observed through visitors and liaisons, but more so by shared talking points and values.  These include family values, pro-life, Christianity, patriarchy, misogyny, white supremacy, traditionalism, dominionism, Evangelicals, anti-LGBT, anti-woke,  anti-elite, anti-gay marriage, traditional wives etc. and corruption, promoted by right wing parties, media, ultra conservative influencers, think tanks and NGOs.

Alexander Downer – Donald Trump aide George Papadopoulos – Russian Influence?

Posted on March 3, 2024

Alexander Downer, former Australian Foreign Minister in Conservative LNP coalition, Australia’s UK High Commissioner till 2018, visitor to Koch Network Heritage Foundation linked Hungarian Danube Institute (with former PM, now GWPF, UK Trade Advisor and Murdochs’ new Fox Board member Tony Abbott), and source for claims by Trump related people of DNC emails stolen by Russians i.e. George Papadopoulos.

‘Just a diplomat doing his job? A new book puts the spotlight back on Australia, Russia and interference in the US election.’

Historical Influence and Links Between Russia and the US Christian Right

Posted on November 6, 2023

We observe in the Anglosphere resurgence in conservative Christian nationalism of the right, becoming a central issue in ageing electorates, more in the US, Russia and Central Europe; both an electoral and policy strategy, plus supporting beliefs.

Some of the Anglo links are former Australian PM and now UK Trade Advisor Tony Abbott with the ADF Alliance Defending Freedom, Donald Trump gaining support of Evangelical and ‘pro-life’ Christians, the fossil fueled Atlas or Koch Network and their influence on the conservative Christian CNP Council for National Policy, Koch influenced Federalist Society promoting ‘pro-life’ choices for SCOTUS on Roe vs. Wade, then sharing similar values with Orban et al. in Central Europe, and Putin in Russia too?

Nigel Farage – Julian Assange – Wikileaks – Trump Campaign – Russian Influence

Posted on November 2, 2023

In the Anglosphere there is still much confusion around Assange, Wikileaks, stolen DNC emails, Russian influence, Russia Report, Mueller Report, Trump campaign, Murdoch’s Fox News, Nigel Farage, Roger Stone, Cambridge Analytica, Tufton St. think tanks linked to Atlas or Koch Network, Steve Bannon  and right wing grifters, out to defeat Hillary Clinton’s Democratic Presidential Campaign in 2016.

Russia and Anglosphere – Conservatives and Oligarchs – War vs EU and Future

Posted on July 26, 2023

Very good insight into and overview of Putin’s Russia and the ‘west’ including the Anglosphere from Alexander Etkin (CEU Wien) in Russia’s War Against Modernity.

Following are significant excerpts from Etkind’s analysis from reviewer at Inside Story (Australia) Jon Richardson, on how it endeavours to explain Russia, and one would add many other nations too, mirroring the radical right or corrupt nativist authoritarians with support from fossil fuels & industry oligarchs, consolidated right wing media, think tanks and leveraging ageing electorates.

Conservative Christian CNP – Council for National Policy in US – Influence in UK, Russia and Europe

Posted on July 3, 2023

Good overview from Tamsin Shaw through ByLine Times of how the US and UK politics, funding, networking and campaigning, crosses over with various oligarchs, groups and nations, of dubious outlook.

Influence of Koch Network’s faux libertarian or free market think tanks, joined with nativism of Tanton Network faux environmentalism, media cartels led by Murdoch et al including Musk, Christian Conservatives and influencers, on latter the Council for National Policy.

Russia Report – Anglo Conservatives Compromised by Russian Interference on EU and Brexit

Posted on June 22, 2023

Return to questions over the U.K. Russia Report, former PM Johnson, Brexit, Conservative government, Russian oligarchs and influence on elections including the EU referendum..

Written by Peter Jukes and originally published January 2023 by ByLine Times, asking questions that are not only unresolved, but actively avoided by the Tories, media and supporters for the advantage of Putin’s Russia and oligarchs, both east and west?

How Conservatives Admire Corrupt Dictators and Authoritarians – Trump and Putin

Article from Michel in TNR The New Republic on the right’s obsession with, respect and desire for authoritarians and dictators, even if corrupt and nativist including Trump and Putin.

While ‘free market’ think tanks, especially US fossil fuel Atlas or Koch Network promote right wing policies for the 1%, and related white nativist Tanton Network entities promote eugenics and the great replacement.

Further, two other central elements include media and ageing citizens; hollowed out legacy media including ‘news deserts’ and now social media being colonised or flooded with far right nativist agitprop to increasing numbers of ageing and/or disadvantaged voters who are less urban, less diverse, less educated and less informed.

Right wing parties, nativists and populists are being used to support both eugenics and corporate friendly policies for the 1% versus 99%, even if against the latter’s interests; see Brexit, Trump and Putin.

From TNR The New Republic:

How the American Right Fell in Love With Dictators, Over and Over Again Trump and Putin are nothing new.

By Casey Michel

For years, an imperialistic, hard-right European dictator unleashing bloodshed across the Continent cultivated supporters across the U.S. This despot claimed he was leading a “unique, anti-Western culture,” and, in so doing, cultivated allies and fellow travelers among conservatives across America, all of whom were disgusted by “corrupt Western liberal values” and who “scorned Western liberalism as a bankrupt ideology.” Nor was this appeal just rhetorical; as investigators later discovered, this right-wing revanchist bankrolled both propaganda efforts and agents on the ground, successfully turning Americans, especially on the right, to his cause.

To modern readers, the story is a familiar one — not least as it pertains to Donald Trump’s affections for Vladimir Putin, to say nothing of how Russian forces have cultivated conservative Americans from Tucker Carlson to the National Rifle Association and beyond. But the aforementioned case has nothing to do with Putin or with Trump. Instead, it took place a century ago, when conservatives across the U.S. flocked to the cause of Germany’s militarist tyrant, Kaiser Wilhelm II.

In so doing, as Jacob Heilbrunn successfully argues in his new book, America Last: The Right’s Century-Long Romance With Foreign Dictators, they created a blueprint for how foreign dictators even decades later could cultivate conservative communities to their cause — and could, by the early 21st century, help propel one as far as the presidency. The story of the Americans who worshipped Wilhelm is just one of a range of pro-dictatorship efforts that Heilbrunn excavates, threading a century-long conservative infatuation with right-wing dictators. It’s not only a corrective to the voluminous (if also accurate) investigations on how communist tyrannies fostered leftist supporters in the U.S., but also an able — and wildly timely — effort to stitch together nominally disparate views, from different epochs and eras. 

It all adds up to a convincing conclusion: that Trump, in “lavishing praise on Putin and other dictators … wasn’t creating a new style of right-wing politics,” Heilbrunn, editor of The National Interest and author of a previously acclaimed book on the history of neoconservatives, writes. “Instead, he was building on a long-standing tradition.”

It’s a tradition that has seen surprisingly little scrutiny, allowing Trump’s treacly fealty to Putin to seem like an aberration. To be sure, there are elements unique to Trump’s personal predilections — not least his history as a luxury real-estate developer, an industry that profited arguably more than any other from the illicit, kleptocratic flows linked to foreign dictators, laundering untold millions of dollars (and potentially more) in the process. Never before could foreign despots so easily, and so effectively, patronize the company of a sitting American president.

But in other far more conspicuous ways, Trump is simply building on a legacy long predating his rise. There were, for instance, the early devotions to the Ur-Fascist himself, Benito Mussolini. Il Duce presented himself not only as a guarantor of order and stability — and a bastion against left-wing forces in Italy and beyond — but as someone who posed “as a defender of whites,” Heilbrunn notes, who prioritized “family values” and who, “in stark contrast to hedonistic America, cherished manliness.” (He also cherished Wall Street with JP Morgan organizing a loan for the Fascist government worth nearly $2 billion in modern currency.) Conservatives in America lapped it up, fêting not only Mussolini but salivating for a similar leader in the U.S. One conservative writer, Irving Babbitt, bleated that circumstances “may arrive when we may esteem ourselves fortunate if we get the American equivalent of a Mussolini; he may be needed to save us from the American equivalent of a Lenin.”

So, too, did plenty of conservative Americans view the rise of Mussolini’s younger brother, ideologically, in Berlin. While the organization of pro-Nazi sympathizers in America has seen more detailed treatments elsewhere, Heilbrunn ropes in other conservatives who freely platformed Adolf Hitler. Germany’s dictator was freely supported by conservatives such as William Randolph Hearst, who “not only admired the Fuhrer, but commissioned him and Mussolini to write for his newspapers for handsome fees.” Later investigations revealed that Hitler’s regime picked up on the kaiser’s previous model, not only covertly funding agents in the U.S. but even slipping pro-Nazi propaganda into official congressional mailings, recruiting some of the U.S.’s most conservative representatives of the time.

The postwar smothering of fascism didn’t seem to slow conservatives’ lust for right-wing strongmen. By the 1960s, the primary home for such reverence was found not necessarily in Washington but in the pages of National Review, where founder William F. Buckley and his claque of writers apparently never found a hard-right despot they couldn’t support. There was Spain’s Francisco Franco, whom Buckley dubbed an “authentic national hero,” Heilbrunn writes. There was Portugal’s Antonio Salazar, who wrote in the magazine that he was “fighting for Western civilization and Christian values.” There was Chile’s Augusto Pinochet, whom Buckley viewed as a “bona fide leader who knew how to exercise power.” (After Pinochet used a car bomb to assassinate a political opponent in Washington, D.C., Chilean officials turned directly to Buckley for advice on how to “sanitize Pinochet’s reputation,” for which Buckley happily obliged.)

Soon, though, such sentiments swelled back into the White House. By the Reagan era, American affections for right-wing despots during the late Cold War blossomed into official policy. The architect for such fondness was Reagan’s foreign-policy adviser, Jeane Kirkpatrick, who served as an “unabashed defender” of right-wing regimes throughout her tenure. Nor was she picky about the form. Militarists in Argentina, those running death squads in El Salvador, the authors of apartheid in South Africa: Kirkpatrick, with Reagan in tow, succored them all.

But then, in 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, and a few years later, the Soviet Union shattered. America — and liberalism — stood triumphant. Supporting such regimes was suddenly gauche, out of step with this American moment. And the patterns and preferences that propped up American backing of right-wing dictators slunk back into the shadows.

But it never disappeared entirely. As with so much of the paleoconservative architecture of Trumpism — the nativism and the racism, the suspicion of the federal government and the amorality undergirding it all — Heilbrunn identified Pat Buchanan as the figure who kept the flames of such fawning for right-wing dictators alive. Not only did Buchanan refer to leaders like Hitler as “an individual of great courage,” but Buchanan whipped up opposition to American intervention in the Balkans, calling time and again to let Serbian tyrant Slobodan Milosevic have his way and commit genocide.

As Heilbrunn writes, Buchanan — who would later turn his affections toward figures like Putin, even before Trump entered the White House — “longed for a kind of internationalism rooted in those small towns and conservative values and in whiteness, whether in the U.S. or in Serbia or Russia or South Africa or elsewhere.” For years, Buchanan “seemed like a Cassandra,” but as Heilbrunn added, “One prospective candidate for the presidency who picked up on … Buchanan’s unusual history lessons was a loudmouthed Manhattan real estate mogul” — a figure who gave Buchanan’s views the biggest platform yet, carving an entire political movement out of a conservative tradition few Americans had any idea existed.

Thanks to Heilbrunn’s book, however, that confusion is no more. And while the book’s actual writing verges on the overwrought — words like oneiric and pursuivant belong in spelling bees, not mainstream political analysis — Heilbrunn correctly identifies the core of this conservative strain. Trumpists, and those who came before, “are advocating ethno-nationalism in the guise of a set of principles.” Just as the white supremacist Redeemers before them claimed they were simply advocating a restoration of democracy, so, too, do the Herrenvolk reactionaries of the MAGA world claim they’re simply restoring supposed American greatness — and that right-wing despots abroad should be allies in the fight.

If there’s a fault in Heilbrunn’s writing, it’s that there might be too much emphasis on such ideological affinity. After all, dictatorships’ abilities to inflame and inflate American conservative support can’t operate without a latticework of supporters. And as we’ve learned in recent years, those operatives — the lobbyists and the PR specialists, the law firms and the consultancies, the former congressional officials who leave office and immediately transform into mouthpieces for foreign regimes — don’t require any ideological overlap with their despotic clients. All they need is to get paid, and they’ll be happy to transform into foot-soldiers for tyranny.

Just look, for instance, at the network that serviced Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian thug who ruled Ukraine until Kyiv’s democratic revolution a decade ago. There was Paul Manafort, who later became Trump’s 2016 campaign manager. But there was also Tony Podesta, who until the mid-2010s oversaw arguably the leading Democratic lobbying shop in Washington. There was even Tad Devine, who helped Yanukovych grab power in 2010 — and who then steered Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign. It was an ideological potpourri, all working at the behest of an autocrat who tried to cement pro-Russian rule in Kyiv — and whose ouster lit a fuse that detonated stability in Europe and that now risks far more devastation.

But that’s all the subject for another book (mine, called Foreign Agents, will be hitting bookshelves in August). In the meantime, Heilbrunn’s analysis of this glorification of right-wing dictatorships is a warning — as if more were needed — of what a potential Trump second term could look like. Whether it’s Putin’s Russia or Orbán’s Hungary, or even the echoes of Wilhelmine Germany, the conclusion is clear: “Aggrieved … by what they perceived as their own society’s failings — its liberalism, its tolerance, its increasing secularism — conservatives have searched for a paradise abroad that can serve as a model of home.” The kaiser would be proud.

For more articles and blogs on Ageing Democracy, Conservative, Demography, Eugenics, Evangelical Christianity, Media, Political Strategy, Radical Right Libertarian, Russia and Younger Generations click through:

Collective Narcissism, Ageing Electorates, Pensioner Populism, White Nativism and Autocracy

Posted on November 5, 2021

Plato noted more than 2000 years ago, one of the greatest dangers for democracy is that ordinary people are all too easily swayed by the emotional and deceptive rhetoric of ambitious politicians. We have observed the Anglosphere including the U.K., Australia and U.S., becoming more nativist, conservative, libertarian, extreme and conspiracy minded.  This is not organic.

Narcissistic Political Leaders – NPD Narcissistic Personality Disorder – Collective Narcissism – Cognitive Dissonance – Conspiracy Theories – Populism

Posted on April 13, 2022

We have observed the rise of neo authoritarian conservative leaders using nativism and sociocultural issues with media PR support to inform the public, especially voters, suboptimally, including east and west.

However, there are pitfalls for democracy in manipulating access to information by the public or electorate, not just feeding the needs of narcissistic leaders (see article ‘Narcissistic Leaders: The Incredible Pros, the Inevitable Cons’), but developing societal collective narcissism for populism and electoral advantage aka Brexit, also observed in Hungary, Turkey and Russia.

Nationalist Conservative Political Parties in the Anglosphere – Radical Right Libertarian Ideology and Populism for Votes

Posted on May 31, 2021

Interesting article from CARR reflecting conservative parties across the world dealing with demographic change, and especially the Anglosphere of the UK, US and Australia where they have been beholden to corporate supporters from the old economy i.e. fossil fuels, agriculture and industry including assembly lines and construction.  Nowadays the new economy of Big Tech, innovation, services and government with more educated and empowered citizens is problematic for the Kochs, Murdochs, DeVos, Scaife et al.

Ageing Democracy, Nativism and Populism

Posted on January 18, 2019

Liberal democracies in western world need to make sure they do not become populist gerontocracies with changing demographics creating elderly ‘Gerrymandering’ where influence and numbers of older voters (with short term horizons) increasing proportionally over younger generations with longer term interests but less voice and influence.

AC Grayling on the Need for more Educated and Informed Citizens

Posted on September 1, 2023

When people question seemingly uninformed voter choices averting their gaze from politicians of the right, right wing media and related who are desperate to keep or put right wing parties in power, by attacking the centre and sensible legislation, why or how?

Across the Anglosphere and Europe many mostly ageing dominant voters, politicians, media and influencers, who are less educated and less diverse than younger generations, backed up by ‘collective narcissism’ and ‘pensioner populism’; see Brexit, Trump, Meloni, Orban et al.

British Young People Thrown Under a Bus for Votes in Ageing Demographics

Posted on September 21, 2023

Relevant article from John Curtice of the University of Strathclyde on how age determines divides in British politics, and not class in Conversation article ‘Age, not class, is now the biggest divide in British politics, new research confirms’.