Review: Going Mainstream: how extremists are taking over
Jula Ebner's new book is a timely look at the changing world of disinformation and extremism
Review: Going Mainstream, how extremists are taking over
I was excited to learn that Julia Ebner had a new book out. I'd read her first two books, The Rage: The Vicious Circle of Islamist and Far-Right Extremism and Going Dark: The Secret Social Lives of Extremists and cited them both in my own book. Her latest, Going Mainstream: How extremists are taking over is a kind of sequel to Going Dark. While the former looked at extremist subcultures in murky depths of the web, Going Mainstream looks at how their ideas have moved into everyday politics.
“Extreme ideas are no longer confined to dark corners of the Internet or secret meet-ups. They echo through parliaments and are heard at mass street protests. What they all have in common is a feeling of powerlessness and disenfranchisement. We can observe how deep frustration with the status quo translates into toxic anti-democracy activities such as the US Capitol riots and attempts to storm the German Reichstag and New Zealand parliament.”
Ebner writes that those once fringe movements have now created international networks and alternative media ecosystems that have pushed their beliefs into the mainstream. This has led to a backlash against progressive movements, and a shift in the Overton window- the range of acceptable discourse in society, which has now expanded to a point where attitudes previously on the fringes are being debated on popular YouTube channels and podcasts with huge audiences.
Ebner dedicates a chapter to transphobia, noting that “Trans people are now one of the primary targets of far-right extremists” something that readers in Aotearoa will recognise. While writing this review, I noticed a local ‘gender critical’ feminist had recently retweeted an article from Douglas Murray, author of 'The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam' and 'The War on the West: How to Prevail in the Age of Unreason'. Murray has said that Europe is “committing suicide” by having below replacement birthrates and non-white immigration. This kind of situation is increasingly common, as Enber writes:
“Ulta conservatives, Christian fundamentalists and radical feminist activists are unlikely allies at first sight. But they have teamed up in their overt opposition to trans rights. Paleo conservatives and gender critical feminists, so-called Trans Exclusive Radical Feminism (TERFs), have formed a new coalition based on their shared feeling that transgender identities are invalid and women are defined by biology only.”
In another example of perhaps not-so-strange bedfellows, Ebner (incognito) attends a climate change denial conference and ends up sitting next to a white nationalist. Possibly not that unlikely of an occurrence- she cites research from the Oxford Internet Institute showing that support for far-right populist parties is strongly linked to scepticism about climate change and opposition to climate-friendly policies, and points out that influencers are adapting Covid related language to redirect pandemic anxieties toward climate change (e.g. the idea of “climate lockdowns”). The pivot from Covid conspiracy to climate conspiracy is something I’ve observed in this country, and clearly a global phenomena.
A chapter which examined the links between the Russian state and the far-right was enlightening. It says something about the impact of Kremlin propaganda that I was aware of the Azov Battalion, a neo-Nazi group within the Ukrainian military, but I was not aware- before reading this book- of the Svarozhich or Ratibor battalions, far-right groups fighting on the Russia side of the war (and those are just two of many mentioned).
This book is timely and useful for keeping up with the fast-changing landscape of disinformation. If you’re here because you enjoyed my book and are looking for your next read on the topic, I’d highly recommend Going Mainstream.