Review of "Post-Internet Far Right" by 12 Rules for What

The far right has changed, the authors of this excellent and timely book argue. Conventional fascist style political parties and street movements are only one component, and perhaps a small one at that. Responding as if these "classic" fascists are the main event means that anti-fascist strategy is mis-directed. The contemporary far right uses different organisational forms and styles, and has lots of different themes, some of which conflict with each other.  

But despite the differences, there are some common themes, all present to varying degrees. These include:

• Racism and ethno-nationalism
• Misognyny, homophobia and a sense of aggrieved and beleagured masculinity
• Antisemitism - not just as one more "flavour" of racism, but as an organising theory of the world, entwined with conspiracist fantasies.

The book has a lot of description of things that are utterly unfamiliar to me, about internet platforms and tools that I hadn't heard of, memes and symbols and codes that suddenly appear...Pepe the Frog as a far right identifier, and triple brackets around the names of (((Jews))). This is part of the way that the far right can signal to each other that an apparently innoccuous bit of content has a deeper significance. 

As the authors explain, this is not something that's entirely of the far right - it's part of the way that lots of online life is lived now, including the life of the far right.

The book distinguishes between a far right "swarm" of online participants ("activist" seems too strong a word and implies a level of consistent focus that may not be warranted), and "influencers" who direct and are amplified by the swarm - some of whom are deriving both social and financial capital from their online presence. There are the would-be intellectuals of the far right, and the conventional street and electoral organisations.

The book is mainly concerned with the US and UK, so there's not much discussion of the successful "mainstream" parties of the far right...like Fidesz in Hungary, or Law and Justice in Poland, or even the National Front in France. I think that these parties, like Ukip and Brexit in the UK and United Australia in Oz, have successfully driven the centre-right conservative parties further rightwards, and this deserves to be situated in the overall anatomy of the far right.

On the other hand, it does explain well that the organised fascist parties, and even their militarized wings like National Action and Combat-18, are not the far end of the right spectrum. Beyond lies what they call the Blackpilled, the lone wolves of anomised rightist terrorism like Anders Brevik and the Christchurch shooter, and all the shooters in the US. These aren't part of organised groups but do aim to inspire followers, and have had the effect of getting more "moderate" far rightists considerable airtime.

There are two more important aspects to the book. Firstly, the far right is situated in the context of "ecofascism" - the multifarious ways in which it is going to respond to climate breakdown and the turmoil that will create. As yet it's mainly concentrated on being anti-green, promoting climate change denial and crying crocodile tears for the poor people that will be affected by the cost of mitigation and adaption measures. I think there was a strong dimension of this in the Yellow Vest protests in France, and even more so in their imitators elsewhere. But it's perfectly possible for the far right to switch tracks, and to organise in favour of strong militarised measures needed to protect "our people" from climate change, especially in terms of calling on the state to be even harder on refugees. Or even to do both tracks at once.

Second, there's a critique of anti-fascist "culture", which sometimes becomes an identity in itself, abstracted from where the important developments are happening on the far right, and concentrating on street fights and/or re-enactment activities like Spanish Civil War commemoration. Not that those things aren't important, but they're not sufficient.

This is a great book. Sometimes I found the language a bit impenetrable, and I am a one-time social science academic. Sometimes the references are a bit obscure and unexplained - I had to read the book with my phone constantly to hand, to look things up. But these are quibbles. This book will inform and motivate those of us who struggle against the far right for years to come.