Fascism Watch for 1 December 2023: the Finding Out Edition

Yesterday, we reported on Elon Musk’s latest episode of Fucking Around, where he told advertisers, including specifically the CEO of Disney by name, to go fuck themselves for not wanting to advertise with nazis.

Today, we can report that Elon Musk is Finding Out. Specifically, he’s finding out that people told to fuck off will go No, I don’t think I will fuck stummies, and are saying fine, you don’t want our ads, we won’t pay you to host them.

Advertisers are “not coming back” to X, said Lou Paskalis, the founder and chief executive of AJL Advisory, a marketing consultancy. “There is no advertising value that would offset the reputational risk of going back on the platform.”

“Advertisers Say They Do Not Plan to Return to X After Musk’s Comments,” By Kate Conger and Tiffany Hsu, The New York Times, 30 November 2023

It’s a beautiful, beautiful thing, if long overdue.

There are a lot of reasons this is important, a big one being what I said at the start of all this: Elon’s plan to take Twitter profitable by turning it into a far-right propaganda and disinformation fountain must fail, lest it be repeated indefinitely.

But there’s more than one, and that’s the 2024 disinformation flood is already arriving, and Republicans have been shutting down as many methods as possible to identify, track and inform people about it as they can. Twitter being in a shambles is not a good result of all this, but it’s basically the least bad one we had left after Musk took it over and enacted his plan. Once discredited as a primary news source, the disinformation he systematically promotes using it will have far less impact. Not none; the situation is still bad, and he will still use X / Twitter for this purpose for 2024. But discredited, it’s a lesser weapon.

Relatedly, look for even more support from the fundamentalist evangelical community for Russian authoritarianism in general and Putin in particular, now that they’ve implemented a complete ban on any mention of LGBT people which isn’t explicitly condemnational. The fundamentalist movement attempted more limited laws to this identical effect, calling them bans on “gay propaganda” by governments and schools – but it’s what they’ve wanted here.

In other news, Republican Idaho have decided they aren’t killing enough women yet so are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to allow enforcement of their comprehensive abortion ban in emergency rooms. Do remember that the Republican Party of Idaho’s party platform says outright that saving the life of the mother should not be an exemption to their abortion ban, even if the foetus cannot survive either way.

“Better two tragedies than one murder,” is how they used to put it. I don’t know how they put it now other than “Bitch should’ve kept her legs shut,” which is in fact something some of them have said. The misogyny is pure and unrelenting.

Finally, there’s a lot to unpack here, but: Florida GOP Chair/Husband Of Moms For Liberty Co-Founder Accused Of Sexual Assault By Couple’s Third. Yes, third, as in their girlfriend. Don’t get me wrong, as a polyamourous person myself, I’m good with that part... except in the context of being a driving force behidn anti-LGBTQ laws so evil, complete, and fierce that they’ve triggered a refugee crisis, which case all I can say is die in a fire, every single one of you.

I mean…

yeah.

Have a good weekend, folks. See you at Monsterdon on Sunday!

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[orchestral noises] AAAAAAAAAAAAA

i am just saying, i can hear this in my head

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