The thing is that I think Musk and many on the right believe their views are majority opinion in no small part because they think the opinions of Black people, women, poor people are invalid and inauthentic. Bigotry is in part about creating a narrow circle of folk who are the only “real” people. Social media may enable that in some ways, but fascism has a core belief that only the in group matters, morally. Musk bought Twitter to specifically to silence those who didn’t agree with him and empower those who did in line with the far right conviction that only certain peoples voices are valuable, and others should be ignored and eliminated.
Yes, this is definitely part of it—and maybe the bulk of it for Musk. But if we bracket my use of Musk as a framing device, what I describe above is a common pattern even outside of far right circles. You can find it, for example, in how someone will get piled on for using some term that a given online community has decided recently is problematic, but doesn't recognize that the message isn't widely known outside their community. Or take the YA fandom example I mention in a reply to Sherman Alexie's comment below.
RFK's anti-immigration stance is about as right wing as it gets! Like 1932 right wing. But his anti-Prozac stance aligns with a growing movement on the left that is anti-meds for mental illness. Here's a NY Times story on an aspect of that:
I should clarify that my "imagined consensus" argument isn't about something unique to right-wing circles. It's very much present in leftist communities, as well. To take just one example, I think it in part explains just how overwhelmingly toxic YA novel fandom has become, as YA fans on Twitter just assume everyone shares their preferred terminology and assessment of what's problematic, and so descends on any author who writes the "wrong" things because they assume that author is intentionally transgressing widely accepted boundaries.
This is great but I think you might be doing a bit of silo-thinking yourself. I'm a pro-vaccine progressive. But the anti-vaccination folks are not exclusively right-wing. I think the right-wing just happens to be extremely loud about Covid and Covid vaccinations. And, based on what I've read about RFK, Jr., his politics outside of vaccination science are pretty much left of center Democrat. And there are many back-to-earth progressive hippie types who are anti-vaccination. A lot of home-schoolers are anti-vaxx. And home-schoolers come from the religious right and the secular left.
The thing is that I think Musk and many on the right believe their views are majority opinion in no small part because they think the opinions of Black people, women, poor people are invalid and inauthentic. Bigotry is in part about creating a narrow circle of folk who are the only “real” people. Social media may enable that in some ways, but fascism has a core belief that only the in group matters, morally. Musk bought Twitter to specifically to silence those who didn’t agree with him and empower those who did in line with the far right conviction that only certain peoples voices are valuable, and others should be ignored and eliminated.
Yes, this is definitely part of it—and maybe the bulk of it for Musk. But if we bracket my use of Musk as a framing device, what I describe above is a common pattern even outside of far right circles. You can find it, for example, in how someone will get piled on for using some term that a given online community has decided recently is problematic, but doesn't recognize that the message isn't widely known outside their community. Or take the YA fandom example I mention in a reply to Sherman Alexie's comment below.
RFK's anti-immigration stance is about as right wing as it gets! Like 1932 right wing. But his anti-Prozac stance aligns with a growing movement on the left that is anti-meds for mental illness. Here's a NY Times story on an aspect of that:
https://t.ly/ZpOl
I should clarify that my "imagined consensus" argument isn't about something unique to right-wing circles. It's very much present in leftist communities, as well. To take just one example, I think it in part explains just how overwhelmingly toxic YA novel fandom has become, as YA fans on Twitter just assume everyone shares their preferred terminology and assessment of what's problematic, and so descends on any author who writes the "wrong" things because they assume that author is intentionally transgressing widely accepted boundaries.
Yes, and I very much agree with your take on "imagined consensus" as it applies across the political spectrum.
This is great but I think you might be doing a bit of silo-thinking yourself. I'm a pro-vaccine progressive. But the anti-vaccination folks are not exclusively right-wing. I think the right-wing just happens to be extremely loud about Covid and Covid vaccinations. And, based on what I've read about RFK, Jr., his politics outside of vaccination science are pretty much left of center Democrat. And there are many back-to-earth progressive hippie types who are anti-vaccination. A lot of home-schoolers are anti-vaxx. And home-schoolers come from the religious right and the secular left.
RFK's anti-vaxx nuttery is his most known fringe belief—and you're right that anti-vaxx sentiments related to autism got their start on the left before Trump made a big thing on the right—but RFK's craziness isn't limited to vaccines. He's also a radical immigration restrictionist and believes that mass shootings are caused by prozac, among other things. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/05/us/politics/robert-f-kennedy-jr-twitter-2024.html?unlocked_article_code=MDQ4sd0n2uJpH13UAU54dzrkTZ4eMUqtby6Qf8e1wG3xD1i-GX_q7j8eQzSVwR67WGzakgU0HCeS_5ZrfQBF3epcp4_XLKju3rBQTB4msnuQ0z_xje-xzkMOf0H0VVw98buO_8e7DJ9bn0CJqSM4FPLVEEmGt_FHXkkS4z-cqymdiYzNio8s6bZRyJWNjZsUSZs_XKha9TVd54sGfZNC-pjXnANR0FMmM3KVGEoXlxqD1RsZ72EYNUACxl-AKgLRBIKcbqtxLVWPRkINYK8LLAdqpJ3UN4vE0ZIWDTUiYVo3N7V83Toqk41TMgU5g0TMOO7z44exLUQxHaDCiFy05n65xE6OgZbWpe8ggOnY&smid=url-share