🫣ReNews #4: Collaborating with the extreme-right won't save you from it if you are not cis-het white man
This fairly long but extremely insightful video by #MattBernstein along with #KatTenbarge and #MatthewSitman, about what could be called the « rise and fall of #MiloYiannoupolos » feels particularly but painfully enlightening.
For two main reasons:
Because, as they very adequately note, Milo Yiannoupolos' story reminds us all that there are no openings at the winners' table set by authoritarian regimes except for the closest relatives, friends or allies of the leaders. And even for them, it isn't necessarily guaranteed. Some of them sit on ejection seats and can be cast out at the wave of a hand. It you are not part of the insider court, you'll be able to benefit from some priviledges only as long as you are useful to them and not overshadowing any of them. When you become irrelevant or even burdensom, you can literally be thrown under the bus or into the beast's lair, which you have contributed to feed. This is exactly what happened to Yianoupolos, when the was arrested by ICE a few days ago, locked in a detainment center and forcibly deported back to the UK in handcoff.
It illustrates a larger issue with #conservatism, which now characterizes democratic capitalism, that is pointedly summarizes by “Wilhoit's Law”:
Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect. [...] The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone. Farrell, Henry (March 21, 2018). “Comment by Frank Wilhoit on The Travesty of Liberalism”. Crooked Timber →https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288
Yiannoupolos seeked his benefit by trying to get accepted in the in-groups, but because he never was in it from the start and couldn't get and stay in unless he could be useful to them, he ended up being rejected like mere rubbish when he got in the way of someone who had always been part of the in-group and fits ils basic identity, here, cis-het white.
In an authoritarian system such as #trumpism, almost no one is really safe. This story reminds us of a reality that has been and is still being experienced by many people who live under the illusion that they are part of the in-group and that if they are good little soldier, they will be safe, because they believe the laws only really bind the “ other”, those that don't seem to be part of the in-group.