AntiFash Gordon

2) Conspiracy theories are meant to do two things: a.) Create a narrative that lends meaning to otherwise unconnected events. b.) Isolate those who believe from those who don't. And capitalism supports this every step of the way

3) Capitalism reduces us all to cogs in a profit-producing machine. It works to convince us that we're only as valuable as the profit we can produce for some boss. This is a horrible way, solitary to go through life. We need meaning. We need connection.

4) Concurrently, whiteness isolates us further. It convinces white people that they are wholly different from people of color. And then capitalism even isolates them from other white people. And toxic masculinity isolates men from women.

5) Add in homophobia, transphobia, ableism, etc. and you end up with a pretty tiny, dangerous bubble for cis white straight abled men. So how does the far right exploit this?

6) It isolates those dudes more. It convinces them that the very things that are oppressing them are the things that can save them.

7) Men who can't get a date because they're so steeped in toxic masculinity? Instead of offering them feminism, so that women might actually feel safe around them and *want* to talk to them, groups like the Proud Boys tell them that it's women's fault for not being submissive.

8) Men who can't support themselves because capitalism has destroyed unions and ground the concept of a living wage into dust? The Proud Boys tell them that they need to "glorify the entrepreneur." In other words, be the guy who grinds the little guy down.

9) Let's go a little further right. Instead of abandoning whiteness and embracing interracial solidarity among workers, leading to strong unions and high wages, the alt-right tells white workers that their hard times are because of POC workers taking their jobs.

10) In other words, the far-right tells them to embrace that whiteness, that toxic masculinity, that bootlicking capitalist ethic, even as those things harm them. And it uses conspiracy theory to do this.

11) The result is that you get cis straight white dudes who are *pretty* desperate for a connection, for some kind of meaning. So when Richard Spencer tells them to "Become who you are" or when Trump says "I'm a nationalist," they eat it up like they're starving.

12) Ultimately, they want a fascist state that tells them who they are and what to do. They want to subjugate their labor, their bodies, their families, and their identities to the state. At that point, it's the only way they see to find meaning and connection.

13) And as we've seen, they're willing to do some pretty weird things to bring that about. This week's mail bombs are the result of far-right ideologies being allowed to fester. This is exactly why we no-platform fascists. Because this is what happens when we don't. <thread>