Notices by Matthew Sheffield (mattsheffield@mastodon.social), page 7

Making conspiracy content is astonishingly lucrative due to social media algorithms which incentivize ludicrous and irrational content.

Russell Brand's YouTube career is a perfect example of selling out to insane people, as the clip below brilliantly lays out.

A guy who craved attention for his goofy new age beliefs finally got it once he started targeting the Joe Rogan/Alex Jones crowd.

You can get the full video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo4gIihETu8

Elderly CEOs who couldn't justify their own salaries are finally giving up on forcing employees back to the office.

I predicted this would happen at the start of the pandemic and was met with a fair amount of pushback by some people who couldn't imagine doing something different https://www.axios.com/2024/01/16/ceo-return-to-office-wars

"God and Man at Yale" outlines Buckley's desire for education to be primarily about propagandizing students into fundamentalist Christianity. He repeatedly calls for alumni to rise up and cancel professors for being Jewish, atheist, or insufficiently Christian (by his lights).

The right wing has been at war w American education since Buckley published in 1951. They want to replace public education with church-based instruction, run by fundamentalists.

Beyond the fact that the right wing celebrates plagiarists like Melania Trump or Neil Gorsuch, we can realize this by looking at the first book by the founder of American reactionism, William F. Buckley.

"God and Man at Yale" is the book to understand what reactionaries actually want. Buckley created their movement and explained his motivations fully in his poorly written screed.

This is a great dissection of the book if you've not read: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/867-if-books-could-kill-104279346/episode/god-and-man-at-yale-122682547/

The Republican policy on public education is that it shouldn't exist.

In 2022, Betsy DeVos admitted: "I frankly don't think the Department of Education should exist."

She is the former Republican Education Secretary. She wants to have all public schools eliminated in favor of private Christian schools. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/27/betsy-devos-trump-republicans-education-secretary

They cannot retain young people without brainwashing.

Lots more great info on the far right's war on education vis a vis Claudine Gay in this Media Matters report:

https://www.mediamatters.org/education/right-wing-media-celebrate-ouster-harvards-president-part-broader-assault-higher

The right wing is continually on the lookout to weaponize the higher ethical standards of the center-left to attack modernity itself.

As Americans continue to leave religion in droves, reactionaries have decided to weaponize govt for fundamentalism: https://flux.community/matthew-sheffield/2021/05/liz-cheney-epistemic-collapse-conservatism/

While the reactionary extremists who control the Republican party were initially motivated by Christian fundamentalism, many were also motivated by racism.

And that is the other subtext to the attacks on Claudine Gay: Anti-black racism.

the right constructed a myth of "meritocracy" in which ANY black success is automatically suspect.

It's an obviously false narrative which assumes that not one qualified black person could be found to lead Harvard in 400 years. https://thegrio.com/2023/12/13/claudine-gay-white-outrage-and-the-myth-of-the-diversity-hire/

🧵 A lot of people have been mystified by the sudden and incredible attacks Claudine Gay faced which led to her downfall.

As a former right-wing media entrepreneur who was part of the anti-Dan Rather blogger corps, there are a few things I think you should know.

This thread is a summary of the latest episode of my co-hosted podcast "So This Just Happened." You can get the full episode here: https://plus.flux.community/p/the-attacks-on-claudine-gay-werent

The attacks on Gay were actually about two things.

The first is that far-right Christians are absolutely desperate to destroy secular institutions of learning, because they have completely debunked absurd fundamentalist beliefs.

Since schools won't propagandize for Jesus, they must be eradicated.

The purported concerns about antisemitism and plagiarism are mere pretexts.

The firestorm of criticism Claudine Gay faced from reactionaries like Elise Stefanik or Christopher Rufo has nothing to do with antisemitism or plagiarism.

We know this because Stefanik herself is a plagiarist. Hypocrisy is mandatory on the right now. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/elise-stefanik-kathy-manning-letter-universities_n_65786041e4b0881b79187d76

So much of "liberal media" is actually run by conservative editors and owners.

Chris Rufo doesn't trick the New York Times, Atlantic, and other MSM outlets. They want to go along with him.

@foser gets this exactly correct https://findinggravity.substack.com/p/christopher-rufo-and-elise-stefanik

According to Politico, Claudine Gay faced "plagiarism accusations" while Neil Gorsuch merely "borrowed" from other authors.

This headline is an embarrassment.

At this point, all Nikki Haley has done is make a few good debate insults and stick to her talking points.

Her strategy of avoiding bruising the easily hurt feelings of Trump supporters is the exact same cowardice that the rest of the Republicans tried.

It's about as far from “bold” as you can get.

Elon Musk's desperate efforts to suppress a mechanics union in Sweden continue to blow up in his face as unions across countries are supporting the Swedish mechanics.

Scandinavian workers are heavily unionized and it's why they have such great working conditions. A true power to the people moment! https://www.commondreams.org/news/elon-musk-scandinavian-unions

This is a really important piece about how fascism disguises itself as disaffected leftism and how many people and pundits are falling for this lie.

It’s a long read, but very worth your time. Please share.

Sadly, far too many leftists are in it for the attitude rather than the ideology, and in so doing, are very vulnerable to mistake the nihilism of fascism for the determined desire to make positive change https://inthesetimes.com/article/former-left-right-fascism-capitalism-horseshoe-theory

Elon Musk actively is helping racist activists reach the public.

This isn't some "woke" exaggeration, it is what the white nationalists say to themselves: https://angrywhitemen.org/2023/12/05/nick-fuentes-the-window-has-shifted-noticeably-on-white-identity-since-elon-musk-acquired-twitter/

After people started scrutinizing the podcast he hosted with his wife, Mike Johnson has removed the website from the internet.

He demands 100% transparency from the Biden administration but deliberately hides his extreme viewpoints from the public.

Luckily, he has not yet disconnected the podcast backend so you can still download here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/truth-be-told-with-mike-kelly-johnson/id1613637836

🧵 Rep. Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, just became the Speaker of the House. He’ll be one of the most inexperienced speakers in American history. But he’ll also be the most far-right one in a long time as well.

He's an extremist in a tweed suit. Here's how...

The most crucial thing to understand about Mike Johnson is that he's a lifer in an hugely wealthy far-right Christian activist sector dedicated solely to weaponize govt against people who disagree.

Johnson began his career working for the radical Christian supremacist group ADF.

Like most far-right groups, ADF has a misleading name, in this case it's "Alliance Defending Freedom."

But when they say "freedom," they mean the ability of far-right Christians to force their beliefs on the majority.

Johnson actually began his political career by walking into a Louisiana state legislature seat that no one had filed for in 2015.

Once in office, he immediately began trying to create legislation discriminating against LGBT people.

https:// https://web.archive.org/web/20150402171202/http://www.arklatexhomepage.com/story/d/story/conservative-republican-walks-into-louisiana-legis/29275/stOTzOyAiU6l-uIul9MOdw