Benjamin Moffitt

I know I wrote the book on populism and performance, but god, I didn't mean the performance thing literally

🎉 New publication 😍 The 4th wave of the #farright is marked by #mainstreaming & #normalisation - but how can we distinguish between them? In our new article, @gefjonoff.bsky.social and I map the existing literature, introduce a conceptual framework & outline research avenues. doi.org/10.1017/S147...

Well done to Nigel Farage for convincing Matt Goodwin to run for an urban seat with a large ethnic minority population. I think we now can be sure who did the numbers for Revolt on the Right.

screenshot of GB News interview with Matt Goodwin with banner "Green Party Wins By-Election"

*deep breath* a hahah ahHahahahahHAhahahhahhhaaaaaaaaaheeheeeeee heehehe

Orbán’s pay cheques: Reform candidate fuelled by profits from Russian oil The Reform candidate at this month’s byelection claims he wants to put Britain first, but is he still on the payroll of Viktor Orbán’s far-right propaganda unit?

Blimey. Looks like Matt Goodwin, who seems to think the Handmaid's Tale is an instruction manual, is in the pay of an Orban think tank, funded by Russian oil money.

CALL FOR CHAPTERS!

Me and @grahammacklin.bsky.social are putting together an edited collection looking at the use of pseudoscientific ideas by extremist movements. If you are interested, please send us your abstracts at this link: forms.gle/mAUtpDGNEj9i...

Reminds me of high school or undergrad English classes where someone would bring in a totally unrelated book and place it on their desk, just desperately waiting to be asked about it. "Oh, this little thing? It's just something I'm reading at the moment". What an absolute tryhard

Do you guys buy the 'we are getting organised' stuff? Can't work out if it's just Ashby hot air or there's actually stuff happening on the ground/behind the scenes.

Really good stuff Kurt. Am I crazy, or was Ashby promising two "bombshell" announcements this week of new ON recruits?

If I had to bet, I do think they will fall apart before the next election.But I also have seen populist radical right parties that have been absolute organisational messes get their act together & prosper very quickly in Sweden, France & the Netherlands. It's not impossible.

Great piece by the two academics in Oz who knows One Nation best.

I am increasingly worried that we can't assume the infighting/dysfunction will continue though - and even if it does, whether relying on this position is too passive at a time when they are soaring in the polls.

Yes, that's in line with what I said - they aren't going to pick up any ON voters

That's genuinely fascinating, I hadn't thought about the specifics of Brisbane in that regard.

You're absolutely right. We forget about them sometimes, but they just chug along pretty well in state elections without much airtime at all.

Which I guess would also go with the fetishisation of door-knocking/boots on the ground etc - local politics as 'real' politics

Is this a local politics vs national politics thing? I.e. it's a lot easier to tailor a specific message to a metro renter constituency (Sri) vs the realities of trying to win votes from a much more dispersed and heterogenous electorate nationally?

1) probably a tough tightrope to walk, esp for a minor party that doesn't get much media airtime
2) the idea that ON voters can/will come over to the Greens is crazy - but I do think there is an anti-establishment left vote that is left hanging

A shift to a stronger anti-establishment position is not gonna win over any ON voters, but it would match the times better than the early 2010s vibe of the current party messaging & offer an electoral pathway for the anti-establishment left vote (cause otherwise the Socialists will hoover that up)

I think there is something to this argument. The Greens have been almost invisible since the Federal Election in May - their return to polite 'constructive' reformism clearly isn't cutting through or working

To be fair I don't think that's what either of these are really arguing. It's more than there is a clear anti-establishment sense out there, and Greens positioning themselves as an establishment party is a dumb strategic move in such a context.

Stop slacking off Sofia, a mere two books in one month? Why not three? Not productive enough!

What Sofia is too modest to explicitly say in her post below, is that - in addition to our PRR youth wings book - she has a solo one coming out with OUP in June on grassroots women in the PRR:

global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Are visual strategies distinctive to populism? Francesco Melito & @mattiazulianello.bsky.social examine how political parties’ comms teams strategise, based on original interviews with professionals working directly with Italian parties. Read more: buff.ly/VNboEXh

@polstudiesassoc.bsky.social

Beware of ‘anti-woke’ liberals: they attacked the left and helped Trump win | Jan-Werner Müller So-called ‘reactionary centrist’ pundits proclaimed that there was a global ‘vibe shift’ in favor of the right. They were wrong

"The other iron law of reactionary centrism – beyond the asymmetry that is hiding behind the seeming evenhandedness – is that only the left and liberals really have agency."

Brilliant column by @jwmueller-pu.bsky.social

A correction for the ages (from The Guardian's review of 'Melania'):

Also in SA leg council last time, Family First & Lib Dems got about 6.5% between them. Add that to ON's result and you're looking at maybe a couple seats depending on preference flows.

First as tragedy, then as farce, then as tragedy, then as farce... Gotta say it feels different this time around.

Yeah I don't think there's much organic support for him personally, but ON got 4% in the SA leg council with a nobody last time. I suspect with a better known face that will be a lot of higher. Polls late last yr were around 12/13% - it'll be more than that now.

Plus it means Bernardi and Hanson only really need to get on and cooperate for a month or so - that seems doable.

Reupping this now Bernardi has formally announced it. Seeing a lot of "hahaha this guy" in press coverage but I think unfortunately it's probably a very canny move and ON will get big numbers in the South Australian election in March. Not sure who the joke will be on then.