Over the past days I've been exploring extreme right-wing sites from all over the world again. There are various approaches to Corona which I will detail another time. What stands out: Uncontrolled infection seems to be the preferred approach - let me explain why:

Everyone agrees that ours was a hysterical, panicky and entirely excessive reaction, which is emblematic for the (post-)modern world and society (in contrast to them). Soft, headless politicians without leadership qualities stand for such a society.

And it is precisely here that we witness one of the most central elements of fascist ideology: the weak and all its synonyms. A decadent, soft, unmanly, hysterical, panicky, timid, effeminate society is the problem.

This is not new and also formed a central narrative of the emerging fascism during modernity's breakthrough: men aren't men anymore, but nervous, urban, overly intellectualized and (here it comes) sickly weaklings. The idea of sick as weak is important.

And it is exactly the same point of attack again: To panic because of this virus doesn't agree with masculine or national(ist) values. This is met with all kinds of moral assessments: it hurts the dignity, esteem, the spirit and so forth of the people („Volk“)

Because if the virus is bad (and there is discord about that), it is on one hand better to accept it individually and die from it and on the other hand "as a society" (yet they don't think society as a category) to not orient oneself towards the weak.

This is interesting because we might speculate that the extreme right might want to protect its own people. However this doesn't hold true if it is about its weak parts. Weakness is never worthy of protection and has to be cast out. This is fascism.

Accordingly, in the intellectual treatment of it there are no innocent calls for the protection of grandparents (like we know from racist discourses) but only confirmation that the weak pulled the short straw. And should carry their burden with dignity.

In this there is no distinction between war and virus, because the principle of "bearing it" and dying without protest for the greater good are really principles of the fascist heroizing of war. War and the hero's death as value in itself.

This is now projected onto the virus on an intellectual level. Protagonists now proclaim with great pathos that should they be befallen by the virus, they will look death calmly in the eye. Self-heroization against a virus (which doesn't care at all).

And what is demanded as a globally social strategy is to let things go their usual way, both in order not to ruin the economy and because the lockdown is a fearful and thus unmanly strategy, and the measure are the strong, not the weak.

What is demanded from people in the risk group is to not be weak, but strong, which means to die without protest. If they don't do it, they are weak and the weak drag everyone else down and therefore must be done away with.

Much more could be said about this - this idea of weakness and strongness and who is central and the focal point of society or "Volk" is central in fascism and can be found in anti-semitism, racial eugenics, antiziganism and so forth.

In this kind of debate, you can also see connections for market fanatics who want to calculate a life's worth, or if it wouldn't be better to not invest any more efforts into saving lives.

Therefore, please be especially careful when human life is considered unworthy or ready to be terminated. The thing is: this won't stop once this is over. Now it's the old &those with pre-existing conditions. After Corona, it might continue with addicts, homeless people and so on

To walk the path of putting a price on human life and valuing it as not worth saving (and that is only the soft version) because saving would put a strain on the strong ones in society, is very dangerous. Don’t forget: We are all in this together

This is the English Version of this thread. I do these kind of threads on right wing ideology and language regularly in German, if you are interested you can find them via #NatsAnalyse (NatsAnalysis). https://twitter.com/natascha_strobl/status/1247191849422458880?s=21

Ist appears threadreaderapp has some hickups at the moment. If you want, you can find the unrolled thread here https://twitter.com/threadreaderapp/status/1257116929665400833?s=21 https://twitter.com/threadreaderapp/status/1257116929665400833

This thread has gained so much attention and I am very grateful for it. I have now an English speaking account, where I try to provide more of those breakdowns an a regular basis. If you are interested please consider to follow me here: https://twitter.com/Nat_Strobl_eng/status/1313472391100674055?s=20