What's missing/awry/disturbing about people's lives that MAGA/hard-right populism is so attractive?

[Banquet_Bear]

…I’m sure many of you have heard of our former Prime Minister, Jacinda Adern.

She was uniquely competent at her job. As in not only genuinely empathetic and populist and knew all the right things to say. But was one of those people who knew all of the details. Even her opponents admired her ability to just listen, ask the right questions, and be able to have a full grasp of the situation.

Adern presided over probably the most tumultuous period in recent history. Whakaari. The Mosque Shootings. And of course, leading the country during Covid where arguably we had the best response in the world.

She was also popular. She lead the Labour Party to resounding success in the 2020 elections. It was a landslide.

But then Auckland went into its second lockdown in late 2021. And it all began falling apart. Quite dramatically. There was the “anti-mandate” occupation of Parliament grounds where a bunch of cookers took over the public space. Her popularity and the Labour Party dropped significantly. She got chased by anti-vax protestors. And she ultimately ended up resigning before the Labour coalition resoundingly lost the next election.

The Disinformation Project was an initiative set up in 2020 that focused on “the COVID-19 pandemic and how false information contributed to people’s responses to public health interventions.” What they found though by the end of the project was:

@The Disinformation Project

Since then, we have charted the descent of many New Zealanders into more extreme conspiratorial beliefs. These include widespread vaccine refusal, climate change denial, opposition to immigration, reductive beliefs around gender, anti-Māori racism, and hatred towards the LGBTQ+ community.

In 2024, it’s clear that the disinformation networks established or expanded during the pandemic are deeply connected to far-right, neo-Nazi, and accelerationist networks and actors – both domestic and foreign. Disinformation has become both more mainstream, and more connected to wider issues of political and social division, violence, extremism and national security.

We want to specifically note the marked increase in polarising and dehumanising rhetoric we have studied since our research began, specifically anti-Māori racism. We witnessed a shift from relatively amateur, individual or small network-based tactics, to polished, technical strategies for spreading disinformation at scale.

From this report:

2021-11-09-FINAL-working-paper-disinformation..pdf

Both posts and engagement have drastically increased since 17 August 2021 and show a trajectory of growth and spread that is increasing, widening, and deepening every week. Disinformation activity shows a high degree of coordination and collaboration within and between platforms.
…
Quantitative analysis around the mis- and disinformation volume (amount of content), vectors (platforms and apps content is produced and shared on) and velocity (speed at
which content is produced) since mid-August, under the Delta Level 4 lockdowns, is unprecedented. We note that it is by order of magnitude more than the content seed and spread over 2020, and even in the first half of 2021.

What they noted was a significant and qualitative increase in coordinated disinformation around about the time the second Auckland lockdowns began.

Other content tends to focus on a cluster of notions related to state versus individual rights and responsibilities. It is here that international content, particularly from the US and Australia, is repackaged and re-shared in Aotearoa New Zealand, framing a state that is described as tyrannical, treacherous, and forsaking international and/or national law. These frames are where some of the most extreme content is observed: violent imagery and language, threats to groups and individuals, allusions to historic violent events and war or crime.

It wasn’t uncommon at the time for me to have arguments with “New Zealanders” on Twitter arguing they had the “right to bear arms” or something about the “first amendment”. The disinformation clearly had US-centric framing and I have no doubt that a lot of the disinformation was coming from there.

The online mis- and disinformation content The Disinformation Project observes targets key individuals and groups. This includes but is not limited to Māori, Pasifika, migrants
and ethnic minorities, women, gender minorities, LGBTQIA+ people, people with disabilities, health workers, government employees. In addition, leading public figures and officials– including members of Parliament, journalists, health officials, academics, and community leaders – receive specific targeting and abuse. For example, mainstream media’s reporting on the uptake of vaccination by Māori has increased a perception of Māori as vaccine hesitant and anti-vaccination, which has
been picked up within circles of disinformation in way that capitalises on racism and further targets disinformation towards those groups. This allows for the targeting of Māori, and the intensification of anti-Māori racism within mis- and disinformation circles.

This shift in framing became obvious in both the tactics the opposition parties were using at the time, and how the media chose to frame it. “Co-governance” and the treaty came under attack. Tactics and strategy between what was bubbling under the surface through disinformation and what the political parties were now prepared to say out in the open were more closely aligned than ever. And since they have been in power the right-aligned coalition has been peeling back the layers of things considered “woke” and “DEI.”

So I think there is a bigger, underlying picture at play. I think while all the stuff that people are saying in this thread is perfectly valid, and yes, it all contributes, it’s the things that are circulating in places like Telegram that most of us will never ever see that is taking its toll. The vulnerable are being targeted and converted. And those who were previously disposed to this way of thinking are having their feelings validated. It isn’t so much that they are drawn to them isn’t because “something is missing” but because they are being given answers. The reason their lives suck is because of immigration or because of trans people or because of the Brown people and if we fix that: their lives get better.

There isn’t an easy fix to this because the biggest problem is that most people don’t even know that it is happening.