To think there is some kind of weird push towards the far right?

[Checkcheckout]

I’m the first to admit that I am not the best informed - I prefer to keep my life stress free and simple as much as possible, and don’t have a TV, don’t read papers, and only listen to the radio when I’m driving (which is quite often). For my own mental health I prefer to live in my own little bubble.

But even with my limited exposure to media, I’ve noticed on Radio 2, both on the news and Jeremy Vine’s show, Reform are being given so much air time considering their paltry amount of MPs, the polls are being discussed regularly even though we’re years from an election. More than once listening to the radio I’ve thought the way they’re talking makes it sound like Reform winning the next election is a done deal, and thought to myself that this is how self fulfilling prophecies happen.

My algorithms on FB are seriously messed up. Despite having never been remotely interested in anything in the least bit right wing, all of a sudden I’m getting endless posts from knuckle dragging ‘patriot’ groups that I don’t even follow, with really horrendous and openly racist comments, thousands of them, which somehow FB are allowing to remain even though any kind of hate speech has always been censored on there. Why are these posts suddenly being allowed and pushed in my face?

Alongside this there seems to be a new story pretty much every day about the latest scandal involving Labour (again reported by the BBC), ok these things aren’t great although compared to the Tories’ rap list from their last spell in government, are fairly small fry really. It seems like there’s an active push for people to rebel away from the left just as the far right are gaining momentum.

Has anyone else noticed this or am I talking shite?

@DorothyGaleFromKansas there’s things about the trans debate that I have issues with but overall MN seems to really overstate the importance on our lives, how many trans people are we all gonna come across really

You lost me me when you categorised people who have a different political opinion as you as 'knuckle draggging'.
Says everything about you and nothing about them.

Also OP you’re not BU, I’ve deleted all social media now was all I was getting was right wing posts from people I’d never heard of.

The insults and open degradation of viewpoints unlike hers was a dead give-away.

That doesn't take away the point that this is an interesting thread.

Yes, I have thought about it - extensively.

The conclusion I have reached is that the right a have, over the past 40 years become so good at media manipulation, sowing division and creating bogeyman in order to re-form our tolerant, liberal society into something that matches their individualistic, intolerant and arrogant ideology, to distract from their own misdeeds and enable them to get rich.

In the UK, the right have been in power for 31 of the last 45 years, they own and control two thirds of mainstream newspapers, have control of the board of our public broadcaster and the majority of social media.

The immigration crisis has been manufactured by the right in order to create something to rally people around - evidenced in the data which shows that UK net migration was relatively steady between 2000 and 2020 and has only spiked massively since.

The increasing cost of living and degradation of public services and increasing public debt is again, something that has happened under Tory governments in order to further their ideology.

In 1997 Labour initially reduced debt as a % of GDP and held it steady under 50%. Following the financial crisis austerity did not bring it down, it caused it to skyrocket to over 75%.

When Labour left power in 2010 the NHS was seen as one of the best and most efficient health systems in the world, today, after 14 years of Tory government, it's on its knees.

So please, enlighten me, what exactly is it about the left, that has so disillusioned people?

Cause and effect in action.

There are those who contribute, and those who take.

The former have had enough.

Also people talking about Labour lying, have you forgotten about the Conservative Party constantly lying and they were voted back in for 15 years.

Everyone should do this.
Refuse to see all the manufactured outrage and division spewed out by the likes of Elon Musk and Putin.
Just get on with real life.

All this ‘people are disillusioned with the left’ is laughable - we’ve literally had a light-left government for a few months - we have had a rightwing government for the last 15 years!!

The fact people are believing their discontent with their lives is ‘the fault of the left’ as is being peddled by the (privately owned) media / social media is a good indictator of how much our education system has failed some of the last few generations. I’m sorry but the truth is that if you believe this; you are a bit stupid and have a very narrow world view. The people who are feeding you these messages, and controlling your exposure to them, have lots of money and power to gain by the erosion of human rights; and they know you are gullible!

Well it's because the uber wealthy are in control of the majority of the media including social media.
People are being fed huge amounts of right wing propaganda. People on the whole are not great at seeing through this and lap it up.
Russia, who have been a propaganda machine for over a 100 years, are partly funding this, and they know what they are doing.

They understand how to use populist arguments to win, they know how to use people's frustrations to point at scapegoats (in the UK "boat people") so the populace ignore the fact that the populists want to change the tax and labour laws to benefit the wealthy and screw over the poor (who ironically have voted them in).

Any extreme left or right do similar. Its the right that have the power of the media (in the cold war era in the East it was the left). Same concept.

@GabrielsOboe the problem with your argument is that the ones who are taking are right wing!
They are just trying to bolster their own wealth and power… surely you can see this 🫠

i dont get any far right posts on my social media.
just clips of dogs, and shoes and dresses. and vegetarian meals!

I couldn’t disagree more.

Without wanting to sound all conspiracy theory, there is very good evidence that foreign governments have pumped money into influencing politics of US and us over Brexit. I’d be shocked if that isn’t happening now and it does change then the window of normality of social media is drenched in hard right rhetoric.

Because the interference has been proven time and time again?.

Tufton Street and the Heritage Foundation have absolutely amazing media and PR strategies that have worked to consolidate the right wing majority ownership of media / social media and know how to use it (Murdoch, Rothmere, Musk, Cambridge Analytica etc).

The social media manipulation from Russia and China is well documented and understood (with reports and investigations concluding the same thing under both right wing and left wing governments).

The biggest selling newspaper in the UK is screams headlines like "Enemies of the people" about our judges because they don't like their interpretation of the law and social media algorithms are used to identify people who are more likely to be receptive to a right wing narrative before bombarding their timelines with one-sided, inflamatory posts, amplified by Russian and Chienese bot farms how can it be seen as anything other than manipulation and interference?

I no more want to live in a left wing echo chamber than a right wing one. Differening view points are good, healthy even, when they are used in dialogue and compromise.

What is not healthy are headlines and dis-information designed to cause outrage and offence in order to create polarisation among the population just so the rich can get richer and the ideologues can bring about their Handmaidens Tale nightmare of a society in their lust for control!

I am seriously not usually a conspiracy theorist and the default reason for fuck ups that my personality naturally gravitates to is incompetence rather than malice but I agree with this post 100%

Putin and others (eg China , N Korea etc) really do want to weaken the (up until now) more powerful western European and North American counties and they are very effective at using social media to control the news narrative (The Cambridge analytics scandal was strong evidence of this)

I think this country is going to be very different 10 years from now and do worry about what life will look like.

I also think blaming Labour, or indeed expecting them to save us is laughable. They can't do anything about it though they might be able to slow our decline - maybe . I suppose that might just be my "liberal elite" heart's hope that sobre boring, facts led leaderships is what is needed but realistically I think we are beyond that now.

I'm not sure anyone can really do much. Reform will definitely make things worse more quickly though

Exactly

I am wiling to bet H’s car there were very few net contributors on Saturday’s march.

say they reach their wet dream that they do stop the boats and no brown people get council houses. All problems solved then?

Farage is like Trump he only likes rich powerful white male people. And the best chance he has to get into the seat of power is racism. He doesn’t care about the title angry poor white man (and certainly not women) just their vote, so say that he will get rid of brown people and give them their anonymous porn back - vote ensured, make them feel clever for a bit, make them feel right, put a tick in the box, there’s a good boy, and Farage can laugh all the way to the bank. Job done, it’s all that matters.

You, and the others on this thread talking about Russian disinformation campaigns, are not conspiracy theorists. Its very real. (Source: I work in an associated field) Its not the whole problem, but its a bloody big chunk of the problem, and I dont know why the right wing aren't more interested in it. Probably because they'd have to admit that the media and social media does influence people, which they only really seem to want to do selectively, about topics that annoy them.

But people aren’t moving towards the Tories. They’re moving away from them as well. So talking about the Tories or comparing Labour to them is pointless in this conversation.

Oh please.dont ask people why they are so disillusioned with the 'left' in this country . They won't answer rationally

This one fact in your post is worth repeating

"In the UK, the right have been in power for 31 of the last 45 years, they own and control two thirds of mainstream newspapers, have control of the board of our public broadcaster and the majority of social media."

Far right? Or people fed up with everything.

What is MSE? (apologies for derail)

Define what you mean by contribute and take please?

Within the UK, historically graduates / middle class people (who are generally more likely to be higher earners and therefore tax payers) have tended to vote Conservative, while the working class tended to vote Labour.

Despite this, graduates tended to be more liberal and non-graaduates more authoritarian in their views.

Brexit created a shift which has started to switch the voting positions.

So - if we're talking contribution in terms of higher tax payers, then those people will generally skew centre left.

Similarly immigrants are generally net contributers in terms of tax, while the areas that have been overwhelmingly voting Reform have higher unemployment and higher numbers of benefit claimants.

The super-rich will almost always skew right. You could argue that they are contributers from a tax or 'job creation' perspective. I would argue that in hoarding wealth and consistently arguing for lower taxes which has exponentially increased the gap between rich and poor and asset stripped our public services, they take more than they contribute.

You can also look at contribution in terms of.public service. The military aside, public servants tend to skew left and work in public service as a vocation, even when they could earn more in the private sector.

In the US, Democratic states are net contributors to the fiscal purse with better employment, health and education outcomes and lower crime rates, whereas Republican states are net takers, with higher mother and child mortality rates, higher crime and lower educational attainment.

If you think those who don't contribute are the problem - why are you supporting them?

But they do their own research!

Social media is an easy one @Checkcheckout just look at who owns the platform you’re using-they are in charge of what you see. And the more people that see that crap the more they believe and replicate it. Most news channels are the same I’m afraid: follow the owners and follow the money.

Billionaires make more money when there are right wing governments in power and during times of crisis. Recessions, wars and civil unrest are their bread and butter.