Aurelien Mondon
@aurelmondon
Researching the mainstreaming of reactionary/far-right politics Co-convenor of @reacpolrn.bsky.social Reactionary Democracy w. @aaronwinter.bsky.social and co-editor of The Ethics of Researching the Far Right
Long article making big claims about Reform notably, calling them "hard right" 🙄 and making much of its 8.7% of the vote The final paragraph casually mentions the turnout is one of the lowest ever with 25% So yeah, Restore on 2.2%, Reform on 5% etc and abstention on 75% Priorities I guess...
This is grim and a direct consequence of decades on mainstreaming of far-right politics and euphemisation of the threat they pose Calling it "rightwing" here is exactly what has gone wrong for example 1/ www.theguardian.com/media/2026/j...
The turnout is taken from this bbc article www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
The "political spectrum" Peston talks about is of course limited to the Westminster bubble and it says a lot that yet another home secretary pandering shamelessly to the far right is "admired" by those who shape the agenda... Quite the bulwark if you ask me...
One cannot understand the resurgence of the far right without taking seriously the role populist hype played in allowing deeply elitist politics to pass as popular against all evidence to the contrary Here again, the responsibility lies with the mainstream elite
Off for a much needed period of leave! My aim is to stay away from social media so if you see me here in the next two weeks, you are welcome to tell me off I will be glad not to see misuses of populism and euphemisations of racism, but I will no doubt be thinking about them
I'm sure that has nothing to do with being incompetent, making unpopular decisions for their friends' benefit, mainstreaming the far right, weakening democracy, imposing austerity, ignoring the climate crisis, supporting a genocide etc No, no, the people are the problem
This is incredibly concerning no doubt and yet we must put it in perspective if we are to counter the trend This is after four decades of hyping and mainstreaming 1/
As we are now clearly past the far right stage of mainstreaming and heading towards unabashed, unadulterated fascism, the Guardian stays true to its euphemising mission so as not to upset those who are now openly encouraging, enabling and participating in pogroms
Ooooh I wonder why? It's a mystery why racist riots would happen in a country where the media and politicians on both sides of the spectrum have been mainstreaming far right politics for years... Seriously, if your readers don't know, you might want to think about your responsibility
Core to the counter hegemonic struggle developed by far-right intellectuals in the 1970s who had a massive influence on the MAGA movement was to pretend they were no longer far right (shifting to "populism", "culture" etc) This is why they should not be engaged with as they are bad faith actors
I finally got to watch Everybody to Kenmure Street and it's a brilliant documentary While there's much hope in it obviously, what has stuck with me though is how much closer to authoritarianism we are than many think The amount of police sent there to make a racist point is frightening
Who cares what Sting has to say about masculinity?! We are living in terribly dangerous times and this is what passes as news in "serious" newspapers
Honestly, if anyone hasn't got it by now, it's got to be wilful blindness...
I guess there wasn't another demonstration happening in town that was a lot bigger...
I don't recall seeing the reaction of the other defeated candidates in Gorton and Denton... It must be a coincidence that only the far right gets this kind of hyped coverage across all the media
This quote from Omar El Akkad's incredible One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This resonates every time I read the news now... "It’s a common refrain that the news industry has failed to come up with a functioning business model in the Internet age, but that’s not entirely true..." 1/
Is there any better way to show you stand for nothing than making a last ditch appeal to voters with diametrically opposed politics? It's a mystery why people don't trust mainstream politicians...
Don't get me wrong, AI hyping the far right is terrible but considering the mainstream media has been doing the same for decades, it's just a tad ironic to be feign concern...
The worse thing is they know exactly what to do to turn things around None of it is magical thinking, needs huge amount of resources or particular expertise @k8ebrown.bsky.social and I explore this below and in the picture regarding the media aurelmondon.com/2026/01/28/t...
Some fluffy goodness to help you through the day should you need it 🐈⬛
For the Labour government, if you're not an old white man convinced fascism is the only way forward, you are not part of "the people" You are part of naive youth, the woke identity politics minorities, white liberals etc but you are not "the people" and it doesn't matter if you're the vast majority
"Reform will reverse the invasion of Britain" --> full great replacement theorising And to think some mainstream media are still tiptoeing around what the politics of Reform are... (hint: it's not 'populism', 'common sense' or based on 'the legitimate grievance' of 'the left behind')
I did not sign this but I 100% would if I could "We Reject the Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence for Reflexive Qualitative Research" journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
The threat to the NHS is not 'populists' It's the far right and the mainstream politicians in cahoots with pro-privatisation lobbies (as per the article linked) and the Guardian should be ashamed to misinform their readers... goodlawproject.org/how-private-...